Redeemed
A Billionaire Second Chance Romance
Lost Love Series Book One
Marcella Swann
© Copyright 2018 by Orléans Publishing. All rights reserved.
It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
About the Author
Introduction
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Elliot’s got a billion in the bank,
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Chapter One
My morning coffee had long run out by the time I stepped through the doors of the building. I’d been grinding on the felony extortion case for six months straight, working all hours of the day and night. And finally it had--thankfully--paid off about an hour ago when the jury had turned in a not guilty verdict. It felt good, and the adrenaline had gotten me through the obligatory post-courtroom press conference, but as soon as I was in my car, heading back to the firm, I felt a slump.
“Becky, could you do a Starbucks run for me? My usual--but with an extra shot,” I said, as I passed my receptionist on the way to my office.
“Sure thing, Ms. Evers,” Becky said. “Should I get something for your client, too?” I stopped in my tracks.
“I don’t have a client,” I told her.
“You do,” Becky said, nodding. “I didn’t see it on your agenda, but Mr. Harrison said that the guy is definitely a client and had me show him into your office.” I stared at my receptionist for a moment, trying to make sense of what she’d just said. I had expected to come back to my office, have some coffee, do a little paperwork, and then, maybe, at the end of the day, look for my next client. I definitely had no prospects in mind already. But if Harrison--the senior partner at my firm--had insisted on someone being a client, it was probably a referral, and I couldn’t exactly afford to go against him.
“I think whatever I have in my office will suffice for him,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. I smoothed my hands against the fabric of my blazer and squared my shoulders, telling myself that it would be fine; I’d jumped from case to case before. When I’d been working to get offered the partnership, I’d managed to keep tabs on five cases at a time—which, for private criminal defense, was a large load. I turned away from the receptionist desk and continued to my office putting on my best and most professional smile on my face to greet my new client.
“Thank you so much for waiting for me,” I said, as I went through the door. “I was just wrapping up a case for another client and…” I stopped again, in the midst of closing the door behind me, to stare at the man waiting in the seat in front of my desk. I hadn’t seen him for ten years, or near enough--but I could recognize him like I’d spent every day of my life in his presence.
“I figured it’d be better to try and catch you before you found another case,” Shawn Peterson said, rising to his feet. He extended his hand to me. “I do kind of wish I had a better reason for coming to see you though, Cyn.”
I finished closing the door and tried to regain my composure. Of all the people in the world who could have been in my office, I would never have expected to see Shawn Peterson, my former high school sweetheart, waiting for me. “What the hell are you doing here, Shawn?” I stepped past him, ignoring his outstretched hand, and sat down at my desk. “I hadn’t heard you were in legal trouble.” I couldn’t resist smiling then; there was a wicked little part of me that was pleased at the prospect of the man, who’d broken my heart when we were teenagers, running afoul of the law.
“I’m not, my father is,” Shawn said. I raised an eyebrow at that. Shawn Peterson Senior, who had thought that a scrappy, lower middle-class girl, daughter of a waitress who worked double shifts to keep the electricity on, wasn’t good enough for his son. He had probably thought that his own blood wasn’t just blue, but made of gold, and now he had landed himself in legal trouble. How very scandalous! What will the people at the country club think? I took a quick breath and exhaled slowly.
“Give me one good reason why I should have anything to do with you, your father, or whatever his case is,” I told him. Shawn sat down and met my gaze levelly.
“I would have gone with ‘help out a former friend,’ but I’m guessing that’s not really where your feelings are at right now,” Shawn said, smiling slightly. “So instead I’ll go with the fact that we can afford to pay you anything. Money is no object. I just want to get my father’s name cleared.”
“I’m not that greedy,” I told him, shaking my head. “There are some things I just won’t do for money. I’m a lawyer, not a prostitute.”
Shawn half-smiled. “Seriously? I mean, I know you’re not a prostitute or anything--not even the kind of lawyer that would take any case that comes her way. But I was hoping that I could at least offer you enough money to do it.”
I shook my head again.
“Shawn, the last person on earth that I would want to help is your father,” I told him bluntly. “You’re probably number two or three.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him steadily. He didn’t deserve to look as good as he did; he should have gotten fat, or started going gray early--something like that, to vindicate me for the fact that he’d dumped me the way he had.
Shawn rose to his feet. “I actually thought you might say something like that,” he told me. “I know you have good reasons to hate me and my father, but I hope you’d want to make sure that an innocent man doesn’t go to jail.” I stared at Shawn for a moment and burst out laughing.
