Evidence of Desire: A Courting Justice Novel - Softcover

Blake, Lexi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0399587489 ISBN 13: 9780399587481

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

A fast-paced contemporary romance that sizzles from the New York Times bestselling author of Order of Protection where passion for the law isn't the only thing heating up the courtroom.

Isla Shayne knows she's in over her head. As former all-star linebacker Trey Adams's personal lawyer, she's used to handling his business dealings and private financial matters, not murder charges. She needs to find an experienced criminal attorney who speaks her client's language. David Cormack of Garrison, Cormack and Lawless is exactly what she needs in the courtroom--and the only man she wants in the bedroom.

For David, taking on the Adams case means diving back into a world he thought he'd left behind and colliding head on with tragic possibilities he's in no mood to face. There's a reason professional football is in his past and no matter how close Isla gets to the truth he intends to leave it there.

But long days working on the case together lead to hot nights in each other's arms. As their feelings grow, the case takes a deadly twist that could change the game between the two lovers forever.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lexi Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of the Courting Justice novels, including Order of Protection, the Lawless novels, including Ruthless, Satisfaction, and Revenge, and the Masters and Mercenaries series, including Love Another Day, For His Eyes Only, and Submission is Not Enough. She is also coauthor with Shayla Black of the Perfect Gentlemen series, including Big Easy Temptation and Seduction in Session, and the Masters of Menage series, including Their Virgin Mistress and Their Virgin Secretary.

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One

 

It was always the roar of the crowd he heard first. It came out of nowhere. Like the world was quiet and still, and then a joyous chaos slapped him in the face. How many times had he stood outside the locker room, waiting for that moment when he moved from the darkness and into the brilliant light? When he went from being something small to being the center of the world?

 

It was odd though because now he wasn't surrounded by laughing teammates, their camaraderie usually buoying him in the face of those questioning, demanding lights. He wasn't bouncing in his cleats, pumping himself up by messing around with the running back or joking with his line. Sometimes they would bump hard against one another as though prepping for the hits to come, to remind each other-I am invincible.

 

Now there was only him standing in the shadows, waiting for that moment when he would be called to glory.

 

Why the hell was he in a suit? He looked down and there wasn't a football in his hand. Instead he carried an elegant briefcase. He felt leaner, his body not as ripped as it was supposed to be. He needed the muscle, needed the strength. Here only the strongest survived. Only the most willing to sacrifice made it to the field.

 

The announcer's voice shook the stadium, calling out number thirty-four.

 

This was wrong. He knew it deep in his gut. This was wrong and he wasn't going out there. He would stay in the shadows. Being small didn't mean being wrong. Except his feet were moving and there it was, the roar that seemed to shake his soul. Had he once thought that was the sweetest sound in the world? Now he could hear the hunger behind the cheers, the craving for something to take each fan away from their ordinary lives. Blood would do. Bones cracking and miracles performed, every player would feed the need of the crowd that jubilantly screamed now, but oh how it could turn when things went wrong. One misstep. One fumble. One missed chance and that jubilation would turn ugly and he would feel it in his soul.

 

He found himself in the middle of the field, all lights on him. Blinding lights. He'd wanted this? He'd once needed this like he needed his next breath. These lights, that crowd, those voices proved he'd climbed out of the cesspool of poverty he'd been born into, lifted up through gift and discipline, through blood and pain.

 

He held his fists up, dropping the stupid briefcase. He didn't need that. He didn't need pads or helmets. He needed discipline and the ability to ignore pain. That was the sacrifice. What were a few broken bones compared to the glory he could find here?

 

And then everything stopped. No more cheers. No more lights. He was alone and yet not because the crowd had gone, but something was coming for him. Silence and darkness, and he realized it was close. It was coming for him in that sullen night, a quiet locomotive that bashed past all precautions.

 

He waited, bracing himself for the final tackle.

 

----

David sat straight up in bed when the phone rang, the sound splitting the deep gloom of his dream. His hands were shaking, and it took him a moment to remember that he was here in his nice Chelsea apartment that cost more than a thousand of the trailers heÕd grown up in. He was safe and functional, and he was a lawyer not a Sunday soldier.

 

Fuck. He hated that dream. Why couldn't he dream about serial killers stalking him? He was a damn criminal defense attorney. He'd met with some of the creepiest human beings on earth. Surely he could come up with a few nightmares about them. It would be less disturbing.

 

He glanced at the clock. Barely five a.m. on a Saturday. Damn it. He had exactly two days to sleep in. Not to not work. He worked seven days a week, but at least on weekends he got a couple of extra hours of sleep. Everyone knew that.

 

His cell trilled again, the sound not as close in proximity as it should have been. Had he turned the ringer down?

 

His heart seized a little because everyone did know that he slept in, and that meant this was likely an emergency. He scrambled to get to his phone.

 

Where was his phone? He could hear the fucker, but where was it? Why wasn't it sitting on the nightstand where he always put it?

 

What the hell had he done last night?

 

He turned on the lights and walked into the living room, where the sound was louder. Yeah, now he remembered. He'd gotten together with friends and ordered takeout to celebrate the end of a case. Margarita and Noah had come to his place. They'd started out by going over the jury polling and ended up drinking way, way too much tequila.

 

He was too old for that shit. How had he gotten talked into it? And Margarita could seriously drink some tequila. They'd laughed about it the night before, the amount of tequila going into their Margarita. Naturally she'd been the completely steady one. She was the one who directed him to go to bed when it got late, and promised to see Noah home. God, he hoped Noah hadn't hit on her. That was the last thing they needed. Margarita Reyes was one of the single smartest legal minds he'd ever met. She split her time between his New York firm, Garrison, Cormack, and Lawless, and the software company 4L, owned by the incredibly wealthy Drew Lawless. David was almost certain Margarita had been initially sent by Drew to watch over the youngest of his siblings, Noah, as he embarked on his career, but two years in she was a part of the team and not someone's watchdog. Either that or she was a terrible watchdog because she instigated most of the parties.

 

Where the hell was his phone?

 

It had stopped ringing. He was going to feel so damn bad if that was his mother and something had happened to his dad. With the way things had been going, it could be anything. Since the Alzheimer's had progressed, his father had been known to wander off, thinking it was still the eighties and looking for his toddler son.

 

He hoped things had changed since he'd started paying for a full-time nurse. He would do almost anything to help his mother out. She was aging herself and he wanted her to enjoy her golden years instead of worrying about a husband who was rapidly forgetting who he was.

 

There was a tapping on his door, lightly, as though the person knocking knew how pissed off New Yorkers could get when something interrupted their weekend sleep.

 

It was Grand Central here this morning. Everyone wanted a piece of him. Without bothering to find a robe, he strode to the door and looked out the peephole. He sighed and started the long process of unlocking the door.

 

Noah stood in the doorway, and David thought seriously about punching him in his perfect, nobody-can-tell-I-spent-the-night-finding-the-bottom-of-a-bottle-of-tequila face. He was dressed in a designer suit, his GQ-ready face all fresh and youthful.

 

David was fairly certain he'd never looked that young in his life. "What? Do you have any idea what time it is? Did Margarita lose you on the way home? Did you find some model's bed and now you need a place to hide?"

 

The way Noah went through women, it was a plausible scenario.

 

Noah's eyes widened. "Is that any way to greet the man who is about to make your entire year? You said you wanted a big case, I've caught us a whopper. But seriously, you're going to have to wear more than those boxers. Let's get you dressed and moving, my man. I've got a car waiting for us."

 

He strode in and David closed the door behind him. "What case are...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0399587489
• ISBN 13: 9780399587481
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland