Jillian would not sit still and listen to this. Bile rising in her throat, she charged for the door. Reality settled on her
shoulders, even as she tried to outrun the inevitable. She hurried across the polished black marble floor of the courthouse,
rushing out into the blowing drizzle, gulping in cold, damp air.
She didn’t see the Tom Thumb delivery truck. She just stepped off the curb and into its path.
A horn blared. Tires squealed.
Jillian froze.
The truck’s bumper stopped just inches short of her kneecaps.
She stared through the windshield at the driver, and he promptly flipped her the bird. She smiled at him. Smiled and laughed
and then couldn’t stop.
The driver rolled down the window. “Get out of the road you crazy bitch.”
Great, terrific, you almost get run over and you’re laughing about it. The guy’s right. You are crazy.
She wandered the streets, not paying any attention to where she was going and ending up walking the path through the city
park she and Blake had walked many times together, engaged in friendly legal debates. She wondered what he’d think of Alex
as his replacement. Blake hadn’t known about her relationship with Alex. She’d been too ashamed to tell him.
Her mind kept going back to the memory of the night Blake had told her she should get married, and the more she thought about
it, the more convinced she became that had to have been the day he’d gotten his diagnosis. The death sentence he’d shared
with no one.
The rain pelted her, and Jillian realized she’d been walking in a big circle for the last thirty minutes. Ducking her head
against the quickening rain, she hurried to her office. The place was empty. Everyone else had probably gone to lunch after
the services were over. She shrugged out of her coat, dropped down at her desk, and closed her eyes.
“Blake,” Jillian whispered out loud. “What am I going to do without you?”
All her girlfriends were married now, getting pregnant, having babies, living lives so very different from her own. She’d
used Blake to fill the void. Every Thursday night, they’d played chess together. He’d make dinner, because Jillian didn’t
cook, or they’d go out to eat, her treat. He was the one she called when she had trouble with a case, and she was the escort
he took to political functions. Many assumed they were having an affair. But she’d never felt any of those kinds of feelings
for Blake, nor he for her. He’d always been like the dad she’d never really had.
Except now he was gone.
“Ms. Samuels?”
She opened her eyes to see Alex Fredericks standing in the doorway.
His gaze was enigmatic, his stance intimidating.
Jillian thrust out her chin, refusing to let her distress show. “Yes?”
“I want to see you in my office.”
She stared. Was the bastard about to fire her? Ever since she’d ended their affair, whenever she appeared in Alex’s courtroom,
their relationship had been adversarial. She’d lost more than one case she might have won if there’d been another judge on
the bench.
“Don’t you mean Blake’s office?”
“I’m the new DA,” he said. “It’s my office now, and I want to see you in there immediately.”
Jillian wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she held her tongue and got up.
Other employees were filtering into the building. She followed Alex into Blake’s office. A fresh surge of anger pushed through
her as he commandeered her mentor’s chair.
Alex was a very handsome man, with just enough flecks of gray in his black hair to make him looked distinguished. He possessed
glacier-blue eyes and a dimpled chin. His shoulders were presidential, his waist lean. He nodded at a chair across from the
desk. “Sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“Suit yourself.”
She crossed her arms. His smirk irked the hell out of her. “What do you want?”
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me on my new position?”
“No.”
He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desk, and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “You know, things don’t have
to be this way between us.”
She glared.
This was the scumbag who’d bruised her ego and usurped her mentor’s place. It wasn’t so much that he’d lied to her about his
wife. If she was honest with herself, she’d admit she wasn’t even that upset over losing him. What really hurt was his betrayal.
Just when she’d decided to finally trust a man and put her heart on the line. She’d taken a chance and it had blown up in
her face. Plus, he’d made her an unwitting partner in his adultery. She couldn’t forgive him for that.
The bastard.
Shame. That’s what she felt when she looked at Alex Fredericks. Shame and remorse and self-loathing.
