HOW TO TEMPT A CROOK

Chapter 1

~ Five Months Later ~

Kelly tapped her feet impatiently as she sat at the reception of Chambers & Quinn LLP. Calm down, she tried to soothe herself mentally, but it wasn't enough to calm the apprehension pulsing through her. In the last few months, she'd been to so many of these things that one would've thought that she'd be used to them by now. But she wasn't. The thought of sitting before a panel of interviewers and telling them why she was the best candidate still scared the living daylights out of her.

Many of the other interviewees seated around the lounge looked just as nervous as she did. They wrung their hands, cracked their knuckles, tapped their feet and snuck glances at each other to evaluate how competent the competition was.

The door to the interview room suddenly opened and everyone's gaze swung to it. A second later, a pair of male interviewees came out.

"What was it like?" someone whispered to them.

"It was okay." One interviewee shrugged confidently, but the troubled look in his eyes said that the interview hadn't gone quite as well as he was pretending.

Fresh nervousness spurted through Kelly. However, it was nothing compared to the terror that wrung her nerves when a woman walked out of the interview room and announced, "Brian Walsh, Kelly Garner, the interviewers are waiting for you."

On weak limbs, Kelly stood as did her co-interviewee, Brian. Brian gave her a slow once-over as if evaluating her value as an opponent then smirked before leading the way into the interview room. Obviously, he didn't think she was any kind of competition.

And he was probably right.

The moment Kelly entered the interview room, she came to a shocked standstill. The room was just as big, cold and intimidating as she'd imagined, but that wasn't what brought her to a screeching halt. All her attention was on the interviewers – no, on one interviewer; the beautiful, slender redhead seated at the far right end of the three-person interview panel.

Angelina Ward.

The last time Kelly had seen the woman, she'd still been behind bars and Angelina had come to give her the good news about her release. After that, the only contact they'd had was over the phone.

Frankly, Kelly wasn't surprised that Angelina had cut off contact. The woman was probably still reeling from the guilt of having lost the trial that had sent Kelly to jail. Not that Angelina had anything to feel guilty about. Though she'd tried her best, the results had been rigged from the start, which was why Kelly hadn't contacted the woman either. She knew that she was a painful reminder to Angelina about her failure. It was only right that she allow the woman to forget her. If she'd known that Angelina now worked at Chambers & Quinn, she never would've come for this interview.

A sudden thought struck Kelly. Chambers & Quinn had called her out of the blue for this interview. Was it Angelina's doing? Was this her way of making up for the past?

Angelina's head rose at the entrance of interviewees. When her eyes settled on Kelly, they widened in obvious surprise. Her surprise was answer enough; she had nothing to do with the call to Kelly.

"Please take a seat." One of the male interviewers gestured for Kelly and Brian to take the two seats directly across the interviews. "I'm Mark Cousins. I head the Civil Litigation Division in Chambers & Quinn." He gestured towards the blond male interviewer beside him. "This is Roland Watson, Family Division." He pointed to Angelina. "And this is Angelina Ward. She heads Criminal Justice. Why don't you tell us about yourselves?"

"Hello," Brian immediately jumped in. "I'm Brian Walsh. I graduated from..." and on he went.

Kelly only half-listened to Brian's answers. She was too busy formulating her own answers. Maybe this interview would be different from the others. Maybe this time she'd actually get to answer one or two questions before someone recognized her and derailed the whole interview.