Vain (The Seven Deadly, #1)(14)

“Size, miss?” I heard behind me, turning my head.

“A four, please,” I told the clerk and she quickly scurried off.

“It that all you’ll need?” Spencer asked from beside me after they’d adjusted the garment for a quick tailor. “I spied a shoe store nearby. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Thank you, Spence. That’s fine. Shall we walk?”

“Of course.” He turned his head toward the back room. “We’ll just be next door as you do the alterations,” he called out.

The clerk emerged and nodded discretely. “Give me half an hour,” she said.

Spencer led me to the shoe store next door and we perused the windows as we passed by. “What are you going to give me for buying these for you?”

“A swift kick in the junk?”

He laughed wholeheartedly. “I had to try.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I teased.

Inside, I immediately spied a pair of buttery-soft leather peek-a-boo’s in the corner. “Those,” I told him succinctly.

“Damn, you don’t waste any time.”

“I know what I want when I want it.”

“One can hope...” he trailed off.

“Really, Spence?”

“I’m sorry, but I keep getting flashbacks of yesterday night. You were goddamn hot in nothing but your lingerie.”

I sighed loudly.

“No, no, I know. I’m just frustrated is all.”

“I’m so sorry about that,” I told him sincerely.

“Not as sorry as I am, but it’ll do.” He winked in jest. “Anything else, then? Purse, scarf, a frenzied escape across the southern border?”

“Please, Spencer, if I wanted to flee, I’d fly. I’m not a wanted felon, for chrissakes.”

“Ah, but you’d be so hot on the posters. Bounty hunters across the states would mortgage their homes to be the one to bring you in.”

“You’re seriously starting to chafe me. I’m nervous as it is.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing my temple. I could feel his chuckle against my skin. “Would you like me to come with you?”

“It’s going to be humiliating enough. I don’t believe your presence would be soothing.”

“Damn, Soph.”

“I apologize, old habits die hard.”

“Fine, but as soon as you’re done, you’ll call me?”

I bit my bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

“The first.”



Seven in the morning is made for people who deserve nothing but death. If I were a judge, I’d schedule all my court dates after eleven in the morning and end them at three in the afternoon. I mean, my God, they went to school practically their entire adolescent and adult lives, probably rising before it was even light, only to graduate and begin working as a toiling law firm crony or in a political office position they’d had to commit no less than fifteen years of their heart-clogging lives toward only to reach for aspirations of waking at the crack of dawn to deal with the lowliest of the low? No, thank you.

But we all really know why they did it. Prestige and power. That’s why they did it. And who could blame them?

“You look incredible, Soph. Convict-less.”

“Thank you, I suppose.”

Spencer pulled up front and I got out, nervous as hell.

He rolled down his window as I began the ascent into the courthouse. “Don’t forget to call me!” he shouted.

I turned and nodded once before meeting Pembrook at the top of the steps.

“On time. Thank you.”

“Something about my father getting the courts to agree to this has made me less than comfortable. I thought being on time would be, oh, I don’t know, wise?”

“Ah, so today I get facetious Sophie. How delightful.”

“I’m sorry, Pemmy,” I sighed out.

“It’s fine. Follow me,” he bit.

Pembrook led me through the security checkpoints and into a cavernous marble lobby to a set of elevators. I counted the floors as we passed each one. One...Surely the lesson is in the threat...Two...He wouldn’t risk the publicity...Three...He’s doing this because he loves me...Four...He does love me...Five...I know he does...Six...He has to...Seven...Doesn’t he?

The ringing bell announcing our floor startled my anxiety-ridden body, stiff from tensing my muscles as if in anticipation of a beating. And that was what that morning would promise me. I knew it. Pemmy’s short answers and minimal sarcasm told me that better than words ever could.

“Through here,” I barely heard Pembrook mutter. He opened the door for me and I entered the sunken room.

The smallest sounds resonated throughout. The creak of the door, the taps of our shoes on the cold marble floor, the intake of every labored breath.

“Sit here,” he said, pointing to a bench reminiscent of a church pew just outside of the fenced-in chamber in the public gallery.

I sat and the wood protested underneath me, warning me, begging me to act, to run. Pembrook easily threw open the swinging half doors that separated the courtroom and approached the prosecutor’s table. I took in my surroundings and noted I wasn’t the only defendant in the courtroom, which was confusing. A singular man sat in the corner opposite my side of the room. This was typical for most minor criminal court cases, but for some reason I thought my father wouldn’t want the potential spectacle or would be willing to risk my being seen and would have arranged for a private hearing.