Blame It on the Bikini - By Natalie Anderson Page 0,20

to go to a twenty-four-hour café with wireless access and try to do it from there. Downloading fifteen cases? Oh, she was screwed.

She’d hardly started the first paragraph when Drew came out and caught her hunched over at a corner table.

‘You can’t sit there studying. This is a bar, not a library,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s not the right look.’

It was the last thing she needed—her control-freak, this-place-must-maintain-its-cool-image boss coming down on her.

‘It’s my break—surely I can read?’ She looked up at him. Didn’t he get how desperate she was?

‘Not there, you can’t,’ Drew informed her coolly.

To her horror, tears were a mere blink away. She shut her laptop and stood. Swatting up screeds of legalese in the dark alley outside didn’t inspire her but if that was what she had to do, she’d do it. It was going to be an all nighter anyway. Followed by the brunch shift at the café tomorrow. How could she have screwed everything up—again?

She walked out past the queue forming at the door and into the night, desperate despite the fact she’d only have a few minutes at most before Drew hunted her out. While the summer sun’s heat still warmed the air, it was now dark. Hooray for the safety torch on her keychain; she’d be able to read the fine-print text on the step at the back entrance of the bar.

‘Big essay?’ Brad had followed her, gazing at the ancient computer in her hand.

She nodded glumly, her stomach knotting again. ‘Due tomorrow and I’ve not done it and I don’t have half the case law I need,’ she confessed.

‘Tomorrow?’

She winced. Did he have to hammer home her incompetence? ‘I need to read up.’ In other words, she needed him to go back inside and keep chatting to those women.

‘How long’s your break?’

‘Twenty minutes.’

‘You can’t possibly concentrate here.’ He frowned at the giant recycling bin into which they threw all the empty bottles. Yeah, the sound of smashing glass was regular and went well with that thudding bass beat coming through the brick walls of the converted warehouse.

‘I can concentrate anywhere.’ If she had the info she needed.

‘And do an assignment in twenty minutes? You might be brilliant, Mya, but you’re not a magician.’ He frowned. ‘How come you don’t have the case law?’

‘I did an extra shift at the café today,’ she said. ‘I forgot about the assignment.’

‘You have too much on.’

‘Yes, so I need to work now,’ she said pointedly. But he didn’t take the hint. Instead he cocked his head and came over all thoughtful.

‘I’ve got access to all the legal databases. Including the subscription ones at my place,’ he said.

The ones that cost money to print each article from? The ones that held the case law she hadn’t been able to download because she’d done the extra shift at the café? The ones she couldn’t get to because the libraries were closed at this time of night?

He pondered another moment. ‘Skip your break and ask Jonny to cover the last of your shift. You know he’ll do it. He owes you for setting up alone tonight. Come home with me. You can print off all you need and work all night.’ He stepped closer, pressing the best point, decisive. ‘I’ll help you.’

She folded her arms, using her laptop as body armour, mainly to hide the way her thundering heart was threatening to beat its way right out of her chest. ‘This isn’t a family law assignment.’ She tried to play it cool and not collapse in a heap of gratitude at his feet. Or a heap of lustful wishes.

‘I covered commercial in my degree too, you know. You’re not the only one with dibs on brilliance. I got straight As.’

Of course he did; he was that perfect. And she wasn’t. She no longer had the brilliant label at law school. She shook her head. ‘I can’t cheat.’

‘You’re not going to,’ he growled. Stepping close, he put his hands on her shoulders. ‘I’m not going to write the assignment for you,’ he said firmly, as if she were a kid who had to have the simplest thing explained to her twenty different ways. ‘Consider me your law librarian.’

Mya just stared. Feeling the warmth from his firm hands, and seeing his fit frame up close, she felt as if he were like an ad for all-male capability and virility. He was also the least likely librarian she could ever imagine.

He laughed and stepped closer. ‘I used to work in the law