Playing this as though another Inara has never been in the game...
No one here had even come close to shaking that rather famous facade of controlled charm... yet. Enter Mal. He'd never known anywhere to have as many parties as MarinaNova did. Nor did he typically go to them, but he lost a horserace against Aidan this morning, and this was the terms.
Mal's brilliant plan was to hold up a wall, scowling the entire while, until he deemed he'd spent enough times to honor the terms of his loss. And then Inara walked into the room.
Inara who he hadn't seen since... since the day the catylizer blew and she tried to convince him to join her shuttle. It'd been so long ago. And now she was here. In prison.
Mal walked over to her as though in a dream. "Inara?" Who knew, it very well could be a dream.