The Marriage Contract Read online

  A number of emotions flashed across his face, disappointment, satisfaction, before it settled on relief. “She had to get her beauty sleep.”

  Cara sucked her cheeks in slightly to hide her own satisfaction. “What a shame. You’ve been keeping her up nights?”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “What gave you that idea?”

  The little gropefest I saw the other night might have something to do with it.

  “She is a very attractive woman.”

  “Yes, if you want to make a career of it. Which she has. But that’s not what I’m looking for.”

  “Really. What are you looking for, Dev?”

  The heat in his eyes simmered as he gazed washed over her. This was not the look of a man hungry for his friend's advice. He was hungry all right, but in a primal way that made her whole body tingle. She was about to get devoured...and the thought of it made her tremble with excitement.

  “That’s what I came here to find out.”

  He took a deep breath, expanding his chest against his shirt, leaving Cara shivering with anticipation. The tight knot she’d felt all night begged to be released.

  Devin lifted from the porch rail and advanced toward her, taking Cara’s hand. A gentle breeze brought with it the scent of the sea intermingled with the scent of Devin’s aftershave. He squeezed her hand, the contact immediately triggering a chain reaction that magnified her senses, leaving her pulse pounding.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered against her ear, tickling her skin.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure that out when we get there.” He grabbed his bottle of champagne and hers and turned toward the stairs.

  “Wait. I can’t leave my own birthday party,” she said. Although she probably wouldn’t need more than a little nudge to follow Devin.

  “Yes, you can. Deja vu, remember? We did this on your eighteenth birthday.”

  Giddy excitement filled her. It felt just like something they use to do when they were kids. Which, for some strange reason, Cara found exhilarating.

  She ran toward him. “Let’s get out of here while we still have the chance.”

  #

  Chapter Nine

  Thirty minutes later, the two of them sat on the sand by a crackling campfire on the stretch of beach in back of Devin’s cottage. Bruno stretched out on the sand, sleeping peacefully as Devin stroked his newly cleaned fur. Cara was well on her way to polishing off the first bottle of champagne.

  She popped the cork on the second bottle and giggled when the bubbly flowed out the mouth and dribbled down her arm. So what if she was starting to feel the effects of her drink? It was her birthday, after all, and she with Devin. Just like old times. Thank God, some things never change.

  “That’s the whole point, Dev,” she said, continuing the conversation they'd started. “Roger doesn't need me. No one needs me. I can come and go as I please, work as late into the evening as I want, and sleep ‘til noon. Roger just wants my companionship and asks absolutely nothing but that from our relationship.”

  “Somehow, it doesn’t seem that simple to me.”

  The cool breeze swept in from the ocean, caressing her warm cheeks. “No, it is. And I like it that way.”

  “Then why have you been so down?”

  Cara glanced at Devin. Damn, he looked too good stretched out on the sand. The wind whipped a lock of dark hair over his forehead, making him look incredibly sexy. One look and she almost forgot to tell him to stuff it.

  She tucked her feet under herself and shifted, uncomfortable with the longing she couldn’t seem to shake. She watched as he stretched out on the sand, looking up at the stars with his hands laced behind his neck. Bruno whined and lay snuggled up along the side of him.

  Cara had a deep longing to do the very same thing. How could she not feel safe and warm curled up next to Devin?

  “What about a baby? They’re pretty demanding,” he said. “That's something that was never part of your grand plan.”

  She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I know. But somehow, that’s different.”

  “How?”

  “That’s family. I mean, sure, I’m not a morning person, so this two o’clock followed by the inevitable five o’clock feeding scares me a little. But that’s stupid stuff. Every new parent goes through that, right? It will eventually pass. And the demands of a child are different than the demands of a man.”

  “How?” he repeated. And she was beginning to get annoyed.

  She turned her thoughts over in her mind a few times. Maybe it was the drink, but she couldn’t come up with one valid reason to support her argument. Babies didn’t care that their mommies were up late the night before working on a project and wanted to sleep in the next morning. A dirty diaper needed to be changed whether or not you had a business meeting with a potential client. Then there were doctor appointments and new shoes and clothes that had to be bought and...

  Babies were demanding. Period.

  But it was different. She just couldn’t figure out how.

  And then she remembered her mood swings since she’d been home. Her parents were moving away and selling the house she grew up in. Although they were still here, she was already missing family. Now that she’d tasted success in her professional life, she wanted to bask in the warmth of having a family of her own. Family meant at least two people and hopefully the addition of more.

  She sighed heavily. “It’s inevitable that when two people have a baby, the woman is always forced to give up her career over the man’s.”

  “Says who?”

  She shrugged and reached over to pour more champagne in Devin’s glass. “Everyone I know. All my assistants. My mother. She started her own catering business when she was eighteen. Everything was great until I came along. Then she quit.”

  “Maybe that’s what she wanted.”

  “I don't know about that. You saw her tonight. She’s never happier than when she’s in a kitchen full of food, getting ready to serve a hundred people. And you see the way she caters to my father.”

