But that man has been changing. Or maybe he was never entirely who I thought he was. His laugh when I beat him at chess—low and surprised and real, like winning against him is the first interesting thing that’s happened to him all day. The way he strokes my hair afterward, slow circles on my scalp that have nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the quiet that comes after. The last kiss before he left last night, pressed to the mark at my throat like a promise he won’t make with words.
Is he different? Or is she?
“I think he’s not the man I first thought he was,” I say. Which is as much as Maya gets. Which is as much as I’m willing to examine in a coffee shop three blocks from the room where my career will be defined or destroyed.
Maya nods. Studies her tea. Then looks up with the clear-eyed steadiness of a woman who has already survived being told she doesn’t belong.
“Then let’s go find out.”
Maya walks ahead to the building. I hang back on the sidewalk and call Lila.
She picks up on the first ring. “I’m already in the lobby. Grayson drove me. He’s pretending to read his phone but he’s actually pacing by the elevators like a caged animal.”
“Lila.” My voice comes out wrong. Thinner than I intend. The composure I’ve been holding together through tea with Maya, through the morning routine, through the scarf and the blocker and the armor—it fractures. Not all the way. Just enough for Lila to hear.
“Talk to me.”
“I’m holding their lives in my hand.” The words are barely above a whisper. I press my back against the building’s stone facade and stare at the sky. “Maya. Every omega at Vaughn Industries who’s been funneled into that Division and told it was for their protection. Every omega in every company watching this case to see if the law will finally say they matter. If I walk in there and he files that motion and I lose—”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But I know you. And I know that whatever happens in that room, you will fight harder and smarter and longer than anyone else would. You always have. That’s not biology. That’s just you.”
My throat tightens. I tip my head back. Breathe.
“Either way,” Lila says, quieter, “you walk in there and you do your job. The case is bigger than him.”
“The case is bigger than him.”
“Now get in here. My husband is wearing a hole in the lobby floor and it’s making the security guard nervous.”
A laugh escapes me. Small, wet, more breath than sound. “I’ll be right up.”
I hang up. Adjust the scarf. Straighten my blazer. Square my shoulders the way my mother taught me—chin up, spine straight, the posture of a woman who has never once let a room see her break.
I walk inside.
***
Same room. Same glass table. Same Whitfield. Maya beside me, hands folded. The paralegal with his laptop. Final session before trial.
Hunter enters.
His face is neutral.
That stops me. Hunter Vaughn is never neutral. Controlled, yes. Composed, always. But neutral implies an absence of position, and this is a man who has an opinion on everything from sentencing reform to the correct way to fold a pocket square. His jaw isn’t tight. His eyes aren’t hard. He’s just… still.
I don’t know what it means. And not knowing makes the base of my spine tighten.
He sits. Opens his briefcase. And instead of the usual meticulous spread—squared files, labeled tabs, the legal arsenal I’ve faced for weeks—he removes a single folder. Manila. Sealed. StampedCONFIDENTIALin red.
He slides it across the glass.
“What is this?” Professional. Giving nothing.
“Evidence relevant to the matter at hand. Voluntarily disclosed.”
