“You’ll what?” she inquired. “Say it right here, right now so I can call the police.” She wanted to do that more than she’d ever imagined possible.
He scowled and shook his head. “Just wrap this case up and get the conviction!” He moved to the door then, yanking it open until it slammed into the wall. The knob created a hole in the obviously cheap drywall that separated one office from the other.
When she dropped back into her chair, her hands shook and her heart hammered. Not out of fear but out of fury. She’d wanted to wrap her hands around Jules’ fat neck and squeeze for the way he dared to speak to her. Who the hell did he think he was? And why the hell had this pissed him off so royally? There’d been leaks to the press about their cases before. Hell, there’d been scandal linked to some of their cases before, i.e. the DA who was sleeping with the lead detective who, as it turned out, had planted evidence in their double murder case.
A dull throb began in her temples as she wondered what her next step should be. The realization that her first instinct was to call Ben and tell him what had just happened didn’t sit well with her. But lying to herself at this point wasn’t an option.
Ben
“You can’t ignore my calls if I’m standing in your face,” Alma Donovan said a few minutes after she walked into Ben’s office.
Ben had been reviewing the statement of charges for one of his clients and had vaguely heard the bell to the front door chime. His office building was secure, everyone had to sign in and show identification to the guards at the front door before the guards would call upstairs to let him know who was here to see him. He hadn’t received a call and had been so focused on his work he’d barely realized someone had come into the office. Considering the current circumstances he should have been on higher alert, but he also knew that there was a plain-clothes guard standing right outside of his office door as well as Devlin who was no doubt close by. The guy really was like a shadow, one you never saw until you absolutely needed to. Both of them would have seen his mother and not bothered to stop her entrance.
Alma Donovan wore one of her signature business suits, this one in a pale pink color, the jacket short sleeves and the skirt with some type of flourish at her knees. Under her right arm she clutched a pearl white leather purse that matched her shoes and the pearl choker at her neck. She looked like a professional, which she was since she was the president of not one, but two non-profit companies.
“Hi, Mama,” was his reply to whatever she’d just said to him. He wasn’t totally sure, just knew that she was standing at the end of his desk with one hand on her hip giving him that glare that said “you’re in big trouble”.
“Don’t “hi, mama” me.” She started by slapping her purse onto the end of his desk and yanking one of the guest chairs closer so she could sit down. “I’ve been calling you and calling you since I saw the paper this morning and haven’t received an answer yet. Not even a response to my text messages. And that’s just rude, Benjamin. One hundred percent rude to not respond when there’s no real reason why you cannot.”
“I’m working, Mama. I have cases to try, clients to represent,” he told her knowing full well that excuse wasn’t going to fly with her. “And actually…” He paused, then looked down at his watch and back to his mother. “I have an appointment in a half hour.”
He loved her dearly, had never met another woman like her. And lying to her went against everything he believed in, but if she asked him about that Vega case he couldn’t tell her what was really going on. He didn’t have any idea how she could’ve found out since only Trent and Max knew. But both of them were married and could have easily told their wives under that full disclosure rule that came with the marriage vows. One of the women would’ve definitely wanted to tell Alma.
“Then you have thirty minutes to tell me exactly what’s going on between you and that pretty little prosecutor you had lunch with yesterday,” his mother continued.
She spoke so matter-of-factly Ben had to do a double-take before getting the full gist of what she’d said.
“How did you know I had lunch with Victoria Lashley?” he asked giving her his full attention now.
“Everybody in town knows that was a perfect picture of the two of you smiling at lunch. I told your father we should frame it since we never see you with your women.”
Ben didn’t mean to be rude but his fingers moved quickly over his keyboard as he pulled up the local newspaper and searched for the picture his mother referred to and…dammit!
He thought he held that curse in as he slammed back in his chair. But the way his mother’s brows raised and her lips thinned, he’d definitely said it aloud.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I take it you didn’t want people to know you were dating her. I can see that since she’s prosecuting that case you just finished with. But listen Son, the heart does not take politics or any ofthese other prejudicial things into account. It wants who it wants and there’s not a whole lot you can do about changing that.”
“We were just having lunch. We were discussing our work. It wasn’t really a date,” he told her and felt good about that being basically the truth.
“You could probably make other people believe that, Benjamin, but not me. A mother knows these things.” She paused then, watching him as if he didn’t need to say a word for her to know exactly what he was thinking and or feeling.
“But you already know how you feel about her. You know but you’re not sure about her feelings. Is that it?” she asked.
Ben looked down at his mother’s hands, clasped neatly in her lap, the sparkling diamond wedding ring set on the left hand and a multi-jewel encrusted anniversary ban on the right. Those had been symbols of his father’s love for his mother, but Ben knew Everette and Alma’s love went much deeper than jewelry. Just as he’d watched his Aunt Beverly and Uncle Henry show how much they loved and respected each other by staying in a healthy relationship and keeping their family close. His cousins that had wives, loved unconditionally, protected with a fierceness Ben hadn’t felt before now. So his mother was absolutely correct, he knew how he felt about Victoria, had known for quite some time now.
“We met in law school,” he began. “She’s still too hung up on the Donovan reputation to see what a great catch I am,” he finished with a smile that had his mother responding likewise.
“She looks like a really smart girl, I’m sure she’ll come around.”
“I hope so,” he replied still leaning on the honesty fence. “But we both have work and that’s a little distracting right now.”
Alma nodded. “You got out of that case just in time. That man’s no good.”
“I know. I’m thinking now I should’ve never agreed to represent him in the first place.”
“No,” Alma shook her head adamantly. “Don’t do that. The past is in the past for a reason. It’s over and done with, regrets are a waste of time. You did your job and you’ll continue to do your job.”
