Lexa smiled to herself. She needed to remain concentrated so that everything that… Marge? Margaret? Madeleine? Shit. She continued smiling and nodding but really all she could think about was how furious Clarke had looked when she left.

Lexa was used to this, really. When she got to London a few years back, the team had welcomed her pretty much the same way. Death stares, frowns, sighs. Most of her coworkers there became good friends though, with time. When she thought about it, she would feel the same way, she understood.

Carl had talked to her about Clarke, he had said wonders in fact. How she was the most dedicated lawyer at the firm, brilliant mind, how he believed she was most likely to become partner in just a few years. So Lexa knew how this job must have been one of the most important things in Clarke's life. They were the same. Lexa had sacrificed so much for her career; she didn't even want to think about it. In a way, she could imagine how Clarke felt when she entered that conference room, threatened, robbed.

But then again, what could she do about it? They would just have to stick with it and work together. To be honest, as far as Lexa was concerned, her imminent problem wasn't really how Clarke seemed to see her as competition or how she might feel threatened by her skills as a lawyer, no.

When Lexa got the job offer - and had the longest conversation with Carl about her first day - that was the first time her new boss mentioned Clarke Griffin. So obviously, the first thing she did was investigate. I mean, this is the 21st century.

After carrying out a thorough investigation, from Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook and what seemed to be a very old blog – 90s baby-, this was the portrait she drew of Clarke: beautiful piercing blue eyes, hard worker, life of the party, soccer player, indie music lover and, last but most definitely not least, if her gaydar still was accurate, openly gay.

She could be wrong of course. Unlikely, but possible.

Lexa had never been one to mix business and pleasure, well she had, years ago. But the dramatic outcome taught her a lesson and she basically promised herself to never make the same mistake. She had learned to set boundaries, these boundaries basically involved not acting on anything. Flirting, playing, these were still on.

Lexa had been single for a while, the new apps helped relieve tensions whenever she felt like it; be she hadn't had anything serious for a while now, since Costia.

Anya, her best friend, wouldn't stop telling her to get out there and meet someone, give someone a chance. For now though, Lexa felt like concentrating on her career was best and enough, to Anya's despair. Anya was actually one of the reasons Lexa was so happy to come back to the US. Anya lives in New York, she's an architect for an up and coming studio. In fact, Lexa planned to go see her at the end of the week.

Lexa would kill right now to be able to meet Anya for drinks and tell her about her first day. When she walked into the conference room, she gazed at everyone and tried her hardest to not let her eyes directly land on Clarke, which was hard.

She could feel how angry Clarke was the minute Carl started referring to her and the role she was going to have in the team. Clarke was literally fuming when Carl mentioned for her to show Lexa how things were done. Lexa really was amused by Clarke's reaction, she just had to push her boundaries a bit.

When Lexa's green eyes had met Clarke's blue ones, the brunette could have sworn her heart skipped a bit. Clarke stare was as deathly as it was sexy. When Lexa told the blonde that she couldn't wait for her to do just what Carl had mentioned, she could see Clarke's pupil grow. If this had happened anywhere else she's pretty sure Clarke might have punched her or something.

At that moment, Lexa was still deciding whether her gaydar was right. Clarke was sitting and barely moving so the only thing she could rely on really were the blonde's eyes. The problem was, all Lexa could really see in Clarke's eyes was how unhappy she was with the whole professional situation they were in. It was hard to read anything else past that. The blonde was way more beautiful in person than in the pictures and the fact that she was so angry was weirdly turning Lexa on.

Lexa chastised herself for thinking like this on her very first day, but what could she do.

The meeting finished with a clear tension in the air, and as soon as Lexa got out of the conference room… Marge, Margaret, was it Melanie? started telling her everything about the office. The secretary was explaining to her something about how you can't send too many documents at once for printing because the printer will not handle it, when Lexa saw how Clarke was in her office quickly gathering her stuff and heading for the elevator. As Clarke straightened in the elevator waiting for the doors to close, the Brunette caught the blonde's gaze. None of them looked away.

All of a sudden Lexa felt her whole body heat up. She could feel Clarke was angry, but something about her eyes was sweet, endearing and terribly sensual.

The doors closed and Lexa exhaled, trying to concentrate on what Mackenzie was saying.

Clarke walked to the bar. She needed it. That last stare Lexa threw at her was something else. This was going to be a problem. The whole situation was, first, she all of a sudden had a new competitor who apparently was incredibly good at her job. And if that was not enough of a problem, Lexa had to be one of the most beautiful girls she had seen. Also, what was her problem? Who stares like that? Especially at a coworker she doesn't even know. Clarke looked for a word to describe the look, she knew Raven would ask for it. As hard as she tried she couldn't quite put a name on how it felt.

She arrived at the bar and chose a table outside, the weather was nice enough to be out, the small warm breeze would help, for sure.

She looked at her watch and realized she was on time for happy hour, which never happened to her. And so, she ordered a pitcher of margaritas – screw it.

Raven arrived right when the Margaritas did.

