Defending Pacer, стр. 3

She steps into a restaurant I know well. Luckily for me, there’s a spare park across the road, so I pull straight in. Wanting to follow her in there, I look past my white button-down shirt to my jeans with a tear in the knee. It’s now the second time today that I’ve wished that I hadn’t worn jeans. Why didn’t I take this meeting more seriously and dress in a suit, like I normally would? I’d stick out like a sore thumb amongst the crowd of suits in the upmarket restaurant if I just waltzed in there with ripped jeans.

Not that I can just waltz into any joint around town anymore. Sydney feels like a fucking prison already.

My eyes don’t leave her for a second, highlighting that if I were in prison I wouldn’t be able to sit and watch this little honeybee, so I can wait. Watching her might help keep me out of trouble.

I’m in luck; her and the other blonde take a seat at the table next to the floor to ceiling window. The brown skirt she’s wearing rides up her thigh as she sits.

My cock just won’t fucking stop.

I grab hold of it and want to just rub one out while I watch her. She does something to me—stirs a fire inside me, and I never handle fire very well.

A tall guy in a suit walks up to the table, and I let go of my cock and sit up in the driver’s seat to get a better look. He leans down and kisses my honeybee on the lips and he sits down next to her. Raging heat flares across my skin. I want to rip the fucking steering wheel apart. Or better yet, drive my Audi straight into the front window of the restaurant, skull-drag that fucker into the car and take him out to the warehouse to slowly annihilate the cheap suit-wearing pussy.

What the fuck has gotten into me? I need to calm the fuck down.

I ram the Audi into gear and slam my foot against the accelerator. I need to get the fuck away from here before I do something really stupid … again.

This feeling I have for a woman I’ve just met is beyond my control. I don’t know what to do with it. All I know is I want her.

I need to find out everything there is to know about her and make her mine, and mine only.

CHAPTER TWO

“So how about that hot gangster client of yours, Chelsea? He’s … wow!” my assistant, Sienna, teases. “Seriously, Brad, wait till you get an eye-full of him. He would melt the undies straight off your body! He has that whole hot, broody man thing going on.”

“Sounds like something I could handle.” Brad pouts femininely. “Tell me more.” He nudges my side.

“Will you two stop it? First of all, you know my rules about intimacy with clients. Second of all, he is all kinds of bad, and that’s being generous.”

I ignore their giggles as I almost gulp my Collins gin cocktail. I pray that the ice-cold drink extinguishes the burning in my chest. After two hours in an initial consultation with Pacer Fratelli, my mind and body are holding their own courtroom debate. My head knows how wrong he is, but his arms, the tattoos that cover them, his chest, his wicked smile, and leather gloves … Who knew men’s gloves were so hot? He floods the receptors in my brain that differentiate good from bad.

Sienna and Brad’s voices slowly drone out as I think about the crime scene photos and Sean Collins —Pacer’s victim: a headless body covered in burn marks and deep cuts. I’d never be able to un-see the autopsy photos that identified who he was, and it was Pacer Fratelli who did that to him. The body was found on a boat that was set on fire. Sean Collins bought that boat from Pacer only three months prior. His DNA was bound to be all over the vessel. But what makes this worse is Pacer isn’t denying it. He’s a ruthless murderer, and now it is up to me to keep him from going to prison. How am I meant to prove to the courts, prove to society, that he will not cause harm to anyone when he clearly has no regard for human life? Nor does he seem to hold an inch of remorse for his actions.

But I know there’s more to him. His dark eyes spoke to me. They mainly wanted me to undress, but there’s something in me that wants to protect him. There was a look in his eyes when I spoke harshly to him. He listened to everything I had to say. It made him seem almost vulnerable. I want to keep him on the right side of the law, so that I can get to know him a little better.

My God, what am I thinking? Why do I even feel like this?

“Earth to Chelsea?” Brad tilts his head and frowns. “Where were you just then?”

“Sorry. This case is just very intense. I’ve never led something as big as this on my own before. If I win, I think they’ll offer me a partner position.”

I draw back on the remainder of my drink until it makes a bubbling sound in the empty straw. I can’t drink it quick enough.

“You’ll be fine. They wouldn’t have given you this case if they didn’t think you could handle it.” Sienna always soothes my ego.

“That’s the thing—I think they have thrown me in the deep end to test me.”

“Well if you don’t want Mr Mobster, hand him over to me.” Brad winks.

I shake my head and smile. “Honey, Mr Mobster is likely to cut your head off if he hears you say that.”

Brad breaks into fits of laughter. “I don’t know if that excites me or scares the hell out of me.”

I know the feeling.

“I think I might head home. There’s a ton of evidence to sift through before I’m due in court in the morning. I have to adjourn the bail hearing as it is.”

Getting up from my seat, and say my goodbyes. I’m against the clock with this matter. I have a feeling that the next twelve months of my life are going to be absorbed by this guy. I think he’s going to keep me very busy.”

***

As soon as I get in the door of my terrace apartment, I kick off my black work pumps, pull at my bun and shake my hair out. With my head failing to stop thinking about my bail hearing tomorrow, I decide to start by finding the best precedence to use to keep Pacer out of remand. I know why the partners have given me this case. I’m blonde and a woman, so I’m a soft touch that will appeal to the jury during the trail. The magistrate, on the other hand, may be harder to convince—and that’s who I’m dealing with tomorrow to get a two week adjournment. The change of council in the representation of Pacer should be enough to convince the magistrate to approve it. I don’t know why Pacer changed his legal representation when he’s had Michael Hangcock represent him for years.

I note that Jackson Reed is the crown prosecution on the case. He always goes with the same legislation at bail hearings. The lazy fool.

I’m sure Pacer wouldn’t do anything stupid when there’s a million dollars riding on him to behave. But these gangsters seem to have very little respect for money, or human life … or the law, for that matter. They are a law unto themselves. If he doesn’t toe the line, my unblemished reputation in the courtroom will suddenly take a step back. And I am not about to let that happen; I’ve worked too hard for this.

But if I win, I get everything I want.

I pour myself a glass of the week-old wine from the fridge and sit down at the coffee table, spreading out all of the police fact sheets and textbooks on legislation, together with the cases that hold precedence. As much as I can afford the luxuries of expensive wine, I just don’t have the time for it, so this vinegar shit will do. I wince at the sour taste when I take my first sip, but by the second gulp I can drink it without cringing.

Paciano Salvatore Fratelli, it reads across the top of his dossier.

I look at Pacer’s dozen pages of criminal history and bite down on my pen, something that’s quickly becoming a habit since meeting him. Biting my pen seems to diminish the heat from rising out of my underwear. Must be the leather gloves.