Read Online Indicted (Bad Judgment #1) by Leigh James - Free Book Online Page B

said, looking up close at one of her paintings. The paint seemed like it was done in layers, beautifully textured with bold colors. “So she lives in town?”
    “She lives here,” he said. “But she’s not around that much — she has a lot of friends, and a boyfriend I don’t care for too much. He has about a thousand tattoos and says ‘whatever’ a lot more than I care to hear it. She’s twenty-four...just about your age.”
    “I’m twenty-five,” I said, “ten years younger than you. But that’s a pretty big age difference, for a sibling.” I was thinking instead of the difference between me and Walker. I decided that it wasn't that big a difference for an attorney and her hot client that she could never sleep with.
    “Adrian was unexpected,” Walker said, and smiled. “My parents always called her a force of nature. Nothing, no one could stop her. I still can’t get her to behave.” He laughed.
    “Where are your parents?” I asked.
    “They’re dead,” he said. “What about you?”
    “My mom’s dead. Died five years ago of cancer. My dad lives in Somerville with my two younger brothers.”
    “Sorry,” he said.
    “Sorry,” I said. We looked at each other stupidly. I grabbed my laptop and held it up. “You ready?”
    “But you don’t live with them?” he asked, ignoring my laptop and my question. I shook my head, no . “You live alone?”
    “Yes,” I said. I blushed again underneath his scrutiny. My boyfriend is trying to move in but I won’t let him, I thought. I kept it to myself. The last thing I wanted to talk to Walker about was Mike the Spike and his fancy beers.
    “I’m glad Adrian’s here. I’d get lonely. Do you get lonely?”
    “No.” It was true. I was rarely home, and I think if I broke up with Mike and stopped having to pick his boxers and wet towels up off of my bathroom floor, I would be thrilled. Not lonely.
    I couldn’t picture Walker being lonely; he was too good-looking to have problems like that. I looked at him expectantly, trying to reign him in. “Our prep work — yes,” Walker said, finally. “Let’s go into the living room. And for the love of god, let’s please have a drink. This is going to be boring.” He grabbed a bottle of wine from a wine cooler next to the dishwasher, and I briefly wondered what it would be like to have a fully-stocked white wine cooler. And a live-in manservant that looked just like Broden Walker. Fabulous, I thought. It would be freakin’ fabulous.
    He grabbed glasses, an opener, and then led me through French doors to his living room. Dark, almost black, hardwood floors and a luxurious, thick white throw rug contrasted with the enormous leather couch. The room would have been stark if not for the artwork on the walls, which were of brightly-colored flowers...and the...enormous pink poodle Pillow Pet that sat slumped on the couch.
    I went over and sat next to it. “Yours, I assume?”
    “Ha-ha,” he said, opening the wine expertly and pouring two glasses. “My sister’s in her twenties, she’s an avowed Feminist, she has five tattoos and her nose is pierced, and yet, she keeps that thing around. It’s a fucking Pillow Pet. It’s embarrassing.”
    “I think it’s sweet,” I said, thinking about the fact that I still kept my jewelry in a music box that had a spinning ballerina in it. My mother had given it to me when I was nine. “Sometimes it’s nice to have something to hold onto.”
    Walker put a very healthy glass of wine in front of me. “I can’t drink more than I already have, remember?” I said. “I’m on the clock.”
    “Trust me, I’ve had plenty of drinks with David Proctor — we had some earlier today — and they’re all on the clock. Fucker bills me for everything. ” He took his tie off, unbuttoned his shirt further and put his feet up on the coffee table. He motioned to the wine. “I’ll just leave it there until you get so bored you feel compelled.”
    I doubted I would find staring