Page 185 of The Rules

He closed his eyes. Just once.

Then turned and walked out.

Chapter 42

Katherine

Katherine's pulse slammed violently against her chest as she walked alongside Ben through the courthouse entrance.

Each thunderous beat reverberated through her body—a primal warning that this case transcended professional stakes. This was her blood, her vengeance, her redemption.

The courtroom loomed before them—sterile, unforgiving, charged with a suffocating anticipation.

Every gaze pierced Katherine's skin as they entered.

She maintained her rigid posture, her features carved into practiced neutrality, but beneath this carefully architected facade, raw electricity coursed through her veins. Ben moved beside her as though claiming territory, this battlefield his natural habitat. His pace deliberate. Measured. Devastating.

She felt herself trailing in the wake of an approaching catastrophe.

Heads swiveled toward them as they advanced down the center aisle. Gazes curious. Calculating. Crawford's team lounged with premature victory etched across their faces. Katherine's attention locked onto Crawford himself—sprawled with insulting casualness, leaning intimately toward an associate, murmuring something that triggered the younger man's obedient nod.

As though this were routine.

Her grip tightened around the portfolio, knuckles whitening as the leather creaked under pressure. She stood face-to-face with the man who had destroyed her father’s life—systematically, deliberately, and without remorse.

Ben never granted them a glance. He had no need.

Katherine observedas he positioned his briefcase with practiced ease. Adjusted his tie with two measured fingers. Rolled his shoulders once.

And with that singular motion—

His metamorphosis completed itself. This wasn't the man who'd consumed her mouth with savage hunger in a records room. Wasn't the man who established boundaries solely to witness her surrender.

This was something glacial. Lethally honed. An apex predator in bespoke tailoring.

Katherine drew in a breath, slow and deliberate, as if inhaling steel. The nerves quieted. The doubt died. In its place, something colder unfurled—steadier. She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and let the version of herself she usually kept caged step forward. The one who didn’t blink. Didn’t beg. Didn’t fear.

She watched Ben from the corner of her eye, studying the subtle shift in his posture as Crawford's attorney droned on with his opening statement. There was something mesmerizing about Ben's stillness—the controlled patience of a predator waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

She’d seen him wield power behind desks and in dim-lit rooms. But this—this was different.

His fingers tapped once against the polished wood of their table, the only outward sign of his impatience. The rest of him remained perfectly composed, his expression a careful mask of professional detachment. But she knew better. She sensed the raw power emanating from him, tightly leashed beneath the tailored perfection of his suit—a dangerous current only she seemed attuned to recognize.

The courtroom's tension pressed against Katherine's skin, making her hyperaware of every sound—the scratch of pens, the soft rustle of papers, the measured breathing of the man beside her. Something pulled at her, an invisible thread.

She surrendered to it, closing the distance between them until the subtle notes of his cologne invaded her senses, her voice dropping to a whisper thatbelonged only to him.

"You look like you enjoy this."

He didn't turn. Didn't blink.

"I do," Ben replied, low and steady.

And the way he said it—smooth, unapologetic, almost sinful—sent a ripple down her spine.

Because it wasn't just confidence. It was hunger.

Helivedfor this. For the game. The strategy. For taking men like Crawford apart with his words and a scalpel smile.