8 Sharpened Knives

Andrea felt like she'd been slapped. Kyle was the one responsible for an innocent man being sent back to jail, and now he was worried about Adams' feelings?! And the arrogance to assume that the appeal was doomed to fail. Like Kyle thought Andrea was too incompetent to successfully appeal the ruling.

"Well, fortunately for Mr Adams, YOU are not his lawyer, I am," Andrea said haughtily.

Kyle muttered something to himself as he took another bite of his salad.

Andrea knew she should let it go, but her anger got the better of her. "What was that, Mr Wynn? Do you have something you want to share with the rest of the class? Since you seem keen on dispensing lessons in legal practice."

Kyle fixed her with a stare as he slowly and deliberately chewed his mouthful. He seemed to be weighing up how he wanted to respond. Whatever it was he'd muttered, he seemed to be second guessing if he should have said anything. He swallowed the mouthful and took a deep breath.

"Alright, Ms Mason… What I said was, 'I would have settled.'"

"Of course you would have," Andrea said. "Because you only care about winning, 'Mr Wynn,' not about your clients, not about justice!"

"If YOU cared about your client you would have taken a plea deal, and Adams would have probably been out on parole for time served. Now, thanks to you, he's back to jail and is going to be stuck there for at LEAST as long as an appeal will take, and probably much longer."

Kyle spoke with a passion that surprised Andrea. For some reason he almost seemed to be taking this personally.

"Why should he have taken a plea deal? He was innocent!" Andrea protested.

Kyle visibly rolled his eyes. "Of course he told you that, they ALL say they're innocent. They'll say it was a coincidence, they'll say they were set up, they'll say whatever they can to make you think they didn't do it!"

"Oh, so you think that you've never helped convict a person who was innocent?" said Andrea, jabbing her fork at Kyle accusingly.

"You think you've never helped acquit one who was guilty?" replied Kyle, pointing his in return.

They paused motionless for a moment until Andrea realized how silly they must look, as though they were about to start a sword fight over their salads. Andrea took another small bite before she responded.

"Not knowingly. I try to only take clients who I believe are innocent. The couple of times I have had clients who were actually guilty, I took plea deals, and it never went to court."

Kyle gaped. The forkful of vegetables slipped unnoticed from his fork. "Are you serious? You ONLY go to court with cases you think are innocent?"

"Of course! I suppose YOU think I should only take cases I'm sure that I'll win!"

Kyle waved his hand dismissively. "No, obviously not, that's not the point. What I mean is, don't you think that guilty people deserve defending, too?"

"Yes! Yes, of course they do," Andrea said hastily. "Even guilty people need representation to make sure they get fair treatment, it's just…" Andrea fought to keep from blushing.

"Just what?" asked Kyle.

"…It's just… there are other lawyers who can handle that kind of thing… I want to help the innocent…"

"Because you think that you'd do a better job than the other lawyers at actually defending someone in court? Because you're the best defense lawyer?" said Kyle.

"Yes!" said Andrea. "… I mean, no! I mean… I do think that I will do a better job, but not because I'm the best lawyer, but… because I care!"

Kyle cocked his head and gave Andrea a funny look she didn't understand.

"You do, don't you," he said slowly. "You really do…"

Andrea nodded. "You say 'plea deal' so easily. I've known defense lawyers who took a plea on cases they had a pretty good chance of winning just because they only wanted to go to court on a 'sure thing' so it wouldn't hurt their win record, or even just because the plea deal was easier than bothering with a court case."

Kyle shook his head. "Well that's just stupid."

"Exactly!" said Andrea. Kyle seemed almost wistful. He had a reputation of wanting to win at any cost, and certainly that had been her experience facing him in the courtroom. But maybe she was wrong, maybe she had misjudged him…

Kyle nodded. "If you have a client with deep pockets, you want to take the case all the way to court. That's how you get paid the most."

…she had misjudged him. She had given him too much credit!

"You're awful!" Andrea exclaimed.

Kyle broke into a grin. "Oh absolutely, I'm the utter worst. Or I was, back when I had corporate clients. They have the deepest pockets after all. Back when I did corporate defense cases, I was the kind of lawyer everyone thinks of when they say how much they hate lawyers, the kind who gets paid big money by big companies to find loopholes and technicalities to let them get away with breaking the law without paying for it, because they can afford to pay for slimy lawyers instead."

