Chapter 70: I Might Want You.
She opened her bag and produced a document folder before the appetisers had been cleared.
Liam watched her set it on the table with the efficiency of someone who had decided before arriving that pleasantries had a ceiling and they’d reached it. She opened the folder, turned it to face him, and slid it across with two fingers.
"I had my personal counsel draft this independently," she said. "Not the firm’s legal team."
Liam picked it up.
The document was four pages. Clean, precise, the language stripped of the kind of decorative complexity that lawyers used when they wanted to obscure rather than communicate. She had taken his three terms, formalised them into binding commitments, and added two clauses of her own — both reasonable, both things he would have suggested himself if he’d drafted it. A confidentiality provision covering the nature of the settlement. A timeline of ninety days for the referrals to be delivered in writing.
He read every line.
Not performatively — actually read it, the way he read everything, looking for the gap between what a document said and what it meant. He found none.
She sat across from him with her wine glass and said nothing while he read, which was the mark of someone who had drafted something they were confident in.
He reached the signature line.
He signed it, dated it, and slid it back across the table.
She countersigned without looking at the document. She’d already read it enough times to know where the line was.
The folder closed. Returned to her bag. The whole exchange had taken eleven minutes and Liam found himself genuinely impressed — not by the terms, which were his, but by the execution. She had arrived, delivered, and was now moving with the quiet finality of a woman whose evening had concluded.
She reached for her jacket on the back of the chair, ready to leave without further ado.
"Arthur called me this morning," Liam said.
The jacket stayed where it was.
Mrs. Harriet’s hand remained on the lapel for exactly one second before she set it back down and looked at him. Not dramatically — just a clean redirect of attention, the kind that didn’t announce itself.
"Did he," she said.
"He asked whether I’d been in contact with you."
A pause. Something moved behind her eyes that she didn’t fully contain in time. "And what did you tell him?"
"I told him no." Liam picked up his water glass. "Then he mentioned something about blacklisting and industry influence." He set the glass down. "I told him it was a shame some people lived long enough to become the fool and ended the call."
The silence that followed felt like it was being played on loud speaker.
The smile arrived against her will — small, immediate, pulled back almost before it landed but not quite. She pressed her lips together and looked at a point just past his shoulder for a moment.
"You hung up on Arthur Harlan," she said.
"I did."
"Just like that." She added, part of her waiting for the punchline to a joke.
"He wasn’t saying anything worth hearing."
She was quiet for a moment, reorganising something internally. When she looked back at him the composure was intact but the temperature behind it had shifted by a degree.
"I also want you to know," Liam continued, "that I’m aware you didn’t sign my termination letter."
Her expression stayed even.
"Arthur made that call," Liam said. "You managed the fallout. That’s a different thing." He paused. "Your record at the firm speaks for itself. The problems I observed over three years had a consistent source and it wasn’t you."
Mrs. Harriet looked at him steadily. The evaluation behind her eyes was running at full speed but her face gave none of it away.
"That’s a generous read," she said carefully.
"It’s an accurate one."
A brief silence settled between them. She reached for her wine, took a measured sip, and set it down.
"Thank you," she said. "For your discretion. You could have handled this very differently."
"I could have," Liam agreed.
"Most people would have." Mrs. Harriet admitted.
"It is a good thing I’m different, isn’t it?" Liam responded.
She looked at him. "Yes," she said quietly. "Yes, it is."
Liam held the moment for exactly a beat before speaking.
"There’s a way we could consider ourselves even," he said. "If you’re open to it."
"I’m listening."
"Dinner. Proper dinner — not a negotiation, not a document exchange. Two people marking the beginning of what I think could be a genuinely productive relationship." He kept his voice level and his eyes on hers. "No agenda. No paperwork."
Mrs. Harriet was quiet.
"Hm," she said.
It wasn’t a no. It wasn’t structured like a no. It was the sound of a woman who understood exactly what was being offered and was running the full calculation before she responded.
Liam didn’t push. He let it sit.
"You’re also someone who doesn’t get enough credit," he said. The shift in direction was deliberate — clean, not abrupt. "Three years at that firm and I watched every significant structural decision trace back to your judgment. The Kellerman restructuring. The expansion into arbitration services in 2022. Both credited publicly to the partners." He paused. "Arthur’s name was on the press release for the Kellerman deal. I remember thinking at the time that the person who actually built the strategy wasn’t in the room when it was announced."
Something happened to her face.
Not a crack — nothing so dramatic. More like the slight easing of something that had been held in position for a long time.
"You noticed that," she said almost quietly. Not quite a question.
"Hard to miss, if you were paying attention."
"Most people don’t pay attention to such menial things."
"I was." He let that land without adding to it. "You built something real inside that firm, Mrs. Harriet. The fact that other people put their names on it doesn’t change what it is."
She looked at him for a long moment across the candlelit table. The noise of the restaurant moved around them at a comfortable distance.
Then she smiled.
Not the controlled, professional smile he had catalogued across every interaction since The Metropolitan Grill. Not the faint trace of amusement she allowed herself when something surprised her. This was something else — reaching the eyes, settling into the face like it belonged there, the smile of a woman who had been seen accurately by someone unexpected and had stopped pretending it didn’t matter.
"Dinner," she said.
"Dinner," Liam confirmed.
"One condition."
"Name it."
"You let me choose the restaurant this time."
Liam smiled. "Done."