Page 46 of Riot Reunion
“You saw me inside?” I ask.
Breast still exposed, she tilts her chin back, eyeing me defiantly. “I did.”
“Then you saw that I was sitting with someone—”
“A silly, spoiled little girl. She looked like she was throwing a temper tantrum.”
Oh really?Wow. I’m not sticking around for this. If she won’t fuck off, thenIsure as hell will. If she was a guy, I’d knock her on her ass for a comment like—
“He said you were a spoiled little boy, too. Too rich and stupid to know what was good for you. I said he was wrong, but…” she muses. “I’m beginning to see his point.”
I stop dead in my tracks. The door to the restaurant lies within arm’s reach. All I need to do is reach out and take the handle. Step inside from the cold. But the hairs on the back of my neck are standing to attention, and the gnawing sensation in my gut demands that I turn around and ask her what the fuck she’s talking about.
“That’s a very cryptic thing to say to someone you’ve never met before.”
The cat-eyed woman puffs out her cheeks, studying her fingernails. “Oh? We’ve never met before?”
“I’d remember if we had.”
A slow, honeyed smile spreads across her face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t.”
“Oh, come now, Wren. Don’t be peevish. Makes you look constipated.”
“There had better be a very good explanation as to how you know my name.”
“What would you considergood?” The woman steps toward me, every part of her sinuous, suggestive, her hair brushing the tops of her shoulders as she approaches. “If I’d read about you in a fashion magazine, maybe?‘Friend and roommate of our model, Wren Jacobi is featured here wearingthis season’s Aviator One-Forties.’ She reels off the quote like it’s nothing. Like she memorized the text without even trying. I remember the piece she’s referencing—the only time I’ve ever been photographed and featured in a magazine. Pax had refused to do a job last summer on account of the fact that it was Dash’s birthday. We’d been out on ‘The Contessa’before Pax had sunk it, of course, and the photographer had shown up to get the images he’d needed while we were in the middle of a champagne breakfast. Both Dash and I had ended up in the photos. They’d had to credit us and send on a check for the day’s work, which Pax had found hilarious.
“Or would a newspaper article be more satisfactory?” the woman in the red dress asks curiously. “’Jacobi, eighteen, is said to have found the girls in a cave on school grounds, after they went missing during a party that he was hosting further down the mountain. It’s there he claims the body of Mara Bancroft was discovered. Bancroft, another student at Wolf Hall Academy, was involved in a romantic relationship with Jacobi the prior year. Some sources have speculated that the discovery of Bancroft’s body by Jacobi might be more than a little coincidental, with some investigators openly suggesting that they believe Jacobi led his classmates to the cave that night—”
My teeth groan, my jaw clenching tight. “What is this? You’re a reporter?” My fingernails bite into my palms, the skin stinging there, but I can’t force my fists to uncurl.
The woman’s pale green eyes, almost as light as mine, dance with obvious delight. “Alessia Regan.” She holds out her hand for me to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Wren. I’ve been waiting for such a very long time.”
I leave her hand extended out toward me, hanging in mid-air. She pouts, tutting as she retracts it. “See. So, so spoiled.” She retracts her hand. “I feel bad for you. You can’t have been spanked enough as a child.”
“Who do you write for?” This vile bitch will be fired by morning. She’s right. Iamrich, and Iamspoiled. Rich enough to make one phone call and ensure no newspaper will ever hire her again. Spoiled enough to make it happen.
She titters under her breath. Finally, she makes a show of glancing down and realizing that her modesty has been compromised. She tucks her breast away, winking at me slyly. “Oops.”
“Tell me who you work for,” I growl.
“I work for Raylite, Garrison, and Regan Associates. Regan? Get it? I’m not a partner, sadly.” She pretends to pout. “My father.He’sthe Regan in Raylite, Garrison, and Regan. But he does love me so. He gives me all the best cases.”
“Youare an attorney?” I can’t hide my disdain.
“I know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it.” She toys with her hair, winding a thick black coil of it around her index finger. “Lawyers are so stuffy and unfashionable. I don’t look like I could be a lawyer at all, right? I look like I could be….” She taps her chin with her finger, pretending to think. “An escort?” she suggests. “Model? Airhostess?”
“This is unethical.”
“I totally sat and passed the Bar, though. And despite my stunning beauty, I have a viciously sharp mind and an even sharper tongue. I’ve been known to eviscerate men with both, professionallyandfor sport. You should see me work a courtroom. It’s quite impressive. Though…” She grins at me slyly, walking her fingers up my chest, chucking me under the chin. “I suppose you will see me work a courtroom soon, won’t you.”
I slap her hand away. “You?You’re Fitz’s attorney?”
She bows theatrically, an excited light cavorting in her eyes, and I realize all at once that she’s quite fucking mad. “Guilty as charged. I do try and avoid that word, though. Guilty. It tends to make my clients nervous.”
“Wesley Fitzpatrickisguilty. Doesn’t it make you sick? To defend a murderer?”
