“Sorry to interrupt.”
Diana is behind her desk, eyes on me. Thayer has his back to the room, looking out at the view, but he turns. I remember him now, the new barrister on the pedo case.
“Hey.” The warmth in her eyes isn’t something she performs. “Come in, come in.”
I push the door open the rest of the way, holding the yellow tulips with one hand.
“Geoffrey,” she says, standing and walking toward me in her pristine off-white pencil skirt and matching top, “this is Kai.”
Thayer extends a hand, and I shake it. His grip is firm.
“Kai is my husband,” she adds.
“When? I had no idea. Congratulations.”
“Four months ago,” she says. “It was a private affair.”
Privatewas an understatement. It was her, me, a registrar. Carol and her husband signed as the witnesses.
She was the one who proposed. I’d been turning the idea over in my head, trying to figure out the best way a man with nothing proposes to a woman who has everything. While I was busy wrestling with that, she cut straight through the noise.
One night, she looked at me over her laptop and said she wanted to get married. I asked if she was joking. She told me she never jokes about contracts. I bought the rings the next morning.
“Congratulations to you both. I mean that sincerely.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey.” The professional edge in her voice smooths out for a second.
“Sit down,“ she says to me. “We’re almost done.”
I take the chair by the window, set the tulips across my knees, and shut up. When Thayer finally gathers his folders and lets himself out, Diana stands by the window and lets a long beat pass before she speaks.
“We won.”
“Torresse?”
“Guilty on all counts.” She beams. “The man did what he did to those children for over a decade.”
I step closer.
“His team will appeal. We know that. Geoffrey’s on it, which is what that was about.” She exhales through her nose. “But we won the first round. He doesn’t get to walk away. Not today.”
I pull her into my arms. She is small against my chest, but the sharpest mind in a city full of sharp minds.
“I’m so proud of you, love.”
She eases out of my arms to look at me. “Thank you, but don’t get sentimental.”
“I’m not.” I definitely am. “I’m stating a fact.”
She holds my gaze a second longer, then breaks the hug and slumps into her chair, head tipped back.
“I’m so stressed,” she says, not even looking at me.
The first time she dragged me to bed, she called sex a stress reliever, and that line is burned into me. I think about it every time that crease shows up between her brows. Every time her shoulders go tight. Every time she drops her head back and closes her eyes.
“I’ll go shower first.”
“Why?” She reaches up and catches my hand before I can pass the desk. “You know I like licking the sweat off you.”
