Page 50 of Legal Passion
He reached into the briefcase and inspected the envelope lying beneath the photo. “You just got this,” he said.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Of course you did or you would have already introduced it in court.”
She couldn’t argue that it would have been part of her prosecution.
“Why didn’t you surprise me with it like you did the bank records?” he asked.
“Because now I know that you didn’t send it,” she said. “Now I know I’d be surprising you.”
“Why don’t you want to?” he asked. “It’s a great tactic to catch the defense off guard.”
She shrugged.
“Are you going easy on me because of what we’ve been doing?” he asked, and he sounded almost disappointed to think she was.
“No!” At least she hoped that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t lose her edge. She couldn’t go all soft and sentimental over some sex.
No matter how mind-blowing that sex was.
“You know I am all about being fair,” she said. “About justice.”
And that was why they would never have anything beyond that mind-blowing sex.
“You’ll make a great judge,” he said.
“Someday,” she murmured. She knew she had a lot of dues to pay and politics to play before she would achieve her goal. And she couldn’t afford to be distracted the way Stone distracted her. She whirled away from the windows and walked toward his desk. “Maybe I should have saved it for court.”
She reached for her briefcase but he caught her wrist. “How are you going to admit this as evidence now?” he asked. “You can’t. It doesn’t prove anything.”
She jerked free of his grasp and stabbed at the photo. “Byron’s young bride was sleeping with his son. That’s why he killed her!”
He shook his head. “No. This shows who the real killer is.”
She snorted. “Now you want to blame his son?”
“I told you it was her lover,” he said. “I just didn’t know who the lover was.”
“Why can’t you accept that you’re representing a guilty man?” she asked.
“Because I’m not,” he stubbornly insisted.
“Are you going to claim you’ve never represented a guilty client?” she asked.
A muscle twitched along his cheek. “No.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you want to help the guilty elude justice?” That was something she would never be able to get over—the reason they could never really be together.
“You’re a hypocrite.” He called her on it. “You claim you’re all about justice.”
She tensed. “I am.”
“Then how can you forget that everyone is entitled to a fair trial?”
His accusation rankled, making her angry, and when Hillary got angry, she argued. Hell, she argued all the time. She knew it.
“I thought maybe you became a defense lawyer because you thought your parents didn’t get a fair trial,” she admitted. “But then I realized that you don’t represent people like your parents. You only represent rich people.”
