6. Edda
Chapter six
Edda
The coffee is already on the counter when I walk out.
Not hotel coffee. Not the stale pod-machine sludge tucked beside the television credenza. Real coffee. Dark, hot, poured into one of those thick white hotel mugs with a single sugar packet beside it.
The sight of it stops me halfway across the suite.
Bennett stands at the window with his back to me, a mug loose in one hand, the city stretching gray and gold beyond the glass. He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t acknowledge the bathroom door opening or the quiet brush of my bare feet against the carpet.
Still, I know he heard me.
The silence between us feels different this morning. Heavier. More aware. Something shifted last night when his hands touched my skin, and whatever it was followed us into daylight.
I pick up the mug. It's exactly the right temperature. Not scalding, not lukewarm. The kind of temperature that means someone timed it right, anticipating the moment I'd walk out of the bathroom with damp hair and yesterday's dress pulled back on like armor that suddenly fits wrong.
Black with one sugar.
He remembered.
Of course he did. Bennett Thornhill collects information the way other people collect receipts. Efficiently. Automatically. He caught the heritage ordinance loophole before his own lawyers did. Sat across from me in that diner and never once glanced at his phone.
Remembering my coffee order probably took him no effort at all.
That thought should feel irritating.
Instead, I take another sip.
But he didn't hand it to me. He left it on the counter.
I take a sip and let the heat settle low in my chest, let the caffeine work through the haze behind my eyes. My reflection catches in the dark television screen across the room: the borrowed gown wrinkled now, my damp hair tangled around my shoulders, yesterday's mascara smudged beneath my eyes.
I look like someone who crossed a line.
I look like someone who hasn't decided whether to regret it.
"The car will be here in forty minutes," Bennett says, still facing the window.
His voice stays maddeningly even, no trace of last night anywhere in it. Something inside me tightens. Part irritation, part curiosity. I want to cross the room, put my hands on his shoulders, and see whether that composure finally gives way.
“Okay.” I wrap both hands around the mug, grounding myself with the heat. “I should call the shop. Make sure the morning delivery got signed for.”
“Marcus already confirmed it.”
I go still. “Excuse me?”
Now he turns.
Morning light catches the silver at his temples, the hard line of his jaw, the open collar of his shirt that shouldn’t matter nearly as much as it does. His expression stays unreadable.
“I asked him to check. The delivery arrived at seven. Your neighbor signed for it.”
“Mrs. Petrova.”
“I don’t know her name.”
“She runs the dry cleaner two doors down.”
I set my mug on the counter harder than necessary, ceramic cracking against marble, loud enough to fill the quiet suite.
“You had your assistant call my building at seven in the morning to check on a bicycle delivery?”
“I had him confirm you wouldn’t need to rush back.” Bennett held my gaze. “That’s different.”
I folded my arms. “Is it?”
“Yes.” He took a slow sip of coffee, eyes still locked on mine over the rim of the mug. “If I’d called your building, I would’ve done it myself.”
The words sit between us like something placed there on purpose. Like a cup of coffee made exactly how I take it.
I should be angry. I should be reaching for the familiar armor of irritation, the reflex that's carried me through every conversation we've had since I walked into his office with grease on my knuckles.
But the anger never comes.
Last night stripped something out of me, something I hadn't realized I was still holding onto until his hands found it and eased it loose.
"Why does it matter?" I ask quietly. "Whether I rush back."
Bennett doesn’t answer right away. He sets his mug on the window ledge with deliberate precision, the kind that says he’s buying time, weighing every word before he lets it leave his mouth. Like a man used to calculating risk before making a move.
His hand drifts toward his jacket pocket, toward the medal I caught him reaching for in the car, then stills.
“Because you would’ve spent the whole drive worrying about the delivery instead of eating breakfast.” His gaze lifts to mine. “And you haven’t eaten since the gala.”
He’s right.
I haven’t.
The realization lands somewhere tender, somewhere I've spent years protecting with schedules, inventory counts, and the steady insistence that I don't need anyone noticing the things I forget to do for myself.
My father used to do this.
During long repair sessions, the kind where I'd look up and realize hours had disappeared, he'd leave a sandwich beside my workbench without a word. No reminder. No fuss. Just food waiting where I'd eventually notice it, as ordinary and dependable as the shop lights humming overhead.
