Chapter 5: The Interrogation
The scent of him was still on her skin, a ghost in the weave of her blouse. Riley stood outside Maggie’s apartment door, the familiar scuffed paint and tacky gold number 4B a lifeline. She could have gone home, showered, attempted to scrub the night from her pores.But that felt like an admission, a ritual cleansing she wasn’t ready for. She needed to be seen first.She knocked, three sharp raps.
The door swung open almost immediately. Maggie stood there in faded dinosaur-print pajama pants and a worn-out Smiths t-shirt, her purple hair piled in a messy bun. She took one look at Riley—the same clothes from yesterday, the hollowed-out look in her eyes, the rumpled, fucked quality to her posture—and her eyebrows shot up.“Well, hello, walk of shame. Get in here before the neighbors call the press.”
Riley shuffled inside. Maggie’s apartment wrapped around her like a warm, messy blanket. The velvet armchairs were dented from countless movie marathons, law textbooks formed precarious towers on the floor, and the single amber lamp on the bookshelf cast a honeyed, forgiving light. It smelled of old paper, spilled wine, and the sandalwood incense Maggie burned to cover the scent of her anxiety-induced chain-smoking on the fire escape.
“Coffee’s burnt, but it’s caffeinated,” Maggie announced, heading to the tiny galley kitchen.“Spill. And I don’t mean the coffee.”
Riley sank into the deepest chair, letting the overstuffed cushions swallow her. She accepted the chipped mug Maggie handed her.The coffee was bitter and scalding.Perfect. “There’s nothing to spill.”
“Bullshit.You look like you’ve been through a judicial review and lost. Your hair is a crime scene.And you smell like him. That stupid, expensive sandalwood-and-rage cologne he wears.” Maggie plopped onto the worn ottoman, tucking her feet underneath her.“Start with the venue. His place again?”
Riley nodded, staring into the dark pool of her coffee.“We got into it at The Gavel. A whole bar-room debate about Fourth Amendment originalism.”
Maggie groaned.“Of course you did. Let me guess: it got heated, you both stormed out for ‘dignity’s sake,’ and then just happened to storm out in the same direction.”
“Something like that.” Riley closed her eyes. The memory was a live wire.“He grabbed my arm. Pulled me into an alley.”
“Classy.”
“And we just… kept arguing. Right up until we weren’t arguing anymore.” She opened her eyes, meeting Maggie’s shrewd gaze.“It was… different this time. Angrier.Or maybe just more honest.”
“Honest how? Did you finally admit you’ve been fantasizing about his legal briefs since law school?”
“It felt like a continuation,” Riley said, ignoring the jab.“The fight didn’t stop.It just… changed channels. Became about who was going to… yield.” The word felt inadequate, but Maggie’s slight nod told her she understood.“And did you? Yield?”
Riley thought of the wall against her back, the scattered buttons, the raw possession in his touch. Of sinking to her knees on his living room floor just to prove she could claim him, too.“It wasn’t about yielding. It was about conquering.Both of us.Trying to.” She let out a shaky breath. “And then afterward, he said I was wrong about Katz. And I called him an idiot.And he said…” She trailed off, the words too intimate, too terrifying to repeat.
Maggie leaned forward, her voice dropping. “He said what, Riles?”
“He said, ‘But I’m your idiot.’” The phrase hung in the incense-heavy air, too soft, too monumental.Maggie let out a long, low whistle. She picked up her own mug, took a sip, and winced.“Okay.Wow. That’s… not nothing.”
“It’s nothing,” Riley insisted, suddenly defensive. “It was a sleepy, post-coital mumble. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means he’s claiming you,” Maggie said bluntly.“Or claiming a connection. Even if it’s a fucked-up, competitive, angry one. Which, let’s be real, is the only kind of connection you two have ever known how to have.” She set her mug down with a decisive click.“So what’s the problem?You got your nasty hate-fuck. You proved your point.You both won, or lost, or whatever. It’s done.”
