The Proviso (13 page)

That she felt more powerful at this moment than she
had in her life, like a goddess with the world at her feet?

That her purpose was to distract him enough to keep
him away from Fen, and therefore, nothing between them could ever
come to fruition because it was all a lie?

She cleared her throat. “I, um, I— It was more than
I expected, I think.”

“Frankly, it wasn’t nearly enough for me.”

“I don’t know you,” she whispered.

“Ah, but I wasn’t the one who issued the invitation,
was I?”

Her breathing had calmed little by the time he had
almost finished buttoning her up and her mind still whirled. “I
think— Um— I think I need to go home.”

“Let me take you there.”

That was out of the question. Her nerves couldn’t
take much more of this without giving him everything he wanted.
Now. Tonight. As he’d demanded.

He was a stranger.

She’d lied to him.

She did
not
want him to know where she
lived.

In twenty-five years of on-and-off with Knox, she
had only once felt so out of control and so eager to give herself
over to a man—on one glance, fifteen years before—and the wedding
ring on
that
man’s finger had curtailed that in two seconds
flat.

Knox didn’t do this to her; he never had. This was
something she had never truly believed existed and, at the same
time, always wanted.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He said nothing for a moment; then, having finished
his task with her only vaguely noticing, he pursed his lips. “Not
in control now, are you?” he drawled, smug.

She gasped in outrage, but he shut her up with a
harsh kiss, taking whatever she had to give and a whole lot of what
she hadn’t intended to give him at all. It took a few seconds for
her to decide whether to break the kiss or not.

Finally, Giselle pulled away from him with some
difficulty and only succeeded because he’d once again
underestimated her strength. “I don’t—” She hesitated and flinched
at how it would sound. She cleared her throat again and said it
anyway. “I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”

His eyebrow rose and he smirked. She flushed,
mortified at what he must have already assumed about her. With
that, she turned on her heel. She strode through the room and away
from him without another word. Embarrassed, aroused, confused, and
completely disoriented, she headed out the door and ran to the
right.

“Giselle, wait!”

She heard his commanding roar, but she did not heed
it. If she could make it out of the gallery without his catching
her, she’d be lucky. However much of the rest of the evening was
left, Sebastian was going to have to do his own distraction. She
couldn’t take another second of this.

She clicked down the stairs, but stopped to hop and
take off her shoes. She hiked her skirts over her knees, her Glock
and stocking top clearly visible. Fen would have a heart attack
that she’d come to his party armed and he’d make sure to inform her
of his displeasure.

Away.
She had to get away from that man, away
from that room where she could never go back without memories of
being half undressed and so almost
taken
on a Barcelona
ottoman in an art museum by a stranger—a stranger who could’ve
forced her.

No, no force necessary. She had a nine-millimeter
strapped to her thigh that she’d completely forgotten. She could’ve
wrapped her legs around his hips with it on and she still wouldn’t
have remembered she had it.

That was a man who’d fuck her the way she wanted,
until she begged for more. He’d taken her on—twice now—and
completely overwhelmed her both times.

Feeling very vulnerable and very afraid of her own
lust, of what was happening to her, of what he did to her, she ran
through the European exhibits, down the second staircase and up the
third, sprinted straight through Sculpture Hall, then Kirkwood
Hall. Her stockinged feet slid on the polished stone floor when she
took the ninety-degree turn to the north exit, and she had to touch
the floor with her fingertips to keep both her speed and her
balance. She looked over her shoulder to see him closing in on her.
She burst out of the art gallery winded and ran halfway down the
drive to the limousine. The driver recognized her and her distress,
and quickly caught up with her. She didn’t give him enough time to
get out to open her door; she threw it open and scrambled in. She
thought she may have shut the door on her skirt. “Go, go. Go,
please.”

The limousine had pulled around the horseshoe and
down the drive when Kenard burst out of the gallery. She looked at
him through the back window. Bent over, his hands on his knees, his
chest heaving and his breath white in the frigid December air, he
watched her leave.

* * * * *

13:
CONTRIVED IGNORANCE

JANUARY 2006

“ . . . Changed my focus and didn’t get a chance to
copy the new text list . . . ”

Unlike the rest of the class, Justice didn’t have
any reason to groan at this news. She never bought textbooks until
she knew what was absolutely necessary to her success in a class,
so she had no books to exchange.

Her constitutional law professor droned on and she
glanced down at the sheet of paper, scanning it to calculate an
approximate cost. Her eyes widened in shock at one particular
author’s name and she swallowed heavily, blinked, looked again. No,
that couldn’t be. He would have told her . . .

Wouldn’t he?

Juell Pope, JD, LLM, PhD, author of half the
textbooks on the list in her hand.

“ . . . Dr. Pope’s constitutional theories more
in-depth this semester . . . ”

The lecture went on, but Justice barely heard it for
the buzzing in her ears and the blurring of the titles in front of
her.

“ . . . country lawyer up in River Glen, just north
of Chouteau City, but died about six years ago. One of the greatest
legal minds of the twentieth century. Ms. McKinley, something
wrong?”

She looked up slowly at her professor as if in a
daze. “No,” she croaked, cleared her throat. “No, I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t. Deep betrayal cut through her soul.
Why had she had to go to law school to find out her grandfather had
been such a well-respected scholar?

Snatches of her grandfather’s teachings flitted
through her mind. When her professor asked her a question meant to
stump her, she answered it by rote, only vaguely aware of the
semi-tense silence her answer had garnered.

Then, “Ms. McKinley, how did you know that?”

I know this material better than you ever will.

“Um, I— I don’t know. I, uh—” Justice panicked,
trying to think of an answer that didn’t include
because Juell
Pope is my grandfather and he drilled this into me in my
hayloft
. She cleared her throat. “I happened to have read that
for an assignment last semester, is all.”

