Malice

“Why’d you hire me a lawyer?” I ask, getting right to the point.

He snorts. “Because you’re poor as fuck and can’t afford a decent one yourself.”

“Saint, I’m serious,” I hiss.

He rolls his eyes and turns to walk back into his room. He leaves the door open, though, which I interpret as an invitation to come in. Stepping inside, I freeze and gawk as I take in the space. Somehow, it’s more luxurious than his last one. Higher ceilings, wider windows and his kitchenette is twice the size of mine. He’s got brand new furniture and no doubt a closet full of new clothes, too.

It’s obvious he dropped several hundred thousand dollars to replace everything he lost in the fire, but that would only be a drop in the bucket for him.

I close the door behind me, and he turns to face me, leaning against his desk and arching his brow expectantly.

“Well?” he growls. “I’m waiting for my ass-chewing.”

I sigh. “I’m not here to chew your ass, but I need to know why you keep helping me? It’s getting ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? You mean you don’t want one of the top criminal lawyers in LA to keep your stubborn ass out of jail?”

“That’s not…” I take a deep breath and anxiously race my palms up and down my uniform skirt. “Saint, I am appreciative, I just—”

“Do you think a birthday stripper is tacky?”

His question completely throws me off, and my head jerks back in shock.

“Wh-what?” I stutter. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He shrugs. “Birthday strippers. Tacky or no?”

“I’m so lost,” I confess, clenching handfuls of my skirt in frustration. “Why are we talking about birthday strippers?”

“Just trying to figure out some final details for my special day,” he explains with a cocky grin that gives my chest a brutal pulse. “It’s at the end of the month, you know. The twenty-eighth.”

“Oh.”

He tilts his head to one side as he skims his gaze over my body, from my black flats to the braid unraveling on my head. “You going to get me a present?”

I’m trying to have a serious conversation with him, and he’s talking about a goddamn birthday party? “Saint, can you be serious for one minute, please?”

“I am being serious, Mallory,” he says sarcastically, pushing away from his desk to prowl toward me. “Birthday strippers need to be hired with care.”

“Why do you keep helping me?” I demand, lifting my chin so that our eyes lock. “You’ve made it perfectly clear what you think of me, so why do you keep stepping in to save me?”

He stares down at me for several long, silent moments, and I’ve no idea what’s going on in his complicated, fucked-up mind.

“I just can’t seem to help myself,” he finally bites out, as if the words were being yanked from him against his will. His hand comes up to cup my chin as his mouth descends toward mine. “When it comes to you and these situations I’ve helped create, I find myself constantly pulled back in whenever I try to ignore you.”

Situations he helped create.

That’s not the answer I expected.

Not at all.

“Did you set the fire that burned down your old dorm?” I manage to whisper.

“No.” His tone is firm, his cold gaze intense.

I have one other question for him. I’ve asked it before, but I didn’t believe him then. “Did you have anything to do with Jon Eric’s disappearance?”

He smirks, as if he finds the question fu

I glare up at him, frantically trying to find something in his expression to tell me that he’s being honest with me. His expression is his usual one of arrogance and superiority, and I can’t read anything more in it.

I want to believe him. I honestly, really do.

I just don’t.