WHEN MATT KIDO WAS ten, he told his mother that he wanted to quit playing soccer. Since they were on their way to soccer practice when he told her this, she didn’t take it kindly. She hadn’t had time to take him to soccer practice; she had carved time from her busy schedule of manipulating global markets. She was not primed to hear that her son wanted to quit his one after-school activity. Then he made the terrible mistake of telling her that he wanted to quit because one of the other kids was making fun of him.
At the time, he’d been scrawny and short. He definitely wasn’t the only Asian kid at his elite private school, but he was the only one with a war hero and senator for a grandfather on one side and an ancestor who had come over on the Mayflower on the other. Everyone knew who his parents were, which made him a target.
His mom had taken him to soccer practice and waited him out until he got out of the car and ran onto the field. He hadn’t brought up wanting to quit soccer again.
For weeks, he’d thought that she’d forgotten all about the kids making fun of him—until they’d seen the main perpetrator riding his bike home from a game. She’d slowed down her SUV to a crawl next to the kid. Then she slowly—ever so slowly—knocked him off his bike.
The kid never made fun of Matt again. And after word spread about his mom’s reaction, no one else did, either.
Matt had always been slightly embarrassed by that story—even after he shot up in height and filled out. He wished he had stood up to that bully himself. But he hadn’t. It had always been easier to let his parents fight his battles for him.
Until recently. Like last-week recently. Like last week when he walked in on his girlfriend of three years having sex with one of their friends. In his condo. Even worse, most of their friends had known about it and hadn’t told him.
He and Naomi were supposed to be summer associates at the same firm—along with several of their traitorous friends—for the summer. But the thought of spending twelve weeks having to see Naomi every day when he never wanted to see her again was intolerable. It was bad enough that they attended the same law school, that their parents were friends, and that he’d have to see her at alumni mixers and family events for the rest of his life. He just didn’t want to see her when it was unacceptable to have a drink in his hand.
But he hadn’t wanted to go to his parents for help. Not again, and not with anything having to do with Naomi. So, he took the second-most cowardly route—he ran away under the guise of doing public service. He’d abandoned his coveted summer associate position—the one that had perks like five-hundred-dollar lunches and firm trips to Switzerland—to be here.
And that’s how he found himself looking at the most stunning woman he’d ever seen.
Matt had never seen anything like the woman leading the orientation for interns at the state’s attorney’s office. He looked around the room. There were seven women and two other men seated at the desks in the bullpen. The furniture didn’t match, and the walls appeared to have been last painted in the early eighties, long before any of them were born. The place wasn’t much to look at, but he was still excited.
Everyone else was staring at the woman in the front of the room, and he couldn’t blame them.
Bridget Nolan had lush auburn hair, piercing gray-blue eyes, cut-glass cheekbones, and a voice that was better than a hand job. Jesus, he was gross. It was the epitome of inappropriate to be turned on by her describing doing interviews with arresting officers. She was trying to teach them to verify facts, not tie him into knots of sexual frustration.
Matt should be focusing on her words, not how the clacking of her heels against the concrete floor made his heart beat faster. Or the way her lean hips swung with each step she took. He was just lucky to be here and that no one seemed to know who he was yet.
He’d been prepared to walk in the door and find someone officially designated to pander to him. That’s how it had been at every other “job” he’d ever had. He realized that it was part and parcel of being the scion of one of the most powerful families in the US, but it didn’t exactly allow him to build up his self-esteem the old-fashioned way, the way his grandfather had, through hard work and sacrifice. He felt guilty for resenting the way that his parents had made everything in his life so easy. He felt bad that he felt bad about the fact that his parents were part of what made the world bad in general.
Although his parents had been puzzled by how he’d chosen to spend his summer, the move garnered him some grudging respect because it would look good for the family. But the more he listened to Bridget Nolan speak, the more he thought that some good might come of his summer in purgatory. He needed to prove that he wasn’t some pointless trust-fund kid who had been shepherded through prep schools and the Ivy League, doing the bare minimum so that he could take over his parents’ holdings and run them into the ground. Maybe performing well at this internship would give him a way to do that.
Maybe there was some purpose in blowing up his plans and finding himself sitting at a shabby desk in the open space where he and the other nine interns would work for three months under unforgiving fluorescent lights.
And maybe there was a reason that he was sitting here gobsmacked by the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. But that reason didn’t have anything to do with his dick. He had to make sure that he was clear on that.
The dude sitting next to him leaned over and whispered, “Stop looking at her like that.”
Matt looked over at the whisperer. In a rumpled white shirt and pleated-front trousers, he had the air of a slightly frazzled professor even though he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Matt liked him immediately. Still, he couldn’t exactly admit that he’d been ogling their boss. “Stop looking at who like what?”
“Bridget Nolan.” The other guy rolled his eyes at Matt, which made Matt even more inclined to like him. He enjoyed it when people busted his balls because it didn’t happen very often. “She’s got the highest conviction rate in the office. She’s a rock star—and a total fucking hard-ass who will eat you for lunch if you try to hit on her with your whole rich, pretty-boy thing you have going on.”
Matt had to stifle a laugh. The Nerdy Professor next to him had him pegged and had given him valuable information about Bridget. “What’s your name?”
“Brent Reisz.” He extended his hand for a surreptitious shake. “And you’re Matt Kido.”
“Are you stalking me or something?”
“Nah, I just do my research so that I don’t end up looking like an asshole on my first day.”
