Chapter 115: Impossible Client

His patience snapped. "Mrs Bennett!"

"Please. I am accepting the hope you are giving me," she said. "Do you understand what that means? I had stopped imagining a life outside this place a long time ago."

Dorian sat back, frustrated. "You’re not listening to me. I am a well-known attorney. People dig into cases I handle. Reporters watch what I do. Word will get out at some point that I’m defending my wife’s mother."

"Then don’t. You said you can build the case. Build it. Do the work behind the scenes if you have to."

"That isn’t as simple as you’re making it sound. If my name appears anywhere near your case, eventually someone will connect Naomi to you. Once that happens, she finds out from the press that her dead mother is alive and her husband knew before she did. How exactly do you imagine that ending?"

"You want me out? You want the case reopened? Then find another lawyer as a cover."

"Fucking hell!" Dorian cursed.

Whatever fight had been sitting behind her eyes since he arrived finally seemed to disappear. She looked exhausted.

"Dorian, I carry so much guilt that it takes everything I have not to end my life in here."

Marianne lowered her eyes to her hands. "All that keeps me going are the little updates my sister-in-law sends me every now and then. Something Naomi did. Something she said. Just knowing my daughter is still out there living her life. I ruined my little girl." She looked at him again.

"I can’t blame Raymond for everything. I could have left. I had a great job. I could take care of myself. I wasn’t financially dependent on him, Dorian. I had choices, and I kept telling myself things would get better. I stayed," she continued. "And worse, I kept my daughter there. I allowed her to experience a life no child should ever have had to experience."

Her eyes filled with tears. "She watched things she should never have seen. She learned fear before she should have even understood what fear was. She learned that a man could tell you he loved you and then hurt you." Marianne reached across the table, stopping short of touching him.

"So, please... I beg you. I accept the hope you’re giving me. I do." She swallowed. "But wait. Please wait. Get me out first, and then I can tell her myself."

Dorian sighed heavily and rubbed his jaw. "On one condition."

Marianne nodded immediately.

"You do exactly what I tell you to do. And the first thing I need you to do is maintain your position from the very beginning."

"What position?"

"The lie. You continue saying Raymond never hurt you. Do not change anything in your testimony. Nothing. As a matter of fact, I want you to be every bit as difficult as you were back then."

Marianne stared at him like he had finally lost his mind. "Why?"

"Because I need other people to fight for you. You spent years insisting there was no abuse, rejected the defense that could have helped you and made yourself practically impossible to represent. If you suddenly wake up after all these years and start telling everyone that Raymond beat, controlled and abused you, what do you think the prosecutor is going to say?"

"They’ll say you changed your story because prison finally became inconvenient. I’ll find everything I can find. Anything that contradicts the version of Raymond Bennett you forced everyone to believe. While you remain the nightmare you have always been."

"You’re the lawyer," Marianne conceded.

Dorian shook his head.

Fucking hell.

This was not going to end well. The longer this dragged on, the harder it would become for Naomi to swallow the fact that he had known all this time. There was a very big difference between keeping a secret for a few days and keeping it for weeks while actively working behind her back.

"If it makes you feel any better, I know you can do this," Marianne added.

He sighed and looked away. So tonight would not be the night after all. He had been thinking about telling Naomi everything.

Apparently, that plan was dead. Now he had to work fast. Quickly, quietly and without attracting attention.

How hard could that be? He had been itching for a challenge lately. Maybe this was it.

By the time Dorian got home, Naomi was already there. He parked the Mercedes in the garage, stepped into the elevator and automatically began his usual search pattern.

Finding his wife in this ridiculous house had somehow become a process. First, check the kitchen. If she wasn’t there, stop on the guest floor.

If she wasn’t there either, then possibly her office. The fact that he even had a system irritated him.

He was beginning to hate the house. He had bought the place because he wanted space. Back then, the distance had felt useful.

Different floors meant privacy. Now he wanted the exact opposite. He wanted Naomi closer. He wanted to walk through the front door, call her name and hear her answer immediately instead of having to conduct a six-floor search operation like she was a missing person.

The same reason he had bought the house was becoming the reason he hated it. Too much distance.

Dorian stepped off on the kitchen floor. Something was different. He looked toward the dining area.

They barely used it. Most of their meals happened in the kitchen, usually with Naomi talking through half of them.

Tonight, however, the dining table had been set. Dorian slowly walked closer. Candles flickered along the table.

Flowers had been arranged neatly in the center. The lighting was lower than usual. And music was playing.

What the hell was going on?

"Naomi?" Dorian called, rounded the corner and found her standing by the island with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other.

Naomi was wearing a red lace robe tied at the waist with a satin sash, the fabric doing very little to conceal the matching lingerie underneath.

Dorian nearly had a coronary.

"Hey, husband."