About That Night

It was a good plan. He wanted to be the asshole here.

Why, then, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his cell phone and Ryla

He dialed her number, got her voicemail, and left a message.

“Sorry, counselor, but I looked all around the penthouse and found only one Kyle Rhodes.” He paused. “And he will be at your office tomorrow at two o’clock. Expect lots of prickliness.”

Twelve

BY ONE THIRTY the next afternoon, the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office was in a stir.

As it turned out, Ryla

Cade popped into her office right before her meeting, doing a slow clap. “Well done. How did you manage to bring in the Twitter Terrorist?”

“I have my ways,” Ryla

Cade raised a curious eyebrow at that. “Can we now?”

A call from her secretary interrupted them with the news that her visitor had arrived. “That’s my cue,” Ryla

Cade walked alongside her on the way back to his office. As they passed by the secretaries’ desks and the other AUSA offices, Ryla

“You’d think I’d asked Al Capone to drop by,” she muttered under her breath.

“Get used to it. When it comes to Kyle Rhodes, people are curious.” Cade saluted as he ducked into his office. “Good luck.”

Ryla

Kyle stood with his profile to her, looking at the photograph of the Chicago skyline. Surprisingly, he appeared to be alone. He’d dressed in business-casual attire, looking professional and confident, with the top button undone on his blue pin-striped shirt and his hands tucked into his pants pockets. Ironically emblazed in bold silver letters on the wall behind him were the words “Office of the United States Attorney.”

Ryla

Clearly, there was no love lost between him and her office. Five months ago, they’d gone after him hard—probably a little too hard, from what Cade had told her. Yet now they needed Kyle, and so there he stood: head held high, not trying to hide or shield himself with the team of attorneys most men in his position would have insisted be present.

Kyle turned and saw her, watching with a wary expression as she approached. He’d said some things last night, and so had she—but still, he’d shown up. And as far as Ryla

“Looks like we have an audience,” he said when she stopped before him.

Ryla

“No lawyers again?” she asked.

“I don’t have anything to hide, Ms. Pierce,” he said coolly.

“Actually, I’m glad they’re sitting this one out. I couldn’t afford to buy all fifty of them coffee, anyway.”

Surprise flashed across his face. “We’re not staying here?”

Ryla

He studied her for a long moment, seeming to debate whether to accept the olive branch she had offered.

“I like your hair better this way,” he finally said.

Ryla

Kyle began walking in the direction of the elevators. “It means I’m thinking about it.”

But when he pushed the down button and stole a glance at her, the familiar devilish spark back in his eyes, Ryla

KYLE SAT OPPOSITE Ryla

She’d brought him to a diner—the quasi-seedy, retro-but-not-in-a-hip-way kind of diner complete with vinyl booths and plastic menus—that was located under the L tracks a block from her office.

“How did you find this place?” He picked up the menu. “They actually have meat loaf on the menu.”

Ryla

With a loud pop! the lights suddenly went out.

Ryla

Of course she had. “And what did this file tell you about me?” Kyle asked.

She pulled a legal pad and pen out of her briefcase. “Well, I can tell you one thing it didn’t tell me: why you were in disciplinary segregation.” She clicked her pen and poised it over the legal pad, ready to go. “Perhaps you could explain that?”

Kyle fought back a grin, wondering if she knew how oddly enticing she looked when she went all official on him. “All the times I was in disciplinary segregation, Ms. Pierce, or just the time I was locked up next to Brown?”

She blinked. “How many times were you in disciplinary segregation?”

“Six.”

Her eyes widened. “In four months? That’s quite an accomplishment.”

The lights suddenly flickered back on, and some of the diner’s other patrons cheered approvingly.

“There we go,” Ryla

Hmm.

Kyle remembered that smile. He’d once walked up to a complete stranger in a bar because of one just like it. And had then been thoroughly sassed.

“You were about to tell me about the six times you were in disciplinary segregation?” she prompted him.

He sat back, casually stretching his arm along the booth. “I guess some of the other inmates thought a rich computer geek would be an easy mark. From time to time, I needed to defend myself to correct that misimpression.”

Ryla

“Actually, I did quite well with the fighting. It was the getting caught part that I had problems with.”

Kyle smiled i

“Any noteworthy fights I should know about?” she asked.

“I once shoved a guy’s face in a plate of mashed pota-

toes.”

He was pretty sure he saw her fighting back a smile at that one.

“Tell me what it was like being in prison,” she said.

“You’re a prosecutor. You must have some idea what it’s like,” he said.

She acknowledged this with a nod. “I’d like to hear you describe it in your own words.”

“Ah. So you know what I’ll say when I testify on the subject.”

“Precisely.”

Kyle thought about where to start with that one. Interesting that Ryla