There had been plenty that he’d been expecting for the Quidditch World Cup. He had helped plan it, after all—had helped put it all together, because Bagman was a moron, but he had also known what was going to happen afterwards. He knew what the Death Eaters had planned, because he was apart of it. He looked forward to it even—Beck had known that he was going to be giving himself more work to do, because something like that happening after a major sporting event for the entire wizarding world was major. There would be blowback, particularly about security and how the Ministry possibly let that happen, and that was something he was doing to himself since he would be one of the ones wearing the mask. But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about all of the work he was going to have to do after the fact, because he had been prepared for that. What he hadn’t been prepared for was Olivia Drake. She was the one part of that day that he hadn’t seen coming. There was the actual planning of the Cup, and everything had gone well. He’d honestly thought that Ireland was going to win, but Krum deciding to catch the snitch when he knew they weren’t going to catch up had been an interesting move, to be sure. But the results of the Cup had been what he had expected. Ireland had the better team, even if Bulgaria had the better seeker.

That had been expected, the only unexpected bit had been the woman sitting next to him. Admittedly, he should have realized that his wife was going to back out. Eliza was not all that interested in Quidditch, and even though he knew that there were plenty of people that would have killed for a spot in the Top Box, she was not that person. She didn’t care. So the fact that she had decided to cancel at the last minute was not all that much of a surprise. He didn’t really know why he had even bothered to get her a seat at all, but appearances were important, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t even offer her a seat. Sometimes she did surprise him though, and might have shown up to make all the good impressions she was supposed to make. She wanted him to have power almost more than he did, and so not showing up at all was… typical and yet somehow still just a bit surprising. He supposed that about summed his wife up at this point. But he hadn’t seen Olivia Drake coming. She had been offered the spare seat, because having empty seats in the Top Box was a damn shame, and then when Ireland had won, she had kissed him. That was the biggest surprise of the day. Everything else had gone exactly the way it was supposed to, except for that.

Now she was everywhere he turned, and it was not easy to get her off of his mind. She was always in these meetings, and it was almost annoying she always seemed to get her way—and amusing, because he made certain that she didn’t have too easy of a go of it. He liked to argue with her, over almost everything, just to prove that he wasn’t going to blindly agree with her like every other bloke in the room did when they were too busy looking at her cleavage. He wasn’t like that. If her ideas were wrong, he was going to call her on them, if they had serious glaring errors, he was going to say it—if there was a better idea, he was going to talk her into it. He liked making her realize that it wasn’t always going to be so easy to get her way. But today, and right now, he wasn’t thinking about that. He wasn’t thinking about how much fun it was to wind her up in meetings, because she wasn’t used to having to argue with people in these meetings. Right now, he was thinking that he was standing a bit too close to her, but he didn’t care… and he didn’t want to move away. Not just yet anyway. “Only because I have a wife… otherwise…” Otherwise he thought he really would have kissed her back, and everything would have gone a lot differently…but it couldn’t. Because of Eliza—or so he continued to remind himself.

Out of everything that had come from the Quidditch World Cup, Olivia hadn’t thought that there was going to be that much wreckage. Yes, wreckage, and her own life had become a part of that… Not a big part, but part. They had had to go from the turbulence of the Death Eaters at the end of the World Cup into the planning and the making sure that things were in place for the Triwizard Tournament, and of course someone had decided that they were all going to be in the same year. Because it only made sense for it to all be in the same after all… She could have rolled her eyes a million times at that and not have thought that she made her annoyance at the entire situation clear enough. She wanted to think that they were going to be okay. Everything was going to work itself out and it was all going to be just fine. They would all figure it out when the dust settled, if the dust settled… But Olivia had a feeling that the dust would settle on that before it settled on what she had done to her own life. Because she had kissed a married man. And she hadn’t just kissed him and then never had to see him again. Oh no. Of course not. That would have been way too convenient. No. She had kissed him, and then spent at least once a week in the presence of him, and half a dozen other people that had knew that she had kissed him… Which would have been that bad, save for the fact that she kept looking up, to find him already looking at her, and she really wanted to kiss him again. She wanted him to bloody kiss her back…



