Illegally Yours (ebook)

Rule #1: Never fall for your client.Rule #2: Never fall for your client’s fiercely protective, smoking hot sister-in-law.

I’m the kind of guy who believes that everyone deserves the best legal representation money can buy—which just so happens to be me, Lucas Wright. Give me your henpecked, your cuckolded, your irreconcilable differences yearning to break free. And if you’re the bad guy in your marriage, that’s cool, too. Your green is as good as anyone’s.

Tell that to Trinity Jones. It’s my job to destroy her sister—the soon-to-be ex-wife of my a-hole of a client—and Trinity’s “big sis” instincts are dialed up to the max. I admire that. I admire her. But she won’t stop me from representing my client to the best of my ability.

Not even if my chemistry with Trinity is undeniable. Not even if we can’t keep our hands off each other. Not even if she injects life into a heart assumed to be long dead.
Because when faced with a choice between love and duty, the job will always win—or at least that’s what I thought before I met Trinity . . . and suddenly conflict of interest never felt so right. 

Lucas

Remember that song by Queen with the banging bass riff? Dindin-din-din-din, another one bites the dust . . . 

This is my life right now. 

I’m at the Library, a tasty little spot in the basement of the Gilt Bar, giving one of the crew a righteous send-off. James Henderson is a friend, and the brother of Max, a partner in our family law firm, Wright, Lincoln, and Henderson. He’s getting married in a couple of weeks, and to say it’s been a whirlwind is an understatement. I suspect his fiancée’s knocked up, but Jimbo’s keeping mum.

Max has set up a whiskey tasting for the stag party. I’m more of an ale drinker, but I like to know all there is to know about everything, so I’m up for learning how to tell the difference between this glass of yellow shit and that glass of yellow shit.

“So, what time do the strippers get here, mate?” I ask with my cheekiest grin.

Max flashes his perfect American teeth. “Get a couple of drinks in you and the stage is yours, Wright.”

Up on my feet, I shake my most excellent arse. “I’ll fucking do it, too!”

This makes the rest of them laugh, but turning to sit, I find a woman staring at me like I’m an idiot. More important, this woman is wearing a bloody catsuit.

It clings to every curve—and she’s got a lot of ’em—and covers up all the body parts I’d usually be assessing. This cover-up is sexier than if she were naked.

The only parts I can see are:

1. Feet in strappy sandals that show a tease of skin and purple painted toes. This bodes well because purple denotes royalty (think the late, great Prince) as well as wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.

2. Arms that look toned and strong, one with a tattoo of Asian symbols.

3. Her face. Duh. Did you think she was wearing a mask like Catwoman? 

The suit is zipped up to her chin, but above her jawline is the best part: a face that launched a thousand ships.

Or hard-ons.

Okay, my hard-on.

It’s more striking than pretty, this face. Regal, even. Big eyes with melted chocolate drops for irises. Cheekbones that almost rival mine. Warm, brown skin with golden undertones. A sparkling stud in her nose that tells me she likes to go against the grain. And her hair . . . there’s tons of it, a mahogany wave ribboned with copper and red. I could go on, but she’s quickly recovered from the sight of my booty shake and is now passing out sheets of paper.

“Hi, guys, I’m Trinity. Welcome to the Library and to your whiskey tasting.”

Everyone returns her greeting and I hate them all for daring to talk to her. Her voice has a natural rasp, sexy as fuck. I try to catch her attention with one of my dazzling smiles, but she’s already slinked off, gliding on ball bearings, to get the first round of drinks in.

I track her moves, jealous of every interaction she has with other members of the rotten human race. I consider myself an excellent judge of character and I’m especially conscious of the vibes we put out into the world. People respond well to Trinity’s energy. A quick smile and pat on the arm for a customer in her path, a wave at someone who has just walked in, a familiar shoulder nudge to one of her (male) coworkers behind the bar.

“Other people first”—that’s the vibe I’m getting from Trinity. What impression did I make on her, I wonder? According to Chicago magazine, I’m a “Chi-Town Hottie on the Rise”—it wasn’t called that, but it may as well have been—aka, one of the city’s best and brightest divorce attorneys. (And still single, ladies!) I tend to get pegged on sight as the cheeky upstart. The good-time Brit. I find it useful to let people make a call and then, boom! I crush those assumptions with a quote from Rilke or the like. No flies on me.

