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Dani woke up slowly. Her head hurt and her mouth felt filled with sawdust that tasted like battery acid. Saliva was dried onto one corner of her mouth and the light coming in her tiny loft’s window was inordinately bright this morning.

Note to self: never drink martinis on an empty stomach. Ever.

Second note to self: never try to drink away her outrage at discovering she was merely a marketable sex kitten to her employer.

Also worth a footnote: getting shitfaced did not reveal what she was supposed to do about being a sex kitten hire.

She sat up, and pain sliced through her head like a buzz saw, obliterating everything in its path. And to think, she’d been sure the roiling nausea in her stomach was going to be the worst part of her hangover.

She should probably stumble into the bathroom, swallow a handful of pain relievers, and sleep off this smashing headache with its accompanying temptation to hurl.

Her entire tiny bedroom spun around her sickeningly. Great. Vertigo. That was going to help the headache and nausea, for sure.

Maybe she should just lie down and die.

Thankfully, the partners had given everyone the morning off if they had no meetings or court appearances. It was almost as if they knew the new associates would get wrecked when presented with lots of free booze and a chance to cut loose now that they’d spent a few weeks inside the WMP pressure cooker.

She eased back down to the mattress very carefully and closed her eyes.

She would think about how to deal with WMP’s blatant sexism later. When she felt like a human being again. There had to be a way to convince Cam to tell her who belonged to that raspy voice…

Vivid memory of kissing him in the ladies’ room exploded across her brain. She brushed her mouth with her fingertips, trying to erase the feel and taste of him from her lips, but it didn’t help. His body was still pressed against hers, his thigh still lodged intimately between hers, and his tongue still inside her mouth?—

Get out of my head!

That damned voice in the back of her head responded dryly, Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Admit it. You didn’t just like kissing him. You loved it.

Fine. She’d enjoyed making out with him.

But she still had to find a way to move past their kiss, to put it out of her mind once and for all. Even in her semi-blitzed state last night, she’d known it was a one-off event that could never be repeated. In the harsh light of day, it was even more imperative that she get over it and get over him.

He’d dominated her dreams last night, kissing his imaginary way across parts of her body that made her face heat up now to recall. How was she supposed to face him in court if she thought stuff like that every time she looked at him or had to speak to him?

Dang it. He could take the hungry yearnings he provoked in her and his steamy kisses and stuff them. Memory came to her, unbidden, of the way his warm breath had caressed her neck just below her ear before he’d kissed the sensitive spot. Her whole body tingled in response?—

—She pulled a pillow over her head with a groan and tried to go back to sleep.

No dice. She was firmly stuck fantasizing about plastering herself against that big, hard body again. Being swept up in his arms and carried off to a secret tryst. Not in a ladies’ room. Somewhere private and romantic. Maybe a cabin upstate or in his sleek, penthouse bachelor pad—for surely that was the kind of place he lived in. Rolling around naked with him, in a bed or not in a bed optional.

There was no escaping the fact that, as giant a jerk as he could be, he turned her on.

Which she supposed shouldn’t confuse her, given her rotten track record with men. She always had been drawn to the strongest, smartest, best-looking boy in school. And she’d always been not-quite pretty enough, not quite thin enough, and not quite popular enough to attract the attentions of the boys she’d crushed on. Her personal motto in dating had always been, Aim high, Fail hard.

Her roommate in college had gotten a degree in psychology and told her she was subconsciously trying to replace her father. It had something to do with Dani not feeling as if her father paid enough attention to her, so she was attracted to men who reminded her of him and then did back flips trying to get their attention and earn their affection.

She wasn’t sure she bought the theory. She preferred to think she had high standards in dating partners that most men simply didn’t live up to. She would rather be single than date some jerk who treated her badly and made her miserable, or heaven forbid, who needed a mommy-figure to raise him and take care of him. Was that too much to ask for?

It was a question she asked the universe a lot. Particularly when yet another three-date wonder piqued her interest, took her out a few times, and eventually showed his true colors, turning out to be fatally flawed as a potential life partner.

