The problem was that she'd excused herself from a high-profile case for reasons she couldn't explain, and Rachel had accepted her recusal with the kind of professional courtesy that made it clear there would be questions later. The problem was that Valerie Shepry-Dane had looked at her across the conference table and seen exactly what Miller had tried to hide. The problem was that legal communities were small, and Phoenix Ridge's was smaller, and if anyone found out that Miller Scott was spending her evenings in hotel rooms with the woman she’d been hired to fight against in divorce court?—
She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t have to.
Her phone buzzed, a text from an unknown number that she recognized anyway because she’d memorized it without saving it to her contacts. Plausible deniability, Astoria had called it. As if anything about this was deniable anymore.
She read the text.“Saturday? Same time?”
It was only three words, but Miller’s body responded to them—a flush of heat, a tightening low in her stomach, the immediate mental calculation of how many hours until Saturday evening.
She typed back,“Yes.”
Then she sat there, phone in hand, and thought about what the room would cost. The hotel last night had been even nicer than the one before, which had been nicer than The Meridian where they’d started. Astoria cycled through them like she was selecting restaurants: never the same place twice, always somewhere with good security and staff trained to forget faces. Miller didn't know the exact price of a room at last night's hotel, but she could guess. Three hundred a night, maybe more. Half her weekly take-home for a few hours of privacy.
Astoria never mentioned the cost or hesitated when she handed over her card. It was nothing to her, a simple rounding error, and Miller didn’t resent that. Astoria had earned her money and built something real, but it sat strangely sometimes. The gap between their worlds was made visible in the thread count of sheets and the weight of hotel bathrobes.
“Miller.”
She looked up. Rachel stood in the doorway of her office, her reading glasses pushed up in her hair and a file folder in her hand.
“Got a minute?”
“Of course.” Miller set the phone face-down on the desk.
Rachel stepped in but didn’t sit, which meant it’d be brief. “Just a heads-up on the Shepry case. Settlement talks brokedown last week when Valerie rejected the latest offer. She’s pushing for an accelerated trial date now and wants this resolved before the end of summer.”
Miller kept her expression neutral. “She rejected it? I thought she wanted a quick settlement.”
“Apparently the terms weren't favorable enough. She's convinced she'll do better in front of a judge.” Rachel shook her head slightly. “Between you and me, I'm not sure she's right. Astoria's documentation is...thorough.”
Miller’s chest tightened at the name, but she kept her voice even. “Astoria was always organized. I remember the discovery files.”
“Obsessively so. Every receipt, every email, every calendar entry going back fifteen years.” Rachel paused, something flickering across her face. “Valerie says it's evidence of controlling behavior. But honestly? It reads more like someone who knew she'd need to defend herself someday.”
The words landed somewhere uncomfortable. Miller thought about Astoria's meticulous planning, the way she rotated hotels, the burner-style texting. At the time, Miller had assumed it was paranoia or maybe just the habits of someone used to being watched. But what if it was something else? What if it was the learned behavior of someone who'd spent years being blamed for things she hadn't done?
“She’s cold,”Valerie had said in their first meeting.“Incapable of real emotion. She made me feel like I was crazy for wanting affection.”
Miller had believed her. She’d sat in that conference room and looked at Valerie’s practiced composure and had seen a woman who’d been frozen out of her own marriage.
But the woman Miller had been with last night wasn’t cold. The woman who’d laughed against her shoulder, who’d traced idle patterns on her skin, who’d whisperedfive more minuteslike leaving was physically painful—that woman was anything but cold.
“Miller?”
She blinked. Rachel was watching her with that measured look again, the one that saw too much.
“Sorry, just thinking.”
“Right.” Rachel didn’t look convinced. “Anyway, I know you’re off the case, but you did the initial workup. If I have questions about the early documentation…?”
“I’m happy to help with anything that doesn’t create a conflict.”
Rachel studied her for a moment. “How are you doing with all of it?”
“Fine. I’m busy with the Stewart custody evaluation.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Miller made herself hold Rachel’s gaze. “I’m fine, Rachel. Really.” The lie tasted like copper in her mouth.
