The Proviso (40 page)

“So all his attorneys—they go to him, they learn
from him, take everything they can, then leave him for bigger and
better.”

“Yes.”

“But that, he doesn’t resent.”

“Actually, I think he does, but he’s never said. The
only two people who’ve ever stuck with him are his wards.”

“He has wards?”

“Not in the legal sense, no, but he took care of
them like they were his own.”

“He never told me that.”

“No, he wouldn’t have.”

“What about the prodigy pundit he’s in love
with?”

“Justice? I don’t know and I don’t think he does,
either. He fell in love with her three weeks before he was supposed
to get married. I don’t know how he would’ve dealt with being
married to one woman and in love with another, especially if he
happened to be teaching any of her classes during her time
there.”

Bryce’s brow wrinkled and he looked off into the
distance, tense, troubled.

“Oh, please don’t think badly about him. He feels
really guilty about that.”

“Um, no,” Bryce said slowly, looking down at his
plate then, picking at his food. “I don’t, it’s just— I’m having a
lot of empathy for him, but I don’t know why.” It was Giselle’s
turn to be confused and Bryce waved a hand. “I lost some of my
memory because of the fire or the coma; I don’t guess it matters
which.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Eh. If it’s that important, I’ll
either remember it or it’ll come back to bite me in the ass when I
least expect it to. It’s happened before.”

She watched him for a moment. “Tell me about your
fire.”

He barked a humorless laugh. “I’ll get you the trial
transcripts.”

“I read them already. I want to hear it from
you.”

“No.”

Giselle sucked in a long breath and stared down at
her now-empty plate. She felt his hand cover hers.

“Giselle,” he breathed as his other hand tucked a
stray curl behind her ear, “I can’t relive it. I had to once when I
was arrested and I had to a second and third time for two juries. I
can’t do it again. You read my testimony. Please let that be
enough.”

She swallowed, knowing she would respect that even
though it hurt. She nodded and looked up at him, only to have her
mouth captured by his with a hot kiss that made her breath catch in
her throat. She closed her eyes and plowed her fingers through his
hair to bring him closer to her.

The kitchen was silent except for the sound of their
kissing, Giselle’s gasps and Bryce’s low, throaty growls. “I will
never get enough of you, Giselle,” he whispered against her lips.
“I can’t imagine living my life without you in it.”

“Ditto,” she whispered back, then drew away slowly.
“But I’m scared. I don’t have any real experience with
relationships.”

“You? Afraid of something?” he asked, caressing her
cheek with a crooked finger.

“I’m only here because Sebastian kicked my ass.”

She could see the surprise that flickered in Bryce’s
beautiful eyes. “Kicked your ass?”

“He does that a lot,” she returned wryly. “He gets
into Fix-or-Raid mode with me and I never get fixed. Just
raided.”

Bryce burst out laughing and sat back in his chair.
“Really.”

“Yeah, and Knox agreed with him, so I’m sure
Armageddon will happen any day now.”

“Remind me to thank them.”

“You’ll have to do it twice,” she muttered. “They
also kicked my ass to seek you out in the first place.” She speared
him with a glance. “So knowing that, are you feeling threatened
anymore?”

He continued to chuckle and finally said, “No, guess
not.” He stood and took her hands, pulled her off the bar stool and
enfolded her in his arms. “Let’s go get rings and get to the
courthouse before it closes.”

* * * * *

38:
SON OF A PREACHER MAN

Sebastian smirked when Giselle led Bryce into the
house and swept her with a glance. “Oh, so you’re wearing Kenard’s
clothes now. I’m guessing he ripped yours to shreds.” Giselle stuck
her tongue out at him and he laughed. “Kenard, come with me. You’re
useful.”

Bryce smirked and followed Sebastian into his
office. Finally they finished plotting to take over the world—
“Pinky and the Brain,” Giselle muttered dryly and Sebastian howled.
Then Bryce took her to Tivol.

“That’s not really a wedding ring,” Bryce pointed
out once she’d selected a platinum spiral band inset with diamonds.
Three square-cut emeralds lay in a diagonal across the three
threads of the spiral.

