The Intern: Enemies To Lovers

“I would hope so. We are twins.”

This was the first time Camden had tagged along for one of our guys’ nights. He lived in New York and was finishing up his last year of law school. He told me once he graduated, he’d be moving back to LA to work for the family’s firm.

I hoped to hell that, once he returned permanently, his attendance for our nights out wouldn’t become a regular thing.

The more Daltons didn’t necessarily mean the better.

I clapped his shoulder. “I’m sorry you have to bear that burden.”

“It’s a good thing I have no interest in being a litigator.” He ran his hand over his beard. “I have a feeling you and I would go twelve rounds on the daily.”

I pulled my hand back, chuckling. “Listen, if you’re self-sufficient and you don’t require a pacifier or an afternoon nap and you don’t need your bottle warmed, then we’ll get along just fine.” I rolled my eyes, making sure Dominick saw. “Your other half needs all those things.”

“He’s on fire tonight,” Dominick said to Camden, referring to me.

“I’m only speaking the truth.” I glanced around the table at all their faces but eventually landed on Dominick. “And since I’m in the middle of saving your client the millions he’s being sued for after breaching his contract, I’d think you’d be a little more sensitive to my needs.”

The brothers still hadn’t listened.

They still hadn’t reassigned her.

“You mean, the case in which Hannah found the perfect precedent?” Jenner asked. “The one you’re going to win because of her?” He eyed me down. “I think you owe some of the credit to our cousin, my friend.”

I shook my head, trying to force her name out of my mind. “I would have won without it.”

“You haven’t even gone to trial yet,” Dominick countered.

“I’m telling you”-I ground my teeth-“we would have won without it.”

I would have done everything in my fucking power, but I did question if that would have been enough to persuade the jury. Hannah’s findings certainly made it easier, and now, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

That changed nothing.

I wasn’t going to give her a goddamn medal for snooping through my files and bringing something to my attention that I would have figured out at some point anyway.

I brought the tumbler of scotch up to my lips. “Reassign her, I beg you.”

“Dude, relax.” Jenner rubbed my shoulder like he was a masseur. “You’ll survive, I promise.”

Dominick looked at Camden and added, “He’s been chirping since the moment we even mentioned he was getting an intern. If it wasn’t Hannah, he’d be bitching about someone else.”

“Not true.” I sighed. “She’s going to be the death of me.”

“I spent eighteen years under the same roof as her,” Camden said, checking out a group of girls walking by our table. “I’m not saying my sister’s the easiest. We both have quite a mouth on us. But you just haven’t figured her out yet.”

“Elaborate.”

“She’ll end up surprising you,” he continued. “Just you wait and see.”

She’d already done that.

When I’d observed her in the classroom and the night at the bar along with the time we spent in the alley. The morning she walked into my office for the first time. And the moment she had told me she was too drunk to remember anything.

All surprises.

“The only thing I’m waiting for is for this internship to be over.” I drained the rest of my scotch and looked around the room for our waitress. “Fuck, I need another drink.”

I pushed back my chair and went over to the bar.

“Scotch, double,” I said as the bartender approached. “You know what? Make it a triple.”

She poured the booze into a glass, and I brought it up to my mouth, taking a long drink. As I swallowed, I turned around, facing the main area, and that was when I noticed Dominick walking over to me.

“You all right, buddy?” He moved in next to me, leaning his back against the edge of the bar.

“Me?” I didn’t bother to make eye contact with him. “Why? Does it look like I need to be tended to?”

He placed a drink order and then said to me, “I wouldn’t call it that. You’ve just been a bit … feistier the last week and a half.”

It was no secret what that time frame marked.

Dominick knew that; he wasn’t a fool.

“I’m always feisty, you motherfucker.” I clinked my glass against his. “That’s why you hired me.”

“That’s true.” He paused. “But something still feels off.”

“Besides the intern issue, I’m good.”

When he looked at me, he stared deeper than I would have liked. “Your issues with Hannah aren’t matching up to what your team has been saying about her.” He gave me a small grin before it faded. “My assistant checked in with your clerks and paralegal after Hannah’s first week of employment. We check on all the interns; it’s standard protocol. Their feedback was glowing; in fact, they couldn’t have spoken more highly of her.”

I drew my brows together, my jaw clenching so hard that I thought one of my teeth would break. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Far from it. I’m wondering if there’s something else that’s bothering you, so I can fix it.”

If this were any other circumstance-a clerk, an assistant, a paralegal-I would tell him the truth.

But, fuck, I couldn’t say a goddamn word.

So, I just stood there, drank my scotch, and lied, “Nah, man. Things are fine.”

“All right, I’ll take your word for it.” He scanned the room. “Maybe what you need is her.” He nodded toward the chick who was across from us, swirling her tongue around her straw. “Looks like she’s got the skills to give you exactly what you need tonight. She can suck out some of that hotheadedness.”

I laughed. “You think that’s what I need, huh?”

“It certainly couldn’t hurt.”

I turned my back to the girl and rested my scotch on the bar top. “I assure you, I’m not hurting for women.”

“You just won’t settle down with one.”

My head dropped, and I focused on the amber waves colliding across the top of my drink as I swirled it. “Correct.”

“And your plan is to stay single for the rest of your life?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Or maybe the straw-sucker will become my bride.”

“She’d probably settle for half a carat.”

“Damn, that’s a bargain.” I exhaled all the air from my lungs. “I’m not saying the right woman for me doesn’t exist. I’m not saying dating is out of the realm of possibility. I’m just saying it would take a fucking miracle.”

He shook my shoulder. “Miracles can happen, my man.”

In the meantime, there was plenty of ass to check out.

Aside from straw girl, there was a blonde in the corner, who had been eyeing me all night. A redhead across the bar, who couldn’t stop looking at me as she licked her lips. A brunette a few tables away, who was pretty decent.

But if I was being honest with myself, none of them were Hannah.

Shit, not a single girl in here had anything on Hannah.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“You know what I’m really going to be doing tonight?” I asked him.