The Law of Love - chapter 1

She can survive anything—except the woman who makes her want to live.

Chapter One — The City That Doesn’t Know My Name
Seattle greets me with rain the way some people greet with a hug — sudden, damp, and a little too intimate. I shake the water from my jacket
as I step into the bar, letting the warmth swallow me whole. It’s loud, crowded, and smells faintly of citrus and spilled beer. Perfect. The kind of place where no one knows me, and no one cares enough to ask.
I came here to start over. Or at least to pretend I could.
I slide onto a barstool, order something strong, and try to look like a woman who isn’t running from the ghost of her old life. My hair is scraped into a messy top-knot — the kind that says I tried but also this is the best I can do today. It’s fine. I’m not here to impress anyone.
Then she walks in.
I don’t see her at first — I feel her. A shift in the room,
a ripple of attention that isn’t loud but somehow undeniable. When I finally look, she’s shaking rain from her long blonde hair, and it falls around her
shoulders like she’s in a shampoo commercial that forgot to tell her it was filming. She’s tall, composed, and moves with a quiet certainty that makes people instinctively give her space. She looks like she could command a room without raising her voice. She also looks like trouble. The good kind.
She takes the seat beside me, leaving just enough distance to be polite, but close enough that I catch the faint scent of something clean and warm — cedar, maybe. Or discipline. Hard to tell.
“You’re new,” she says, her voice low but gentle, like she’s stating a fact rather than prying.I smirk before I can stop myself. “Is it that obvious?”
Her lips curve, not quite a smile, but something close. “You’re watching the room like you’re waiting for it to introduce itself.”
I laugh — a real one, which surprises me. “And what does that make you?”
“Someone who’s been here long enough to know it won’t.” Her tone is steady, calm, almost soothing. Not sharp. Not intrusive. Just… present. And that’s dangerous, because presence is something I’ve been avoiding. It’s easier to flirt, to tease, to distract myself with people I don’t care about and who don’t care about me.I promised myself I’d stop doing that. Stop filling the silence with bodies and bad decisions. Stop trying to outrun grief by sprinting into someone else’s bed.
But she turns her head, and her hair shifts over her
shoulder like a slow-motion temptation, and I swear the universe is laughing at me.
“You look like you could use a better night than the one you planned,” she says softly.
I raise a brow. “And what makes you think I planned
anything?”
“That’s the thing,” she murmurs. “You look like someone who stopped planning a while ago.”
It hits a little too close. But instead of pulling away, I lean in. “Maybe I just needed the right reason to start again.”
Her eyes meet mine — steady, ocean‑blue, impossibly calm — and something in my chest tilts. I should look away. I should remember every promise I made to myself about better choices, cleaner starts, fewer beautiful strangers with tempting smiles.But I don’t look away. I can’t.She holds my gaze like she’s giving me permission to be exactly who I am in this moment — messy, curious, a little reckless, and very much alive.
My hand lifts before I’ve even decided to move it. I wave the bartender over, still locked in those blue eyes that feel like deep water and quiet storms.
“Another drink,” I say, my voice low, “for her.”I don’t blink.
Neither does she.And just like that, the night shifts and the promise I made to myself starts to unravel.
The bartender sets the drink down with a soft clink, but she doesn’t look away from me. Not once. It’s unnerving in the best possible way — like she’s studying me, not to judge, but to understand.
She lifts the glass. “Thank you.”“Seemed only fair,” I say, trying to sound casual even
though my pulse is doing gymnastics. “You walked in here looking like a walking hair commercial. I had to level the playing field somehow.”
Her laugh is quiet, warm, and it slides under my skin like a secret. “Is that what this is? Leveling the field?”
“Something like that.”The music shifts — bass-heavy, slow but insistent — and the crowd thickens on the dance floor. She glances toward it, then back at me, and there’s a question in her eyes she doesn’t voice.
I answer it anyway.“Come on,” I say, hopping off my stool before I can talk myself out of it. “Dance with me.” She hesitates for half a heartbeat — not out of reluctance,
but calculation.
Then she stands, and the room seems to make space for her again. When she steps closer, her hair brushes her shoulders like liquid gold, and I swear the lights dim just to watch her move.
On the dance floor, the music wraps around us. People sway and shift, but the moment she places her hands on my hips — steady, confident, gentle — everyone else blurs into background noise.I inhale sharply. She notices. Of course she notices.
“You okay?” she murmurs, leaning in so her breath grazes my ear.“Define okay,” I manage, my voice embarrassingly breathless.Her fingers tighten just slightly, guiding me into the
rhythm. She’s not showy. She’s not trying to impress. She’s just… present. Solid. And somehow that makes everything inside me tilt.
I promised myself I’d stop doing this — stop letting
attraction bulldoze common sense. But her body is warm against mine, her hair brushing my cheek when she leans in, and my brain is rapidly losing the ability to form coherent thoughts.She moves with a kind of quiet certainty that makes my head spin. Every shift of her hips sends a spark up my spine. Every brush of her hand feels deliberate, even if it isn’t.
“You’re trouble,” I whisper before I can stop myself.She smiles — soft, knowing. “You don’t even know me.”“That’s the problem.”Her thumb strokes my waist in a way that is absolutely not helping my self-control. My heart is pounding. My skin is buzzing. And the worst part? She’s not even trying. She’s just… her. Controlled. Composed.
Devastating.I’m the one falling apart.
The music swells, and she pulls me closer — not possessive, not demanding, just enough to make my breath catch. Her body fits against mine like it was always meant to.I want her. God, I want her.I want to drag her out of this bar, press her against the nearest wall, and kiss her until I forget every reason I promised myself I wouldn’t do this anymore.But I play it cool. Or I try to.
“You’re staring,” she says softly.“Can you blame me?” I shoot back, letting my grin tilt into something wicked. “You walk around looking like that and expect people not to stare?”
She laughs again — that warm, low sound that makes my knees weak. “You’re dangerous.”
“Funny. I was thinking the same about you.”Her hand slides up my back, slow and steady, and my entire body lights up like a struck match. The room disappears. The music fades. It’s just her. Her breath. Her warmth. Her impossible calm.And me, trying very, very hard not to rip her clothes off in the middle of a crowded bar.
She leans in, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “You’re shaking.”“Maybe you’re just… distracting.”“Maybe,” she murmurs, “you like being distracted.”
I swallow hard.
Yeah. I’m in trouble.