Despite having known her all of two hours—and the mound of damning evidence against her—he couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling that Cassie was telling the truth.
“Of course.” The classy woman took his explanation in stride. Retrieving her phone from her coat pocket, she dropped her purse into a nearby seat and began unbuttoning her long, wool coat. “I need to make a couple calls anyway.”
Bending at the waist, she took care when folding the coat over the back of the same chair. Archer swallowed hard, forcinghimself to keep his eyes up, rather than on her mouthwatering figure.
She’s a client, dickhead.
Something he’d do well to remember.
Bulldozing the silent reminder straight through his unusually scattered thoughts, he gave the sexy blonde a muttered, “I shouldn’t be long.”
“Take your time.”
She smiled up at him, and damn if his heart didn’t punch hard against his ribs. The woman truly was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Beautiful and…
Scared.
Archer had locked on to the fear in those big, round eyes of hers. First on T.V., and again when she’d appeared in his office doorway. The urge to erase that fear was a prominent, almost primal, need.
One he decided not to fight against but rather fightfor.
“Call the team into the conference room,” he instructed Hannah as he made his way past the expansive reception desk. “And reschedule the rest of this afternoon’s appointments. If any walk-ins come in, just explain the team is currently indisposed, and ask them to come back in the morning.”
He hadn’t meant to bark the commands, but he’d been on edge from the moment Cassie had walked into his office. Lunch with the alleged murderer had only piqued his interest in her case even more.
Something that, before today, Archer would’ve thought impossible.
“Okay…” Hannah let the word dangle. Reaching for the phone, she followed his movements with a worried stare. Her brown eyes bounced between him and Cassie before she asked in a lower, almost hushed voice. “Is everything…all right?”
No.
Nothing about this was all right. Not his obsession with this case, and sure as hell not the magnetic pull he felt toward the woman standing beside him.
Archer softened his expression, his lips curving into a smile he wasn’t exactly feeling. “Everything’s fine,” he lied. “Just need to brief them on the new case, and I’d like to get things started ASAP.”
Once again, the young woman’s brown eyes slid to Cassie. Leaning a little further over the granite countertop, Hannah lowered her voice to an almost-whisper as she asked, “So you’re taking her case, then?”
Archer followed her gaze before dipping his head in a single, confident nod. “Yeah.” He brought his focus back to Hannah. “We’re taking her case.”
The guys just don’t know it yet.
Turning away, he started for the hallway leading to his destination.
“I’ll let the others know to head back.”
“Thanks.” His right hand raised in a half-wave before making his way around the corner and out of her line of sight. Quick, purposeful steps brought him closer and closer to the end of the hall, and when Archer found himself outside the last door on the right, he stopped.
Reaching up, he quickly entered his personalized, six-digit code into the electronic keypad on the wall next to the door. A beat later, the locks disengaged, and he stepped inside the space they affectionately referred to as the Conference Room.
Only it wasn’t your typical conference room.
While it did possess a long, oval table large enough to seat eight, the wide-open space offered the team a secured,practicalplace to do the behind-the-scenes work needed for cases like theirs.
It was also cool as shit.
Before renovations, the massive space had been divided into three separate, private offices and a generously sized storage room. Now it was home to the most secure—and soundproof—room in the entire building.
Comprised mostly of concrete and brick, this was where the team did some of their most important work. Intel gathering, brainstorming, planning…this was where almost all their behind-the-scenes work was done.