She flipped the code book she’d been reviewing closed and reached her arms over her head to stretch the kinks from her back. She’d spent the entire afternoon researching case law in hopes of unearthing an applicable precedent to use in her response to a motion to suppress evidence she’d received in the mail that morning from plaintiff’s counsel in the Gilson matter.
Preston Thomas was asserting that his client’s sexual history wasn’t relevant to the case. Joey held a different opinion. The fact that Patricia Gilson hadn’t been faithful in her marriage should be considered by a jury. A fact that certainly didn’t excuse her deceased husband’s philandering, but at least helped paint a better picture of the defendant. Natasha Pierce wasn’t quite the evil, husband-stealing witch the plaintiff wanted the jury to believe.
Sebastian sat in the chair opposite Joey’s desk, a thick file balanced in his lap. She tried to catch a glimpse, but the file was upside down, preventing her from reading the label.
A deep frown pulled his eyebrows together. “Why?” he asked.
“We have them once a month. It’s a Winfield tradition,” she said. “Look, it won’t be so bad. Liam’s survived several. And David certainly held his own with my family. You have nothing to worry about.”
He shot her a dubious look. “Do I have to decide right this minute?”
She flashed him a smile. “There’s nothing to decide. It was clearly a summons. I was specifically ordered to bring you to dinner.” Her gaze slipped pointedly to the file in his lap. “What’s that? New case?”
“I assigned you two new cases this week already.”
“Yes, but you took three away,” she reminded him.
“And I warned all of the associates there would be some shuffling of cases.”
She detected a hint of defensiveness in his tone. “I know,” she said and leaned back in her chair, giving him a flashy grin. “Didn’t you get my memo about Marshall v. Collins? I settled it this morning, so I really could use a new case file. Have we gotten any of those new med mal cases yet? I’d really love to work one of those.”
He didn’t smile in return as she’d hoped he would. “Actually,” he said, “you had another one of your cases settled today, too.”
She frowned as she tried to think if she had any other cases where she’d made a settlement offer, and came up blank. “Really? Which one?”
He leaned forward and set the file he’d been holding on the desk. “This one.”
Her gaze dipped to the label, and her frown deepened. “I didn’t make a settlement offer on Gilson,” she said, lifting her gaze to his.
“I know,” he said. “I did.”
She couldn’t have heard him right. He knew how important Gilson was to her. Why would he go behind her back? Just to prove to the senior partners he was the boss?
She tapped her pen impatiently on the desk. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday,” he said. “I reviewed the case and decided taking it to trial would’ve been a mistake.”
“You decided?” She hadn’t meant for it to sound like an accusation, but she couldn’t help herself. Gilson was her case, dammit.
“It’s my job, Joey.”
Frustrated, she tossed her pen on the desk. It skittered across the surface and slid to the floor at Sebastian’s feet. “You should’ve at least discussed it with me first.”
His expression turned dark. “When was I supposed to do that? When you were having a minor meltdown you wouldn’t tell me about? Or while I was stuck in a deposition all day?”
She gave him a cold stare right back. “You could’ve told me last night.”
“When would you have preferred? Before or after we made love?”
If he’d slapped her, she couldn’t have been more stunned. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I can’t believe you’re turning this into something personal.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, and you’re not?”
“No. It’s business, Joey. I talked with the adjuster yesterday afternoon and convinced him to offer the policy limits to the plaintiff. After a discussion with plaintiff’s counsel, he agreed to talk with his client. I had a call back within the hour that she’d accepted our offer.”
“No, it is personal.” She came out of her chair and slapped her palms on the desk. “You didn’t even bother to meet with the defendant. You had your mind made up about her the minute you heard what the case was about.”
Abruptly, he stood. “The hell I did.”
“Oh? No,” she argued heatedly. “You most certainly did. Natasha Pierce is the other woman, so in your mind, she’s the one at fault here. She lured Gilson, like she’s some evil seductress. If he hadn’t been screwing her, he might still be alive.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. You made your position perfectly clear.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“No, you wait,” she fired back at him. “You don’t know what happened between Natasha Pierce and Frederick Gilson. You don’t know what kind of marriage he had with Patricia Gilson. But because Natasha Pierce is the other woman, she’s as good as guilty in your opinion.”
“It would have been the jury’s opinion, too.”
She shoved off the desk. “You don’t know that,” she said, her voice rising.
“And you do?” he roared back.
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Gilson and Pierce were in love? That his marriage was over long before he ever started seeing her? The plaintiff might have been hurt, but that doesn’t mean it’s our client’s fault.”
“You’re condoning his actions?”
And then it struck her. Yes, he was making a moral judgment, of that she had little doubt. But his actions went so much deeper. “No, Sebastian,” she said lowering her voice. “I’m not. But sometimes people have reasons for the things they do. Reasons only they understand, or that make sense to them.”
Like her mother. Or maybe even her Grandmother Breckenridge. She hadn’t been there. She didn’t know why they’d chosen their particular paths, but she had to believe they’d done what they had because it had made sense to them at the time. Right or wrong, who was she to judge them?
