The Bet

Three rules have served me well in seventeen years of divorce law: never believe what a client tells you, never underestimate a scorned spouse's capacity for pettiness, and never, ever, get emotionally involved.

I was about to break all three.

But I didn't know that yet. The night Rhys Harrington's life intersected with mine, I was doing what I did every Friday, staying late at the office, reviewing depositions, and avoiding the well-meaning setup attempts my partner Bex kept engineering.

"You can't work forever," she'd said that afternoon.

"Watch me," I'd replied.

It wasn't that I hated dating. It was that I'd spent my entire career watching the wreckage of romance. The lies, the betrayals, the division of assets that used to mean something. After a thousand divorces, the idea of voluntarily entering that meat grinder seemed less romantic and more masochistic.

At thirty-two, I'd made peace with my cynicism. It protected me.

While I was drafting settlement terms for the Henderson divorce, $47 million in assets, three properties, and a spite-fueled custody battle over a Pomeranian, Rhys Harrington was eight blocks away, making the worst decision of his life.

Not that I knew any of this at the time.

RHYS

(As told to me later, in various confessions)

The bet happened at eleven forty-seven on a Friday night, in the private back room of a club so exclusive it didn't have a name.

"You're getting boring." Leo Fontaine leaned back in his chair, swirling whiskey that cost more than most people's car payments. "When's the last time you actually chased someone?"

Rhys, because that's how I'll tell this, since he told me every detail later, shrugged. "Why chase when they come to you?"

"That's my point." Leo gestured with his glass. "No challenge. No thrill. You've become one of those sad billionaires who's lost his edge."

"I haven't lost anything."

"Prove it."

Graham Harrington, Rhys's younger brother, looked up from his phone. "Don't engage. Leo's trying to make trouble."

"I'm trying to make things interesting." Leo's smile had the sharp edge of someone who'd had too much to drink and not enough entertainment. "I bet you a million dollars you can't make any woman fall for you."

"That's not a bet. That's a gift."

"Any woman I choose."

That should have been the warning. Even Rhys, competitive to a fault, still riding the high of his company's latest acquisition, should have heard the trap snapping shut.

"Pick your victim," he said instead.

Leo pulled out his phone. Scrolled through something. Smiled the smile of a man about to commit a small, elegant cruelty.

"Quinn Monroe."

"Who?"

"Divorce attorney. Partner at Monroe and Associates." Leo turned the phone around. "They call her the Ice Queen. Never lost a case. Never been in a relationship that anyone knows about. The woman makes her living destroying marriages. She thinks love is a legal fiction."

Rhys looked at the photo. Professional headshot, sharp features, auburn hair, an expression that seemed to be judging whoever was behind the camera.

"She doesn't look like a challenge."

"She's rejected every man who's approached her in five years. And these aren't random guys, we're talking CEOs, diplomats, a fucking prince." Leo's grin widened. "She's immune. Some people think she might actually be immune to human connection."

"Nobody's immune."

"Prove it. Make her fall for you. Real feelings, not just sex. Thirty days."

Graham set down his phone. "This is a terrible idea."

"This is a fun idea." Leo extended his hand. "One million dollars. Thirty days. Make the Ice Queen melt."

Rhys should have said no. He had enough money. He had enough women. He had nothing to prove to Leo Fontaine or anyone else.

But he'd never lost at anything. And the word immune stuck in his mind like a splinter.

"Define 'fall for me.'"

"She says I love you. Or proposes. Something unmistakable."

"And how do I prove it?"

"I'll know." Leo shrugged. "We run in the same circles. Word gets around."

Rhys looked at the photo again. Quinn Monroe, Ice Queen, relationship skeptic. A woman who'd made her career on the corpses of love stories.

He should have seen himself in that description. Should have recognized a fellow traveler in emotional avoidance.

Instead, he saw a challenge.

"Deal."

They shook hands.

And eight blocks away, completely unaware that she'd just become the target of a billion-dollar bad decision, I finished my Henderson brief and went home alone.

The way I liked it.

The way I thought I'd always like it.

I was wrong about a lot of things back then.