BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT

chapter 4

Sienna's POV

"You have never told me that, and now I'm wondering if you're about to talk your husband into taking this job after all.”

"God, no. I know which battles are worth fighting with a Walker man, and that's not one of them. But I read your column

this morning, and it was good. Also, it more or less confirms that Counselor Crush is winning."

I stopped dead half a block from the coffee shop. "Counselor Crush?"

"You seriously don't know Counselor Crush? What kind of reporter are you?"

"Explain."

"There's a clip from a press conference last year, Declan answering some reporter's question with zero patience and

maximum jawline, and it broke half the internet. He hates that it exists."

My stomach drops somewhere around my boots. "Declan Cross is Counselor Crush?"

“The one and only. He hates the nickname, thinks it undercuts his work, and honestly, he's probably right. He's also a genuinely decent guy under all that polish. Don't tell Weston I said the second part. He's been ridiculous about jealousy

since I got pregnant again, which is absurd, since I have eyes for exactly one man."

"Sure. The one currently installing a tracking chip."

She laughs. "I have to run. But I'll bet you dessert at that gelato place we love that the ex-boyfriend did it, not Ashcroft.”

Voices rise behind her. "Gotta go. I expect full courtroom gossip, and I mean full."

She hangs up before I can answer, and I stand there on the sidewalk absorbing the fact that the biggest piece of gossip I'm currently sitting on is myself Suit Guy from the coffee line and Counselor Crush from the internet are the same

maddening man, and I have personally experienced both versions in under twenty-four hours.

I check the time and realize I'm cutting it dangerously close. I pick up my pace, push through the door of the coffee shop just as Declan is walking out of it, and collide with him hard enough that his hands land on my shoulders to steady us

both, turning me half a step to the side.

"You're late," he says, and his hands are warm even through my blazer, his cologne cutting through the crisp morning air something dark and expensive that I hate how much I like.

“I don't recall agreeing to a time."

"We had one anyway." His mouth curves.

"Though it clearly took some convincing to get you here."

"I came for coffee.”

“Try again."

“I came for *

"Me," he finishes, voice dropping low enough that I feel it more than hear it.

"Come find me again tomorrow. An hour

earlier.”

“I'have "

"Good. I want to hear the rest of that sentence tomorrow. I have to go." He steps back, already moving, already gone, and I turn to watch him disappear down the block with my pulse doing something entirely unprofessional. He didn't touch me

anywhere but my shoulders, and I can still feel it everywhere.

He left before I could tell him who I actually am, before I could explain that the woman he keeps running into is the same one writing about him every morning. Some part of me wants to chase him down the sidewalk and clear the air. The rest

of me knows exactly what that would look like, and it isn't good.

He came looking anyway. That has to mean something, or nothing, or exactly what I'm afraid it means, and I don't have

time to work out which before court starts.

I check my reflection in the darkened window of the shop, decide what I will have to do, and force myself to walk in the opposite direction from the one he took, toward the courthouse instead of after him. It takes real effort. My whole body seems to have voted against my better judgment somewhere around the moment his hands landed on my shoulders, and

my better judgment was lost by a landslide.

By the time I reach the security line outside, I've mostly talked myself down. Mostly. I remind myself, the way I remind myself every time a man with an undefeated record and a killer jaw looks at me like a puzzle worth solving, that

undefeated records exist in courtrooms, not relationships. Derek had one too, once, right up until the exact moment he didn't, and I was the last person in that office to find out I'd lost.

I'm not doing that again. I refuse to be the woman who reads a man's résumé and mistakes it for character. Declan Cross

can win every case he's ever assigned. He is not winning this one.

Either way, I have a distinct feeling this isn't going to end with a clean, forgettable goodbye. It's going to end with both of us regretting how much we enjoyed the chase, assuming either of us is honest enough to admit that's what this already is.