The pep talk Sayer had given me for an hour in her office had done little to settle my jangling nerves. She was the perfect mix of feminine and fierce in a black pants suit that was tailored to her long and lean frame perfectly with some kind of pale pink lacy thing poking out behind the lapels, but the more she told me that it was all going to be fine, the less I wanted to believe her. She was trying to be confident and reassuring, but we both knew what was at stake. She kept telling me to answer the judge’s questions honestly, that I needed to keep my cool if they asked about my prison sentence, and that I simply needed to show the court how much I wanted to have Hyde in my life. I needed to convince the judge I had what it took to be a father. Over and over again she told me nothing was going to be off-limits, so if I had any skeletons hidden deep in my closet she needed to know. They were going to judge me, my biggest sore spot, but she told me repeatedly they wouldn’t find me lacking. It was nice to hear coming from the woman I wanted more than almost anything but it didn’t make my nerves any less taut.

Sayer mentioned that she had been before this particular judge in the past and that he was stern but ultimately fair. She told me he was going to grill me about anything and everything and that all I had to do was give him factual and succinct answers. I reminded her that I was an open book and had hidden nothing from her since the beginning. Telling the truth about who I was and where I had been sounded so easy because I never tried to hide it. Declaring all my faults and putting every mistake I had ever made on display in front of the person that would ultimately decide if I should be a father or not amplified every insecurity I had. Sayer tried to tell me over and over that it would all be fine and I wanted to believe her, but I could see that she was just as nervous as I was in the way she couldn’t stop fiddling with things in front of her and the way her toes kept tapping under her fancy desk.

All I could do was nod at her and assure her that I understood how much was riding on what happened today and how I presented myself to the judge. For this initial meeting, it was only me and Sayer, plus Maria from CASA, going before the judge. She told me that moving forward she would also plan on involving my mom as well as Beryl in the proceedings if the court needed any kind of character witnesses on my behalf. She was hoping it wasn’t going to come to that, but I wasn’t so sure. I had cleaned myself up but there was no hiding some of the outward trappings that would always mark me as a man that had done and paid for things that would never make a good impression on anyone. I could have shaved my beard off, put on a suit and tie, found some fancy wing tips, and made a big production about how hard I had worked to turn my life around since getting out of jail, but I decided that I needed to be truthful not only with the court but with myself. There was no getting around my past, it had made me who I was today, and I was proud of that man. That man would take care of his son to the best of his ability, he would love him, and he would care for him and make sure the boy never wanted for anything. I could do all of that whether or not I was clean-shaven and polished up. Plus I liked the way Sayer’s eyes roved over me and lit up with a spark of hunger when she saw me. She liked the man I was, too, and if I was good enough for her then I was good enough for the judge. She didn’t need me spit-shined, and that made me even more determined to break through those walls she kept stacking back up around herself whenever we spent time apart.

She hadn’t brought up the other night, and I figured it wasn’t the time or the place to force the issue, so I silently followed her and her fancy, imported sports car across town as we left LoDo and headed toward the courthouse on Capitol Hill. She parked the car and we walked around the massive building toward the front doors. She moved fast on those tall heels she had on, but I didn’t mind bringing up the rear because the view was nothing short of heart-stopping. Pulled together and proper might not work on me, but it sure as hell worked on her and there was no end to all the dirty thoughts that raced through my head as I imagined pulling that suit off of her elegant limbs piece by piece.

I let out a grunt as I ran into her back as she suddenly came to a stop. I was too busy checking out her ass to notice that she had stopped moving, so I wrapped an arm around her middle to keep my bulk from knocking her over as I plowed into her. I was going to ask her what the deal was when I noticed a tall blond man in a suit and a young woman with bright pink hair having an argument in the center of the sidewalk. It was kind of a funny sight considering how different the two individuals looked until I realized that was exactly how opposite Sayer and I appeared to anyone on the outside watching the two of us walk toward the building.

Their voices were raised, and the young woman was calling the debonair-looking man every filthy word in the book plus some inventive ones I had never heard before. The guy shook his head as the petite young woman, who I now realized I recognized, took a step forward and poked him in the center of his chest with a finger. The blond man threw his hands up in the air in obvious exasperation before turning in our direction. He knew Sayer, which didn’t surprise me at all, everything about the guy screamed litigation and prestige. He made his way over to where we were standing without saying good-bye to his colorful and agitated companion. When he reached us his gaze purposely dropped to where my arm was still wrapped around Sayer. She made a little noise in her throat and stepped out of my hold, which had my hands curling into involuntary fists at my sides. The guy gave me a disinterested once-over and obviously wasn’t impressed with what he saw. He turned his full attention to Sayer, effectively dismissing me.

He pushed some of his hair off his forehead and flashed a smile in a toothy, smooth way that made me want to cram my fist in his face and knock every one of his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth down his throat.

“I thought women liked you. It doesn’t look like that one is very fond of you, Quaid.” There was quiet humor in her tone, a familiarity between the two of them that grated across my nerves.

The other attorney chuckled. “Yeah, she’s one of my more challenging clients without a doubt. She needs to learn to listen to me or she’s going to have a rough go at it.” His gaze skipped back over to me and I felt my teeth grind together in the back even though I made sure to keep my expression bland. It wouldn’t do me any good to beat the man to a bloody pulp steps away from the front doors of the courthouse my first time before the judge who would determine my son’s and my future. “She’s a pain in my ass and a spoiled brat, but I don’t think she deserves to serve hard time. I just did my damnedest to get her charges dismissed.”