Attorney Charles Barnett thought it was all over for him and his heart. In the three years since his partner died, he hasn't felt so much as a spark of attraction to another man. That suddenly changes when Charles is assigned a new case and meets his new client.<br><br>Recent widower Philip d'Autremont has been traveling in all the same circles as Charles, but somehow they've never managed to meet. Now that they have, both men find themselves falling hard and fast.<br><br>But there's more than one hurdle to Charles and Philip beginning a love affair, much less maintaining it: Philip is on trial for murder, a politically ambitious and homophobic district attorney is determined to convict him, and Charles is responsible for Philip's defense.

Trial

We decided to call it a night and were both asleep very quickly.


PHILIP AND I AWAKENED at the same time on Friday morning, just before the alarm went off. With little more than a good morning kiss, we quickly dressed and commenced our morning run, this already having become a part of our daily ritual. Before I knew it, we’d returned, bathed, had breakfast, and I was on the way downtown.


I had an early session scheduled with Andrew, following which there was to be a staff meeting—a sometimes boring but always necessary biweekly event. Andrew and I discussed several pending cases, including Philip’s. I wasn’t quite certain what Andrew’s reaction would be to our inside source in the DA’s office, but he seemed to think it was a case of poetic justice.


The staff meeting managed, as it usually did, to kill most of the morning, which was remarkable in light of our concerns over billable hours.


Chapter 48