Cold Wars - a Lawyer-Cop Romance

Is This What They Call Attraction?

Vishwa looked up from the screen to see her in front of him. He turned in his chair and stared at her. He wasn’t sure if she was exactly there.

‘Of course, she’s here. I can’t be hallucinating. Right? But why is she here?’ He thought.

“Please sit.” He said in a polite tone.

“Thank you.” Her tone was a bit cold, like she was pissed.

“Alright,” she said and sat in front of me. “I would like to know what really happened with Chanda’s… incident.” She said.

“Hah! You waited for his release to confront me. That is such a lawyer-y thing to do.” he said dryly.

“Well, not just released. He’s at his home now, all cried out, depressed and exhausted, I must say.” She said.

“What a marvelous thing to do.” He said sarcastically. “Well, as the issue is solved, I don’t intend to discuss this any further.”

“But I want to. If such a thing happens to him again, that poor man might just take his life.” She said, giving him a sad look.

‘Is this ‘please help me’ look just a ploy?’ he asked himself. He couldn’t read her. He couldn’t understand her true motive for just barging in here acting like she owned the place. Vishwa sat back on his chair.

“What’s your play here? Recorder? Secret camera?” he asked her.

“So, what you’re saying is whatever happened is illegal and could be used against you if I were to discover the truth.” She tilted her head, giving a tight smile.

“I keep forgetting I shouldn’t interact with lawyers.” He shook his head saying that.

“Apparently. Come on, you’re not even denying it.” She paused for a few seconds and resumed. “Look, if you think I’m on a wire or cam, feel free to do a pat down.”

Vishwa raised his eyebrows very little, trying to suppress his surprise, fighting the reaction of his body. He raised his elbow to the chair handle and held his face with his fingers. He simply looked at her for a few seconds. That gesture made her comfortable, because she was blinking her eyes too much.

Without looking away, he took the receiver of his office phone and pressed the button to connect to the other room.

“Sarita, please come to my office right away.” He spoke to his subordinate, who was a woman, to meet him.

‘She will pat her down.’ He thought.

Sarita came to his office within seconds. She didn’t know what this was about. He could see she was slightly confused. Not all the staff had warmed up to him. After all, it had only been a short time since he joined Anti-Narcotics.

“Yes Sarita, please pat this… lawyer down. Check if she has any recording device on her.”

“Yes Sir.” Sarita obliged and stood in front of her.

‘Thank the Universe, it’s a woman who’s searching me.’ Shankaree surprised herself with the ‘pat down’ suggestion. She regretted it immediately after it came out of her mouth.

‘Did I just ask a guy to touch me all over my body? Get a grip, woman’ she told herself.

The cop, whom the Commissioner called ‘Sarita’, stood in front of me.

‘Did she have an angry face or was it just because I’m a lawyer?’ Her mind was tumbling with all the thoughts. She wasn’t comfortable with a pat down, it didn’t matter even if it was a woman doing it. She was just uncomfortable. And she was irritated by the DC.

‘Pat this… lawyer down? He purposefully paused, just like she did to him. ‘Come on, I invented that. Using it against me? Lame.’ She was talking to herself in her mind just to distract her from the process. She looked at him and he was looking back at her, like he was gonna watch it. The lady searched her hair first; ‘who checks the hair?’ she thought. Then her arms, shoulders and moved to her chest. The lady’s hands moved below her collarbones. Now she was really uncomfortable. Shankaree looked down at her breasts. She made an ‘Ugh’ noise and her eyes returned to the DC and saw him lowering his head. He turned his head to the side also, so as to not watch any of it. Him not watching anymore gave her some solace. With his face away from her, she just decided to admire what she was seeing.

‘This view is nice, must say. That hair, that arm, his hand, how he’s casually leaning back on that chair.’

She liked what she saw, but above that, she liked how he turned his head away instead of gawking like a creep. Although, on the other hand, she was gawking at him like a creep. She was gawking so hard that she barely felt it when the lady touched her thighs and stomach. She searched her calves and ankles as well and finally, it was over.

“Done, Sir.” Sarita said and he turned his head to look at us. “She’s clean, sit. Nothing on her.” Sarita told the DC. He thanked her and she immediately left the room.

“Now that I’m “clean” are you gonna tell me what exactly happened?” Shankaree said, sitting down on one of the chairs.

“Are you gonna tell me your name?” he asked. He hadn’t moved from his position, just sat there leaning back with his hand on his face.

She let an exasperated breath. “Shankaree.” She said.

“Fascinating name.” He said.

“Not just the name.” she smirked at him.

“I see that.” He gave a small smile.

“You’ve seen nothing yet.” She said and leaned forward with her elbow on the chair handle.

