by Hannah Ford
WHAT HE PROTECTS (What He Wants, Book Six)
Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Charlotte
It bothered me that I knew exactly how to get to the police station. In fact, it almost seemed normal now, walking in and seeing the same receptionist who had been there when Noah was questioned.
She was decidedly less friendly today. This time, there were no private looks about how hot Noah was, no professional tone or polite attitude. She gave me a sigh when she saw me, and acted put-out when I told her I was there to speak with someone who’d just been arrested.
“Name?” she asked.
“Mine or the, um, sus—person’s?”
“Suspect’s.”
“Noah Cutler.” I’m sure I was just being paranoid, but I felt like she could somehow tell I had a personal interest in the case.
“Are you his lawyer?” she asked, looking me up and down skeptically. Not that I could blame her. I didn’t look like a lawyer.
“No,” I said. “I’m a law student. But I’m part of his legal team.”
She shook her head. “Did he call his lawyer?”
“Of course he called his lawyer.” It wasn’t technically true. I was the one who’d called Professor Worthington, explaining to him what had happened while I stood on a busy street corner. He hadn’t seemed shocked or alarmed at all – he just said ‘I’ll meet you there’ and then he’d hung up.
“Well, then you can wait over there,” the receptionist said. “Until the lawyer gets here.”
She said “lawyer” very pointedly, like since I wasn’t one, I had no business being there. I sighed and sat down in one of the folding chairs in the lobby. I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a notebook. But there was nothing for me to make notes on.
I could have opened my iPad and tried to catch up on my reading for school, but I was too antsy. Noah had been arrested. There was going to be a trial. And evidence. The prosecutor would dig deep into Noah’s life and ask him all kinds of questions.
If anyone found out about our relationship, I’d be subpoenaed. They’d ask me about our sex life, if Noah had ever gotten rough with me, if he’d ever hurt me. And even though he hadn’t ever hurt me, I knew enough about the law to realize they would make it look like he had.
The prosecutor would ply me with specific questions, like if Noah had ever left marks on my wrists, if he’d ever spanked me so hard it made my skin red. And Noah had done those things -- not in the way they’d try to paint it, but it wouldn’t matter. They’d ask me, and they wouldn’t understand about the sexual part of it, about the domination and submission. Hell, I didn’t even understand most of it.
If I lied, I could get arrested for perjury. And if that happened, I could kiss my law career good bye.
What a huge fucking mess, I thought to myself. Why couldn’t I have just fallen in love with some normal law student, the kind of guy who would study hard and get good grades and then take some boring job in corporate law? Why did I have to get involved with an older man, one with a penchant for BDSM and a tortured past?
I pulled out my phone and watched the second hand on the clock icon slowly move around the screen, willing it to move faster. Professor Worthington should have been here by now. I thought about calling him, but I didn’t want to be a pest or seem too eager. Now that Noah had been officially arrested, it was even more important for me to make sure I stayed involved in his case.
I got up and paced the room, because the energy inside of me needed somewhere to go -- I was starting to feel like I was going to scream.
“You know, he was probably taken to Central Booking,” the receptionist piped up helpfully.
I turned around. “Excuse me?”
“Central Booking. It’s where they take people after they’ve been arrested. While they wait to be arraigned.”
I took in a deep breath through my nose and resisted the urge to scream at her for not telling me that sooner. Obviously she knew I was waiting for Noah and Professor Worthington -- I’d told her that when I’d gotten here. So why would she let me sit here like some kind of fool, wasting time when Noah wasn’t even here?
Although it wasn’t entirely her fault. Of course I knew clients didn’t speak with their lawyers at the police station, that once they were arrested and had their information recorded, they were sent to Central Booking. I should have known better -- when Professor Worthington had said ‘I’ll meet you there,’ he’d meant Central Booking -- but I was so frazzled I hadn’t thought of it. My total lack of forethought definitely didn’t bode well for my law career.
Get it together, Holloway, I told myself.
I ran outside and hailed a taxi while looking up the address for Central Booking on my phone. I had a frantic energy about me, and I tried to force myself to calm down, but my hands were shaking as I opened the door to the cab and gave the cabbie the address.
By the time we pulled up in front of Central Booking, I’d calmed down a little, but not much. There were a bunch of people loitering on the steps of the building, smoking and talking on their cell phones. Men in hoodies wandered around the sidewalk, looking me up and down as I walked up the front steps.
I thought about calling Professor Worthington to ask if he was here yet, ask him to come outside and walk me in, but then I told myself there was no reason to be intimidated. If I was going to be a lawyer, I was going to have to get used to doing things like this. And besides, there were tons of cops right inside the front doors -- it wasn’t like anything bad could happen to me here. The irony wasn’t lost on me – here I was, going inside to voluntarily look for a man who’d been accused of murder, all the while being afraid of the people outside.
