You, Only You (You, Only You #3)

Chapter 1

The Sterling they tracked. From my dark hair secured in its practical bun, down over my outlet-store blazer, to my sensible shoes and back up again. Missing nothing.

I had the deeply uncomfortable sensation of being inventoried.

"Ms. Ashford." His voice was low, calm, completely devoid of welcome. A statement of fact, not a greeting.

"Mr. Steele." I matched his tone and stepped forward without extending my hand.

I wouldn't give him the chance to reject it.

"Thank you for making time. As outlined in the state bar's letter, I'll be conducting a compliance review covering the past three years, focusing specifically on the matters in these complaints. "

I placed my folio on the edge of his desk. A declaration of war on polished wood.

He didn't move to sit. Those blue eyes followed the placement of the folder, then returned to my face with unsettling focus. "The complaints are baseless. Disgruntled competitors with bruised egos."

"That may be true," I said, extracting my tablet. "But bruised egos sometimes leave interesting paper trails."

Something flickered across his face, maybe surprise, at being pushed back. It vanished before I could name it. "Diane will provide access to whatever files you require. Conference Room B is available. I trust you'll be efficient."

A dismissal. He expected me to scurry off to some side room and drown in paperwork, safely away from him.

"I'd prefer to start with you, actually," I said, meeting his gaze and holding it. My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was a small miracle. "A few questions about firm protocols. Context for the document review."

The silence stretched between us, thick as smoke. The hum of the air conditioning seemed impossibly loud. I watched him calculate the cost of refusing, the appearance of having something to hide.

"By all means," he said finally, moving to sit behind his desk. He gestured to the chair opposite with an elegant hand. "Ask away."

I sat, spine straight, tablet balanced on my knee.

The mahogany expanse between us felt both vast and uncomfortably intimate.

I launched into my prepared questions: conflict check systems, client intake procedures.

He answered with mechanical precision, his sentences clean and exact, revealing nothing beyond their literal meaning.

But his eyes never left me. They followed the movement of my stylus, flickered to my face when I paused, and remained fixed with predatory focus when I asked follow-up questions.

"Your associate turnover rate is unusually high," I observed, scrolling through the data I'd compiled. "Fifteen departures in eighteen months. That's nearly double the industry average."

"Legal work isn't for everyone." His tone suggested the departed were simply too weak for the demands of excellence.

"And yet they all seem to leave rather... abruptly." I looked up from my tablet. "Mid-case, sometimes. That's disruptive. Expensive. Firms usually try to avoid it."

"People make choices. I don't control them."

His words were smooth, reasonable. But something in the way he said choices made my instincts prickle. I'd spent years learning to hear the silent notes between spoken words: the hesitations, the careful phrasings that meant someone was dancing around a truth they didn't want to reveal.

I pressed further, shifting from general policy to specific cases. The Henderson matter. The Whitfield settlement. Each time, he deflected with practiced ease, citing privilege, strategy, and the unfortunate collateral damage of aggressive litigation.

Then I found it. A hairline crack in the fortress.

"In the Henderson case," I said, keeping my voice deliberately casual, "the complaint mentions a paralegal named Carla Jenkins.

She resigned mid-trial... unusual timing.

Your HR system shows a disciplinary notation entered for her employee ID that same week.

" I paused, watching his face. "And then deleted. "

His fingers, which had been loosely steepled, went still. The ice-blue eyes sharpened, focusing on me with new intensity. I saw something flash in their depths; surprise, swiftly followed by reassessment. Maybe even a grudging sliver of respect.

The expression vanished behind his mask in a heartbeat. But I'd seen it. I filed it away the way I filed everything: as data. Interesting data.

"HR software glitches are common," he said evenly. "Ms. Jenkins left for personal reasons. You're welcome to interview her directly if you doubt it."

"I intend to." I made a note, fighting to keep my expression neutral even though something in my chest was doing a small, inappropriate victory lap. Get it together, Lindsey. This is an audit, not a competition.

Silence pooled between us again. I was formulating my next question when he leaned back in his chair, the leather sighing softly beneath him.

His posture shifted from defensive to something else entirely.

.. unwavering patience. He regarded me not as an auditor anymore, but as a puzzle he'd just solved.

"You're Thomas Ashford's daughter," he said.

The room changed. The polished office, the city skyline, the hum of expensive efficiency, all of it receded into white noise. All that remained were those cold blue eyes and the name he'd just weaponized.

My father.

He'd done his research. Of course he had. He knew about the pension fund. The twelve million dollars. The forty-three families who'd lost their retirement savings. The trial that had made local news for five nauseating weeks.

"Interesting career choice," he added, his gaze dropping to my state bar badge before returning to my face. "Becoming the very thing that destroyed him."

My right hand went flat against the tablet.

Fingers splayed, pressing down. I have a tell, I've always had a tell, and I couldn't stop it.

Because here's the thing about my father that people who use his name as a weapon never understand: he wasn't a headline.

He wasn't just a villain in a cautionary tale.

He was also the man who'd taught me to ride a bike in our driveway, holding the seat steady and lying about letting go.

He was Sunday morning pancakes that were always slightly burned on one side, and somehow that was the only way I wanted them.

He was the person who'd sat with me for hours the night before my SATs, quizzing me on vocabulary words until we were both punchy with exhaustion.

He was also a thief. He was also a liar. Both things were true. They'd always been true, and I'd never figured out how to hold both of them at once.

"My father," I said, and I was proud of how steady my voice emerged, "made choices that hurt people. He has spent the last eight years paying for them in a place where guilt has aged him faster than time should allow."

Will Steele's expression didn't change, but something in his stillness shifted, a quality of attention that felt different from before.