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I swallowed down my own frustration when I heard the pain in Lucian’s voice as he pleaded with her. “He needs you. You’re all he has.”
A tear fell down Mrs. Morales’s cheek, swiftly followed by another. She wiped away the evidence and shook her head. “I’d like for you to leave now.”
“SHE ISN’T GOING TO SEE anything else?” Gypsy asked quietly. “Is she?”
She sounded defeated, and it reflected my own dark mood since we’d left Emmanuel’s mother’s house.
“No,” I answered. “I don’t think she will.”
She’d done a noble thing by keeping Emmanuel and raising him, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t spent her whole life resenting him for it anyway. There was nothing I could do to change that. It was another strike against Emmanuel, and if the prosecutor got a whiff of it, there would be a shitstorm.
The trial was coming up, and I didn’t feel as prepared as I should have been. I knew the reason for that was sitting beside me in the passenger seat. I’d told myself I’d be able to manage both, but I wasn’t accustomed to dividing my attention.
Regardless, when we came to a stop in the driveway and I glanced over at her, I couldn’t regret it. My time with her was limited, and maybe it was a little selfish, but I wanted to enjoy that just as much as I wanted to help Emmanuel.
I still believed I could do both. I just had to find a way.
I SPENT THE WEEK FOCUSING on my studies, and with every passing day, I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed it. I didn’t know why I’d put it off for so long, but Kate made the course better than I’m certain anyone else could have. She never talked to me like I was less than her, and in fact, she was always quick to point out my strengths. During her animated discussions, she’d told me multiple times how well I was progressing. I was breezing through the course, and with our one-on-one time, I’d probably even be ready to test by the end of the month.
Lucian had asked me several times if I’d considered the next step. He even mentioned college, but I wasn’t sure about any of that. I told him I was taking things one day at a time, and he accepted that answer for now.
We had settled into a comfortable pattern, and it surprised me how easily I’d adapted to domesticated life. Every morning, we sat down to breakfast together. Every evening, we had dinner together. We slept beside each other, and sometimes showered together, and he read to me in a deep, lulling voice that I’d grown to revere.
I found myself thinking about him often throughout the day, wondering what he was doing. Wondering what came next. When exactly was he going to pull the cord on us? His contract said two years, and I thought about that date often. Would he just wake up that morning and tell me my time was done and I had to leave?
I dreaded it, and I resented it. But when I looked into his dark eyes, those feelings melted and gave way to warmth. He wore his stress on his face. The tired lines from the years he’d been battered by the system and his work. He wanted so badly to help Emmanuel, but I could tell from the constant tension he’d been carrying that he didn’t know if he could.
I’d driven to his office a few times this week after class to see how I could help, and he’d given me meaningless tasks to pacify me. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to do more, I just wasn’t sure how.
Today, when I found him sitting at his desk, bone-weary and exhausted, I knew the thing he needed most wasn’t office work. When he looked up and saw me standing there, some of the tension bled from his face, and it made me feel important.
I still didn’t understand how I could have that power over him. How could he ever find any comfort in me? But for some reason, he did. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to abuse that power or trust.
I walked around his desk and rested my hands on his shoulders as his head fell back against me and his eyes closed.
“You work too much,” I told him as I began to massage his shoulders.
He sighed, and his eyes fluttered open for half a second. “That’s the life of an attorney.”
Maybe that was true, but I think there was always an exception, and Lucian was it. He had dedicated his whole life to helping his clients.
“What can I do to help?” I asked.
“What you’re doing right now feels pretty good,” he murmured. “You can keep doing that.”
