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“Including you?”
“Actualy, I adore youdespitethe fact you’re a rich, powerful, gorgeous bachelor. I thought you knew that.”
Smiling, he tugged her so that their bodies and lips touched, no doubt giving the reporters a show. “Move in with me,Bomboncita,” he said when they came up for air.
She cradled his face between her hands, thumbs tracing over the lips she wanted to be hers and only hers for the rest of her life, but that would be hoping for too much. If life had taught her anything, it was that happiness was fleeting and that happily-ever-afters didn’t exist.
“How about we start by making our living arrangements temporary,” she offered as a compromise, “but with an option for forever?”
The left side of his mouth tipped up. “With an option for forever? Spoken like a true lawyer.”
“Hazard of the job.”
“I can work with that,Bomboncita.” He leaned in to kiss her, but his cell rang. “To be continued.” He dug the phone from his back pocket, and his brow furrowed. “It’s the detectives.”
As he swiped on, she reached for his hand. They’d given Detectives Hill and Tanaka his cell number as hers hadn’t survived the fire.
“Whitlow.” He nodded a few times. “Of course. We’ll be right there.” When he’d disconnected, he turned to her. “That was Detective Hill. They have Franklin Bishop in custody, and they’d like us to come to the precinct right away. Bishop is claiming he’s innocent and can prove it.”
Noah heldEmma’s hand as they neared an interview room at the Houston Police Department. Sweat sprinkled his brow, and with each step, his heartbeat kicked up a few beats per minute. He’d been in a room like this as a teen. Being back was like scratching at a scab he thought was healed, only to realize the wound was infected. But this wasn’t about Amanda or his sins. This was about Emma. For her, he’d make it through this interview, and it was just that, an interview,notan interrogation.
“Thank you for coming in so quickly,” Detective Hill said as she opened the manilla folder sitting on the table when they’d arrived. A stain marred her shirt, and her pants were wrinkled. She was the epitome of an overworked public servant, and it scared the hell out of him.
Hill perused the file. “My partner’s still interviewing Franklin Bishop. So far, he hasn’t provided us with any of that pesky evidence he said he had to prove his innocence, but you know how it goes. We have to cross those t’s and dot those i’s.”
The hairs on the back of Noah’s neck prickled.This isn’t about crossing t’s or dotting i’s, a voice inside screamed. Hill’s inflection was a littletoofriendly. She was fishing for something. He’d sat with cops before who’d said similar things, who’d tried to put him at ease, but they hadn’t been his friends. They hadn’t been trying to help a scared, guilt-ridden kid. They’d been gathering evidence to hang him.
“Anything we can do to help,” Emma said, taking a seat. Either she took Hill’s comments at face value, or she was playing along. He’d seen Emma in court and knew she was intelligent and tenacious, but she practiced corporate law. Would she be able to go toe to toe with a hungry detective?
Hill pulled a piece of paper from the folder and seemed to skim it for details. “Ms. Morgan, you said you knew Mr. Bishop from work, correct?”
Emma shrugged. “To say, ‘I knew him from work,’ is a massive overstatement. I was opposing counsel on the most-recent lawsuit he filed against my client. They brought me into the lawsuits when the original attorney handling the case had a heart attack and had to take medical leave.”
“And Noah here hired you, correct?” But before Emma could answer, Detective Hill leveled Noah with a stare that held no warmth, only accusation. “And why did you hire Ms. Morgan specifically for the Lone-Star Tech case, Mr. Whitlow?”
More sweat prickled his forehead. Hill was definitely fishing for something, but what?
“Actually,” Emma interrupted. “Whitlow Group hired my firm, and the firm’s managing partner, David Reynolds, assigned me the case after he fell ill. Noah was not part of that decision.”
Hill scribbled something on her notebook, angry slashes of pen on paper. Emma’s answer had surprised Hill. He wouldn’t go so far as to say it angered her, but Emma had no doubt loosened some of the screws in the trap she’d been trying to spring on him. But trap for what?
You’re being paranoid, he chided.
“So, you’re telling me, on the record,” Hill continued, eyes on Noah, “that Ms. Morgan taking over as your lead attorney and the start of your relationship are mere coincidence.”
Get out, the scared little boy inside screamed.
“Don’t answer that.” Emma placed a hand on his arm, and when she spoke to Detective Hill, her voice was sharp enough to draw blood. “What does my relationship with Noah have to do with Mr. Bishop burning down my house?”
“Oh, probably nothing.” Smiling, Hill waved Emma off like her line of questioning was plain silly. “As I said, just gotta cross those t’s and dot those i’s.”
“As a practicing lawyer, trust me, I completely understand that,” Emma responded, straightening ever so slightly in her chair. “But Franklin Bishop was at my house the night of the fire. That evidence is irrefutable. We all saw the video.”
“No one doubts he was there, Ms. Morgan,” Hill said, her voice saccharinely sweet. “I’m just working on establishing a timeline. I just love timelines. They help me sequence the events leading up to and after a crime. When I was putting this timeline together, I just started wondering why Mr. Bishop would suddenly attack you twice after you’ve only been working on this case, what, a month, especially considering he never attacked your predecessor. And when I have questions like that, it makes me think I’m missing something.”
“Oh, I see. I see.” Emma linked her fingers on the table, shifting forward in her seat, a predator going into attack mode. “You think you’ve missed something, and you’re just trying to fill in details.”
“Exactly.” Hill pushed back in her chair, teeth showing in a friendly, let’s-be-pals smile.
“Well, here’s adetailfor you, Detective. When it comes to my job, I’m an apex predator. I didn’t just get Franklin Bishop’s newest lawsuit tossed. Ishreddedit and tossed those shreds around like celebratory confetti, and Bishop, well, let’s just say he didn’t take it well.That’swhy he came at me in court. I made a fool out of him, and if you keep interrogating my client without reading him his Miranda warning, you’ll get to experience that kind of legal humiliation firsthand.” Emma pushed to her feet. “This meeting is over, Detective, but the war you just started isn’t.”
