Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) by Elizabeth Ruston Read Free Book Online Page A

she ended up working for the same firm once she graduated.  Because she had
a quick, smart mouth, and a quick, smart brain to back it up.
    That was where the Number Seven and Number Eight came in:  at their
final national competition, in the fall of their third year, Sarah and Joe
competed on opposite sides of the same case.  And while neither of their teams
won, Sarah and Joe had been awarded individual honors for their own performances. 
Sarah won spot number seven, Joe the slot behind her.
    She never once rubbed that in when they were still dating.  In fact,
Joe liked to tease her about it in a way that made her think he was actually
proud of her.
    But they weren’t dating the morning they competed in that small, chilly
town in southern Illinois—not yet, anyway.  Their relationship didn’t begin for
a few more hours.
    And it lasted only a month and a half after that.
    Too short, Sarah mourned at the time.
    But once she understood what kind of man he really was, she realized
she had gotten in too deep, too fast, and for far too long.  She should have
kept things the way they were in the beginning, with just some harmless
flirting and a curiosity about what he might really be like if she got to know
him.
    Well, she got to know him, all right.
    Sarah let Chapman drone on in his regular way.  She didn’t bother
objecting as he fleshed out the plaintiff’s entire childhood scholastic career
from grade school on.  She didn’t complain when Chapman asked follow-up
questions about the woman’s waitressing jobs twenty years ago, or about when
she and her husband divorced, or about what college her son now attended.
    Instead, Sarah wrote sarcastic notes to herself throughout the entire
testimony.
    That’s a great question—I’m stealing that.  Oh, did
she really work at Target two years ago?  That’s fascinating, Paul.  I wish I
were as good a lawyer as you are.  I could be a partner and drive a fancy car
and fly first class—oh, wait, you were in the back of the bus last night,
weren’t you?  What happened, Paul?  Are you in purgatory, too?
    Sarah wondered what the story was there—not about Chapman, who cared
about him?—but about Joe.  If he really was being punished by making him be the
road lawyer for this case, what was his standing at his firm?  And what had it
been before he made whatever enemies he did?  What exactly had gone down?
    “Sarah?” Joe asked, checking his watch.  “Do you have a lot of
questions, or should we keep going without a break?  I know we all have to
drive back to the airport—”
    “I’ll be fast,” Sarah said, holding back the sigh that almost
accompanied the statement.  It was only day two, and already she was bored out
of her mind with the actual work.  The idea of making life hard for Burke had
added some fun to it at the beginning, but Sarah was already realizing that
what he said at lunch was right:  five months of this was going to be brutal.
    Maybe Burke was right—they were too old.  Even though she still had a
few more months before she’d turn thirty.  This past year of hers could have
aged anyone.
    It was one of the reasons she insisted on taking such good care of
herself.  Once she knew how good she could feel with proper food and sleep and exercise,
she wanted to stay that way.  She’d seen colleagues give in to the pressures of
the job and walk around perpetually sleep-deprived, on the brink of some
illness, their eyes always red and raw as they tried to pump themselves up with
yet another cup of coffee.  Or harder stimulants, in some people’s cases.
    Until a year ago, Sarah had been one of those people constantly
fighting off or giving in to a cold.  It didn’t help her image to always be
sniffling into a tissue—she already looked delicate enough.  But ever since her
trainer Angie had pushed her to make the necessary changes, Sarah started
feeling too well to ever give it up.
    “Hello, Ms. Jordan,” she said, introducing