22. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
With other cases needing my attention, it’s not until Friday, that I head to the Charter Hotel pushing a luggage cart stacked with the Borgia case boxes.
Figures this mystery outside counsel is rich.
My heels clicking on the fancy porcelain floor, I reach the guard’s desk. “Villa 6.”
“One moment,” the guard says and presses into an earpiece. “Good morning, sir. You have a guest.” The man nods and looks at me. “Your name?”
Rolling my eyes, I say, “Daniel Vance’s courier.”
The guard parrots me, and with no change in his expression, he disconnects the call. He programs a key card and after handing it to me, he motions to a set of metal gates that swing open.
“There’s a reader inside the elevator. Your card key will activate it.”
I hesitate. “What floor is it on?”
“The elevator will stop at the programmed floor.”
I’m thinking this is for security purposes, like I might figure out where I am and then send a drone to take out the entire villa after I leave.
I shrug off the secrecy because I don’t really care what floor this overly important counsel lives on and I don’t have a friend with a drone. Yet.
Key card in hand, I push the cumbersome cart of file boxes through the open gate and amble into the elevator.
Hotels in Vegas have turned into one giant luxury pissing contest. If hotels could send helicopters for high-rolling billionaires and land them right on Las Vegas Boulevard, they would.
I should appreciate that Daniel chose me for this assignment. He could have just skipped over me to the team of male prosecuting attorneys and investigators I manage.
The elevator flies up, no floor counter visible, and when the doors open, a sprawling apartment appears before me. My heart skips a beat seeing the white marble floors stretch out to a sunken living room with black leather furniture. Beyond that, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows drenches the entire floor in natural sunlight.
“Hello?” I call out, tiptoeing off the elevator and hauling the files behind me.
With every gingerly step, I wonder who the hell is this lawyer?
It’s widely known that corporate attorneys make obscene amounts of money.
The foyer leads to a massive open kitchen with dark cherry cabinets and black granite countertops. Didn’t I choose the wrong direction for my career?
A shadow eases into my path and a giant of a man in a blue and gray pinstripe suit steps forward.
My eyes trail up from his black polished shoes to long legs with thick thighs, the jacket buttoned up tight, a sliver splaying open at the bottom to show a black leather belt. Brawny hands on his hips, and the jacket sleeves ready to split at the seams from his thick, sculpted biceps.
A dimpled and stubbled chin hangs open as I finally focus on his face. It takes a second for my brain to process him fully.
Then, I stumble back. “Eoghan?”
“What the bleedin’ hell are you doing here?” He lunges for me, pressing me to his chest.
His cologne knocks out my good sense and the warmth of his body sends my mind rushing back to the memory of every thrust of his cock last Friday night.
Eoghan is power and beauty and sin all wrapped up in a goddamn droolworthy package.
“How did you get up here?” His intense blue eyes lock with mine.
“Your guard let me in.” I feel sick as it all comes into focus. “You’re the attorney I’m supposed to work with?”
I exchange breathing air with him while horror paints his features.
He tightens his hold on me. “You’re Vance’s custodian?”
“His what?” My body seizes with need as I picture Eoghan grabbing my ass to lift me onto the kitchen counter so he can fuck me.
“Custodian.” Eoghan licks his lips, his hands sliding down my arms. “Looks like you’re stuck with me, sparkles.”
“Sparkles? I’m no longer a brat?” I tease him, like a moron.
“I called you that in bed, if you want to be a brat, you know what to do.” He does that little mouth partly open thing that I find so fricking sexy.
“You think I’m sparkly like that glitter crap strippers wear?”
“You sparkle like the brilliant diamond you are. So much better than just a gem.”
Gem…
Gemma…
Oh God.
“I can’t believe this.”
“Can’t believe what?” Eoghan locks his hungry gaze on me.
“That I’m to stay here with you while you go through the files. I’m to be all over you whenever I come here.” I clear my throat, and for a second, consider telling Daniel to use someone else.
But I want this case.
“Be careful, because if you’re not all over me, you’ll end up face down on my bed.”
“Um…” Say no. “Um…”
“While you’re considering it…” His hands slide down to mine and yank the cart from me. “Now let me see this case you have against the Borgias.”
Don’t let that file out of your sight.
I didn’t expect to be blinded by the shock of a man so gorgeous his face could be patented. I would know. I used to be a patent attorney before giving up any hope of lucrative paydays and joined the D.A.’s office.
“If they find out you’re working with us...” I steady myself on uncomfortable high heels, watching Eoghan open the top box and pile the contents on an L-shaped island which is bigger than my entire kitchen.
“I’m not working with you. And I don’t give a shit that…” He grips another stack and mutters a curse. “Fuck, this is thick.”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “We take these cases seriously. Evidence processing, witness statements, investigator notes.”
He thumbs through file after file. “Where are the attorney’s motions Daniel mentioned to me?”
“Red folders.”
“Folders?”
“Yeah, they keep changing attorneys to delay the trial.”
Eoghan’s eyes go wide. “The judge keeps giving the Borgias a continuance?”
Shrugging and looking around, I say, “Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Aye, and innocent forever if you avoid the trial all together.”
“Do you own this villa?” I ask, further inspecting the place.
The Charter Hotel, like many on the strip, sells top floor penthouses or rents them long term.
“It’s my brother’s.”
“Which one?”
He glances at me. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” I let go of a long exhale. “I thought you went back to New York.”
“Apparently not.” He dumps the files back into a box on the cart, and with the handle tight in his grasp, he makes long strides deeper into the villa. “The office is this way.”
I follow slowly, absorbing the intense luxury. God, to live like this one day.
Prosecutors, Division Heads, even Operations Managers don’t make the kind of salaries to live like this. We take the job to fulfil a call to public service.
