What He Needs (What He Wants, Book Four) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

“Oh, um, yes... I mean, no, I don’t have
a photographic memory.
 
I’ll take
notes.”
 
I rummaged around in my
bag, pulling out a legal pad and a pen.
 
It was all I could do not to pull my phone out and hold it in my hand
possessively, waiting for Noah to text me back.
 
I had it on vibrate, but sometimes I wouldn’t hear it if it
was in my bag.

“We’re going to need to put in an
information request for Katie’s computer, find out if there’s anything on it
that could be helpful.”

I was scribbling furiously, trying to
keep up with everything he was saying.
 

“We’ll also need her phone.”
 
He was looking through his own phone,
and I wondered if he was considering finally calling Noah.
 
“We’ll need a computer expert, get Courtney
Randio, she’s the best when it comes to that stuff.
 
And tell her we’re going to need a lower rate, that I know
what she charged Fitzgerald.”
 

I was writing faster and faster, trying
to keep up with all the information.
 
The whole time, all I could think about was Noah.
 
Noah, Noah, Noah.
 

Could he have killed someone?
 
Could I have spent last night with a
killer?
 
My instinct said no.
 
But that was how sociopaths and
psychopaths got you.
 
They charmed
you and made you think they could never be capable of the heinous things they
did.
 
It was part of their
personality disorder.
 
We’d had to
read all about personality disorders in intro to criminal law last year when we
studied insanity defenses.

Would Noah be charged with murder?
 
Would we have to plead him as being
insane?
 
Would I be defending a man
I’d slept with from murder?

“Oh, good,” Professor Worthington said,
looking down the walking path toward the police barrier.
 
“There’s Josh.”

I turned to look. Sure enough, there was
Josh.
 
He was standing on the other
side of the barrier, obviously having been stopped by the policemen.
 
He was gesturing to Professor
Worthington.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked.

“I asked him to come down,” Worthington
said.
 
“You’re going to need help
with all the paperwork.”

My head was spinning, adrenaline pumping
through my veins.
 
Now not only did
I have to worry about Noah being a murderer, but I had to worry about working
with Josh.

“I thought Noah said he didn’t want him
on the case,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice from betraying any
emotion.

“Noah?” Professor Worthington asked,
raising his eyebrow.

“Um, I mean, Mr. Cutler.”

“Mr. Cutler didn’t want Josh working
directly with him, that’s true.
 
But I’m sure he wouldn’t have any objections to him working on
paperwork.”
 
Professor Worthington
put his fingers in his mouth and whistled down to the police officers.
 
“Hey!” he said.
 
“Let him through!
 
He’s with me!”

“Why are we allowed back here anyway?” I
asked.
  
Now that I thought
about it, it was definitely bizarre.
 
Why was someone’s lawyer being allowed onto an active crime scene?
Especially since Noah hadn’t even been charged with a crime.

Worthington turned to me and glared.
 
“Charlotte,” he said.
 
“Please don’t be so naïve.
 
With the law, it’s all about who you
know.”
 
His gaze focused on
something over my right shoulder.
 
“Josh,” he said.
 
“Finally.”

“What’s up?” Josh said, obviously
deciding to be totally unprofessional.
 
Not that I was surprised.
 
Someone who’d been jerking off into my panties twelve hours ago probably
wasn’t too concerned with decorum.

“What’s up is that there’s a dead body,”
Worthington said.
 
He shook his
head, like he couldn’t believe how obviously incompetent we were.

“Hey, Charlotte,” Josh said.
 
He gave me a big smile and held out a
paper Starbucks cup.
 
“I brought
you a coffee.”

I thought about taking it from him and
throwing it in his face, or spitting in it and then throwing it in his face, or
maybe just spitting in his face.
 
But then I thought, fuck it, why should I even give him the
satisfaction?
 
I knew he would have
loved to see me rattled, would have loved to see me squirm and have some kind
of freak out in front of Professor Worthington.
 
Josh was a pervert and a snake.
 
And perverts and snakes had a lot in common, especially
their desire to get under your skin.

So instead I pasted a big smile on my face
and took the coffee.
 
“Thanks,
Josh!” I said.
 
I put the cup to my
mouth and pretended to take a sip.
 
I drew the line at actually drinking the coffee -- I wouldn’t have been
surprised if he’d done something nasty to it.

“No problem,” he said.
 
And then he winked at me.

Yesterday I’d felt violated and
disgusted, almost scared of him.
 
Today I still felt the same disgust toward him, but it had morphed into
something else.
 
Now I wanted him
to know I wasn’t going to back down from him, that just because he’d done
something revolting to
me ,
I wasn’t going to let him
get to me.
 
Inside, I was
shaking.
 
But outwardly, I kept my
cool.

“What are we doing here anyway, boss?”
Josh asked.
 
He took a swig of his
own coffee.
 

“We’re making sure the police don’t fuck
everything up, like they’re wont to do,” Professor Worthington said.
 
“They’ll be more likely to follow the
rules if they know someone from the defense is here.”

“We’re not the defense, though,” I
interrupted.
 
“I mean, you know,
because um, he’s … Mr. Cutler hasn’t been charged with a crime.”

