Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (47 page)

Bryce was good-looking in a ruggedly elegant way. She could admit that. Not too pretty, yet not dark and brooding. With his golden blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, he reminded her of a Norse conqueror.

Armoring herself to face that glimpse of flesh again, she turned with the books in hand, only to find he’d zipped up his jacket. Now the monitor leads protruded from the V. Had he seen where she’d been staring? Mortified that he might think she thought of him as a sexual object, she held out the casebooks to him.

Once again he surprised her by not taking them. “You can set them in one of the chairs.” He raised his left arm and made the classic watch-checking gesture — but he wore no watch, only an IV taped to his hand.

“Damn.” He scanned the room, looking for a clock.

“It’s ten oh seven,” Ciara said.

“Thanks. I need my watch. Would you look in my personal effects for it?”

Ciara stiffened to be treated as a servant when she was so much more than that. She laid the books on the bed next to him and then followed his orders.

But the tiny closet was empty. “There’s nothing in here, Mr. Gannon.”

“It must be in the ICU then. I’m trying to find a case on racketeering I vaguely remember. It would have been from about five years ago.” He rubbed his right temple with two fingers and frowned.

The light went on in Ciara’s mind. As ill as Bryce had been, it was natural for him to have difficulty with memory recall. The jogging suit and case files had masked his debilitation.

“I know the one you want,” she said, especially since she’d seen which casebooks he’d requested. She picked up a book, perused the index and found the case. Then she handed the book to him.

Bryce took it, careful of his IV, and scanned the first page. “This is the one.” Nodding, he continued to read.

Ciara warmed with pleasure, feeling stupidly pleased to aid him. She tried to squelch that feeling and remember why she was here.

“I can work from this,” he said.

“On the Steele defense,” she realized aloud. Disappointment warred with annoyance inside her.

He speared her with his icy stare. “Yes. I assume you know at least something about the case.”

That was his cross-examination face. Did he suspect the reason she was here? Her heart skipped a beat in fear and then she scoffed at her paranoia. How could he?

“I know what everyone else who reads the newspaper knows. Adam Steele was arrested for racketeering and you’re defending him. The case goes to federal court in less than two weeks. Or will you ask for a delay?” she tacked on, eyeing him where he lay.

“No delay.” His answer was curt. He moved restlessly.

Ciara tried to bite back her concerns, but they tumbled out. “But you’re in no condition — ”

“I’ll be well enough by then,” he cut her off. His blue eyes were wintry.

Rebuked, Ciara met frost with the cool hauteur her mother had displayed as she ignored her husband’s affairs. “One wonders if you’re suicidal, why you didn’t succumb to the ricin.”

His eyes widened, and then narrowed. “One wonders if you wanted this job so badly, how you’d dare to speak to your employer that way.”

Her gaze met his without flinching. “One wonders if you love your firm so much, why you’d risk it — and your life — for this case.”

“If I fall in battle, you could win my firm. You’re bold enough to do it.”

Yes, she could picture him as a Roman Centurion, tall and proud. “I’m not arrogant enough to think I could replace you.” Their banter thrilled her and made her feel more alive.

Bryce snorted. “You have arrogance in spades. It’s aggression you lack.”

His comment hurt more than it should have. She’d finished second in law school. She’d never been captain of her basketball team and her team had never won a championship. Yet her family thought her too aggressive, and not feminine enough, pursuing a man’s profession and a man’s sport.

How could she simultaneously be too aggressive and not aggressive enough?

Ciara felt her face stiffen. “What do you want me to do?”

Bryce’s face wiped free of emotion. He was intuitive enough to sense her withdrawal. For several long moments he just stared at her. The only movement was the monitor readouts registering his life signs.

She didn’t fidget under his regard, that stare that broke witnesses. She’d spent her adulthood fighting for her place in a man’s world. She may have come in second, but she’d beaten the rest to be here.

Bryce breathed. Had she not been staring him down, she would have missed the infinitesimal wince of discomfort. She saw but gave no indication she’d seen. He was a proud man. She’d let him keep his pride.

“Research this case.” He handed her the book. For a moment their hands brushed. A thrill ran through her and she jerked away. She could not feel anything for this man.