“They’re not all selfish bastards,” she said quietly. “They’re not all like Emerson Stanhope.” Or Nathan Sprecht, the man who’d fathered Lindsay and Brooke, then abandoned her mother.
Sebastian’s expression turned to granite, his gaze glacial. The phone on Joey’s desk rang and she picked it up before it could ring a second time.
“Yes?” Her heart sank when she heard the voice of Barbara Johnson, the woman who ran the halfway house. One of the girls was in trouble. Could she help?
“I’m on my way,” she told Barb and hung up the phone. She looked at Sebastian. “I have to go. Will I see you Sunday?”
The look he gave her was hardly encouraging. “What do you think?” he said stonily, then turned and stormed out of her office.
She took that as a resounding when hell freezes over.
Chapter 14
A little before eleven-thirty on Saturday morning, after ringing the bell and not getting an answer, Joey used her old house key to let herself into her parents’ home on Hawthorn Drive where Brooke still lived. Brooke knew she was coming, she’d called both of her sisters last night asking them to meet her here at noon today, so she was mildly concerned that her sister wasn’t there to greet her.
It’d been close to midnight when she’d finally gotten home last night. One of the girls from the halfway house had been arrested on a possible parole violation, all because of the company she’d kept. Carla Brendell’s so-called boyfriend had been hauled in on suspicion of being involved in a string of home invasion robberies that had taken place in South Boston over the past two weeks. Because Carla had been with the jerk at the time he’d been taken in to custody, the arresting officer had taken her in for violating the conditions of her parole, after running a
wants and warrants check and discovering she was a parolee in the presence of a suspected criminal.
After some fast talking on Joey’s part with the district attorney, he’d finally agreed to release Carla back to the halfway house. Carla’s legal troubles hadn’t gone away. Monday afternoon she’d have to appear before the local magistrate, but at least she hadn’t had to spend the weekend behind bars.
Joey dropped her coat and bag on the chair in the foyer, then walked into the kitchen in search of her sister. A note from Brooke was tacked to the refrigerator with a magnet that resembled a book cover, indicating she’d run to the market and would be back before noon. Katie wasn’t due to arrive for another thirty minutes, but knowing her younger sister, Joey figured she’d show up an hour late.
She hadn’t heard from Sebastian since he’d stormed out of her office last night. There’d been no messages waiting for her when she’d gotten home from dealing with the mess with Carla, and no voice mail or text messages had been sent to her cell. Not that she blamed him for his silence. She hadn’t exactly fought fair. But then, in her opinion, neither had he when it came to the way he’d gone behind her back on the Gilson matter.
She supposed she did owe him an apology. Having all that spare time on her hands last night at the police precinct in South Boston, she’d been able to replay their argument. She couldn’t admit she was totally in the wrong. In her opinion, they were equally responsible, but it didn’t matter. She’d rather be with Sebastian than be right.
She filled the teakettle and set it on the stove, then left the kitchen. In the front parlor, she stopped to admire Brooke’s fish aquarium. “Hi, fishies,” she said, and lightly tapped the glass, smiling when one of the more colorful fish—a parrot cichlid, she believed Brooke had said it was—swam up to the glass as if in greeting. She dragged her finger back and forth across the glass, laughing when the fish followed her movements. “Who says fish are boring?”
She tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and watched the fish swim away. She loved this house, and loved that Brooke hadn’t made any sweeping changes. She would eventually, Joey knew, but for now she chose to enjoy the familiarity of it all. Practically every memory she had of her youth took place here. But what she loved the most was that she could still feel her mother’s presence, especially in Mother’s bedroom.
She left the parlor and climbed the stairs to the second level. Other than having cleared out most of their mother’s clothing items, Brooke hadn’t changed her room. Every wall, including the ceiling, was still papered in a busy pattern of yellow lilies on a blue background. The dark wood furnishings were a bit more masculine, but the room definitely had her mother’s stamp on it.
She pulled in a deep breath, smiling when she caught the light, lingering scent of her mother’s favorite perfume. Walking to the bed, she sat on the edge and drew her hand over one of the floral print throw pillows edged in lace. The room had been decorated with a feminine hand, but she recalled that her father hadn’t seemed to mind. That he’d loved her mother, and she him, was never in doubt.
So many fond memories, yet sad ones, too. Like the time she’d found her mother sitting on the bed, hugging a pillow to her chest, her face stained with tears. It hadn’t been quite a year after John Winfield had passed unexpectedly. Joey had asked her mother what was wrong. Her mother had managed a watery smile and simply said, “I was just talking to your father.”
Joey had automatically assumed the tears were because her mother missed her husband, but then she’d explained she’d been crying because she could no longer hear his voice. She could recall his words, but the exact timbre of his voice had begun to fade from her memory.
Joey had hugged her mother and together they’d cried. Six months later they’d wept again, when Daisy Winfield had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Joey swiped at the tears blurring her vision now. “I get it, Mom,” she whispered into the empty room. Her mother had been so in love with her husband, a part of her had given up when she’d lost him. Joey had always suspected as much, but now, standing in this room where her parents had loved, where they’d argued, where they’d laughed and planned and lived, and sadly, where both of them had passed on, she finally understood the power of the kind of love her parents had shared.
