Read Indicted (Bad Judgment #1) for Free Online Page A

looked up in horror. Broden Walker was sitting at the table, looking at me and laughing.
    “Wha,” I said, unable to complete a word, my mouth hanging open in horror. I thought I might pass out. The double-whammy of him hearing what I’d said and laying eyes on him again was almost too much for me to bear.I felt myself flush red, and I sat down heavily. Seeing him again literally knocked me on my ass.
    “Trust Fund Stripper Barbie?”he asked, still laughing. “Did I get that right?”
    I nodded. “I don’t remember my sister having that one,” he said, his voice friendlier, more relaxed than he looked. He was more haggard than he’d been that morning, the lines on his face making him look rugged, like he’d been through a lot.
    He had been through a lot.
    “Err…I didn’t know you had a sister,”I said, lamely. I could still feel myself blushing furiously so I focused on setting up my laptop, refusing to look up.
    “She’s a lot younger than me — closer to your age,”Walker said, in an easy manner. He was probably trying to make me comfortable, which was not going to happen. I just sat and tapped lamely at my keypad.
    Alexa snorted at my awkwardness. “Don ’ t mind Nicole,”she said to Walker, sailing down the table and setting up her computer perilously close to him. “She’s an introvert.”
    “I don’t mind Nicole at all,”Walker said, kindly, and I blushed even more furiously. I made myself look up and smile weakly at him, which was sadly becoming my signature move. He smiled back and I immediately looked back down, unable to stare directly into those brilliant blue eyes for longer than a moment.He had a perfectly symmetrical face, square jaw, some black afternoon stubble across his strong chin, and those massive shoulders. I could see his muscles straining against his lavender button-down shirt. He’d loosened his tie and thrown his suit coat over the back of his chair. I tried to keep my eyes on my monitor and not on those shoulders.
    He was too sexy for a conference room. I knew he was a CEO and probably lived in a conference room, but he really belonged on a beach with no shirt. With Minky Lucca. In a yellow bikini. Not a Giant Nerd on her way to a Giant Nerd Convention, I reminded myself.
    There was a long, awkward pause during which I scrutinized my laptop, sometimes looking up at Walker’s gorgeous face, and Alexa and Mandy just blatantly stared at him. Walker smiled at all of us indulgently, clearly used to having this effect on women, his fatigue not affecting his threshold for female attention. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably more like a very long second, David Proctor came into the conference room, reams of paper with him, and a pen sticking out his mouth like a cigarette.
    He threw everything down onto the table, into a huge, messy pile. “Hello girls,”he said. “I see you’ve spent some time with Walker. Walker, these are the associates you met earlier. Mandy and Alexa. You remember Nicole from this morning.”
    “Of course,” Walker said, nodding at us, an amused glint in his eyes. I wondered what he actually thought about us — Trust Fund Stripper Barbie and her cohorts, myself included. But his amused look faded quickly, and Walker turned back to David.“Do you have any idea how long this is going to take?”he asked. Again, I noticed the lines on his face, the dark shadows forming beneath his eyes. “It’s been a long day. And if I remember the representation agreement I signed yesterday, I’m paying you by the hour. All of you.” He motioned around the table. ButDavid wasn’t paying attention to his client; he was reading through a report he’d grabbed off his pile, his brow furrowed.
    “Probably just a couple more hours,”Mandy offered, kindly. If she was nervous speaking to Walker, her voice didn’t betray it. I watched as she smiled at him. She looked ridiculously pretty, and I started to think that I might not like her as much