The Bad Judgment Series: The Complete Series

by Leigh James

  Her tone stung. “What do you mean, huh? You’re surprised that I was chosen?”

  “I’m not surprised that you’re working on the case, Nicole. I’m just surprised they didn’t send Alexa or one of those other sluts over to babysit him,” she said. “I mean, it makes sense that they’d pick you, in one way: they know you’ll behave, and you’re the smartest, so you’ll get the best stuff from him. But by being over there, you’re out of the loop. That’s why I’m surprised. I would have thought that David would move you into his office and have you slaving away. Then he can show off how amazing he is by hijacking your brilliant work.”

  “I’m slaving away at Walker’s house, instead. But I guess I am sort of out of the loop,” I said, and I felt a gnawing anxiety start in my stomach. “Everything’s sort of a mess. I think Alexa is being David’s slave right now. I guess I should be insulted that she’s taking my place. And Norris Phaland's been bugging Tammy, too, asking for my notes and emails.”

  “Norris Phaland is a douche,” Mimi said. “But he’s a dangerous douche. Stay away from him. Don’t give him any notes. Just go straight to David. David’s an asshole, too, but he’s not scary. You know the only reason Norris is a partner at Proctor & Buchanan, don’t you? He married a Buchanan. Everybody hates him, but he’s not going anywhere. They can't get rid of him. And he's too dark and lurky to go on a job interview someplace else.”

  I sighed and desperately wished it was cocktail hour.

  “So, how is Walker?” Mimi asked. “Hotter than Caribbean beach sand in July?”

  “I’ve never been to the Caribbean,” I said, noncommittally.

  “Oh come on, Nicole — tell me! Don’t be such a baby. Is he as good-looking as he is in pictures?”

  “So much hotter than that,” I blurted out, my voice sounding tortured. Ugh. The last thing I needed was Mimi to know how I felt about him.

  “Oh, noooooo,” Mimi said. “He’s that hot, huh? Think about it: you wouldn’t sleep with him, even if you could without getting disbarred. Right? He’s slept with everyone. You wouldn’t want to hit that.”

  There was dead silence on my end as I imagined hitting that.

  I thought about Walker’s wild, unruly, glossy hair as I twirled mine.

  “Nicole?” Mimi asked sharply, jarring me. “Okay. I know I told you to call me when you had a problem. And here you are, with Boston’s hottest bachelor, or whatever the fuck, as your heavy-duty client. And you called me for the first time in a year. So, what’s the deal, really? I’m guessing you haven’t slept with him.”

  “Of course not!” I said, my face flaming.

  “But you want to. Your good-girl panties are probably all in a twist. You poor thing,” she said and laughed, but with sympathy.

  “Of course I haven’t,” I said, quietly. “I know I can’t.” I felt like I might cry.

  “How’s Mike?” Mimi asked, and I snorted. Mimi was no fan of Mike’s. We’d had dinner with her and her then-fiancé, and she’d told me the next day at work that I needed to dump him. “I don’t mean to discriminate against a protected class,” she’d said, “but he’s a nerd, Nicole. You’re too hot for a guy like that. I’m sure he doesn’t know what to do with you.”

  “Mike’s stable,” I’d said, not looking at her.

  “A ringing endorsement,” she’d retorted, but she never brought him up again. Until now.

  “Mike is pale and boring and sucks in bed,” I said.

  “Yup,” she said. “I figured as much. But about Walker? I know he’s hot…but you’re right. You can’t. You remember The Rules. You would get disbarred a thousand times over. You’d never practice law in any state ever again. You’d be humiliated. Ruined. And I know you don’t have a Plan B, right? Like some sort of large trust fund you never mentioned?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Right. So it’s not like you can just run away and sail off on Walker’s yacht into the sunset. And then call your OBGYN and get a lifetime-supply of penicillin when he dumps you for a pop star.”