The nights I walk the strip and look up at the fancy hotels’ top floors, I imagine high rollers, celebrities, or billionaires fucking their ladies of choice.
Not another fricking lawyer.
Only…
It hits me why Daniel asked Eoghan to help him break through the chains the Borgia lawyers keep using to lock up this case.
Eoghan is not just a Harvard lawyer, who I assume is brilliant.
He’s mafia, too.
Takes one to know one…
I gave my V-card to a dangerous mob boss thinking I could live out some sinful fantasy and never see him again. Now I have to work with him.
Eoghan rounds the desk and drops a box of files down on the surface. Unravelling his tie, he says, “Take off your clothes.”
“What?” I shriek.
“We had amazing sex the other night.” He twists the tie in his hands. “Before I go through these files, I’m going to fuck you to clear my head.”
Backing up, I gasp, “Did my brother say my sex was payment for—”
“Brother?” Lines form above his nose, which is thick and gives his face unbelievable character.
“Daniel Vance is my brother.” I roll my eyes. “Half-brother.”
“Diamond…” He murmurs my last name.
“You were kidding about the sex, right?”
“Absolutely not.” He drops the tie, and his hands go to his belt.
“Stop. No.”
“You didn’t tell me to stop last Friday when my head was between your legs.” He rounds the desk and pulls me in by the waist. “And you didn’t say no to me sinking my cock deep inside you.”
“I was drunk.”
“No. You weren’t.”
“I thought I’d never see you again.” I struggle for any answer to explain why I fell into bed with him so easily.
“Aye, we had that in common.” He lowers his mouth to mine but doesn’t kiss me.
Just hovers with a smile. His musky cologne reminds me of us tangled in my sheets, writhing together.
My body shudders in his arms. He’s a wall of powerful muscle pressed against me. The memory of my orgasm flashes through my mind and my clit throbs.
“But you changed the game, sparkles.”
“How?” I push out of my burning lungs.
“Your virginity bled all over my cock.”
Jesus fricking Christ. “That’s what this is about?”
“That… Is everything to me. That made you mine.”
“But you had no intention of ever seeing me again.”
“That’s why I’ve been in hell for the last seven days.” He lets me go and faces the long wall of books. “Clearly owning a woman whose life’s work is to take down men like me slowed my roll.”
“Slowed…”
“Well, stopped. It all happened so fast. But now that I’m in town for a while and you’re my custodian…” He grins.
“Nothing’s changed. You’re still a crime lord and—”
“Don’t confuse me with my brother. He’s the boss. The lord, whatever.” Eoghan crosses his arms. “I’m just the clever consigliere. I make deals. And not life and death ones like my other brother.”
My hands fly up, and I’m tempted to start humming the theme song to Friends so I don’t hear anymore vomit confessions that I’ll have to do something about. “I don’t want to know anything more about your family. Your brother, Cormac, committed crimes in my city, and Daniel forced me to dismiss them.”
“And I’m grateful you listened to him.”
“You set my career back. And now,” I say, pointing to the files. “I need to get on this Borgia case and win it to get the promotion I want.”
“Who’s been going up against Borgia’s one-thousand-dollar-an-hour Cadillac attorneys?”
“Daniel.”
“Alone?”
I nod.
“Eejit.”
I snicker.
“You know the Irish slang for fucking moron?”
“More we have in common.” I scoff a laugh. “Prosecutors win RICO cases all the time.”
“Not against people like the Borgias.” Eoghan’s eyes blaze to mine again. “Like I said, take your clothes off. Let me make you mindless a few times.”
All I could think is if Daniel found out I slept with a criminal…
“Is this some kind of entrapment?” I step back. “I give myself to you and you go running—”
The tie twists in his hands again. “I already had that sweet cunt around my cock.”
That’s true.
Licking his lips, he adds, “Daniel made me promise to help him in exchange for my brother’s release. Like you, I’m here out of duty. Why not make the best of things while we’re both stuck together in Sin City and fuck our brains out?”
“Mr. O’Rourke.”
“Now I’m Mr. O’Rourke.” He smiles devilishly. “I won’t lie, calling me that while you come on my cock would be hot as fuck, sparkles.”
“Eoghan…”
“You’re also pronouncing my name wrong.” He gets closer. “I let it go because it adds to the sexiness of us not really knowing each other.”
“How… How do you pronounce it?”
“Owen.”
“Oh.” I laugh.
“My name is funny, sparkles?”
“No, but I like the pronunciation in my head better.” I saw the E and the g and ignored the o.
Until he gave me one. Shit.
“You can say it however you like, so long as I’m deep inside you when you scream it.”
“I can’t have sex with you again.” I wish he knew how much that hurt to say.
“Why? State your case, Counselor.” He skates his nose along my neck.
Yeah, why?
“Your Honor…” I push him away. “I’d like to enter into evidence Exhibits A and B.”
“Granted,” he drawls low and sultry.
“Exhibit A- you’ve signed on to be outside counsel for our office. Defense attorneys these days love to put us on trial, saying we’re compromised if we’re fucking each other.”
Eoghan’s jaw jumps and his eyes zero in on my mouth. “Thoughtful and provocative. But Daniel promised to keep my involvement a secret.”
I think about that and go to deliver another argument, but Eoghan moves on from that one.
“Exhibit B,” he barks.
I consider a well-worn strategy women use to get a man off their back. Show too much interest. “Exhibit B- once you’ve given Daniel what he wants, you’ll be on the next flight back to New York.”
Two well-manicured fingers land on my lips. “I’m not sure I can let that happen.”
“What?”
“You stay here while I fly…” His tongue peeks out from lush lips. “Fly back to New York. Alone.”
“Why not?”
“Did I not make myself clear a few minutes ago?” His hands skate down to my ass. “I took your virginity. That. Makes. You. Mine.”