Chapter 10
The conference room at Patricia Hart’s office was aggressively neutral: beige walls, beige carpet, a long table of pale wood that probably cost more than it should have given how determinedly forgettable it was.
It was the kind of space designed to drain conflict of its heat, to render everything that happened within it procedural and bloodless.
Astoria appreciated the intent, if not the aesthetics.
She sat at one end of the table with Gerald, a stack of disputed financial documents arranged in front of her. Across from them, Rachel Hartwell was reviewing her own copies, reading glasses perched on her nose and pen moving in small annotations. And beside Rachel—
Astoria didn’t let herself look too long.
Miller Scott was taking notes, her dark hair pulled back in a low ponytail that exposed the line of her jaw. She wore a navy blazer today, simple and well-cut, and her pen glided across the legal pad in that same fluid rhythm Astoria had noticed before.
Four days ago, their hands had touched in an elevator, and Miller had fled like Astoria had burned her.
Don’t think about that.
“The transactions on page forty-seven," Rachel was saying, tapping her pen against the relevant document, "we'll need supporting documentation for the offshore transfers."
“Those aren’t offshore transfers.” Gerald’s voice carried the patient irritation of someone who'd explained this before. "They're intercompany allocations between Shepry Global's domestic subsidiaries. The documentation is in Exhibit C."
“Exhibit C shows the allocations but not the underlying authorization."
“Because the authorization is in Exhibit D, which we provided last week."
Astoria let the argument wash over her, contributing when Gerald glanced her way for confirmation, but most of her attention was occupied with the effort of not looking at the other side of the table.
It wasn’t working.
Miller hadn’t looked at her once since the meeting started.
Not a glance, not a flicker of acknowledgment beyond the initial professional nod when they'd all taken their seats.
She was studying the documents with an intensity that seemed excessive for routine discovery disputes, her shoulders held at an angle that suggested deliberate focus.
Astoria recognized the posture. She used it herself when she was trying very hard not to think about something.
Thursday kept surfacing despite her best efforts to bury it.
The elevator, the scattered papers she’d dropped, Miller's hand brushing hers, the shock from the contact that still lingered on her skin four days later. And then there was Miller’s face, that frozen moment of something Astoria couldn’t quite name, before she’d stammered an excuse that wasn’t really an excuse and disappeared into the stairwell.
Miller’s voice replayed in her mind. “Actually, I’m going to— I need—”
What had she needed? What had sent her running?
Astoria was fairly certain she knew; she just wasn’t sure what to do with this knowledge.
“If we could take a ten-minute break,” Rachel said, and Astoria blinked back to the present. Rachel had her phone in her hand, the screen lit with what looked like a text message, and her expression had shifted to something more urgent. "I apologize. I have a client emergency on another matter."
“Of course,” Gerald said.
Rachel was already pushing back from the table. “Miller, keep reviewing the exhibits. I’ll be back shortly.”
Miller nodded without looking up. “Take your time.”
The door closed behind Rachel, and the room felt smaller. Astoria turned back to her documents, determined to use the break productively. The allocation schedules needed her attention anyway. There were patterns in the numbers that Gerald hadn't fully grasped, connections between—
Gerald’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, frowned, and muttered something under his breath.
“Problem?” Astoria asked.
He was already standing, his phone pressed to his ear. “I need to take this. Five minutes.”
And then he was gone, too, the door clicking shut behind him, and Astoria was alone with Miller Scott.
The silence was instant and unmistakably awkward. Astoria kept her eyes on the documents. Allocation schedules, right. Pattern analysis. She’d been thinking about pattern analysis.
Across the table, she could hear Miller turn a page, the soft scratch of pen on paper, then the creak of her chair as she shifted her weight.
The room’s aggressive neutrality suddenly felt suffocating.
“The authorization documents are actually in Exhibit E,” Astoria muttered aloud. “Not D. Gerald misspoke.”
Miller’s pen stopped moving, and Astoria could feel the heat from Miller’s gaze on her. “What?”
“The underlying authorization for the intercompany transfers Rachel asked about. Gerald said it’s in Exhibit D, but it’s E. Exhibit D is the board resolution from the previous quarter.”
