Earlier, after Payton had stormed out of the conference room, J.D. had immediately headed down to his office and pulled up the deposition transcript she had emailed him. He had feverishly dove in, expecting the worst. As his reading progressed, he continued, tensely waiting to find the twist, the screw she put to him, something. Anything.

But.

What he had discovered instead was . . . nothing. No tricks. Unless one counted the trick Payton had pulled off in managing to take a pretty damn good 30(b)(6) deposition on about thirty seconds’ notice. Sure there were a few minor things, a few lines of questioning with which J.D. might have taken a slightly different approach, or maybe not—but nevertheless, all he could think was—

Wow.

And just when he thought he couldn’t feel more like a jackass, Tyler called and filled him in on everything.

And thus, J.D. found himself here, on Payton’s doorstep.

Standing aimlessly on her front stoop with nothing else to do, he looked around, checking out the neighborhood. There were several row houses on the block, including the one that presumably belonged to her. The tree-lined street had a quaint yet urban feel to it.

He liked it. Not as much as his downtown high-rise condo with a view of the lake, of course, but he found it an acceptable place to leave the Bentley parked on the street. And for J.D., that was saying a lot.

He pushed the button on the intercom again. Third time’s the charm, they always say, which was good, because given the circumstances, charm was something he definitely need—

“Hello?”

The voice—Payton’s—came crackling loudly through the intercom, momentarily surprising him. She sounded annoyed. And he hadn’t even spoken yet.

J.D. cleared his throat and pushed the button on the intercom.

“Uh, Payton, hi. It’s J.D.”

Dead silence.

Then another crackle.

“Sorry. Not interested.”

Cute. But J.D. persisted. Again with the button.

“I want to talk to you.”

Crackle.

“Ever hear of a telephone, asshole?”

Okay, he probably deserved that.

Button.

“Listen, I’ve been standing out here for fifteen minutes. What took you so long to answer?”

Crackle.

(Annoyed sigh.) “I was about to get in the shower.”

J.D. raised an eyebrow. The shower? Hmm . . . he liked the sound of that. Wait a second—no, he didn’t.

Bad J.D.

Button.

“I read the deposition transcript.”

Crackle.

“Good for you.”

She certainly wasn’t making this easy. But he had expected that.

Buzzer.

“Payton,” J.D. said in an earnest tone, “I would like to say this in person. Please.”

Silence. He could practically hear her debating.

Then the buzzer rang, unlocking the front door. J.D. dove to beat the buzzer before she changed her mind, and let himself in.


PAYTON’S EYES QUICKLY scanned her front room and kitchen, making sure they were presentable. Not that it mattered, because (a) it was The Shithead and (b) he wasn’t staying. Her apartment was her sanctuary, which meant 100 percent J.D.-free.

She opened her front door, thinking she’d catch him on the stairs and cut him off at the pass. But instead, she found him already standing there. The quick way she threw open the door caught him off guard.

With one hand on the door frame and the other on her hip, Payton glared at him. “Whatever you have to say, say it quickly. I’ve had a long day.”

Recovering from his momentary surprise, J.D. looked her over. “That’s a little abrupt. Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Great. Thanks.”

He brushed by Payton and stepped into her apartment.

Payton huffed. Oh. Well. Apparently she had no choice in the matter. She shut the door behind him and watched as he looked around curiously.

“So this is where you live,” he said as if fascinated, a man who’d snuck into the enemy’s camp. “Nice space. Looks like you get a lot of light.” He glanced over. “Just you?”

Payton nodded. “Yes. Look, whatever you—”

“Can I have something to drink?” he interrupted her. “A glass of water would be fine. I came here straight from work.”

At first, Payton said nothing. She simply stared at him, wondering what the hell he was up to.

“I’m a bit parched,” he added.

She thought she saw the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. Was he trying to be cute? Or perhaps he was just stalling.

“Fine.” She sighed. Reluctantly, she turned to head into the kitchen.

“Perrier, if you have it.”

Payton threw an evil eye over her shoulder.

