Page 55 of Legal Passion
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ANGERCOURSEDTHROUGHStone, and he didn’t know who he was angrier at: his client for refusing to speak the truth or Hillary for refusing to listen. Even if Byron had talked, Stone doubted she would have believed anything he said about the murder.
The only thing she had listened to and believed was the two-million-dollar bonus Stone would receive for a not-guilty verdict. That that was the only reason Stone was so determined to win.
The minute Byron had told her that, she’d jumped up from the chair and pounded on the door for the guard to let her out. Before she’d stepped out, she’d turned back to him—and the look she’d given him.
Stone shivered at the iciness of her blue eyes. He hadn’t thought she—with all her passion—could ever look that cold. Did she think the only reason he’d kissed her and had had sex with her was to get that not-guilty verdict?
Damn it!
And damn Byron Mueller for not telling the truth. He’d refused to talk to Stone, too, and had had the guard bring him back to his cell. Apparently, he’d rather rot behind bars than implicate his son.
Stone could understand wanting to protect your kid. But when that kid was a killer...
He shivered, but maybe it was just because the November wind whipped through his clothes as he hurried down the street from the Tombs. Hillary must have gone down into the subway, because he didn’t catch a glimpse of her. So he hurried to his car and drove straight to her apartment.
He suspected she’d gone there instead of her office. But when he rang her bell, he could detect no movement inside. He heard something behind him, a soft gasp as she turned the corner from the elevators and saw him.
With his driving, he’d beaten her home. Of course, it looked, from the bag that she was carrying, like she’d stopped to pick up dinner.
“Candy bars?” he asked her, his pulse quickening as he remembered how the chocolate tasted on her lips, in her mouth.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Harassing me?”
The wind and the drive had cooled his anger—until now. Now it whipped through him even more sharply than the wind. But instead of chilling him, it made him hot. “Did I ever do anything that you didn’t want me...” He stepped closer and, lowering his head and his voice, whispered in her ear, “...to do to you...”
She shivered. “I’m not upset aboutwhatyou—we—did,” she said.
He was glad that she’d owned her part in their after-hours adventures.
“I’m upset aboutwhyyou did it.”
“I had no reason,” he said. No ulterior motives. He hadn’t had a thought in his head except desire that first time he’d kissed her.
“You had two million reasons why,” she said.
“It was only one until recently,” he said.
She swung her hand toward his face. He would have let it connect if he’d had it coming. But he’d done nothing wrong. So he caught her wrist and jerked her against him.
Her eyes widened; he hoped it wasn’t out of fear for how he’d reacted but because she felt his reaction to her closeness. Because even as furious as he was with her, he still wanted her.
He always wanted her.
He rubbed his erection against her belly. “This is why,” he said. “Because I want you.”
“You want me to drop the charges against your client,” she said. And instead of melting into him, like she usually did, her body was stiff and tense.
“Yes, I do,” he admitted. “But I’m not using sex to manipulate you into doing that.”
“Then why after years of never noticing me did you suddenly kiss me?” she asked. And she was the one backing him up against the wall now, like she sometimes got in the face of a hostile witness to get them to crack.
Stone just grinned. “Why the hell do you think I never noticed you? I’ve lusted after you for years, Hillary Bellows. I just had self-control until we were finally alone together.” That had been his downfall.
She was his downfall.
Her blue eyes narrowed and she studied him through her lashes.
