Page 36 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

“Inappropriate?” he hissed.

“Yes, sir.” I kept my voice even. “I also understand why it looks reckless.”

Moira, posted against the bookcase with a legal pad in hand, looked down so quickly I knew she was hiding something. Helena Wallace sat near the window, one ankle crossed over the other, examining me as if I were a new species on Earth.

“I had a client,” James continued, “a very high-profile client, in the middle of his initial engagement with this firm, and you decided that was the appropriate moment to negotiate with him in the middle of the corridor.”

“He negotiated back,” I offered.

James closed his eyes briefly.

It was possible I wasn’t helping.

The thing was, I understood the nature of the problem. I really did. It was about optics, protocol, seniority and chain of command. In theory, I respected that. In practice, a dragon had shown up demanding the necklace I’d bought for three dollars at a thrift store, and the universe had practically slapped an opportunity into my hands.

I wasn’t a complete idiot. I knew to grab it.

“Mr. Payton,” I said, aiming for respectful rather than repentant, because one of those I could do honestly. “I understand that I inserted myself into a situation involving a major client. I also returned a missing family heirloom, secured a direct role on the team, and got him to commit to a letter of recommendation in under two minutes. So, while I accept that my process was unconventional⁠—”

“Unhinged,” Moira murmured, still looking at her notes.

“—I do feel the result merits some nuance.”

Moira coughed into one fist to hide her laugh.

James turned to her, a weary expression on his face. “Would you like to take over?”

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Helena said nothing, but when I glanced at her, I found her watching me over steepled fingers with a look I couldn’t quite read. Not warm, exactly. More like she’d expected me to apologize prettily and had instead found herself listening to someone build a closing argument from the defendant’s chair.

James sat down at last, which somehow made him seem more dangerous.

“This is a respectable law firm,” he said. “Not a poker table. We do not train our interns to spot leverage in real time and lunge at clients.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

“And yet you did precisely that.”

“Yes.”

“And if he’d taken offense?”

I thought of the dragon in the hallway. The hard line of his mouth. The exactness of him. I could still see the moment when his face had changed when he saw the necklace in his hand again, all that heat diminishing and something that looked very much like grief taking over his expression. He hadn’t struck me as the sort who admired recklessness for its own sake. He’d struck me as a man who respected usefulness.

“He didn’t,” I said.

“That was luck.”

“No,” I said before I could stop myself.

Utter silence descended on the room.

I felt my own pulse once in my throat and made myself continue, because if I’d already stepped off the ledge, there was no point pretending I hadn’t.

“It wasn’t luck that he wanted the necklace,” I said. “If I’d just handed it over, he would’ve gotten the heirloom back and that would’ve been that. Which is good for him, and I was always going to give it back, but it wouldn’t have changed anything for me or for this firm except one less problem in the hallway.”

James’s face remained unreadable.