Attractive Nuisance (Legally in Love Book 1) Read Free Page A

before some firm took pity on her and hired her to make their coffee.
    Sheldon just laughed his usual way—much like a trained seal. She expected him to start clapping his flippers along to the rhythm of the barking. “No, Sweeten. You’ll be fine. Closing arguments aren’t everything. Yeah, they’re a lot.”
    Camilla crossed her arms on the table and threw her head onto them. “If Torres were here, he’d tell me to pack it in.”
    “Well, he is here. Didn’t you see him? He’s at the back with that person who is clearly the kryptonite of your logical thinking ability.”
    What? Falcon was here ? She swung around. Sure enough. Jiminy Crickets, she wished Sheldon’s invisible aliens who took her brain would swoop in and take the rest of her right now. She’d be better off on their alien planet or even in their spaceship as some biological experiment.
    Falcon stood at the back, beside the guy who caused all this mess—who, incidentally, looked a little less perfect now that the moment had passed. Sure, he still had the broad shoulders and the impeccable suit, and the swagger of his demeanor steamed off him like dew in the morning sun. Yeah, he still looked good. But maybe not quite as good. One percent less incredible, at least.
    “You’re drooling again, Sweeten. Get a hold of yourself.” Sheldon elbowed her. “Besides, he’s your competition.”
    She snapped out of it. “What? How so?” As far as Camilla was concerned, he could win and win and win. Unless—
    “For the deputy county attorney job. They just brought him in from Coconino County.”
    Yeah, he’d have to be from out of town. Camilla would have remembered him. She’d been in Prescott, with the exception of college and law school, her whole life. If he’d even breezed through and stopped at the Tastee Freeze, she would’ve had radar for that magnetism.
    Not that she was exactly thrilled to know he was horning in on her promotion.
    “What’s going on? Did they already give him the position? I thought they planned to hire internally.” It wasn’t fair, changing the rules of the game on her like that. Sure, she wasn’t the only candidate for the job or the most experienced, and maybe not even the most qualified—as evidenced today—but everyone knew she worked hardest for it.
    “No and yes. I mean, from what I heard, Falcon brought him in from Flagstaff because he’s some kind of courtroom genius. The Jury Whisperer or something.”
    “That’s corny.” Absolutely. In fact, he probably conjured it up himself and spread the rumor. She suppressed a snort as she rolled her eyes.
    “Whatever. I don’t care. He’s got a gift. Lazy as a walrus sunning itself on a rock, but no jury can resist him.”
    “Not with women on it.” Camilla stifled a sigh. Yeah, she could see herself falling prey to that charm as a juror. “But he hasn’t been hired. It’s not official or anything, right?”
    “No, no. Nothing like that. He’s just part of the lawyer pool for now. But my money is on what Billingsley said—that Falcon is grooming him for the deputy county attorney position.” Sheldon frowned. “Listen, chica. If you are serious about wanting that job, you’d better get yourself together. No more of this drifting off mid-sentence garbage. And you’d better march your sweet little legs in and tell Falcon what you want and why you deserve it. Otherwise, you can kiss your promotion and your raise good-bye.”
    Raise. Oh, yeah. And that was the other reason she needed the promotion. Exactly two days after she signed the loan papers on her dream car, boom! Her landlady raised the rent on her apartment, and now every rent payment bit into the small amount of extra she had been paying on her student loan. She’d gone from sitting pretty to car poor, a close cousin to house poor, in less than a week’s time.
    Logically, she’d simply move to a smaller place, somewhere cheaper, but she and all her houseplants and law school books already