She was good. Too good, if I’m being honest.

Sharp. Measured. Didn’t overplay her hand, didn’t let the judge rattle her, and managed to gut my closing like she’d been doing this for twenty years instead of seven. No theatrics either — just facts, precision, and that cool kind of confidence you can’t teach.

I knew halfway through her rebuttal I’d lost it.

Didn’t even feel bitter. Just… annoyed. At myself. For underestimating her.

I was packing my things when she passed by the bench, papers tucked neatly under her arm, and offered the smallest nod. Professional. Controlled. The ghost of a smile just beneath it.

That was hours ago.

Now I’m here, at the bar in the hotel where both sets of solicitors dumped us for dinner plans and late trains. Glass of whisky in hand, collar loosened, tie somewhere in my pocket. And I feel her presence before I see her — the low click of her heels, the shift in the bartender’s posture when she approaches.

She slides onto the stool beside mine like she’s done it a hundred times. Doesn’t look at me straight away. Orders a gin and tonic. Something botanical, crisp. Then finally turns, brows slightly raised.

“You recover yet?” she asks, voice lighter than it was in court.

I snort. “You make a habit of kicking senior counsel in the teeth before dinner?”

She smiles — slow and real this time. “Only the arrogant ones.”

I raise my glass. “Fair.”

Silence for a beat. Not awkward. Just charged, somehow. The buzz of tired conversation fills the space around us. Cutlery clinking on plates, a jazz piano playing something slow and smug in the corner. She crosses one leg over the other, and I try very hard not to notice the way her skirt slips higher when she does.

“You were exceptional,” I say after a moment. “You know that, don’t you?”

She tilts her head. “That your way of making peace with losing?”

“Something like that.”

She sips her drink. Watches me over the rim of the glass, eyes sharp but not unfriendly.

“I used to read your cases in uni,” she says. “Your cross in the Wexler trial — I highlighted half of it in yellow. Thought, ‘if I can pull that off one day, maybe I’ll actually be good at this.’”

That catches me off-guard more than it should. I laugh, low and surprised. “Christ. That makes me feel about ninety.”

“Sorry,” she says, not sorry at all.

And then, quieter: “But I meant it.”

It shifts the air between us. Something real settling underneath the banter. I study her face — steady eyes, confident mouth, that slight smirk she probably wears even when she’s dreaming.

There’s an edge to this. To her. To me. I can feel it.

Not inappropriate. Not yet. Just… possibility. Flickering.

She looks down at her drink, tracing the rim with one finger. “You staying long?”

“Just the night. Back in court Monday.”

She nods. “Same.”

Another pause.

Then — bold as anything — she says, without looking up: “Would it be very unethical to buy the man I just humiliated a second drink?”

I glance at her. Smiling now, mouth tilted like she knows exactly what she’s doing.

“Probably,” I say, finishing the last of my whisky. “But I’ve bent worse rules for less interesting company.”

She laughs, soft and clean.

And I know this is a bad idea.

But I also know I’m not walking away.

Not yet.