“An innocent man? Shawn, your father hasn’t been innocent for at least thirty years,” I said.
“He’s innocent of the charges against him,” Shawn insisted, his expression losing the confident smile and taking on a firmer look. “There are plenty of things he and I have done that we probably deserve at least some comeuppance for, but the charges against him are all fake.” I didn’t want to believe him; of course Shawn Peterson Senior had done something that had run him afoul of the law--I couldn’t imagine that any less than a quarter of his business dealings were suspicious. There had been rumors even back in high school, and what little I’d heard about Shawn since he’d graduated and gone on to work for his father told me that the apple hadn’t fallen
far from the tree.
“If he’s really innocent like you’re saying, there shouldn’t be any problem at all with clearing his name,” I pointed out. “You could find a lawyer who actually wants the case.”
“I don’t want just any lawyer,” Shawn said, holding my gaze steadily. “I want you.”
“Why?” I uncrossed my arms and sat up in my desk chair. “Why on earth would you choose this moment to invade my life again?”
“Because I’ve been following your career,” Shawn said. “I have to say, it’s almost like you decided to get this successful just to spite me.” He flashed that grin again and I felt a familiar--unwanted--flutter in my stomach. It was the same look he’d given me more than a few times when we’d been dating, just on a more mature set of features.
“There are lots of successful criminal defense attorneys,” I pointed out.
“They aren’t you,” Shawn said. I was almost flattered that he had, apparently, watched my career well enough to know how good I was; but I was also disgusted--a little bit--that he thought he could just show up in my office and demand my help. “Name your price,” he said. I considered refusing outright, because of all the cases I could work on, Shawn’s was the last one I wanted. But I paused. If I just refused, I would only be encouraging him to keep going. If I named a number--an absurd one--I might be able to get him out of my office, so I could enjoy a quick break before I looked for a new case.
“Twelve hundred dollars an hour,” I said quickly. It was three times my usual hourly rate. “And I’d want a retaining fee of fifteen thousand dollars before I even look at the case. And that hourly rate will apply to each individual charge.” It was absolutely absurd, that amount of money. And depending on the type of crimes Shawn Sr. was accused of, it could amount to over $150,000 per charge.
“Done,” Shawn said, without even batting an eyelash. I was stunned. Even billionaires--I thought--had a certain standard for spending money. He could have easily gotten a criminal defense lawyer for my usual rate, or maybe twice of that, with a much lower retainer.
“I still don’t want to do it,” I said.
“Think of what you could do with that kind of retaining fee,” Shawn said. “Besides which, can your firm really afford to turn down--what, maybe half a million dollars or more?”
“What do you know about my firm?” I scowled at him.
“I have done my research, Cyn,” Shawn said, smiling confidently. “Why don’t you confer with one of the senior associates? I’d recommend chatting with Paul Harrison.” I stared at Shawn for a long moment, even more shocked than I’d been when he’d accepted my proposed rate without even thinking--and that he’d done the math to know what I was demanding.
Becky had mentioned that Mr. Harrison--Paul--had said that the man in my office was definitely a client. “What did you do?”
Shawn smiled even more broadly, if that was possible. “Why don’t you go chat with him?”
I wanted to refuse, but my curiosity had gotten the better of me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, taking a quick breath to get my composure back before I went into Harrison’s office.
I left Shawn seated across my desk and walked down the short hallway that led from my office to the senior partners’ domain. Paul had his door open, and I knocked on it briefly before stepping through it to get his attention.
“Cynthia! Glad you’re back--I referred a client to your office,” he said. He looked pleased, and I felt like I had somehow managed to swallow a lead cannonball in the past ten minutes. I closed the door behind me.
“How do you know Shawn Peterson? And why on earth did you send him to me?” Harrison had been in the trade for longer than I had been alive. He wasn’t quite at retirement age, but he clearly had fended off going gray with the help of a salon, and had held off wrinkles--at least the most obvious ones--with plastic surgery. It had been a big win for me to get my first job with the firm he co-owned, since he was a major name in criminal defense.
“Shawn spoke with me about a day or two ago,” Harrison said, sitting back in his chair. “We came to very nice terms--he was very generous in his gratuity for consulting with me.” I knew what that meant: Shawn had paid Harrison good money.
“So what you’re saying is that he’s my client whether I want him or not,” I countered. Harrison shrugged.