  “Don’t be mean,” I said, briefly thinking about Walker and all the women he’d probably slept with. “You’re too polished at it.” I sat there for a minute, mulling over everything that she’d said. It was exactly what I was expecting, exactly what I needed to hear. That didn’t mean it unhooked the knot in my stomach.

  “Mimi, the thing is — he’s not like what I was expecting. He’s not some roguish playboy. Or a male slut in need of an antibacterial mist tent. He might qualify as a womanizer, but he’s brilliant, Mimi. And I think he’s innocent. I’m worried we’re gonna screw up this case — that I’m gonna screw up this case — and that a brilliant, innocent man is going to go to jail.”

  Mimi blew out a deep breath. “The stakes in criminal are so high,” she said. I could picture her shaking her head. “Makes what we usually do look like a cake-walk, even though we’re dealing with millions of other people’s dollars.”

  “Millions of dollars can’t buy you freedom,” I said. “Even when they’re your own dollars.”"

  “But take this to the bank,” she said. “Dollars are usually at the root of something like Walker’s case. That’s going to be the heart of it. It isn’t love, or honor, or something respectable. Follow the money, Nicole. A pile of money is the crux of the case. And either Walker misappropriated it, like they’re saying, or the government’s trying to misappropriate it. I don’t know.”

  She paused for a beat. “Just please don’t sleep with him. He may be the greatest, most brilliant, most innocent, most gorgeous eligible-bachelor-CEO of all time, but if you fuck him, you’ll never practice law again. Okay?”

  I thought about his biceps, and then I made myself think about attending a hearing in front of the Bar Association Disciplinary Committee to discuss the fact that I’d gone to bed with him. Because of those very biceps. “Okay,” I mumbled. I wanted to explain that it wasn’t about just sex, at least I didn’t think it was, but the alternative was too embarrassing to even think about.

  “Just don’t. Time’s gonna be tight for you, but I want you to call me once a week. No matter what. What time is it?” Mimi asked.

  I looked at the clock: 11.30.

  “Call me every Wednesday at 11.30. No matter what, Nicole,” she said. “If I don’t hear from you, I’m calling Richie.”

  “Call Richie and you’re grounded,” I said. “Bye.” Mimi had met my dad one weekend when we’d worked non-stop. We’d camped out at my apartment so that we could wear sweatpants and no makeup. Richie had come over with pizza, making sure that I was eating, and he and Mimi had inexplicably hit it off. He went to the Boston Marathon every year with a sign for her, cheering her on.

  Richie thought Mimi was a good role model. He wanted me to marry an orthopedic surgeon, too. But then he wanted me to quit working and start having babies. And then he wanted me to push them in a stroller and run the marathon with Mimi.

  Enough, I thought. I appreciated Mimi's friendship and her advice, but I was just avoiding the real issue. What I was really doing was stalling. I was afraid to face Walker again. Even as I thought that, I knew it wasn’t true — I was afraid to see him and feel everything that he made me feel, like the rest of the world fell away and didn’t matter.

  It wasn’t him that I was afraid of. It was me.

  Chapter 13

  Of course I stopped and got him a sandwich.

  “Where were you?” he asked, when I knocked on the door. He paced in the kitchen, looking tense. “I’ve been waiting.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m later than I thought. I went to my office and went home. I had to return a few phone calls,” I lied, picturing Mimi shaking her head at me. I dragged in my suitcase. “I was getting you a sandwich.” I held it out to him. He took it from me but there was no smile.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, searching his face.

  “Nothing. Thank you,” he mumbled, unwrapping the sandwich. He took a bite and looked at me. “It was fucking bori
ng here without you,” he said, his mouth full.

  “You make me feel so special when you talk to me like that,” I said.

  He frowned at me through his sandwich and I frowned back. “I brought my suitcase,” I offered, trying to cheer him up.

  “It’s about time,” he said, still chewing.

  We looked at each other for a beat.

  “I want to go outside,” he said, wrapping up the second half.

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re allowed outside on your own property for short periods of time. That doesn’t count against your ten hours a week.”

