The Proviso by Moriah Jovan

“but I see you
noticed that.”
    Bryce kept his expression carefully blank. “I’ll
take that as a no.”
    “I can, uh, put a bug in her ear as to your
interest.”
    “I’m not,” Bryce murmured, his tone carefully
masking his frustration with himself for going too far. Hale was no
fool, but he said no more about Giselle Cox, and for that, Bryce
was grateful.
    “Oh, by the way,” Hale said as he shook Bryce’s hand
at the office door once their annual meeting had come to a close,
“my condolences on your client. Leah Wincott, was it?”
    The mention of Leah’s name was enough to bring back
some of the anger that had dissipated with the discussion of other
matters. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Very nice lady.”
    “I wish I could believe Knox killed her,” Hale said,
“but he’s got too much to lose.”
    “That’s kind of the way I figured it,” Bryce said,
then continued, “I don’t know why Leah finally agreed to marry him,
but she must have had her reasons. For what it’s worth, she was
very happy; he treated her well.”
    Hale looked thoughtful. “Fen’s the most likely
suspect, but nobody’d believe it.”
    “Agreed,” Bryce said, then started. “Hey, isn’t Fen
your client?”
    “Oh, no,” Hale returned. “I haven’t met a Hilliard
yet that I liked and that includes the old man. Fen and I had a
couple of meetings before I decided I didn’t want to do business
with him.”
    “Why?”
    “Don’t know. He’s honest. Smart. He’s good to the
community, good to his employees. There’s just . . . something. I’d
trust Knox before I’d trust Fen. At least with Knox, you know
exactly what you’re getting. And that proviso? Taight? That whole
situation’s a nasty tangle.”
    And your “valuable” typist is intimately mixed up in
it.
    “I’m going home,” Hale said on a yawn. “What time is
it anyway?”
    Bryce looked at his watch. “Twelve-thirty in the
morning. Geez, Geoff, I’m sorry.”
    He waved a hand. “No need to apologize. It’ll be in
your statement at the end of the month.”
    “I’m sure,” Bryce returned.
    As Bryce walked to the elevator, he couldn’t help
but cast a look toward Giselle Cox’s desk. Her empty chair, blank
computer, and tidy desktop all bespoke the end of her shift. He
felt a great disappointment settle in the region of his solar
plexus, but he only sighed and continued on his way.
    He stopped cold when he got to the parking garage
and stared at the occupant of the only other car in the lot besides
his.
    She couldn’t see him from the angle at which her
car, an older model generic Chevy, sat. From what he could tell,
she might be asleep or she might be hurt, for her head tilted back
against the seat rest.
    Refusing to think about the consequences of his
actions, he walked across the lot and noted her open car windows.
The April breezes that wafted through stirred her ponytail and the
ends of the ribbon just a bit.
    Once he got within speaking distance, he could see
her dozing, a thick textbook open and lying face down on her chest.
Even as he watched, her head lolled to the right so that he caught
sight of the underside of her jaw and throat.
    He imagined all the things he wanted to do to that
throat; remembered her as she had been that night six months ago
with her skirt pulled up enough for him to see the top of her black
stocking; needed to see the rest of her body stripped bare
for his pleasure.
    Bryce squatted down beside the car and just watched
her for a moment. “Miss Cox,” he murmured, then found himself nose
to nose with a very lethal woman—and she had the barrel of that gun bored right in the middle of his forehead.
    She flipped it up and away from him once recognition
dawned, but her face still held that tense, wild look of someone
startled out of her wits.
    “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, her voice husky with
sleep. His cock strained at his fly and he gulped. She rubbed her
eyes, shoved her gun in the waistband of her