by Moriah Jovan
Who was she really?
Just a lonely, confused, nobody baby lawyer sitting on a bed in a motel in St. Louis, Missouri, armed, ready and able to take on the world, but with no path, no direction, no plan.
Who was she? Wait, no. That was the wrong question. Who she was would always be in flux as long as she didn’t know what she wanted to be—
Her eyes popped open.
—and had never known until she’d met Giselle Cox.
Powerful.
I can’t teach you how to be that . . . You have to come to it on your own, through hardship and fear . . . Power is acquired, earned.
Justice had had a very short and sweet taste of power standing in the middle of Missouri in a QuikTrip, armed, paid deference by two state troopers because of whom she represented.
She liked it, but she’d like it a lot more if she could command that kind of respect on her own. It would take her years to acquire that kind of power without guidance, a shoulder to lean on occasionally, some validation.
What you wanted from me was to teach you to be powerful and I told you I couldn’t do that . . . Knox can and he will if you let him.
The enlightenment she sought began to bloom in her mind like a lotus. It unfolded and spread until it supported the whole of her soul. She began to shake it out, distill it.
Knox was her guidance.
. . . you haven’t been treated any differently than any other new resident we’ve ever had.
With regard to her training as a lawyer, no, she hadn’t. She saw that clearly now. He wielded his scalpel with exquisite precision in a relatively safe environment where he could catch his baby lawyers if they fell under his sharp edge.
Everything he had done and said to her from the moment he hired her had been designed to break her down, force her to work against him to make her stronger, like a muscle. He’d goaded her, baited her with increasing intensity to make her focus on him, to keep her from disengaging or cowering in fear, to keep her in the fight, to make her comfortable with confrontation and, in her case, sexual confrontation.
She’d thrown a tire at him.
She’d threatened him with a sexual harassment suit.
She’d spit in his face.
She’d never backed down when he’d gotten in her face.
She’d thrown his tyranny back at him.
She’d slapped him for making her a slave and dared him to hit her back by threatening his life.
She’d made him work for her acquiescence out in the grass, but her breaking point had come as a shock to both of them. He’d backed off immediately, cocooned her in his warmth, apologized, kissed away her pain; bathed her, dressed her, put her to bed.
Knox had taken away everything she had, given her everything she needed to be the woman she wanted to be, then set her free with years of training he’d packed into eight weeks.
You have to be honest with yourself about what you really want.
To work in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office. Check.
To be powerful. Check—or at least getting there with a good push in the right direction and all the tools and trappings she needed.
To have some sort of personal relationship with Knox Hilliard. Check.
East or west? She still didn’t know, but she couldn’t stay in a cheap motel in St. Louis indefinitely. She had to make decisions because she had no backup plan. Now she had too much disparate information, her options too numerous and foreign to sort through efficiently.
West:
To fight a good fight with people like Sebastian Taight and Giselle Cox and Bryce Kenard against a man who had murdered an innocent woman to keep what rightfully belonged to Knox. They thought her their equal, worthy of their regard, capable of joining the fight and taking on Fen Hilliard if she had to.
East:
To flee from a man who would kill her if he knew Knox had used her to fulfill half of the condition of his inheritance. For whatever reason, Knox had changed his mind and sent her away, given her back the freedom he’d taken from her. She could take back her life and everything he’d given her to continue east to do wonderful things, perhaps change the world.
You have to be honest with yourself about what you really want.
Justice sucked in a deep breath at that and closed her eyes again when she finally stumbled into the heart of it. Yes. The truth will out.
She still wanted Knox as her lover, in spite of everything.
She gulped.
. . . if it means the difference between making love to you and not, I’ll catch you every time.
And Knox wanted Justice to be his lover.
His kisses. His hands in her hair. His mouth on her breasts. His naked body against hers. His fingers inside her, making her arch her back and feel that glorious blossom and pop. His husky baritone rolling over and over in her mind, telling her what he wanted to do to her, what he wanted her to do to him, fanning the flames, making her want him in spite of everything else he had done to her.
She sighed and shrugged, opened her eyes, turned off the music. Trapped between Fen and Knox Hilliard, between what she wanted and who she wanted to be, she again found herself with no choice whatsoever.
Her mind and her soul at ease, she slept like the dead.
* * * * *
79: I ALREADY BOUGHT THE DREAM
Justice walked into the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office after lunch. All conversation stopped and Eric’s jaw dropped. Ignoring everything, she went to her desk and dumped her stuff on it as if nothing were different about today than any other day she arrived late to work.
Knox strode angrily into the office and she got a chance to study him for a moment: his haggard face, his strained voice, the exhaustion that underlay it all. He went straight to Eric’s desk to begin a rant, and Eric ignored him, still staring at Justice.
He slammed his palms down on Eric’s desk and barked, “Cipriani! Pay attention! What the fuck is your problem?”
Eric’s gaze went to Knox’s then and with a small jerk of his chin, he said, “Look.”
