Too Charming (16 page)

She shook her head, just as she had last Saturday night. Although he knew the reasons, it left him feeling frustrated. ‘What time does Sally wake up?’ he asked.

‘Anywhere between six and half seven. I know what you’re thinking. Some days I go to the gym at that time, so I’m not always around when she wakes, anyway.’ She sighed. ‘And you’re right. But I went to the gym today, so I won’t be going tomorrow.’

‘How about if I set the alarm for 5 a.m.?’

‘Well, yes, that would work, but it’ll mean waking you up. It’s easier if I just get in my car now.’

She was starting to move out of the bed, but he hauled her back.
‘Not so fast. I’ve not finished with you yet.’

‘Scott …’

‘Megan, I want to spend the night with you. To sleep with your sexy little body snuggled up against mine. To wake up next to you. Is it too much to ask?’

‘Well, wow.’ She smiled and settled herself back against him. ‘If you put it like that …’

When the alarm finally sounded at five, he was already in the middle of waking them both up. Neither of them heard it.

Chapter Seventeen

For the rest of the week, Megan knew little but work. Though she had several cases ongoing, her priority was the child’s murder. It took all her focus and energy. They’d found and questioned the boyfriend the following day. He didn’t have an alibi for the time of the murder. Not only that, but forensics were able to find his DNA all over the victim’s body. Though it was pretty clear that he was the murderer, Megan was terrified the evidence they had wouldn’t be enough to convict him. The
defence could argue that the man was her stepfather. Of course they would find his DNA on the child. It didn’t mean he’d killed her. So Megan wasn’t taking any chances. She was talking to the people who knew him, and knew the family, building up the case, proving the type of man he was and the relationship he’d had with the child. Only when she’d done that would she charge him. That was why she was in her car, on her way to the girl’s school, when Scott phoned.

‘Fancy lunch, Detective?’

‘Lunch?’ She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Could it really be that time already? ‘I’m in the car, working on the murder case. By the time I’m done it’ll be nearer tea than lunch.’

‘Are you putting me off?’

‘No, I’m busy catching the bad guys.’

‘Okay. When you’ve caught them, give me a call. If it’s too late for lunch we’ll do afternoon tea. I’ll even buy you a scone.’

As her face broke out into a goofy grin, she could only thank God that there was nobody else in the car to witness her lapse into infatuated female.  Scott wasn’t just chasing her, he was romancing her. She’d bargained on them having quick sexual encounters at his house, or in a hotel room. Never in her wildest dreams had she pictured them meeting for afternoon tea.

‘Okay, throw in cream and jam as well and you’re on.’

He whistled over the phone. ‘Jeez woman, you drive a hard bargain. I’ll wait for your call.’

Thoughtfully Scott put down the phone and returned his attention to the computer. For a man used to women jumping when he said jump, he was finding Megan, who seemed to always do the opposite of what he wanted, more than a little exasperating. Already she’d turned him down twice this week, claiming she was too busy. Perhaps she was, but Scott was starting to
realise that getting  Megan into his bed had been the easy part. Keeping her there was far more difficult. So was handling the thought that he actually wanted to do that. To keep her in his bed. In his life.

Soberly he looked down at his fingers on the keyboard, noticed their slight tremor. Hell, the thought of making a permanent commitment to one woman was enough to make his whole body quake with terror, never mind his fingers. It was true that over the last couple of years he’d sometimes caught himself wondering if he was capable of having real feelings for a woman.
Feelings that went beyond the sexual and into the emotional. At least now he knew he was. The fact that the woman he was falling for was guarded, bloody-minded and always thought the worst of him should have him running a mile. So should the fact that she had a child and still lived with her parents. Instead, it seemed to make him more determined to show them all he wasn’t the playboy heartbreaker they had him down as. Which just went to prove he was well and truly, alarmingly, smitten.

It was after three when Megan finally called him. He drove by the station, picked her up and took them to a nearby hotel. It had her eyebrows rising when he parked the car.

‘You can take your mind out of the gutter, Detective Sergeant,’ he told her as they walked into the lobby. ‘This is the only place I know that does a full afternoon tea. Sandwiches, cakes, scones, the lot.’ He glanced over at her. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody starving.’