Which was ridiculous. She was twenty-three years old. She needed to act like it, and not act like she was going to go weak in the knees every time she looked up to find Beckett Graves looking at her. She was Olivia Drake, and if she was going to earn that name, then she had to earn that name, and she couldn’t do that if she was distracted by a pair of big brown eyes… A pair of eyes that she swore could see straight into her soul. She didn’t need a distraction like that. A very married distraction like that. He had made that clear that night in the box, and she had known it, everyone knew that Beckett Graves was married to Eliza Graves, and that they were the set that was probably going to take over the world or something. She needed to stop thinking about Beckett Graves completely, but that was really difficult to do when he was everywhere that she looked, and there wasn’t really anything that she could do to escape him. He was everywhere, which was both annoying, and ironic. If she would have wanted to find him she probably couldn’t have been able to find him anywhere… But here she was trying like hell to avoid him, and he was everywhere. Telling her that she was wrong, and arguing with her so that it took about ten times longer to get her way. What really ticked her off was that he got people to agree with him, even when he was wrong, just so that she had to come after things that she wanted from entirely different angles to make people see that she was right all along. It was incredibly annoying really.

He was one of the most annoying men that she had ever met, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it. She should have just declined the ticket, but that was ludicrous. No one in their right mind was going to decline a chance to watch one of their own teams play in the World Cup… Except Eliza Graves apparently. Which told Olivia all that she really needed to now about the woman she thought. She was a die hard Tornados fan, and she always had been, but it was all quidditch really. Olivia loved quidditch, and she thought that there was something to be said for a game that could span continents and still bring people together from all over the world. Ireland and Bulgaria had just been a part of it… There were people from all over the world there, and that was how it was it was supposed to have been. That’s how all of it was going to go. Except this year, where the reappearance of the Dark Mark had caused everything to become a disaster zone, and that was still hanging over them… That and the stupid kiss… He was terribly close to her though, and all that Olivia could seem to think about was home much she wanted to kiss him again, just to see if maybe without people watching things would end differently. She wanted to know if it was her, or if it had been all the people, because she thought that she knew… and she wanted to know for sure. “Otherwise…” The voice that escaped didn’t hardly sound like hers, but she knew that she had been the one to breathe the word out quietly.

The Quidditch match had some unexpected surprises for most people, but for him, the only surprise of the day had been Olivia Drake. She wasn’t what he had expected; her kissing him when Ireland had won hadn’t been what he had expected. But then it had happened. If it weren’t for the fact that he had a wife, he thought he would have kissed her back. He knew that he would have. Beckett hadn’t thought much into marriage, he had always just thought of it like a business arrangement. It hadn’t been much about what his type was, or what kind of person Eliza was, because she fit well for what he wanted. He wanted power in the Ministry, and she wanted a powerful husband. Together, they did well at parties, they charmed the right people, and that was all that had mattered to him. The match worked. They worked together, and that had been all it was. But he knew that she wasn’t his type, per say. It wasn’t to say that she wasn’t beautiful, because she was. She just wasn’t what he would have chosen for himself, if he was basing his marriage off of her looks and not about other mutual benefits. He knew that his type was more like the woman standing in front of him, which was why her kissing him would have resulted in him kissing her back in any other situation.

But they had been at a Quidditch match, they had been surrounded by people, and he was married. So Beckett had tried to put it out of his mind. He had tried not to think about it, because he couldn’t. He was married, and he had thought that he would never see the witch again, and it would be fine. That wasn’t the case, however, because now she kept popping up everywhere. Everything that had happened at the World Cup had meant a hell of a lot of paperwork, and he had known that when he’d first heard what some of the Death Eaters had planned. He still thought it was worth it, even knowing the work he’d be putting himself through to get the mess cleaned up. But the problem with it now was just seeing Olivia Drake all the time. He had thought it would just be for the best to never run into her again, but that just hadn’t been the case in the slightest. Now she was everywhere, and he watched her get her way in almost every single meeting that they had together, until he started disagreeing with her just to irritate her. Beckett thought that was particularly amusing, but actually, it wasn’t the best idea. It was somehow even harder for his thoughts to stay appropriate when he’d pissed her off. He didn’t know why—she just was somehow even more attractive when annoyed.

