Page 82 of You, Only You

"I expect you to examine the evidence." Lindsey cut him off, her voice sharp. "I expect you to verify my analysis. I expect you to do your job, counselor, which is to challenge the facts; not to insinuate that a woman's professional competence disappears the moment she has a personal life."

Caldwell's mouth opened, then closed. The jury was watching Lindsey with something that looked remarkably like respect.

"No further questions," he said finally.

The prosecutor rose. "The prosecution rests."

The judge called a recess. I sat frozen as the courtroom began to empty around me, my eyes fixed on Lindsey as she stepped down from the witness stand. She'd done the impossible. She'dwalked into what should have been a slaughter and emerged not just intact but victorious.

I found her in the hallway, leaning against the marble wall, eyes closed. The adrenaline was clearly draining from her system. I recognized the exhaustion, the slight tremor in her hands.

"Hey." My voice came out rough.

She opened her eyes. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

"You didn't have to do that." The words felt inadequate. "Your reputation. The bar association. They'll come after you for this."

"Probably." She pushed off the wall, straightening herself. "That's my problem to handle."

"It's a problem I created. By being—" I stopped, struggling for words. "By being who I am."

"By being who you are." She repeated the words slowly, like she was tasting them. "You mean by being the man who spent seven years trying to fix a broken system? The man who didn't give up on his sister when everyone else did?"

"The man the defense just painted as a vigilante playing God."

"The man I chose." She stepped closer, her hand finding mine. "Stop acting like that's a sacrifice I'm making for you. It's a choice I'm making for me."

"It feels like a sacrifice." The guilt was a weight on my chest. "Everything you're risking, your career, your reputation, the clean professional standing you've spent a decade building?—"

"I'm not losing anything." Her fingers tightened on mine. "I'm building something. Don't you get that?" Her voice cracked slightly, the first sign of the emotion she'd been holding back. "I spent ten years trying to prove I wasn't my father. Trying to be the perfect professional with the perfect record, like that would somehow erase what he did."

"Lindsey—"

"And then I met you." She looked up at me, her eyes bright. "And you showed me that the perfect record doesn't matter if you're not fighting for something real. That sometimes the system needs people willing to step outside it. That justice and legality aren't always the same thing."

"I showed you that the world is messier than you wanted it to be."

"You showed me it was worth fighting for anyway." She pulled me closer, her free hand coming up to rest against my chest. "I'm not sacrificing my career for you, Will. I'm choosing a different kind of career. One where I get to use my skills for something that matters, with someone who—" She stopped, swallowed. "With someone I love."

That beautiful word again. We always danced around it, implied it, demonstrated it, showed it in a hundred small ways. But we’d rarely said it.

"Say that again."

"You heard me."

"I want to hear it again."

A smile ghosted across her face; tired, genuine, beautiful. "I love you. Even though you're infuriating. Even though you tried to push me away. Even though you have the emotional communication skills of a brick."

"That's fair."

"I know it is."

I pulled her against me, my arms wrapping around her with a certainty I hadn't felt in weeks. She fit perfectly against me, her head against my shoulder, her hands flat against my back, her breath warm through my shirt.

"I love you too." The words came easier than I'd expected. "Even though you call me out constantly. Even though yourefuse to let me protect you. Especially because you just decimated a defense attorney in open court."

"He deserved it."