by Hannah Ford
“Do you have a straw?” I asked the waitress, earning me a sharp look of disapproval from Noah.
The waitress didn’t say anything – she had that same blank expression on her face as the maitre’d -- but she reached into her pocket and pulled out a straw, set it down next to me, and then disappeared back through the door she’d come from.
The two men sat across from each other, staring each other down over the table. After what could only be described as a very uncomfortable silence, Penn finally spoke.
“Before we start, I’d like to say something off the record, if we could.”
“I don’t talk off the record.” Noah glanced at his watch, as if this whole meeting was a joke.
I picked up my straw and slid it into my juice, taking a sip. Surprisingly, it tasted good going down, cool and fresh, and after one sip, I had to force myself not to gulp more of it down.
Penn looked at me, his eyebrows raised and surprised by Noah’s hard line. He sighed, like he’d been trying to be friendly, but Noah was being impossible. “I’m sure you know, Charlotte, as a law student, that you have the right to choose your own representation, and that if you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you.”
He made it sound like he was looking out for me, but I knew this couldn’t be further from the truth, and I resented the fact that he thought I might be stupid enough to believe it. If he thought that I was going to turn on Noah, or that he could plant any seeds of doubt in my mind about Noah and his legal skills, then he was sorely mistaken.
“I’m perfectly aware of that,” I said coldly, staring across the table at him.
“Charlotte,” Noah said warningly. I knew he didn’t want me talking directly to Penn. Anything I said, no matter how innocuous, was going to shape the prosecutor’s opinion of me, and therefore the way he prosecuted his case. I wasn’t supposed to be antagonizing him or making him feel like he had some kind of personal vendetta against me. Which was why prosecutors usually didn’t meet with defendants.
“Is there anything you want to say on the record?” Noah asked Pen. “Because otherwise, I have work to do.” He took a last long draw of his coffee and then pushed his chair back, making like he was going to leave.
“On the record, then,” Penn said, and Noah stopped, sighed, and sat back down. “On the record, I want to say that I’m hoping that we can leave our past behind us, and not let it effect this case.”
Noah sat back in his chair, and looked across the table at Penn, fixing him with a blank stare. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, just… I mean, I remember how upset you were at the time.”
“Why would I have been upset?” Noah said, his lips turning into a smile, as if he were remembering a good memory or a salient victory. “I won the case.”
“Yes, you did.” The two men sat silently, the air wired with a tension so palpable that I was half-expecting one of them to reach across the table, grab the other one, and pull them up by their collar before beginning to pummel the other’s face. If it was going to happen, it would be Noah who started it.
I had no idea what Penn was talking about, had no idea on what case they’d been pitted against each other in the past, and I knew better than to ask. Noah was leaning back in his chair casually, but he didn’t fool me – he was about one second away from reaching across the table and throttling Penn.
I could just imagine me back down at the jail, only this time to bail Noah out for assaulting a government official.
“How is Audi, anyway?” Penn said. He reached over and took a sip of his green juice, reached into his briefcase and pulled out a yellow legal pad.
Audi.
So Penn had worked on Noah’s brother’s case? Why the hell hadn’t Noah mentioned that? Penn must have been Professor Worthington’s co-counsel. I took another sip of my orange juice and tried to hide my surprise, while mentally cataloging everything I knew about Audi’s case and Noah’s part in it.
Shit. Why the hell hadn’t I googled Penn Dylan? His role in Audi’s trial would have come up, I was sure of it.
Noah’s eyes narrowed. He was done pretending that he was okay with what Penn was saying.
“Are we here to talk about Audi?” he spat. “I didn’t know you were so interested in him. Shall I arrange a meeting between the two of you?”
Penn’s eyes blazed with annoyance. “No, that’s quite all right.”
Noah glanced at his watch again. “So then let’s get to the point.” I noticed he hadn’t taken out his phone, nor had he pulled out a pad of paper or anything like that. He was acting as if this meeting was completely inconsequential. “If you’re going to offer us a plea bargain, you can save it. The taxpayers of New York are going to be paying for this sham of a trial, and when you lose and they see how thin your case is, they’ll be excited to vote you the hell out.” Noah’s phone went off, and he reached into his jacket and took his time answering a text.
“I’m not here to offer you a plea deal.” Penn took a sip of his green juice. His eyes flicked over to me, and I took in a deep breath. “And I agree that our case is thin.”
Noah’s attention snapped back to Penn on this last statement. “Then why the hell are you prosecuting it?”
He shrugged. “I need a win.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” Penn leaned forward, and for the first time, I saw the glint of something in his eye, something … slightly evil. “Look, Colin Worthington killed Jason Cartwright. Do you think I don’t know that?”
