Leave Me Breathless Read Free Page A

the chair and tapped his fingers together in a triangle. “Don’t you think people are going to find it a bit strange that you’re stapled to my hip?”
    “This Samson guy—”
    “Administrative Judge Samson.”
    “He already sent out an e-mail to everyone in the building explaining the new assistant program.”
    “Leave it to Mark to take care of…” Something clicked in Ben’s head. “Wait, how do you know about the e-mail?”
    She bit her bottom lip but stayed quiet.
    That couldn’t be a good sign. “You were on my computer?”
    He knew the answer but wanted her to own up to the misdemeanor. Maybe apologize.
    “I was checking for e-mail threats.” She scribbled down something on the lined paper. “Get used to it.”
    She sure didn’t sound sorry to him. “You were violating my privacy.”
    “We can call it whatever you want.”
    “How about illegal? I could have you arrested.”
    Callie snorted. “Oh, please.” She made the annoying sound a second time as if trying to prove her point.
    It was hard to threaten someone who refused to be afraid. “Which reminds me, how did you get in the office this morning?” he asked.
    She reached inside her blazer pocket and flashed a courthouse I.D. badge at him. “I also have a key to the suite and my own desk.”
    Ben followed her head nod to the small setup perpendicular from his under the window. How in the hell had he missed that? Instead of a two-shelf small bookcase filled with mementos from his pre-lawyer days there was a place for her complete with fake files and a black briefcase he’d bet was empty.
    “I don’t think so,” he said.
    “You don’t get a vote.”
    She needed to understand how this arrangement was going to work. Her pushy demanding act was not the right answer. “The governor who appointed me and the electorate that keeps me here would disagree.”
    She rolled her eyes. Made quite the dramatic scene of it, too. “Must you talk like that?”
    “Like what?”
    “All hoity and superior.”
    He tried to remember the last time someone fought him this hard and showed so little respect for his position. He came up with an answer fast: never. “Was it the word ‘electorate’ that upset you?”
    She threw her notebook on his desk. “To be honest, most everything you say annoys me.”
    He was starting to see why she no longer had a job with the FBI. That mouth could not have been an asset in a rule-oriented, follow-the-chain-of-command government agency. “Right back at you, sweetheart.”
    “Tell me something. Is your problem with me or with women in general?”
    Definitely with her. “I happen to love women.”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    The playboy chatter echoed in his head. Not exactly the reputation he wanted or sought. “If you’re getting your information from gossip, then you have the facts wrong.”
    “Why don’t we get started and you tell me what the truth really is?”
    “Isn’t it your job to know this stuff already?”
    She shrugged. “I’d like to hear it from you.”
    “I’m not playing that game.”
    “This is serious.”
    “It’s a waste of time, but if we’re being forced to do this you first need to meet the rest of the group.” He glanced over the daily schedule his secretary Elaine printed out and placed on the corner of his desk each night. “Then you get to sit through my trial calendar.”
    “Meaning?”
    “If you survive the first day, I’ll be stunned.”
    She smiled, but it faded when he didn’t reciprocate. “How bad can it be?”
    “Spoken like someone who never had the pleasure of listening to lawyers whine about missing documents for hours on end.”
    “What?”
    “Have you ever been shot at?”
    Her brown eyes narrowed. “Uh, yeah.”
    Interesting . “You’ll hope for an outbreak of gunfire by the time lunch rolls around.”
     
    Callie didn’t even make it to eleven o’clock. By ten seventeen, just over an hour into something called the Motions Docket, she almost did a