Take Me (Take Me 1)

She’d let him conclude the trial and take a breath… Then she’d approach him.

It was a good plan in her mind.

What Kate didn’t know, however, was that fate was much hastier and infinitely more insistent than her own meticulous planning…

Jude prowled his office, the recorder on his computer rolling, so that the ticking of every sound in the room made an animated needle quiver and jerk…though the only sounds that currently registered were Jude’s boot heels on the marble floor and the ice jiggling in his otherwise empty glass.

He hadn’t spoken in fifteen minutes, at least.

When he’d pressed the record button, he’d deftly launched into his closing argument, his brain churning with all the perfect phrases and pertinent facts and resounding reasoning that would win this case for him.

It was so fucking cut and dried, he could have prattled on for hours about conclusive evidence and substantiating documentation and the extreme lack of any sort of existential proof to make any other decision than to rule in favor of his and his co-counsel’s clients.

Yet his vehement diatribe had died on the vine only a few minutes in, and Jude was now knee-deep in murky mental waters he was having a bitch of a time wading through.

Turning sharply, he marched over to the wet bar and splashed two fingers of scotch into the glass. Drained it and poured two more.

He was agitated. He was cranky. He was in need of punching something—or someone.

Totally out of the question at the moment, of course. He was done with MMA fighting.

So he resumed his pacing.

What most poignantly plagued Jude was that excruciatingly agonizing declaration made by Nathanial Stevens the very first day of the trail.

My wife is dead!

Jude drew up short. His gaze flashed to his laptop bag, where his file folders were concealed.

“Son of a bitch,” he grumbled irritably. Then slammed his glass down on the desk, snapped the lid closed on his laptop and snatched up his bag. He stalked out of the room.

He whipped his cell from the front pocket of his suit pants and tapped the number for his driver. He’d long since divested himself of his jacket and tie. And Lord knew his hair was probably a fucking nightmare with the incessant amount of times he’d raked a hand through it.

His pulse beat erratically at the base of his throat and every muscle in his body was rigid.

He fought the mental repeat performance of Stevens making his torturous announcement in front of God, jury and spectators. A roomful of lawyers who weren’t supposed to care about the casualties, just recount the facts and lead everyone down the logical path of acquittal.

Though this wasn’t a murder trial. Right?

Jude growled as he stepped into the elevator.

Wrongful death was on the docket. But what had happened at that factory was an accident. A death had occurred, true. Yet absent mens rea, malice, intent, perceived greed and personal gain… Every conceivable criminal implication had been wiped from the slate during endless hours of examination and cross-examination, not to mention via the lengthy line of expert witnesses paraded in for both sides.

That, however, did not keep the parties involved—Jude included—from experiencing the aftershocks of the tragedy laid before them.

Jude felt the downward spiral coming on. He’d kept Stevens’ words and that soul-stabbing expression on the man’s face at bay for weeks. A much longer time than was necessary to hear the facts of the case. And those expert witnesses had piled more innocent conjecture upon innocent conjecture until it was just so fucking blatant Stevens was going to lose, Jude wanted to grab the man by the shoulders and demand he back the hell down and take the fucking settlement originally offered!

But something also stopped Jude from doing just that. The anguish in Stevens’ tone, perhaps. Or maybe it was the look in his eyes, which had started out condemning, had morphed into desperation, and now reflected sheer and utter hopelessness.

Yet despite that, Stevens still held on. By the thinnest strand, sure. But the man was determined to ascertain a significant reason for his wife’s death.

“Goddamn it,” Jude mumbled under his breath. Then, to his driver, said, “Can you pick it up, Brent? I need to be somewhere—quick.”

“Doing my best, sir.”

“Of course. I know.” Jude shook his head, his aggravation mounting. That clawing within him was sharp and jagged-edged. Shredding him. Until Jude could barely breathe.

When the car pulled alongside the awning-topped entrance to Kate’s building, Jude couldn’t get out fast enough. He shoved past the doorman and announced his name to the security guard at the elegant front desk. With his phone still in