Now being in a room full of people with her had been fine, because he obviously wouldn’t do anything. He had the self-control and the self-respect not to hit on women in front of other people, in a business meeting. That just wasn’t a concern that he had. But getting her first, seeing her here alone, Beckett knew that he should have thought of a reason to turn around and leave, and come back when there were other people around as well. But that would feel a lot like running, and she was likely to notice that too. So he’d come in, and now he knew that he was standing too close to her, but she wasn’t moving away. He also knew that they shouldn’t be talking about what had happened at the Cup. They should just be ignoring the fact that they had kissed at all, but it wasn’t that easy to do that. Not when it had been hard for him to forget about, from the moment that it had happened. It would have been easier if he’d never had to see her again, but with how often she was around, that just wasn’t possible. This conversation, where it was going, and how close together they were standing was proof of that. “Otherwise I would have kissed you back…” He knew he shouldn’t have even admitted to that, because he was married, but it was too late to take it back now.

There were things that were right, and there were things that were wrong. And the fact that Beckett Graves was standing as close to her as he was was technically wrong. He was married, and they were at the Ministry, and Olivia shouldn't have been thinking the things that she was thinking in the slightest. But she thought that if he would have kissed her back that night. If they would have been surrounded by strangers instead of people that they both worked with... Merlin only knew what would have happened then. Nothing good. But something great. At least, she thought that it would have been something great. She was doing her best not to let her mind drift to things like that though. He was just everywhere... Maybe if she didn't have to see him all of the time. Maybe if she could have just gotten away from him, it wouldn't have been so bad. But he was there. He was in what seemed like every single one of her meetings these days. Because she had been assigned to the World Cup case, and she had been assigned to help make sure that things were going to run smoothly throughout the duration of the Triwizard Tournament. It wasn't like she didn't have plenty of other things to worry about. Olivia needed to stay focused. She needed to stay sure, but Beckett Graves made that difficult.

He wasn't someone that she would have ever seen coming in a normal circumstance, but now that they were here, now that they had had the interactions that they had had. She couldn't get him out of her head. And that wasn't a good thing. She didn't want him in her head. She didn't want him in this room with her, because she could manipulate the rest of them. She could get her way with the rest of them. He pushed her, he challenged her. And for everything that they were going to have to do with the departments working together, he wouldn't let her just breeze over things the way that she did with the rest of the men in the room. Part of her wonders if she didn't have the same effect on him she had on everyone else, or if she did, and he was making a point not to look at the things that had caught the others' attention. Olivia knew that she was pretty. She knew that she had always been pretty, and if she could hold his attention long enough to seal the deal on the things that she wanted done in this meeting, she thought that she just might have a way to do that. But then he had come up behind her. And he was standing close enough to her, that her natural reaction was to lean back into him. She wanted to touch him, and that was wrong. She couldn't. He was married, and there were going to be people walking in this room any minute to start this meeting that they were supposed to be having...

She wanted to not be here, to not be alone with him. Because he was awful, and he was annoying, and she didn't think that she needed to be around him. But as much as she tried to tell herself that, the more that she was sure that she was lying. Because while he might have been annoying, he wasn't awful. And he was only annoying to her because he didn't let her walk all over him like she did the others. He challenged her, he made her think, and when her brain was working properly that was fine. But right now he was too close to her. He was too close to her, alone, in this room, for her brain to think straight. And part of her knew that she needed to move away from him. Part of her knew that she was testing her own self control, that she was pushing her own limits not knowing just how close she was to turning around and kissing him again. Here. Now. She wanted to kiss him again, and she knew that she couldn't. Or rather... That she shouldn't... But she found herself turning over her shoulder. Tipping her chin up, just that much too close as she turned, and she found herself saying something she honestly didn't know if she believed or wished... "For a second I thought you were going to..."

