Chapter 48
The Hallway
Through the glass doors at the end of the hall, Eleanor could already see the crowd gathering on the courthouse steps. Cameras. Microphones. Waiting.
The doors burst open before she could move.
“Ms. Harper!”
“Did the relationship begin before the indictment?”
“Mr. Calloway, did you share confidential information?”
Flashbulbs exploded—white, jagged heat against the cool marble. In the front of the pack stood Lila Grant. She wasn’t shouting. She was watching, a small, clinical smile playing on her lips.
“Is this why you came to Sylva, Eleanor?” she asked, her voice cutting through the din like a razor. “To find a prosecutor you could handle more easily than the ones in Charleston?”
Eleanor went white. The world tilted, the hallway narrowing into a tunnel of noise and light.
Then a wall of tan wool stepped between them.
Burke was there, radiating the hard, immovable authority of a man who owned the air around him.
“Back up,” he said.
Nobody moved.
Burke didn’t repeat himself; he lowered his voice a dangerous octave.
“I said back up.”
The crowd parted, reluctant but obedient.
Reid appeared beside Eleanor, his hand finding the small of her back—a reflex that, an hour ago, had been a comfort.
Now, it was an indictment.
Burke saw the touch. He saw the wreckage on Eleanor’s face and jerked his head toward the side corridor.
“Back way. Now.”
They didn’t go far. Just around the side of the building, where the roar of the crowd hit the brick and died. The alley smelled of rain and exhaust.
Burke slowed at the mouth of the alley.
“I’ll give you a minute,” he said, his voice unusually gruff.
He didn’t look at them as he walked toward the street to run interference.
Eleanor dropped her briefcase onto a concrete ledge. The dull thud echoed too loudly.
Reid stood three feet away.
It felt like a canyon.
“That was a hit piece,” he said, his teeth clenched so tight the words barely escaped. “Lila Grant weaponized a private moment to drive her analytics. It’s noise, Eleanor. Just noise.”
“It’s a verdict, Reid. In the court of public opinion, the trial is already over.”
He stepped toward her, the familiar heat of him reaching for her, but she stayed pressed against the wall.
“It won’t matter. Harlan isn’t going to throw out a murder case because we had dinner at Sky Bar.”
“Reid.” The way she said his name—sharp and final—stopped him cold. “They’re not going to let this go,” she whispered.
The counselor mask was gone, leaving only the woman who had watched her life burn down once before.
“We can’t do this anymore,” she said. “Not like this.”
“Do what?”
“This.” She gestured helplessly between them. “You heard them out there. They aren’t talking about David Mercer. They’re talking about the DA sleeping with the defense.”
“Let them talk.”
“No.” Her voice cracked before she fused it back together with iron. “Not after Charleston. I told you—I won’t let it happen again.”
Reid took a step forward, looming over her.
“I am not the partners in your father’s firm. And this is not Charleston.”
“You’re right. It’s worse.” Her eyes flashed with tears she refused to let fall.
“In Charleston, I was a junior associate. Here, you’re the elected District Attorney.
If this turns into a mistrial, they won’t just take your job.
They’ll take your reputation. They’ll say you compromised a murder case for a woman you’ve wanted for years. ”
She met his eyes.
“I will not be the reason you lose everything you’ve built in this county. I will not be your Exhibit A.”
“You’re lying,” he said.
He moved closer until his face was inches from hers. The air between them felt charged, tight with anger and want and everything neither of them could survive.
“You’re trying to protect me, and I’m telling you I don’t want it. I want you.”
For one terrible second, her resolve nearly shattered.
“I can’t watch another man I care about get destroyed because of me,” she whispered.
“Then don’t. Stop deciding for me,” he said, his voice breaking. “Stop acting like you get to choose what I can survive.”
“That’s exactly what we have to do.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She went very still. The tears vanished from her face as if a door had slammed shut somewhere deep inside her.
“This is not a negotiation,” she said.
Reid stared at her.
The word negotiation—their word—hung in the air like a ghost.
Once, it had meant teasing smiles in his kitchen and the promise of one more minute. Now she had turned it into a blade.
“You don’t get to decide this for both of us.”
“I already have.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Her throat worked once. Then she lifted her chin.
She felt the muscles in her neck lock. Her face smoothed into the cold, porcelain lie of the Ice Queen.
“We are done.”
He looked like she’d struck him.
“Eleanor—”
“No. You were right before. You are the District Attorney. I am the defense attorney. That is all we are now.”
“That’s not true.”
“It has to be.”
Silence crashed between them. Then something in his face broke—not loudly, but with a small, jagged fracture.
He stepped back. The sudden absence of his heat felt like a physical blow.
He smoothed his tie with hands that were suddenly, terrifyingly steady. When he looked at her again, the man from the porch was gone.
“Court resumes in twelve minutes,” he said.
His voice was flat. Professional. Empty.
Her hand lifted instinctively, fingers reaching for the edge of his jacket.
He never saw it.
Or maybe he did.
He didn’t turn around.
She let her hand fall.
“See you inside,” she managed.
Reid turned toward the courthouse door. He paused with his hand on the handle.
“Ele—” The name died in his throat. He swallowed once.
“Counsel.”
The door swung shut behind him with a hollow metallic clang.
Then the alley went silent.
Eleanor stayed where she was, gripping the concrete until her hands hurt.
A few moments later, Burke reappeared.
Burke had heard enough from the mouth of the alley to know how it ended.
He looked at Reid’s closed door, then at Eleanor standing rigid beside the wall.
For one sharp second, he thought of Caitlin. Of her looking at him with that same empty, determined face and telling him they were done.
It hit him like a punch.
He looked at the smudge of red lipstick at the corner of Eleanor’s mouth and the way her hand was clenched white around the handle of her briefcase.
“You ready?” he asked quietly.
Eleanor nodded, even though she wasn’t.
Burke said nothing else. He just held the door.
Inside, the courthouse bell rang—a sharp, singular toll that sounded less like a call to order and more like a bell at a funeral.
The trial of David Mercer was back in session.
And for the first time since she had met him, Eleanor Harper was about to face Reid Calloway as if he were a stranger.