Julie James - About That Night

“Did you ask for Dad’s help when you opened this wine shop?” Kyle asked pointedly.

Jordan leaned against the bar, proudly taking in the store. “Of course not.”

Enough said.

A HALF HOUR later, Kyle left the wine shop in good spirits after his conversation with Jordan. But almost immediately, as he crossed the street and walked a half block to his car, the nagging feeling crept back in. And he knew the exact source of that.

This situation with Prosecutrix Pierce had become a serious burr up his ass.

At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter what he did about the Darius Brown case. Rylann had been right; he wouldn’t lie under oath. So he was free and clear to be the asshole and make her go get her subpoena. He’d tell the grand jury what he knew, and justice would be served. And he would have the satisfaction of knowing that he’d made the U.S. Attorney’s Office—people who had certainly never shown him any courtesies—scramble through a few hoops.

It was a good plan. He wanted to be the asshole here.

Why, then, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his cell phone and Rylann’s business card, he honestly couldn’t say.

He dialed her number, got her voicemail, and left a message.

“Sorry, counselor, but I looked all around the penthouse and found only one Kyle Rhodes.” He paused. “And he will be at your office tomorrow at two o’clock. Expect lots of prickliness.”

BY ONE THIRTY the next afternoon, the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office was in a stir.

As it turned out, Rylann had not originally been available at two o’clock, but she’d switched her schedule around to accommodate a particularly prickly witness who seemed to believe that he was calling the shots in this situation. After that, she’d told her secretary to add Kyle Rhodes to the visitor’s list, and the information had spread like wildfire.

Cade popped into her office right before her meeting, doing a slow clap. “Well done. How did you manage to bring in the Twitter Terrorist?”

“I have my ways,” Rylann said mysteriously. Although she wasn’t quite sure she knew the answer to that herself. “By the way, I think we can just call him Kyle Rhodes now.”

Cade raised a curious eyebrow at that. “Can we now?”

A call from her secretary interrupted them with the news that her visitor had arrived. “That’s my cue,” Rylann said, standing up from her desk.

Cade walked alongside her on the way back to his office. As they passed by the secretaries’ desks and the other AUSA offices, Rylann noticed that everyone’s eyes were on her.

“You’d think I’d asked Al Capone to drop by,” she muttered under her breath.

“Get used to it. When it comes to Kyle Rhodes, people are curious.” Cade saluted as he ducked into his office. “Good luck.”

Rylann rounded the corner, slowing her stride as she surveyed the scene in the reception area.

Kyle stood with his profile to her, looking at the photograph of the Chicago skyline. Surprisingly, he appeared to be alone. He’d dressed in business-casual attire, looking professional and confident, with the top button undone on his blue pin-striped shirt and his hands tucked into his pants pockets. Ironically emblazed in bold silver letters on the wall behind him were the words “Office of the United States Attorney.”

Rylann had to admit it. She was impressed.

Clearly, there was no love lost between him and her office. Five months ago, they’d gone after him hard—probably a little too hard, from what Cade had told her. Yet now they needed Kyle, and so there he stood: head held high, not trying to hide or shield himself with the team of attorneys most men in his position would have insisted be present.

Kyle turned and saw her, watching with a wary expression as she approached. He’d said some things last night, and so had she—but still, he’d shown up. And as far as Rylann was concerned, that said so much more than a few heated words.

“Looks like we have an audience,” he said when she stopped before him.

Rylann looked back and saw that several secretaries and attorneys were staring at them as they “happened” to walk by the reception area.

“No lawyers again?” she asked.

“I don’t have anything to hide, Ms. Pierce,” he said coolly.

“Actually, I’m glad they’re sitting this one out. I couldn’t afford to buy all fifty of them coffee, anyway.”

Surprise flashed across his face. “We’re not staying here?”

Rylann knew that if she brought him back to the conference room, as she’d originally intended, people would be gawking and whispering at him the entire time. And frankly, she thought it was about time that somebody from her office cut Kyle Rhodes a small break. “I figured we could go someplace that’s a little less…stifling.” She lowered her voice. “It’s a weird situation, Kyle. I know that. But I’m trying here.”

