Legal Trouble (Texas Hearts Book 1)

Chapter 6

Noah forcedhimself not to flinch. He’d been afraid of that, but hearing her admission didn’t lessen the blow. He knew firsthand how manipulative and destructive family could be, but that kind of negativity had never come from his parents.

He pressed a kiss to Emma’s forehead, to each cheek, and then to her lips. He kept each kiss soft, but each one reverberated through him like a sledgehammer.

“Come with me,” he murmured.

She made no protest as he led her from the patio and down to the wharf overlooking the Buffalo Bayou. Emma rested her forearms on the top of the railing. She was spectacular in moon glow, and he couldn’t resist the pull to touch her, to connect them in some small way. A muggy heat clung to the late spring air, and the nearly full moon tossed down silvery rays that played on the water. The night would have been perfect for strolling hand in hand if not for the weight of her admission hanging over them.

“Most everything I know about my mom I learned from my brother,” she finally said. “His name is Preston, and he’s the reason I’m still alive.”

Noah pressed a kiss to her temple but said nothing. He wanted to let her get everything out.

“I was sick a lot as a baby, ear infections mostly. One night, my temp was nearly one hundred and five and wouldn’t come down, so mom loaded me into the car, and we headed to the ER, only we didn’t make it there the way she intended.” Emma swiped away a single tear. “The roads were wet, and mom misjudged a turn and lost control. We slammed into a tree. Preston said she died instantly, but I don’t know if that’s true. Me, on the other hand, I didn’t have a scratch. We lived in the middle of nowhere, so it was hours before anyone found us. By then, the elements had gotten to me. I was hypothermic when they brought me into the hospital, and I almost died, too.”

Noah gathered her close and held tight. His chest ached for her. He wanted to do anything, everything within his power to shield her from ever feeling pain again. It was a ridiculous notion, one that would be impossible to keep, but the need to protect her welled up inside of him.

“Her death broke something in my father,” she continued, “and he blamed me for what happened to her. All my memories of him are—God, Noah. He’s a monster.”

“If you’d like, I’d be happy to pound him into dust and then spread his ashes in my stables with all the horse manure.”

She laughed, and the tightness squeezing like a rubber band around his chest lessened a degree.

“While I can’t say that isn’t a tempting offer and strangely sweet, my father’s a guest of the state. But if he’s ever up for parole again, I’ll remember your offer.”

Good. Her father was in prison. Noah hoped he rotted there. She had been, and obviously still was, terrified of the man. He’d most definitely mentally abused her. Physically abused her? Unfortunately, that was probably a yes, too. But he prayed to every god he could think of that the abuse ended there.

“Did he ever…” He fought for the right words. “…sexually abuse you?” If he had, being behind bars wouldn’t be enough to keep him safe from Noah’s wrath.

“No.” She locked her arms around him, burrowing closer. “But my therapist suspected that had been on the horizon.”

Noah sent up a silent prayer. “How old were you when you got away from him?”

“I was fourteen the last time he hit me. My brother made sure of that. He joined the Army at eighteen just to take care of me, and after he graduated from Basic Training, he came home for me. He’d always done his best to shield me, but he couldn’t protect me from everything. Joining the Army was his way of changing that.”

“Could you not have gone to the police? Surely, they would have—”

“My father was the police, Noah.” She pulled back, a vulnerability on her face that lashed at his chest. “We lived in this tiny town in the middle of Nowhere, Colorado. Our father had us so scared of the police that we thought they were all as ruthless as him. He belittled me every day, told me I was stupid and useless and fat and ugly and—”

“No.” Noah pressed a kiss to her lips to silence the torrent of negative words. “You know none of that is true, right? None of it. You are none of those things, Emma Morgan.”

“Yes, I know that. Most of the time, I even believe it, too, but that’s only because Preston got me into counseling. It took a lot of work, but over the years, I got better. I used my father’s vitriol as an accelerant to prove to myself I wasn’t any of the horrible things he used to call me. I studied hard and graduated from high school at sixteen, college at nineteen. I was first in my law class, and I learned two foreign languages, all to silence the voices inside my head that told me I wasn’t good enough. I worked hard after I graduated, and when I landed the job at Reynolds Clark, I made it my mission to be the best damn lawyer in the firm.”

“And you have succeeded. David said you were one of the best lawyers he’d ever worked with, and from what I’ve seen over the past week, I’d have to agree with his assessment. You’ve knocked me flat.”

Noah caught her face between his palms—strong, remarkable, resilient, and brave Emma Morgan. She’d have to be all four to survive the childhood she’d described, and he’d never admired or wanted anyone more in his life.

“Come home with me tonight,” he whispered.

