“Not the worst, Hayley.”
She raised her auburn brows, the same color as her hair. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“It’s a nice name. Mine’s Paul, by the way.”
“I’ve known that for a year, Paul.” Since he’d joined the high-powered law firm of Cook, Cramer and Cromwell in New York after he left California and started arguing cases against her. “I heard through the legal grapevine that you want to add another C to the partner collective.”
He chuckled. “How long have you been an ADA?”
“I joined right after I passed the bar. So, five years.”
“Hmm. That makes you, thirty?”
“Not quite yet. Soon.”
“A baby.”
“What made you leave California?”
“I was born in New York. I got homesick for the glitz and glitter of the streets of New York.” He shrugged a shoulder. “It was time, I guess.”
“I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Where?”
“First on Long Island, then in lower Manhattan.” She didn’t want to tell him she’d grown up in the Hamptons, on the tip of Long Island. “You?”
“I live in Brooklyn.”
Silence.
He broke it. “What are we going to do about us?”
“You mean why we were put in here?”
“Among other things.”
“I don’t know. We shoot sparks off each other.”
That made him wonder what other kind of sparks they could shoot off. “You know, I read a study where suppressed attraction makes people fight with each other.”
Her fake shock was comical. “Why, Mr. Covington, are you saying you lust for me?”
“Maybe when you wear that little pinkish suit with a tank top.” He let out a wolf whistle. “It makes all the men in the room sweat.”
“That is so sexist.”
Now he threw up his hands and slapped them on his thighs. “I don’t get it. When a man compliments a woman on her appearance, she calls him names for noticing her when she’s probably spent an hour that morning trying to look good.”
“An hour? Give me a break.” She had to know that, so she was pretending again. Or…
“You don’t do that?”
“I spend the half hour after I get up on my elliptical or if the weather permits, I go out for a brusque walk, then eat a nourishing breakfast. Whatever time’s left, like maybe ten minutes, I shower, get dressed and put on lipstick. Some rouge.”
“Yeah, I like you better without a lot of goop on your face.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how to take that. But in any case, Counselor, it’s your turn. What’s your morning routine?”
“I get up a couple of hours before work starts.”
“Your workday begins a lot later than mine does.”
Ignoring what she meant to be a criticism of the life he’d chosen, he continued, “I go for a run or do my treadmill, catch the news, check my email. I eat, of course, then spend about the same time you do getting ready for work.”
“Do you like your job, Paul?” She wasn’t letting that go.
“Yes, it’s exactly what I want to be doing.”
“Defending rich kids? Guilty adults?”
“Everybody deserves a defense, Hayley.”
“I agree with that. But I don’t think I could do your job.”
That pissed him off. “Lucky you don’t have to.”
“Tell me about your family. Married? Divorced? Brothers and sisters?”
“Married early on and divorced six months later. In my extended family, I have brothers and sisters.”
“Where are they?”
“In New York.”
“Why didn’t you say they were the reason you came back here?”
“Because they weren’t.”
“I don’t understand that. I adore my brothers.”
He changed the very dangerous subject. And the night wore on. He told her about living in California, what he did in his spare time, and she told him about her semester in France when she was at Radcliff. They talked about food—she loved seafood and sushi, and he was a steak man. They both liked champagne.
Hours later, she yawned.
His early training surfaced, even with her. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
A slimy cot with stains from God-knew-what sat across from them. “On that? Yuck.”
“No, here on the bench, which is at least half-clean.” He stood, removed his very expensive suitcoat and spread it on the bench.
“Hmm, maybe. I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open.” She took off her jacket, too, then folded it up and laid down with it as a pillow. “Thanks. Wake me in a couple of hours so you can catch some zees in here, too.”
“Sure thing.”
She fell asleep right away. He always envied people who could do that. He had bad insomnia sometimes. Staring down at the woman with him, still visible in the hall light, he noticed her delicate bone structure. She was tall and thin. He wished she’d taken that mane of auburn hair down. And why the hell was he going down this road? Still, he watched her for a long time until he fell asleep sitting up.
* * *
Hayley bolted up into the darkness. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
He reached out and touched her arm. “Hey, calm down.”
She swiveled her legs to the floor and once she was acclimated from the hall light, she glanced next to her. “Hell. I didn’t know where I was.”
“That happens to me sometimes. No way you expected to be in jail.”
“What time is it?”
Something lit up. “Nearly four.” The guards hadn’t taken his watch.
She went to rake back her hair, and found it tied up in a bun. She secured it as much as she could with the escaping pins, then said, “You let me sleep. Thank you.” She stood up and stretched. “Your turn. Lie down.”
“I slept sitting up. I don’t need much, anyway.”
She sat back down and sighed. “I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”
“Me, too. What kind?”
“Double latte. All fat milk, or cream.”
“No skim?”
“No. How do you like yours?”
“Black, of course.”
“That fits you.”
They both quieted.
After a while, she woke up completely. “Paul, are you going to get in trouble for this contempt of court charge?”
“Deep, deep trouble.”
Hayley expelled a heavy breath. “Me, too. I don’t know of any cases where a lawyer was jailed