It wasn’t that she only dated with an eye to marriage. But why would she waste her time dating some guy who wasn’t even remotely decent enough to consider marriageable?

Her amateur psychologist roommate also said Dani held herself in too high esteem and imposed her own impossibly high standards on the people around her, costing herself friends and boyfriends. The roommate had delivered the observation as a critique, but Dani had taken it as a compliment.

And hey. Her taste in men hadn’t always been abysmal. Bobby Thompson in the first grade had been cute and very sweet to her. He’d always let her climb the monkey bars first and had stood below her to catch her in case she fell. Sometimes when she was particularly down on men in general, she pondered the irony of a six-year-old demonstrating more chivalry that some adult men.

It had been downhill pretty much ever since Bobby, though. Apparently, she’d now added being a ginormous ass to her list of requirements for bad boyfriend material. She was doomed. Might as well buy herself a wimple and get to the nearest convent.

Her cell phone rang and she moaned into her pillow. The noise was worse that the effort of making it stop, so she reluctantly emerged from under the pillow to fumble on her nightstand for the phone. She rolled over to look at its face and see who was disturbing her at this ungodly—no wait, it was after ten a.m.—this perfectly godly hour.

Crap. WMP’s main number. She didn’t recognize the extension. She snatched the phone to her ear. “Hel—“ Her voice cracked. She cleared the just-woke-up phlegm out of her throat and repeated brightly, “Hello!”

“Miss Wellford?” an unfamiliar female voice said briskly.

“Yes, this is she.”

“Mr. Whitney would like to see you in an hour. Is your schedule free?”

The secretary was calling her at home. Of course her schedule was free, particularly for the founding partner of WMP. Aloud, she responded, “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Perfect.”

Holy crap. Was she getting called on the carpet for drinking too much last night? She thought she’d held her liquor pretty well, all things considered, and hadn’t barfed in the potted palms or made a pass at anyone in front of his wife—or done anything else to humiliate herself or the firm that she could remember.

Granted, she’d made out with Cam in a restroom, but nobody had seen them that she was aware of. She was pretty sure she’d snuck out of the bathroom without anyone seeing her, and she assumed Cam would’ve been equally careful not to be seen slipping out of a ladies’ room.

He might be an ass but surely he didn’t want to get a reputation for accosting women in ladies’ rooms. In point of fact, she probably had grounds to file some sort of sexual harassment complaint against him. Although she guessed her enthusiastic participation in said accosting would disqualify it as harassment.

What did Whitney want with her, then?

Was this some sort of test to see if she could hack partying hard and then manage to pull herself together enough to be functional the next morning?

They weren’t going to fire her already, were they? Had Cam narced on her to that raspy voiced partner and told the guy she’d rejected his advances like some frigid virgin, had he?

Horror coursed through her. They wouldn’t fire her for not going along with their secret scheme to pimp her out to hotshot attorneys they were trying to lure to the firm, would they?

Would a jury take her word that she’d overheard a conversation between a member of the firm and Cam where she’d been offered to him as an enticement? Would Cam corroborate her story?

He might’ve helped her before she’d kissed him like a slut and then abandoned him in a ladies’ room. But after humiliating him like that? Probably not.

Could she sue for wrongful termination? It would depend on the grounds they cited for firing her. Maybe she should tape record the upcoming conversation with the big boss. She would have to notify Mr. Whitney, of course, for the recording to be admissible as evidence?—

Her thoughts raced around in frantic circles as she eased herself carefully to a vertical position and forced her body into motion.

It turned out racing around one’s bathroom showering, drying hair, and doing make-up on an empty stomach with a martini hangover sucked. Bad. She was a hot mess, but somehow, she pulled herself together.

She stared at the contents of her closet for a long time and eventually dug out a semi-sheer blouse she would normally never dream of wearing to the office, or any legal setting at all, for that matter. It had a high neck, but it also had a teardrop cutout below the collar that showed a generous amount of cleavage. She’d worn it to her roommate’s wedding last year in a futile attempt to sex up her image a little and try to attract any single male’s attention at the wedding. It hadn’t worked. But it was sexiest top she owned.