Emma buriedher hands in Noah’s hair and held on. She didn’t know what to do with this man. On the surface, they shouldn’t work, the lawyer from Nowhere, Colorado with an abusive father and the gorgeous billionaire who looked as if he’d been sculpted by some deity on a very generous day, but with his chocolate eyes on her and the moonlight reflecting off the water, she couldn’t quite remember why they shouldn’t work.

Her head spun, a tilt-a-whirl of sensation, so what the heck, she went with it. Pushing onto her toes, she touched her mouth to his. It was the first kiss she’d ever initiated, and the jolt of power and lust in her belly was almost enough to have her knees buckling. She was grateful for the strength of his arms as he dragged her up, lifted her until only the very tips of her toes remained on the ground.

“Can I take that as a yes?” His words were a rough whisper against her lips.

She wanted to give him that yes, wanted to give in to the need burning inside her like a nuclear reactor on critical, but harsh truths still needed to be spoken.

She pressed her cheek to his and fought to find the right words. “I want to say yes. You have no idea how much I want to go home with you tonight.”

“But…” He let the word hang between them as he pulled back to study her. Somehow, in the moonlight, with his hair ruffled from her fingers, he was even more breathtaking, and this gorgeous man wanted to take her to bed.

“No buts,” she assured him. “More like a however.”

“However is simply a fancy but.”

“True.” She trailed a finger along his jaw. “But I prefer to look at it in a less negative light. More like an addendum.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer.”

“Job hazard, I’m afraid.” She stepped back. She needed space to say this. “I should give you full disclosure before we go any further, okay?”

He nodded. “I respect that, but I doubt anything you say will change how much I want you. Everyone has darkness in their past. I understand that better than most.”

The change was subtle, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something in his expression flickered. For a split second, he appeared to drift into memories, but the look was there and gone so fast that she wondered if she’d imagined it.

“My dad did a number on me,” she began, “and it messed me up for a long time. I’m talking about clinical depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It took me years to get to a place where I could just function. During high school and my first three years of college, I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t open myself up to people. Trust wasn’t in my wheelhouse. I only had Preston, but slowly, with him and my therapist’s help, I was able to make friends. By the time I was in law school, I was able to go on a few dates, but…”

She turned to the water. She’d started rambling. She still needed to get the rest out, but that proved harder to say than she’d expected.

“Emma…” He drew a hand down her hair. “Are you trying to tell me you’re a virgin?”

“Yes, but also no. What I’m trying to tell you is that I have trouble connecting with people. It’s not like I haven’t tried, Noah, but intimacy is so, well, intimate. I’ve just never been able to get there with anyone. I feel too vulnerable and exposed. It’s the only time I can’t get the voices in my head to shut up, the darker ones, the ones that try to tell me I’m ugly or stupid or fat or whatever.”

“Look at me.” With a gentle touch, he turned her so that they again faced each other. “When we go to bed, I can guarantee you that if anyone is thinking any of those things about you, it won’t be me.”

Whennot if.

Why did that excite her so much?

“I want to make love to you, Noah. You’re the first person I’ve ever said that to. I just need...” She shook her head. “Heck, I don’t even know what I need. Time, I guess, to get used to the idea.”

“How about this?” He gathered her into his arms. “When you’re ready, you’ll tell me.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. I want you, Emma, and when you’re ready, we’ll both know the time is right.”

“All rise.The Honorable Ryan Hutchinson presiding.”

Beside Emma at counsel’s table, Noah pushed to his feet. Nearly three weeks had passed since Abuela’s party, and Noah’s desire to take a big, succulent bite of Emma hadn’t diminished. Just the opposite, his appetite had only grown stronger. He was doing his best to honor his pledge not to push her, but that proved more difficult than he’d imagined.

He wanted to show her the high life, wanted to show her off, but given who he was, the tabloids loved him, and the leeches seemed to have nothing better to do than print gossip about him. If he took Emma out and someone spotted them, she wouldn’t have a private life anymore. The painful past she’d yet to fully tell him about would be laid bare for all to see, so he’d kept their dates low-key and out of the public’s eye, which created an entirely new problem. He also wanted to keep their dates outside of their homes, where they had easy access to beds, so there’d been lots of secluded dates over takeout on floor twenty-seven of Whitlow Tower as it was currently being renovated.

The judge settled at his bench, and everyone sat. The judge’s thinning white hair and the lines on his face made him look as if he’d spent too many decades dealing with the worst humanity offered, but when he looked in Noah’s direction—no Emma’s—his expression softened. A smile split his face, and his eyes twinkled behind his rimmed spectacles.

“Ms. Morgan, it’s been too long since you’ve last been in my courtroom.”

“My apologies, Your Honor. I’ve been trying hard to stay on the straight and narrow these days.”