Knox’s head whipped around and his eyes widened when he saw her. Nobody spoke, nobody moved.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Justice murmured as she sat and began to sort through the files she’d left behind two days before, not daring to look up at him. “It won’t happen again.”
Knox unfolded to his full height slowly and turned to face her. He sat back on Eric’s desk and crossed his arms over his chest, and one ankle over another.
“That’s what you say every time you’re late, McKinley,” he growled. “I oughtta fire your ass.”
She glanced up then and raised an eyebrow. “You can’t. You haven’t laid any paper on me and I’ll sue you for wrongful termination.”
He pursed his lips as he stared at her, then he barked, “Thanks for the tip. I’ll remember that,” before he stalked back into his office and slammed the door.
Justice went about her business as usual, expecting that at some point, Eric would—
“Why are you here?” he demanded, leaning over her desk at 4:30 after everyone except Knox had gone home. Knox was downstairs in the sheriff’s department yelling at Raines for causing him to lose a case. That happened a lot with Raines, she’d learned; he’d burned every attorney in that office several times with sloppiness bordering on outright sabotage and Knox more than most—which was why Knox unofficially relied more heavily on the Kansas City Police Department and state troopers than he was supposed to.
“He sent you away for a reason, Justice,” he snapped when she refused to answer the question. “You weren’t supposed to come back and you were supposed to sign your annulment.”
“Fen Hilliard’s got bigger problems than whether Knox fulfills the terms of the proviso or not.”
He backed off and stood to his full height, his black eyes wide. “You know?”
“Yes, Eric,” she muttered dryly. “I’m fairly decent at researching, and getting married at gunpoint
certainly warranted a little bit of it.”
“Fen will have you murdered if he finds out.”
Justice chewed on the inside of her cheek and nodded slowly. “I figure so. But. There are worse things than dying over a matter of honor.”
He stared at her speculatively and for quite a long while; she returned his gaze, daring him to say it. Finally, he did. “Honor has nothing to do with it.”
“Now that you mention it,” she snapped, “you’re absolutely right about that and you probably knew that from day one.”
“I did,” he returned sharply. “I don’t know exactly why he wanted me to interview you, Justice, but I had no intention of hiring you.”
“Got that part, thanks. The right questions are: Why did he marry me? And then turn around and let me go after all that hoopla?”
Eric said nothing for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t know. Knox does a lot of things that don’t make sense to me.”
“Apparently, you’re not the only one.”
He took a deep breath and stared at her desk, using a fingernail to absently pick at nothing. “Well, for what it’s worth,” he said, releasing his breath in a long whoosh, relief now evident in every syllable, “you have no idea how happy we are that you came back.”
* * * * *
80: DON’T WRAP IT UP
Knox’s SUV was gone by the time she wrapped up her day and drove home.
Home. Hers. Hers and Knox’s. Together.
She found her way through the labyrinthine suburban streets to the back corner of the subdivision where she lived now. The gate was open and she parked in the driveway.
I bet she wants to fuck Knox Hilliard as much as I do . . . She wouldn’t know what to do with him if she had him.
She sighed and dropped her head on the steering wheel, tears dripping down her nose because now she was here by her own choice and she didn’t know how this would turn out. She felt sad and amused and melancholy and frightened and hopeful all at the same time. She scrounged around on her key ring for what might be the front door key, but she couldn’t find one.
He had never expected she’d come back. To him. To fight his fight with him. To see what could be if she were here freely, to be his wife and his lover and the mother of his children, like she’d dreamed of. She’d been handed her fantasies on a silver platter and she wanted to live in them for however long that lasted.
She popped her trunk and got out, slammed the driver’s door, and started unpacking her car.
Her eyes were dry and scratchy. Her brain was tired from working through the tangle of emotions, which she couldn’t do until she knew a few more things.
Like why Knox did everything so bassackwards.
She slammed the trunk lid closed and at that moment, she heard the front door open. Well, now she wouldn’t have to ring the doorbell of her own house.
Knox strode across the lawn toward her, an expression on his face she couldn’t decipher. The setting sun in the west splashed across his hair and his face. When the small beveled diamond panes in the windows caught the sun, they shot gold prisms onto him like raindrops. He was the sun.
His well-worn jeans rode low on his hips and did nothing to hide the strength in his legs—the ones that had outrun her their first night together. Likewise, his plain white tee shirt did nothing to hide the vivid musculature of his chest and arms. She remembered what his bare chest looked like, remembered how it had felt against her bare breasts, and she couldn’t help those sensations in the pit of her belly.
Knox Hilliard, her boss. Her husband.
Her lover.
He stopped right in front of her and just looked at her. She did nothing but stare back at him. She watched him as his eyes warmed and darkened, then her eyes closed.
It wasn’t long in coming. He furrowed the fingers of his right hand through her hair and pulled her to him gently. His kiss was half gentle, half demanding and she vaguely wondered if—hoped that—he would take her to bed right now. Pulling her body to his, he wrapped his other arm around her hips and held her close.
