“Hi,” Gia greeted Charles anxiously several minutes later when she entered the living area. Charles was talking intently to her mother near the entryway, while several other attorneys were seated in the living room. It looked as if Susan had already distributed coffee to the other members of the legal team and her police escort for the day. Gia felt as if she were surrounded by men and women in dark suits these days.
“Hi. How are you doing? Get any sleep?” Charles asked her.
“Yeah. I’m good,” she lied levelly. “Do you think I could have a word in private?”
She was anxious to discuss the troubling phone call she’d just received from her housekeeper, but she also was desperate to ask him if he’d heard from Seth. She pointed in the direction of her bedroom suite. Charles had already become familiar with the layout of the condominium. Madeline and her team had held a few meetings there, before and after trial sessions. As the key witness, Gia had been the focus of a lot of preparation, and the condo where she was staying was centrally located for the prosecution?
??s team meetings.
“Sure,” Charles said. “Go on back. I just want to grab my coffee and a file I wanted to show you. Do you want coffee?”
Gia winced. “Better make it decaf,” she said before she started back down the hallway.
Charles touched her shoulder. “It’s all going to be okay, Gia,” he assured her quietly.
Her smile was brittle. She must look like a nervous wreck for him to say that so feelingly.
In the bedroom, she left the door partially open and sat down in one of the armchairs in the sitting area of the large suite.
“Come in,” she said when she heard Charles’s knock. She heard the door close and looked up expectantly. Her face fell.
“Oh . . . I thought it was Charles,” she said, flustered. A slouching, heavy-set blond lawyer with a large nose walked toward her. She wasn’t familiar with him. He handed her a cup of coffee, which she took automatically. It wasn’t the fact that she didn’t know the man that had her puzzled. It seemed as if she’d seen several faces come and go on Madeline’s prosecution team. Sometimes lawyers did background work and she rarely saw them, but they showed up at meetings to report on some technical aspect of the case. She was just put off at the moment because it seemed odd for Charles to send a stranger back to her private quarters without an explanation.
“Charles had to step out for a moment. They all did.”
A prickle of unease went down her spine. Something’s not right. Was it fear she was feeling? No, that wasn’t it. She looked into the man’s flat brown eyes. What the hell was happening?
She stood up slowly.
“Gia.”
The prickle of anxiety became a cascade of shivers. A shudder went through her.
“It can’t be . . .”
“It’s okay. It’s me,” he reached for her.
The man’s rounded back straightened. Her eyes sprang wide as he seemed to grow several inches right in front of her. He transformed, and suddenly he wasn’t a stranger at all.
“Seth?”
He nodded.
“Oh my God.” She set the coffee cup down too hard, coffee splashing onto her knuckles in her haste. She rushed to him, clutching him around his waist. His arms surrounded her. If a shadow of doubt lingered, it evaporated at the sound of his familiar, low chuckle.
“Put on a few pounds since I saw you a few days ago, haven’t you?” she asked with a hysterical bark of laughter as she squeezed him tighter. He was obviously wearing a body suit that added fifty pounds to his lean frame. A partial prosthetic on his cheeks and nose made him look heavier too. One hand cupped her head.
“Maybe I was binge eating. I was a little upset.”
“Seth, I’m so sorry,” burst out of her throat. She looked up at him. Her brain was still vibrating with shock. “I’ve been trying to contact you to tell you—”
“I know,” he said, cradling her jaw, his thumb wiping away a single tear that had fallen on her cheek. His actions were tender and so familiar, an ache rose in her. He was really here. He caught another tear. “And you don’t have anything to be sorry for. None of this is your fault. You’re the last person who would have wanted this to happen. I know that.”
“But if it weren’t for me—”
“Shh,” he soothed, his warm breath brushing against her mouth. “Everything’s going to be all right. Everything.”
Her chest swelled with wild hope. Happiness. His lips brushed against hers, and the feeling swelled tight enough to burst.