Page 100 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Max.

They were settling in for the night.

I got into the car. As we pulled away from the curb, I kept my attention on the building until the turn took it from view. The broken lock bothered me. So did Quinn’s face when I’d stepped back. The tiny delay before her smile. The way she’d said professional as if translating disappointment.

I’d made the correct choice, though.

She was part of my legal team. Temporarily under my influence. She was fighting for a career she wanted to earn cleanly. She needed my recommendation, not my interest. My restraint, not my confusion.

I could survive the attraction. It was the possibility beneath it that required discipline.

Love, as I understood it, was not a feeling to indulge because a woman looked beautiful in a secondhand dress and made a terrible evening bearable.

It was a promise measured in the life one was prepared to share, and I had no right to offer one while her future still depended on me.

I needed to keep my head clear.

The case came first. Her future came first.

Whatever had opened between us tonight, I would keep it contained.

That was responsibility.

That was respect.

And if it felt less like respect than loss, that was my problem to solve.

13

QUINN

THE DOOR LATCH FAIRY STRIKES

I woke up feeling hungover, which was rude because I’d consumed one glass of champagne over three hours.

My mouth was dry. My feet hurt. My calves had strong judgments about dancing in thrifted satin heels, and my brain, traitorous little office appliance that it was, kept replaying Rafe Virelli saying my name in the hallway outside my apartment.

Quinn.

Not Ms. Bradley. Not the intern. Not a person temporarily useful to his case.

Quinn.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

“Absolutely not,” I told it.

Max, asleep on his bed beside mine, didn’t respond. He was still recovering from being the only dog at a service-dog gala, which had apparently required all the stamina of a military deployment and the emotional range of a Broadway lead. His plum tie lay on my dresser. I’d taken it off him the second we got home, mostly to keep him humble. It hadn’t worked. Even asleep, he looked vaguely smug.

My alarm went off again.

I slapped it quiet and sat up too fast, which my body treated as a personal betrayal.

“Okay,” I whispered, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead. “Good. Great. We love being alive and employed and not texting our best friend at six-twelve in the morning to ask, hypothetically, how many butterflies is too many butterflies to have for a dragon client.”

Max opened one eye.

I pointed at him. “Don’t look at me like that. You danced with him, too.”