I wince at the thought and snap my eyes shut to stop the building pressure from pushing out tears. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth. And I’ll never be able to repay that debt to you.”
“Gregory, you don’t owe me anything, you never will.”
He holds my gaze and lifts a hand to my cheek as if we’re alone in the room. How can he tell me to move on in one breath and treat me like I’m the centre of his universe in another? “I owe you my entire existence, Scarlett, in more ways than one.”
“And I won’t let it be taken from you. Not now. Not after everything.” I bring his hand down to my lap, the breakfast bar shielding it from Jackson’s view, and run my fingers over the scars on his wrist. “You’ve fought long enough to be free.”
He turns his arm, concealing his scars, then pulls me towards him, nestling me between his thighs. “You amaze me, Scarlett Heath,” he says, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Everything I’ve put you through since we met.”
“As ever, you’re giving me whiplash, Mr. Ryans.”
“While I hate to be the one to spoil the party,” Jackson interrupts, “this just can’t happen.”
Gregory lets his shoulders sag. “She knows that.”
“No. She doesn’t,” I say, pulling away from him. “What if you go to prison, Gregory? Have you thought about that? I would lose you and you might as well have died!”
Gregory jerks his head back, startled.
“I’m sorry, I...I don’t even want to think...I can’t even think about that. My point is, I couldn’t stand to see you go to prison and more to the point, I won’t allow you to go to prison for something I’ve done.” The pressure behind my eyes is climbing again and tears are beginning to obscure my vision.
“Hey, come here.” His soft eyes have returned and he pulls me, leaving me no choice but to fall between his thighs again. “I’m not going to prison. It was self-defence.”
“You don’t know that. In the end, the CPS will prosecute. They can’t let a gun murder slide in London. They’ll pull your reputation to the ground. You could lose your companies. You could lose everything.” The tears come and fall like Niagara. “I won’t let you.”
“I’m not giving you a choice,” he says, wiping my cheeks with his thumbs. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve done everything right.”
“It’s not right.” I saved you. You were my primary motivation in the moment. But what about the part of me that killed in the name of my father and that little boy I see? “I need to be tried and if a jury thinks I did the right thing they’ll protect me but that’s not your job.”
“Damn it, Scarlett, no!” He jumps up, forcing me to stagger backwards. “I won’t go to prison and this case won’t even be tried.”
“But. You. Can’t. Be. Sure,” I manage through broken sobs.
“Christ! Stop crying!” He’s pissed. Every muscle in his body is tensed, the sinews of his neck are taut and his square jaw is set. He takes a deep breath and rubs a hand over his face. “Stop crying, please.”
His browns soften when he lowers to my level. He takes my hands and puts them around his neck then scoops me up in his arms. “You are such a sweet and beautiful woman and I know that you want to do the right thing. I know that you feel like you’ve done the wrong thing but you haven’t. I’ve shattered your world, Scarlett. I did this to you. I brought everything on you and you have to let me protect you now. Trust me. This won’t go to trial. It’ll be over soon.”
He carries me to the sofa and sits us both down so I’m resting in his lap. Jackson limps to join us and sits onto the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Scarlett, this is a world you don’t know and you don’t understand. You need to trust Gregory and me, okay?”
For some unbeknown reason, I do trust them both so I nod but it’s anything other than okay.
Jackson holds my attention and leans forward towards me, resting his elbows on his knees. “If you change your story now, I can’t help us. You’ll put us all in jeopardy and that’s just one more charge we’d have to deal with.”
He’s right. I couldn’t see it before but he’s right. If I go to D.I. Barnes now, I don’t just confess that I did wrong, I tell him that Jackson and Gregory lied too.
I sniff back the last of my tears and climb off Gregory’s lap. “I get it.”
“Where’re you going?” Gregory asks.
I wipe my cheeks and pull my shoulders back. “I’m about to hire you the best goddamn QC I know. Get your cheque book ready.”
Gregory stands from the sofa. “We discussed lawyers last night. Lawyers imply I have something to hide.”
“No, Gregory, lawyers bend the law and by fucking God do you need someone to bend the law right now.”
* * *
“Which one?” I ask, looking around the multitude of GR and GJR number plates in the basement. GR 1. GR 10. GJR 1. GJR 10. GJR 9.
“Lamborghini.” The lights flash on the bright yellow car when Gregory presses a key in its direction.
I climb inside and for the brief moment I’m afforded alone, I let my head roll back against the black leather seat, trying to absorb everything that’s passed in the last twenty-four hours but unable to shift my focus far from the words she can move on.
Gregory loosens the buttons of his navy trench coat and slips into the driver seat. He eases the Lamborghini to life and my eyes follow the movements of his hands as he sets the car into reverse and manoeuvres out of the car park with just one hand on the wheel. We drive in painful silence for what feels like an eternity.
“I should probably go to see Sandy later,” I say.
He glances briefly to me before returning his focus to the road ahead. “Not tonight.”
“I think I should see her sooner rather than later. I’ve got no idea how she’ll react.”
