The city pulsed in the distance beyond the towering glass of the law office, drenched in amber from the streetlamps and flickering signs. Naomi stayed late—again. It was safer in the quiet of file drawers and blinking cursor prompts than at home, where silence pressed too close.
She didn't expect him to be there.
Luca leaned against the frame of her office doorway, the top button of his black dress shirt undone, sleeves rolled back just enough to expose the ink curling up his forearms. He looked out of place and exactly where he belonged.
"I figured I'd find you here," he said.
Naomi swallowed. "You shouldn't be."
"No," he agreed, stepping inside anyway. "But I am."
The door clicked shut behind him. The silence stretched and curled, heavy with unsaid things. He watched her, and Naomi could feel it—not just his gaze, but the tension coiling in the air between them.
"You've been avoiding me," he said.
She looked down at the neat stack of depositions, suddenly lifeless. "Because this—" she gestured vaguely at him, at them, "—isn't supposed to happen."
Luca moved closer, each step deliberate. He stopped a breath away, his voice low, intimate. "Is that why you keep working late, Counselor? To outrun what's between us?"
"I don't want to want you," she confessed, voice breaking on the edge of truth.
"But you do."
His fingers brushed the side of her wrist—barely a touch, but it lit something low in her stomach. She didn't pull away.
"I'm not going to ruin your life, Naomi," he whispered.
She looked up at him. "You already are."
Their mouths didn't meet—not yet. Instead, the tension twisted tighter. He didn't kiss her. She didn't beg him to.
But the moment was charged, electric. A promise of what could happen—if they crossed that line.