Chapter 30
Iwatch the press conference, and when it’s all said and done, I can’t seem to get myself to go to Reese’s apartment. I don’t seem to want to go to mine, either. I end up at the coffee shop, with my coat on a chair, and a coffee and my MacBook as my company. I’m also in my pink dress, which I wore today because I like pink and I can. No other reason.
I exhale, really, really hating this nagging feeling inside me, but I power through my work. I’ve just reached my closing statement when Lauren calls. “Royce said Nelson Ward is turning on his wife?”
“Yes. I was there when he asked Reese to help him do what was right.”
“Wow,” she says. “Just wow. I hope they get her.”
“Me too. I really do.”
We talk for a good half-hour, and right when we’re about to hang up, she says, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m exhausted. I’m writing my column and just mentally drained.”
“Is something up with you and Reese?”
“No. Nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure and you sound better, by the way.”
“I am,” she says. “It’s crazy and sudden. I was sick all the time. Now I’m not.”
We hang up five minutes later, and I ask myself the same question she asked me. Is something wrong with me and Reese? Maybe it’s just dysfunctional me, looking for a problem. I shake off that thought and go back to my closing statement but I end up staring at the page. Nothing comes to me. I force myself to start typing:
The system worked today. You are innocent until proven guilty. Nelson Ward was not proven guilty. But justice is not done until the crime is solved. It’s time that we the people demand that the crime be solved. Demand justice for Jennifer Wright and her unborn child. Until then, —Cat.
There. Done. Marked off my list.
From there, I plan out next week’s columns, and I’ve just finished up when my cellphone rings again. I look down to find Liz’s number on caller ID. “Hi Liz.”
“I just heard from your publisher,” she says.
I glance at the time. “At eight o’clock on a Friday night?”
“Yes. The trial ended. They’re in a panic to sign you. They raised the offer to seven hundred thousand. Five hundred for the trial book as long as Reese Summer signs on as a consultant. His compensation is on you. The second option book, will be two hundred thousand, which is double your last book.”
As long as Reese signs a consulting form.That knots my stomach for no good reason. He will. I know he will. “Okay.”
“Okay? I just said seven hundred thousand dollars and you said okay? I know we said seven-fifty but this is close.”
“I know. I’m exhausted. It’s been a crazy week.”
“You and Reese have issues.”
“No.”
“No?” she presses.
“No.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Yes,” I say. “Is this better than taking a proposal out to the masses? I don’t like their connection to Dan.”
“I believe it is for this reason: If you walk away from your option publisher and don’t get more, your option publisher won’t take you back at this price. This is a lot of money to gamble with.”
“Right. I’ll let you know Monday.”
“Sunday night,” she insists.
“Okay.”
“I don’t like ‘okay,’ Cat.”
“Okay.”
She makes a frustrated sound. “I’ll call you Sunday.” She hangs up. I send my column to my editor that appears to be hanging in my browser and consider starting on Monday’s, but Kelli’s arrest would change it completely. Instead, I research what I’m going to write about post-Nelson Ward. Maybe post-Reese Summer. I pinpoint a few interesting cases and start doing research, two of which I’d like to sit in on the trials when they begin.
It’s nine, and the coffee shop is empty and closing in half an hour when my phone rings with Reese’s number, and I breathe out, nervous to answer when that is not what I feel with Reese. “Hello.”
“Hey, beautiful. Are you at home?”
Home. Which home? His home? My home? “I’m at the coffee shop.”
“I’m in an Uber. Hold on.” I can hear him giving the driver this address. “Okay. On my way. Nelson gave a statement about Kelli before getting on a plane and out of town.”
“Out of the country?”
“No. He agreed to be within reach if needed. Kelli was taken in for questioning.”
“How do you think that will play out?”
“I think she’ll lawyer up and be tough to break, but Nelson is going to file for divorce and pile it on her all at once.” His phone beeps. “Hold on.” He is gone a moment and returns. “That’s Royce. I’ll see you in ten.”
“Okay.”
We disconnect and I sigh. I seem to be the queen of “okay” tonight, when I’m not sure I’ve said that word this many times in my life. I’m simply not that agreeable. I yank at the tight knot at the back of my head and free my hair before I start to pack up, and suddenly Dan is sitting in front of me. “You’re writing a book with Reese, I hear.”
“You heard wrong. I’m writing a book. Reese agreed to be interviewed. Would you like to be interviewed?”
“I’ll tell my story my own way.”
“Of course you will. Because you are so very predictable.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means an asshole never lets someone else tell their story because they don’t want to be called an asshole. Hopefully your writing is better than your ability to present evidence.”
“There’s more to my story than you know, little girl.”
“Little girl?” I laugh. “You really do speak great asshole.”
“You have a smart mouth.”
“Thank you. My mama taught me. She’d be proud.”
“You were hell on me in your write-ups.”
“And now we get to the reason you’re standing here. Do better. I’ll do better. I’m fair.”
“You were hell in a courtroom, weren’t you?”
“Yep, but I hated every minute of it. I think you do, too.” I lean forward. “And you will never do better if you hate what you do.”
“Maybe I’ll retire and write books.”
“If that’s what you want, then you should do it. Don’t keep losing cases when the result is no one going to jail. Because like you said, no one went to jail. And Jennifer deserved better than that.”
“Bitch.”
“Asshole.”
He turns and walks away.
I watch him exit, and Reese walks in the door, his dark hair a rumpled, sexy mess, his tie loose. Dan grunts at him and disappears. Reese frowns and walks toward me, all loose-legged swagger and hotness and just seeing him still makes me warm all over. He stops at the table and pulls me to my feet, and he doesn’t seem to care that we’re in public. The fingers of one of his hands tangle in my hair and he’s kissing me—no, drugging me is the only way to describe how this man’s tongue makes every nerve ending in my body tingle.
“Hi,” he says, stroking hair from my face.
“Hi.”
“You having an affair with Dan?”
I laugh. “No. Believe it or not, I’m not attracted to assholes.”
“Good thing I’m not an asshole. How do you feel about pizza, champagne, me, and bed?”
He assumes I’m going home with him, when I’d assumed—nothing. I didn’t know what we were doing, but now, with him, I think I was living in the past again. Seeing the ghost of Mitch who is long gone. “Yes to all,” I say. “Please.”
We both start smiling when I say please.
I decide that call he took in private was nothing, while he’s becoming everything.