Megan was used to skipping lunch. Not because she watched her figure. In fact, as far as that went, eating more was actually what she should be doing. She was too thin. If she put on weight, she might gain breasts and look more like a woman. That would be a definite plus. ‘I could eat,’ she replied, happy to give it a go.
Especially in these rather glamorous surroundings. It sure beat the station canteen.

The afternoon tea, delivered on the traditional three-tier cake stand, lived up to its name. To Megan’s eyes it looked like a mountain of food, but as she watched, Scott proceeded to wolf down two sandwiches in a single bite. Perhaps it wouldn’t take them long to get through it, after all.

‘You didn’t have to wait for me,’ she remarked as he munched his way through another two. There was something really incongruous about the dainty sandwiches in Scott’s large, manly hands. ‘I wouldn’t have minded if you’d told me you’d already eaten.’

‘What, and hand you another excuse not to see me?’ He poured out the tea and took a large swig. ‘No way.’

Midway through picking up a salmon and cucumber sandwich, she paused. ‘I haven’t been making up reasons not to see you.’

‘Haven’t you?’

She thought back to his last two phone calls. ‘Scott, I really have had a lot on. If I’d gone out, I would have been lousy company.’

‘Next time, let me be the judge of that.’

Megan was momentarily stunned at his defensive tone. Wasn’t this the man who blithely assumed all women fell at his feet? Did he really think she’d been shunning him? And was he really that bothered if she had been? ‘For the record, as you would say, I don’t need to make up an excuse to turn you down. If I don’t want to see you, I’ll just tell you straight.’

He nodded. ‘Okay.’ Then his eyes fixed greedily back on
to the cake stand. ‘So I take it the girl’s murder has been taking up most of your time this week.’

‘You’re right. We’ve just charged the boyfriend with murder.’

‘I know.’

She looked up quickly and put down the scone she’d been about to put into her mouth. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. ‘How?’

‘Penny, our clerk, is an ace at ferreting out
hot-off-the-press
information. I understand Nancy is his solicitor.’ He finished his mouthful and stared directly into her eyes.

Megan felt her blood run cold. She knew the implications of that. Scott was a highly experienced criminal
defence barrister. If Nancy wanted him for her client … swallowing hard, she looked down at her plate. ‘I see.’

‘It won’t necessarily be me who gets the case,’ he told her quietly. ‘There are others in chambers with just as much experience.’

‘But it could be you.’ She knew he’d defended murderers before, but somehow this was worse. There was a child involved, the same age as her daughter.

‘If I was given the case, I wouldn’t be defending what he did, Megan,’ he continued in the same calm, patient voice. ‘I would simply be making the prosecution prove their case. Making sure there was sufficient evidence to convict him.’

‘I know.’ She really did understand the importance of a defence. Not just to the person being tried, but to the whole justice system. But how could she possibly date a man whose job it could be to defend this monster?

Silence hung between them. Megan couldn’t eat any more. She pushed away her plate.

‘What did you think of the scone?’ Scott was looking at the half-eaten fruit bun on her plate. ‘Worth the wait?’

Megan stood up. ‘It’s late. Sorry, but I need to get back to the station.’

With an exclamation of pure exasperation, he tugged at her arm. ‘Come on, don’t be like this. Stay a little longer. At least finish your scone.’

She looked over at him, her blue eyes
sombre. ‘I’m not hungry any more.’

‘So that’s it, is it?’ Scott demanded, rifling through his wallet to find enough cash to leave on the table. ‘We don’t discuss this like
civilised adults. You just get angry and storm off.’

Megan knew she was being unfair, but right now it didn’t help. Despite knowing better, she’d become personally involved in the case. She couldn’t bear to think of that poor dead girl not receiving justice because of some clever legal argument. ‘I’m not angry. I’m upset.’ Her voice was scratchy and she had to swallow hard to clear her throat.

‘Is it me that has upset you, or what I do?’ He was alongside her now, looking down at her from his imposing height.