"Oh girl, Margaritas? On a Monday? What happened to you?" Raven asked chuckling, this was so not like Clarke. Her friend was all work and no play during the week.

"Mmmm where should I start, give me a second. Oh, some girl is basically stealing my job, coming out of nowhere and Carl is already treating her like she's a fucking rock star, she has basically rubbed in my face that I'm going to be her assistant and she wouldn't fucking stop staring at me with her stupid eye makeup" Clarke finished out of breath and proceeded to take two big gulps of her margarita.

Raven who didn't even have time to take off her jacket during Clarke's rant looked at her amazed. The brunette poured herself a Margarita, took a small sip, cleared her throat and smiled.

"Clarke, first of all, slow down. Second, honestly I'm just happy you're feeling something right now. Lately I just got the feeling you were numb about everything."

Clarke was about to cut her when Raven held her finger in her face.

"Not finished! Now, how about you explain everything to me from the beginning".

Clarke did. In detail.

"So, if I understand correctly, what happened is your Boss recruited a new lawyer, a good one, to help on a very big case, which you are going to co-lead? How is that a bad thing?"

Clarke paused. Said like that it wasn't so bad indeed. But how Lexa had provoked her, she felt like she was there to take the job!

"Raven, I swear, you should have seen her. I mean she was staring at me, and then smiling at me, telling me how she couldn't wait for me to show her how things were done. I mean, who does that? As if I was going to be her fucking guide or something. And then she just wouldn't stop staring, like she was challenging me. I'm serious." Clare said rambling.

As Clarke was talking, Raven started smiling mid-sip.

"What? Why are you smiling? It's not funny!" Clarke was getting frustrated.

"What did you say her name was?" Raven asked, trying to control her smile.

"Lexa Woods". Clarke said quickly.

"And say, how is she?" Raven asked trying to sound uninterested.

"How she is? Hum… maybe a bit taller than me I don't know, she was wearing high heels. And she has like brown wavy hair, but she wears it with braids, it suits her really. And she has green, emerald eyes." Clarke was going in way more detail than necessary.

Raven let out a small laugh, she couldn't hold it anymore.

"Clarke." She started, trying to remain serious.

"I get the feeling that what bothers you more about this girl is that she's hot. And she's got you all flustered about it." Raven let out, calmly.

Clarke stayed silent. She hated when Raven did this. Hated it. She knew her too well. Too well to know that work related things never ever had her drinking a Margarita on a Monday. Too well to know that competition had never been an issue, Raven knew how confident she was in her job. This had to be something else. She was right.

"Fuck." Clarke whispered.

And Raven laughed out lout this time.

"Oh man, I'm so happy. You know, today was really supposed to be a normal boring Monday. And here we are, at last, you're being human again Clarkey! How does it feel?" Clarke could see Raven was genuinely excited about this.

"It feels like I have a problem. I mean, she's beautiful but she's a co-worker. And apparently, we'll have to work a lot together. I can't do anything. Hell, I don't even know if she's into girls!" Clarke said sounding worried, finishing her margarita and pouring herself a bit more, the pitcher now dangerously low.

At that last sentence, Raven's eyes grew big and she smiled one of her signature bright smiles.

"Well aren't you lucky my friend?" She took her phone from her pocket and asked, "what was her name again? Lexa what?"

"Raven, don't. Look, I don't want to know" Clarke said, clearly trying hard to not cave in.

"You are the worst liar, Clarke. Come on, what was it?"

Clarke sighed and smiled, starting the feel a bit lightheaded and caring less and less.

"Woods". The blonde whispered.

Raven typed and started scrolling with a very serious face, Clarke thought. The lawyer continued sipping on her drink waiting for her friend to say something.

Raven kept watching her screen intently and lastly, she smiled and laughed.

"oh boy, you're in so much trouble" Raven said between laughs, grabbing her drink and signaling the waitress for a refill.

"What? Why? What did you see? Show me" Clarke asked and said quickly, whatever Raven had seen meant she had no doubt Lexa played for her team.

Raven gave her the phone and Clarke saw the picture she found, it was from Lexa with two other girls, it had to be at some kind of pride event. Lexa was wearing tight jeans and an even tighter white tank top with a rainbow flag pattern in the middle. She was wearing a reversed cap, sunglasses and her tongue was out. She was a perfect mix of sexy and cute. The two other girls were hot too.

So Lexa was gay. Fuck.

"Well, maybe one of those is the girlfriend" Clarke said, hopefully. Painfully trying to find a way to convince herself that she wasn't already infatuated with Lexa.

"Maybe". Raven whispered before continuing "Tell me again how she looked at you".

Clarke told her again: how she felt, how Lexa smiled provoking her, how she kept staring at her, how she hold her gaze before the elevator doors closed.

"Her look was just so intense, it was…" Clarke still could not say it to Raven, she wouldn't hear the end of it if she did. She couldn't even say it out loud to herself, there was only one word she could think of when thinking of Lexa's emerald eyes boring deep into hers, her gaze was intense, provoking, but mostly, hungry.