“It’s not done,” Riley heard herself say, the truth escaping before she could cage it. “I have to be his second chair on the Delaney merger starting Thursday. I lost that part of the bet.”
Maggie stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish.”
“So you have to work with him?Closely? After that?” Maggie started to laugh, a sharp, incredulous sound.“Oh, honey.You are so screwed. And not in the fun way this time.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Riley pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself small in the big chair. “I don’t know what to do, Mags.I can’t stop thinking about it.About the… the silk ties. The way he watches me when he’s… and the snoring.He snores. Did you know that?It’s obnoxious.”
A slow smile spread across Maggie’s face. “You’re memorizing his sleep habits. You’re doomed.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” Maggie’s smile faded into something more serious, more concerned.“Look.You’ve been dancing around this thing with Blackwood for years. The flirting, the fighting, the one-upping.It’s your fucked-up foreplay. Now you’ve finally gone and consummated the rivalry.You’ve crossed the line. There’s no going back to just being enemies who want to throttle each other in court.”
“So what’s forward?” The question came out small.
Maggie sighed, twisting one of her nose rings absently.“Forward is a choice. You either commit to figuring out what this is—and I mean really commit, with your big-girl words and your vulnerability and all that terrifying shit—or you cut it off.Clean.Now. Before the Delaney work starts.”
“Cut it off how?” Riley’s throat felt tight.“We’re professional counterparts. We have to work together.”
“You limit it to only work. You set walls a mile high and ten feet thick.You treat him like a piece of office furniture you occasionally have to depose. It’ll be miserable, but it’ll be clean.” Maggie fixed her with a steady look.“The in-between, Riles?The fucking and then pretending it didn’t happen? The sneaking around between merger prep sessions?That’s what will destroy you. It’ll eat your focus, torpedo your credibility, and leave you looking like the stereotypical emotional woman who can’t keep her legs closed around a handsome opponent. Is that the narrative you want?”
The words were a sucker punch.They landed with the cold, brutal accuracy only a best friend could manage. The inseracies Riley carried like hidden armor—about being taken seriously, about being seen as more than just her gender in a room full of older men—rushed to the surface, laid bare. “No,” she whispered. “That’s not what I want.”
“I didn’t think so.” Maggie’s voice softened.“So you have a decision to make. And you have to make it before Thursday.”
Riley finished her coffee, the burnt taste now a fitting metaphor for the entire situation.She felt scraped raw, exhausted. Maggie’s clarity was a beacon, but it illuminated a cliff edge with only two paths down, both perilous.
She stayed for another hour, talking about nothing—a new Thai place, a annoying partner at her firm, the dismal state of reality TV.Normal things. The conversation was a balm, but it couldn’t heal the fracture inside her.
When she finally stood to leave, the sky outside Maggie’s window had darkened to a deep indigo.“Thanks, Mags. For the horrible, excellent advice.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” Maggie walked her to the door, then pulled her into a tight, lavender-scented hug. “Just don’t get lost in the in-between, okay? You’re too good for that.”
Riley nodded against her friend’s shoulder, unable to speak.
The night air outside was crisp, shocking after the apartment’s cocoon. She hailed a cab, the backseat smelling of pine air freshener and stale cigarettes—a complete purge of sandalwood and sex.
As the city lights blurred past the window, Maggie’s ultimatum echoed in her skull.Commit or cut it off. The professional in her knew the answer.Knew it with cold, clinical certainty.
But another part of her, a part that had tasted something beyond victory in the surrender, that had felt a sense of belonging in his sleepy, mumbled claim, trembled at the thought of slamming a door she’d only just stumbled through.
She paid the driver and walked into her own sterile, quiet apartment.It felt hollow. She stripped off the clothes that smelled of him, of Maggie’s incense, of the entire messy day, and dropped them in a heap by the washing machine.She didn’t start the load.
Standing under a shower so hot it turned her skin pink, she replayed it all. The alley, the frantic push and pull, the sensation of his hands, his mouth, his claim. And then the quiet afterward, the snoring, the whispered words that felt more binding than any silk tie.
Commit or cut it off.The water ran cold. She turned it off, wrapped herself in a towel, and faced her foggy reflection in the mirror. The woman staring back looked uncertain, vulnerable beneath the usual defiant glint.Thursday was forty-eight hours away.A deadline.
She had forty-eight hours to decide if the most compelling, infuriating, electrifying thing in her life was worth the ruin it could bring, or if the only way to survive was to treat it like a case she had to dismiss with prejudice.She got into bed, the sheets cool and unfamiliar. The space beside her felt vast and empty. For the first time, she acknowledged the quiet, not as peace, but as absence.
And she knew, with a dread that coiled deep in her stomach, that whichever choice she made, nothing would ever be the same.
The dread solidified into a plan by morning. It was simple, clinical, and felt like swallowing glass. She would cut it off. The professionalism was a refuge, a language she understood. She silenced her phone’s notifications for his number, a hollow gesture that made her feel momentarily in control. The day was a gauntlet of forced focus. Between client meetings, her mind would snag on the memory of silk whispering against her wrists, or the rough cadence of his snoring. She’d shake her head, physically dispelling the thought, and redouble her attention on a deposition transcript.
Lunch was a sad desk salad she didn’t taste. Every buzz of her work phone made her stomach lurch, but it was never him. The silence felt like a verdict she was delivering to herself. This is better, she repeated, a mantra that grew fainter with each passing hour. By 5:30 PM, the office was emptying. She was staring at the Delaney file, her vision blurring, when her personal phone vibrated on the polished wood. His name glared from the screen. The device felt radioactive. She let it ring, watching it dance until it went to voicemail. A hot-cold flush swept over her. She released a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again. The same name. Insistent. Defiant. The sound drilled into the quiet office. She snatched it up on the fourth ring, her voice tight with fabricated annoyance. “Blackwood. I’m working.”
“Are you avoiding me?” His tone was flat, stripped of its usual calibrated humor or challenge. It was just a question, heavy and direct.
“I’m busy.” She swiveled her chair to face the darkening cityscape, her reflection a pale ghost over the skyline. “The Delaney prep is tomorrow. Some of us need to actually prepare.”
“Don’t.” A single word, laden with exhaustion. “Don’t do that. The professional deflection act. It’s thin, Riley. I’m not buying it.”
She closed her eyes. “There’s nothing to buy. What happened was a mistake. A complication. We need to be smart and let it go.” The words tasted like ash.
A long silence stretched, filled only by the faint static of the line. She could almost hear him thinking, parsing her sentence like a flawed contract. “Is that what you think it was? A complication?”
“What else would you call it?” Her laugh was a brittle thing. “We had hate sex. Twice. We got it out of our system. Now we work together. End of story.”
“No.” The word was final, absolute. “It’s not the end. I can’t go back. I can’t sit across a table from you tomorrow and pretend you’re just my rival. Not after the alley. Not after my bed. Not after hearing you…” He trailed off, his voice roughening. “I can’t un-know the sounds you make.”
Her breath hitched. She pressed her forehead against the cool window. “Carter, this is impossible.”
“I know it is. I know it’s a disaster waiting to happen.” A rustle, like he was running a hand over his face. “I don’t care. I wanted to give you space today, let you think. But all I did was think. And I can’t function like this.”
“So what’s your solution?” The question was a whisper.
“My solution is you.” The raw honesty in his voice was a physical blow. “Fuck the sex, Riley. Fuck the secret hookups and the public veneer. That’s not what this is. I want you. Your infuriating, brilliant mind. Your relentless arguments. The way you look at me like you’re calculating six ways to dismantle me before breakfast. I want the fight and the silence after. I want it all.”
Her knees felt weak. She sank into her chair, the leather creaking. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. I’m done pretending the only thing between us is animosity. It’s fuel, but it’s not the fire.” His voice dropped, lower, more intimate. “The fire is something else. And I don’t think I can go back to just being cold.”
Tears, hot and sudden, blurred the city lights. She didn’t know she had them in her. “This will ruin us. Our careers.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t deny it. “Or maybe it’s the only thing that won’t. I’m telling you I want to try. To be with you. Actually with you. What do you want?”
The line hummed between them, a conduit for her chaotic, screaming thoughts. Maggie’s warning clashed with the memory of his thumb stroking her palm. The risk was catastrophic. The prospect of returning to a world where he was just Carter Blackwood, the opposition, felt like a promise of grayscale after seeing color.
She swallowed, her throat tight. “I don’t know.”
It was the most honest thing she’d said all day.
A soft, ragged sound came through the phone. It might have been a sigh. Or the beginning of her name. “Okay,” he said, acceptance tinged with a determination that was purely him. “Then know this. Tomorrow, in my office at ten, it’s not just a merger prep. It’s an answer. You walking in that door is you saying yes to figuring this out. You not showing up… is an answer, too.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. The call died.
She sat in the silent, dark office, the phone slick in her hand. The two paths Maggie had outlined were gone, collapsed into a single, terrifying bridge he’d just built between them. He hadn’t asked for secrecy or a convenient arrangement. He’d asked for everything. And he’d given her a deadline. Ten AM. The digital clock on her desk glowed 6:47 PM. She had fifteen hours and thirteen minutes to decide what she wanted, and the weight of that decision pressed down on her, immense and strangely exhilarating.
She left the office with the Delaney file tucked under her arm like a shield. The city at night was a blur of disconnected lights and shadows, each block passing without imprint. Her mind replayed his words on a devastating loop. I want it all. The audacity of it stole her breath every time. She tried to summon Maggie’s warning, the clear, logical path of self-preservation, but the memory kept dissolving into the sensation of his hands untying the silk, his sleepy mumble against her skin.
Her apartment was too quiet. She dropped the file on her dining table, the thud echoing. She changed into sweatpants and a worn-out t-shirt, needing to erase the feel of the day’s armor. She made tea, ignored it, and stared at the thick binder. Work. Work was a language she understood, a country where she knew all the rules. She flipped it open, the dry, precise language of asset transfers and liability clauses a welcome anesthetic.
The first hour was mechanical. She highlighted, made notes in the margin, her pen scratching a steady rhythm against the silence. But her focus was a frayed wire. She’d read a clause about intellectual property rollovers and see his eyes, dark and intent, watching her come apart. She’d review a non-compete stipulation and feel the ghost of his palm on her hip, holding her down. She shoved the memories back, grinding her teeth, forcing her attention onto the words.
It was past midnight when she found it. Buried in a supplemental exhibit, a three-page addendum to a vendor contract from five years prior. It was so dry, so bureaucratically dense, everyone had likely skimmed it. But a phrase snagged her attention: “perpetual licensing in perpetuity.” It was redundant, clumsy legalese. Her tired mind, trained to spot weaknesses, pounced. She cross-referenced it with the main asset list, then with Delaware holding company laws she’d written a paper on in law school.
Her breath caught. The redundancy wasn’t a mistake; it was a deliberate, nested loophole. A sunken asset, a piece of proprietary software code, was tied up in that clumsy phrasing. It had been overlooked in every valuation. It was worth millions. It was also the exact leverage point they needed to force the hand of Delaney’s most stubborn minor shareholder. This was the key. This was the thing that would seal the merger.
She sat back, her heart hammering against her ribs. The discovery hummed in her veins, a pure, undiluted surge of professional triumph. It was her find. Her insight, born from her relentless digging, her inability to let go. And her first, instinctive, overwhelming thought was not of victory over Carter, or of claiming sole credit.
It was of telling him.
The realization was a quiet earthquake inside her. She wanted to share this with him. She wanted to see his face shift from that brooding intensity to sharp, astonished joy. She wanted to build this win with him. The partnership wasn’t just a sentence in a contract or a punishment for a lost bet. It could be this. This synergistic click, this making of something greater than either of them alone.
The discovery felt like a sign, absurd as that was. A tangible reason in a world of unbearable risk. It was a thread of logic in the emotional chaos. They worked. They worked in a way that created value, that solved puzzles, that won. Could that foundation be strong enough to build the other, messier thing upon?
Dawn was a pale line at the window when she finally closed the file. Her body ached from tension and lack of sleep, but her mind was terrifyingly clear. The fifteen hours were up. She showered, dressed with deliberate care in a deep emerald sheath dress that made her feel powerful, and placed the annotated addendum into a fresh folder.
She arrived at his firm at 8:15 a.m., forty-five minutes before their scheduled prep, over an hour before anyone else would filter in. The receptionist waved her back; she was expected. His office door was ajar, a sliver of light cutting into the dim hallway. She pushed it open.
Carter was at his window, back to the door, a silhouette against the brightening sky. He was already in his suit jacket, his shoulders rigid. At the sound of the door, he turned. The relief that washed over his face was instantaneous and profound, stripping away the polished calm. He looked as ragged as she felt.
“You’re here,” he said, the words a released breath.
“I’m here.” She closed the door behind her, the click final.
He crossed the room in three long strides, stopping just short of touching her. His eyes searched her face, hungry and wary. “I have a speech prepared. A whole damn argument.”
“Save it.” She held up the folder between them, a paper barrier. “I found something last night. In the Delaney addenda.”
He blinked, the personal urgency momentarily derailed by professional instinct. He took the folder, his fingers brushing hers. He opened it, scanning her notes. She watched his face, the quick dart of his eyes, the slight part of his lips as he understood the magnitude. A slow, dazzling smile broke through the exhaustion, transforming him completely.
“Riley,” he breathed, looking up at her with undisguised awe. “This is it. This is the exact pressure point. It’s perfect.” He laughed, a short, exhilarated sound. “You’re brilliant. You know that, right? Absolutely brilliant.”
The praise warmed her, but she stayed focused. “We need to structure the approach around it before the ten o’clock call.”
“We will.” He set the folder down on his desk with reverence, then turned back to her, the smile fading into something more serious. “I would kiss you right now. I want to. Very much.”
Her pulse jumped. “But?”
“But Janet in accounting is already making coffee, and I heard the copy machine warming up.” He nodded toward the hallway. “The office is waking up. If we’re doing this… we can’t start with a rumor. We’re already pushing every line just by you being in here with the door closed this early.”
The practical reality was a cold splash. “So what does doing this look like, Carter? In the daylight?”
“It looks like walking to HR together before this meeting. Submitting a formal disclosure of a personal relationship. It’s a formality, but it’s armor. It means no one can use us against us later.” He took a half-step closer, his voice dropping. “It means we’re choosing to be a team, in every sense. Publicly, professionally. It’s the only way I can see to have both.”
It was the ultimate commitment. Putting their names on a document, making their private chaos a matter of corporate record. The risk was monumental. It was also profoundly honest.
Riley looked at the man who had been her rival, her obsession, her secret. She looked at the folder containing the discovery that proved how potent they could be together. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach. But it was quieter now, drowned out by a louder, more compelling beat of possibility.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay?” He needed the confirmation.
“Yes. Let’s go to HR.” She managed a small, shaky smile. “Then let’s go win this merger.”
He didn’t kiss her. But the look he gave her—a mix of fierce pride, blazing intensity, and a gratitude so deep it felt fragile—sealed the promise more firmly than any signature ever could. He picked up the folder containing their future, and held the door open for her. Together, they walked into the bright, buzzing hallway, toward the bureaucratic machinery that would make them official, and toward the deal that would now bear the undeniable mark of both their minds. The day ahead was a minefield, but for the first time, they were navigating it side by side, map in hand.