Law, Lies, and Love Affairs

Not So Friendly Rivals

Stephanie looked up from her desk in the law journal office to see her nemesis leaning in the doorway, a beer in one hand and a grin on his face.

"Getting a little last minute edits done, Stevie?"

"It's Stephanie." Only her sister called her Stevie now. Stevie was the girl in thrift shop clothes who sometimes went to bed hungry at night, never lived in one place long enough to call it home, and dreamed of a better future. Stephanie was the successful student who took a small scholarship and worked her way through college, aced the LSAT, and ended up with a full ride at Yale Law School, where she was just one step away from making those dreams come true. Nothing was going to stand in her way.

She looked up at him over the stack of papers. "Someone has to do the work around here."

"It's Thanksgiving break. Shouldn't you be on a plane to somewhere?"

"Shouldn't you?"

He stepped closer, pulling up a chair and straddling it, leaning over the back to study her. Even in his faded jeans and sweatshirt everything about him screamed wealth and privilege. Everything came easy for Michael Reese Wellington. He didn't need a law degree to step into a high-level position in the private equity firm owned by his family. Or maybe he would decide to manage one of their other interests. Like Wellington Properties, one of the premier real estate companies in New York. Or the fast-growing chain of high-end hotels that carried the Wellington brand.

Unlike Stephanie, who had an ever-increasing load of student loan debt just to meet her day-to-day living expenses. And a time-consuming internship with a federal judge that added volumes to her resume and experience, but nothing to her meager bank account. But all that was going to change in less than six months when she graduated and began her career with the prestigious global law firm that had hired her, proving that hard work and single-minded determination really did pay off.

Mike shrugged. "My mother's on a yacht in Crete with her third husband. My father will be dining somewhere fashionable in LA. with his soon-to-be fourth wife. He's investing in her next movie. I'm sure the household staff would have accommodated me with a turkey dinner, but why make them miss being home with their own families just to open up the house for me? Besides . . . I don't like to eat alone."

"Poor little rich boy," Stephanie said, and wondered idly what exactly was entailed in "opening up" a house. In her experience, turn the key and open the door worked well enough.

"Ow. That stings." He slapped a hand across his heart and stared at her with those startling blue eyes that had female classmates practically swooning over him from the day he first set foot on campus. It was a good thing Stephanie was immune to such things.

She narrowed her own eyes. "Don't you have brothers?"

"Yep. Two of them. Half-brothers, actually. And they both have other plans."

He said it nonchalantly, and Stephanie wondered why, with money no object, he and his brothers didn't make any effort to spend the holiday together. She wished she was spending Thanksgiving with her own sister, Samantha. But unfortunately, the cost of flying from Connecticut to the small town in the Midwest where Sam had just started a new teaching job was way more than she could justify. Especially since she and her sister already had plans to spend Christmas together.

"What about you? Family?"

"I have a sister, but she recently moved to Wisconsin, and it's not really practical for me to fly there just for a long weekend."