The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel

he said matter-of-factly. “I just meant that you should give yourself more credit.”
    I glared at him, still defensive, even though on some level I knew he was trying to pay me a compliment. It didn’t feel like it, though. He didn’t know what he was talking about.
    “Thanks for your input,” I said drily. “But that doesn’t carry much weight when you’re just here out of pity for me. Or as a favor to Emmie because her friend can’t get a date to her firm dinner on her own.”
    The second the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Even I knew that one of the cardinal rules of dating—not that this dinner with Matt was a
real
date, but still—was never to tell the person you were going out with what an abysmal failure you were with the opposite sex. And I had just broadcast it loud and clear.
    “Harper,” Matt said slowly, looking at me strangely. “I’m not here as a favor. I’m here because I want to be here. See, you’re doing it again. Putting yourself down.”
    What was he, a psychiatrist? Well I wasn’t interested in any dime-store amateur psychoanalysis tonight, thank you very much.
    “Okay, whatever,” I said quickly, because I didn’t want to be having this conversation anymore. I took a long sip of my drink, draining the glass. I suddenly felt a little light-headed. “Are you ready to go?”
    Still peering at me strangely, Matt nodded and took a long sip from his own drink, finishing it off. In silence, he took my glass from me and carried them both into the kitchen, where I could hear him rinsing them in the sink and setting them on the counter. He returned a second later. As we stepped into the hallway and I locked the door behind us, Matt put a hand on my arm. I turned to look up at him
    “I really do want to be here, Harper,” he said softly, looking at me with such intensity that my heart started doing that crazy pitter-patter thing again. I forced myself to look away. Those green eyes were deadly.
    “Okay, thanks,” I said brusquely, studying the floor. Whatever. He was an actor. I didn’t believe a word he said.
    Besides, wouldn’t he have asked me out long before now if he wanted to date me instead of waiting for Emmie to practically beg him to go out with me?
    Of course he would have.
    I rest my case.
    I HATED FIRM dinners. Really, I did.
    But there was virtually no way out of them. Partners were required to go. I would have had to fake a death in the family or something if I couldn’t come up with a date. And believe me, I had done so in the past. More than once.
    Booth, Fitzpatrick held these firm dinners four times a year, once a quarter. I firmly believed that they were simply institutionalized forms of torture.
    For example, the dinners were always on weeknights. Did it make any sense for one of the most prestigious firms in the city to hold dinners on nights when all the associates and most of the partners should presumably be staying up late, holed up in the office, reading legal briefs? No. It just meant that everything was thrown into disarray for the week for everyone but the senior partners, who didn’t do a lot of hard work anymore and wouldn’t be caught dead in the office after 6 pm anyhow. Clearly they had forgotten what it was like to be lower down on the totem pole.
    Another reason that I strongly believed this was just some cruel form of torture was that I didn’t really care for most of the people I worked with. It’s not that I
disliked
my co-workers. But with a few exceptions, the people around me were really competitive. I wasn’t. Okay, that might sound nuts, because obviously I had a little bit of a competitive streak in me, too. But really, the only competition I’ve ever felt is an internal one. I competed with
myself
to get good grades and ace the LSATs
.
I pushed
myself
to get a great job and succeed at it
.
I was happy for my co-workers when they got promoted, not jealous of them. And when I’d made partner, it hadn’t been at anyone