“I don’t know what you know,” Noah said. “Since you seem to be making decisions that are incompetent and stupid.”
“I’m going to get a win, Cutler. If that means Charlotte takes the fall, then she takes the fall.”
Noah started at him incredulously. “So what you’re saying is that you don’t even care if Charlotte did it? That you’re knowingly prosecuting someone you believe is innocent?”
Penn scoffed at this. “Spare me the ethics lecture, Cutler. Like you’ve never defended someone you thought was guilty.”
“No jury will convict her,” Noah said. He sounded completely sure, but my stomach was turning.
“Maybe.” Penn shrugged and brushed an imaginary piece of lint off his sleeve. “Juries are fickle. They might not like Charlotte. She’s a law school drop-out, she’s been known to frequent a very hardcore BDSM club. She’s dating a billionaire. She’s not very relatable.”
I could taste the orange juice coming up, burning the back of my throat. What Penn was saying wasn’t unexpected – of course I knew the prosecution would paint me in a sordid light, would bring up things from my past or try to show that I was a bad person, anything to taint the jury.
Hell, I was doing the same thing in reverse by making sure that I wasn’t photographed out having too much fun, and by wearing clothes that made me seem innocent, etc.
But to hear it firsthand, to hear it put out there like that… to hear someone talk about you as if you weren’t a person, but just a pawn they could destroy in order to further their career…
It made me sick.
“Yes, well, the jury will decide.” Noah was furious, I could tell. I put my hand on his under the table, and squeezed. Calm down. Let’s get out of here before you go postal on this asshole.
Noah got the message and stood up, his 6’3” height on full display as he squared his shoulders and buttoned his suit coat. “I think this meeting was very fruitful,” he said. “Thank you for letting us know you have no case. Of course, that won’t stop me from doing everything I can to humiliate you in front of the judge.” We were halfway to the door when Penn spoke.
“Of course,” Penn said. “There’s one thing that could get the charges dropped.”
I stopped, but Noah put his hand on my back, and pushed me gently toward the door. He was done with Penn Dylan, done with playing this game. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the self-control
Noah did, didn’t have the poise or the experience.
Maybe I was naïve.
But I didn’t care.
I needed to know what he was going to say, even if it led nowhere.
“What?” I asked.
“Charlotte!” Noah said.
“Colin Worthington,” Penn said simply.
“What about him?” I asked.
“Find him.”
I shook my head. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“He’s in love with you, isn’t he?” Penn shrugged. “Someone’s going to go down for this murder, Charlotte. It’s going to be you or him.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
I expected to feel scared.
But I didn’t.
All I felt was rage.
“You want me to use myself as bait?” I asked. “You’re using the threat of jail time to get me to do your investigative work for you?”
“Please, Charlotte, I wouldn’t ask you to do investigative work for me.” He sighed, like the idea of that was preposterous.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t really care who goes away for this murder. It’s going to be you or Colin Worthington. And if you don’t want it to be you, then I’d get to work finding him.”
He wasn’t able to elaborate any further.
Because Noah flew across the room then, his fist connecting with Penn Dylan’s face.
“You broke your hand.”
“I didn’t break my hand, Charlotte.”
“It’s all swollen.”
“I’ll survive.” Noah pulled his hand away from me. We were in the back of the car, driving toward our appointment at the OB’s office on the Upper East Side. After Noah had punched Penn in the face, we’d gotten out of Mahogany Rail.
“Are you going to get in trouble?” I asked.
“For what?”
“What do you mean, for what? For punching him!”
“In trouble with who?” Noah said. He frowned, like the thought of him getting in trouble with anyone was ridiculous.”
“I don’t know. The police. The bar. The prosecutor’s office.”
“Are you planning on telling anyone what happened in there?”
“No.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about.”
I rolled my eyes. “Penn will be the one you have to worry about, Noah, not me.”
“Penn Dylan won’t tell anyone anything, because if there’s one thing he doesn’t like, it’s to appear weak.” He caught me looking at his knuckles. “Charlotte, I’m fine.”
“Maybe we can ask the doctor if he’ll take a look at it. Just in case.”
We were weaving through the Manhattan traffic now, and the midmorning rush was in full swing. Manhattan was coming alive now, commuters scrambling down the sidewalks with their coffees and muffins, people barking into cell phones, young people running to the subway so they wouldn’t be late for school or work.
I remembered how that was, taking the subway to school.
Now I was chauffeured around.
A thought niggled at the back of my mind, something that was bothering me that I couldn’t shake.
“Noah –”
He shut off his iPad. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” He took my hand and placed it in his. “You want to know why I didn’t tell you about Penn Dylan being the co-counsel on Audi’s trial.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t pertinent.”
