Okay. First time she’d ever had a client take a snooze in the middle of a meeting. Maybe Billy and Shawn C. had less to worry about than they thought.

“Am I boring you, Mr. Rothe?” she demanded after a moment.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

“Am I boring you,Mr.Rothe?” Not. Hardly. His public defender’s voice was a kind of lullaby in Isaac’s ears, her aristocratic inflection and perfect grammar soothing him so much he was oddly afraid of her. Originally, he’d closed his eyes because she was simply too beautiful to look at, but there had been an added benefit to the lights out. Without the distraction of her perfect face and her smart stare, he was able to fully concentrate on her words.

The way she spoke was poetic. Even to a guy who wasn’t into the hearts and flowers routine.

“Mr. Rothe.”

Not a question, a demand. Clearly she was getting fed up with his ass.

Cracking his lids, he felt the impact of her nail him in the sternum—and tried to tell himself that she was making such a big impression because it had been years since he’d been around a true lady. After all, most of the females he’d fucked or worked with had been rough around the edges, just like him. So this precisely coiffed, clearly educated, perfumed exotic across the table was some kind of stunning anomaly.

God, she’d probably faint if she saw his tattoo.

And run screaming if she knew what he’d been doing for a living for the last five years.

“Let me try to get you bail,” she repeated. “And then we’ll see where we are.”

He had to wonder why she cared so much about some scrub she’d never met before, but there was an undeniable mission in her eyes, and maybe that explained it: Clearly, being down here with the riffraff was exorcising some kind of demon for her. Maybe it was a case of rich-guilt. Maybe it was a religious thing. Whatever it was, she was damned determined.

“Mr. Rothe. Let me help you.”

He so didn’t want her involved in his case . . . but if she could set him free, he could take off and he was undoubtedly safer out in the world: His old boss would have no trouble sending a man into this jail on a charge and engineering the assassination right under the noses of the guards.

To Matthias, that would be child’s play.

Isaac felt his conscience, which had been long silent, send up a holler, but the logic was sound: She looked like the kind of lawyer who could get things done in the system, and as much as he hated to involve her in the mess he was in, he wanted to stay alive.

“I’d be grateful if you could do that, ma’am.”