Chapter 5 #3
“It wasn’t because he thought you were incapable,” I wanted to make that clear. “It was because he was your father, and fathers are arrogant enough to believe worrying is a form of engineering.”
That got me another laugh, quieter this time.
“He worried about whether you were too hard on yourself,” I said. “Whether you felt things more than you admitted. Whether he and your mother had protected you too much or not enough, depending on the hour.”
Her throat moved. “He never said any of that.”
“He wouldn’t have. He preferred advice that came disguised as checking your tire pressure.”
“God.” She looked away toward the restaurant window, blinking once. “I miss that.”
“I know.”
For a moment, I almost reached across the table for her hand.
It would have been acceptable, comforting, human even.
A gesture Robert would have understood and perhaps expected from me.
But the meaning of touch had changed, at least for me, and I was not willing to borrow innocence from the past to cover the present.
So I did not touch her. I let the silence linger instead.
After a while, she looked back at me. “Thank you for telling me.”
“There are better stories.”
“I want those too.”
“You’ll have them.”
“Tonight?”
“Not all tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you would have no reason to tolerate me later.”
The words left my mouth before I could rethink them.
Avery’s expression immediately changed by a fraction.
Later opened the smallest possible door. The kind a careful man did not open without meaning to. I took a sip of wine and watched her over the rim of the glass, already regretting the sentence and yet unwilling to take it back.
She saved me, or herself, by smiling. “I’m mainly tolerating you for the expensive steak.”
“Good. I respect a clear motive.”
“It’s not my only motive.”
She looked surprised by herself. A little color came into her face, and she reached for her water with too much concentration.
There it was again.
The awareness.
What I was feeling was mutual, perhaps. Or perhaps I was reading what I wanted into every blush and pause because wanting had made me vain. Either way, the responsible course was clear and I let the moment pass.
“Then I’ll make sure dessert is worth your continued tolerance,” I said.
Avery exhaled, and the smile returned, but softer at the edges. “You’re very generous with dessert for someone who made me discuss my career failures before lunch.”
“It builds character.”
“I have enough character.”
“No one who says that does.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I felt the intoxicatingly dangerous pleasure of being challenged by her.
The rest of the dinner continued well enough that I almost wished it had gone badly.
If she had been awkward, childish, entitled, or overly grateful, I could have put her back into a safe category and left her there, but she was none of those things.
She was nervous, yes, but not weak. Young, but not foolish.
She had a self-protective streak I would have to watch in the office, a habit of translating hurt into humor, and a pride that could either ruin her or save her depending on what she did with it.
She was also, God help me, so easy to talk to.
By the time the waiter brought dessert menus, I had learned enough to know the struggle would not lessen with proximity.
It would worsen. Tomorrow she would be in my building and even on my floor sometimes, as well as in meetings with me, eventually.
I would see her in the mornings and in the afternoons.
I would hear her laugh at something Benjamin said and wonder whether she saved that softer smile for everyone or only for me.
I would watch her learn. I would watch her either rise to the challenge or fold under it, and if she rose, wanting her would become harder, not easier, because competence and excellence had always been the most dangerous kind of beauty.
I looked across the table at her as she pretended to study the dessert menu while clearly calculating whether ordering something would seem greedy.
“Get the chocolate tart,” I urged.
Her eyes lifted. “Bossy.”
“Experienced.”
“I thought tonight wasn’t boss-and-employee.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then you can’t boss me.”
I leaned back, letting a smile touch only the corner of my mouth. “No?”
She blushed.
There was a brief, charged silence, and that charge struck me lower down than I should have allowed.
Then I looked away first, because I was the older man, the one with power, the one who knew better. The one who had invited her to dinner and therefore bore the responsibility for every line between us whether avoided, toed, or crossed.
“Order whatever you like,” I corrected myself in a gentler tone.
Avery was quiet for a second. Then she said, “I’ll get the chocolate tart.”
I nodded once and closed my menu.
Good girl, my treacherous mind supplied.
I did not say it.
I would not say it.
I sat across from Robert Hale’s daughter, my goddaughter, and I chose the version of myself who could get through dessert without making my promise into something selfish.
The evening was going well.
And that was exactly the problem…