Chapter 13
Miller arrived at work twenty minutes early, which was unusual for a Monday. She sat in her car in the parking garage, watching the concrete wall and rehearsing words she'd been composing for three weeks.
I have a conflict of interest on the Shepry case.
It was simple and professional, the kind of statement attorneys made when circumstances required it. Rachel would accept it, file the appropriate paperwork, and life would continue.
Except nothing about this was simple.
Miller pressed her forehead against the steering wheel.
It’d been three weeks since the library.
Three weeks of sleepless nights and cold showers and forcing herself to focus on other cases while her mind wandered back to the taste of Astoria's mouth, the desperate sound she'd made when Miller's hands found her hair, the way everything had narrowed to just the two of them in that fluorescent-lit room.
She’d tried to rebuild her walls. She'd been professional at the emergency hearing the Monday after; both of them had been.
They had barely looked at each other, speaking only through their respective counsel.
She'd told herself it was a mistake, a moment of weakness, something that would fade if she just gave it enough time and distance.
But it hadn’t faded. If anything, it had gotten worse.
Miller lifted her head and stared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She looked tired, like someone who had spent three weeks lying to herself and had finally run out of energy for the pretense.
The truth was that she couldn’t be objective about Valerie’s case anymore.
Maybe she hadn’t been truly objective for weeks, not since the preliminary hearing when she’d noticed the exhaustion in Astoria’s eyes, not since she’d spoken up against Valerie’s false claim and watched something shift in Astoria’s expression.
The kiss had just made it impossible to deny.
And the other truth, the one she'd been circling for three weeks without letting herself land on it: she wanted more.
She wanted to kiss Astoria again. She wanted to do more than kiss her.
She wanted things she couldn't even fully articulate yet, things that made her pulse race and her skin flush and her carefully ordered life feel like a house built on sand.
She couldn’t represent Valerie while wanting Astoria like this.
It wasn’t ethical or professional, and if she stayed on the case, she knew exactly what would happen: she’d find reasons to be in the same room as Astoria and eventually she’d end up right back where she’d been in that library, only with even less willpower to stop.
Better to make the choice to recuse herself now before she did something that couldn’t be undone and ruin her professionally.
Miller sighed, then grabbed her bag and headed inside.
Rachel’s office occupied the corner of the fourth floor, all windows and morning light and the accumulated evidence of a thirty-year legal career.
Framed certificates lined one wall, and photos of Rachel with various judges and politicians covered another.
The desk was old mahogany, scarred from decades of use, and Rachel sat behind it like a general surveying a battlefield.
Miller knocked on the open door. “Do you have a minute?”
Rachel looked up from her computer, her reading glasses perched on her nose. “Miller, you’re here early.” She gestured to the chair across from her desk. “Of course. Sit.”
Miller sat. Her hands wanted to fidget, so she pressed them flat against her thighs.
“What’s on your mind?”
There was no point dancing around it. Besides, Miller had rehearsed this enough times. “I have a conflict of interest on the Shepry case. I need to recuse myself, effective immediately.”
Rachel’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes sharpened. She removed her reading glasses, set them on the desk, and leaned back in her chair.
“What kind of conflict?”
“It’s personal.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I’d rather not.”
The silence stretched between them. Rachel was studying her with the same attention she brought to hostile witnesses, looking for tells, inconsistencies, and the shape of what wasn’t being said.
“Does this involve Valerie?” Rachel asked. “Or Astoria Shepry?”
Miller’s jaw tightened against her will. She should’ve expected the question. Rachel hadn’t built a successful legal practice by missing obvious connections.
“I can’t discuss the specifics,” Miller said. “But I can tell you that my continued involvement in the case would compromise my professional judgment. I’m doing this now because it’s the only right thing to do, before any further damage is done.”
“Further damage,” Rachel repeated the words slowly, turning them over in her mouth. “So something has already happened.”
It wasn’t a question, but Miller still didn’t answer. Rachel was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers drummed once against the desk, a rare tell from a woman who usually revealed nothing.
