Page 69 of Not Mine to Rescue

The hard truth was that he was probably right. “And after it ends, do you think she’ll give you any credit for sabotaging it? Or maybe, you want all the credit?”

“What?”

“You heard me. You wanna play the bad guy, go for it. You might be doing me a favor and make her dig her heels in. Then I’ll get to see just how sexy all that stubbornness she has is.”

His color rose. “Don’t be crude.”

I laughed in his face. “Oh, come on, you’re the better man, right? You shouldn’t be so shocked that I might have an advantage when it comes to getting down and dirty.”

Honor came out with her purse in one hand and Molly’s leash in the other. I waited until she was off the steps before making my move. I whistled once and tapped my leg.

Molly slipped her collar and sat on my boot. She stared up at me, waiting for the next command.

“Well, I guess we know who this female loves best.”

I ruffled her ears and slipped her a nugget of jerky I had in my pocket. For good measure, I reinforced the reward with, “Good girl.”

Her tail thumped on the ground.

Honor took the distraction to buckle Molly’s collar back on. “Stop showing off.”

“I owe you ten, remember.”

Her eyes flicked to mine with a warning in them. Then she turned to Jim. “We’re leaving. Please tell Denise I love what she’s done with the house. And Jacob is perfect. I know she’s proud that he takes after her.”

Jim’s cheek flinched. “I’m back to work on Wednesday.”

Honor smiled. “By then I’ll have informed the partners of my relationship with your client. They can figure out the rest.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

Her chin went up. “I don’t think I am. And let me tell you why. Wombat knew I wasn’t in a good mood, and dropped everything to come here and, I don’t know, rescue me? He’s much kinder than you ever were.”

Take that, Jim.

Undeterred, he pointed at me. “Kind? You met because he was riding his motorcycle through town and terrorizing people so badly an elderly piano teacher wrecked her car.”

“She was turning left against the light. Not my fault.”

Honor spoke over me. “Those charges were dropped, remember?”

Jim glommed onto Honor’s words. “No, I don’t remember that, because he wasn’t my client at the time. He was yours. Which means I’m right. This is a conflict of interest.” He motioned between Honor and myself.

If I broke that waving hand, Snake would slap me on the back and say, “nice work,” but Walt would probably have to bail me out. And that wouldn’t sit well. Especially if we lost our legal counsel over this. And that was the problem here. Influence. It was insight into Jim’s brain. “Do you think there’s some sort of power imbalance here?”

Both of them stared at me.

“I’m serious. Is that the problem?”

“Yes,” Jim said.

“No,” Honor said at the same time.

“He’s your client and much younger.”

“And yet I’m the one tying her up at night.”

Honor froze. “We haven’t⁠—”