by Moriah Jovan
She cleared her throat. “I, um, I— It was more than I expected, I think.”
“Frankly, it wasn’t nearly enough for me.”
“I don’t know you,” she whispered.
“Ah, but I wasn’t the one who issued the invitation, was I?”
Her breathing had calmed little by the time he had almost finished buttoning her up and her mind still whirled. “I think— Um— I think I need to go home.”
“Let me take you there.”
That was out of the question. Her nerves couldn’t take much more of this without giving him everything he wanted. Now. Tonight. As he’d demanded.
He was a stranger.
She’d lied to him.
She did not want him to know where she lived.
In twenty-five years of on-and-off with Knox, she had only once felt so out of control and so eager to give herself over to a man—on one glance, fifteen years before—and the wedding ring on that man’s finger had curtailed that in two seconds flat.
Knox didn’t do this to her; he never had. This was something she had never truly believed existed and, at the same time, always wanted.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
He said nothing for a moment; then, having finished his task with her only vaguely noticing, he pursed his lips. “Not in control now, are you?” he drawled, smug.
She gasped in outrage, but he shut her up with a harsh kiss, taking whatever she had to give and a whole lot of what she hadn’t intended to give him at all. It took a few seconds for her to decide whether to break the kiss or not.
Finally, Giselle pulled away from him with some difficulty and only succeeded because he’d once again underestimated her strength. “I don’t—” She hesitated and flinched at how it would sound. She cleared her throat again and said it anyway. “I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”
His eyebrow rose and he smirked. She flushed, mortified at what he must have already assumed about her. With that, she turned on her heel. She strode through the room and away from him without another word. Embarrassed, aroused, confused, and completely disoriented, she headed out the door and ran to the right.
“Giselle, wait!”
She heard his commanding roar, but she did not heed it. If she could make it out of the gallery without his catching her, she’d be lucky. However much of the rest of the evening was left, Sebastian was going to have to do his own distraction. She couldn’t take another second of this.
She clicked down the stairs, but stopped to hop and take off her shoes. She hiked her skirts over her knees, her Glock and stocking top clearly visible. Fen would have a heart attack that she’d come to his party armed and he’d make sure to inform her of his displeasure.
Away. She had to get away from that man, away from that room where she could never go back without memories of being half undressed and so almost taken on a Barcelona ottoman in an art museum by a stranger—a stranger who could’ve forced her.
No, no force necessary. She had a nine-millimeter strapped to her thigh that she’d completely forgotten. She could’ve wrapped her legs around his hips with it on and she still wouldn’t have remembered she had it.
That was a man who’d fuck her the way she wanted, until she begged for more. He’d taken her on—twice now—and completely overwhelmed her both times.
Feeling very vulnerable and very afraid of her own lust, of what was happening to her, of what he did to her, she ran through the European exhibits, down the second staircase and up the third, sprinted straight through Sculpture Hall, then Kirkwood Hall. Her stockinged feet slid on the polished stone floor when she took the ninety-degree turn to the north exit, and she had to touch the floor with her fingertips to keep both her speed and her balance. She looked over her shoulder to see him closing in on her. She burst out of the art gallery winded and ran halfway down the drive to the limousine. The driver recognized her and her distress, and quickly caught up with her. She didn’t give him enough time to get out to open her door; she threw it open and scrambled in. She thought she may have shut the door on her skirt. “Go, go. Go, please.”
The limousine had pulled around the horseshoe and down the drive when Kenard burst out of the gallery. She looked at him through the back window. Bent over, his hands on his knees, his chest heaving and his breath white in the frigid December air, he watched her leave.
* * * * *
13: CONTRIVED IGNORANCE
JANUARY 2006
“ . . . Changed my focus and didn’t get a chance to copy the new text list . . . ”
Unlike the rest of the class, Justice didn’t have any reason to groan at this news. She never bought textbooks until she knew what was absolutely necessary to her success in a class, so she had no books to exchange.
Her constitutional law professor droned on and she glanced down at the sheet of paper, scanning it to calculate an approximate cost. Her eyes widened in shock at one particular author’s name and she swallowed heavily, blinked, looked again. No, that couldn’t be. He would have told her . . .
Wouldn’t he?
Juell Pope, JD, LLM, PhD, author of half the textbooks on the list in her hand.
“ . . . Dr. Pope’s constitutional theories more in-depth this semester . . . ”
The lecture went on, but Justice barely heard it for the buzzing in her ears and the blurring of the titles in front of her.
“ . . . country lawyer up in River Glen, just north of Chouteau City, but died about six years ago. One of the greatest legal minds of the twentieth century. Ms. McKinley, something wrong?”
She looked up slowly at her professor as if in a daze. “No,” she croaked, cleared her throat. “No, I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. Deep betrayal cut through her soul. Why had she had to go to law school to find out her grandfather had been such a well-respected scholar?