His face was impassive as ever. “See if there were any appeals or reversals. Find similar cases. Report your findings to me later.” He waved her away and reached for his file. She wondered who’d brought it to him.

She couldn’t spy on him from his office. She had to be in close proximity. “If you don’t mind, I’ll work here.” As he opened his mouth to argue, she rushed on. “You may need something else and I’d rather be here when you do.”

The heat in Bryce’s eyes told her she’d said something wrong. When she played back the words in her mind, she read other meanings into them and blushed. She was no temptress, and it was well documented that Bryce preferred blondes. Just because he’d been several weeks without his beauty queen didn’t mean he’d turn to
her
to assuage his needs.

Thank God Bryce didn’t respond to her gaff. She retreated to the couch and sat where she had a good view of him. It would have been much easier to do the research with a table in front of her instead of holding the book on her knees, but this wasn’t her reason for being here. Although she wouldn’t shirk the work — she’d never done less than her best on anything.

As she wrote notes, so did he. More awkwardly, in fact, since he was lying in bed. She bit her tongue. His over-the-bed table was within reach. Why didn’t he use it?

Bryce caught her staring. “What?”

“Do you need me to move the table?”

Again his eyes turned wintry. “No.”

Proud man, she thought again.

“Miss Alafita, I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you.”

“Don’t ever start.”

They worked in mostly companionable silence for an hour. When he did speak to give her more ideas to research, his voice grew progressively more hoarse and breathy. She became alarmed.

When a knock sounded and a young woman in maroon scrubs appeared in the doorway, Bryce grimaced.

“Hi, Mr. Gannon. It’s time for your breathing treatment.” She was a short, perky, twenty-something brunette. She glanced at Ciara.

“Miss Alafita, I’ll need you to leave the room for about twenty minutes. If you could track down my personal belongings during that time, I’d appreciate it.” Bryce dismissed her.

Ciara hadn’t gone through college and law school, passed the bar and worked her way to the AG’s office to run personal errands for someone. She wasn’t Bryce’s wife or girlfriend either. She shoved her anger into that place inside her that smoldered, forced a smile, and went down to the nurse’s station.

A frustrating forty-five minutes later she entered Bryce’s room carrying two sealed biohazard bags at the end of her outstretched arm and gloved hand.

Bryce’s eyes snapped with temper when he saw her and he opened his mouth. Whatever he’d planned to say died when he saw what she carried. His eyes widened.

She walked right up to the bed with her well-searched-for prizes. “Your personal effects.”

Bryce didn’t move to take them. “Are they … hazardous?”

“The hospital hazmat department thinks they’re probably safe. Any ricin remaining on them is safe to handle if you wash your hands with soap immediately afterwards. And there’s little chance of breathing in ricin, but in your case you might want to wear a mask. Their advice, not mine.”

She smiled and continued. “They didn’t want to destroy your Rolex watch because a jeweler should be able to clean it. The cell phone didn’t appear to be affected, but just in case you might want it downloaded into a new phone. Your wallet and keys seemed unaffected as well, but you can’t be too cautious. Oh, and you’re to tell anyone handling the items that you were poisoned by airborne ricin. You wouldn’t believe what I had to do to track these things down.”

“I thought you said they were safe,” he growled. His voice was less husky.

“They are, with provisos.”

“You’re wearing a glove,” he accused.

“It’s just precautionary. The bags didn’t touch the ricin.”

Since he didn’t reach out to take them, Ciara laid them on his over-the-bed table. They sat there like a coiled rattlesnake. She pulled the glove off inside out, located the trash can and threw it away.

Bryce looked up from the bags to her. “I hate to ask what happened to my clothes.”

“Incinerated with the other biohazardous material.”

“My shoes too?”

“Yes. Expensive were they?” She knew they had to be.

“Hand-stitched Italian leather. I waited months for them.”

She grimaced in sympathy. “I guess you should have said something in the ER.” It gave her a perverse thrill to prod him.

“I was unconscious.”

Oh.

Suddenly he reached for the phone and jabbed the buttons. “Get me Sharron.” He waited, staring at the bags again. “Sharron, it’s Bryce. Was the ricin cleaned from my office?”