Back in our orbit, Trinity places a tray of glasses with a finger of whiskey in each on the table.

“The first thing you want to do is check the color,” she says. “Turn your tasting chart over to the blank side and hold the whiskey against it. You could be looking at pale gold, straw, amber—”

“Piss,” I interject, because apparently I have verbal diarrhea. Everyone glares at me, so I class it up with its scientific term, “Sorry, your-ine.”

Trinity’s lovely dark eyes narrow ever so slightly, and she announces, “That’s not a standardized color.”

“Sorry, we can’t take him anywhere.” So says James, the groom-to-be, though he’s barely containing his laughter.

“How’d you get to be a whiskey expert, Trinity?” I ask her, needing to establish a connection.

“Years of training. Next, you’ll want to assess its clarity and viscosity . . .”

Summarily dismissed, I follow the instructions. Of course, I have an opinion on everything. My so-called friends should tell me to shut up, but it’s like a fire hydrant of inanity has been wrenched open and I’m incapable of closing it.

Here’s how I fill out the sheet, accompanying commentary for free.

Appearance: Still going with urine, because I started off so well.

Nose: Engine oil with hints of vanilla and cabbage. Sure, why not?

Palate: Umami. I don’t know if this is correct, but I like saying the word. Say it with me, kids. Umami.

I suspect this is all rubbish, because one of the flavor profiles is “Band-Aids.” I mean, that can’t be right.

“What the hell are we doing drinking booze that tastes like Band-Aids?” Not that this particular whiskey does—I think—but now that I try again, I’m getting a medicinal flavor I didn’t notice before. “How is that supposed to be appealing? No one says wine tastes like sticking plasters—”

“Sticking plasters?” Max interjects with a raised eyebrow.

“Sticking plasters, Elastoplast . . .” I wave my glass, sloshing the remaining spoonful. “What we call Band-Aids in the old country, Maxie. Try to keep up. If someone said, ‘Sip on this twenty-seven-year-old aged malt, it’s got a lovely Band-Aid flavor,’ any normal bloke would be backing out the door tout de suite. And don’t get me started on ‘forest fucking floor.’”

My tirade against the tyranny of whiskey-tasting profiles has silenced the entire group. I peek up to find Trinity glaring at me in a way that makes my dick go schwing!

“Tell the truth, love, it’s all a load of cobblers, innit?”

She weighs me for a moment and clearly finds me wanting in every way. “Actually, no, it’s science. Scotch, you know, from Scotland, is made with malted barley, which is barley soaked in water and dried with peat fires. Peat has a chemical compound called cresols, which are a subcategory of phenols, or carbolic acid, which is found in products like Lysol and Sharpies and—”

“Band-Aids,” I say, because I actually know this.

“Band-Aids,” she affirms, clearly not pleased with how I needed to get the last word in there. I’m being an arsehole, but I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for competence porn, and this, along with her self-assured beauty, makes me nervous. Rather ridiculous, because nothing makes me nervous.

“I’ll get the next round in, gentlemen,” she says, with emphasis on gentlemen to indicate I’m most definitely excluded. “Drink plenty of water.”

With Trinity out of earshot, Max turns to me with palms up.

“If you’re trying to impress her, you are fucking up royally.”

“You think?” My gaze follows her to the bar. She’s doing a fine impression of ignoring me, the little minx. “Thought I was winning her over.”

“Tell her the color of your last dump,” Grant mutters. “I’m sure she’d love it.”

That cracks the crowd up, especially coming from the usually taciturn Grant Lincoln. He’s my other partner in the firm, though he and Max are closer because they went to law school together. Grant’s from Georgia, looks like a Bratva enforcer, and is of a slow and methodical bent, the perfect foil to my hyper personality.

I glance over at Trinity, who’s still not paying me any heed, and consider my options. I’ve never met a woman I can’t crack with my inordinate charm, razor-sharp wit, and all-around smarty-smarts.

Trinity, love, prepare to be conquered.