It had never occurred to her that she might feel that way again.
She controlled everything, including herself. And she never imagined that her pledge to focus on her own life and priorities would end with her losing control and humping her intern because he smelled so good and his smile made her skin flush. Ironically, focusing on her career might be her downfall.
“I just—” Oh, for fuck’s sake. Being this inarticulate was really off-brand. “You have no good reason to be here—your grandfather was a senator. Your parents are, like, legit captains of industry. I figured you either wanted to polish up your family’s reputation or had done something warranting a summer of banishment.”
“And you changed your mind?” He lifted his beer. “What did I do that made you think I’m all right?”
“I didn’t say you were all right.” She pointed a finger at him, unable to keep herself from flirting. “I just figured out that you weren’t a total shithead.”
“Not a total shithead. I’ll take it.” He tapped her beer with his own, and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“It’s a high compliment coming from me.”
“I guess you wouldn’t say the same nice things about your ex.”
Talking about Chris wouldn’t get them anywhere. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“So, it’s over?” He sounded a little too happy about that, and she had to extinguish the strain of hope behind his words.
“It’s over, and I’m done with dating.”
“Seriously?” He looked her up and down, and she caught him. To his credit, he blushed at getting caught. “I mean . . . you’re a catch. Why would you give up on dating?”
“I’m focused on my job.” She shrugged. “You know what kind of hours I work. Like, I don’t even have time to date. Or, given the kinds of cases I catch—like the one we interviewed that cop about today—why would I ever want to date? Right after Chris and I broke up, I did go out on a few dates, but I found myself casing the exits.”
He looked down at his beer. “I hear you. But you could work any kind of case you want.”
“Well, I don’t want to work drug cases.”
“You don’t?” He looked surprised.
“I hated putting people away for stupid shit that only hurt them—like drug possession. Mostly, those defendants needed treatment. Before the new state’s attorney came in, there wasn’t a real diversion program. And there’s no drug treatment in prison.”
Matt raised his brows and gave her another long, assessing look. “Now you’ve surprised me.”
“Really? How so?” As far as Bridget was concerned, she was incapable of surprising anyone. She lived by a routine and never diverted from it—this evening excluded; the last time she surprised anyone, it had spelled the end of her relationship with Chris. And that had just been a conversation over a surprise chicken dinner. In her book, surprises were dangerous.
“Well, I just figured you for a hard-core, tough-on-crime type.”
“I can see why you’d think that because I’m a white girl from the South Side. It would track.” It seemed that they had both misunderstood each other.
“Yeah, sort of.” He paused. “I’m sorry I misjudged you.”
“Apology accepted.” An awkward silence stretched between them. “And I’m sorry, too.”
“Listen,” he surprised her by saying, and she jumped. “How about we start over?”
“How so?” She hoped he wasn’t going to shift this into creep territory now that she’d softened up a little bit around him.
“I’d like to use this summer to learn from you. It might have started out with me trying to avoid my ex-girlfriend and buck my parents’ keeping an eye on me at all hours, but I really admire what you do.”
“I can probably trust you to do more than filing for the rest of the summer.”
He then made a raise-the-roof gesture that was so deeply dorky she couldn’t help but giggle. “Seriously, that calls for another round.” He motioned Patrick over.
“Another?” Patrick looked entirely too pleased to see her giggling and ordering a drink with someone he thought was her date. But she’d straighten that out later.
“One for me, and one for the lady,” Matt said. Patrick took their pint glasses and went to grab them fresh ones—only VIP treatment for her at Dooley’s. “And what do you want? You’re way too smart and talented to stay a staff attorney.”
Looking back, she’d regret saying it, but Matt had gotten under her skin. “I want to pay off my student loans, and then I’ll think about it.”
“My family has a fellowship—”
“I know.” She bit her lip. “I applied for it last year.” She really didn’t want to talk with him about this right now. It made her feel even more guilty about the way she’d treated him, and she didn’t want it to seem like she was trying to get an edge.
“And you didn’t get it?” He looked perplexed.
Bridget shrugged. “Lots of deserving applicants.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Matt said.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.” She shook her head. “My boss saddled me with you as an inducement for a recommendation.”
“And you like me now despite that?”
“Don’t get a big head. I never said I like you.” The smile on her face belied the fact that she was trying not to inflate his ego.
“So, you teach me some stuff, and I put a good word in with your boss and my parents.” Matt leaned in, and she should have known the kind of trouble his next words would get her into. “And after the summer is over . . .”
“And after the summer is over, we stay friends.” She couldn’t give him any sort of hope. For one thing, she wasn’t available for any other kind of relationship. And she wouldn’t be right for Matt even if she wasn’t done with love.
For another thing, the way Matt made her body feel out of control and shaky wasn’t safe. She could never get involved with someone who made her feel that way. It was just way too big. Her more muted attraction to Chris had almost been soul destroying. Even a fling with someone as potent as Matt was to her senses would burn her life to the ground.