Andrea hadn't known that Kyle had worked defense; he'd been a prosecutor for as long as she'd known him. And somehow it was even worse than he was now. Did that mean that he had improved? Andrea shuddered ever so slightly at the thought of a LESS scrupulous Kyle Wynn.

"So why change?" Andrea asked. It made perfect sense that a young Kyle would have looked for the most lucrative opportunities. In that sense, State Prosecutor was a step down.

Kyle shrugged. "Exactly what I said. I was just the exact kind of lawyer people hate. And that's no good if you have political aspirations. If you ever want to run for office, you want to be the kind of lawyer people appreciate, the kind with a record of protecting the public by putting criminals behind bars where they belong…"

Kyle trailed off just a little as though he realized that this wasn't the most sensitive line to use given the circumstances. Andrea thought again of Adams languishing in his cell. The conversation lapsed back into silence. In the quiet of the cafeteria, the news anchor could be heard on the distant TV asking for anyone with information to come forward, before moving on to the next story.

Andrea hung her head a little as she focused on eating her lunch. Thinking about her day tied her stomach in knots, and she had to focus on every swallow. Occasionally, she would steal a glance up at Kyle from beneath her blonde bangs.

It was all too easy to imagine Kyle as a politician. He might have to tame his hair a little, but otherwise he was nine-tenths of the way there. He was tall, with an athletic physique, and she had to admit he dressed well. He had strong features with those piercing eyes of his. Just old enough to look like he had experience. Still plenty young enough looking for people to know he had vitality.

Yup, it was depressing to think about, but Kyle would probably end up being very successful in politics. The thought almost made Andrea want to cry a little.

One of her stolen glances must have been a fraction too long because Kyle caught her looking. Not wanting him to think that she had just been… you know… looking at him, Andrea quickly tried to think of something to say. She tucked her hair back behind her ear as she finished her mouthful of salad to give herself just a moment to collect her thoughts.

"I suppose you're going to be celebrating your victory tonight then?" she said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "I'm surprised you ate here. I'd have thought you'd be hitting the bars already."

Kyle gave another crooked smile, the kind that Andrea couldn't work out. "As it happens, I have dinner plans tonight."

"Oh? Where are you going?" Andrea didn't care, but it was what you asked. You might also ask who he was going with, but Andrea definitely didn't care about that.

"Dining at home actually," he said, with a degree of smugness even greater than usual. "I have a pretty thing I'll be entertaining waiting for me at home." Kyle leaned in, his smug tone replaced by one of earnest enthusiasm. "I have a recipe I've been dying to share with someone, just got my chef knives back from being sharpened last weekend and I've been looking forward to putting them into action again."

Andrea honestly didn't care about Kyle's dinner plans. It actually sounded like he was more excited about the knives than about the girl, whoever she was, but she couldn't help pick up on the incongruity.

"If you're going to be cooking for this girl, why are you having lunch here, won't you ruin your appetite?"

Kyle gave an exaggerated shrug. "Well, I didn't know when the case was going to end, so we planned on eating later. I was planning on swinging by the seafood market when the boats come in so I could pick up some of the freshest bluefin. And since it turns out I have more time than I thought, I was going to hit a couple of the uptown farmers markets this afternoon first." Kyle gave a grin as he finished the last of his pile of salad.

Andrea hadn't been very enthusiastic about eating her own.

"Won't your friend be bored waiting for you?" she asked. As good as the meal he had planned sounded, Andrea would have thought if the girl really liked Kyle, she'd rather him come home early to spend time with her instead of spending all afternoon to get the freshest ingredients. It honestly sounded like more of an opportunity for Kyle to brag and show off, which would be on brand for him.

Whoever the girl was, it was likely she was going to get a very tasty meal and then get bored to death listening to Kyle go on about his knives.

Kyle picked up his plate and his briefcase and made ready to head out. "Nah, building up the anticipation makes it better. I'll see you around, Blondie!"

Andrea couldn't help thinking that whenever she next saw Kyle, it would be too soon.