“Can you blame me?” Harcourt says flatly, eyes still on the laptop screen. “Half the women in this agency look like they could break my jaw and I’d probably let them.”

Her tone is dry. Not teasing, not warm — just that trademark deadpan that makes it hard to tell if she’s joking or serious. Probably both.

She doesn’t even pause the video. It keeps playing — soft sounds, muted gasps — until the fourth one makes her jaw tighten. Then she snaps the laptop shut. Not harshly, but enough to make the air shift.

You can still hear the echo of it. You can still see it — the way the woman in the video moved, her mouth, her voice — all of it uncomfortably familiar. Like looking in a mirror you didn’t agree to stand in front of.

Harcourt exhales through her nose, sharp and steady. “Don’t start,” she says before you can speak. “Everyone’s got their distractions. Mine just happen to be… predictable.”

There’s no smirk this time, no trace of that lazy charm she sometimes hides behind. Her face is unreadable, expression carved in stone — except for the flicker of something unguarded when her eyes finally meet yours.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” she adds quietly, like she’s trying to convince herself just as much as you. Then, after a beat: “Besides, I’m not the sentimental type.”

She pushes the laptop aside and takes a long drink from the glass next to her. The sound of the ice shifting in the whiskey is the only thing that fills the silence.

And yet, somehow, the air between you feels heavier — like neither of you fully believes her.