The Lamborghini swings into a bus lane before the brakes are slammed, crashing me forward against my seat belt. Gregory’s eyes are dark and bursting with anger. When he swallows, his tense jaw releases slightly. He’s fighting with rage.
“You understand you can’t tell Sandy the truth, don’t you?”
My mouth opens but no words materialise.
“Scarlett, you can’t tell anyone the truth.”
“But I tell Sandy everything.”
He breathes an exasperated sigh and his black irises fall back to brown. “Everyone you tell is a risk. To us and to themselves.”
“Gregory, Sandy would never say anything. She might hate me, probably will hate me, but she wouldn’t say anything.”
His hand lifts to my cheek and I lean into him. “Gorgeous girl, why on earth would she hate you?”
“She practically raised me, Gregory, and she didn’t raise a killer.”
He snaps his hand away and throws his head back against his seat, almost inhaling the word, “Fuck.”
I don’t move, not knowing how to react. Then he flicks the car into first gear and hurls us back onto the road, driving much faster than is safe or necessary.
“If you tell her, you put her in jeopardy and if you do that to her, you’ll despise yourself for it.”
He reverses the car into a space on the road outside Lincoln’s Inn then kills the engine but neither one of us moves.
“Are we still talking about Sandy?” I ask.
He leans back in his seat and turns his head to look at me. He’s so astonishingly beautiful it makes my stomach ache. Reaching down, he releases my seat belt, then his own. I climb out of the car and move quickly to his side, grabbing his hand.
“Come here first,” I say, tugging gently, leading us into Lincoln’s Inn Field, a small green sanctuary in the heart of the city. We walk the gravel path, past couples strolling with dogs and resting on benches holding hot drinks to take the chill f
rom their cold hands. “I could never hate you or despise you and I need you to remember that, no matter what happens.”
Gregory stops us and tucks my hair behind my ear that way he does. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve brought on you. I wish I’d killed him so you wouldn’t have to keep over-thinking this whole thing. I thought I’d killed him and that’s how it should’ve been. I don’t want to put you through this anymore.”
My heart stops beating in my chest. His words come back to me, she can move on. “Do you want me to move out?”
He hesitates and scrunches his brow. I hold my breath and concentrate on not falling apart.
“Why would I want you to move out?”
“It was only ever temporary. You asked me to move in so you could protect me but that was before. Now there’s nothing to protect me from.”
He grasps the sides of my face in his hands and shakes me gently. “Do you remember what I said to you when I asked you to move in? I told you that I wanted to protect you.”
I nod.
“But I also told you that I never wanted to let you go in case you realised what I was and never came back. Part of me wishes you did want to move out, Scarlett Heath, because getting away from me would be the best thing for you. My life, it’s... I’m not the man you deserve. You should have someone who can give you everything you need, someone who can protect you.”
I shake my head in his palms and close my eyes. I won’t cry again.
“I’ll never ask you to go. I wish I had the strength to do what’s right by you.” He bends slightly and presses his forehead against mine. “But I just can’t let you go.”
“I’ll never be sorry I met you. And I’ll never hate or despise you. The only thing that scares me is the lengths I’d go to keep you.”
“Jesus, Scarlett, if only you knew...”
“Shhh, kiss me.”
His warm, sweet breath caresses my lips before he kisses me. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his chest. When he eventually frees me of his hold, I fumble with his checkered wool scarf, arranging it around his neck just-so.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yes.” I slide my hand back into his and we interlace our fingers. “Gregory, when we meet QC Harrison, you can’t tell him anything that he can’t defend, okay?”
“You mean that my girlfriend’s an assassin?”
As he does so frequently, he takes the air out of my lungs.
He cocks his head to one side and fights a coy smile. “Too soon?”
“Girlfriend?”
He flashes the most dashing smile I’ve ever seen and continues his long strides towards Lincoln’s Inn. I eventually find my legs and jog, a woman-in-heels type jog, to catch him up.
“I’m serious. John Harrison’s under a duty not to put himself in contempt of court so if you tell him something that would make him lie, he won’t be able to defend you.”
* * *
The enormous red brick building is the epitome of elegance. Gregory holds open the solid wood door and we make our way through the grand old corridors adorned with paintings of Lincoln’s Inn alumni, judges and QCs. Queen’s Counsel is the name given to the top barristers in England. See, it’s not like a lot of other jurisdictions in England, it’s not like the United States, for example. In the US, your attorney does everything for you, from negotiating contracts and drafting documents to standing up and representing you in court. In England, we have solicitors and barristers. Solicitors, like me, negotiate deals and draft documents, sometimes we even prepare cases for hearing, but it’s the barristers who represent a man in court and the best of those, the highest ranking, are QCs. And this being England, Queen’s Counsel can just as easily be King’s Counsel but right now we have Lizzie in reign, not a king, so Mr. John Harrison is a QC. You can tell the seniority of a barrister by the number of curls in their courtroom wigs. That’s always something interesting to do when there’s a boring day in a trial—count the curls.
We follow the gold plaques for Harrison Chambers until we arrive at a dark wood vintage door with a similar plaque reading QC Harrison. Gregory raps twice on the door.
