17. Conrad
CONRAD
It had been a week since the break-in, and I still couldn’t walk past the foyer without seeing things that weren’t there anymore.
The scratches by the door had been repaired. The damaged kitchen cabinet had been replaced. The police had come and gone. The security company had spent two full days installing enough sensors, cameras, and alarms to make the house feel less like a home and more like a penitentiary.
None of that changed the fact that two men had gotten inside my home. That was the thought I couldn’t shake.
Sometimes I had visions of the broken drawers and the house in full disarray, not to mention the interview with the police and filing the report. There was an ugly awareness that our home had been violated. Thank God the kids hadn’t been home.
The most disturbing part of the whole ordeal was the knowledge that Winnie had been the one between them and danger. Winnie, who had stood in my kitchen, pale and exhausted as the police questioned her for half the night.
I’d hovered uselessly for most of it, answering what I could, signing what needed signing, trying not to stare at the faint tremor in her hands when she thought no one was watching.
The officers had asked her how she overpowered two grown men, and she’d said, calmly, that she’d studied self-defense for many years.
Many years.
That was Winnie’s answer to all the strange things about her.
Where did you learn to cook like that? Many years of practice.
How do you know so much about antique medicine? Many years of reading.
How did you take down two men without a weapon? Many years of self-defense.
It should’ve made me ask more questions about the woman I’d entrusted my children with, but I was too grateful that she was alive, that she was willing to risk her life for my children.
I was back at work now, pretending I could focus on balance sheets while my phone sat beside my keyboard with the new security app open. Every so often, I refreshed the camera feed even though Winnie had texted that morning to say all was well.
Her texts had become less formal recently. They were still properly punctuated, because she was Winnie, but they were warmer.
Winnie: All is well. Billie is attempting to classify cereal by level of crunchiness. CJ says Raisin Bran is “semi-crunchy due to the rat excrement.” Don’t worry, he was just joking about the raisins. Bianca refuses to get involved.
I’d read it three times before answering.
Me: Tell CJ I refuse to eat Raisin Bran now.
Winnie: Coward.
I was still smiling at my phone when my office door opened.
“Lawrence,” Martin Hawk said, stepping inside without knocking, because knocking was for people who believed other humans existed independently of their needs. “Got a minute?”
I closed the security app quickly. “Sure.”
Martin was my boss’s boss, which meant every conversation with him was wrapped in opportunity, pressure, and the subtle implication that your personal life was a hobby you should have outgrown in favor of our firm.
He dropped into the chair across from my desk and tossed a folder onto the corner. “We’re building a bonus team for the Carver project,” he said. “High visibility. It’s an ugly timeline, but it’s good money.”
A few months ago, I would have leaned forward before he finished. High visibility meant career momentum. Ugly timeline meant they trusted me to handle it. Good money meant more security for the kids.
Now I only looked at the folder and felt tired. “How ugly?”
“Ten extra hours a week for the next month. Maybe fifteen during the final review period, but I’ll try to keep it reasonable.”
Martin’s version of reasonable had once involved calling me at eleven-thirty p.m. on Christmas Eve to ask if I had “two quick thoughts” on a restructuring memo.
I sat back in my chair. Ten extra hours.
Ten more hours away from the children. I’d miss dinner, homework, bedtime. Billie’s startling public service announcements. CJ pretending he didn’t care whether I read his newest pages. Bianca asking if I’d noticed the new moon phases chart she’d taped inside her notebook.
Ten more hours away from the house that had only just started feeling safe again.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
Martin blinked once, then leaned back slightly. “You can’t? Or you won’t.”
“Both.” The word felt strange in my mouth. Good strange.
Martin waited for me to correct myself. When I didn’t, he frowned. “This is exactly the kind of project you usually want.”
“I know.”
“And the bonus isn’t small.”
“I know that too.”
He gave me the look that said you’re inconveniencing me. “So what’s the issue?”
I almost gave him the easy answer. Family stuff. Bad timing.
Instead, I told the truth. “Mother’s Day is coming up,” I said. “It’s a hard time for my family. For my kids especially. I need to be home more, not less.”
Martin’s expression shifted in the particular way some men reacted to the uncomfortable topic of grief. He wasn’t unkind, exactly. Just uncomfortable at the reminder that I was a widower.
