Two weeks post-Aspen and Claire's been operating in professional ice queen mode that would make glaciers feel inadequate. Cordial emails with perfect grammar, meetings where she addresses me as "Mr. Fenris" in a tone that could freeze helium, zero personal conversation beyond what's strictly necessary to prevent the firm from imploding.
It's exactly what I asked for, and I hate every second of it.
Tonight we're trapped in my office at midnight because quarterly projections wait for no man's emotional crisis. She's across the desk in her power suit that's been slowly wilting over the past six hours, hair escaping its professional twist, makeup long gone except for lipstick that's somehow stayed perfect through coffee and stress.
"The Henderson account numbers don't match the Morgan projections." She's highlighting something with aggressive efficiency. "Someone's math is wrong and I need to know whose head to remove."
"Probably Henderson's team. They've been sloppy since their lead analyst quit."
"Noted. I'll destroy them tomorrow," she makes a note with the kind of savage satisfaction that shouldn't be attractive but absolutely is.
We work in charged silence broken only by keyboard clicks and occasional sighs. Around 11:45 PM she stands to leave, gathering materials with the precise movements of someone who's counted down to this moment.
"I'll have the revised projections for you by nine," he voice is professional and distant. Perfectly Claire.
She reaches for her laptop bag and trips over the cord.
I catch her automatically—muscle memory from months of working together, hands on her waist, steadying her before conscious thought engages. For one heartbeat we're frozen. Her body pressed against mine, faces inches apart, the old familiar pull singing between us with enough force to make my chest hurt.
"Lysander—" Her voice is barely a whisper.
I kiss her. Don't plan to, don't think about it, don't consider consequences or Caroline or the spectacular disaster I'm actively creating. Just close the distance and crash into her like coming home after years of being lost.
She gasps against my mouth before melting into me, hands fisting in my shirt hard enough to wrinkle the fabric. It's desperate and perfect and completely wrong all at once. All our history compressed into contact—every late night, every moment of comfort, every time she was there when I needed someone and didn't know how to ask.
Her taste is familiar. Coffee and mint and something uniquely her that my body recognizes on a cellular level. When we break apart, both breathing hard, her eyes are devastated.
She pushes against my chest but doesn't step away. "You can't kiss me like I matter and then go back to her. You can't keep doing this to me."
"I'm not—Caroline and I aren't—" The lie dies on my tongue because we both know it's bullshit.
"Stop lying," tears spill over and she wipes them with angry efficiency. "I saw the Instagram post where her friend tagged you both at that restaurant last week. Saw you holding her hand, saw the way you look at her like she hung the fucking moon."
Fuck. I'd forgotten Caroline's friend was there, forgotten about social media documentation of my life, forgotten about consequences beyond the moment I was living.
"Claire, I care about you—"
"But you care about her more," she finally steps back, putting physical distance between us. "It's fine. Well, I had my little breakdown about it three weeks ago, actually. Cried in my car for forty-five minutes like a pathetic rom-com character, but I thought maybe—"
She laughs and it sounds like breaking glass.
"—you'd see what was right in front of you before it was too late. That you'd realize I've been here the whole time and I know what cases stress you out and when you need space versus when you need someone to force you to talk," her voice climbs. "But you don't want someone who knows you, do you? You want someone who makes you feel things, and I'm too steady for that, too boring—"
"You're not boring—"
"I'm not exciting enough," she grabs her bag with shaking hands. "Caroline makes you feel alive. I am comfortable, but it’s not what usually wins."
"That's not true—"
"Why did you kiss me?" The question detonates between us. "Why do you do that when you're with her? You keep doing this—giving me hope, pulling me close, then choosing her anyway!"
I don't have an answer. Or I have too many answers that all contradict each other in ways that make me sound like the exact asshole she's describing.
"I don't know," I admit finally. "I don't know what I'm doing and how to choose, I just—"
"You want everything," she's backing toward the door. "My stability and her excitement. You want to keep all your options open."
"Claire—"
"No, you don't see me, Lysander. You see a safety net, someone who'll catch you when Caroline inevitably breaks your heart."
"That's not—"
"It is though," she turns now, meets my eyes directly. "And here's what kills me—I would've caught you, would've been there when it all fell apart, would've helped you pick up the pieces." Her voice breaks. "But I won't be your consolation prize anymore."
The door closes with finality that echoes in my empty office. The quarterly projections stare at me from my laptop screen. Numbers that need review, decisions that need making, a business that requires my attention.
But all I can think about is Claire's devastated expression and the way Caroline looked at me in Aspen when she said she was falling in love.
My phone rings. It’s Magnus; apparently the universe has decided I don't deserve peace at 12:30 AM.
"We need to talk about Montgomery," his voice is grim. "Tomorrow, in Seattle and in person."
"What happened?"
"Just get here," he hangs up.
I sit in my office, lips still tingling from kissing Claire, and my father summoning me to Seattle for what's definitely not good news about the partnership I signed because I couldn't resist a blonde who makes me stupid.
The quarterly projections mock me from the screen. Numbers don't lie, don't complicate things, don't make you choose between stability and fire.
Maybe I should've become an accountant instead of a lawyer. At least then the only thing that would destroy me would be tax season.