I was home by noon the next day.
My apartment was exactly how I'd left it. Coffee maker on the counter, case files stacked on the dining table.
I dropped my bag, made coffee, and sat down at my desk.
This was my actual life.
I had a caseload. Three active files that needed attention, two client calls I'd pushed back twice already, and a boundary dispute in the valley that was heading toward arbitration whether I was ready for it or not.
I had a neighborhood where nobody watched me from checkpoints and a street outside my window where nothing moved in the tree line because there was no tree line.
I was relieved to be back. On the second day I had a video call with Janine to go through the Mercer file, which had been sitting in a holding pattern while I was in Graymoor.
"Okay, so the survey correction came back," Janine said, squinting at something off-screen. "The northern boundary marker is off by about three meters, which the client is going to lose their mind about."
"They shouldn't. Three meters doesn't affect the access easement."
"I know that. You know that. Gerald Mercer does not know that and will require forty-five minutes on the phone to be convinced of it."
"Schedule it for Thursday. I'll handle Gerald."
"You're a saint." Janine propped her chin on her hand. "So how was the Graymoor thing?"
"Complicated. Still ongoing."
"Mmm." She had a look. I knew that look. "And the pack Alpha? I searched him online. He's hot. Did you know that he had a half brother?"
"Janine."
"I'm just asking. What's he like in person?" She grinned. "Well, if you're not into alphas, my date on Saturday said he has a friend, an architect, and very human."
"I don't have time for that right now."
"Elise, you need a life."
"I have a life. I have the Mercer file and the Donovan easement and the arbitration prep for the Lyle case."
"That's not a life, that's a to-do list." She picked up her coffee. "Just one dinner. The architect seems normal. And he's actually cute."
"Send me the corrected survey and I'll look at it tonight," I said, and she scoffed, which was the best outcome available with Janine.
I was halfway through the Donovan file that evening when something landed on my kitchen counter.
I looked up.
Biscuit looked back at me.
He was a large, deeply self-possessed orange tabby who belonged to my neighbor Mrs. Okafor in 4B, and he had been finding his way through my kitchen window with increasing regularity over the past three months.
I'd started leaving it cracked by accident, and then he'd come in anyway, and somewhere along the way it had become a pattern.
"How did you even get up here?" I said. "We're on the fourth floor."
He stepped off the counter and walked over to my chair and sat down next to my foot like he lived there, which he did not.
I worked for another hour with him pressed against my ankle and then picked him up and carried him down the hall to 4B.
Mrs. Okafor opened the door and looked at Biscuit, then at me. She was not even slightly surprised anymore. "Again?"
"Kitchen window."
"I don't know how he does it." She took him, and he went without complaint, the traitor. "Thank you, sweetheart. I keep meaning to get that window looked at."
"It's fine," I said, which was true. "He's good company."
She smiled at me, and I went back to the Donovan file.
A week of that. Work, Biscuit appearing and being returned, and Janine calling about the architect every other day, the Graymoor folder sitting on the corner of my desk where I kept not-quite-looking at it.
On Monday the following week, I was in the middle of reviewing a survey correction when Janine knocked on my open office door.
I looked up, and something about her was different. She was grinning.
"There's someone here for you," she said.
Rhys Gray walked in and stopped in my office doorway in a white shirt and dark jeans, holding a coffee cup from the café across the street, looking completely comfortable in a place he had absolutely no reason to be.
He looked good. I mean, he always looked good; that wasn't new information, but somehow the white shirt and the daylight and the fact that he was standing in my actual office made it harder to ignore. Broader across the chest than I remembered. Taller, too, though I knew that wasn't actually possible.
I reminded myself, firmly, that this was just lycan biology and I'd handled that observation the first time I met him and it didn't need revisiting.
"Alpha…Rhys," I said.
"Ms. Winters," the corner of his mouth curved into a smirk.
Behind him, Janine was still in the doorway and showing no signs of leaving. "Can I get you anything?" she said to Rhys. "Coffee, water—we have tea, I think, somewhere; I could check—"
"He has coffee," I said and had to roll my eyes. "Right there, Janine. In his hand."
"Right, yes, he does." She giggled. Gosh, she actually giggled. "I'm Janine, by the way. I work just down the hall."
"Rhys," he said, and smiled at her, and I watched Janine visibly reorganize her entire afternoon around that smile. "And you've already told me your name."
"Geez! Yes, of course!" she said and giggled again.
"Janine," I said because she could hurt herself. "Thank you."
She took her time leaving. I waited until her footsteps faded down the corridor and then looked at Rhys.
"She was recently divorced," I said. "Just so you know. All you'd ever be to her is a rebound."
He looked genuinely offended. "I'm overqualified to be anyone's rebound."
"Mm. Sure."
He didn't take the bait, just leaned back a little, thinking it over like it was a real consideration. "I like her voice," he said after a second. "There's something… calming about it."
"Giggles," I said.
"What?"
"She was giggling. That's what you heard. And it's not calming. You don't have to pretend."
He watched me for a moment, then nodded once. "Alright. She giggles. Well," he said, like he was adjusting his conclusion, "she seems nice."
"Well, yeah. She is nice."
He glanced around my office, taking it in, and then looked back at me. "Nice blazer."
I looked down at it. Charcoal, well-cut, one of my better ones. "Thank you. You don't look bad yourself for someone in just a shirt and jeans," I said before I thought about it and then kept moving because dwelling on it wasn't going to help anyone. "But I'm fairly sure you didn't drive two hours to compare outfits."
He held up the coffee cup. "I was in the area."
I stared at him.
"The drive isn't bad," he said.
"It's two hours."
"Roads were clear."
He continued to slowly walk around my office, taking in the details. Bookcases, case files in color-coded folders, and the city map on the wall with marked parcels. I had a normal property lawyer's office. Nothing surprising.
He stopped at my desk.
On the corner, in a simple silver frame, was the photo I'd had there for three years. My parents, standing outside the house I grew up in, my mother laughing at something off-camera, my father's arm around her shoulder.
Rhys looked at it, not just a glance. No, it was not the polite half-second you gave someone's personal photos. He actually looked at it, and something shifted in his face.
He looked like he recognized something in that photo.
I was certain of it.