There was one sentence that he found himself repeating often when he was around Olivia Drake. Something that he kept having to remind himself of, no matter what was going on. It didn’t matter if it was because she had worn a particularly low top—which she did at times in order to get her way. She didn’t think that it was obvious but it was. To him anyway. Beck didn’t think that anyone else in the room noticed that she got her way just a little bit easier those days. It didn’t matter if she was being particularly frustrating and he wanted to kiss her to shut her up, or if she had just made a point to someone in the room that effectively made them look like an idiot. He had to repeat it to himself often, no matter what was happening: he had a wife. He was married. He was not on the market, and it didn’t matter that he was attracted to Olivia Drake. It didn’t matter that she had kissed him at the World Cup match, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. There was nothing that he could do about it. It wasn’t that he particularly cared about Eliza. He didn’t… and he did. They were married, so obviously he cared about her, but she was frustrating. It was a political marriage, one that had been necessary because she wanted a husband with power, and he wanted a wife that knew how the game worked.

And that had worked out quite well for them so far. He was doing well in his position, and he thought that he was likely to take over the department someday. Half of their employees asked him something before they asked Bagman anyhow, and he knew that Bagman made that easy on him by being absolutely useless, but still. He was making progress, and Eliza was good at charming people. She was very good at parties, and working the crowd, and that was why their relationship worked so well. They didn’t have kids, they just had a mutual agreement on what they wanted. She had brought up kids before, but that had been a quick conversation, and one that she hadn’t brought up again. It worked out well for them, and even if they didn’t love each other, he was still off the market. He knew that he shouldn’t be thinking about Olivia Drake the way that he did, even if that proved to be difficult to avoid sometimes. Beckett didn’t let it show. Obviously. That wasn’t an option. Instead, he decided to pass his time by being the one man in these meetings that didn’t let her get her way just because she flashed a little cleavage and knew how to get her way. He had to give her a bit of a challenge. That was half the fun anyhow. Though admittedly, she was somehow even more attractive when she was annoyed at him.

Today was the first time that they were alone together, and he should have realized that was a mistake. It was one. They were better off in groups when they were around each other—at least as far as he was concerned. Beck had no idea what she thought about it… about any of it. The kiss had been a heat of the moment thing for her. They had won the Quidditch match, and there was a chance that she had forgotten all about it. At least, that was what he had thought. Until he started standing just a bit closer to her than he should, and she didn’t pull away. Until this conversation started going down paths that it shouldn’t, and he didn’t want to stop. Beck knew that he should. He should step away from her, leave the room, and come back in five minutes, when there was a better chance that more people would have shown up for the meeting. He shouldn’t keep talking, they shouldn’t keep talking about this, because it wasn’t going to do them any good. But he couldn’t help it. A part of him wished that he wasn’t married, so that they could see what this was. He wanted to kiss her again, with no one else around so it didn’t matter if he kissed her back. But this room was going to be filled with people in a matter of minutes. That was just getting surprisingly hard to remember. “So did I…” He almost had. There was no doubt about that—and if they stood like this much longer, he thought he’d kiss her first this time.

It shouldn't have been like this. That was the one thing that was running through Olivia's head over and over and over again. It shouldn't have been like this. He shouldn't have this sort of effect on her. He shouldn't have any sort of effect on her, but she couldn't help it. She couldn't help the fact that it was like gravity shifted or something when he was around. He was annoying, and he was arrogant, and he was really just incredibly insufferable. But Olivia had no idea what it was about him that caused her to react the way that she did. He shouldn't have gotten more than a second glance after she had accidentally kissed him that night. But he had. Because he had been everywhere. He was just… Everywhere… and she couldn't avoid him, and she couldn't make it obvious that he was annoying her, because the moment that she did she thought that this would turn into even more of a game than it already seemed to be. He couldn't have her, so he could annoy her. That was what this all boiled down to, and Olivia Drake didn't like to be treated as a possession. She knew that the way that she had acted in all of these meetings wasn't exactly helping matters. At least where Beckett Graves was concerned, but she had bigger fish to fry than just what he thought of her. She wanted her way, and most of the time, she could get it. If that meant playing up the features that the men in these meetings seemed to like the best. Then so be it.