“I was thinking more along the lines of—”
“Pen pals?” She could keep the reaction she’d get to an e-mail from Matt under wraps. He would never know how she felt if he couldn’t see her face-to-face. “I’d be good with pen pals.”
“If my only options are pen pals or friends—”
“They are.” She sounded much more firm on the issue than she felt.
“Then I guess we’re going with friends.” He held up his glass.
She clinked her fresh beer with his. “Friends.”
When he reached over and wiped her second foam mustache of the evening—even before that—she knew it was lie. But a lie she would have to keep up for the rest of the summer.
CHAPTER FOUR
Two months later
JUDGE DICKERSON WAS AN asshole on the best of days, and this was not the best of days. It wasn’t just that he tried to look down her top every time they had a sidebar during hearings; it was that he all but announced that he thought that most survivors of sexual assault were just making shit up before hearing every one of her cases. He was a cranky old misogynist, and Bridget wished that the pack of cigarettes he smoked every day would do him in before this case went to trial.
But unless that happened over the weekend—the weekend she was supposed to be spending in Las Vegas for her brother and Hannah’s combined bachelor and bachelorette party—she was going to be standing here on Monday, hoping her complaining witness didn’t decide that she couldn’t face her rapist in open court.
And she really didn’t want that to happen. Matt, the intern she definitely had not been lusting after for three months, would lose the only case they�
��d been able to get an indictment on. He was the most diligent—and frankly gifted—of the interns, and she really wanted him to have a positive experience in this office so that he would put in a good word on her fellowship, and maybe stay in touch after he went back to school.
Although, if she was being honest with herself, having to see him every day was excruciating. The way he wore a suit should be fucking outlawed. Multiple times, she’d nearly pulled a muscle in her neck trying to avoid checking him out—even after they’d agreed that they would just be friends. But she’d held fast to her professional image. Just to be safe, she hadn’t asked him any personal questions. Not even a “How was your weekend?” since they’d had drinks. He probably thought she was kind of a bitch or had a personality transplant. But that was better than him thinking she was a pervy old lady.
“Now, if I just gave continuances out like lollipops, cases would never get tried.” Judge Dickerson spoke, and her stomach dropped. “And the defendant deserves a speedy trial under the US Constitution. You are aware of the US Constitution, aren’t you, Miss Nolan?”
She didn’t know why it pissed her off so much that he used “Miss” instead of “Ms.” But it was the punctuation on his condescension that almost loosed her temper. That and the fact that it was in front of Matt. Though she’d never be able to date him—or get naked with him like she’d been thinking about nonstop since they’d had drinks at the beginning of the summer—she wanted him to think highly of her. She craved his admiration as though it would stand in for any romantic feelings he might have had if she wasn’t significantly older than him, and his boss for the summer.
“Yes, Your Honor. But I have a family event this weekend that I can’t change. The state needs an additional three days to prepare its arguments.” She knew the defendant’s very expensive lawyers were rushing this trial because they knew the victim was wavering. Mary Louise had been employed by a commodities trading firm and had been working late when the CEO of that firm pushed her into a dark hallway and assaulted her.
Even though she’d done everything she could to preserve evidence and headed to the hospital for a kit right after the attack, her former boss had the most expensive firm in town doing everything they could to intimidate her.
And it just happened to be the firm that Chris worked for. So opposing counsel likely knew that she had plans that weekend because Chris had shared those plans. For all she knew, Chris had wanted them to oppose the continuance so that she would have to cancel and he wouldn’t have to look at her while he got cozy with shot girls for three days.
“Is it a funeral, Miss Nolan?”
“No, Your Honor.” She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d been planning on going to Vegas for the weekend. That would leave the old lech with images of her in pasties, like a showgirl. Which would probably give him a heart attack, which would be a good thing. She shook her head slightly and shivered at the thought. Still not worth it.
“Then I’ll see you bright and early on Monday.” Judge Dickerson slammed the gavel down.
* * *
• • •
DURING HIS ENTIRE INTERNSHIP, Matt hadn’t seen Bridget with so much as a hair out of place. So when she nearly growled when his dad’s creepy golf buddy Mick Dickerson denied her continuance, he knew something was up. She’d been the consummate professional the entire time she’d been his boss. Except for that one time they’d had beers. He would never let on how often he thought about how soft her skin had been when he’d wiped that foam off her lip.
He’d thought that was the beginning of an actual friendship, and he’d invited her out for drinks the following week. Although they hadn’t regressed to the point where she saddled him with copying and filing, she made it clear that they were more friendly work colleagues than actual friends.
Other than the fact that she had an ex-boyfriend—with whom things were definitely over with and that she didn’t date—he didn’t know anything about her outside of how hard she worked and what he’d been able to glean from scrolling through her sparse Instagram feed—that she had two brothers, liked to cook, and had a wide-open smile that she didn’t show at work.
