"Tell me you haven't thought about him since the meeting ended."
Emily didn't answer.
"Tell me you didn't walk back to this office in thirty seconds flat because you needed to be behind a closed door before your face did what you couldn't explain to the bullpen."
Emily's hand stilled on the file. She wanted to argue. She wanted to point out that she'd walked at a normal pace, that her face had been perfectly composed, that nothing about the last hour required a closed door.
She let it go. Because Claire had watched her leave, and Claire didn't miss things.
"He reads people," Emily said instead. "Like it's nothing. Like seeing what you're hiding is no different than reading a weather report. He looked at how I was holding my file and told me the case mattered to me." She paused. "Nobody does that. Nobody looks at how I hold things."
"Jake Walsh does."
"Jake Walsh does." She repeated it like she was entering it into evidence. A fact she couldn't dismiss. A piece of data that changed the shape of the case she'd been building against letting anyone in.
"He also rearranged his entire afternoon for you," Claire said. "Not after the meeting. During it. While you were standing right there. He didn't even hesitate."
"I'm aware of the sequence of events."
"Are you aware of what they mean?"
"They mean he's impulsive."
"They mean you're his priority, and he doesn't care who knows it." Claire picked up her coffee. "Emily. That man has been in your orbit for one hour and he's already reorganizing around you. Not next week. Not when it's convenient. Right now, today, in front of your boss."
Emily didn't have a response for that. She had responses for everything. She had arguments prepared for motions she hadn't filed yet, counterpoints to objections that hadn't been raised, closing statements for trials that were months away. She had an answer for every question a courtroom could throw at her.
She didn't have an answer for Jake Walsh.
She looked down at her hands. At the desk beneath them. At ten years of curated choices stacked like case files in a career that had never once asked her to be brave about anything except the law.
"I've spent ten years building this," she said. "A career. A reputation. A version of myself that makes sense. And he looked at me for three seconds and none of it mattered."
"That's not fear, Emily. That's possibility."
"Same thing."
"It really isn't."
They sat with that. Claire didn't push. She didn't need to. The silence did the work, filling in the spaces that words would only complicate.
"So what do you wear to a bar in Clearwater?" Emily said.
Claire blinked. Then everything about her shifted. The patience dissolved into a brightness, knowing and deeply, annoyingly satisfied.
"The blue dress," Claire said. "The one you keep saying is too casual for anything."
"It's not a dress occasion."
"It's exactly a dress occasion. Trust me." Claire stood. Gathered her coffee. "I'm picking you up at seven. We're getting ready at mine first."
"He said eight."
"I know what he said. Seven. My place." Claire opened the door, then turned back. "And Emily? Stop pretending you haven't already decided."
She was gone before Emily could respond.
The office eased into silence. The air conditioning hummed.
