The Intern

30

She took off her sweatshirt, dropping it onto an empty chair, the movement in her arms showing the muscle in her biceps and the narrowness of her waist. She slid her braid to the other shoulder. She wasn’t happy with that placement and shifted it again.

Silky, dark strands that would look incredibly sexy, wrapped around my wrist.

“You’re close, Hannah. Almost there …”

She glanced up, her eyes pleading with mine. “Declan—”

“Don’t say it.”

She suddenly looked defeated. She was tired. Hungry. She had wine flowing through her veins—I could see the tiny hints of burgundy on her lips. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was going to push through.

“You’ve been studying this case since your first day here. Analyze each of the different viewpoints. Work backward if you have to.” I had an idea, and I placed a brownie on her empty napkin. “What made me put that there, Hannah?”

“The brownie?”

I nodded.

She gazed at the dessert. “You want me to focus.”

“What other reason?”

She took several deep breaths. “You had a motive.”

“Yes.” I waited until her stare met mine. “Now, take it further. Did I put that brownie there for my advantage? Or because there were too many in the container and I wanted to make room for something else?” I paused, waiting. “Not everything is what it seems.”

Her mouth opened, teeth stabbing her bottom lip.

“Remember, there’s going to be times when the opposition presents something you’re unprepared for. You have to go into court, expecting this, or you’ll risk the chance of being destroyed. So, when it happens, are you going to roll onto your back and take it?”

Goose bumps rose over her bare arms.

“Or are you going to spin what’s presented and dominate the trial?” I lowered my voice and said, “What kind of lawyer are you going to be?”

She turned her body toward me, releasing the lip she’d been gnawing. “The kind that wins.”

“Show me.” I placed my hand on the folder she was still holding. “I’ll be in my office.”

I walked out of the conference room and stopped the second I reached the hallway. My hands balled into fists, and I held them tightly, forcing my feet not to move so I didn’t turn around and go back inside and pull her into my arms.

I pushed air through my lungs.

I tried to tame my f*****g c**k.

There was just something about Hannah that I found impossible to resist.

Maybe it was her scent. Maybe it was her innocence. Maybe it was the determination I saw in her eyes.

Maybe it was the fact that she made me want to growl and f*****g scream at the same time.

Maybe—

“Hi,” she said, instantly interrupting my thoughts.

I turned toward the doorway of the conference room, and she wasn’t there.

“Yeah, I’m still at the office,” she said. “Ugh, I’m so tired.”

She wasn’t talking to me. That meant she was on the phone.

My anger suddenly flared.

Why the f**k was she speaking to someone right now when she should have been working? Was she not taking this seriously?

“Trust me, I’d rather be eating brownies with you.” She laughed lightly. “And finishing that yummy bottle of wine.”

Did she not realize how important this case was? To the firm? Dominick? Me?

“Are you okay? You sound … tense.”

I adjusted my position to hear her better.

“Oh no, babe.”

Babe?

Who the f**k is she calling babe?

“I wish I were there too.” She paused. “As soon as I get out of this hell, I’ll be there.” She exhaled. “I love you.”

I heard the clunk of her phone as she set it on the table.

I love you?

Had she started hooking up with someone since the night at the bar?

Or had she already been dating him?

Whoever he was, he was important enough to be loved.

I didn’t know what the f**k to think as I walked into my office, but I knew I needed a goddamn refill. I’d left my glass in the conference room, so I grabbed a new one and poured several fingers of scotch, bringing the tumbler over to my desk.

I didn’t know why I was allowing this to bother me.

It shouldn’t matter if she had a guy in her life.

But for some reason, I couldn’t stand the thought of another man making her smile.

Of his hands touching her.

His lips.

For him to make her moan—

“Declan! Come here!”

At least when she interrupted my thoughts this time, it was because she was talking to me.

Or trying to.

I brought the glass up to my mouth, the scotch burning the remnants of chocolate off my tongue.

If she had something to tell me, she could come to me.

I wasn’t a f*****g dog.

I didn’t move from my desk. I busied my hands, replying to an email, staring at my computer screen as she walked in breathlessly.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“I heard you all right, but I’m not going to drop everything and come running to you.” I took my hands off the keyboard and surrounded the drink. “You got my attention, Hannah. What do you want?”

She didn’t move from the doorway. “Please come back to the conference room. I want to show you something.”

“You can tell me in here.”

She came closer, holding the edge of my desk. “Please?”

She’d asked nicely.

I even liked the neediness in her tone.

“This had better be good,” I sighed and followed her down the hallway into the conference room.

She had taped the newly found evidence to the whiteboard and had several stacks of papers piled on the table—an organized layout, unlike the mess that had been in here before.

“I can’t tell you how many times I read those email exchanges, looking for the answer in their conversations. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing it.” She moved over to the whiteboard. “I thought maybe the emails had been edited. Maybe they had been Photoshopped. Maybe there were more emails not included here; therefore, the proof was really taken out of context.”

I took a seat. “And?”

She smiled. An expression so beautiful that I felt it all the way in my f*****g gut. “I realized what I was really looking at.”

“Don’t waste my time, Hannah. Get to the point.”