“You’re a good attorney, Miller. One of the best associates I’ve ever worked with.” She paused. “And you’re doing this because you believe it’s the ethical choice, even though you know it will raise questions and affect your professional trajectory here.”
Miller’s throat tightened. “I know.”
“Do you?” Rachel’s voice was firm. “The partnership track isn’t a given. It’s earned through years of demonstrating judgment, discretion, excellence, and commitment. Walking away from a high-profile case mid-stream, for reasons you won’t explain—there will be people who remember that.”
“I understand.”
“And you’re doing it anyway?”
“Yes.”
Rachel held her gaze for another beat, then nodded slowly. “Alright then. I’ll file the paperwork today. I was the lead on the case anyway, so the transition will be seamless for Valerie.” She scrawled something on her notepad. “I’ll need to tell her. I doubt she’ll take it well.”
“I know. I’d like to be there when you do. I owe her that much.”
“Do you?” Rachel’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Or do you just want to control how the message is delivered?”
Miller almost smiled. Rachel truly saw everything. “Maybe both.”
“Fine. I’ll call her at eleven o’clock. We’ll tell her together.” Rachel reached for her reading glasses, then stopped. “Miller.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what happened. I’m not asking. But whatever it is, be careful. You’ve worked too hard to throw it away for something that won’t last.”
The words landed harder than Miller expected. Something that won’t last. Rachel didn’t know what she was talking about, she couldn’t know, but the assumption stung anyway.
“Thank you for understanding,” Miller said.
“I didn’t say I understood. I said I’d accept your recusal. Those aren’t the same thing.” Rachel put the glasses on and wiggled them slightly to secure them. She turned back to her computer, a clear dismissal.
Miller stood and walked to the door. She paused, wanting to say something else, to explain and justify to make Rachel see that this wasn’t carelessness or weakness but the opposite, the hardest kind of discipline.
But there were no words that would help, so she just said, “eleven o’clock,” and left.
The two hours before eleven were the longest of Miller’s career.
She sat at her desk and pretended to review discovery documents for another case, but the words blurred together.
She kept thinking about Rachel’s face, how the unasked questions and warning still lingered.
She kept thinking about what she’d say when Valerie demanded answers she couldn’t give.
She kept thinking about the partnership track she might have just derailed, possibly forever, and whether the choice she’d made this morning would look as clear in six months as it did right now.
The conference room felt different with Valerie in it.
Miller had been in this room hundreds of times—client meetings, depositions, strategy sessions—but something about Valerie's presence changed the air.
She sat at the far end of the table as though she claimed it, her posture perfect, her smile warm and expectant.
She was wearing a silk blouse and tasteful jewelry, her hair swept back in soft waves.
Miller took a seat along the side, and Rachel settled at the head of the table, nearest to the door, the position of quiet authority.
“Thank you for coming in on such short notice,” Rachel began. “There’s been a development in your case that we need to discuss.”
Valerie’s smile flickered, just slightly. “What kind of development?”
“Miller is recusing herself from your representation team, effective immediately. I’ll be handling the case solo going forward.”
The silence that followed was tangible enough to cut.
Valerie’s gaze moved slowly from Rachel to Miller. The warmth in her expression didn’t disappear so much as freeze in place, becoming something that was a smile but wasn’t.
“I see.” Her voice was perfectly controlled. “May I ask why?”
“There’s a conflict of interest,” Rachel said. “It’s a professional matter, and Miller is handling it appropriately by stepping back now.”
“What kind of conflict?”
“That’s confidential.”
Valerie’s eyes hadn’t left Miller’s face. “I’m asking Miller.”
Miller met her gaze steadily. “I can’t discuss the specifics, but I want to assure you that you’re in excellent hands with Rachel. She's been the lead on your case from the beginning, and nothing about the legal strategy will change.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Valerie's voice was still pleasant and measured, but something had hardened underneath it. “I asked what kind of conflict would make you abandon a client mid-case. Because from where I'm sitting, there's really only one possibility.
She let the implication hang in the air.
“Valerie,” Rachel said, a warning note in her tone.