“I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, Jillian. We can start over fresh, you and I.” Alex raked his gaze over her,
his eyes lingering on her breasts.
Her fingers twitched to reach across that desk and smack his smug face. “Give
me
the benefit of the doubt?”
“I’m merely saying there are ways we can repair our tattered relationship.” Alex got up and came around the corner of the
desk toward her. Surely he was not suggesting what she feared he was suggesting. Was he hinting about resuming their affair?
Jillian held her ground. She was not about to let him make her back up, but she hated being this close to him. Hated the familiar
smell of his cologne in her nostrils. Hated that she’d ever thought he was worthy of her caring.
He stood right in front of her, his eyes predatory.
“I’ve missed you, Jillian,” he said.
She snorted.
“It’s true.”
“Does your wife know how much you’ve missed me?”
Alex shifted his weight. “My wife and I … we have an understanding.”
“What? You screw around and she doesn’t understand?”
“I’ve especially missed that sarcastic wit.” He reached out and stroked the back of his hand across her cheek.
“Don’t.” Jillian grabbed his wrist and flung his hand away from her. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
“I
am
your boss.”
“And this is sexual harassment. I can file charges.”
Alex’s expression was hooded, inscrutable. He was too good of a politician to acknowledge her accusation. He didn’t move.
Jillian sank her hands on her hips and stepped forward until their noses almost touched. She’d seen this man naked, done intimate
things with him that she now sorely regretted. She couldn’t believe she’d slept with him and even stupidly imagined having
a future with him. She felt like a complete idiot. She’d been right all along—love was for suckers and fools.
He blinked and she saw a flicker of contrition in his eyes, but the whisper of humanity was gone as quickly as it appeared.
“Ms. Samuels,” he said coldly.
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t recommend that course of action. It would be my word against yours, and I could make your life here quite miserable,
indeed.”
He was right and she knew it. Blake was gone, and even before that she’d been feeling a strong sense of unease. Now with Fredericks
in charge, it was too much to bear.
She experienced that end-of-the-tunnel sensation again she’d been feeling ever since that day in court with Randal Petry.
The same day Blake died.
“I don’t have to put up with this,” Jillian said, injecting her voice with steel as cold as his.
“What do you intend on doing about it?” He drew up his shoulders, puffed out his chest.
“You’re a real ass, and I can’t believe I slept with you.”
“As I recall, we didn’t do much sleeping. I miss you, Jillian. Your fire and your guts and your passion. Seriously, I’d really
hate to demote you.”
That did it. She wasn’t going to put up with his threats. She’d had enough. “You know what, Alex? Shove this job up your ass.
I quit.”
B
ack in her own office, Jillian opened her desk drawers and chucked her belongings into a cardboard box. She thought about
calling Delaney or Tish or maybe even Rachael, who was living in the isolated terrain of southwest Texas.
But Jillian did not pick up the phone. Her friends all had their own lives, loves, husbands, and children.
They would listen to her, of course. And sympathize. But they couldn’t really understand. They could never know what it was
like to grow up the way she’d grown up. They’d try to get her to laugh and tell her everything was going to be all right.
But she knew that wasn’t true. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Blake was really gone.
It hit her then. That she really didn’t have anyone. She was alone and it was her own fault. She’d wanted to stay unattached.
Her job had been her excuse, but in truth, intimacy of any form scared the hell out of her.
Maybe in the back of her mind, she’d always known Alex was unobtainable. He was too good-looking and accomplished to be single,
plus she’d never come right out and asked him if he was married. Why not?
You’ve got to stop this line of thinking. You can’t let yourself get dragged down.
She feared that if the dark cloud chasing her ever caught up with her, the depression would swallow her whole. She had to
do something. She had to get away from her life, think this thing through, formulate an action plan.
Two security guards appeared in her doorway. “DA Fredericks sent us. We’re here to escort you off the premises, Ms. Samuels,”
the tallest one said sheepishly.
