Page 42 of Legal Desire
CHAPTER NINE
AWEEKHADpassed since Trev had skipped the regular Tuesday business meeting. He knew better than to try that again—especially after all the calls he’d missed from his partners.
Well, he hadn’t really missed them. He’d declined to take them because he’d been busy—with Allison.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten any closer to finding proof that she was the mole. But he’d gotten a hell of a lot closer to her in every position imaginable. His body ached a little from all the ways they’d had sex. And it ached because he wanted to do it again.
And again...
But he’d forced himself to leave her that morning, knowing that he had to make it to the office. Or else he’d continue to be a hypocrite. He’d been furious when she’d suggested he give up the practice and his friends but then he’d spent the past week avoiding them.
Some friend he was.
She’d distracted him with her beauty, with her body...
With her heart. He was beginning to know that, as well. She fiercely hid it behind that wall of ice she showed the world. But he knew she did that to protect herself because she’d already been hurt so badly.
He could understand not wanting to be hurt again. If she knew what he was really up to, that he had lied to her about running for office...
Then he would hurt her.
But if she was the mole, didn’t she deserve it? She’d hurt him, and she had hurt the practice, as well.
His friends...
Guilt clenched his stomach as he walked into Simon’s office where all the partners already waited for him. He felt as if he’d betrayed them. And he hated that feeling.
“He is alive,” Ronan said to Simon. “You didn’t need to worry.”
And he felt another pang of guilt. He could see that Simon had been worried. There were dark circles beneath his blue eyes. Trev might have thought Bette was just keeping him awake showing him new lingerie designs. Simon’s former assistant and current lover was the Bette of Bette’s Beguiling Bows. But there were also lines of tension in Simon’s face. So it hadn’t been sex—at least not just sex—keeping him awake. He was definitely under stress.
“You shouldn’t have worried,” Trev admonished him. “You all know I can take care of myself.”
Not only had he survived living on the streets, but he’d also survived all the threats against him when he’d taken on those billion-dollar corporations. A few of those companies had tried really hard to get him to drop the class-action lawsuit—so hard that he’d been jumped a couple of times. He’d handled those beatdowns better than he had Allison jumping him, though.
Every time she kissed him, touched him...he lost all control. All perspective.
“Allison McCann is more dangerous than anyone you’ve faced before,” Simon insisted.
“We don’t even know who she really is,” Ronan added.
“I know,” Trev said. And now he felt like he was betraying her—her confidence, her secrets—when he shared her past with them.
“So that’s why she does it?” Ronan asked with a snort of derision. “She’s tried to take down Street Legal because she has daddy issues.”
Trev shook his head. “I think it’s more mommy issues,” he said. “And isn’t that why you do what you do?”
Ronan’s face flushed. “I haven’t tried to take anyone down.”
“Muriel might not agree with you.”
Ronan’s face flushed a deeper shade of red over the mistake he’d made with that divorce case, with the one involving the woman he was now dating. “I didn’t know her sleazeball ex was lying.”
“But you and Allison were both willing to believe him over her because of those mommy issues you both have.”
“Fuck you!” Ronan cursed him.
He preferred it when Allison told him that. Hell, he preferred when Allison fucked him.
