Page 88 of A Legal Affair

Mischief glimmered in Janie’s eyes. “When were you going to tell me about you and Mr. Sexy Law Professor?”

“I don’t know…Never, maybe?”

Janie laughed. “Oh, come on, El. I’m an old married woman. You know I have to live vicariously through you. Not that Kenny and I aren’t?—”

Grimacing, Daniela held up a hand. “Please. I don’t evenwantto think about what you and my brother are—oraren’t—doing behind closed doors.” She shuddered at the thought, drawing another laugh from Janie.

“All right, girl. Out with it. When did you and Professor Thorne begin your private tutoring sessions?”

Daniela was no recently deflowered virgin, but she suddenly felt like one as she reluctantly met Janie’s gaze across the table. “He showed up unexpectedly at my house on Monday night,” she began.

“Seriously?”

Daniela nodded. “He wanted to know why I’d missed class that day. I told him I had the flu, invited him inside and…”

“And?” Janie prompted, leaning forward in her chair with an expression of rapt absorption.

Knowing that her sister-in-law would settle for nothing less than a detailed account, Daniela found herself telling Janie everything about the first night she and Caleb made love. By the time she’d finished, Janie was grinning from ear to ear.

“Wow,” she marveled, staring at Daniela. “Sounds pretty amazing.”

“It was,” Daniela agreed, somewhat wistfully. “He’samazing.”

Janie leered. “Clearly.”

Daniela flushed. “I don’t just mean in the bedroom. He’s amazing in the classroom, the way he effortlessly commands the attention of his students—even the slackers. You can hear the passion in his voice when he talks about the law, and civil procedure, in a way that lets you know teaching isn’t just a job to him. He can be hella stern and intimidating one moment, unbelievably sweet and funny the next. And he has this intense way of zeroing in on my face when I’m talking, like whatever I’m saying is super important to him.”

“That’s probably because it is,” Janie observed with a gentle smile. “Sounds to me like Caleb Thorne is pretty crazy about you, El.”

Her words filled Daniela with a mixture of pleasure and despair, two emotions she’d been vacillating between since last night, when she’d made the difficult decision not to invite Caleb into her home. After their incredibly romantic slow dance under the stars, followed by a sexually charged ride back to her house, she’d wanted nothing more than to finish what they started at the ranch. But she’d turned him away, telling him they needed to slow things down. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do in her life, and it damn near killed her to watch him leave. But it had been necessary.

If she was to make things right between them, she had to begin the process of letting him go. Because once he learned the truth about her, there’d be no gradual weaning. She’d have to go cold turkey without him.

Caleb—hurt and enraged—would give her no other option.

“Something tells me,” Janie said, watching Daniela carefully, “that Caleb’s feelings aren’t one-sided.”

Daniela hesitated, then shook her head with a deep, heavy sigh. “No, they’re not.” She paused, swallowing past the lump in her throat before quietly confessing, “I’m in love with him, Janie.”

“Oh, honey…” The gentle compassion in Janie’s gaze nearly brought Daniela to tears. “What’re you going to do?”

“What elsecanI do? I have to tell him the truth.”

“What about the investigation?”

“I don’t know,” Daniela said miserably. “I’m not even sure that Crandall Thorne is guilty of anything other than making really bad decisions in his choice of clientele. And even if heisshady, who says it’s my place to prove it? Hoyt Philbin? For all we know, Philbin may have one or two skeletons in his own closet!”

“Don’t say that too loudly,” Janie drawled with wry humor. “Hoyt Philbin can do no wrong in this town. I mean, there’s a reason most people wanted him to run for another term even though he wasn’t eligible.”

“I know, I know,” Daniela mumbled. “Kenny thinks the man walks on water because of all the good things he did for the city, particularly for black folks.”

“His recorddoesspeak for itself,” Janie pointed out. “The fact that he’s married to a sista gives him even more cred.”

“I know. But the point is, he obviously has an ax to grind with Crandall Thorne, and none of us really know the whole story, or his true motivation for wanting to bring Thorne down.”She shook her head wistfully. “I’m such a fool for getting myself into this, for not anticipating the possibility that…that…” She couldn’t even bring herself to utter the heartrending words again. But she didn’t have to. Janie knew.

“I can’t keep deceiving Caleb like this,” Daniela finished, her voice husky with emotion.

Janie nodded sympathetically. “Talk to Noah first,” she suggested. “He’ll understand, and maybe he can come up with some ideas to salvage the situation. And don’t forget your exit strategy.”