“Fine.” Jillian snapped her briefcase closed and straightened.
“I’ll carry that box for you,” said the second security guard.
“Thank you.”
They escorted her down the corridor, past the curious eyes of her colleagues. Jillian held her head high. A few minutes later,
hands shaking, she slid behind the wheel of her red Sebring convertible, the cardboard box stowed in the back behind her,
her briefcase stashed on the passenger seat. With trembling fingers, she tried to stab the key into the ignition. After several
fumbling attempts, she finally got the engine started.
Were all men cheating bastards? Lying pigs? Even Blake had cheated on his wife. He’d told her his infidelity was what had
destroyed his marriage. He regretted it. He was ashamed of what he’d done, but he’d done it. If a good guy like Blake couldn’t
keep his pants zipped …
I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, Jillian. We can start over fresh, you and I.
Alex’s words rang in her head.
Jillian gritted her teeth. Had he honestly thought she’d jump at the chance to resume their affair? God, how she regretted
sleeping with the man, but even more, she regretted feeling as if they’d had something special.
Fool. In your heart you knew better.
It was her own fault for daring to think she deserved the same kind of happiness her friends had found. They’d all wished
on the wedding veil. All met the loves of their lives. They’d told her it was worth the risk. That she could find love too.
So she’d dared to take a chance.
And it had exploded in her face. Dammit, she’d known better.
Blake dropped dead in Starbucks of the brain tumor he’d hidden from me.
He had abandoned her as well. The only man she’d ever really trusted. Jillian stared unseeingly through the windshield as
she drove from the parking lot, her mind numb. Losing Blake hurt so damned much.
Tears, hot and unexpected, burned the back of her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall. She sucked in air, sucked up
the pain, closed off her heart. Never again. She’d been hurt too many times by men to ever truly trust one.
It didn’t matter that her three best friends had found true love and happily-ever-after. They were different from her. They
believed in magic.
No matter how hard she tried, Jillian couldn’t believe.
Without even knowing how she got there, numb from everything that had happened in the past week, Jillian drove to the condo
she rented in a trendy area of Houston not far from downtown. Her lease was up at the end of the month; she’d planned on renewing
it, but now she realized there was nothing holding her here. She’d lost everything. Her mentor, her job, her self-respect.
She wanted to curl into a tight ball and howl from the pain. She hated herself like this. Vulnerable, taken advantage of,
used, disregarded. She’d spent her life trying to rise above the victim mentality, to prove she deserved better than the way
she’d been treated by her stepmother.
But now she felt stupid, deceived, cheated. And worst of all, the defensive mechanism that had kept her safe all these years,
the guard she kept around her heart, had failed her miserably.
She walked into her quiet, lonely house, aching to her very core. She didn’t know what drove her, but she tossed her purse
and her briefcase on the table and stalked to the bedroom. She went to the cedar chest at the end of her bed, started yanking
out sweaters and tossing them heedlessly about the room. At the bottom of the chest she found what she hadn’t consciously
known she was looking for.
The magical wedding veil.
Rachael had passed it on to her months earlier. It was a floor-length mantilla style made of Rosepoint lace. She remembered
the day Delaney had found the veil in a consignment shop just before her wedding to the wrong man, and she remembered the
fanciful story the store owner had told.
According to the lore, in long-ago Ireland, there had lived a beautiful young witch named Morag, who possessed a great talent
for tatting incredible lace. People came from far and wide to buy the lovely wedding veils she created, but there were other
women in the community who were envious of Morag’s beauty and talent.
These women lied and told the magistrate that Morag was casting spells on the men of the village. The magistrate arrested
Morag but found himself falling madly in love with her. Convinced that she must have cast a spell upon him as well, he moved
to have her tried for practicing witchcraft. If found guilty, she would be burned at the stake. But in the end, the magistrate
could not resist the power of true love.