That didn’t sound half bad, she mused. Apparently, she had a bit of a flair for acting herself.

But then Sam topped her with his trump card.

“Well, Taylor, Chicago assures me that you’re the best litigation associate this firm has. If that’s true, then don’t you think it should be you representing us?”

A direct challenge to her skills as a lawyer. Taylor’s kryptonite.

She sighed, having only one answer to that.

“When would you need me?”

Sam grinned victoriously, looking ever fox-like once again. “Thursday.”

For a brief moment, Taylor saw a possible way out of this situation. “Oh . . . that’s too bad,” she said. “I have to argue those motions to compel on Thursday.” She snapped her fingers. Damn.

But Sam was not about to let her off so easily.

“And as much as I know it will kill you to miss a chance to be in court, I’m sure you can get someone else to cover it.” Then he folded his hands politely, indicating that the discussion was over.

And so Taylor stood up to leave. She gave Sam her best team-player, I-couldn’t-be-more-thrilled-to-squeeze-this-shit-into-my-schedule grin.

“No problem, Sam, I’ll work it all out.”

She turned to leave and had made it all the way to the door before she realized something. She glanced back over her shoulder.

“I didn’t even think to ask—who’s the actor?”

Sam peered up distractedly from his computer, having already turned his attention back to $800-per-hour work.

“Um . . . Jason Andrews.”

And with those words, Taylor’s hand slipped just the slightest bit on the doorknob.

She turned back toward Sam, trying to appear nonchalant. “Really. I see.”

But unfortunately, her initial reaction had not gone unnoticed. Sam’s face turned serious as he rose from his desk and crossed the room to her.

“You know, Taylor, I told his manager that your reputation in this firm is that you can go head-to-head with any man. And win.” Sam paused meaningfully and stared down at her like an army drill sergeant.

“Do not get starry-eyed on this,” he lectured firmly.

Taylor’s eyes narrowed at the mere insinuation. After Daniel, her days of being starry-eyed, dreamy-eyed, or any other-eyed over any man, celebrity or not, were finished.

Sam was right; she was more than capable of going head-to-head with any man. She had, essentially, been raised that way. Growing up, her father, a police sergeant, worked double shifts and her mom, a nurse, often worked overtime, so Taylor had frequently found herself being watched by her three older brothers. And in their minds, the only way to handle being stuck after school and on weekends with a girl was to pretend that she was, in fact, a boy. (Albeit one who had pigtails.)

One of Taylor’s favorite movies was A League of Their Own, and in that movie Tom Hanks’s character had a line that had always resonated with her: one of his girl ballplayers was crying after he had chewed her out for missing a play, and Tom Hanks told her, “There’s no crying in baseball.” That could have been the mantra for Taylor’s youth, except in her world apparently, not only was there no crying in baseball, there was also no crying in kickball, hide-and-seek (even when her brothers forgot about her and left her in the neighbor’s shed for two hours), climbing trees, falling two stories out of said trees and breaking her arm, and even fishing when her brothers used her pet caterpillar collection as bait.

Yes, Taylor learned at a very young age that the only way to get boys to shut up and play fairly was to show them that you took crap from no one. It was a lesson that served her well working at a large law firm, where women comprised roughly 15 percent of partners despite the fact that they generally constituted, year after year, more than half of every entering first-year associate class. Somewhere along the way, these women were getting lost, ignored, weeded out, or were choosing a different path.

Taylor, however, was determined not to fall victim to what these law firms accepted as inevitable reality. Even if it meant she had to eat nails for breakfast.

So in response to Sam’s directive that she not get “starry-eyed” on this particular assignment, she folded her arms definitively across her chest, having only one thing to say.

“Not a chance.”

Sam smiled. He nodded, satisfied.

Then something occurred to her. She cautiously asked Sam one last question.

“But I have to wonder, Sam, given the . . . reputation . . . of this particular client, did the fact that I’m a woman have anything to do with choosing me for this project?”

Ever the litigator, Sam paced grandly in front of his desk, ready to show off the interrogation skills he had honed over the past twenty years.

“Taylor, in your sexual harassment practice, who do you tell your clients they should have leading their defense team, a man or a woman?”

“A woman,” she replied without hesitation.

“And why is that?”

“Because it makes the client seem more credible if they have a female lawyer saying they treat women fairly.”

Sam paused meaningfully before his imaginary jury. “So then you agree, don’t you, that there are times when—in addition to being the best litigator—your gender can be an advantage to this firm?”

Taylor got the message. Shut up and play the game.

She smiled at her boss.

“Thursday it is.”

JASON ANDREWS.

He would be at their offices on Thursday. The biggest actor in Hollywood.

Jason Andrews.

The movie star. In every paparazzi-following-your-every-move, crazed-fans-showing-up-naked-in-your-bedroom sense of the term.

Later, when Taylor’s secretary did her “research,” she would stumble across Rolling Stone magazine’s June cover interview, which summed up Jason Andrews as: “devilishly good-looking, and a true legend of his day. Like Clark Gable or Cary Grant, he exudes effortless charm and confidence. Thinks he’s smarter than most and frankly, probably is. A lethal combination that seemingly has left him with respect for very few.”

Devilishly good-looking. Effortless charm and confidence.

Jason Andrews.

And she was going to be working with him.

As Taylor left Sam’s office, she suddenly found herself wondering where she was in her bikini wax cycle. Hmm . . . she may have been due . . .

Then she immediately shook off the ridiculous thought. Please. She was a professional.

And so Ms. Professional straightened her suit and calmly shut Sam’s door behind her. She made her way through the office with what she assumed was a casually dismissive air, as if she acted as legal counsel to fabulously famous sex gods all the time. She had never, ever, let anyone at work see her rattled—not even during the worst point in her breakup with her ex-fiancé a few months ago. She’d be damned if she now was about to let some actor unnerve her in front of others.

“Linda, I need to clear my schedule for Thursday,” Taylor said as she approached her secretary’s desk. She was peering at her calendar, trying to figure out how best to move things around to accommodate her new “assignment.”

“There’s been a change of plans—a new matter has come up.”

She had barely gotten the words out when Linda flew out of her chair. It fell backward to the ground with a loud thunk, which Linda didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh my god! So it’s true then? You’re really going to be working with Jason Andrews?”

How the hell did that get out so fast? Taylor glanced around the office and saw that the other secretaries all had paused in what they were doing. They were staring at her, wide-eyed, and holding their breath as if their very lives depended on her reply. Looking over, she saw that most of the lawyers, too, lingered in their office doorways. For that moment, all business at Gray & Dallas had utterly, completely stopped.