Page 43 of Dial L for Lawyer
Bennett sips his scotch. "Work or Serena? I'm guessing Serena because I've never seen you this distracted by work."
I give him the finger, but he's not wrong. I've been reading our text exchange so many times the words are burned into my retinas. My pulse hasn't been normal since she said yes. Every time I think about tonight, my chest gets tight and my hands start doing this ridiculous trembling thing I haven't experienced since taking the bar.
I make a noise halfway between a groan and a laugh. "She said yes," I admit.
Bennett raises an eyebrow. Even Logan looks up, his precise attention flickering for half a second from the code.
"To what?" Bennett asks.
"Another shot. Dinner. Tonight." The words stick in my throat, half choked by the gravity of it all. "She said she regrets not showing up that night. And she wants to try again."
"Fuck," Bennett says, almost reverently. "Forcing her to spend time with you paid off sooner than expected."
"I know." I release a slight laugh, my hand doing that twitchy tap-the-table thing. "I mean, I knew it'd happen. But I was expecting it'd take a few more dinners and maybe a little more tactical positioning."
"Classic overachiever," Bennett says, grinning. "You could have just held a boombox outside her window, Cusack-style."
I glare at him. "That movie isn't even about a lawyer."
He shrugs. "The principle stands."
"What plan are we even talking about?" Logan asks distractedly.
"The plan where this guy waived his fee for a deeply discounted rate of Quality Time," Bennett explains. "Don't you ever listen?"
Logan shrugs. "I do. But I don't play games like you two. Besides, I’m pretty sure making her date you for legal help is coercion. And can I please get confirmation on whether I'm allowed to backdoor the network from an overseas server or not?"
"It’s not coercion when it’s a choice. And you have my blessing to backdoor anything you like," I say, waving him off. "Just don't make it obvious enough to give Luminous a heads up. I'm betting one of their own people planted the log evidence."
Logan nods, hands already spidering over his keyboard like a concert pianist. "You want the password trail or the badge clone first?"
I consider. "Password. If they're running single sign-on, that's the fastest way to torpedo their entire theory."
He hums, pleased, and plunges back into the code. Bennett is just grinning at me over the rim of his glass.
"I'll say it one more time: don't fuck this up," Bennett says, and of course, he means Serena, not the case.
"I'm trying to avoid that," I say, but it comes out so dry that Bennett snorts and coughs into his scotch. "In fact, I'm going to get ahead of it tonight, if it kills me."
The door bursts open with enough force to rattle the glass walls.
"What the actual fuck?" Dominic stands in the doorway like an avenging angel in Tom Ford, hand clutched to his chest. "A secret meeting? Without me? In Bennett's office?" He staggers forward dramatically. "I'm wounded. Devastated. Our sacred brotherhood, shattered. I may never recover."
"It's not a secret meeting," I say.
"Then why wasn't I invited?" He stalks in, eyeing the scotch. "Logan's here. Logan doesn't even drink scotch."
"I drink scotch," Logan protests.
"You drink craft beer and shame," Dominic corrects, helping himself to Bennett's decanter. "So what are we discussing that's so important you'd exclude your most charming friend?"
"Caleb finally got Serena to agree to a do-over of their date," Bennett says, and I could murder him for the gleeful tone.
Dominic freezes mid-pour. "No fucking way. She actually responded to the hostage situation you call a payment plan?"
"It's not a hostage?—"
"It absolutely is," Logan interrupts without looking up. "You literally held her legal representation ransom for dates. That's textbook coercion."