No one gave me a hard time as I walked past, all of them busy on their cell phones, probably calling lawyers or bail bondsmen as they tried to help their relatives and friends on the inside.
The inside of Central Booking was nothing like the police station. At the police station, even with the curt receptionist, you could sense a certain kind of order, a certain kind of safety. The people at the police station were there to fill out reports, or answer questions, or provide information. The police station hummed with activity, but it was a kind of controlled activity. You could tell whatever was going on there was serious and somber, but at the same time, it had a certain rightness to it that made it feel like it was the normal order of society.
Whatever was happening at Central Booking had nothing to do with normalcy. The walls were grey and the paint was peeling badly, the linoleum scuffed and in serious need of repair. I could smell the stench of urine and hear the clanging of bars coming from somewhere far away. Down the hallway, about a hundred feet or so, I could see the shadow of a man in handcuffs being led into a cell.
“I didn’t do that shit! I’m high, man, I’m on the junk!” he was screaming as two officers held onto him. His skinny limbs went akimbo as he twisted and turned as the officers threw him into a cell. The sound of groans followed the clink of the bars, the people already in the holding cell obviously not approving of their new neighbor.
“Can I help you?” a uniformed office asked from the other side of the metal detector.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here to see Noah Cutler. I’m part of his legal team.” I purposefully left out the part about me not being a lawyer. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. I imagined Noah back in that cell, crowded in with all those crazy people. I wondered what would
happen if his mouth got him into trouble. Would they come after him? Did they have weapons in there? Was it like prison where you could get in fights and the corrections officers might not do anything about it?
“Has he been arrested?” the officer asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“What was the date?”
“Um, today. Just about an hour ago.”
The officer sighed and shook his head. “An hour ago? Honey, no one gets out of Central Booking in an hour. Your client is going to have to be arraigned before he’s even ready for bail, and that’s going to be – ”
But before he could finish, Noah appeared in front of us, looking no worse for the wear. His coat was immaculate, his hair still perfectly styled, his stride commanding and purposeful.
When he saw me, his face darkened. “Charlotte,” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” I asked. “I came to find you!” I looked behind him for and officer or someone escorting him out, but there was no one.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, grabbing me by the arm and leading me out the door and down the stairs, through the throng of people that were still congregating on the steps.
Once we were around the corner, he pulled out his cell phone and put it to his ear. “Jared,” he said. “I’m ready.” He ended the call and slid it back into his pocket. “Charlotte, I told you to call Worthington, not to come down to Central Booking. Are you insane?”
I looked at him, aghast. “Am I insane? No, Noah, I’m not insane. I did call Professor Worthington, and he told me to meet him here.”
“Colin told you to meet him at Central Booking?” His eyes flamed with anger, and he pulled his phone back out. “I’m going to have to have a talk with him.”
I grabbed the phone out of his hand and held it out of his reach. “You’ll do no such thing!” I said. “He’s my boss, and I’m on your case. If he tells me to meet him at Central Booking, I’ll meet him at Central Booking.”
I thought Noah would be mad at me for defying him, thought I might have to pay for it later, and the idea sent a warmth flowing through my center. I flashed back to what he’d just done to me in the restaurant bathroom.
Show me your tits, Charlotte.
But Noah actually didn’t seem to care that I was contradicting him. In fact, he seemed almost bored, the way you’d be when a child was having a tantrum and you were just waiting for them to burn themselves out so you could put them down for a nap.
“Please give me my phone back, Charlotte.”
“No,” I said, not because I thought he was actually going to call Professor Worthington, but because I felt like being difficult. I was acting out because I wanted Noah’s attention, or at least some acknowledgment of what was going on. He’d just been arrested for murder. He’d been handcuffed, thrown into the back of a police car, brought to Central Booking like a common thug. And now he was standing there lecturing me about how I shouldn’t have come to such a dangerous place, like that was the most important thing happening right now. “Where is Professor Worthington, anyway?” I asked.
“He’s not coming.”
“He’s not coming?” I frowned. “Why not?”
“Because it pays to know people,” he said cryptically, and held his hand out. “Please return my phone to me now, Charlotte.”
I handed the phone back grudgingly. “What does that mean, it pays to know people?”
“It means that I know a lot of the right people who are able to get things done. And so I didn’t need Worthington.”
My jaw dropped. “You were able to get a judge to sign an order letting you out on bail?”
“Yes.”
“By acting as your own lawyer.”
“Yes.” He glanced over at me. “Don’t look so surprised, Charlotte, I am a lawyer. And in this great country of ours, you’re allowed to represent yourself.”
“Yes, but it’s always considered a bad idea.”
“Not when you’re the best.”
