Chapter 13 #2
“This is about Astoria, isn’t it?” Valerie leaned forward slightly, her eyes locked on Miller.
“That's the only thing that makes sense.
You've been different ever since the preliminary hearing.
I noticed it then. The way you looked at her, the way you defended her when I told you about her calling me names.
I thought I was imagining it, but I wasn't, was I? "
Miller’s chest tightened, but she kept her expression neutral. “I’m not going to discuss the reasons for my recusal.”
“You don't have to. It's written all over your face.” Valerie sat back, and something shifted in her demeanor.
The warmth dropped away entirely, replaced by something colder and more calculating.
“I trusted you. I sat in this room and told you things I've never told anyone. I thought you were on my side.”
“I was on your side. I did my job—”
“Your job was to protect me from her.” Valerie's voice rose slightly, then caught itself, smoothing back into control.
“She's manipulative, Miller. She's been manipulating everyone for years—the board, the media, and now apparently you.
Whatever she said to you, whatever she did, it's what she does. She finds weaknesses and exploits them.”
Miller felt the accusation land wrong and forced herself not to react. “I’m handling this appropriately,” Miller said quietly. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“Appropriately.” Valerie laughed, a brittle sound. “You're leaving me exposed in the middle of the most important legal battle of my life because you got too close to my ex-wife, and you're calling it appropriate?”
“That’s enough,” Rachel cut in, her voice firm. “Miller is exercising her professional judgment, which is exactly what any ethical attorney would do when facing a conflict of interest. You're in excellent hands, Valerie. The case will not suffer.”
Valerie’s jaw tightened. For a moment, Miller saw something flash across her face—not hurt, not betrayal, but fury. The look of someone who had lost control of a situation she thought she'd managed perfectly.
“Fine.” Valerie stood, picking up her bag with sharp, precise movements. “I suppose I don't have a choice in the matter.”
“It’s standard procedure,” Rachel said. “I’ll call you this week to review the timeline for the next phase.”
Valerie didn't acknowledge her. She paused at the door and looked back at Miller, her expression unreadable. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Because Astoria will destroy you the same way she tried to destroy me. It’s just a matter of time.”
She left without waiting for a response. The door clicked shut behind her, and the room felt suddenly lighter, as if a pressure had been released.
Rachel exhaled slowly. “Well, that went about as expected.”
Miller’s hands were shaking, and she tucked them under her legs and waited for them to stop.
“She’s going to be a problem,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“She thinks you've been compromised. She'll be watching for proof.” Rachel scooped up her notes and stood. "Whatever this is, Miller—whatever happened or didn't happen—you need to be careful. If she finds something she can use, she will.”
Miller nodded. She hadn't expected Valerie to land on Astoria so quickly, but now that she had, Miller knew she wouldn't let it go. “I understand.”
Rachel stopped at the door and turned back. “I meant what I said earlier. You’re one of the best associates I’ve worked with. Don’t throw that away.”
She left Miller alone in the conference room, sitting in the silence with Valerie’s accusations ringing in her ears. “She’ll destroy you the same way she tried to destroy me.”
Miller closed her eyes. She thought about Astoria in the library, not the kiss but before it.
The exhaustion in her voice when she’d talked about Valerie’s latest motion, the way her shoulders had dropped when she thought no one was watching, the cracks in the ice queen armor that no one else seemed to see.
Valerie’s version of events had cast Astoria as the cold, calculating villain. But Miller had seen something different. She’d seen someone drowning in a battle she hadn’t started, fighting to keep her head above water while her ex-wife weaponized the legal system against her.
But maybe Miller was wrong. Maybe Valerie was right and Astoria had played her perfectly, finding her weaknesses and exploiting them.
She didn’t think so, though.
Miller opened her eyes and stood. The day was already half over. She had other cases to work on, other clients who needed her attention, and a career to salvage from the wreckage of this morning’s choice.
But underneath all of it, she was waiting. For what, she couldn’t quite say.
Miller’s apartment was quiet when she got home.
She dropped her bag by the door and stood in the entryway for a moment, letting the silence settle around her.
The place was small—a one-bedroom in a modest complex in the Heights, nothing like the life she imagined Astoria living—but it was hers.
She'd made it comfortable over the years: soft throw blankets on the couch, photos of her moms on the bookshelf, and a kitchen that smelled faintly of the coffee she'd forgotten to finish that morning.
She changed out of her work clothes and into running gear, thinking she'd go for a jog to clear her head. But she made it as far as lacing up her shoes before she stopped, one hand on the doorknob, unable to make herself leave.
What was she waiting for?
Miller unlaced her shoes and left them by the door.
She made herself a sandwich she didn't taste and ate it standing at the kitchen counter, watching the evening light shift across the walls.
She thought about calling her moms, but she didn't know what she'd say.
I recused myself from a case today because I kissed the opposing party in a law library and I can't stop thinking about her.
Nadia would understand. Harper would ask hard questions Miller wasn't ready to answer.
The day replayed in fragments: Rachel's professional neutrality, Valerie's frozen smile cracking into fury.
Miller washed her plate and dried it and put it away. She wiped down the counter even though it was already clean. She was stalling, and she knew it, but the alternative was sitting still with her thoughts, and that felt worse.
Her phone buzzed on the counter. Miller’s stomach dropped, and she stared at the screen without picking it up.
Unknown number, local area code.
It buzzed again. She picked it up before she could talk herself out of it. “Hello?”
There was a pause, then a voice she would’ve recognized anywhere spoke. “Miller, it’s Astoria.”
Miller’s breath caught. Of all the things she’d imagined when she saw the unknown number—a client, a colleague, spam—this hadn’t been one of them.
“Hi,” she said, and the word came out softer than she intended.
“I heard you recused yourself from Valerie's case.” Astoria's voice was measured, the way it always was when she was being careful. “Gerald told me this afternoon.”
“Word travels fast.”
“In legal circles, yes.” She paused. “He didn’t know why. He just said there was a conflict of interest and that Rachel would be handling things solo.”
Miller leaned against the counter, pressing her free hand flat against the cool surface. “That's right.”
“What kind of conflict?”
The question hung between them. Miller could deflect. She could give Astoria the same non-answer she'd given Rachel, the same evasive nothingness she'd offered Valerie. It would be the smart thing to do.
But she was so tired of being smart.
“You,” Miller said. “The conflict is you.”
Miller’s chest felt heavy as she listened to the silence stretched taut between them.
“You gave up the case,” Astoria said slowly. “For me.”
For my own integrity, but yes, also for you.”
“Miller.” Astoria's voice cracked slightly on her name. “I don't… I haven't stopped thinking about it either. About you. I thought I was going crazy.”
“You’re not crazy.”
“I keep remembering the way you—” Astoria stopped herself. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier, but just barely. “Can we talk? In person, I mean.”
Miller’s pulse jumped. “Yes.”
“Tomorrow. There’s a hotel bar downtown, The Meridian. Do you know it?”
“I can find it.”
“Seven o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.”
There was another pause, longer this time. Miller could hear Astoria breathing on the other end of the line, and something about that intimacy—just the sound of her breath—made Miller's skin prickle with awareness.
“I should let you go,” Astoria said.
“Okay.”
Neither of them hung up.
“Miller,” Astoria said, her voice quieter. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“I’m tired of not telling it.”
She let out a soft exhale that could’ve been a laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Goodnight, Astoria.”
“Goodnight.”
The line went dead. Miller stood in her kitchen, phone pressed against her chest, and let herself feel the full weight of what had just happened. Tomorrow night, they’d meet at 7 p.m. at The Meridian, sit across from each other, and decide what happened next.
The smart thing—the safe thing—would be to walk away. To take the recusal as a clean break, to rebuild her professional reputation, to pretend the kiss in the library was a one-time lapse in judgment that would never happen again.
But Miller already knew she wasn’t going to do that.
She’d spent her entire life not really knowing what she wanted. She’d played it safe—in her lukewarm relationships with men, in her respectable career, in her life that looked right from the outside but felt hollow on the inside.
Astoria made her feel something real. Terrifying and reckless and probably stupid, but real. And there was no way she was going to give that up.