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Sloane’s bones shook under the weight of the life-altering release. She’d never said the words aloud to anyone
except Dr. Lerner before, but even being terrified of Arwyn’s judgment couldn’t stop the cleansing once it started.
Clearing her throat, to stop her voice from cracking, Sloane pressed on. “I don’t care for her out of love. I do it out of duty. And because there’s no one else who will. She has pushed away everyone who ever cared for her.” She paused before correcting herself. “Everyone except her superficial friends. The vultures like her who care only about gossip and the appearance of propriety.”
In the wake of her outburst, Sloane was overwhelmed with relief and shame. She froze in the silence, unable to run though her feet itched for the cement stairs leading to her car.
“Well, shit,” Arwyn replied, spinning her empty glass around by the stem. “What does it say about a person who will care for and sacrifice for someone who wouldn’t do the same for them?”
Sloane squirmed under the weight of the question. She hadn’t intended to elicit a response like that. To be fair, she hadn’t intended on airing all her dirty laundry at all. She blamed the confusion caused by home cooked food.
“Yeah, well,” Sloane cleared her throat. “What’s say we take a look at this video before I tell you about how falling o my bike when I was five left me with serious trust issues.” She was overcome with the sudden and intense desire to get very far away from the topic.
Arwyn stood instead of pressing as she might’ve expected. “Do you want some more wine?” She held up the half-full bottle.
“I have to drive but save that. I bet your mom can cook something delicious with it,” she replied before striding toward the purse she left on the couch and retrieving the blue thumb drive with the Lowry Pendergast logo. The sight of it didn’t hurt as much as it used to.
“How’d you even get this so fast?” Arwyn asked as she cleared the table before setting up her laptop.
Sloane handed her the drive. “I know someone who interned as in-house counsel of the parent company. It was a long chain of strings that were pulled, I’m sure,” she joked, the tension easing from her body even if she was still queasy after confiding something too personal.
“What did you o er in exchange?” Arwyn ran her thumb over the logo before sliding the USB into the port.
Sloane smiled, grateful to release the jitters replicating through her body. “My mother won my father’s Green Bay Packers season tickets in the divorce. Lucky for me, the only thing she hates more than my father is football.” She chuckled. “I promised my acquaintance tickets to whatever game she wants. I bet she’s going to leverage those for something better.”
Arwyn pulled her chair up next to Sloane, her proximity radiating an intoxicating warmth. “Aren’t you lucky to have such a bargaining chip. If you ever want free tickets to Flamingo Elementary’s Christmas Pageant, I’m your girl.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time we need to pull a real rabbit out of a hat,” she replied, her tone softer than she intended as she held Arwyn’s gaze.
Arwyn’s gaze dipped down to Sloane’s lips, sending her heart thumping out of rhythm. She wanted nothing more
than to close the small gap. To kiss the lips she’d been thinking about for so many sleepless nights, but she turned toward the computer screen instead. She couldn’t stand the rejection twice.
“Let’s see if we find what you’re looking for,” Sloane said, pointing to the screen.
“I can only hope,” Arwyn replied, her attention lingering on Sloane’s lips before snapping up to her eyes and finally to the screen.
As they watched video from hundreds of cameras, Sloane found herself struggling to focus. It was hard to care about anything but the soft curve of Arwyn’s face and the intense curiosity cutting a line into her brow. Despite Sloane’s resistance, being so close to Arwyn was exquisite torture.
CHAPTER 28
FROM THE SECOND chair at the trial counsel’s table, Ari watched Sloane take her place at the podium. Despite the several binders and files Ari had prepared, Sloane was going up with nothing, an intentional power move. All Ari could do was hope it was worth the risk. Getting derailed and losing her rhythm could lead Sloane down an unintended line of questioning.
After three grueling days of trial, all that was left to do was to cross-examine the defendant. Just like Sloane predicted, he’d elected to take the stand in his own defense, a move his attorney cautioned him against on the record so he couldn’t argue later that he didn’t know it was a bad idea.
No one was going to save him from himself . . . or from Sloane.
“State, your witness,” the judge announced, jolting Ari’s pulse into overdrive. Ready or not, it was game time.
Ari held her breath. Even the preliminary easy questions were making her stomach tense to the point of crippling nausea. Sloane, of course, was unshaken by nerves. She moved like a sailboat in a steady current. Smooth and
purposeful. Instead of coming out guns blazing, she was gentle. Easy.
Mr. Dominguez’s shoulders relaxed as Sloane asked him questions about what he’d been doing on the di erent dates he’d run into his ex-wife. The more he talked, the more comfortable he got, and the more certain Ari was that Sloane was leading him straight into a trap.
“Sir, you shop at the Bargain Depot in Westchester, correct?” Sloane asked, leaning against the podium instead of standing behind it.
Ari’s attention jumped to the jurors. Except for the middle-aged man that frowned at everything Sloane said, they didn’t look put o by her demeanor. She was glad Sloane had gone for an extremely understated persona.