“Come in! Scarlett, nice to see you again.” John extends his chubby white hand. I’ve referred clients to him in the past, but never a boyfriend, funnily enough. “I dare say it would have been preferable to meet under better circumstances.”
“Yes. John, this is Gregory Ryans.”
The men shake hands, one firm solid movement. “Thank you for seeing us on a Sunday, Mr. Harrison,” Gregory says.
“Sadly, you can’t elect on which day another chap might try to kill you, old boy, can you?” John flicks a hand to the two red leather armchairs in front of his wooden desk. “Please do take a seat. You can call me John.”
John unbuttons his pinstripe suit jacket and wiggles the knot of his red tie, a movement that doesn’t prevent his shirt collar from digging into the extra roll of skin beneath his chin. He settles back into his chair and rests his hands on top of his rounded belly.
Gregory removes his coat and scarf then straightens the arms of his jumper and crosses one ankle over his opposite thigh. “Scarlett tells me you’re the best, Mr. Harrison. What does the best strategy look like for this case?”
“Oh, ho! Young man, I need to hear your tale first. I pride myself on my reputation and I did not create the stature I have by taking on cases I simply cannot win.”
Gregory grunts just loud enough for me to hear in the seat beside him.
“Rightie-ho then, from the top old boy.”
Through clenched teeth and on a whisper I’m sure I hear Gregory say, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” But he starts his story. He talks John through the party at Lara’s house, the ride home in the Bentley, the slashed tyres, the tampered lift door. He speaks of the lift as if there weren’t six million emotions and thoughts circling his body. Then he speaks of Jackson, the shot, running upstairs for a gun. He skims over the tussle with his father and describes how he had no choice but to pick up the gun and shoot him.
John “ums” and “ahs” as he listens to the story, not once making a note. When Gregory stops talking, he glances to me from the corner of his eye. I know he’s checking that I’ve kept it together.
“To recap then.” John rolls his index finger across his top lip, then nips his chin between his middle finger and thumb as he speaks. “You walk into the apartment. Your driver is shot. You tell Scarlett to look after him and, knowing that there is a violent man in the apartment who is most likely intent on killing you and who has already shot a man, you simply toddle off upstairs to collect a weapon and toddle back down, all the while leaving the attacker free to come after your girlfriend.”
Gregory turns his clenched fist in his other hand and clears his throat. This is going badly.
“He was very quick,” I jump in but I drop my focus to my feet when John glares at me.
“Rightie-ho. Now, you have the gun and you go to chase down your attacker. You scuffle and he drops his gun. He injures you with glass from the broken mirror. You somehow fumble your way into the adjacent gym room and the next thing you know, there’s a chain around your neck. What was this chain? Where did it come from?”
Gregory swallows slowly and finally unclenches his fist. “It’s a chain that connects a lat pulldown bar to a gym frame.”
“Jolly good. So there you are, a chain around your neck, bursting back into the lounge. You are struggling to breathe, you think you are going to die. Pray tell me where Scarlett and your driver were at this time. I can scarcely believe they stood by watching you die.”
I stare at the nude patent leather of my shoes. I want to tell him. I want to tell John the truth. I want someone to know.
“Like I said, Jackson was injured. He was shot in the leg. And Scarlett...” He turns to lo
ok at me but I can’t meet his eye. I don’t want him to lie for me. “Scarlett was taking care of Jackson. She did the right thing to stay back, she could’ve been hurt otherwise.”
“Mmm-hmm. I see. Let us move on for now.”
“No,” Gregory snarls. “Let’s move on for good. We won’t pursue that line of questioning again.”
John leans back, his leather chair gently rocking, and forms a steeple with the tips of his fingers.
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Ryans. If, and I say if, I agree to defend you, I will be defending you. If you intend to hide something from me, if you try to protect another, I will struggle, despite my best efforts, to shield you from a murder charge. Do you understand me, young man?”
Gregory’s chest rises and falls with his slow shallow breath. “Mr. Harrison, allow me to tell you something. I killed a man because he was about to kill me. I killed a man in self-defence. If you can’t prevent a charge on those grounds then you surely don’t deserve the right to call yourself Queens Counsel.”
The two men regard one another thoughtfully then John dips his head. “Let us consider your mens rea—your state of mind or motive, if you will. The attacker, were you aware of who he was and why he might have wanted to harm you?”
Gregory sits taller in his chair and clenches a fist again, the white of his knuckles fighting to break the surface of his skin. “His name was Kevin Pearson. He’s my biological father.”
“Hmm, yes, you do tend to know the attacker. Not many people strike without cause. So tell me, he hated you because?”
Gregory rolls his jaw left then right. “I bought his company with the sole intention of selling it off.”
“A hostile takeover?”
“In more ways than one,” Gregory declares.
“Mmm-hmm, there we are then, we have your attacker’s motive and what about yours? I presume the takeover was intended to punish your father. Give me the facts.”
Gregory bites down on his gums. My heart is shattering into a thousand pieces. I don’t want him to go through this.
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