She tied the bow at the neck in a puffy rosette and let the ends trail down to cover most of her décolletage. If Whitney pissed her off bad enough at the meeting, she could always reach up and untie the bow to expose a lot more of her chestular region.

Along with the blouse, she donned her most conservative suit, a black wool affair that was tailored a bit more loosely than usual to disguise her hourglass figure. No need to give the old geezer any ammunition for his sexist attitude.

Last but not least, she donned silk stockings and a pair of black leather pumps with stiletto heels. She was armored for battle to the best of her ability.

The taxi gods were kind to her and she managed to flag down a cab with a grizzled Russian driver who knew a shortcut around the worst of the construction in Manhattan and got her to the curb in front of the WMP offices with three minutes to spare. She tipped the guy a twenty as she hustled out of the cab.

The elevator gods were not so kind, however, and she ended up having to run down a long hallway on the twenty-third floor in her wobbly, painful heels to skid into Mr. Whitney’s outer office with seconds to spare.

Of course, having made it to the meeting by the skin of her teeth, Whitney kept her sitting and waiting for twenty frustrating minutes. His secretary ignored her, not even bothering to offer her a bottle of water or a cup of coffee to take the edge off her pounding headache.

He was definitely going to fire her. Why else would he give her no notice about this meeting and then play head games with her, making her cool her heels out here as if she’d been called to the principal’s office and was in such big trouble her parents had been called to come in.

Not that she’d ever gotten in that kind of trouble in school, of course. She’d been a model student, quiet and respectful of teachers, punctual with her homework, and never rocking any boats of any kind.

Which was part of why she was so acutely anxious now.

Boat rocking was not her deal, but this was totally a moment that called for some serious rocking. Heck, maybe even capsizing this particular boat.

If she had to threaten Mr. Whitney with a lawsuit to keep her job, she’d made the decision somewhere in the past hour to do just that. Even if it was totally out of character for her.

But still. It was scary as hell. Her stomach churned even more aggressively.

She silently cursed herself for not taking time to choke down a slice of dry toast or at least a few saltines as her stomach roiled like a vat of radioactive waste.

“He’s ready for you now, Miss Wellford,” the secretary finally announced with a distinct note of disdain in her cool voice.

Dani stood up and took a moment to smooth her sweaty palms down her wool skirt. This was no different than going to court. Control her emotions, stick to the facts, and don’t let Whitney see it if he rattled her.

You can do this .

She walked resolutely to his door and raised her hand to knock.

“Just go in. He’s expecting you,” the secretary said a teensy bit more kindly.

The senior partner stood when Dani entered his office. He gestured at a chair in front of his desk and waited to sit back down until after she’d perched nervously on the edge of the leather-upholstered seat. Old school manners, Leon Whitney had.

He leaned back in his desk chair, checking her out thoroughly from head to toe—or as close to it as he could manage over the edge of his walnut desk. Make that, old school, sexist pig, manners.

“You’re looking as attractive as usual, Miss Wellford.”

Seriously? When male lawyers walked in here, did he say, “You look totally beddable, today, young man?”

She gritted her teeth and mumbled something inane. Screw her lights out if you feel like it. That’s why we hired her.

Was Leon’s voice raspy enough to be the one she’d heard last night? Throw in the desiccation of a few martinis to his vocal chords and she supposed it was possible.

Something dangerous rattled around in her gut. If she had any balls at all, she would bait the guy. See if he gave himself away as the firm’s senior pimp. To hell with being able to pay her bills. Homeless and unemployed was the new cool, right?

“So, Dani. I hear you’re being difficult with the district attorney’s office on a pro bono case.”

Oh, thank God. This wasn’t a firing for failure to screw Cameron Townsend, after all. At least not yet. Maybe the old geezer was working up to that part of this conversation.