The two of them looked at me like I was a
naïve little girl.
 
“Now,”
Worthington said, totally ignoring my comment.
 
“We’re going to have to have a meeting as soon as this is
over.
 
Are you two free this
afternoon?
 
Say around three?
 
We can meet at my office.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.
 
“But I’m not sure this is going to take
two of us.
 
I have more than enough
free time to make sure all the paperwork is getting done.”

I avoided Josh’s gaze as I said this last
part.

The last thing I wanted was
him
thinking I wanted him off the case because of what he’d
done last night, even though of course that was the reason.
 
I wondered if I should just tell
Professor Worthington.
 
I imagined
the shocked look on his face if I just blurted it out.
“Professor, Josh shouldn’t be allowed to
work on this case with me because I caught him jerking off in my room.”

But of course I could never do that, even
if I wanted to.
 
It would be
extremely unprofessional.

“You think you can handle this whole case
by yourself, do you, Charlotte?”
 
Professor Worthington asked.
 
“You think one student should be able to take on the workload of three
paralegals?”
 
I wanted to ask him
why he didn’t
have
three paralegals working on the case then, but I already knew the
answer.
 
It was because paralegals
didn’t want to do this kind of shit – they weren’t putting together
summaries of evidence and filling out forms, they were looking up case law and
practicing trial arguments.

“No,” I said.
 
“I just meant that if there’s something else Josh could be
working on, then –”

“What the hell are you doing here, you
little fucker?” a voice growled from next to me.
 
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of a dark coat,
a black glove, and then a crack as a fist hit Josh in the face and sent him
sprawling to the ground.

“Oh my God!” My hand flew to my mouth and
I turned to see Noah standing there, his eyes blazing in fury.

“Jesus Christ, Cutler,” Professor
Worthington said.
 
“What the hell
are you
doing?”

But Noah wasn’t done.
 
He reached down and picked Josh up by
the collar of his polo shirt, pulling him close until their faces were inches
apart.
 
“You stay away from her,”
Noah commanded.
 
“You don’t look at
her, you don’t talk to her, you don’t even
think
about her.
 
Do you understand me?”

All trace of bravado was gone from Josh’s
face.
 
Just a few moments ago, when
he’d handed me that coffee, he’d been cocky and confident.
 
Now he was shaking like a little
boy.
 
Noah shook him again.
 
“Do.
 
You.
 
Understand?”
 

“Yeah,” Josh said.
 
“Yes.
 
Yes, I understand.”

Noah released his grip on Josh’s
shirt.
 
But I could tell he was
going to hit him again.
 
It was
like he wasn’t there, like he’d had some kind of break with his body and didn’t
know what he was doing.

“Noah!” I yelled, grabbing his arm and
pulling at him.
 
“Noah, stop it!”

He looked at me, and our eyes met, and
that seemed to snap him out of it.
 
“Noah,” I said.
 
“Please,
stop.
 
Just stop.
 
It’s okay.
 
Everything’s okay.”

His breath was coming in ragged gasps,
but I could tell
he was coming back
,
he was calming down
.
 
I kept my eyes on his, my hand on his arm.
 
I wanted to pull him close, to wrap my arms around him, to
tell him everything was going to be okay, but I didn’t dare do that in front of
Professor Worthington.
 
From down
by the barriers, the policemen had turned to see what the commotion was.

“It’s fine!” Professor Worthington yelled
down to them.
 
“Everything’s fine.”
The police shook their heads and went back to guarding the barrier.
 
A couple of police cars were pulling up
on the other side, two men in
suits
climbing out of
them.
 
They must have been the
detectives who were going to be cataloging the crime scene.

“Took them long enough,” Professor
Worthington grumbled.
 
He turned to
Josh.
 
“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Josh said, a track of his
cockiness back, now that he could see there was no immediate threat.
 
“I’m fine.”

Professor Worthington looked at Noah and
shook his head.
 
“I don’t have to
tell you how ridiculously stupid it was to show up at a murder scene when you
know you’re going to be a person of interest.
 
And beyond that, it was even more stupid to get into a
physical altercation with a member of your defense team.
 
In front of cops.”

“I told you I didn’t want him working on
my case,” Noah said.
 
“And I stand
by that.”

“He’s not going to be working directly
with you,” Professor Worthington explained.
 

“Mr. Cutler,” I said, hoping my voice
sounded professional.
 
“I can
assure you that Josh will behave with the upmost professionalism.”
 
I gave Noah a warning look.
 
The last thing I wanted was Josh on
this case.
 
He was my competition,
not to mention a complete and total pervert.
 
But it was already clear that something inappropriate was
going on with Noah and I, and it was going to look even worse for me, and for
Noah, if Josh got thrown off the case – Professor Worthington would be
even more annoyed than he was when I suggested I could handle everything
myself.
 
He might even fire me.

Noah’s jaw set in a straight line, and a
vein pulsed in his neck.
 
I could
tell it was taking every last ounce of his self-control not to insist Josh be
thrown off the case.
 
Finally, he
shook his head.

“Whatever,” he said.
 
He turned and started walking away.