Free A Conflict of Interest by Anna Adams Page A

already reaching for Maria as she opened up.
    “I was afraid you’d change your mind,” she said.
    Maria felt as if her legs were wobbling. She swallowed instead of answering, and Beth just laughed as she hugged her.
    “Beware the apron.” It was spattered with a smashed cherry and several different colored sauces. “I’m not a great cook, but you knew what you were letting yourself in for when you said you’d come.”
    “She means brace yourself.” Aidan, tall and handsome, swung out of the dining room. Also smelling of spice, he hugged Maria, too. “We’ll be plying the table with antacid for dessert.”
    His wife gave him a less than enthusiastic look.
    “Maria?”
    Jake.
    She looked over Aidan’s shoulder. There Jake was, taller than Aidan, more serious. The perfectly groomed judge had sleepy eyes and the slightest shadow of a beard. He wasn’t sleeping, and something had upset him. Was he plagued by a guilty conscience because he’d ruined her life?
    She couldn’t ask him that in front of everyone, so she turned on Beth instead. “Why did you do this?”
    “Do what?” Beth looked sincerely mystified. “Jake, what did I do?”
    “I pressured Beth to invite me,” Jake said. “So I could see you.”
    Beth and Aidan spun out of focus. Maria might have been alone with Jake. She might have blurted the question that had haunted her dreams, if she could have spoken at all.
    “We need to talk,” he said.
    She nodded, still unable to find her voice. It matteredto her. She didn’t want him to be the one who’d probably ended her career.
    “We have an office.” Beth pointed through the small living room. “You know where it is, Maria. Everyone else is in the kitchen, and we’ll keep them distracted.”
    “Thanks.” Maria led the way to the cozy, shelf-lined room. Heat from the fireplace made her claustrophobic. None of the fat leather chairs beckoned enough to make her sit.
    She turned as Jake shut the door. “Was it you?”
    “I didn’t report you.” Regret twisted his mouth. He looked different in jeans and a white cable-knit sweater that emphasized his dark stubble and hair. He rubbed his eyes and his hand slid over his jaw and chin, as well. Finally, he met her gaze. “But I should have. It was my job to protect this town from anyone who might hurt the citizens, especially kids Griff’s age.”
    Hatred took her by surprise, shook her as if she were just a rag. Fury, hot and spiky, stabbed her deep down.
    “You’re sorry?” she asked. “You didn’t try to ruin my professional reputation or essentially get me fired from my job, but you wish you had?”

CHAPTER SIX
    M ARIA SHOULDERED PAST HIM. He reached for her. His hand brushed her arm, her waist. She felt as if she were drunk. Only too much of something heady could explain why her feet refused to work. Why the door had apparently moved farther away.
    “Don’t,” she said.
    “Please.”
    An ache thickened his voice. She nearly stopped, but for God’s sake, Jake was ready to convict himself because he hadn’t tried to rob her of her job. Her identity.
    “I’m sorry you neglected your duty.”
    She found the doorknob and turned it so hard she hurt her wrist.
    “Maria.”
    He wasn’t sorry now. He demanded she turn around, and when she didn’t, he caught her arm and turned her. She stared into his face, and the tension between them wasn’t about the job or the trial or even the fact that she couldn’t be this close to him because of Leila.
    “I can’t,” she said.
    “Can’t what?” He seduced her with his fingers, stroking her arm, and his voice was husky with the same intense need that made standing here reckless.“Can’t want me? But you do.” His other hand stroked her cheek, and she shuddered.
    “I can despise you for wanting to end my career, just because of some misplaced sense of duty.”
    “You are treating my daughter. You see me through her eyes.”
    She’d thought women only gasped in novels, but she