“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 for contempt.”
“I know of a few out in California. But they were released in hours. We can’t let this happen again, Hayley.”
“That’s for sure.”
His dark brows formed a vee. She’d admitted during their tenure in jail that he was an attractive man and an interesting conversationalist.
“Well, we’ve gotten to know each other some.” He chuckled. “And we did sleep together. Maybe we can be more civil in the courtroom.”
“Maybe. I’ll try.”
“I will too, Hayley.”
* * *
When she got to her apartment, Hayley dragged herself inside. She was tired now and bordering on depressed. Getting sued for contempt with Covington had been awful. The Chief Assistant of the DA’s office had already left a message she wanted to see Hayley Monday morning. Paul told her he would get in trouble over this, too.
Just as she started toward the bedroom, the doorbell rang. She and Finn, along with Ronan, inherited this place after their father’s death. Finn was out of town at a book conference in London for a week, and Ronan had disappeared completely twenty years ago. He’d never even called her or Finn in all that time. But every time the doorbell rang in their luxurious apartment in New York, she got a quick flash of hope that it was the brother she loved so dearly. On that sad note, she hauled herself to the foyer and pulled open the door.
Hell. This was all she needed.
The woman standing there had dressed in haute couture on a Saturday morning. “So, the jailbird’s out.”
“Hello, Mother. How did you get up here?”
“Robert knows me.” Bridget Sullivan’s face was pinched. Then again, whenever she laid eyes on her daughter, her features crunched up and got ugly. “Let me inside, please.”
“I was about to take a bath. I’d like to be alone.”
Bridget, as Hayley thought of her, brushed past her daughter, entered the apartment, went down the short hallway and into the living room to the right. “Come in here, Hayley.”
Best to deal with this now. Hayley went inside and sat on one of the leather couches. To say she felt scuzzy was an understatement.
Bridget surveyed the huge apartment in lower Manhattan, consisting of an oversize living space in the front with a view of the city and a kitchen behind it. Off that were two complete suites, on either side, one for her and one for Finn. Then she turned her attention to Hayley, who’d finally learned not to shrink under her icy gaze. “Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call last night from Marian Jackson asking if I knew my daughter was in jail.”
“I didn’t get even one phone call, so I couldn’t call you.” As if that would ever have entered her mind.
“Don’t be impudent.” She adjusted the skirt of her Armani suit, a peach one which complemented her severely cut blond hair. Young looking, she’d had a couple of face lifts. Her mother would fight growing old forever. Hayley vowed to go through the aging process gracefully.
But right now, she had to hold her own with the woman who was her mother, after all. She did soften her tone. “I’m sure that was a shock, that you worried about me, and that I disappointed you. Again. So, I’m sorry for all those things.”
“Did you really spend the night with Paul Covington?” There was an odd tone to her voice.