“Right,” he said after a beat. “Of course.”
I nodded once.
He tapped the folder with two fingers, already withdrawing from the emotional portion of the conversation. “If circumstances change, let me know.”
“They won’t.”
That surprised both of us a little.
Martin stood, folder tucked back under his arm. “All right. We’ll find someone else.”
“Thanks.”
After he left, I stared at the closed door for longer than necessary.
I had said no even though I could handle the work and could definitely use the money, but my children needed me more. The understanding came with a strange loosening beneath my ribs, like some overworked part of me had finally unclenched enough to breathe.
By six, I was leaving on time, which still felt almost illegal. I’d stayed late for as long as I could remember, but now, my priorities were in order.
I had my coat over one arm and my laptop bag in hand when I heard quick footsteps behind me.
“Mr. Lawrence?”
I turned near the elevators.
Sandra from legal administration hurried down the hall with a folder pressed against her chest. She was pretty and always smelled faintly expensive, which I associated with people who could afford fancy perfume.
I’d seen her around the office for years, but we’d never had a conversation longer than a minute.
“Sorry,” she said, smiling up at me. “Do you have a second?”
“Sure, no problem.”
She stepped closer and opened the folder, though not quite enough for me to see anything useful. “I just had a few questions about the vendor filings from last quarter. I know you’re probably the only person who can explain what Martin actually meant in his notes.”
“That sounds like Martin.”
She laughed, touching my forearm lightly. “Exactly.”
The touch would have been friendly, if it hadn’t lingered longer than was appropriate. I looked down at her fingers, and my brain, which had been functioning reasonably well all day, immediately betrayed me.
Winnie’s hands had been cool against my neck.
Winnie’s fingers had curled into my shirt when I kissed her.
Winnie had made this small, breathless sound when I touched her thigh, and I had thought about it so many times since then that I was beginning to worry I’d permanently damaged some section of my brain reserved for normal adult behavior.
Sandra was still talking. I had no idea what about.
“Right,” I said, because that seemed safe.
Her smile widened.
Apparently, right was not safe.
“I figured you’d know,” she said. “You always seem so in control.”
That was funny enough that I almost laughed.
In control.
If she only knew that, between stress over the break-in, I’d spent the past week thinking about kissing my nanny against the kitchen counter while my kids’ aunt brought them home from an amusement park with truly catastrophic timing.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure about that.”
“Oh, come on.” Sandra shifted closer, angling the folder between us like a prop. “Everyone says you’re the person to go to when things get complicated.”
Her hand brushed my sleeve again. This time, there was no mistaking it. She was flirting with me. Some part of me was flattered.
I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t made of stone. I had spent years being mostly invisible as a man in any romantic sense, reduced in my own mind to father, widower, executive, provider. Having an attractive woman look at me like I was still worth wanting should have felt amazing.
It did, a little. But mostly, it made me want to go home.
Sandra tilted her head. “You okay? You seem distracted.”
“Yes,” I said quickly. Too quickly.
Her smile turned knowing.
Oh no.
She thought I was flustered because of her.
Technically, I was flustered near her. The cause was fully absent from the building and probably explaining to my youngest child why moths were not night butterflies with secrets.
“I was just thinking about something,” I said.
“Good something?”
My mind supplied Winnie on my kitchen counter with her dress pushed up to her thighs, her mouth parted beneath mine, her hair loose from my hands.
I nearly dropped my laptop bag.
“Complicated something,” I managed.
Sandra laughed softly and touched my arm again. “That’s intriguing.”
“It really isn’t.”
“Well,” she said, “it sounds intriguing.”
“It’s mostly childcare logistics.”
That was possibly the least seductive sentence ever spoken in an office hallway.
Sandra, unfortunately, was undeterred. “Well,” she said, closing the folder at last, “maybe you could explain those logistics to me over dinner sometime.”
There it was. Direct enough that I couldn’t hide behind confusion.
For a second, I just looked at her. She was attractive and available.
She was very clearly interested. Years ago, before Jade and the kids, before my life became a sequence of responsibilities stacked so high I could barely see over them, I might have enjoyed this.
I might have said yes simply because it was easy and uncomplicated.
But nothing in me wanted easy right now. Nothing in me wanted uncomplicated.
I wanted Winnie.