I opened my mouth.
“I get it. You want to know things now.”
“No, Noah, I don’t want to know things now. I’ve always wanted to know things.”
He sighed, and I looked at him, this beautiful man that was mine. “Does it change how you feel?” he asked, carefully averting his eyes.
“About what?”
“About me representing you.”
“No,” I said honestly. I trusted him one hundred percent. Noah would never put me in danger, would never do anything that would make me more likely to get convicted.
“Does it change how you feel about us?” It was a rare moment of vulnerability from him, and I wondered again how it was that I, Charlotte Holloway, could have this kind of effect on a man this successful, this beautiful, this perfect.
“Never,” I said, my hands curling around his.
“I want to tell you something,” he said. “In the spirit of starting to tell you things.”
“Okay.” I braced myself, waiting for whatever it was, telling myself that no matter what he said, no matter if it was shocking or upsetting or scary, I needed to show him I was capable of handling it. Because I was capable of it.
He could be in charge in the bedroom, but we needed to be equal everywhere else. He was so dominant, so used to owning everything, and his need to control me and take care of me was so intense, it would be difficult.
But I was a person.
And he wouldn’t want someone who he could overshadow. He might have complained about me pushing back on him, not listening to him, but it was one of the reasons he loved me, one of the reasons we were soul mates.
He hesitated, and I loved the rare moments he was like this, when I could see just the tiniest crack in his perfect façade.
“What is it?” I said. “Tell me.”
He pulled me close to him, his breath tickling the spot under my ear. “I really, really want this baby,” he said.
And even though I knew I’d vowed not to show any emotion, I broke into a huge smile as he began to kiss me.
He was back in control right away, barking at the receptionist in the doctor’s office ten minutes later, looking around the waiting room with a look of skepticism. Two women sat in chairs, texting on their phones, and a toddler who must have belonged to one of them sat in a corner playing with a toy train.
Magazines were strewn about on every available surface, and a keurig sat on the other side of the room, next to a basket filled packets of sweet n’ low and sugar. A tiny refrigerator with a glass door showed a stack of water bottles inside.
“Don’t be a snob,” I said.
“Who’s being a snob?” Noah asked, sounding like the idea of him being a snob was ludicrous.
“You are.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“I’ll have you know that the other doctor you sent me to had chrome fixtures and cucumber water and a tray with nettle tea or something.” I frowned, trying to remember. “And we all know how that turned out.”
“You need to have the best care.”
“I need to have the right care for me,” I said, and I saw his eyes narrow at my back talk.
But before he could reply, a nurse called my name, and we were led into an exam room.
The nurse pulled out my chart and began taking my blood pressure. Her name was Jenny, and I liked her right away – she was blond and efficient, friendly and warm, but I could tell she was knowledgeable, too. She seemed like the kind of person you’d want on your side during a crisis.
“So you had your records sent here from Dr. Solomon’s office, correct?” she asked, as Noah hovered over us, watching the numbers on the blood pressure monitor to make sure they were normal.
“Yes,” I said.
“Blood pressure’s great,” Jenny said, making a note of it on my chart. “And have you had a prenatal visit yet?”
“No.”
“Well, congrats Mom and Dad,” she said, smiling. I felt Noah tense at the word dad, but I smiled back at her.
“The doctor will go over your tests and decide if he’s going to do an ultrasound today. Until he comes in, why don’t you take a look at these pamphlets.” She held out an array of brochures, all of them with titles like You’re Pregnant, Now What? and Introduction To A Perfect Birth Plan.
I took them, and Jenny left the room. Noah stood next to me, and took my hand, holding it tightly over the table
.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine, Charlotte.”
The door opened then, and the nurse poked her head back into the room. “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure – so you had a blood test at Dr. Solomon’s, is that correct?”
“Yes,” I said.
I watched as she bit her lip, and looked away from me. Her cheery expression was gone now, replaced by something else. It was a look I knew well from when my dad was sick. It was the look you gave someone when you didn’t want to tell them bad news.”
“What’s wrong?” Noah demanded.
“Is something wrong with the baby?” My voice sounded like it was coming from far away, echoing around me like I was speaking in a tunnel.
“I’ll have the doctor come and talk to you,” she said. “He should be here in just a minute.”
“Fuck that,” Noah said. “You’ll tell us now.”
“Noah,” I said. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, but I really shouldn’t …the doctor will be right here.” And with that, she hurried out of the room, shutting the door behind her, leaving us with nothing to do but wait…
The End of Book Twenty-Six
Look For Book Twenty-Seven, Coming Soon!
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