“You are always free to turn down clients, but, of course, you do have a review coming up in six months...and I’m sure someone like Shawn Peterson could afford a very valuable fee.”
I frowned.
“I asked for twelve hundred an hour per charge, plus a fifteen thousand dollar retaining fee,” I admitted.
“Then it seems we’re on the same page, Ms. Evers,” Harrison told me firmly. “I’m sure you’ll do excellent work on the case.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew that there was no way that I could convince Harrison to let me out of giving into Shawn’s demand. There was no way that Shawn would agree to pay that kind of legal fee to Harrison--even if he was more experienced and just as good as I was. I had to take the case.
Chapter Two
I’d told Cynthia, when she came back from speaking with her boss, that if I was going to pay close to half a million dollars for my father’s defense, I was going to be deeply involved, and I’d meant it. So, a few days after I signed the check to pay her retainer, I was at the jail with my father, waiting for her to arrive for her first meeting to talk about the charges against him.
“You’re sure about this? You’re spending a lot of money on this lawyer,” Dad said.
“You saw her record,” I told the old man. “She’s lost two cases in the past three years, and won forty.”
“Just the fact that she’s worked forty-two cases in three years is pretty damn impressive,” Dad admitted.
“She’s the best in the city,” I said. “She works at one of the most prestigious criminal defense firms in the state. She’s perfect for this.” Dad gave me a skeptical look, but he didn’t argue any further.
The guard knocked on the door and opened it. Cynthia came into the room. Even though I’d seen her a couple of days before, I was shocked by how good she looked. Her hair was pulled back into a tight, controlled bun, and I was pretty sure she had makeup on--a pro like her wouldn’t be caught dead without it--but it wasn’t overdone. She had arrived in a pair of tailored pants and a blouse, casual for a high-powered attorney, but even that super professional outfit didn’t stop me from making out the curves of her body. She was hot enough that there was a very real risk that she would make the women on the jury envious, every last one of them. She was hot enough that I was sure part of her win record was due to the fact that probably every prosecutor she’d gone up against had immediately assumed she didn’t know anything about her job.
But I knew better. “Thank you for waiting,” Cynthia said, glancing at me and then looking at Dad. “I’ve reviewed the charges against you, and to be honest, I am shocked they weren’t brought sooner.” I wanted to laugh; I couldn’t help myself.
“You’re my lawyer. It’s not your job to judge me,” Dad said brusquely.
“I’m your lawyer, and it is my job to do everything I can to keep you from being convicted,” Cynthia countered. “And your own record and reputation work against you.”
“What do you mean?” Dad frowned at her.
“She’s talking about the news stuff,” I said. I was all of seventeen when the first major scandal about my father’s business affairs hit newspapers and tabloids.
“That’s not relevant to the case,” Dad insisted.
“What’s relevant is that you’re already viewed by most of the state, and a pretty substantial chunk of the country, as basically a crook,” Cynthia said. “That makes it harder to convince them that you’re innocent.”
“I am innocent,” Dad said.
“He is,” I agreed. Cynthia took a folder out her briefcase and sat down at the table across from my father.
&
nbsp; “We have two charges of embezzlement, two of grand larceny, and a charge of fraud,” Cynthia said, flatly. “I have to tell you right now, as your lawyer…” she might have paused significantly there, and I thought I saw her glance at me, “… that it is going to be hard convincing people on a jury that, with your record of shady dealings, you aren’t guilty of being this shady.”
“So what are you saying?” I looked at Cynthia steadily, waiting for her to answer me.
“I’m saying that we’re going to have to get everything straight, and you two can’t hide anything from me,” she replied finally.
“So even you don’t believe I’m innocent,” Dad said, almost sulking.
“I don’t believe one way or the other,” Cynthia said. “But I’m going to stress that you have to be completely and totally honest with me, if we’re going to have any chance of beating these charges.”
“Fine,” Dad said. I looked at him and then at Cynthia, and thought to myself that Dad didn’t even recognize her; he had no idea who she was, other than a high-powered attorney. He didn’t know she was the girl he’d forced me to dump in high school. If he had, I was sure he would have commented on that factor.
“Where were you on the dates that the money transfers allegedly happened?” Cynthia took out a digital recorder. “And if you have an issue with being recorded then that’s tough shit because you’re being recorded by the jail anyway.”
“I know,” Dad grumbled. “The night of the first transfer, I was out with a friend. We’d gone into New York City to see a show.”
Redeemed: A Billionaire Second Chance Romance (Lost Love Book 1) Page 1