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effect: his anger was fueling his adrenaline, and he was ready to take no prisoners.

    The morning after Oliver abandoned her at the Wild Hart, Sinead marched into his office and read him the riot act. Oliver was unrepentant.
    “Riddle me this, Batgirl: did you or did you not find that chatting to your client outside the office made him open up a little bit more?”
    “Oh, he opened up, all right,” Sinead said scornfully. “He told me he liked The Three Stooges .”
    Oliver put his hand on his chest, feigning a swoon. “A man after my own heart!”
    “You have got to be kidding me! Only adolescent boys and morons like The Three Stooges !”
    “I’m disappointed in you, Sinead. Attorneys shouldn’t stereotype. I have it on good authority that Mayor Bloom-berg is a huge Curly fan.”
    “Shut up, please.”
    “You give him any info about yourself?”
    “I told him I liked jazz,” Sinead mumbled.
    “That must have really turned him on,” Oliver said dryly.
    “I have no interest in turning him on! Can you please get that through your thick head?”
    She decided to withhold from him that they both professed to liking children. Oliver would be all over it, torturing her endlessly. He already was.
    “Whatever.” Despite it being only eight a.m., Oliver was already guzzling his second cola of the day. “But seriously, lamb chop: don’t you think spending time with him in an informal setting helped grease the wheels a bit?”
    “Yes,” Sinead grumbled.
    “I’m telling you: meet him outside the office as much as you can and eventually, silent Moe will cough up all the info you need.” Oliver took a long slug of Coke. “Seems like a nice guy, by the way. Good-looking.”
    “I suppose.”
    Oliver smirked. “Like you haven’t noticed.”
    Sinead waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Not relevant to the case.”
    Oliver rolled his eyes as if he’d heard it a hundred times before. “What’s next on the agenda?”
    “I’m going to a Blades game with my brother. That will definitely make Adam happy.”
    “Plus you’ll get to see him being all manly on the ice.”
    “I hate you, Oliver.”
    “Nah, you love me.”
    “I do,” Sinead admitted. She stifled a yawn. “Time to go to work.”
    “Remember,” Oliver called after her as she walked out the door. “Casual settings with hockey boy. Informal.”
    “Why don’t you tell me again? I didn’t hear you the first fifty times you said it.”
    She knew he was right. But she didn’t want him to be.

    “I’m having a really hard time following the puck.”
    Sinead was growing increasingly frustrated as she watched the Blades play against Toronto with Quinn. She’d read as much as she could about the sport and had been fairly confident that when it came time to watch the game, she’d know what was going on. But she wanted a bona fide hockey fan with her just in case. She was fast discovering that reading about a sport and watching it were two very different things.
    “Don’t fixate on the puck. Look at everything happening on the ice. Try to think of them skating in patterns, and visualize where you think the puck is going to go,” Quinn advised distractedly. Sinead shot him a sideways glance; his eyes were glued to the ice.
    Sinead tried to do what he advised, but it was hopeless; things were simply moving too fast. It bugged her. She was used to understanding things right away. That she couldn’t grasp what was being played out in front of her eyes was incredibly irritating.
    Perhaps she couldn’t discern patterns because her attention kept being drawn to Adam. From the moment he stepped out onto the ice, there was something compelling about him. It wasn’t just his size; it was his sheer physical presence. The other players seemed to react in accord with or in opposition to everything he did, even if he didn’t touch the puck. They all seemed to be acutely aware of where Adam was and what he was doing.
    He’d be pleased she’d come to