Trouble in High Heels

Author: Christina Dodd
Published: August 1, 2006 (Signet)
Category: Romantic Suspense
Rating: 6/10

Brandi Michaels is a lawyer. A bodacious one. ::makes the hourglass hand motions:: But she wants to be recognized for her legal talents, not for the way she looks in a dress. In fact, she dresses as conservatively as possible for work, to the extent of wearing boobie-mashing bras.

To understand Brandi, you have to look at her childhood. She had a disgusting, arrogant ass of a father, who ditched her mom, Tiffany for his cliche of a secretary. Brandi's lawyer father is known for his frequent wife upgrades. He also thought Brandi was a useless child, taking ballet and gymnastics classes. Brandi vowed that she would make her father proud of her, and decided to become a lawyer so he would take her seriously.

Fast forward to the future, and Brandi has just moved to Chicago to join her doctor fiance. After he fails to make an appearance at her new home, she finally hears from him. Apparently, he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and they'd just gotten hitched in Vegas. The ex-fiance claimed that it was all Brandi's fault for finishing her law degree in Tennessee rather than moving to Chicago to be with him when he moved.

To get back at him, Brandi pawns her engagement ring and plans to glam herself up, take advantage of her looks to snag a guy for one night of reckless passion. She finds that one night of passion in Roberto Bartolini, an Italian count who's also being accused of jewel theft. It also turns out that Brandi's new job is representing Roberto in this case. Oops. Now Brandi thinks she has to recuse herself from the case and ruin her legal career before it began. To top it off, Roberto insults a judge and he assigns the defendant to the 24-hour custody of his lawyer - Brandi. Now Brandi's coworkers at the law firm take her even less seriously.

She finds out that the leader of a Chicago jewel thief league wants Roberto to steal some gigantic diamond. He tells her he will never steal again, but she doesn't believe him. So we go into that "I don't trust you" game. Of course, she's wrong in her assumptions and creates a lot more trouble as a result of that mistake.

There was too much of the "I want to be taken seriously thing," and I don't enjoy the idea of doing things to please a father or ex-fiance, neither of whom would appreciate anything you did anyways. There wasn't enough time spent on building the relationship, unless you call Brandi's being annoyed at her client relationship-building.