I shook my head. How could he have negotiated his own release so quickly? And on a murder charge? I wasn’t naïve enough to think that there wasn’t a certain level of politics involved in the court system – getting the right judges, knowing the right lawyers, payoffs and back room deals. Some of it was just how things worked, and some of it was dark and against the rules, the kind of thing the people lost their careers over. Was that what Noah had done? Had he called in some kind of favor with some shady judge?
I took in a deep breath. “Does Worthington know that you acted as your own counsel and negotiated yourself out on bail?”
“Yes, Charlotte. I called and let him know.”
“And he didn’t care?”
“The contrary. He was very upset. Even so, he should have called to let you know you wouldn’t be needed at Central Booking. It was very irresponsible of him, and I don’t like the fact that he put you in harm’s way.” His jaw set in a line, and I saw him grind his teeth ever so slightly.
“I wasn’t in harm’s way.”
“The fact that you think that makes it even more apparent to me why you shouldn’t have been there.”
“Please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “There were cops all over that place.”
“And vagrants.”
“Yes, and cops.”
He laughed a little bit, his laugh making it clear he thought I was naïve not only for not realizing how bad the vagrants were, but for thinking that the cops could protect me. His car pulled up to the sidewalk then, and he held the door open for me. I hesitated for a minute before sliding in.
When we were settled inside, Noah folded his hands in his lap and looked at me.
“Are we going to talk about the fact that you just got arrested?” I asked.
“Are you saying that’s what you’d like to talk about?”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want it to have happened. But since it’s a pretty big deal, you’d think we’d have some kind of discussion about it.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what people do, Noah, when something huge like this happens. They discuss it, they talk about it, they tell each other how they feel.”
“Fair enough.” He shifted on the seat and regarded me across the car. “How do you feel about me getting arrested, Charlotte?”
“How do I feel about it?” I exclaimed.
“Yes. You obviously have strong feelings about it, if you’re feeling the need to bring it up.”
“I don’t… Yes, I have strong feelings about it Noah, you just got arrested for murder. Murder, Noah. Do you know what happens to murderers? They go away for life. They get the electric chair. They – ”
“There is no death penalty in New York, Charlotte.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe you’re being so callous about this.”
“Is that what you think this is, callousness?”
“Yes! How can you not be freaking out?”
“Freaking out?” he repeated, like the term was completely foreign to him. “What good would that do, Charlotte? To freak out? You think this is a surprise to me? Please. They should have arrested me six years ago when Nora died. The only thing to freak out about is how obviously incompetent the police department is that they’d let me roam the streets for this long.”
I shook my head and turned to look out the window. I blinked hard, telling myself not to cry. What was it he’d said back at the restaurant, exactly? Something about how he’d had to learn to shut his emotions off in order to survive? Was that what this was? Was Noah really terrified, but just not showing it because he’d had to learn to repress his emotions in order to survive? Or was it possible that he didn’t have emotions, that he was a cold sociopath who didn’t care about anything, including the consequences of his actions?
I almost couldn’t decide which was worse.
If he was a sociopath, it would be a clear cut answer that I shouldn’t have anything to do w
ith him. But if whatever trauma he’d experienced had caused him to become so shut off that he couldn’t express his feelings, I might be tempted to try and “fix” him, to become like the countless other stupid women who met a damaged man and thought they could make him into what they wanted him to be.
And I had seen glimpses of it here and there, glimpses of the man he could be.
But did I really want to spend days, months, years, trying to convince him I was worthy of more than glimpses? Putting the responsibility on myself was a losing proposition, and I knew it.
And yet when we pulled up in front of his apartment, I was hoping he would invite me inside, was feeling like I needed and wanted to spend more time with him, was afraid he would send me back to my apartment. I wanted to be in his presence.
So when we got onto the sidewalk and he ushered me inside, I was relieved and happy.
“Are you hungry?” he asked once we were in his kitchen.
“No.”
“But we never got to have our dinner.” He shook his head and grinned. “I left our takeout containers in the back of the police car. The officers probably brought them into the station and enjoyed a nice meal on me.” He laughed, like this was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
“You think this is funny?” I asked. “You think it’s funny that you’ve been arrested for murder?”
He shrugged, then crossed the room to the refrigerator and surveyed the contents. He shut the refrigerator door, obviously not happy with what he saw. “We’ll order in,” he decided, crossing the room and opening a drawer filled with takeout menus. “You need to eat, Charlotte.”
“No, I don’t,” I said automatically, annoyed that he was still trying to boss me around. “And you shouldn’t be, either.”
“I shouldn’t be eating?”
“No!” I said. “You should be upset or angry or scared! Not standing in your kitchen like some kind of fucking statue looking at takeout menus!”
“Charlotte,” he said, his voice a warning. “It’s been a very long day.”
I walked over to him and put my hand on his forearm. “Noah,” I said softly. “Noah, what are you doing?”