Joey flicked at the lace edge of the pillow with her finger. She knew it made little sense, but then she’d also come to understand that love rarely did. Love wasn’t logical or pragmatic. It was, as her mother would have said, what it was.
She let out a sigh and accepted the truth—that she, without a doubt, was in love with Sebastian Stanhope.
Even though he was angry with her at the moment, she didn’t doubt that he loved her, too. She might not have said the words to him yet, but she felt them in her heart. Only it was no longer enough. She had to tell him.
“What are you doing in here?”
Joey started at the accusatory note in Katie’s voice. “Just needing to feel a little closer to Mom,” she said. “You’re early.”
“Don’t get used to it. It’s a fluke.” Kate stepped more fully in the room. “I do the same thing, you know,” she said and sat on the bed beside Joey.
“What’s that?”
“Come here to feel a little closer to Mom,” Katie said. “I didn’t expect to find anyone in here.”
“Where is everyone?” came Brooke’s voice from downstairs.
“Up here,” Joey called out to Brooke. “In Mom’s room.”
A few moments later, Brooke stood in the doorway. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, giving her skin a soft glow. She wore a pair of sensible khakis, but her sweater was far from her usual oversized style. Instead, she wore a soft blue understated cashmere that accentuated her slender curves. Who knew? Brookie had a bod.
“I made the tea,” Brooke said. “And I bought fresh croissants and some chicken salad for lunch. Shall we go downstairs?”
Joey thought about that for a moment and finally shook her head. “Can it wait?” she asked. “It’s right that we talk in here.”
She felt her mother’s presence in this room, as if Daisy were giving her approval to Joey for the secrets she was about to reveal to her sisters. Maybe it wasn’t fate that had a hand in the dare she’d drawn at Chassy the other night, she thought. Maybe it was something else, something inexplicable, but so right.
A slight frown marred Katie’s perfect complexion. “What’s going on?” she asked Joey. “What was so important that we had to meet here?”
“Yes, that’s what I’d like to know.” Brooke crossed the room and sat in their father’s wing chair by the window. “Did you get one of those early detection pregnancy tests?”
Katie’s eyes widened. “Pregnant?”
One of Brooke’s eyebrows winged skyward. “She and Sebastian had unprotected sex.”
Katie’s mouth fell open in shock as she stared at Joey. “And to think you were the one who gave me a supply of condoms and showed me how to use them when I went off to college,” she said once she recovered from her initial surprise. “Geez, Joey. What are you? Sixteen?”
“No,” Joey said, sounding very much like a sixteen-year-old. She stood and walked to her mother’s bureau. She opened a drawer, but it was empty. “It just…happened.”
“Are we really going to be aunties?” Katie asked with a distinct note of excitement edging her voice. “And don’t worry. We won’t be anything like Great Aunt Jo. We’ll spoil her rotten. Not a single deportment lecture. We promise. Don’t we, Brooke?”
“Absolutely,” Brooke confirmed.
Joey smiled as she turned to face her sisters. “If you are going to be aunties, you’ll be the first to know. Well,” she added with a private smile, “after Sebastian, that is.”
“How does he feel about the possibility?” Brooke asked her.
She let out a sigh and rested her backside against the bureau. “We’re not speaking at the moment.”
Katie kicked off her
shoes and climbed onto the middle of the bed. She hugged a pillow to her chest, reminding Joey of their mother. “That’s not an answer,” Katie said.
“What happened?” Brooke wanted to know.
“Long story short, I overreacted.”
“Oh, like that’s a big surprise,” chided Katie. “You can get so pissy sometimes.”
“Are you going to tell us what the argument was about?” Brooke asked her.
“Just something at work.” Something that should’ve been business, but she’d gotten her panties into a twist and let it get personal. “It’s not important.”
“Important enough for you not to be speaking to each other,” Brooke said sagely.
“We’ll work it out,” Joey told them, and hoped she was right.
Okay, Joey thought. No more hesitating. “I appreciate the moral support, but that’s not why I asked you both to meet me here today.” She pulled in a quick, fortifying breath. “I had lunch with Reba day before yesterday.”
“How is she?” Katie asked, instantly concerned.
“Good. We talked about Mom.”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “We often do as well. She misses her.”
“We all do,” Katie said.
“We talked about Mom,” Joey said again, “about her past, specifically.” At her sisters’ confused expressions, she told them of the invitation addressed to their mother she’d found at Reba’s.
“An invitation to what?” Katie asked.
“A reunion,” Joey told them. “It was from Elegance Escort Service. Apparently Mom was once employed by them.”
Katie frowned. Brooke concentrated on plucking at a nonexistent piece of fuzz on the hem of her sweater.
Katie was the first to speak. “When you say ‘escort service,’” she asked cautiously, “you don’t mean that Mom…?”
“She was a paid escort, Katie,” Joey explained. “She went on dates with men who
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