Snatches of her grandfather’s teachings flitted through her mind. When her professor asked her a question meant to stump her, she answered it by rote, only vaguely aware of the semi-tense silence her answer had garnered.
Then, “Ms. McKinley, how did you know that?”
I know this material better than you ever will.
“Um, I— I don’t know. I, uh—” Justice panicked, trying to think of an answer that didn’t include because Juell Pope is my grandfather and he drilled this into me in my hayloft. She cleared her throat. “I happened to have read that for an assignment last semester, is all.”
“Really! Stay after class, please. I’d love to talk to you about it.”
I wouldn’t.
“Sure. Okay. Uh, no problem.”
Her after-class interview with her professor went more smoothly than she had expected, given her state of total shock and her instinct to keep her identity and accomplishments separate from her grandfather’s. The professor seemed impressed with Justice’s answers and requested that she email that particular assignment to her as soon as possible. With a lump in her throat, Justice agreed, though the assignment didn’t exist and it was just another fire to put out, albeit more emergent than the rest: Around campus, where everyone had laptops and every square inch was hot, ASAP meant, “by the time I get back to my office.”
She did have one paper, though, that she had written long ago under her grandfather’s direction; he’d decreed it adequate but certainly not up to her capabilities.
It would have to do.
Justice trudged out into the bitter January air in the direction of the student union to eat and get the books on her list. She drew wary glances and whispers as she passed clusters of law students here and there, but no one spoke to her. Mindful of the attention, she clutched her backpack straps more closely in front of her and pretended not to see.
At least no one mocked her to her face as Sherry had and the whispers she’d caught here and there contained no ridicule of her.
It was almost as if people were . . . afraid . . . to speak to her, but she had no idea why. Justice wasn’
t particularly shy; she spoke in class, but took care not to dominate the discussions. She didn’t sit on the front row and she made sure to make herself as inconspicuously conspicuous as possible. She thought she successfully projected the image of ambitious law student without being completely obnoxious about it.
But the fact was that she had no friends here. She couldn’t even count Giselle Cox, who flew from classes to study groups to the cafeteria and back again before she left campus around three. Justice was completely alone and except for the occasional murmured comment or question in class, almost no one had spoken to her in three semesters. She didn’t figure this semester would be any different and if anyone had connected her physical presence on campus with Justice McKinley, political commentator, she didn’t know it.
She bowed her head, as much to shelter herself from others’ observation and lack of camaraderie as from the sharp wind. Not for the first time, she wished she could do this law school thing online, where she felt safe, comfortable, confident, where no one could watch her and point at her and whisper about her.
Once in the warmth of the cafeteria, she fumbled with her burdens in front of the microwave, found a secluded spot after she’d sufficiently nuked her food, opened her laptop, and sent the paper her professor had requested. She dug into her lunch then and began to cruise her blogs.
It had only taken six months as a regular blogger at TownSquared for her to come to some national attention, augmented by the two articles she’d published in National Review; because of that exposure, other blog owners had reached out to her, requesting columns here and there, then more regularly. The blogging position at TownSquared overflowed her schedule, but with each new request came an offer of payment and that she wouldn’t refuse.
Conversation swirled around her as she began to write a new article. Her sudden brush with her grandfather’s greatness not an hour ago still rattled her, but as she thought about it, ideas for future blog posts inundated her. Her fingers burned through the keys as she typed, vaguely aware that the din and crush of lunchtime diners swelled.
“ . . . Hilliard’s not teaching in the fall.”
Justice stopped typing immediately, but attempted to disguise the fact that she’d begun to eavesdrop on the conversation behind her.
“I heard he’s taking a sabbatical for the next three, four semesters.”
“Shit.”
No kidding. Well, now at least Justice wouldn’t have to agonize over how to take one of his classes and pay for the extra gas, ever hoping her car didn’t simply expire on the highway somewhere. It didn’t matter anyway; Justice had a plan. She had no doubt that her CV would get his attention and earn her a coveted position in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office.
“I wouldn’t take a class from him. I don’t like him, don’t like his opinions, don’t like his politics or the way he runs that county up there.”
“You believe all that bullshit?”
“Look, where there’s smoke there’s fire. There’re plenty of lawyers coming out of that office talking about the mysterious cash that gets passed around. If one person calls you an ass, you figure they’re having a bad day. If three people do it, buy a saddle.”
Justice’s breath caught in her throat.
She’d heard the rumors, of course. Of that and other things, but she actively avoided such nonsense because, in her opinion, if he were guilty, he would have been arrested and put in prison. That was the way the system worked.
“Fucking Republicans. The only reason he keeps getting elected is because he killed that guy.”
Justice choked.
“Bullshit again. He wasn’t even charged for that, much less convicted.”
“It’s a racket. He’s a racket. One big fucking conspiracy and all the rednecks up there love him for it.”
“So do the women.”
“It’s that fucking bad-boy bullshit they like. Leaves us nice guys out in the cold.”