J.D. grinned. “Just kidding.”

Definitely trying to be cute.

Whatever.

Ignoring him, Payton went and got his glass of water. It was weird, him being there in her apartment. It felt . . . personal. She felt oddly jumpy. Skittish.

After unenthusiastically filling a glass with tepidly warm tap water, she went back out into the front room. The room was divided by a wall of built-in bookshelves—one of the few things from the original design she hadn’t changed after buying the place—and she found J.D. there, looking at her collection of books.

As he leaned over to check out the lower shelf, Payton noticed for the first time that he wasn’t wearing a suit jacket. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up around his forearms, his tie loosened, and his hair had a casual, raked-through look.

This is what he looks like when he comes home from work, Payton thought. She caught herself wondering if there was someone he came home to.

Brushing that aside, Payton walked over and unceremoniously shoved the glass of water at him. “Here.”

J.D.’s hand brushed against hers as he took it. “Thank you.”

There was something about the way he looked at her, Payton noticed. For years, his expressions had fluctuated somewhere along the smug/haughty you-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about-silly-Clintonite to the more frustrated I-would-strangle-you-dead-except-I-don’t-have-time-to-pick-up-your-workload spectrum. But lately it was different, and she found it very hard to read him.

“Why are you here?” she asked bluntly.

After skeptically eyeing the cloudy glass of Eau du Lac Michigan she had poured him, J.D. took a sip, then paused as if still figuring out the answer to that himself.

“I have questions,” he finally said.

“Questions?” Payton asked, surprised. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that.

“About the deposition,” he explained.

“Oh. Well, you read the transcript. Was there something you didn’t understand?”

“Yes.” J.D. set his glass down on the nearby end table. He stood up and peered down at her, reminding her just how tall he really was. “Why did you do it?”

Payton cocked her head. “You didn’t really think I would screw up a deposition, did you? Aside from my reputation”— she emphasized this in reference to his earlier insult—“I would never do that to a client.”

J.D. waved this off. “No, I get that part. But I talked to Tyler. He said that you came to him about the deposition. You had me in a corner—if you’d done nothing, I would’ve been screwed. You know how Ben works: there’s no room for error when it comes to his clients.” He paused, coming around to his original question. “So? Why did you help me?”

She held up a hand. “Easy there, buddy. I didn’t do it to help you.”

“Okay, fine. Why then?”

Payton, herself, had thought long and hard about this very question after she had gotten home that evening. So she told J.D. the only logical answer she’d come up with.

“I decided that I don’t want to win by default. If the Partnership Committee chooses me—when they choose me, I should say—I want to know that it’s because I earned it, not because some stupid mix-up edged you out at the last minute.”

J.D. didn’t say anything at first. Then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He hesitated with the next part. “Well, regardless of your motives, the real reason I came here tonight is because I . . .” He took a breath, as if needing to steel himself. “I wanted to thank you. And to apologize. When I found you in the conference room after the deposition, you had this satisfied expression on your face and, well, I guess I assumed the worst.”

He paused.

“Is that it?” Payton asked, not entirely mollified by this apology.

“Oh—I was just waiting for you to say something sarcastic about assholes and assumptions.”

Payton gave him a level stare. “As if I would be that cliché.”

She noticed he was watching her. Again. “What?”

J.D. grinned. “Now I’m waiting for you to do the thing with your hair. The little flip.”

Payton glared. Note to self: invest in hair clips.

“You know, as apologies go, this one could use a ton of improvement,” she told him. “Is there more?”

“Not really.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “Well, except that I was thinking . . . I don’t want to win by default, either. So maybe we could call a truce.”

“A truce?” Payton asked. “That’s very magnanimous of you, considering the next play is mine. What do I get out of this?”

J.D. took a step closer to her. “Hmm. How about the satisfaction of being the better person?”

Payton paused, highly intrigued by this. “You would admit to that?”

J.D.’s eyes shone with amusement. He took another step closer. “In this context, Ms. Kendall, yes.”

Payton considered the terms of his proposal. Higher stakes for her there could not be.