“Really! Stay after class, please. I’d love to talk
to you about it.”

I wouldn’t.

“Sure. Okay. Uh, no problem.”

Her after-class interview with her professor went
more smoothly than she had expected, given her state of total shock
and her instinct to keep her identity and accomplishments separate
from her grandfather’s. The professor seemed impressed with
Justice’s answers and requested that she email that particular
assignment to her as soon as possible. With a lump in her throat,
Justice agreed, though the assignment didn’t exist and it was just
another fire to put out, albeit more emergent than the rest: Around
campus, where everyone had laptops and every square inch was hot,
ASAP meant, “by the time I get back to my office.”

She did have one paper, though, that she had written
long ago under her grandfather’s direction; he’d decreed it
adequate but certainly not up to her capabilities.

It would have to do.

Justice trudged out into the bitter January air in
the direction of the student union to eat and get the books on her
list. She drew wary glances and whispers as she passed clusters of
law students here and there, but no one spoke to her. Mindful of
the attention, she clutched her backpack straps more closely in
front of her and pretended not to see.

At least no one mocked her to her face as Sherry had
and the whispers she’d caught here and there contained no ridicule
of her.

It was almost as if people were . . . afraid . . .
to speak to her, but she had no idea why. Justice wasn’t
particularly shy; she spoke in class, but took care not to dominate
the discussions. She didn’t sit on the front row and she made sure
to make herself as inconspicuously conspicuous as possible. She
thought she successfully projected the image of ambitious law
student without being completely obnoxious about it.

But the fact was that she had no friends here. She
couldn’t even count Giselle Cox, who flew from classes to study
groups to the cafeteria and back again before she left campus
around three. Justice was completely alone and except for the
occasional murmured comment or question in class, almost no one had
spoken to her in three semesters. She didn’t figure this semester
would be any different and if anyone had connected her physical
presence on campus with Justice McKinley, political commentator,
she didn’t know it.

She bowed her head, as much to shelter herself from
others’ observation and lack of camaraderie as from the sharp wind.
Not for the first time, she wished she could do this law school
thing online, where she felt safe, comfortable, confident, where no
one could watch her and point at her and whisper about her.

Once in the warmth of the cafeteria, she fumbled
with her burdens in front of the microwave, found a secluded spot
after she’d sufficiently nuked her food, opened her laptop, and
sent the paper her professor had requested. She dug into her lunch
then and began to cruise her blogs.

It had only taken six months as a regular blogger at
TownSquared for her to come to some national attention, augmented
by the two articles she’d published in
National Review
;
because of that exposure, other blog owners had reached out to her,
requesting columns here and there, then more regularly. The
blogging position at TownSquared overflowed her schedule, but with
each new request came an offer of payment and
that
she
wouldn’t refuse.

Conversation swirled around her as she began to
write a new article. Her sudden brush with her grandfather’s
greatness not an hour ago still rattled her, but as she thought
about it, ideas for future blog posts inundated her. Her fingers
burned through the keys as she typed, vaguely aware that the din
and crush of lunchtime diners swelled.

“ . . . Hilliard’s not teaching in the fall.”

Justice stopped typing immediately, but attempted to
disguise the fact that she’d begun to eavesdrop on the conversation
behind her.

“I heard he’s taking a sabbatical for the next
three, four semesters.”

“Shit.”

No kidding. Well, now at least Justice wouldn’t have
to agonize over how to take one of his classes
and
pay for
the extra gas, ever hoping her car didn’t simply expire on the
highway somewhere. It didn’t matter anyway; Justice had a plan. She
had no doubt that her CV would get his attention and earn her a
coveted position in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office.

“I wouldn’t take a class from him. I don’t like him,
don’t like his opinions, don’t like his politics or the way he runs
that county up there.”

“You believe all that bullshit?”

“Look, where there’s smoke there’s fire. There’re
plenty of lawyers coming out of that office talking about the
mysterious cash that gets passed around. If one person calls you an
ass, you figure they’re having a bad day. If three people do it,
buy a saddle.”

Justice’s breath caught in her throat.

She’d heard the rumors, of course. Of that and other
things, but she actively avoided such nonsense because, in her
opinion, if he were guilty, he would have been arrested and put in
prison. That was the way the system worked.

“Fucking Republicans. The only reason he keeps
getting elected is because he killed that guy.”

Justice choked.

“Bullshit
again
. He wasn’t even charged for
that, much less convicted.”

“It’s a racket. He’s a racket. One big fucking
conspiracy and all the rednecks up there love him for it.”

“So do the women.”

“It’s that fucking bad-boy bullshit they like.
Leaves us nice guys out in the cold.”

Justice shoved her earbuds in her ears and cranked
up the tunes—she didn’t care what—unable to listen to such gossip
one minute longer.

So do the women.

And how well did she know that! Half the women who
walked around the law school halls bemoaned the fact that they
hadn’t been quick enough during registration to get in his class
that semester. Justice couldn’t stand to hear that many smart grown
women squee like prepubescent girls over a boy band and she refused
to play the adolescent games, even in private. No googling, no
listening to gossip, and, since no one talked to her, no
contributing to gossip, either.

Justice’s grandfather had taught her the value of
dignity and in her opinion, that extended to the collecting of
information about the object of one’s affections. It should happen
organically, over time, with exposure.

Not with Google.

There was nothing anyone could say that would
diminish the impact Knox Hilliard had made on her that day almost a
year and a half before, but she didn’t want to take the chance.
Plenty enough time to get to know him after she’d acquired the job
that would give her daily access to him.

Her email chimed. The professor who had requested
the paper her grandfather had thought merely average: