Chapter 34 #2
Her pulse spiked, cheeks heating with rage and something far more dangerous. Two syllables. That’s all he wanted. Gratitude. Obedience. And yet—it felt like surrendering a piece of herself she wasn’t ready to give.
She didn’t speak.
Not out of defiance, not out of pride—but because saying it would mean something. Something he would use. So she stared at him instead, her expression carved from ice, her silence louder than any scream.
Ben held her gaze, unreadable.
Then, without ceremony, he slid a file across the desk.
Katherine reached for it immediately—eager to escape,
to regroup, to breathe somewhere he wasn’t.
Her fingers closed around the edge—and brushed his.
The contact was brief. Barely there. But deliberate.
Not an accident.
And suddenly she knew.
He’d used the wrong hand.
He'd reached across himself with his left, just so their right hands would meet. Just so their fingers would touch.
Just so he could feel her react.
Her heart kicked hard in her chest. A flush crept up the back of her neck. It wasn’t just the touch—it was the calculation behind it. The precision. The subtle, maddening game.
Her eyes snapped up to his, a sharp, silent accusation flickering behind her lashes.
“Is there something I should know before I open this?”
she asked, tone cool, clipped—but her pulse roared in her ears.
Ben didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. Just looked at her with maddening stillness, like he already knew exactly how this would play out.
“Everything in there’s relevant to what we’re chasing,”
he said, voice smooth as ever. “Unless you'd prefer I walk you through it… page by page.”
The worst part? There was a glint. A flicker of smugness just beneath the surface. Not overt. Not theatrical. But enough.
She tugged the file from under his hand—sharper than she meant to—and straightened. “You can spare me the commentary.”
“Oh, I plan to,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
But those eyes—dark, steady, annoyingly amused—didn’t move.
And when she finally turned away, the echo of that touch still lingered.
Right where he wanted it.
She closed the office door behind her and stood in the hallway—just breathing.
It wasn’t a breakdown. Not yet. But her hands were still trembling from the ghost of his voice and the deliberate brush of his fingers.
Her reflection in the glass panel next to the door looked like a stranger—polished, unreadable. But inside? Static. Heat. Shame. Anger. Want. All twisted together in one choking knot.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t collapse. She just walked. One foot in front of the other, until her legs remembered what it meant to belong to her.
◆◆◆
Most of the firm had cleared out hours ago. The buzz of phones, footsteps, and office chatter had faded into silence, replaced by the low hum of overhead lights and the occasional shuffle of paper. It was late—too late for anyone but the obsessed or the damned.
Katherine Winters sat at the far end of the long conference table, surrounded by case files, court transcripts, and half-drained coffee cups. This wasn't just any late-night work session—this was her father's case. And every word on every page felt like it was written in blood.
Across from her, Benjamin Sinclair was a study in unshakable calm.
Jacket off, sleeves rolled, jaw tight with focus.
He hadn't said much in the past hour. Just read.
Noted. Highlighted. While her nerves frayed one shred at a time, he looked like he could sit there until the end of the world and not blink.
The conference room looked pristine on the surface—glass walls, gleaming table, organized chaos. But the tension between them made it feel like a battlefield dressed in professionalism. Legal briefs instead of bullets. Case files instead of blood.
Documents sprawled in front of her like discarded armor.
She flipped through them again, faster this time, frustration building with every useless paragraph.
They were circling the fire—when what they needed was to burn everything down.
The evidence they had on Crawford was circumstantial at best, pathetic at worst. Nothing solid.
Nothing that would make a prosecutor blink.
She could feel Ben watching. Silent, still. Annoyingly composed.
“This isn’t going to be enough to turn the case,” she said, her voice tight and clipped.
Ben didn’t look up. Just kept scanning a deposition, his tone cool and measured. “It’s a start.”
Katherine scoffed—sharp, bitter. The sound cut across the room like a slap. “A weak one.”
That did it.
Ben lifted his head, slowly. His eyes met hers—glacial and completely unforgiving.
“Then make it stronger,” he said—low, deliberate, with a flicker of challenge curling at the edge of his voice. Final, but not without bite.
She felt the challenge like a physical blow. The implication was clear: if she thought his work was insufficient, she should do better. He wasn't going to coddle her. Wasn't going to reassure her. He was going to push her until she either broke or became unbreakable.
Kath pushed to her feet, anger sparking hard in her chest. The frustration that had been simmering beneath her skin all morning finally boiled over. She'd spent days—weeks—building this case, and they were still dancing around the edges instead of striking at the heart.
"We need to go after Sterling & Co. directly," she said, her voice tight with conviction. "Pressure their past employees—build a pattern."
Ben's expression didn't change, but something in his posture hardened. He looked up at her with that infuriating calm that made her want to throw something.
"That's a waste of time," he replied, each word measured. "We stick to the plan."
Her temper flared—finally, fully. The control she'd been clinging to since walking back into this office shattered.
"Your plan is too cautious," she snapped, the words rushing out before she could stop them. "If you weren't so obsessed with control, you'd see that."
The air changed. Like thunder gathering behind silence.
Ben closed the file in front of him. His movement carved from tension. The soft thud of paper against paper seemed to echo in the sudden stillness of the room.
Then he stepped forward.
Too close. His presence crowded her, commanded the space, dared her to retreat. Kath felt the heat from him, smelled the faint traces of his cologne. The conference room suddenly felt impossibly small.
"You don't get to challenge me in my own office, Winters,"
he said, his voice low, edged with warning.
She didn't budge. Didn't flinch. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her back down. She met him toe-to-toe, pulse loud in her ears, her chin tilted up to hold his gaze.
"Then give me something worth agreeing to," she replied, her words quiet but lethal.
A pause. A breath. The heat between them spiked, electric and unbearable.
Katherine watched his gaze flicker—down to her mouth, then back up to her eyes. The shift was subtle, almost imperceptible, but she caught it. Her body registered it before her mind could catch up, a treacherous warmth spreading through her chest.
And then came the smirk.
Slow. Knowing. Dangerous.
"Careful," he murmured, the single word carrying more weight than it had any right to.
Katherine's pulse jumped. She hated that it did. Hated how her body remembered him even when her mind was screaming to forget. Hated how easily he could unravel her with just a look, a word, a breath.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them gave in. They stood locked in place—blades drawn, lips inches apart.
The conference room seemed to shrink around them, the air charged with something that wasn't just anger. Something that felt dangerously close to need.
Ben was the one to break the tension. He exhaled through his nose, slow and steady, like he was letting her off the hook—for now. Then stepped back, the space between them expanding, but somehow feeling no less intimate.
Katherine tracked his retreat, pulse hammering behind her ribs. This wasn’t over. Not even close. Every nerve buzzed with a visceral certainty: whatever existed between them hadn’t burned out—it was still smoldering beneath the surface, waiting to reignite.
As Ben passed behind her chair, he leaned in—barely.
Just close enough that the heat of him kissed her skin.
“Admit it,” he murmured, voice like smoke curling against her ear. “You missed this.”
Her breath stuttered. Just for a moment. A betrayal she couldn’t hide fast enough. Damn him.
She didn’t answer. Refused to give him the satisfaction.
Instead, fingers gripped the next file tighter than necessary. Pages turned with surgical precision. As if her hands weren’t trembling. As if her throat weren’t dry. As if her skin wasn’t still burning from the ghost of his voice.
She kept her eyes on the paper.
And pretended she wasn’t already on fire.