Oddly, the not knowing had made her even more compelling. When he’d first started working with her, trying to keep up with his cases had been like drinking water from a fire hose. He could stop thinking of her now and then.
But now that his internship and the work were winding down, it was harder to ignore the spark he felt whenever he was in the same room as her. She’d never given any indication that she felt the same way, so he knew he had to let it go. The less she gave of herself, the more he wanted to know. He’d never been that guy who liked the chase before, but the puzzle of Bridget Nolan had infected his brain. And he knew that leaving after the internship—which ended tomorrow—wasn’t going to cure him.
That was why he’d decided to shoot his shot after his internship was over. He’d tell her how he felt about her—just laying it all on the table. Then he’d ask her out and politely accept her certain “no.”
When they got out into the hallway, he struggled to keep up with her. Though he didn’t know any facts about her life, he knew what she was like when she was frustrated. She’d never yelled at him; he’d been very careful not to give her any reason to. But when a judge did something that she felt was unfair or a cop was rude to one of her complaining witnesses, the anger seemed to snap off of her like a force field. She became an avenging angel when it came to doing the right thing by survivors, and it was about the hottest thing Matt had ever seen.
Not that he would ever say that. Not this week.
“Hey.” He tried to keep his voice level, but it was hard because her being angry made him angry. The way Mick had talked to her made him angry. “What’s wrong?”
She stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to him. For the first time since they’d met, her eyes didn’t look like the open sea on a cloudy day. They were soft and wet, and she appeared to be at her edge. He didn’t know what to do with that, so he just stayed still.
After a deep breath, she said, “I’m supposed to go out of town this weekend for some wedding stuff for my brother.”
“I’m sorry.”
She waved her hand at him. “You didn’t know.”
“It’s only Thursday afternoon.” If they pushed it, they could have the opening and closing statements prepared and a plan for cross-examining the defense witnesses done by the end of the day tomorrow. She’d been doing this so long, it was like second nature.
“But we should be interviewing Mary Louise and prepping her all weekend.” The complaining witness had been making noises about not wanting to go to trial during their last call, and they both knew she was wavering. Matt didn’t blame her.
“We could do that tomorrow and stay in touch with each other over e-mail, so you can go to your—thing.” Since Matt would never be her boyfriend, he could at least be the most helpful intern in the history of interns.
“It will probably mean an all-nighter tonight and maybe tomorrow.” At least she sounded a little bit hopeful now.
“We can do that.” In fact, getting to spend time alone with her sounded really great. He knew nothing would happen between them, but he still wanted to spend as much time looking at her as possible in the next week.
She sighed, clearly not as excited about the prospect of doing overnights with him as he was with her. “I have to stop at my dad’s place before going back to the office.” The idea of getting to see where she grew up excited him. “You don’t have to come.”
“No problem. I’ll drive.”
* * *
• • •
OUT OF THE CORNER of her eye, Bridget looked at Matt driving. She’d perfected the move over the months they’d spent together. There was a snap, crackle, pop of chemistry that filled the car, and she regretted agreeing to let him accompany her to her dad’s
place. She’d never brought a guy home, other than Chris. And that hadn’t been bringing anyone home, but more of a shift in the dynamic with a guy who had practically lived between their houses. There’d never been another guy she’d even thought about bringing home.
She needed to break the news that she was probably going to miss the weekend trip, and she knew her dad would be more sympathetic to it than Hannah. In person seemed like the best idea. The last thing she needed was Hannah storming her office in response to a text saying she couldn’t come. She’d gotten her work ethic from her dad. It had driven Chris crazy that she’d never been interested in playing hooky or lying around all weekend, but that just wasn’t how Nolans operated. And out of the Nolans, her father was the most nose grinding. He would get it and tell everyone else to keep their fool mouths shut and leave her alone to get work done.
She felt a flash of embarrassment as Matt pulled into her neighborhood. Although she’d deliberately tried to ignore his background since deciding that he didn’t totally suck, it was obvious that everything he wore was expensive. Bridget’s family had been upper-middle-class for her whole life. Although her mother had a fancy job, it wasn’t the kind that came with a lot of money. Her father and brother ran a contracting company, so their family wealth had seen drastic ups and downs over the decades.
Still, her father owned the house she directed Matt to, and Sean Nolan had made sure she graduated from law school with as few loans as possible—given that she’d gone to law school during an economic downturn and one of her dad’s lean periods. She could mostly afford to live on a public servant’s salary for the twenty-plus years that she’d spend paying them off. But she didn’t come from forty-thousand-dollar-watch money.
She took off her seat belt. “You don’t have to come in.”
Matt smirked, and everything below her waist turned to jelly. “You embarrassed to be seen with me?”
Not That Kind of Guy Page 4