Read ROMANCING MO RYAN for Free Online Page B

  “I believe in responsibility,” he said to her.
    Where did that come from , Nikki wondered.   “Excuse me?”
    “You asked about my compassion.   I show no compassion, as you call it, because I believe a man, or woman, has to be responsible for what they do.   They have to pay for their sins.”
    Pay for their sins?   What an odd way to put it, Nikki thought.   Suddenly she wondered if he was talking about the defendants that went before him, or himself?   “So you believe in justice only, with no regard for the situation?”
    “The situation is the crime itself.”
    “But that can’t be all it is,” Nikki declared.   “It has to be context too.   A mother who steals food for her starving children committed a crime, yes.   She stole food.   But the situation required her to steal.   The way you seem to look at it, you’d declare she’s just as guilty as the man who breaks into somebody’s house and steals a computer.”
    Mo remembered her fire.   He was glad to know she still had it.   “I look at it the way the law requires me to look at it.   And, yes, based on the law, she’s as guilty as the burglar.”
    Nikki didn’t like his answer.   Phil had said his views sucked, but once she found out it was Mo Ryan, the man she thought of as generous and kind, she didn’t believe it.   Now she wasn’t so sure.   “But what about the circumstances?” she asked him.   “Her children were starving.”
    “Then she should not have put her children in a position where they could starve.”
    Nikki could hardly believe it.   He couldn’t possibly be that hard.   “But what if it wasn’t her fault?   What if she was abused as a child and ran away from home?   What if she never could get an education because the trials of life never eased for her to pull it together?   What if she was born in poverty and that’s all she knows?   She’s blameless in this.   Doesn’t she deserve some compassion?”
    The look on Nikki’s face, the sincerity in her massive eyes, cut Mo short.   He uncrossed his legs, and leaned forward.   “Yes,” he said.
    “But how can you say . . .” Now Nikki was thrown again.   “You said yes?”
    “Yes, Nicole, I said yes.   You’re correct, she deserves compassion.”
    At least he admitted it, she thought.   Then she thought again, and looked at him.   “But she won’t get it from you?” she asked.
    Mo hesitated.   He wished he could live up to this image she had of the world.   But it wasn’t possible.   “No, she won’t,” he said.   “It’s my job to administer justice, not compassion.   And that’s what I do.”
    “But how does it make you feel to be so hard-hearted?   That must be a lonely place to be.   Or do you surround yourself with likeminded folk who give you the façade of acceptance?”
    He actually smiled, revealing dazzling white teeth.   But his smile wasn’t a lingering one, but short and abrupt, like he knew he was disappointing her.   “I think I’ve answered that question,” he said.
    “But with respect Judge Ryan, that question goes to the heart of why I’m here.”   Nikki was all into it now.   She was no longer the young woman pining about a bygone day, but was now the feisty reporter getting on with it.   “You’ve been selected to be a part of our Heroes series.   I’m trying to find out why they would select you.   What is it about you, about how you care about and treat your fellow man, that makes you heroic?   Because frankly, based on what you’re telling me here, I don’t see it.”
    Mo stared at her.   Her honesty still stunned him.   He glanced down, at her well-endowed chest, and back up into those huge eyes.   Was she still as uncorrupted as he had remembered her?
    “How old are you, Nikki?” he asked her.
    She was well aware of his stare, but she still refused to allow this interview to be about her.   “What does that have to do---”
    “Will you please knock it off?” he