The Intern

31

She flattened her hand sideways against the board, using her pinkie like a ruler. Even though I was too far away to read what was above her finger, I knew it was the area where the email addresses and subject line were listed. “That isn’t Kennedy’s email address.” She pointed to each of the sheets, emphasizing her point, and then she lifted the stack of papers off the table and walked them over to me. Her finger went to the top of the pile, where she’d highlighted text. “This is his email address.”

“You might be able to entertain your babe with your theatrics, but you’re boring me to death.”

Her brows rose. “Wait. My … babe?”

“Your voice carried into my office,” I lied. “First, you bitched about being here. And as if that wasn’t enough, I had to hear your goddamn love confession.”

“Oh.” She swallowed.

“Do you think I want to be here, spending my evening with you? My f*****g intern, who doesn’t know her ass from her elbow? Watching you flail around like a fish I just plucked out of the water? Please, Hannah, there are a million other things I’d rather be doing right now.”

“f**k you, Declan.” Her stare changed to a glare. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it was my roommate. The fire alarm had gone off in our building. She’s hanging out with my brother, and they had to evacuate. She was just letting me know.” Her hands balled into fists. “She sounded stressed, and I told her I loved her—that’s what you heard.”

Fuck … me?

She was playing naughty—and I liked it.

At the same time, the relief came in hard and fast.

I didn’t know why. It shouldn’t matter.

But it did.

“Stop deviating. You’re wasting my time.” I nodded toward the stack of papers. “What does this revelation—as you would call it—have to do with the evidence?” I ignored the way my hard-on was pressing against my zipper. “Our client has two email addresses. Most of us do. So what?”

As she took a deep inhale, I glanced down her body, seeing her n*****s were even harder than they had been before.

She caught me staring, and I pushed the chair back, getting ready to stand.

“Maybe you called me in a little prematurely.”

“No.”

“Then, tell me, Hannah, what have you found?”

Her work-assigned laptop was open near the head of the table, and she brought it over to me. “I tracked the IP address from where this email had been sent. It’s not from Kennedy’s home or his office.” The data on the screen showed a location in Northern California—an area that wasn’t associated with Kennedy at all, but a region that had come up numerous times in our research. “The question isn’t why he sent it. It isn’t how he sent it. It’s if he sent it.” She shut the laptop, our eyes locked. “And the answer to that is no.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the plaintiff knew he was going to lose this case, and he created false evidence, hoping that we’d be caught off guard so we wouldn’t be able to authenticate it. It’s not Kennedy’s motive, Declan. It’s the plaintiff’s.”

Now, she was playing the f*****g song I wanted to hear.

“Keep going.”

She walked to the whiteboard, slowly taking the papers off that she’d taped there, placing them one by one on the table. “Kennedy has been painted as the villain of this story. The one who breached his contract and is being sued for millions. But he’s not the villain here.”

She had found the loophole.

She had shifted the power.

But it was a situation that was merely hypothetical, a scenario I’d created an hour before she arrived.

Had I wanted her heart to drop, her entire body to shake, experiencing the stress of what she would soon face in the courtroom once she passed the bar?

Or had I just wanted to spend more time with her, alone, in a setting that would test my strength?

Fuck, I didn’t know.

I raised my hands and clapped them in the air. “You did it.”

Her eyes instantly brightened. “I did?”

“Yes, Hannah. You found the answer I was looking for.”

Her head tilted back, her mouth opened, her hands pressed against her chest. “Oh my God, I did it.”

The second her eyes left me, I craved the closeness.

I needed it.

I stood and moved toward her, stalling a few feet away.

The moment her head straightened, she processed my new placement. The way my hands were holding the table. How I was leaning against it.

Her breathing sped up as she scanned my face. “Did I forget something? Did I do something wrong—”

“No.”

I needed to back up.

I needed to return to my f*****g office.

I needed to tame the thoughts consuming me.

But I couldn’t.

My hands clutched the table and released it.

“Then, what’s wrong, Declan?”

My jaw clenched and unclenched. My toes ground against the bottom of my shoes. My breath came out like huffs from a raging bull. “I’m fighting something—something I shouldn’t even be thinking about.”

“Me.”

Her voice was so soft. At first, I wasn’t sure she’d even said the word or if it had been in my head.

But then she added, “You’re trying to stop yourself from touching me.”

How the f**k does she know that?

Especially since she thought I’d never touched her before.

How would she have connected the way I’d been treating her to my desire of wanting to f**k her?

“Yes.” I took a step closer. “But you’re my intern and a Dalton.” My feet moved again. “Someone I haven’t wanted on my team—still don’t.” My hands hovered in the air above each side of her face. “Someone who has put me through hell since the moment you became employed.”

Her eyes bounced between mine.

“Someone whose mouth has challenged me in so many f*****g ways.”

“But don’t you love that about me?” She was almost timid when she spoke, yet she still closed the distance, her body barely pressing against me. “Isn’t that why your eyes devour me at the same time you’re screaming at me? Why you clench your hands whenever I’m within reach to stop yourself from grabbing me?”

She noticed.

“Yes, Declan, I’ve noticed.”

And now, she was in my f*****g thoughts, the same way I’d been in hers on the night we met.