As tempting as it was to defend herself and her management of Alexei Koronov’s case, she held her silence. Whitney hadn’t asked her a question, after all.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Well what?” she asked innocently. After all, she was just a pair of tits and not expected to understand much.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing. My client turned down the district attorney’s plea offer and demanded that I take him to trial.”

“It’s an open-and-shut case, and we’re going to lose!”

“You’ll be joining the defense team then, sir?” She put on her best na?ve bimbo imitation. “Awesome! I’ll send up the file for your review…”

“Don’t get sassy with me, young lady.”

This from the owner of a firm that had hired her so it could throw her at guys like Cam Townsend?

Okay. She was starting to get really pissed off, here.

She scooted back in the chair far enough so she could lean against its back. She studied Leon Whitney intently. Just how much rampant chauvinism informed his calling her ‘young lady’?

Obviously, Cam had spoken to one of the big dogs last night about the Koronov case and had asked them to lean on her. She’d expected no less from him.

As for Leon Whitney, he didn’t know her at all if he thought she was going to roll over and play dead just because he told her to. Not after what she’d overheard last night about his firm’s more…colorful…plans for her.

Come to think of it, she really ought to track down a few other women attorneys who’d been hired and fired quickly by WMP in the past few years and find out how and why they’d been terminated.

“We can’t have you bombing around the New York court system acting irresponsibly,” Whitney declared. “You represent this firm every time you set foot outside this building.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said pleasantly. “I thought I represented my client on behalf of the State of New York as soon as I agreed to act pro bono publico as his defense counsel.”

It was a bitch move to use the full Latin term meaning for the public good with her boss and not so subtly remind him she’d volunteered to take this case when no one else at the firm had wanted to touch it. It was also a blunt reminder to him that she answered to the state of New York for how she handled this case. Not him.

“Speaking of which,” she continued breezily, “I have a meeting with my client in under an hour. With traffic as unpredictable as it is during construction season, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this meeting short. After all, you’re the one who told all us new associates in your welcome remarks that the client always comes first. It’s been lovely chatting with you, sir.”

She rose to her feet, glad for the extra several inches of height the uncomfortable high heels gave her as she smiled down at Whitney.

He gaped at her in open shock. Good. If she wasn’t going to last a year anyway, she might as well go out with a bang and teach these assholes women didn’t have to stand for being treated like mindless sex objects around here.

Also, the very first lesson she’d learned in her very first negotiation class in law school was, if she wanted to be the person in a position of power in a meeting, be the one to end it and walk out.

“You should wear that blouse to your next meeting with Cam Townsend,” Whitney said pleasantly. “It’s quite fetching.”

“Why, thank you. I’ve recently been informed that I was, in fact, hired for my tits and ass. Might as well make the most of my assets, don’t you think?” She snapped her fingers as if something important had just occurred to her. “That reminds me. I need research on who I file sexual harassment complaints with at the New York Bar Association.”

Leon’s stare gave away nothing. The old turd was too experienced to give her an easy read on whether to not he was last night’s raspy voice. She spun on her heel, being sure to twitch her WMP Select ass on the way out the door.

She made it all the way to the elevator before the shaking set in.

Holy crap. She’d just threatened the senior partner of her law firm. A man who could undoubtedly get her black-balled with every law firm on the east coast if he felt like it. Good thing she’d always had a secret hankering to be a public defender in a small town slightly east of Timbuktu. Crap, crap, crap. What was she thinking ?

Of course the answer to that was a no-brainer. She hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d been ticked off and had let it get the best of her. A gauntlet had been thrown down last night and she was too much of a brawler at heart not to pick the damned thing up.

She’d tried her whole life to be a good girl, but the truth was, deep down in her heart, she wasn’t one.

Well, in the few hours or days she had left around here before Whitney fired her, it would be interesting to see if the raspy-voiced snake in the grass gave himself away.

Of course, there was one person who could identify the snake in two seconds flat if he chose to. But no way would Cam Townsend give away the speaker to her. He was already climbing up WMP’s ass and about to be the firm’s next golden boy superstar.

But maybe she could trick Cam into revealing the identity of Raspy Voice. It was worth a try.