“It is if I say it is,” she returned smartly, then
smiled up at him. “Matches your eyes.”

The crookedness of his grin told her that pleased
him. In response, her soul blossomed with that indescribable joy
she had when she looked at him, touched him, knowing he was in love
with her, knowing she could make his eyes gleam like that.

“The god of the UMKC School of Law,” she
breathed.

“What?”

She laughed. “You have no idea how this town sees
you, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“At school. The litigation professors worship the
ground you walk on.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m serious. And my tribe—Morgan’s gonna have an
orgasm when he finds out I’m marrying you.”

“Morgan?”

“Ashworth.”

“The economist? On the short list for Fed chairman
when Bernanke retires?”

“Yeah, that one.”

He stared at her. “Isn’t Ashworth related to Étienne
LaMontagne?”

“Yes, the inventor. Our pet name for him is
Edison.”

Bryce wiped a hand down his face, chuckling in
bemusement. “Shit, Giselle. You
do
swim in a sparkling gene
pool, don’t you? This isn’t a marriage; it’s a financial and
political alliance. And you thought I’d be worried about your
taking me for a ride. You should be worried about my motives.”

“Pffftt. I’m broke.”

“You can’t tell me your tribe wouldn’t bail you out
if you asked.”

Giselle hemmed and hawed for a moment, then
admitted, “Okay, well, that’s true.”

“And I’ll even bet they’ve offered and you’ve
refused.” A blush crept up her cheeks and he chuckled. “That’s what
I thought.”

Kevin Oakley saw her and Bryce at the courthouse
getting their marriage license. After he’d congratulated them and
gone back to his office, Bryce muttered, “So besides my motives for
marrying your
family
, I’m marrying the model of the most
infamous Ford painting yet who happens to have a senator in her
pocket.”

“I’m not the one funding his campaign,” Giselle
murmured, coy, and he burst out laughing. “Bryce,” she said once
he’d handed her into his SUV and climbed into the driver’s seat, “I
forgot to ask you if there’s anyone you’d like at our wedding?”

He shrugged and spoke as he maneuvered through the
late Friday afternoon downtown traffic. “Geoff Hale. He’s my friend
as much as he is my lawyer and I think he’d be offended if I
didn’t.”

She caught her breath. “He hates Knox. He’ll fire me
when he finds out we’re so close.”

Bryce cast her a strange glance. “No, he won’t,” he
said slowly, “but you
do
realize you don’t have to work now,
right?”

Oh!
“Um, well, I hadn’t really thought about
it, no.”

He shook his head.

“Okay, but what about your siblings? I mean, I know
you said they aren’t particularly happy with you and won’t like me,
but don’t you want them to come? Or at least tell them?”

He shrugged. “I don’t want them there, no. Besides,
they have health issues and neither of them would be able to fly.”
He paused. “We have nothing in common, nothing to say to each
other. They were angry that I didn’t go to our parents’ funerals
until I said, ‘Oh, hey, by the way, I was in a coma and my children
died and I was arrested for murder and why don’t you know that?’
Even then, they had a hard time letting go of their assumptions.
Being disappointed in me is a habit.”

Giselle closed her eyes and shook her head, figuring
it didn’t matter if people like that liked her or not. “
How
did you come out of a family like that?”

“Don’t know, but it was a hard row to hoe. I was
always trying to be good, to be Peter Priesthood, but I was too
intense, too—”

“Passionate?”

“No. Savage. That’s the word Knox used. My father
was very mild-mannered, very quiet and unassuming. He didn’t
understand me but I wanted to please him, wanted to be like him,
wanted to live up to Mark’s example, step into his shoes. When I
was young, sports and school took care of that and all anybody saw
was a good kid who excelled. But when I went to UCLA, it started
slipping out. I tried to keep a lid on it, but it became harder and
harder as Knox kept telling me there was nothing wrong with me. I
wanted to believe him, but I didn’t, not really. Then I got married
and got angry, so add that to intense and savage and—” He
shrugged.

“After that, the courtroom took the edge off and I
started making my reputation right off the bat. I played a lot of
racquetball to work through the rest of it, but nothing was going
to cut it significantly enough that I could be comfortable. It
helped when I started my own practice because there was so much
more to do than I had to do as an employee.”

