Page 8 of Making It Burn

“Whatever this is.”

“This,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though my pulse was doing something stupid, “is two adults who happen to have a history.We can handle it.”

“Can we?”

“I can.Can you?”

He stared at me, and I could see the war happening behind those blue eyes—the part of him that wanted to walk away, and the part that wanted to stay and fight.Or maybe do something else entirely.Finally, he exhaled and took a deliberate step back, putting space between us like he needed the distance to breathe.“We have a job to do.A case to win.That’s all that matters.”

“Agreed.”

“Good.”

He turned to leave, his hand on the doorknob.For a hot guy, he was one hell of a prick—all that perfect control and rigid professionalism like he’d forgotten he was human somewhere along the way.

“Mason,” I said.

He paused, but didn’t turn around.

“For what it’s worth,” I said quietly, “I’m sorry.About the injury.I never meant—”

“Whatever.”

Then he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

I waited until his footsteps faded, then let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

“Holy shit.”I sat down behind my desk and shook my head.This was going to be a spectacular, inevitable, and beautifully catastrophic disaster.But this was a great job with the number one law firm in Virginia.My parents would kill me if I fucked this up, and I didn’t move all the way back home just to torpedo my career.Could I somehow move past our teenage rivalry and actually work with Mason?

ChapterTwo

Mason

Imade it back to my office without punching a wall, which felt like a minor miracle.

The door clicked shut behind me, and I stood there for a moment, forehead pressed against the cool wood, trying to remember how to breathe like a normal human being instead of a man who’d just had his past walk back into his life wearing a perfectly tailored suit and that same infuriating smirk.

Beau fucking Thatcher.

Of all the law firms in Virginia—hell, the entire Eastern seaboard—he had to walk into mine.And not just walk in, but get hired as a senior associate, get assigned to my case, and look at me with those intense eyes like the last fifteen years had been nothing more than an intermission.

I pushed away from the door and crossed to my desk, yanking my tie loose with more force than necessary.My office suddenly felt too small.Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, downtown Richmond stretched out in a grid of glass and brick, the James River a gray ribbon in the distance.Usually, this view calmed me.Today, it might as well have been a brick wall.

I dropped into my chair, and my leg immediately began bouncing under the desk.

This was ridiculous.I wasn’t a teenager still nursing a grudge from high school.So what if Beau Thatcher had reappeared?So what if we had history?We were professionals now.Adults.We could work together like civilized people.

Except the moment I’d seen him in that conference room, something had shifted in my chest—a tectonic plate sliding out of place.And when he’d stood close to me in his office doorway, close enough that I could smell whatever expensive cologne he wore, my body had responded in ways that had nothing to do with professional rivalry and everything to do with the fact that Beau Thatcher had grown up into exactly the type of man I tried very hard not to notice.

Not that I was noticing.

I wasn’t.

My hand drifted to my thigh, fingers finding the scar through the fabric of my suit pants.The injury had healed years ago, but it was a reminder of a championship match that didn’t matter anymore.

Except it did matter.

I’d spent four years of high school locked in combat with Beau Thatcher—every game, every face-off, every moment on that field had been about proving I was better.Faster.Smarter.More disciplined.And every single time we faced each other, it had been a coin flip.