“Fuck,” Reeve mutters.

“You understand what I’m saying?” I ask him quietly.

He nods, his eyes swimming in sadness.

“My mom would have done anything, and I mean anything, to nourish me. There is nothing she wouldn’t have sacrificed, nothing she wouldn’t have risked, to try to keep me fed and sheltered. She did that because she loved me.”

“She loved you very much,” Reeve murmurs, lacing his fingers through mine.

“She taught me my most important lesson in life,” I tell him so he starts to understand where I’m coming from. “There are some people you risk everything for. So going back to the question Danny asked me in my interview . . . yes, in a heartbeat I’d put my license at risk for my mother or someone I loved. It’s a no-brainer to me.”

Reeve knifes upward in the bed, his arms banding around me and pulling me close. His mouth crushes onto mine, and he kisses me so deeply I know I’ll still feel it tomorrow. He seems desperate, as if he’s trying to convey his understanding with his tongue and teeth. My arms wrap around his neck, and I feel him start to swell underneath my bottom.

Pulling away from the deep connection of the kiss, he leaves his lips resting gently against mine. “I think you might be the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

“Do you get me now?” I whisper, my lips moving against his.

“Yeah . . . I get you now,” he says and then kisses me again.

CHAPTER 14

REEVE

I’m sitting in Leary’s large conference room, flipping through my presentation. I was the first to arrive this morning for the mediation because I always like to take extra time to set up and skim through my notes. Any moment I’m expecting the others, including Leary and Jenna as well as Tom Collier and retired judge Peter Goetge, who will be the one who will direct and mediate any potential negotiations today.

I don’t expect that Tom will offer much money, so this is probably all just a formality. After today, it’s crunch time.

We’re just shy of a month from the trial, and I’m starting to get stressed.

Ordinarily, trials don’t cause me any worry. Some lawyers get physically ill, the prospect of standing in front of twelve strangers more than they can bear. Add in an irate judge, and the anxiety level increases tenfold. Add in high-stakes money, and some lawyers have to medicate.

Not me.

I love the adrenaline rush, the spotlight, and the competition of it all.

Normally.

Not with the LaPietra case, though.

I’m getting stressed because every day that the trial looms closer, it means that Leary is going to find out just how devious I can be in the courtroom. When she learns of my deviousness, and when it causes her case to fail, she’s going to hate me for it.

There’s not a day that hasn’t gone by when I don’t argue with myself over what to do. Half the time I think I should just throw my professional ethics out the window and divulge to her what I know about Jenna. The other half of the time, I keep hoping that something else will happen to save me from it all. Like, maybe a comet will strike the earth. Or TransBenefit will fold into bankruptcy. Or Jenna will hit the lottery and this case won’t matter anymore.

Ironically, the only real thing that has kept me somewhat sane has been Leary herself. Every moment I’m with her is complete and absolute escape from the harsh realities of my job. I don’t think about anything else. I concentrate only on her. I want to live in a world where there’s only Leary and me . . . and Mr. Chico Taco, too.

All silly pipe dreams.

So I continue on, taking advantage of every precious second with this beautiful, sexy, and complex woman.

Luckily for me, there are a lot of seconds, minutes, and hours when we’re together. We’ve fallen into a natural routine. Leary has started staying at my house every night, mainly so Chico doesn’t have to go stay with Vanessa. This has been at Leary’s insistence, and I thought it was very sweet of her to consider his feelings. But then she did something one day that I’ll never forget.

I walked into my living room. She was sitting on my couch with Chico’s head in her lap. She was rubbing his ears and making cooing noises at him. She bent over and whispered in his ear, “You love me more than Vanessa, don’t you, buddy?”

I had to turn around and walk back into the kitchen and place a kitchen towel in my mouth so she couldn’t hear me laughing. It had become clear to me that Leary was staying at my house to gain favor with my dog and turn his allegiance from Vanessa over to her.

Fucking adorable.

After that night several weeks ago when she told me about her mother and the things she did for Leary’s well-being, things changed between us. She opened up to me, I accepted the gift, and from that moment forward, I entered into a committed relationship with her. Not just in a monogamous sense, but committed to this woman’s emotional well-being.

Everything about her became important to me. Every touch from her, every sound out of her mouth, every nuance of her day. It all became mine. I possessed her and she consumed me. But for this stupid fucking trial, my existence would be absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately, Leary did not stay with me last night because she had work to do. So did I, for that matter. In fact, we were both holed up in our respective offices, working on the LaPietra case because we’re holding the mediation today.

Fuck, I missed her in my bed last night. She’s fast becoming a necessity to me. While I was working, I couldn’t help reaching out to her.

I sent her a text around 10:00 p.m. Still working?

Her response was immediate. Yup. Hey. What page of the deposition of Dr. Summerland did he admit that he pulled a double on-call shift before Jenna’s surgery?

I had to laugh before I responded. I’m not helping you prepare your case against me. Bad girl.

She wrote me back a smiley face but nothing more.

I went back to work, finishing up a few notes on my PowerPoint presentation for the mediation. I played around with font sizes and tweaked a few sentences. But something started niggling at me.

Why was Leary focused on Dr. Summerland’s on-call shifts before the surgery? I mean, all doctors worked hard hours, went with little sleep. Even surgeons.

Clearly she was searching for some type of angle, and I guessed she was going to try to attack him at trial on not being fresh enough to do the surgery. But she needed more than just circumstantial evidence that he might have been too tired after the on-call shifts. I didn’t remember her asking him any actual detailed questions about his stamina during his deposition, so maybe she’d found something else.

I put aside my mediation materials and pulled out a binder that held all of Dr. Summerland’s surgical records, including the hospital nursing notes. I started flipping through them again. I read everything, word for word, yet nothing jumped out at me.

But then I saw it.

A small, barely legible note from one of the nurses: 12:18 p.m. Dr. S and R.V. step out.

Then another note. 12:32 p.m. Dr. S back. Surg in progress.

It was a bit odd. Could be nothing. I mean, sometimes doctors needed a break. As long as the anesthesiologist stayed in the operating room, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.