Justice shoved her earbuds in her ears and cranked up the tunes—she didn’t care what—unable to listen to such gossip one minute longer.
So do the women.
And how well did she know that! Half the women who walked around the law school halls bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t been quick enough during registration to get in his class that semester. Justice couldn’t stand to hear that many smart grown women squee like prepubescent girls over a boy band and she refused to play the adolescent games, even in private. No googling, no listening to gossip, and, since no one talked to her, no contributing to gossip, either.
Justice’s grandfather had taught her the value of dignity and in her opinion, that extended to the collecting of information about the object of one’s affections. It should happen organically, over time, with exposure.
Not with Google.
There was nothing anyone could say that would diminish the impact Knox Hilliard had made on her that day almost a year and a half before, but she didn’t want to take the chance. Plenty enough time to get to know him after she’d acquired the job that would give her daily access to him.
Her email chimed. The professor who had requested the paper her grandfather had thought merely average:
*
Justice, please come to my office at your earliest convenience. I would like you to submit this to the law review.
Dr. Smythe
*
Justice gulped, again unable to believe the words in front of her, but her attention caught when the diners around her stirred a bit. She looked to the door to see Giselle Cox walk in—well, strut, really—with Neal, an older (rather unattractive, in Justice’s opinion) law student with whom she ate lunch every day.
Justice wasn’t the best judge of appearance, but it seemed to her that Giselle was . . . average. If that. Curly dark blonde hair usually in a ponytail, light eyes, pale skin, and orthodontic-perfect teeth. Short, compact body dressed in the same sorts of things everyone else wore: faded jeans, a heavy yellow sweater, hiking boots. Really the woman was wholly unremarkable to Justice’s eye, except for a mysterious . . .something . . . that made people notice her and defer to her. It wasn’t just her age, although Justice figured that contributed to it; no, it was something more nebulous, some sort of intense energy.
Half the people Giselle and Neal passed stared at them openly, but neither noticed as they continued to talk and laugh on their way to get food.
Justice sighed, pulled the earbuds out of her ears, and began to shut down her laptop. She’d eaten well, written well, and generally done well today, not to mention the fact that she had learned she carried the DNA of “one of the greatest legal minds of the twentieth century.” It might take her a while to get used to the idea, to get over being angry with her grandfather for keeping that from her, but it did bolster her confidence.
“I wouldn’t touch Giselle Cox with my ten-inch pole and I don’t care that she’s cute,” came the voice of one of the men behind her. “She’d kick my ass.”
Believe in yourself and your opinions. Have faith. I don’t know you, but I’m very proud of you.
“You know,” replied his companion, “it’s not like she’s hot or anything, because she’s not, but there’s just something to be said for a woman with power.”
“And a gun stuck in her jeans.”
“Fuck, yeah.”
Justice gulped.
Power.
How Giselle got it, who gave it to her, why she deserved to have it, Justice didn’t understand, but she wanted to.
She just had to figure out how to go about getting some of it.
* * * * *
14: FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES
MARCH 2006
MEET ME AT TASSO’S TONIGHT AT 9:30
The terse email from his best friend—the one who’d pegged him so neatly so long ago, the one he hadn’t considered any kind of a friend for over a decade now—danced in front of his mind’s eye like the snowflakes under the street light in front of him. As he sat in his car in the restaura
nt’s parking lot, his vision blurred by the March late-season sleet collecting on his windshield, he didn’t have to wonder why he’d actually shown up.
Giselle.
Naturally, she would have shared what had happened in December with Knox, and Knox wanted to stake his claim.
The clock read 9:39 p.m. and still he debated whether to go in or not. The pain of betrayal had lessened with time, distance, and doubt, but had sharply resurfaced almost a year and a half ago at Leah’s visitation.
He braved the cold and ice to get to the door of the restaurant, his collar up and his scarf around his face. He didn’t really want to be seen with the Chouteau County prosecutor, but this was a good place to meet: dark and neutral. Plus, he loved Greek food, which was probably why Knox had picked it in the first place. Knox would have remembered that. Knox remembered everything.
Small lanterns on the tables in their private cubbyholes punctuated the dim interior. A floor show of belly dancers was in full swing and the waitstaff yelled enthusiastically back and forth at each other. Bryce knew no patrons would notice or identify him, but the staff here knew him all too well.
“Hi, Bryce,” said the hostess. “Come with me.” It vaguely disturbed him that she knew who awaited him. She led him to a dark corner. He didn’t sit.
“You’re late.”
“I’m always late.”
“I hate late. So. You want to make love to her and I’ve wanted to make love to her since before I knew what that was, and she chose you. Are we even now?”
Bryce didn’t pretend ignorance or misunderstanding, though that was not quite what he’d expected Knox to say, heavy sarcasm notwithstanding.
“I don’t want to make love to her,” he found himself replying.
Knox looked up at him, surprised.