“That so?” he asked. He still had a smile on his face. It only made him more handsome. A sudden realisation hit her then.

‘God! She was flirting with him. Focus, girl, focus.’ She said to herself. ‘He’s a cop, nothing more. No matter how gorgeous the sight is, he’s still a policeman.’

Her expression immediately changed quickly and she changed into Shankaree, the lawyer, shoving down Shankaree, the woman in her head.

“Can we talk about the case now?” she asked him with a stern tone.

He liked her smirk. She didn’t smile or laugh, but that smirk, he found it sexy. There was no other word to describe it, it was sexy. But exactly 5 seconds later, her demeanour changed. She was back to the lawyer with the b***h face. ‘How?’ He wondered.

“Yes, of course.” He paused for a second and then said, “it’s a case of corruption.”

He would never tell anyone of anything dirty inside the police department, but here he was, sharing the details of a corruption, with a lawyer no less. He explained to her the whole ordeal, the property backstory and how it all turned out.

She scoffed and said, “Well, what else would you expect from the police?” Her insulting his whole department was a trigger for him. Now it was his turn to scoff; he said, raising his voice,

“Just because I’m respectful towards you doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit here listening to insults about my job. Don’t make me a bad guy.”

She chuckled at him. “Oh! So you’re a tough guy, like it little rough guy, just can’t get enough guy, chest always so puffed guy,” she said in a rhythm, reciting, not singing, Billie Eilish’s song. She wanted to mock him about his ‘bad guy’ line and the song ‘Bad Guy’ was best.

“What?” he asked, confused, like he didn’t understand what she said.

‘Oh he doesn’t know the song. How can he not, its so popular.’ She said to herself.

“Nothing.” she said. After a pause she continued, “I’m gonna leave then. I’ll have to make sure nothing of this sort happens to him again.”

Without waiting for a response, she stood and left. She reached the door and just when she opened the door, she saw a hand reach out and slap shut the door. She had only opened it a little bit so it didn’t make any particular sound when it got shut. She was shocked for a second, then she got annoyed at how he just shut it. She felt it was a rude gesture, like he was about to threaten her or something. She turned around with a scorned face.

“Don’t. Tell. Anyone. About. This. Please?” he was stern, but the ‘please’ he said at the end was a true request from him, mild and slow. He was still talking though.

“I’ll solve it internally. Give them strict warnings, threaten them with suspension maybe. I don’t want to suspend them; it would be a black mark on their records. It’ll do them harm in the future. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone and will keep an eye on such things. So that it doesn’t happen again. Don’t you lawyers also have internal problems? Doesn’t every office have those? We all solve it internally at first, right? We protect our own. At least the first time. I’ll oversee everything. I request you not to publicise or inform press people about such a shameful thing.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I wasn’t going to. I mean I was going to vaguely tell the other guy that I know the stuff he did and subtly warn him about it. Not even gonna say to Chanda about it.”

“Oh.” Was the only thing he could come up with.

“Was gonna say some runaway drug dealers dumped it inside his store at night or something.” She said.

“Mmhmm.” He said and she saw him swallow like he was tensed. After a second or two with her back towards the door, she finally decided to speak.

“You’re standing too close to me.” she pointed out.

He was indeed standing too close to her. Close enough to feel her body heat radiating but not close enough to feel her breath.

“Oh ok. Sorry.” He moved 2 feet back. She gave him a quick nod, opened the door and almost ran out of the room. Standing in the same position, he was a little embarrassed about what happened. When she talked about not letting it happen again, he assumed she was going to spread the news across town or inform the media about it. He shot up from his chair and ran.

‘Why did I have to run after her like that? I didn’t even call her name or ask her to stop. I just bang shut the door, intruding her private space like a bully.’ After a few minutes of thinking about it, he relaxed and calmed himself down.

‘It's not like I’m gonna meet her again. I can totally forget about her and pretend such a thing never happened.’ He said to himself. But a part of him was disappointed at that. A small part of him wished he would be able to meet her again. All he had was her name, not even a last name for that matter.

This was completely new to him. He didn’t feel this kind of chemistry with anyone. The lack of chemistry was one reason he never slept with any of his girlfriends. But her, this lawyer of a woman, he wanted to touch her. When she said she was ready for a pat down, he felt like his head would explode. He even contemplated searching her himself. His devotion to duty and respect to women stopped him from doing that. For the first time in his life he had indecent thoughts about a woman he met. Even though he had such thoughts, what he really wanted was to touch her face. To touch her from ear to ear, forehead to chin with his fingers. To touch those cheeks with the back of his hands. He was getting more and more curious about her by the second. He wanted to feel her, all of her, and couldn’t get her out of his mind.

‘Is this what s****l attraction feels like?’ he asked himself.