Henry POV
Henry knew walking into Morrison and Associates that she might refuse to see him. He'd prepared for that possibility. He'd prepared for her to throw him out of her office. He'd prepared for rejection because rejection was what he deserved.
What he didn't prepare for was the way his entire world would stop when she walked through that door.
She's more beautiful than he remembered. That's the first thought that hits him and it nearly breaks his ribs. Not beautiful in the soft way she was when she was his wife. Not the kind of beauty that comes from youth and hope and believing in forever.
This beauty is sharp. It's dangerous. It's the kind of beauty that comes from surviving something that could have destroyed you. Her green eyes are colder now. They don't look at him like he's everything anymore.
They look at him like he's nothing.
Henry tries to explain his situation but his voice sounds wrong. Weak. He's spent seven years as a billionaire CEO making boardrooms listen to every word he says. Now he's sitting across from one woman and he sounds like a teenager asking someone to prom.
He tells her about Marcus. About the stolen contracts and the false reports spreading through the financial world like poison. About clients disappearing. About the empire he built crumbling into dust.
Grace listens and writes notes and doesn't look at him like he matters.
She asks questions. Clinical questions. About timelines. About strategies. About evidence. She doesn't ask how he's been or what he's been doing or if he ever thinks about her. She doesn't ask if he has nightmares about the day she left. She doesn't ask if he's spent seven years trying to become the man she deserved.
She treats him exactly like she would treat any other client who walked into her office.
It's devastating.
Henry realizes in that moment that the woman he destroyed has absolutely no remaining feelings for him. Not anger. Not hurt. Not even the kind of hate that comes from loving someone and being betrayed. She has contempt. Worse than hate. The complete indifference of someone looking at a stranger.
She doesn't care about him anymore.
Henry feels something break inside his chest but he keeps talking because stopping would mean showing her how much this hurts. He keeps explaining his case because explaining is the only power he has left.
Grace writes everything down. She asks more questions. She builds a wall between them made of legal language and professional distance. She makes it clear that this is business. Just business. Nothing more.
Henry watches her work and thinks about the girl he married. She was soft then. She looked at him like he hung the moon. She believed in him when she should have run. She loved him when he gave her every reason not to.
That girl is dead.
This woman sitting across from him is who she became after he left her with nothing. This lawyer who specializes in destroying contracts and protecting women from men like him. This person who built her entire career on refusing to be vulnerable the way she was with him.
He created her.
That's the thought that nearly destroys him. The woman she became is his fault. The walls she's built are his fault. The contempt in her eyes when she looks at him is his fault.
Henry wants to tell her that he knows what he did. That he's spent seven years thinking about that prenup. That he's spent seven years hating himself for being cruel enough to hand it to her on their wedding night. That he's spent seven years trying to become worthy of her forgiveness even though he has no right to ask for it.
He doesn't say any of that.
Instead he keeps explaining his case like it's the most important thing in the world. Because maybe if he can prove to her that he's smart enough to deserve her help, maybe she'll look at him with something other than contempt.
Grace finishes asking her questions. She stacks her notes into a neat pile. She looks at him with professional eyes and Henry's heart sinks because he knows what's coming. She's going to refuse him. She's going to tell him to find another lawyer. She's going to walk him out of her office and he'll never see her again.
Instead she says, "I'll take your case."
Henry freezes.
"Really," he says. It comes out like a question.
"Really. But we need to move fast. Marcus is moving faster than I expected. If we're going to save your company we need to start immediately." Grace starts gathering her files. "First working session tonight. Eight o'clock. Bring everything you have. Financial records. Email threads. Everything."
Henry nods but his mind is reeling. She said yes. She actually said yes.
Relief floods through him but immediately it turns to something else. Terror.
Because now he understands what taking this case means. It means nights in her office. It means watching her work from across a table. It means hours of being close enough to remember what it felt like when she loved him. It means spending time with a woman who's made it perfectly clear that she doesn't care about him at all.
"Sixteen hours tonight," Grace says, pulling him back to the present. "Bring coffee. Strong coffee. We're going to need it."
"Sixteen hours," Henry repeats.
"You wanted the best lawyer in London," Grace says coolly. "That's what you get. I work until the case is solved. I don't sleep. I don't stop. I don't have a personal life when someone is paying me to solve theirs."
She stands up and extends her hand for a professional handshake. Henry takes it and feels the shock of touching her skin. Seven years. It's been seven years since he's touched her and even a handshake feels like electricity.
Grace pulls her hand back quickly like she felt it too.
"Tonight," she says. "Eight o'clock. Don't be late."
Henry leaves her office in a daze.
He walks down the hallway and down the stairs and out onto the London street and everything feels surreal. She said yes. She's going to help him. She's going to save his company.
But she's also going to torture him with her presence. Sixteen hours alone with her in an office. Watching her be brilliant and cold and completely unreachable. Watching her work for him while hating him. Watching her build a case to save his life while pretending she doesn't see him as anything more than a problem to solve.
Henry checks his watch. It's four in the afternoon.
He has four hours before he has to go back to her office. Four hours to prepare himself to spend sixteen hours sitting across from the woman who destroyed him by becoming everything he always knew she could be.
Four hours isn't enough time.
A lifetime wouldn't be enough time.
But at eight o'clock tonight he'll walk back into that building and sit across from Grace Winters. And he'll watch her be the most beautiful, most brilliant, most completely unreachable woman he's ever known.
And he'll remember exactly why he spent seven years trying to become worthy of her.
Because now he understands something that terrifies him.
He's not just falling back in love with her.
He never actually stopped.