As they walked through the hotel lobby Megan took a deep
breath and tried to calm herself. Think rationally. But images of that poor tortured girl kept flooding back. ‘It’s what you might do.’

‘What am I supposed to say to that?’ He moved to stand in front of her, blocking her path. ‘If I’m given the case, you know I have to take it.’

Numbly, she nodded. ‘Do you want it?’

‘Honestly?’ He hesitated,
then looked her square in the eyes. ‘Yes. Murder trials are challenging. Interesting. It doesn’t matter to me who the victim is. I don’t think of it like that. I’m simply there to make sure that justice is served. To make sure that the people who go to jail deserve to have their freedom taken away from them.’

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he moved aside so they could continue their progress to the car. Hell, he didn’t know what else to say. It hurt that Megan couldn’t understand his point of view. That no matter how many times he’d tried to explain
himself, she still saw him as the bad guy. He had an ominous feeling that if he took the case their relationship would be over. With that crushing thought in mind, he yanked open the passenger door for Megan and then skirted round the bonnet and jammed himself into the driver’s seat. So much for finding a woman he could finally start imagining a future with.

The journey to the hotel had been full of banter. The journey back to the station was undertaken in an uncomfortable silence. Megan’s rigid body language was a pretty good indicator that she was still upset with him. So was the sight of her white knuckles as she gripped her hands together in her lap.

As he pulled up outside the station, he turned to her. ‘We’re both on the same side, Megan. Both fighting to make sure justice is done.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but right now I can’t see it like that. All I can see is that I’ve worked myself to the bone gathering evidence to prove that man
bullied, abused and then murdered a six-year-old girl. But when it goes to court, you’re going to do your damndest to methodically rip it all apart.’ She raised her eyes to look at him. The accusation in them tore at his heart. ‘How can you call that being on the same side?’

‘Because I’m thinking with the cool detachment of a lawyer, not the emotional sensitivity of a mother,’ he snapped, then immediately regretted it. Not exactly the tone of the cool and detached lawyer he’d just claimed to be.
Certainly not the way to get her to understand his point of view.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ she replied quietly as she climbed out of the seat. ‘But at least I care enough to want to make sure he pays for what he did to her.’

She slammed the door shut, taking satisfaction in knowing that would make him wince. At that moment she hated him and what he stood for. Marching back into the station she made a promise to herself. No matter what it took, she was going to make sure this case was so bloody watertight nobody would be able to pick it apart. Even a barrister as clever as Scott Armstrong.

Megan was surprised to find she was still fuming when she arrived home. She didn’t usually take her work home with her, but then again, this wasn’t just about work. This was about feeling betrayed.

‘What’s got you all in a
tail spin?’ her father asked as they sat together in the living room that evening, Sally safely tucked up in bed.

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘It is to me.’

Megan looked at his craggy but still handsome face.
One so dear to her that at times just the sight of him made her eyes well up. She wished with all her heart she’d been able to give Sally a father like she had. Maybe there was still time. Involuntarily her mind skipped back a week or so to the day she’d spent with Scott by the sea. How he’d lifted Sally on to his shoulders with the naturalness of a father. Then she laughed at the way her thoughts had progressed. Ridiculous. Scott was never going to be a permanent fixture in their lives. After the way their afternoon tea had gone, she wasn’t even sure if they would see each other again. ‘It’s the murder case. The little girl,’ she told her father as she leant back against the sofa. ‘We’ve just charged the boyfriend. His solicitor is a friend of Scott’s. He might be asked to defend him.’

‘
Ahh.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t need to ask you how you feel about that.’ He stood up and went to sit down next to her, taking her hand. ‘What has he said?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, he reminded me that if he’s given the case, he has to take it. I know that. But he’s not even apologetic about it.’ She looked up into her Dad’s understanding eyes. ‘He
wants
the case. Said it would be a challenge.’

‘Have you not considered that he views it as simply doing his job, Megan? Just like you’re doing yours?’

Shocked, Megan stared at her father. ‘Dad, I thought you of all people would understand my side of things.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘There was a time when I was young and fiercely driven, just like you. Full of passion and determination to round up all the criminals and make the world a safer place.’