He grimaced as he listened, caught Ciara watching him, and smoothed the expression from his face. He was really good at doing that. He must have had lots of practice.

“Thanks, Sharron.” He hung up. “Everything paper had to be destroyed, but at least they let Sharron copy the plastic-covered documents so we didn’t lose anything valuable. Just the originals. And the hazmat company was kinder than the hospital was.”

“You’re alive,” she reminded him.

“There is that,” he agreed. “And friends matter more than material things.”

He looked away, so he missed her jerk of surprise. She hadn’t expected him to say something like that, especially after his fuss over the expensive personal items. Bryce Gannon was enigmatic, like his courtroom face.

“Let’s get back to work,” he said.

Ciara checked on Bryce frequently at first during the next hour. His entire focus was on the case, frowning as he wrote pages of notes. Part of her admired his work ethic, but part of her cursed him for how he was expending his fragile energy. Was it that important to get one more bad guy off on some legal technicality or loophole? Or maybe Steele was the key to the lucrative mob business.

Maybe Bryce needed the money badly to maintain his expensive lifestyle. He was a very successful attorney, but some people lived far beyond their means. She made a mental note to tell the AG to look into Bryce’s finances.

Her nose had begun to register food scents carried on the air conditioning when a movement caught her eye. A dark head looked around the opening door, spotted Bryce and pushed the door fully open.

Ciara recognized the couple from the news. Gabrielle Ziko’s straight black hair and high cheekbones proclaimed her Native American heritage. The dark-haired, blue-eyed man at her back was her new husband, the infamous Christian Ziko, the only truly innocent man Gannon had defended in recent history.

Gabrielle carried a white bag from a Chinese restaurant. Christian kept his hand on her back. Two sets of blue eyes glanced curiously at Ciara, who remained seated, her pen poised above her legal pad, every sense alert. According to the newspapers, Gabrielle was a psychic, able to ferret out the truth, but she had to touch someone to do it. Ciara didn’t know if she believed it or not.

Bryce watched them approach, his face expressionless.

But when Christian held out his hand, Bryce took it immediately.

“Roger and Paul were worried sick,” Christian informed him. “I told them a cold snake like you was hard to kill.”

Ciara stiffened, but a slight smile played at the corner of Bryce’s mouth. “How long did you wait to tell them that?”

“Until you woke up.”

Bryce nodded.

“I almost didn’t recognize you in those clothes,” Christian went on. He was teasing Bryce.

“I do have a life outside my office.” Bryce’s voice dripped irony. “Ask your brother.”

“We didn’t come to cross swords,” Gabrielle interrupted, inserting herself between her husband and Bryce. “We brought you lunch.”

“But you came for another reason, didn’t you?” Bryce guessed.

Gabrielle glanced at Ciara. “Maybe. Who’s your visitor?”

Bryce performed the introductions. By virtue of balancing the casebook and notebook on her knees, Ciara made herself unavailable to shake hands.

Now that Ciara had been identified, Gabrielle turned her attention back to Bryce. She lifted her chin. “With your permission?”

Ciara held her breath. Bryce hesitated, and then held out his hand to Gabrielle. She gripped it in both of hers. Christian’s arm stole around her waist.

After a minute, Gabrielle gently pulled away. She looked right at Ciara and Ciara forgot to breathe. Her skin prickled. Was Gabrielle really a psychic? Had the other woman seen Ciara’s involvement, and if so, how much had she seen?

Christian tucked Gabrielle tight against his side, nuzzling her temple, and their love for each other was nearly a palpable thing. It was a deep intimacy Ciara felt uncomfortable sharing. Her body heated in a flush.

“We didn’t know you’d have a visitor,” Gabrielle apologized. “I’m sorry, Miss Alafita, but we didn’t bring you anything to eat.”

Ciara rose, desperate to escape, and stuffed her tablet in her briefcase. “That’s all right. I need to get some more casebooks from the office. Bryce, do you need anything?” Her voice was too high and fast, her movements too rushed.

Bryce frowned, but handed her a sheet of paper. She took it, careful not to touch him.

“I’ll be back in a few hours.” She forced a smile for the Zikos. “It was nice meeting you.”