Giselle sighed. “And all anybody saw was a
hard-working man with a picture-perfect Mormon family. Did you
decide to take a job here to get away from your family? So they
couldn’t see what was happening to you?”

Bryce didn’t answer for a while, then, “Maybe. I
never thought about it that way. My dad was proud of me, what I’d
accomplished, but it was all in the abstract. I had a good
education, good job, married in the temple to someone he thought
was a good woman, had kids. I was on my way up the church hierarchy
and he figured I’d be a bishop by the time I was thirty-five, like
my brother. I was on the fast track and he was very happy with
me.”

“Did you tell him you were getting divorced?”

“No. He would’ve been disappointed in me for not
trying to make it work. I didn’t know what I was going to say, how
I was going to explain it once it was done and over with. Mark and
Serena still don’t know I was getting divorced.”

Giselle shook her head, unable to comprehend a bit
of that. “I think that’s really sad,” she whispered, looking out
the window then, her mouth tight.

“Giselle,” he said, “they’re a whole
generation
older than I am. They don’t really figure into
the way I think about my life, my childhood. When I was in
Scotland, I did some genealogy and I found out that I come from a
long line of highland warriors. I never made the connection as to
why I felt so at odds with my family. I think if I’d understood
that in college when Knox was yelling in my ear, it would have been
a lot easier for me to accept.”

“And the Apache?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, can’t find out beyond the
fact that there is some on my mother’s side. I have to assume I get
some of it from that bloodline, too.”

Giselle said nothing for a moment and then, “The
grandmother I was named after, Celia. She was a privateer in the
American Revolution. She reported directly to George
Washington.”

Bryce looked at her sharply. “Your
grand
mother
?”

She nodded. “My grandfather was a pirate. Lord
Elliott Dunham. He was an earl of something-or-another before he
was stripped of the title for treason and piracy. I guess he was
lucky to get out of England without hanging.”

“
Why
doesn’t that surprise me?” He was still
laughing once they’d pulled into the driveway behind his house and
gone into the back door. He threw his keys on the kitchen counter
and pulled her into the living room. He dropped onto a leather
sofa, one leg outstretched and one foot on the floor. He indicated
that she should snuggle up between his legs and she was only too
glad to do so.

“So I’m a savage,” he whispered in her ear, melting
Giselle completely. “Scot, Apache, whatever, and I’m proud of it. I
never thought anything in my life could top how I feel when I go to
war, how I felt after I’d had my revenge, accepted that this is who
I am. But then I fucked you.”

Giselle’s body tightened with heat and need. She
felt like her chest had collapsed and she couldn’t take another
breath. His hand swept up her body and cupped her breast through
the fabric of the large Oxford shirt she’d snatched out of his
closet that morning and hadn’t bothered to change. He worked at the
shirttails that she’d tied in a knot just under her breasts, all
the while kissing, nipping, licking her neck, her collarbone, her
shoulder.

“I’ve fantasized about a woman like you for years—”
he rasped as he pulled the knot open and began to work the buttons
loose, “—one I could talk to, who could function on my level,
autonomous. A woman who didn’t manipulate, who was educated and
interesting. I wanted a woman who wasn’t afraid of me, of what I
wanted to take from her—a woman I could fuck, a woman who was
nasty. A woman who’d understand my dark side that I fought most of
my life until I couldn’t anymore.”

He had finished opening the shirt and dragged his
hand lightly up from the waistband of the jeans shorts she
wore—also his—across her belly, to her bra clasp and undid it.

Giselle caught her breath as he cupped her breasts
in his hands and flicked her nipples with his thumbs. She dropped
her head back on his shoulder and closed her eyes, listening
to—
feeling
—his words, his hands on her breasts and his arms
wrapped around her and his chest at her back. She sucked in a
breath—of desire? of fear that she could fail this man? She didn’t
know, but he continued,

“One in each hand. Gunshot wounds. Threatening Fen
at gunpoint. You have no idea how hard that makes me. I wanted that
warrior. I wanted her on her knees in front of me. Sucking. My.
Cock.”