Grace POV
Something shifted after the almost-kiss.
Grace knows it the moment she wakes up the next morning. She knows it when she realizes she's already thinking about seeing Henry that night. She knows it and she hates herself for it.
She told herself she agreed to work with him to defeat him. To watch him suffer. To prove that the soft girl he broke was gone forever. Instead she's standing in her bedroom choosing what to wear and the only honest reason is that she wants him to think she looks good.
Grace pulls on a navy suit and tells herself it's for confidence. It's for the client meeting. It has nothing to do with the fact that Henry noticed her green dress last week and couldn't stop looking at her.
She's a liar.
By noon she calls Sophia into her office.
"This is the last week," Grace says. It's the same thing she says every week. "We finish the case. We consolidate what we have. Then we're done."
"Grace—"
"I mean it. One more week. Seven days maximum."
But they both know it's not true. The case keeps expanding. Marcus's sabotage is deeper than they thought. Henry's company needs restructuring. There are contracts to rebuild and client relationships to repair and the work never actually ends.
It never ends because Grace keeps finding reasons to extend it.
That night when Henry arrives at her office, Grace has changed clothes again. She tells herself it's because the navy suit looked tired. She tells herself she changed into the dark red blouse because it photographs well. She tells herself absolutely anything except the truth.
She's dressing for him.
Grace watches Henry work. She watches the way he concentrates on documents. She watches the way his fingers move across the keyboard when he's taking notes. She watches him like she's memorizing every detail and she hates herself for it.
Two weeks pass this way.
Grace wakes up every morning thinking about what she'll say to Henry that night. She thinks about conversations they might have. She thinks about whether he's going to ask her personal questions again and whether she'll let her walls down enough to answer them.
She's becoming someone she doesn't recognize.
One night around midnight, Henry leans back in his chair and just looks at her.
"Tell me about your life," he says. "In London. What you studied. How you built your firm. What actually makes you happy because I don't think I know anymore."
Grace should deflect. She should redirect the conversation back to work. She should remind him that this is professional.
Instead she answers.
She talks about university. About how she threw herself into corporate law because revenge felt better than grief. About discovering that what she really wanted was to protect women from what happened to her. She talks about building Morrison and Associates with Sophia. About the cases she's won. About the predatory contracts she's broken.
She tells him about the woman she helped last week who was trying to leave her abusive marriage and didn't have money for a lawyer. She tells him about the satisfaction of proving that power can belong to people who were supposed to have nothing. She tells him about walking into courtrooms knowing that she's going to dismantle everything on the other side because the person she's fighting for depends on her.
She's never talked this much about herself to anyone except Sophia.
Henry listens like her words are the most important thing he's ever heard. He doesn't interrupt. He doesn't look away. He just listens to her talk about her life and her victories and the way she's rebuilt herself from the ashes of what he destroyed.
Grace realizes that this is dangerous.
She's letting him see who she is now. She's letting him understand that the soft girl he broke became someone powerful. She's letting him into the parts of herself that she's kept locked away.
Henry leans forward. His eyes are so blue in the darkness of her office. His expression is completely serious.
"You're incredible, Grace," he says quietly.
The words hit her like a physical force.
Grace goes absolutely still.
In that moment she understands something that terrifies her. She's been waiting seven years to hear him say something like that. She's been waiting seven years for him to look at her like she matters. She's been waiting seven years to be seen and valued and appreciated by the man who once made her feel like she was worth nothing.
And hearing him say it now, meaning it now, seeing the absolute conviction in his eyes when he says she's incredible.
It breaks her wide open.
Grace can't breathe. She can't think. She can only sit there and realize that the walls she spent seven years building aren't actually protecting her from Henry anymore. They're protecting her from herself. They're protecting her from the knowledge that forgiveness might be possible. That second chances might be real. That the man sitting across from her might actually be trying to become worthy of her.
She stands up suddenly.
"We should take a break," she says. But her voice is shaking.
Henry doesn't move. He just keeps looking at her like she hung the moon.
Grace walks to the window and stares out at London at midnight. The city is dark and quiet. The streets are empty. It's just her and Henry and the thing between them that's becoming impossible to ignore.
"Grace," Henry says softly from behind her.
"Don't," she whispers. "Please don't say anything else."
"I'm not trying to hurt you."
"I know. That's what makes this so dangerous."
Grace can feel him behind her. She can feel the weight of his presence and his attention and his absolute conviction that she matters. She can feel how much it would take for him to reach out and touch her again.
She doesn't turn around because if she turns around she might let him.
And if she lets him touch her again, all of this falls apart. All of her carefully constructed defenses. All of her revenge. All of her reasons for staying away.
Everything falls apart.
"I've been waiting seven years to hear you say that," Grace whispers to the window. "I've been waiting for you to look at me like I matter. I've been waiting for you to see who I became without you and approve of it."
"I don't just approve," Henry says. "I'm in awe."
Grace closes her eyes and feels something break open inside her chest.
She's spent seven years building walls around a girl who believed in forever. She's spent seven years convincing herself that forgiving him was impossible. She's spent seven years running from the possibility that maybe love could heal what it broke.
But standing in her office at midnight with Henry behind her saying she's incredible and meaning it with every fiber of his being.
Grace finally understands that the most dangerous thing isn't falling back in love with him.
The most dangerous thing is admitting that she never actually stopped.