Discretion by Allison Leotta Read Free Book Online Page B

her last chance to contribute to the investigation.
    Jack made a low grumbling noise and jerked his arms. Another nightmare. He would never say what they were about. She cupped his cheek and kissed his temple. He startled awake, his face morphing from ferocious to embarrassed. He focused his green eyes on her. “What time is it?” he asked. “Are you just getting home?”
    “Two-thirty. Yes.”
    He took off his reading glasses, set them on the side table, and put an arm around her. She molded herself into the curve of his torso. She’d wanted to do that all night, even when she stepped away from him in the stairwell. She hated to admit it—she liked to think of herself as independent and self-sufficient. But what she really craved every day was to be skin to skin with Jack.
    “I don’t like you working this late,” he said. His lips brushed her temple as he spoke.
    “I know.”
    “You’ll have to do a better job of listening to me if we’re going to work together on this case.”
    “Hm?”
    “I spoke to Carla. She’s happy to lend you to this investigation. I’d love to have you around.”
    She sat back and looked at him in surprise. He would normally fight to keep a Sex Crimes prosecutor off his investigation.
    “I don’t want to get this case just because we’re dating,” she said.
    “You have sex-offense expertise. I could use that on this case.”
    One part of Anna wanted to jump at the chance to stay on the case. She’d had a rocky start at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, when she’d dated a public defender who had ended up on the opposite side of a homicide case. After the ensuing scandal, she felt a deep need to show that she could run a major investigation smoothly and professionally. A case of this significance was exactly the type of challenge she’d been hoping for. It was a chance to earn the respect of her colleagues.
    But there were dangers to working that closely with Jack. Although he was in the office leadership and had ten years more experience than Anna, he normally didn’t supervise her; she reported to Carla. Jack was on a different floor, working on different cases. But if they worked the case together, he would clearly be the boss. It would be difficult to be equals in their personal relationship while she was his subordinate at the office.
    For an instant, she wondered if he was deliberately trying to create that power dynamic. You’ll have to do a better job of listening to me, he’d said.
    Jack must have sensed her hesitation. “I’m asking you to work on this case because I need you.”
    Anna studied his face. His eyes were sincere. She felt small for harboring unkind thoughts. She took his hand, held it palm up, and traced its lines. After a long streak of bad-boy boyfriends, Jack was the first really good man she’d ever fallen for. They’d been dating for five months and were at the end of the euphoric stage and the beginning of the how-is-this-really-going-to-work-on-an-everyday-basis stage. Unlike her usual dating MO, her attraction to Jack had deepened gradually, as she got to know him. He was kind, generous, and strong, a great father, an incredible lawyer. She didn’t want to mess this up. She knew that refusing the case would hurt his feelings.
    There was also the issue of keeping their relationship a secret. The flip side of Anna’s need to prove herself in the office by doing good work was her need not to be the center of another gossip frenzy about her personal life.
    “People will see us together,” she said. “They’ll talk.”
    “Let them. That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Let’s stop hiding. It’s time.” He gently squeezed her hand and nodded to the coffee table, where a small blue vase held a bunch of lavender sprigs from his garden. “I’d like to be able to send flowers to where you spend your days.”
    When they’d first started dating, he’d sent a dozen roses to her office: eleven pink and one red. His note read,