Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

But I’m not going to go there right now. No use in dwelling on something I can’t change—at least not until I get all the facts from Ethan. Which is why, even though it’s barely seven in the morning, I open up FindLaw, one of the big legal databases in the country, and start combing the judge’s decision on the most recent case about idea patenting.

It doesn’t take long before I’m completely immersed. After all, the whole reason I wanted to get into patent law was because I thought big corporations were taking advantage of small, independent inventors—stealing their ideas for practically nothing and then making a fortune off them. It happened to my brother, Miles, once when I was in junior high and he was in college and it had devastated him. Not to mention it had pretty much bankrupted my family since my dad had invested heavily in Miles’s idea, the failure of which sent us on the collision course with Brandon that ended up with me raped, beaten and signing papers that recanted my statement in exchange for the money my family needed to recover from the theft.

The whole point of being a patent lawyer is helping out people like my brother—but I think maybe I also got into it so that what happened to me doesn’t happen to anybody else, ever. If someone had asked me a year ago if that was the reason I wanted to be an attorney, I would have told them they were way off. But now, looking at it after having met Ethan and lived through all the shit we’ve been faced with, I’m forced to admit that maybe there’s a part of me that’s in it so that no other girl gets sold out because her parents were ripped off and they need the money.

Maybe it’s not the most businesslike or the most professional answer, but it’s my answer and I’m learning to embrace it.

This case I’m on—the one claiming Ethan infringed on what is, in essence, an abstract idea, is being worked by me and two other interns, as well as a supervisory attorney. I’m in charge of researching precedent and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Some people find spending hours upon hours amid legal texts to be boring, but I love it. I love the order of it, love the power of the decisions handed down.

I’m not sure how long I work—long enough that the office starts to come alive around me. Corporate attorneys are notoriously early risers, so some of them started wandering in not long after I got here. But by the time I stand up to stretch out my back and shoulders, the paralegals, assistants and interns are all here, too.

A couple of the interns are walking down the path in between the cubicles as I twist around. I make eye contact with one of them—a girl named Chrissy who was actually pretty nice to me my first couple days here. I smile tentatively and she looks uncomfortable, jerks her eyes away and actually lowers her head down as she passes my cubicle.

Yeah. That’s pretty much how it’s been for weeks now. Don’t know why I keep trying. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been a social pariah…only this time, I refuse to hide.

I’m not a scared fourteen-year-old anymore.

When Ethan talked me into coming back to work, I knew I would be in for this. And I decided it was worth it—because I need the work experience for my law school application and because I really enjoy what I do here. Besides, who cares if the people in my own department don’t like me? I still have Ro and Zayn and Austin, all interns from R&D. They’re the coolest friends a girl could ask for.

Deciding now is as good a time as any for a break, I slide my phone into my pocket—in case Ethan calls—and then grab my purse from my drawer. After a quick trip to the restroom, I detour by the break room to fill up my water bottle and grab an apple from the fruit bowl that’s always full. A couple turns around the building’s main lobby area to stretch my legs and I head back to m

y cubicle, doing my best to ignore the numerous stares I get along the way.

But when I get to my cubicle, I figure out that there’s a reason for the stares. Ethan is leaning back in my chair, feet up on my desk and eyes closed. He looks utterly exhausted. So exhausted, that for a second I think about just leaving him right where he is for a few minutes. But then he opens his eyes and the look in them makes my heart sink.

Determined to keep it light—partly because he looks like he needs it and partly because I’m pretty sure half the floor is currently eavesdropping—I perch myself on the corner of my desk and ask softly, “Whatcha doing, Mr. Frost?”

The darkness fades as quickly as it came. “Visiting my wife, Mrs. Frost.” He stands up, rolling himself out of the chair in a way that makes my palms sweat just to watch. It’s ridiculous how well my husband can move…and how much it turns me on just to watch him.

He cups my jaw, drops a quick kiss on my lips. Then uses his thumb to rub gently against the frown lines that crease my cheeks. “You all right, baby?”

I drop my voice even lower. “I’m good. Just worried about you. How was your trip?”

“It was fine. Pretty uneventful, workwise. We got everything accomplished that we set out to do.”

I nod, then brush a hand through his hair that’s gone from shaggy to officially too long sometime in the last two weeks. Somehow it makes him look even hotter, even more dangerous. I like it. “What about the nonwork stuff? That go okay, too?”

His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, but he just nods. “It’s getting there.”

“Yeah?” Not like I expect him to give me any details while we’re standing in the middle of a very busy office, but still I feel the need to check on him. To make sure he’s okay with however things played out with Brandon.

“Absolutely.” He gives me another quick kiss, this one on my forehead. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t keep you. Come by my office when you get off tonight. I’ll drive you home.”

“My car’s in the parking lot.”

“And it will still be there on Monday when you come back for it.”

“Monday? What if I need to go somewhere over the weekend?”

“Amazingly, I have a garage full of cars at home. Pick one.”

“I like my car.”

“You like being stubborn about your car, more likely. But fine, come get me after work and you can drive me home. Fair?”

I nod begrudgingly. “Fair.”

“Good.” One more kiss and then he’s moving around me. “See you then.”