When Brent said that last thing, Bridget’s searing gaze snapped over to them. Matt felt his face heat, knowing that he was about to get eaten alive. And he didn’t mind a bit.
“Something more interesting than what I’m saying up here, gentlemen?”
Brent stammered until Matt said, “Sorry, Ms. Nolan.”
Bridget rolled her eyes at him, and Matt probably fell in love right then and there. “It’s only Ms. Nolan if you’re nasty—or if you’re trying to interrupt my spiel.
“Each of you will be assigned to work with one prosecutor over the next three months.” Bridget paused in front of him, and he stopped breathing. “You’ll have a special student admission to the bar so you’ll be able to conduct preliminary hearings and take testimony in front of the grand jury. You’ll have a few cases going at once so that you can get some experience, but you’ll be closely supervised.”
Then she smiled at the group. It hit him like a punch in the nuts, even though it wasn’t directed at him. He’d never had such a powerful reaction to anyone before. Other than the fact that she was drop-dead gorgeous, he didn’t know why this woman in particular made him feel as though his skin was too tight for everything inside. There was nothing about her that was overtly sexy or provocative. And this was the most inconvenient time and circumstance for him to develop a crush.
He couldn’t exactly ask out a woman who was in charge of his internship program for the summer. Not only was it creepy, but she couldn’t say yes. And he couldn’t use any of his usual methods for impressing a woman. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would care about a sexy car—of which he had many.
Besides, the last thing he needed was a new girlfriend before his old relationship had even gotten a proper burial. If circumstances were different—maybe if she wasn’t his boss—she might be the perfect candidate for a rebound.
But he wasn’t going to let himself think about that.
Having a hard-on for the head of his internship program when he couldn’t do anything about it wasn’t ideal. But he could try to avoid her. He’d work with another prosecutor all summer who would report to Bridget on his progress. He’d steer clear of her at social events, and he’d get a great evaluation at the end of the summer. By then, this crush—along with the feeling that he’d reverted back to a hormonal state prevalent in middle school—would pass, and he would never think about whether Bridget Nolan had freckles everywhere ever, ever again.
She looked at him as he had that thought, and his stomach sank. She smiled directly at him and said, “Matt Kido, you’re with me.”
After the orientation session, Matt had to race to keep pace with Bridget as she showed him around the office. They were about the same height with her in heels, but she moved much faster—with a purpose. He, on the other hand, had always been what could be generously termed a slowpoke. Methodical and thorough, but slow.
He tried to keep up with what she was saying, but he would most definitely have to ask someone where the bathroom was.
MATT FINALLY FOUND THE bathroom before lunchtime—or what would be lunchtime if this office actually seemed to have a lunchtime. Here, it appeared that the attorneys shoveled food they’d brought from home into their mouths while their eyes stayed glued to case files—if they were in the office at all.
When he’d stopped by Brent’s desk to see if he wanted to go check out the light of day, Brent told him that he wasn’t meeting his supervising attorney until the afternoon. Also, his possibly new friend had gotten the memo about bringing lunch from home.
He was on his own. But, on the bright side, he found the bathroom while on the hunt for vending machines. He also found Bridget staring at the paltry selections. She didn’t acknowledge him.
“No one told me to bring lunch.” When she jumped, he realized that she hadn’t even noticed that he was there.
But once she clocked him, she slowly turned and looked at him, one brow raised in skepticism. “Do you need someone to tell you to brush your teeth and pick up after yourself?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Perhaps you don’t belong in law school if you can’t meet your basic needs?”
Matt’s first instinct was to get defensive. She didn’t know anything about him, and yet she was treating him like he was an annoyance. And yet, she kind of had a point. He knew that this summer wasn’t going to be about schmoozing law partners who were probably friends with his parents over lobster lunches. He could have guessed that he would have to fend for himself in terms of food if he’d thought about it. But he hadn’t thought about it.
He scratched the back of his head, something he did when he was nervous. And she made him nervous. Her attention on him was something he liked, but it made him uncomfortable. A people pleaser by nature, he didn’t like being in trouble. And, though he couldn’t know how at this particular moment, he knew he was in trouble with Bridget Nolan.
With most beautiful women, he would crack a smile and offer to take her out somewhere nice. Circumstances and the hard look on Bridget’s face made him think that would be the worst thing he could do.
Instead, he turned to the vending machine. “Pringles or Cheez-Its?”
That made her laugh a little, which tasted like a victory. Either that, or he was really hungry. “Pro tip—those Pringles have been there for months. Which they should be, because Pringles are gross.”
MATT’S DESK FOR THE summer was right outside Bridget’s office. He could see her working inside, chewing on her pen and alternately tapping it on the yellow legal pad.
She hadn’t spoken a word to him all day. Thinking that he could make up for the rough start they’d had on his first day, he’d brought her a cup of coffee. His limited office intel—an empty cup with her name and order on it in her trash—told him she drank a latte with whole milk.
He’d been so proud of his instinct to brownnose his way out of the doghouse . . . until she took a sniff of the coffee, looked at him pointedly, and threw it away.
Then she’d taken a stack of paper off her desk, sauntered over to his desk, and dropped it without even looking at him.
He watched her walk away, despite himself. Her gray wool skirt suit was just . . . a lot.
When he flipped his attention away from the sway of Bridget Nolan’s hips, he saw the note she’d left on the top of the stack.
MAKE COPIES