He studied her for a long moment, seeming to debate whether to accept the olive branch she had offered.

“I like your hair better this way,” he finally said.

Rylann smiled to herself. Well, that was a start. “Does that mean we have a truce?”

Kyle began walking in the direction of the elevators. “It means I’m thinking about it.”

But when he pushed the down button and stole a glance at her, the familiar devilish spark back in his eyes, Rylann knew she was in.

KYLE SAT OPPOSITE Rylann in the booth, checking out the scene around them.

She’d brought him to a diner—the quasi-seedy, retro-but-not-in-a-hip-way kind of diner complete with vinyl booths and plastic menus—that was located under the L tracks a block from her office.

“How did you find this place?” He picked up the menu. “They actually have meat loaf on the menu.”

Rylann shed her jacket and placed it on the booth next to her. “One of the other AUSAs told me about it. It’s a courthouse hangout.”

With a loud pop! the lights suddenly went out.

Rylann waved her hand dismissively. “Just a fuse. Happens all the time.” She set her menu off to the side and looked at him through the dim light filtering in through the windows. “So. I’ve read your file.”

Of course she had. “And what did this file tell you about me?” Kyle asked.

She pulled a legal pad and pen out of her briefcase. “Well, I can tell you one thing it didn’t tell me: why you were in disciplinary segregation.” She clicked her pen and poised it over the legal pad, ready to go. “Perhaps you could explain that?”

Kyle fought back a grin, wondering if she knew how oddly enticing she looked when she went all official on him. “All the times I was in disciplinary segregation, Ms. Pierce, or just the time I was locked up next to Brown?”

She blinked. “How many times were you in disciplinary segregation?”

“Six.”

Her eyes widened. “In four months? That’s quite an accomplishment.”

The lights suddenly flickered back on, and some of the diner’s other patrons cheered approvingly.

“There we go,” Rylann said with a warm, easy smile. “All part of the ambience.”

Hmm.

Kyle remembered that smile. He’d once walked up to a complete stranger in a bar because of one just like it. And had then been thoroughly sassed.

“You were about to tell me about the six times you were in disciplinary segregation?” she prompted him.

He sat back, casually stretching his arm along the booth. “I guess some of the other inmates thought a rich computer geek would be an easy mark. From time to time, I needed to defend myself to correct that misimpression.”

Rylann jotted something down on her legal pad. “So you had problems with fighting.”

“Actually, I did quite well with the fighting. It was the getting caught part that I had problems with.”

Kyle smiled innocently when she threw him a look. He couldn’t help it—something about Rylann Pierce and her suit and no-nonsense legal pad made him want to…agitate her.

“Any noteworthy fights I should know about?” she asked.

“I once shoved a guy’s face in a plate of mashed pota-

toes.”

He was pretty sure he saw her fighting back a smile at that one.

“Tell me what it was like being in prison,” she said.

“You’re a prosecutor. You must have some idea what it’s like,” he said.

She acknowledged this with a nod. “I’d like to hear you describe it in your own words.”

“Ah. So you know what I’ll say when I testify on the subject.”

“Precisely.”

Kyle thought about where to start with that one. Interesting that Rylann would be the first person to directly ask about his prison experience, instead of dancing around the subject the way his friends and family all had. “Most of the time, it was boring as hell. Same routine every day. Wake up at five a.m., breakfast, wait in your cell for a head count. Leisure time if you passed inspection. Lunch at eleven, another head count, more free time. Into your cell for yet another head count, dinner at five o’clock, free time until nine, and then—you guessed it—another head count. Lights off at ten.” He pointed. “Not much to write about that on your legal pad.”

“What about the nighttime routine?”

He shrugged. “The nights were long. Cold. Gave a man a lot of time to think.” He took a sip of his coffee, figuring there wasn’t much else he needed to say about that.

“You mentioned you had some issues with the other inmates. How about the guards?” she asked.

“Other than the fact that they kept tossing me in segregation for defending myself, no.”