The judge laughed, a full-bellied sound that had Noah smiling, too. He’d been inside a courtroom more times than he cared to count, so he knew friendly banter between judges and attorneys was standard fare, but he’d never heard a judge laugh like that.

Noah snuck a peek at Emma. Outside Isadora’s, when he’d seen her in moon glow beside the water, he thought he’d never seen a more beautiful woman. She’d had a naivete that made every male aspect inside him stand up to defend and to protect, but seeing her here, in her element, was something new altogether. Confidence radiated off her like sunlight bouncing off jewels scattered on the desert floor. She was a treasure who didn’t fully know her value. The woman and the lawyer might share a body, but their confidence didn’t originate from the same well. He wondered if there was anything he could do to fix that.

“As always, Counselor, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Likewise, Your Honor.”

The judge turned his attention to the lone man at opposing counsel’s table. Franklin Bishop wore black pants and a light-blue button-down that looked as if neither had ever seen an iron. Noah could say something similar about the man’s hair and a brush. The brown strands stood out in dozens of different directions. He looked as if he’d crawled out of bed, tossed on the first clothing he’d found on the floor, and ran straight to court.

Bishop had represented himself through the last series of lawsuits. He’d simply ran out of money. Noah couldn’t help but think of that adage: Anyone representing themself had a fool for a client. To be fair, though, Mr. Bishop wasn’t a fool. He was brilliant; he just knew next to nothing about the intricacies of the legal system.

“Mr. Bishop.” The judge packed so much displeasure into those two words that it seemed to violate the Law of Conservation of Matter. “What did I tell you about dressing appropriately in my court?”

“But this is all I have,” Bishop said, a man seeming to fray at the edges.

The judge ran a hand over his thinning hair. “This is the last time I will tell you this. Find something appropriate to wear in my court. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

Emma flinched as if Bishop had physically struck her.

The judge pointed a finger at Bishop. “Don’t press your luck with me, son. I’ve warned you once. Do not test me again.”

“Or you’ll do what?” Bishop didn’t speak with malice, more like end-of-his-rope frustration.

“Or I will find you in contempt and throw you behind bars until I feel like letting you out again.”

Bishop opened his mouth but instantly closed it, as if common sense had finally wrangled control. And with that, the hearing got underway.

Emma was a pleasure to watch. She began by citing the numerous lawsuits that Bishop had already filed, how they’d subsequently been dismissed. She provided signed affidavits from Bishop’s former partners that stated there had never been any special treatment regarding Lone-Star Tech and Bishop’s daughter. If she’d undertaken an experiment within a Lone-Star Tech building, using Lone-Star Tech equipment, per their partnership agreement, all work and designs were communal property. As such, the chip had been well within the initial buyout agreement that all three parties willingly entered in to and agreed upon. Emma even provided evidence that showed instance after instance in which one partner had made a discovery and how the discovery had become communal property, including one example where the daughter had collaborated with the three men. Then, she brought out the big guns.

Emma picked up one of the three stacks of bound documents she’d laid on her lectern. “Permission to approach, Your Honor?”

“Granted,” the judge said.

Emma carried one of the stacks of documents to the judge. In her black suit and heels, her hair pulled back into a knot, she looked professional and lethal. Who’d have thought he had a thing for that combo?

“I’d like to enter into the record,” she began, “this packet of previous lawsuits Mr. Bishop filed against my client. As you’ll note, Your Honor, these suits include the one we’re discussing today and all the previously dismissed ones. You will also note that I have marked seventeen instances of either outright lies or, let’s call it, mis-remembrances by the plaintiff. Seventeen instances where claims or details have been changed from one lawsuit to another to fit whatever narrative the plaintiff was pushing. These are marked within the documents as well as detailed in an outline on the beginning page.”

“Seventeen instances?” The judge’s words were sharp enough to draw blood.

“Yes, Your Honor. With The Court’s permission, I would like to provide the plaintiff with an identical copy of the document in question in case he didn’t get the one I messengered to him a few days ago.”

“Permission granted,” the judge said, head down and already reading.

Emma glided back to her lectern. Although her face and lips stayed neutral, Noah noted the smile in her eyes. She’d gone over her entire case with him two nights before, over a late-night dinner and a serious make-out session.

After retrieving one of the two remaining sets of papers from the table, she offered one to Bishop.

Bishop yanked the document from Emma and hurled it back at her. “Get that away from me.”

The packet smacked Emma in the face. She took an instinctual step backward, but her ankle twisted, her foot slipping from her shoe. When her stocking foot hit the ground, it slid on the slick linoleum.

“Emma!” Noah rushed toward her, determined to catch her, but before he reached her, Bishop rammed his fist into Noah’s face.

And the courtroom erupted into chaos.