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“I know what you mean,” she says earnestly. “In Aspen, at the firm, I took the cases in front of me and figured out how to win. Now I do the same—but then, winning meant dollar signs. Now it means actually helping people. There’s freedom in that.” She pauses. “The stakes are also higher.”

Taya is not the first woman I’ve had dinner with in an elegant restaurant, but she is the first who has been this compelling—and so much so that I don’t try to elicit a single piece of information that Jessup wants me to get from her.

I drive her home.

The canyon at night is a different place entirely—dark in a complete, non-negotiable way, and the road cuts through it as if it were permitted to exist there rather than imposed.

She looks out at the dark like it belongs to her.

I pull into the gravel drive of her cottage and cut the engine.

The truck settles.

The tick of cooling metal.

The sounds of leaves rustling in the night air.

She meets my gaze without uncertainty. There’s a directness to her that leaves no room for guessing.

“That was lovely,” she murmurs.

“It was,” I agree.

Then, I reach for her.

She doesn’t move away.

My hand settles at her jaw.

She leans in—just enough, the same small deliberate movement she’s made before.

I kiss her.

It’s not like the auction kiss, which had momentum, a crowd, and weeks of slow build behind it.

This one is quiet.

Aching.

Her lips are warm, and she tastes like the Burgundy she drank, and meets me without hesitation, like the decision was made somewhere earlier in the evening, and this is just the confirmation of it.

It’s short.

It still lands the way things land when they’ve been inevitable.

When I pull back, she keeps her eyes closed for half a second, like when she tasted the duck.

Then she opens them.

She lets out a breathless laugh. “Okay.”

I want to take her into her cottage and make love to her.

I want to peel that dress off her body.

I want to feel her curves.

Touch her.