It wasn't as though she was actually selling herself to the devil for all of this. She was just manipulative in the ways that it was convenient to be manipulative. If it got her what she wanted, then she wasn't above going through with it. There were some of them that she rather preferred didn't touch her, but Olivia knew that there were those that if she let them touch her hip, or let their hand slid down to her ass instead of her back as she stood next to them, she got her way. She didn't complain, nothing was going to change it, they were going to do it anyway, and this, this was one of the times when she wouldn't have minded. As awful as it was, as awful as he was, Olivia knew that she wouldn't have minded if Graves decided that he wanted to touch her. Part of her wanted him to touch her, just to prove that he was not as completely unaffected by her as he pretended to be. Maybe that was what aggravated her the most. The fact that he acted as if she wasn't doing the things that she was doing, just because he didn't want to give in to her. Standing here, like this, with him this close to her, it was hard for her to figure out what it was that annoyed her so much about him… Something. There was just... Something…

But now they were here, and it was the first time that they had been alone together. Ever. She thought that that had probably been on purpose. If he even felt a little bit of what she felt when his eyes were on her, the pull to look at him, mixed with the desire to do anything in her power not to look at him. It was conflicting. And it shouldn't have been. He was married, he was a co-worker. There was no need to think that whatever had happened as a result of that kiss was anything more than the stress that had to do with everything that had happened afterwards. Olivia wasn't convinced, but she was going to try and reason for herself, that it was nothing, that all of it was nothing. But he was standing too close to her. She was having trouble remembering why he was so awful when he was that close to her. Having trouble remembering that she thought that he was annoying, and why it was that she couldn't kiss him again. Married. She reminded herself again. He's married. That's why. In the Ministry. People were going to walk in any moment, and he was already standing too close for it to be explained away. He needed to move. He needed to move, but she didn't want him to. She wanted to kiss him again now, she wanted to know if he was going to kiss her back this time… "You wanted to…" It wasn't a question. It should have been. She shouldn't have been so confident, but part of her was, "You still do…"

What had happened at the World Cup had been an absolute mess to clean up. He knew that. He had known that when the word had spread amongst the Death Eaters that it was going to happen to begin with. Just give them a bit of a scare, show that they were still around. Beckett had not been revealed as a Death Eater at the end of the last war, but he did still believe in that cause. He didn't see any harm in having a bit of fun. He knew that they wouldn't get caught, that he wouldn't get caught. It would be just fine, except for the cleanup. Since it was his department involved in most of the planning for the World Cup on their soil, and that meant that he was helping to cause a mess that he was going to have to clean up. It had been irritating, but it had also been worth it. It also gave him a chance to prove himself as a more effective leader than Bagman was. He would always be vying after the position of head of the department, and this mess only made Bagman look incompetent. Yes, it didn't look great on the department as a whole, as the Cup was meant to be safe-but he looked worse of all, and everyone knew that.

That worked in his benefit, so honestly, there was no harm in having to clean up this mess. He had helped to make it, got to make his boss look bad in the process, and now got to make himself look good in meetings as he helped clean it all up. Most of the time, Bagman couldn't even be bothered to show up for these meetings. That was just fine with him. It gave him even more of a chance to clean up these messes. The only problem with these meetings had really been seeing Olivia Drake. After what had happened at the Cup-the most memorable part, in his mind, he had thought that he would never have to see her again. That was likely for the best. She had kissed him, and he was married. He had nearly kissed her back if it weren't for the fact that they were surrounded by people that knew he was married. Her excitement about the match had been contagious, and his wife didn't give a damn about Quidditch. It had been nice to see someone that was more invested in the game than he had been. Kissing her back had seemed like the obvious move.