  Devin rolled over and propped his head up on his palm, his elbow sunk deep into the sand. “Maybe she thought that her family was more important.”

  Cara sobered, looking down at the empty glass in her hand. Her head was spinning, and she fought to keep back the emotion waiting to spill out. “Maybe I’m afraid I’m too selfish and I won’t.”

  Devin sputtered. “Knock it off. You’re anything but selfish. Besides, it’s not like years ago when the family roles were carved in stone. Lots of women work after having children and lots of men have taken an active role in raising their kids.”

  Cara poured champagne into her glass and lifted the glass to her lips. The sweet taste of the liquid was strong and the bubbles tickled her nose as she drank. Looking at Devin, she tried to imagine him as a father. She’d never thought of him that way before. But then again, she’d never thought of herself as the motherly type, either.

  So many things about the last few days had changed her thinking. And it was scaring her to death. She just wanted to tell the world to stop and let her off. She wanted to keep what little she could count on locked in a bottle. No surprises. No more changes.

  “Would you do it? Give up your career to stay home with a family?”

  Devin's mouth flew open, but he didn’t say anything.

  She groaned. “Just as I thought.”

  “No, wait a minute. You’re asking me to go from zero to ninety in a heartbeat. Who said only one has to give up? You said you don’t want to have a baby alone. What about marriage and family? That’s all supposed to be a team effort. Who’s to say both parents couldn’t cut down their hours and work part time?”

  “I can’t picture you working part time.”

  A strange look crossed his face that she couldn’t read, leaving him looking vulnerable.

  “Why not?”

  “You’ve always been full steam ahead. I just can’t picture you slowing down.”
<
br />   “I’m thinking of jumping the train all together.”

  She almost choked on her champagne. “You?”

  He gave a half grin. “You don’t have to look so shocked. It's not that radical an idea. You're not the only one who has had a change of heart.”

  “I can’t help it. Of all people, I thought that surely you would...” She took a sip of champagne and swallowed it hard. “What about that case you were researching?”

  “That's part of the reason. But I’ve been wondering about things for quite some time. In law school, I’d heard about lawyers who get a sort of professional mid-life crisis after practicing about ten years, but I thought I was immune to it.” He sighed. Clearly whatever it was that had brought him back home was weighing heavy on his mind. “I just don’t know if I want to play the game anymore.”

  He looked so exposed. For a man of Devin’s stature, that could mean death in his career. Appearance was everything. But seeing him this way didn’t make her think of him as weak. Anything but. His conviction was strong as was his will. And that was something to admire. She always had.

  “You always wanted to be a lawyer. And you’re the best. What’s changed it for you?”

  “The definition of justice is beginning to get a little murky to me.”

  She laughed, mostly to help ease the tension lines on his face. “After a bottle of champagne, everything’s murky.”

  Devin didn’t laugh. His face was stone cold serious. This wasn't some idle thing he'd thought up to make her whining seem real. This was very real to him.

  She stretched out on the sand, lying flat on her belly and supporting her upper body on her elbows. “So tell me,” she began softly, “why is this Palmer guy different from all the others?”

  “He isn’t. He's just a normal everyday guy who happened to get himself caught up in a major mess.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Devin hesitated a moment and exhaled a slow breath. “Justice was never about right or wrong.”

  She frowned.

  He nodded his head. “Yeah. No one gives a rat’s ass who’s innocent or guilty, only what they can prove, what they can win. After a while, you stop seeing your clients as people. You stop feeling. And pretty soon you've gone so cold that you stop feeling about everything in your life. It’s all just a game. Years go by and you start to wonder why you’re still playing it. Or why you wanted to in the first place. It's like some roller coaster ride that never ends.”

  He reached over and stroked a wayward strand of hair from her face, igniting a flame as strong as the bonfire on the beach. His eyes focused on her lips, caressing them with a single look. She involuntarily moistened them with her tongue, imagining what it would feel like having Devin’s lips pressed against hers. To feel his hands stroking her bare skin.

  She needed space, but couldn’t muster enough strength to move away. It wasn’t just that she knew he’d kiss her if she stayed still. She wanted Devin to kiss her. It wouldn't take much and she knew there'd be no protest from her, drunk or sober.

  She sucked in a deep breath and sat up, trying to collect herself, trying to keep her thoughts on the subject matter and not on what it would feel like to fall into Devin's arms, melt in his touch right that second.

  “You don’t care if your clients are guilty?” she asked, forcing herself back to the topic of conversation.

  “It’s not my job to care about whether or not they actually commit the crimes they're accused of. That’s up to a jury to decide. It’s my job to make sure my clients don’t go to jail. Period.”

  She made circles in the sand with her fingers, keeping her gaze focused on the circles instead of Devin. “And if they’re innocent?”

  He sputtered. “Please don’t tell me you’re naive enough to think that innocent people don’t go to jail.”

  She looked at him then. “Okay, I won’t.”

  “It’s not about innocence, or money, or justice. It’s about winning. It’s about getting a fair shot at justice. That’s what we’re taught in law school. Everything else is secondary.”

  “You couldn’t have always believed that. What about that case you took right out of law school? What was his name...?”