Miller paused an extra beat. “Thank you.”
Astoria turned another page that she wasn’t really reading. “Saves time for everyone if the record is accurate.”
More silence. Miller’s pen resumed its movement, though Astoria noticed out of the corner of her eye that it was now slower, more tentative. The clock on the wall ticked, and Astoria could hear muffled footsteps outside the door.
“About Thursday,” Miller said.
Astoria’s hand stilled on the page. “What about Thursday?”
“I—” Miller stopped, then started again. “I should apologize for leaving so abruptly. It was unprofessional.”
“You had somewhere to be.” Astoria kept her voice neutral. “It’s fine.”
“I didn’t have anywhere to be.”
The admission hung in the air between them, and Astoria finally looked up.
Miller was already watching her, the legal pad forgotten and her expression the most unguarded Astoria had ever seen it.
Not the formal professionalism from the mediation or the focused competence from the preliminary hearing, but something rawer, something that made Astoria’s chest feel tight.
“Then why did you leave?” Astoria knew she shouldn’t ask. She knew she should let this go, let Miller’s non-apology stand, and return to the documents while waiting for Gerald to come back.
Miller’s jaw tightened. “You know why.”
“I’m not certain I do.”
“Yes, you are.”
They stared at each other from across the table. The beige walls pressed in around them. The clock ticked off the seconds.
“This is a bad idea,” Astoria whispered.
“I know.”
“Whatever you think you—” Astoria stopped and recalibrated. “Whatever happened Thursday, it doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything.”
Miller’s expression faltered. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s not.”
Astoria stood, but wasn’t sure why—restlessness, the need to move, the conference table suddenly feeling like an insufficient barrier.
She walked to the window, looking out at the parking lot four stories below.
A woman was walking toward the building, carrying a coffee cup, and a red car was pulling into a space across the lot. Normal Monday afternoon things.
She heard Miller’s chair push back, then footsteps approaching. The particular quality of silence that meant someone was standing too close filled the room.
“You should go back to your seat,” Astoria said without turning.
“Probably.”
Astoria could feel Miller's presence like a physical weight.
When had this started? Not at the mediation, when Miller had been just another obstacle.
Not even at the preliminary hearing, when Miller's integrity had cracked something open in Astoria's chest. But somewhere between then and now, the pull had become harder to ignore.
She turned.
Miller was closer than she’d expected—two feet away, maybe less. Her eyes were dark in the fluorescent light, and she was looking at Astoria with an expression that softened her heart.
“This is a terrible idea,” Astoria said again, but her voice had gone rough at the edges.
“You mentioned that.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
Neither of them moved or stepped back. Astoria was aware of everything: Miller’s slightly uneven breathing, the faint scent of her shampoo, the way Miller’s hands hung at her sides, her fingers curled slightly as if she was stopping herself from reaching out.
Astoria wasn’t sure who moved first. Maybe neither of them did. Maybe they just…drifted, caught in the same gravitation pull until the distance between them was inches instead of feet.
Miller’s breath caught, and Astoria saw her lips part, saw her eyes drop to Astoria’s mouth, saw the moment she swayed forward…
The door opened.
“Sorry about that,” Rachel said, already halfway into the room, her phone still in her hand. “The client’s situation was more urgent than—”
Astoria was back at her seat before Rachel finished the sentence, even though she didn’t remember moving. Her documents were in front of her, and her expression was composed, but her heart was slamming against her ribs with a violence that made it hard to breathe.
Across the table, Miller had somehow returned to her own chair. She was staring at her legal pad like it contained the secrets of the universe, her pen gripped too tightly. Her face was flushed, two spots of color high on her cheeks.
Rachel glanced between them. Something crossed her face—suspicion, maybe, or just curiosity—but she didn't comment.
Gerald returned a moment later, and the meeting resumed. Astoria contributed when necessary, nodded when expected, and definitely did not look at Miller.
We almost… She cut off the thought before it could complete itself.
The meeting concluded forty minutes later with nothing resolved. Another session was scheduled for the following week, and handshakes were exchanged across the table, brief and impersonal.
Astoria left first. She didn’t trust herself to linger.