Bennett never knew my father. He doesn't know about the sandwiches, or the workbench, or the quiet little kindnesses I've spent years trying not to ache for.
But the coffee is exactly right.
Black, one sugar.
"There's breakfast in the other room," he says, turning back toward the window. "I had it sent up. You don't have to eat with me."
I should feel managed. Like another variable on his spreadsheet, a problem handled with the same cold efficiency he applies to zoning disputes and permit applications.
But the way he said it, you don't have to eat with me, lands differently. Less like an order, more like permission. Space to decide without the pressure of disappointing him.
I pick up my coffee and walk past him toward the suite's dining area.
The spread is ridiculous. Fresh pastries.
Fruit. Eggs are probably cold by now but still gleaming beneath silver covers.
Three kinds of juice lined up in crystal pitchers.
Enough food for a family of six, delivered to a presidential suite at seven in the morning because Bennett Thornhill has no idea how to ask someone to stay for breakfast.
I take a croissant and tear off a piece, buttery flakes melting against my tongue.
“You blocked your nine o’clock,” I say without turning around.
Silence. Then, “How do you know that?”
“Marcus texted me the schedule update last night. Before everything.” Before the argument in the doorway. Before his hand closed around my jaw. Before I stopped caring about the schedule, the arrangement, or any of the rules I’d made to keep myself safe.
“The heritage file doesn’t need review.” His voice comes closer this time. I feel the heat of him at my back, not touching, just near enough to make me aware of every breath I take. “I blocked the meeting myself.”
I swallow another bite of croissant. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to review the file anyway.”
I turn.
He’s two feet away, close enough that I catch the coffee on his breath and something deeper beneath it, cedar and warmth and the faint trace of last night’s hotel soap.
“That’s not a reason,” I say.
“It’s the reason I gave Marcus.”
“And the real reason?”
His jaw tightens. That muscle just beneath his ear, the one I traced with my thumb last night, jumps once before settling again.
His hand hovers near his jacket pocket, fingers brushing the fabric, then he catches himself and lets it drop to his side.
“I wanted time,” he says, as the words cost him something to release. “Before the drive. Before you went back to the shop, and I went back to the office, and we pretended none of this had happened.”
“Are we pretending?”
“No.” His gaze holds mine, steady, almost unguarded. “I don’t think I could even if I tried.”
The croissant sits forgotten in my hand.
Outside, the city hums with morning traffic, that familiar white noise of a world that keeps moving no matter what happens in hotel suites on the twenty-second floor.
I should go back to the shop. Call Mrs. Petrova and thank her for signing the delivery. Put on my shoes, my armor, and walk out of this room before I forget how to do it without looking back.
Instead, I take another bite of the croissant and settle into the ridiculous breakfast spread, tucking one bare foot beneath me.
“Sit down,” I say. “If you’re going to block your meetings, the least you can do is eat.”
He sits. Not across from me, not at the head of the table like I half expected, but in the chair at my elbow. Close enough that his knee brushes mine when he shifts. He doesn’t apologize for it. Neither do I.
We eat in silence for a while. He serves himself eggs gone lukewarm and eats them without complaint. I work through the croissant and reach for a second, realizing with each bite how hungry I actually am, how many meals I’ve been skipping without noticing.
Bennett pours juice into my glass before his own, equal measure in each. I watch his hands move with the same practiced steadiness that unraveled me last night.
"I am not going to thank you for the coffee," I say at last.
"I didn't expect you to."
"Good." I set the croissant down. "The arrangement has rules for this kind of thing. Gifts. Special treatment. Anything that looks like preferential engagement."
"You drafted half those rules."
"I drafted them because I knew you'd try to manage me." I hold his gaze. "Coffee in the morning is management. Blocking my schedule is management. Checking on my delivery without asking, that's management."
"And if it isn't?" he asks.
My jaw tightens a fraction. "Then what is it?"
The question hangs between us.
Bennett sets down his fork, eggs half-eaten. His hand drifts toward his pocket again, then stops halfway like he’s caught himself mid-thought. The medal is in there. His mother’s medal. After eleven years of carrying it like a secret, he never learned how to put it down.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Done what?” I ask. “Made someone breakfast?”
A faint shift in his expression. Not quite a smile, but something that leans in that direction.
“Wanted someone to stay for it.”