21  The Favor

**JASMINE POV**

Dean found me at my desk two days after our coffee break conversation, holding a slim folder and wearing the kind of easy, apologetic smile that made him so likable in the first place.

"Got a minute? I promise this is the last time I'll bother you about this."

"You're not bothering me, Dean. What do you need?"

He glanced around the floor, lowering his voice slightly. "That contract language I mentioned  I pulled together the specific clause I need a second opinion on. Problem is, it really only makes sense in the context of Japheth's document system. Formatting, cross-references, that kind of thing. Any chance I could grab fifteen minutes with his desktop while he's in there? I'd ask him directly, but you know how he gets about anyone touching his files when he's mid-review on something."

I considered it for a second. It wasn't an unusual request, not really Dean was Kate's boyfriend, practically family, a lawyer who'd helped the company before.

"He's got back-to-back meetings until four," I said. "I could pull it up on my own system instead, if that works just as well?"

Something flickered across his face, there and gone so fast I almost missed it.

"That'd actually be easier for you, but the template I need only renders properly through his access level. Some licensing restriction on the software, don't ask me why  legal stuff, genuinely boring." He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. "If it's easier, forget it. I can figure out another way."

"No, it's fine. He said I could use his office whenever I needed to anyway." I stood, grabbing my badge. "Let's just do it now, before his two o'clock."

I caught, just briefly, something in his shoulders loosening that looked almost like relief, though I told myself it was probably just relief that I wasn't making this harder than it needed to be.

We walked into Japheth's office together. I pulled up his desktop with my own credentials  I had access as his assistant-turned-analyst, enough crossover permission that nothing about it raised a flag in my own head.

"Which file?" I asked.

Dean leaned over my shoulder, pointing. "Pull up the document management folder  there should be something under 'Pending Review,' dated this week."

I clicked through. Several files populated the screen, routine-looking things vendor agreements, a renewal notice, something from legal I didn't recognize the sender on.

"This one," Dean said, tapping the screen at a file labeled *Licensing Agreement IP Portfolio Review*. "Can you open it and scroll to page four? I need to see how the cross-reference section is formatted."

I opened it. Dense legal language filled the screen, the kind of document I usually would have flagged for a closer read later, except Dean was standing right there, narrating exactly where to look, making the whole thing feel procedural instead of something that deserved real scrutiny.

"There. See that clause?" He pointed again. "That's the format I needed. Thanks, Jasmine. Genuinely, you're a lifesaver."

"That's it?" I asked, a little surprised at how anticlimactic it felt.

"That's it. I told you, boring." He straightened, glancing at his watch. "I should let you get back to actual work. Thanks again."

He left quickly, almost too quickly, and I sat there for a moment with the document still open on the screen, something nagging at the edge of my attention that I couldn't quite name.

I scrolled up, out of habit more than suspicion, just to see what the document actually was before closing it. The header read *Licensing Agreement  IP Portfolio Review*, dated for signature that same week, routed through Japheth's approval queue along with eleven other items that had come in that day.

I read the first paragraph. Standard enough vendor language, portfolio terms, nothing that leapt out as unusual. I didn't have the specialized knowledge to catch what was actually buried four clauses deeper, in language dense enough that even a careful reader might skim past it believing it was boilerplate.

I closed the file, logged out, and went back to my own desk, telling myself there was nothing strange about any of it.

****

That evening, Japheth found me finishing up at my desk, tie already loosened, looking pleasantly exhausted in the way he did after a long day that had actually gone well.

"Dean was in your office earlier," I mentioned, mostly as conversation. "Needed to look at some document formatting for a case."

Japheth's brow furrowed slightly. "What document?"

"Something about a licensing agreement. IP portfolio review, I think it was called."

He frowned harder, pulling up his own queue on his phone, scrolling for a second before shaking his head. "I don't remember approving him access to anything in my review queue. What exactly did he need?"

My stomach did something small and uncomfortable. "He said he needed to see how a cross-reference section was formatted. I let him use your desktop since I was already logged in."

"Huh." Japheth didn't sound alarmed, exactly, just mildly confused, the kind of confusion that comes before a thought fully forms. "I'll ask him about it this weekend. Probably nothing. Dean's good about following up on things properly, usually."

"Should I flag it to someone?" I asked, the nagging feeling from earlier resurfacing.

"Nah. It's fine, Peach. If it's actually relevant to a case, he'll loop me in formally. I trust him." He smiled, pulling his jacket on. "You ready to head out? I was thinking Thai food."

"Sounds good," I said, and let the thought go, mostly, filing it somewhere in the back of my mind next to a dozen other small things that didn't quite add up to anything on their own.

I didn't know yet that I'd just handed someone the first thread of a rope that was going to be used, eventually, to try to hang the both of us.