But he didn't need those whispers or those rumors, that would inevitably get back to Eliza. An innocent kiss was one thing. The pair had never met before that day, so it was reasonable that Olivia didn't know he was married. The ring had been on his finger, yes, but it didn't mean that she had noticed it. She had been excited about the outcome of the match. That was fine. It was an innocent mistake. Him kissing her back would have been the problem, and that would have been what had gotten back to Eliza. So it just hadn't been a possibility. But it had been hard for Beckett to get her off of his mind after that had happened, and now he had to see her in meetings. All of the time. It was tempting-she was tempting. He didn't let that show, of course. He couldn't. Every other man in the meeting had no problem showing their interest in her, and they did. Often. It was unprofessional to say the least, but that was just how it was sometimes.

They would let her get her way at any turn, if only to get on her good side, and he obviously wasn't going to let that happen. He was as stubborn as she was, and if he thought that he was right, then he was sticking to it. It was amusing to piss her off, and he had tried to focus on that, because it was better than some of the other thoughts on his mind. But he had never been in the same room as her alone, and that was a problem. He had decent restraint, but that was all going to hell today as he stood just a little too close to her to be appropriate. There were just inches between them, as they discussed something that he knew they should probably leave in the past. "I do." That wasn't something that he thought there was any point in denying. He wanted to kiss her. But that didn't mean that he could. "But I won't." It wasn't something that they could do again. It had happened, but that had to be something they forgot. Even as he told himself that, though, he didn't move away from her. There was still only inches separating them, so the temptation to kiss her didn't lessen in the slightest.

This was complicated. Olivia thought that she knew that. She thought that she was more than aware of the fact that this was complicated. But it didn't have to be. They could have just let it go. He could have not kissed her back, and then they could have pretended that none of it had ever happened. And that had been Olivia's intention. He was married, he didn't need her kissing him. And so, she had apologized. It had been an accident in the first place. She had been excited, and she had kissed him, and that had been the end of it. Except it hadn't. Because he had been everywhere, and she thought that he could have been just a few less places. He could have been in a few less meetings, and maybe it wouldn't have been this hard to ignore him. But he wasn't. He was everywhere, and right now Olivia was having a hell of a time ignoring him. She thought that it would have been easier if maybe she was deaf, blind, and she couldn't smell him. Because she didn't know what it was, there was just something about him that made her dizzy when he stood this close. That made it that much harder to focus.

And it was, hard to focus. It was harder to focus when he was in the room at all. Let alone if his attention was on her. It wasn't going to work for her. She needed it to stop. She needed whatever this feeling was that she was feeling to just disappear. Because he was married, and whether it was lust, or just pure attraction, Olivia didn't know, but there was something about him that was dangerous. There was something about him that made it hard for her to focus on what she was supposed to be doing. On what she was supposed to be getting accomplished. And right now, she didn't have time for her focus to be slipping. She didn't have time to be distracted by an arrogant, pain in her ass, that she couldn't even do anything about. Beckett Graves was driving her insane, and she didn't think that he even knew what he was doing. Because it was a game to him. Every time that he pushed back on what she had to say, every time he smirked as he poked holes in what she was trying to do, she wanted to throw something at him.

If he was going to annoy her, if he was going to make her miserable while they were in these meetings, Olivia thought that she could at least try and do something about it. She wanted to push the envelope just a little bit. She wanted to know if there was something that they could do about it. Something that she could do to attract his attention, in a way that was going to beat him at his own game. But right now, that wasn't what was on her mind. Right now, she thought that he was standing too close to her to focus on much of anything. He was in her space, he was the air that she was breathing, and Olivia thought that it was a good thing that he couldn't hear her heartbeat pick up the way that she had in her own ears. She knew that she dressed the way that she did, that she acted the way that she did, to get attention from the people that she wanted it from. If they were paying attention to what was down her top, or up her skirt, she was more inclined to get her way where it mattered.