  “Come with me,” he said.

  He led me out though a laundry room at the back of the house, to his small fenced-in yard, where I was stunned to see a gorgeous stone patio and grotto like in-ground pool. Chaise lounges, couches and umbrellas were set up on the deck; it looked like an exclusive resort back here, which I suppose it sort of was. I pictured Minky Lucca hanging out back here in her yellow, ruffled bikini and shuddered.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a pool,” I wailed, looking at him reproachfully.

  “Get your bikini the next time you go home,” he said, distractedly running his hands through his thick, tousled hair. “Or I have a couple hanging around, if you want one now.”

  “No thanks,” I said, my chin jutting out. Like I’d wear — or fit into — one of his Shiny Object’s discarded size-zero bikinis.

  He sighed and looked at me. “Nic,” he said, “a couple of things.”

  “Yes?” I frowned at him. I’d been so excited to come back, but he was being so moody.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  My heart leapt and the frown disappeared, maybe forever.

  “I missed you, too,” I said, even though I should have slapped myself across the face and said snap the fuck out of it. But I wasn’t doing what I should be doing; instead I was crossing lines, at least in my heart. If I could have, I would’ve thrown myself into his arms right then. Just to feel his body, once and for all. Let everything else melt away.

  He smiled at me. “Good,” he said, and he looked pleased for the first time today. He looked at me for a beat and then leaned in, to whisper in my ear. “That’s an upside. But there are a couple of other things I think I should tell you…that are more downside. Something that happened last summer,” he said. “Almost a year ago. Thing is, I’m not even sure it’s safe to tell you.” He looked around, suspiciously. “That’s why we’re out here.”

  I held my breath, waiting, feeling the heat of him so close to me, his breath on my neck.

  He grabbed my hand, oblivious to the heart palpitations he was causing every time he touched me, and led me to a chaise shaded by an umbrella. “Before I tell you the story,” he said into my ear, moving even closer, “there’s one other thing. As of this morning, I think the house is being watched. I’ve seen suspicious people walking by, and a van in the neighborhood, and I’m almost certain that they’re surveillance. I’m pretty sure the house is being bugged. I did covert surveillance in the military. I spent enough time trying to listen in on other people to know that someone’s out there, watching us and probably listening to us, too.

  “We need to whisper, even out here. I don’t know if it’s safe, but it’s safer than the other options.”

  I felt like he punched me in the stomach. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked, as incredulously as I could in a whisper. I searched his face. “Aren’t you just being a little paranoid?”

  He looked a little wounded, and shook his head, no.

  “Why would there be surveillance?” I hiss-whispered. “The court put you on house arrest and you’re just sitting here, being boring.”

  “Thanks, Nic.” He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer. “I don’t think it’s the court,” he whispered hotly, and I looked at him with wide eyes.

  “Then who the hell is it?” I asked, reeling. The combination of what he was telling me and the white-hot feel of being this close to him was almost too much for me to bear. I no longer felt steady in the hot sun.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But that’s why I need to tell you about the other thing. The Martha’s Vineyard thing.”

  “Tell me,” I said, quietly, looking past him to the glittering pool.

  “I went down to the Vineyard with three of my guys. We were going deep-sea fishing, staying at a friend’s house,” he said.

  “Who was the friend?” I asked.

  “Some model I was seeing,” he said. “It was her family’s house.”

  I scowled at him.

  “We’d gone fishing the day before. At the end of the day, we docked the boat, went to dinner in Vineyard Haven, and then went back to the house.”

  “Was anyone else there?” I asked, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. Anyone…like the hot model you were seeing? Whose family home you were staying at? I felt like a ridiculous, petty child, hearing about my best friend playing with someone else. Someone much more sophisticated, taller and better-looking.

  “The girl I was dating was in New York,” he said, “so it was just the guys. We had a few beers, went to bed, and then got up early to fish.

