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had been a yoga studio at the height of Chicago’s minitech boom but had lain dormant ever since. A beautiful wooden floor would need to be refinished and then covered with more knee-friendly material. I would install barres, which probably meant redoing the wall of windows. But it was perfect. Any place would need some renovations, and besides, something about this place just felt right. Warm and hopeful…or maybe I was projecting. I didn’t want to jinx it, but I had a feeling good things would happen here.
    And the apartment above the studio was icing on the cake. It had been some sort of lounge, complete with beanbags and hanging beads in the doorway, but it had all the right parts for a living space, as Lindsey had said, and that was exactly how I planned to use it.
    My savings would cover the rent on the whole space for a year. Not a huge cushion, but I had to have some faith that my business would succeed. I had to trust.
    After I returned home, I stayed up late reading the contracts and rental agreement. The phone sat beside me, a silent testament to where my thoughts strayed so often. He was a busy man, hard at work, and if he was too tired to call, well, that was fine by me. But oh, I wanted him to. I lay back on the bed, stretching my shoulders, and wanted, wanted, wanted him to call.
    The phone vibrated in my hand, startling me. I must have drifted off for a minute, as my brain was sluggish to start again. I checked the screen. Drew.
    “Hello?” My voice was thready, not quite there.
    There was a pause. “It’s too late.”
    “No, no.” I turned and blinked at the bright red dashes on the alarm clock. One a.m. Okay, it was too late. “Is everything all right?”
    “Yeah.” He swore softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I just got home, and I didn’t want you to think that I had forgotten or that I wasn’t serious about you.”
    Like a splash of water on my face, and I was awake. “You’re serious about me?”
    Silence, and then, “Yes.”
    I rubbed my eyes, shaking off the remnants of sleep. “Okay, you have to help me out here. I understand why you didn’t want to start mauling me in my own home, but if you were really interested in me all this time, why didn’t you ask me out? I’ve been out of the game for a while, but I’m fairly sure that’s the typical progression of things.”
    “You’re not a typical woman, Rose.” His voice was dry.
    He was talking about my brother. Me? I was as common as snow in a Chicago winter. As drab too. He seemed to have heard my unvoiced denial, because he explained.
    “Do you remember the first case I took for Philip?”
    Years ago, when my brother was making the transition from small-time “problem solver” to an actual businessman. Some lowlifes we knew from the old neighborhood had sued him. Honest to God served him papers. Philip had wanted to do more than make it go away. He’d wanted to teach them a lesson.
    That was where Drew came in, a young hotshot working at a prestigious firm in a fancy skyscraper. He must have had an enviable paycheck and salary, and for the first time, I wondered why he’d left. Philip was persuasive, but Drew wasn’t easily blinded by flashy lights.
    “Your brother showed up with an attitude and a fat wallet. None of the partners wanted to touch his case, but they weren’t about to turn down his money. So he got assigned to me.”
    “I bet you were thrilled,” I said, thinking of how damn angry Philip had been back then. Still was, but he hid it behind expensive clothes and expensive cars and a disdain I might actually believe if I didn’t know him so well.
    “I complained to my bosses, but I was still the new kid, no matter that I’d begun to make a name for myself. So we were stuck with each other. I was a cocky little shit, thinking I was the biggest thing to hit the Chicago law scene in the last decade. And your brother was…your brother.”
    “But you must have gotten over it, since he hired