  “Luther Wells.” Devin remembered it all too well.

  “Everyone thought he’d go to jail but you convinced the firm to take the case and you won.”

  Heat coiled in the pit of his stomach. That was the case that had made him what he was today. What used to give him pride now left a bitter taste in his mouth. The guy was guilty as sin and all but admitted as much from the day of their initial meeting. Back then, he didn’t care. It wasn’t a matter of guilt or innocence. The firm had already decided not to take his case. Too much negative publicity surrounded it and they were sure to lose.

  But Devin was young and green and had a fire in his belly that couldn’t be extinguished easily. He’d convinced the senior partners that he could use all the negative publicity and turn it around to his favor. They thought he couldn’t do it, that he was sure to lose. But he showed them all and it catapulted his career forward. Everything after that seemed like a blur now.

  He stared into Cara’s soft eyes and the shimmer of light from the fire cascading off the waves of her dark hair. Lord, she was beautiful. Being with her made sense out of all the indecision and unrest waging war within him.

  He tossed a twig into the fire. “You talk about me like I’m some kind of hero.”

  “You were to Luther Wells.”

  He sat up and brushed the sand from his arm. She didn’t get it. Unless you played the game and believed their mantra, how could you really?

  Most people envisioned justice as right and wrong. But it wasn’t. It was all too gray to be defined. If you were smart, you used that to your advantage. The best attorneys did.

  “What is it about Palmer that’s keeping you up at night? Why is it that you're thinking of throwing it all away?”

  “I don’t think he got a fair shot at the system.”

  “Wasn't that for his lawyers to handle?”

  “That’s just the point, they didn't. I received a letter from Palmer asking for me to help him appeal. After reading the court transcript...” He let out a disgusted sigh. “His lawyer dropped the ball so many times I wonder if he even knows what it looks like.”

  It wasn’t his place to question another lawyer’s strategy, but the whole thing was ridiculous. He could have tried this case in his sleep and still won.

  Wendall Palmer was just another guy trying to fight against the system. His lawyer wanted the easy way out, a plea bargain. Devin had seen it done many times, but Palmer would have nothing to do with it. He’d maintained his innocence and the evidence supplied was compelling enough to convince Devin, too.

  “If he’s innocent, it will all come out in the end.”

  Devin chuckled sardonically. “That’s not the way it works. Palmer's lawyer had an obligation to give him the best defense money can buy whether or not he had a pot to boil rock soup in. The trouble is, Palmer doesn’t even have that. And his lawyer seemed to decide it wasn't worth fighting.”

  He sighed, wondering where this ethical dilemma had come from. “Every man deserves the best defense money can buy, even if he can’t afford it.”

  “Now who’s looking through rose colored glasses. Somewhere and at some time another guy is going to fall through the cracks. You can’t possibly save them all, Dev.”

  “You're right. I can't take on every case. But I can help some. Those that won’t have a chance otherwise.”

  “What will you do?”

  He gazed at Cara and grinned, his breath catching in his throat at the mere sight of her. It amazed him how incredibly sophisticated Cara was and at the same time, so very vulnerable. The night breeze tossed her hair about until it fell in tangles on her bare shoulders. She was beautiful. But then again, he’d always known that. He’d just forgotten how much effect it had on him.

  “I’m go
ing to have another drink,” he said, lifting the bottle to his lips and sucking down the warm liquid.

  His head was spinning, but not from the alcohol. He needed Cara. He wanted her. God, how he wanted her. And not just for a quick roll on the sand. What he was feeling now was that forever kind of love that made his head lift to the clouds. The kind of love he never thought he could possibly have room for in his life.

  She flashed him a wicked grin, and she tore the bottle from his hand. “Gimme that. I mean it.”

  He did, too. He wanted to make love to Cara. It wasn't like it was some great revelation. Their first kiss all those years ago had rattled them both and he'd wanted to make love to her then, too. Even though they'd pushed those feelings aside for their friendship, they were genuine. He remembered that now.

  Cara had been right about one thing. Back then, they were too young and eager to take on the world. One of them would have had to compromise their dreams if they’d given in to the youthful passion they’d felt for each other. He saw it now reflecting back at him like an image in a mirror. If they'd made love then, it would have destroyed their friendship.

  When his father died and he’d gone back to college, he’d purposely chosen not to call Cara. Not because he didn’t need her--Lord, he needed her more than ever then--but because it was the only way to stop the clock and keep what they had preserved in time. And he and Cara had passed the test of time. This week proved that. His feelings for Cara were stronger now than they’d ever been.

  One of them would have had to choose and it would have destroy the precious friendship they shared. But that was all behind them now. They'd both made a success of their lives professionally.

  Although the thought of Roger touching Cara nearly sent him through the roof back at the party, Devin didn't believe Roger was any real threat to what was happening between him and Cara. And there was definitely something incredible happening between them. But he'd be damned if he could figure out what was wedged between them now.

  “Come on,” Cara urged. “Tell me.”

  He flashed her a half grin. “Maybe I’ll act as stud for you and become a house husband.”