  “When we went back the next morning, I noticed that a tackle box that I’d left in the cabin was out on the deck,” he said. “Something was off. I clearly remembered putting it away — I’m meticulous about my boat and my stuff. I told the other guys to get back on the dock. I knew something was wrong — it was just one of those times when you have to go with your gut. I was in the military long enough to recognize the feeling.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I took the tackle box and I brought it towards the bow. I yelled at the guys to go back. And then I opened it. And what did I find? An insurgent bomb — just like some of the hand-made ones we used to find in the field — ugly, little, and capable of killing me and everyone around me. It would have blown my boat to smithereens.” He paused for a beat. “I tried to dismantle it, but I couldn’t. So I motored the boat out as fast as I could, as far as I could, and threw it into the ocean.”

  “And then what?” I asked, horrified.

  “I drove the boat back as fast as I freaking could,” he whispered. “And then it went off. It didn’t do much, thank God, but a spray came up, and there were some definite ripples from it. Rocked all the boats tied to the dock a little. I probably killed a bunch of fish. I’m just lucky that it was the right time of morning — early enough that most people weren’t going out, but late enough so that all the commercial fishermen had already gone.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  “Holy shit is right,” Walker whispered back.

  “When was this, again?” I asked.

  “Last August,” he said, turning to look at me. “Right after I sold some of my technology to China.”

  I tried to take this all in, put together the pieces. “You don’t really think that someone tried to blow you up because of that,” I whispered. “Do you? Seriously?” I looked around, nervously, wondering if we were being watched at this moment.

  “Seriously?” he asked, looking at me, taking my measure. “Why the fuck wouldn’t they? Who’s ever going to believe it? I didn’t report it to the police for that reason — I didn’t want my credibility questioned, and I didn’t want to draw negative attention to myself. I thought it would hurt my company.” He shook his head.

  “I didn’t know who’d done it, the evidence was destroyed, and I wanted to keep it private. I wanted to have my people look into it.” He stood up and scanned the pool, the fence, the sky. “And the next thing you know,” he said, sitting back down and lowering his voice even further, “I’m being charged with twenty different crimes. They didn’t kill me, but now they’re going to take everything, anyway. They’re going to put me in jail for the rest of my life, my Board is going to fire me and do whatever else the government wants. And they are going to dismantle my company, piece by piece.

  “Think about it,�
� he said, and looked back at me. “They can have the technology. They can eliminate its availability to other buyers. They can convince the Board that they shouldn’t have allowed me to offer it to other customers. And once I’m a convicted criminal, and I have absolutely no credibility left, the Board is certainly going to agree with them.

  “And that will be the end of my story. It’s perfect, really. What do you do if someone is standing in the way of what you want? Just crush them. Eliminate the problem to get to your goal. Who would ever believe it?”

  “So you think it’s them. The government. That’s watching you,” I said. “Watching us.”

  “I know they wanted exclusive rights to what I was making, so that’s one possibility. Of several.” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. My mind was racing.

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I don’t know. But I’ll update you on an as-needed basis.”

  We both regarded the pool. Then he turned back to me. “Do you trust me?” Walker asked.

  We took a long look at each other. And then I nodded, yes.

  For better or for worse, I thought.

  He grabbed my hand and dragged me swiftly towards the house. “I think we need to go grocery shopping,” he said too loudly, too brightly, once we were back inside. I looked at him like he was crazy and he smiled. “We’re almost out of coffee,” he said, by way of explanation.

  I just nodded at him, dumbly, and let him drag me out to the garage.

  He put me into the car and I realized that I might be in shock. I didn’t know if the shock was because I believed him, and I was petrified about what might be happening; or if it was because Walker was just crazy, and that was as scary to me as the alternative. I trusted him, but maybe my brain, trumped by raging hormones, was exercising bad judgment. I was breathing hard as he slammed the car door. What? The Fuck? Was going on?

  He backed out swiftly. He turned the radio on, loud. He looked at me and briefly put his finger to his lips as if to shush me, and then he looked straight ahead.