Oh, yes, this was why she’d come back, Fen Hilliard be damned.
Knox’s arousal pressed against her belly, their clothes doing little to soften it. Justice was drowning in him, falling into whatever magic spell he had cast over her. She ran her hand over his arm, up, up until she had wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled herself as close to him as she could get.
That kiss went on and on and on. Justice loved and gloried in every second of it. He stroked her nowhere else, made no other demands, didn’t talk to her. He just kissed her and she kissed him back.
The evening was silent of the man-made sounds of civilization. The birds, the cicadas, the breeze in the leaves were the only sounds, the only music that accompanied their kiss.
“You came back,” Knox whispered into her mouth, still kissing her, now butterfly, sweet, light.
“You noticed.”
“Why?”
“Because you let me go.”
He wrapped his arms around her tighter and buried his face in her neck. She held him close to her, her head on his shoulder and she felt moisture seep through her hair and onto her skin. She found that . . . odd.
After a long while, he said, hoarse, “How far did you get?”
“St. Louis. I stayed there. I had a lot of thinking to do.”
She was shaking badly, her thighs trembling as if she had just run the mile in two minutes. Justice wanted Knox to take her to his bed, to keep her there forever.
To love her.
He pulled away from her slightly and sighed heavily. “I have to tell you some things.”
Oh. That. “I already know.”
He stared at her warily. “Sebastian said you didn’t.”
“Google is my friend. I found an old Wall Street Journal article and drew my own conclusions as to who killed Leah.”
Knox’s eyes widened then and he pushed her away, though still grasping her upper arms as if he would never let go. “And you came back anyway?” he demanded. “Why would you do that?”
She took a deep breath. There were only two reasons, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit either, but she settled for the less revealing of the two:
“I want to be powerful, like Giselle,” she whispered. “You can teach me that.”
“So you can go back to Washington the way you were supposed to two days ago,” he returned, a note of . . . something . . . in his voice she couldn’t figure out.
Justice shook her head slowly, holding his gaze. “I told you I’d have given you anything if you’d asked. Why would you be so arrogant as to presume to know what I would or wouldn’t do or think?”
“You’re a genius, Iustitia. I thought you’d understand this isn’t the smart choice.”
She shrugged. “Taking on King George wasn’t the brightest idea anybody ever had, was it?”
Knox’s face was so haggard, so worn. He looked every minute of his almost-forty and then some, and to Justice, he was the most beautiful man who ever lived. He stared at her, apparently unable to speak because he kept opening his mouth as if to say something, then closing it again as if it weren’t worth saying.
Finally, he lifted a hand to her face and caressed her cheek with his knuckles.
“Do you believe in vigilante justice, Iustitia?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she murmured.
His eyes widened. “What about theft versus crimes against the body?”
“Truth is more sacred than life or property,” she whispered.
“Revenge?”
“Occasionally serves a purpose.”
“Black and white?”
“Truth. Justice.”
“At all costs?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
He looked at her for a long time, then whispered, “Very good, Iustitia.”
They stood looking at each other forever and then, “I need to unpack and iron my clothes. And I’m still very tired. It’s been�
��” She bit her lip and couldn’t help that her eyes filled with tears and her mouth trembled. “It’s been a very long week. I can’t— I can’t take much more.”
He nodded his assent and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her close as they went into the house together, his lips pressed against her temple. Justice knew that must mean something, but in her fragile state of mind at the moment, she refused to analyze anything he did.
Knox left her alone to sort through her things as he brought them in from the driveway. She discovered room in the drawers for her clothes. Half the closet was empty, save the ubiquitous tangle of hangers, which meant he had done this before he married her. It made her feel . . . special. No, equal.
He came back just as she finished hanging up the last dress she owned. He leaned against the jamb and crossed his arms over his chest, looking at her clothes in the closet.
Justice had to know. “Why did you send me with Giselle if you weren’t going to like how I came back?”
He grunted and looked her up and down. “I love what she did with you,” he said gruffly. “I don’t like that other men like it. You were pretty before, but I guess it didn’t occur to me that you’d come back so—” He stopped, took a deep breath, and released it softly, reverently, his eyes blazing: “Stunning.”
Her insides, between her legs, tingled sharply and she didn’t know what to say to that. “She said I looked sixteen.”
“I know. She made sure to point that out to me very loudly and with much profanity. It was her idea to take you shopping in the first place.”
Her eyes widened. “But I thought you—”
He shook his head. “I very rarely pay attention to what women look like, Iustitia. I only care what’s in between their ears and in their souls.”
So he hadn’t thought she needed a makeover. A burden lifted from her heart that she hadn’t known she still carried.
“She was right,” Justice admitted. “The day I came back, the other attorneys, defense counsel, treated me differently—like I belonged there, like I could do my job. They had been patronizing me all along and then they didn’t anymore. I didn’t know until I came back different.”