Read Online Breaking (Fall or Break #2) by Barbara Elsborg - Free Book Online Page B

nodded.
    “Presumably whoever did it still wants you dead.”
    “Thanks for that cheery thought.” Which lurked like a raptor in Conrad’s mind but he was surprised it had popped into Archer’s. “I have had the sense not to broadcast where I’m staying.” Oh God, are you a threat to me?
    Archer pushed away his empty bowl. “But there are people who know?”
    “Yes.” This conversation was worrying him.
    “Then the wrong people can find out.”
    Conrad gave a small shrug. “I suppose so.”
    Archer looked around. “You’re isolated, easy to sneak up on and currently not at your best physically. It wouldn’t take much to kill you.”
    Shit. “If I hadn’t dragged your arse out of the sea yesterday, I’d be feeling worried.” Actually, he was worried. Anxiety nibbled at his gut.
    “Fortunately for you I’m not a threat.”
    Conrad wasn’t so sure about that. Apart from a concern that it might not have been a coincidence Archer was surfing right opposite the cottage, Conrad’s anxiety about impotence now appeared to have taken a new twist. His dick was waving around in his pants like a sand eel, but because he was sitting at the table, his groin was hidden. He hadn’t had this problem since he’d been a teenager.
    Deefor ran to Conrad, jumped up at him, ran to the door and ran back. “You need to pee again?” Really? Because I don’t want to get up right at this moment.
    Archer pushed to his feet and Conrad almost said, “I didn’t mean you,” before he thought better of it. When Archer opened the door, Deefor took two steps into the rain before he shook his coat and returned to the radiator. Archer huffed and slammed the door. “Next time open it yourself,” he said to the dog and dropped back at the table.
    Deefor moved from the radiator and settled at Conrad’s feet.
    Archer wrapped his hands around his coffee. “You can hardly walk. How the hell did you manage to get me out of the sea?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “You could have drowned.”
    “You weren’t far out.”
    “You can drown in a couple of inches of water and the sea was rough yesterday. You can die of hypothermia within minutes. Why did you do it? You don’t even know me.”
    He looked genuinely curious, which Conrad found strange.
    “How could I have lived with myself if I hadn’t tried?”
    “And if I’d drowned?”
    “Then I’d done the best I could.”
    “And when my wife and kids looked at you as though you hadn’t tried hard enough?”
    Oh shit. Conrad didn’t let his disappointment show but his cock wilted. “Then that’s their problem not mine.”
    Archer’s lips curved in a smile. “You’re very confident.”
    “I need to be in my line of work.” I’m an expert in sounding confident. He’d always been confident but the spell in the hospital had changed him, reduced him somehow, reminded him he was mortal.
    “What do you do?”
    “Barrister.”
    Archer raised his eyebrows. “Prosecuting or defense?”
    “Both.”
    “You have a preference?”
    “Defense.”
    “Interesting.”
    Conrad hesitated, then asked, “You don’t want to know why I prefer defense? How I can possibly defend someone I know is guilty?”
    “But the opposite is how can you prosecute someone you suspect is innocent? Not that simple, is it?”
    Conrad liked that answer. “The law is rarely simple. I recently had a case where a guy spent ten years in prison for something he didn’t do. The evidence at the original trial was damning, but it turned out he’d been set up.”
    “Would you defend someone you knew was guilty?”
    “If they admitted they were and said they were going to lie in court, no, I wouldn’t. I’d recommend they plead guilty. If they told me they didn’t do it and I suspected they were lying, yes, I’d defend them. It’s not my place to determine guilt. That’s up to the jury.”
    Archer finished his coffee in one long slurp. “Innocent until proven guilty.”
    “Exactly . ” Does that apply