When He's Dirty (Walker Security - Adrian's Trilogy 1)

I don’t offer more. I cut my stare and sip my champagne, not particularly eager to find out what I might read if I’m looking at him. My past work is a contradiction to my present, a contradiction to his role in law enforcement. I got bad guys off. Now we both put them in jail.

“What’s the story with you and your father’s company?” he asks.

And there it is: the Pandora’s box of my past. “What you might expect,” I say, glancing over at him. “I felt dirty. I needed out.”

“What about Logan?” he asks, shutting the pizza box. “Is he the reason you felt dirty?”

“He didn’t help,” I say, deciding to just be honest. I need honesty in my life. “But no. I’d followed my father’s career path. I needed my own.”

“Fair enough,” he says, “but back to Logan. Unless you’d rather not.”

“He’s suddenly in the middle of this Waters case, so I suppose he’s a hard topic to avoid. You heard most of the story but I’ll elaborate. He’s my father’s protégé. We made an obvious pairing. He proposed, and we were planning our wedding. I walked in on him and my secretary on my desk. He told me boys would be boys. I gave his ring back and told my father, who said boys will be boys.”

“That’s not true,” he says. “You know that, right? I have buddies at Walker happily married and they are loyal to the bone.”

“I don’t know what I know about relationships at all anymore, other than I’ve done fine on my own.”

He studies me several beasts before he asks, “How did you get to the DA’s office?”

“A month after the ‘boys will be boys’ incident, one of the men I got off on murder, a guy I’d actually thought was innocent in this case, killed his wife. I was done. I quit and moved over to the DA’s office. Two years later, I’m on what feels like the biggest case of the century.”

“First,” he says. “I’ve misjudged a few people myself and it’s tough, but you aren’t responsible for their actions.”

“We both know that it’s not that simple.”

“No,” he concludes. “It’s not, but you’re here now and the DA must trust you to have you lead this case.”

“I saw inside the criminal mind at my father’s firm. It’s something I saw as a flaw, but Ed helped me see clearly. It’s an asset against someone like Waters.” This is my opening, my moment to face the elephant in the room head-on. I turn to face him, my leg on the couch between us. He sets his glass down and turns to me, his hand settling on my leg. I feel that touch zip through me, heat blossoming oh so easily. My gaze sweeps over the ink on his right arm, a similar gray, black, and red design with red flowers and a monster. This one features a skull. His fingers flex on my leg. “What do you want to know, Pri?” His voice is a gentle prod.

My gaze lifts to his, a spike of awareness in our connection. About you, I think. I want to know so much about him, and not as a prosecutor, as a woman, but I can’t ask him for what he’s not ready to give. “It’s not what I want to know,” I say. “It’s what I need to say. I got some bad people off, Adrian. I don’t want you to think that Waters can get to me. I’m a better prosecutor now for having seen the other side.”

He studies me for several seconds and then his hand is gone and he’s turned away from me, facing forward. I recoil with his reaction and I know what I have to do. “We need you to take down Waters. He can’t be set free. I’ll ask the DA to step up and take over the case. I’ll step away.”

“You aren’t the problem, Pri.” He scrubs fingers through his hair and then looks at me. “You are not the problem,” he repeats. “I asked for that immunity agreement for a reason. I crossed the lines. I did shit. I believed I had to do everything I did at the time, but now, now I question it all.”

I scoot closer to him, my hand on his arm, a silent plea that he look at me, that he open up to me. It’s a big request, I know, when I of all people understand that love is often given more liberally than trust.Chapter TwentyADRIAN

Pri’s touch is like fire licking at my body and when my eyes meet hers, the rush of adrenaline and lust is as real and raw as it gets. But I resist her, wondering just how dirty she’ll feel when she finds out just how dirty I had to get to take down Waters. Somehow it feels unfair to touch her again until she knows. I’m seconds from saying fuck it and kissing her again when she says, “You were undercover, Adrian.”