And that didn't work on him. She had learned that. That it didn't work on him because he wouldn't look down her shirt, he wouldn't pay attention to her ass if she leaned over next to him. And part of her couldn't help but wonder why? Why he had avoided looking at her if there wasn't something there on his end too. And now she knew. Now she was standing here, in front of him, with nowhere to go. The table was behind her, he was in front of her, and Olivia didn't think that she even really wanted to move. She didn't want him to go anywhere, because she had learned something. With him standing there, she had learned just what effect she was having on him too. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to put his hands on her hips, on her sides, all over her. And she knew that that was something they had both been trying to prevent. He was here now, and they were alone, and the confirmation fell from his lips. He did. But the words that followed were the ones that she had been expecting. Tipping her chin up, just slightly, Olivia looked at him for a moment with parted lips, and then she heard her own voice speak again. "Then why are you still standing there?" It was an offer, an invitation, she wouldn't have said no if he wanted to even the score…

Beckett had known that he needed to stay away from Olivia Drake. He had known that from the moment that she had broken their kiss at the World Cup. Even from that moment, he’d had a feeling that he’d be venturing down a dangerous road if he let himself get too close to her. She had been… impossible to explain that day. He had never been more interested in a witch than a Quidditch match before, but it had been more interesting for him to watch her reactions to what was going on, than the actual match. She was more invested in it than most anyone he’d ever met, and that was something that he’d enjoyed watching. Eliza was never like that at matches. She didn’t really like Quidditch--in fact, there was more than one occasion where she’d complained about him going into that particular department but it was what he had wanted to do so she had stopped with those complaints after a while. She seemingly realized that it wasn’t going to do her any good, and that it annoyed him more each and every time she brought it up. So she started doing what she could to support him--and play the political game, because she was still always good at that.

But when it came to an actual match, he knew she preferred when she didn’t have to go at all. That way she didn’t have to fake being interested. Beckett knew that she’d bring a magazine to read if she thought that she could get away with it. She couldn’t really be that person in front of other people though. He knew that she still brought magazines along. It just wasn’t often that she got the chance to actually read them. Sometimes, if she got particularly bored of pretending to watch the match, she’d used a couple of different charms to try to make it hard for other people to notice she was actually reading a magazine. But it wasn’t something that she risked all that often. So it had been different for him, to see someone who actually cared about what was happening. If she hadn’t been like that, then he wasn’t sure that his reaction to her kissing her would have been the same. He might have thought that it was odd, but she had been so into the game that it was nearly contagious. He truly had almost kissed her back.

And then he had told himself that it wasn’t something that he could allow to happen again. Beckett had known that he needed to keep his distance but as luck would have it, that wasn’t something that was all that easy to do. Going into the World Cup, he had known what was going to happen. He had known about the bit of fun that they were going to have afterwards and he’d been well aware that he was the one that was going to have to clean that up. But it had been worth it, in his mind, until he realized what lawyer he was going to have to deal with. He couldn’t very well avoid thinking about the woman that had kissed him when he had to see her multiple times a week when they met to do damage control for the World Cup. At the very least, it hadn’t just been the two of them. If it had started out like that, Beckett wasn’t sure that he even would have made it this far before he did something that he regretted. Having other people around had always helped. It had helped ensure he didn’t act on impulses.

Today, though… he hadn’t been that lucky. He hadn’t thought much about getting there early. He hadn’t thought that Olivia Drake would be the only one there and already he had overstepped. He knew that. He was standing closer to her than he should and he knew that he should step away. He should step back, and sit down at his usual seat which was on the other side of the table from her really. It was far from her, which is what he thought that he needed right about now but still he didn’t move. He needed to, but he didn’t. He knew that he was far too tempted to kiss her when she was standing this close, but he couldn’t act on that. He couldn’t move any closer, but he could at least stay still for another couple of minutes longer. “Because I want to. Just for one more minute.” Then he could move away from her, and sit down, and they could act like this had never happened at all. But for one more moment he wanted to stand this close to her, and think about what he wanted to do--what he would do, if he wasn’t married.