9. Declan #2
And deeply inconvenient for my ability to keep business and personal separate.
The meeting runs long. Good meetings often do. Helen asks hard questions. Talia answers most of them. I take the ones tied to Crossridge strategy, investor posture, and the parts of Julian’s behavior that require charm instead of documentation.
At the end, Helen closes the folder in front of her. “Apex made a compelling offer.”
Talia’s hand stills on her pen.
I smile. “I’m sure they did.”
Helen looks between us. “But this feels more stable.”
“That’s because it is,” Talia says.
Simple and confident with no arrogance.
Helen nods slowly. “Then we continue.”
A clean win.
I should think about the client. The timeline. The fact that Julian will be deeply irritated when he finds out. Instead, I think about Talia’s voice when she said stable. And the way I want to give her that, even though I don’t know whether she will ever trust me enough to take it.
The hotel is five minutes from the client site, tucked into the downtown business district rather than anywhere remotely romantic, which should make the evening safer.
It doesn’t. The lobby is all soft lighting, dark wood, and quiet music from speakers hidden somewhere above the seating area.
A corporate conference has apparently consumed most of the building, judging by the clusters of name badges, rolling suitcases, and tired professionals pretending lobby wine counts as dinner.
The receptionist smiles as she slides two keycards across the counter.
"Mr. Ward, Ms. Wynn. You're in Executive Suites 824 and 826. Breakfast begins at six-thirty. Elevators are to your left."
"Thank you," Talia says, reaching for her key.
I glance down at the room numbers, adjacent suites. There’s nothing remarkable about that. It's practical, convenient, exactly what I'd expect for two people traveling together on business. Unfortunately, my memory has other ideas.
Singapore.
A room three doors down from the elevators.
Talia waking just after two in the morning when a group returning from the hotel bar stumbled down the hallway laughing louder than they realized.
Her sleepy complaint against my shoulder.
Me offering, with complete sincerity, to relocate every one of them to another floor if they woke her again.
She'd laughed so hard she'd nearly fallen back into bed.
"Declan?"
I look up. Talia is watching me, one hand resting on the handle of her suitcase.
"You all right?"
"Fine."
She studies me for another second, and I have the distinct impression she knows I've gone somewhere else, even if she has no idea where.
Without another word, she picks up her suitcase and heads toward the elevators. I fall into step beside her as we walk, trying without much success to leave the past where it belongs. The rooms aren't the problem. The memories are.
Neither of us says a word on the ride upstairs.
Our suites are at the end of the hall, side by side, separated by a single strip of wall. Talia unlocks her door and rolls her suitcase inside before turning back.
“Dinner’s at seven.”
“If you still want to go.”
“It’s on the itinerary.”
“Ah. Then we must respect the sacred document.”
Her mouth twitches. “Seven, Declan.” Then she closes the door.
I stand in the hallway for one beat longer than dignity recommends.
***
Dinner is worse.
Not the food. The food is excellent, or so I assume, since I taste very little of it.
The restaurant is attached to the hotel, with low lighting and a wall of windows overlooking the city street below.
Nothing about it is intimate enough to be dangerous, which of course makes it dangerous immediately.
Talia sits across from me with a glass of water she barely touches.
“You were good today,” I say.
She looks up. “At the presentation?”
“No, at synchronized swimming.”
Her expression flattens, and I smile. “Yes, at the presentation.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“You say that like believing me is inconvenient.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Fair.
I set my fork down. “You were right about Apex.”
Her gaze sharpens slightly. “Careful. That sounded almost painful.”
“It was devastating.”
“Did you survive?”
“Barely.”
The corner of her mouth relaxes, then disappears behind the rim of her glass.
For a while, we talk about work because work is safer. We talk about Helen’s concerns, Julian’s approach, the Foundation timeline, the revised language needed before Monday. Talia takes notes on her phone because, apparently, she has never met a thought she didn’t want documented.
Then the conversation quiets. Not dies. It just changes. The space between us fills with everything work can’t hold forever.
“How’s Flynn?” I ask.
Her hand stills around her glass, and I expect the walls to go up. They do, but not as high as before.
“He’s good,” she says. “He asked Mrs. Smith if pilots have bedtime.”
I smile before I can stop myself. “Do they?”
“According to him, only if they’re not flying.”
“Sound reasoning.”
“He has a lot of that.”
“I noticed.”
She looks down, and something unguarded crosses her face, so private I almost look away. I don’t, because I’m selfish and apparently determined to memorize every version of her I’m allowed to see.
“He asked about you,” she says.
My chest tightens, and somehow I keep my voice even. “Did he?”
“The man with the watch.”
I glance at my wrist. “I’ve been called worse.”
“He wanted to know if you could come see his planes.”
The ache that opens in me is sudden enough to steal my next breath. Talia sees it.
“I told him no,” she says quietly.
I nod. It hurts, but I expected it to.
“Okay.”
Her brows draw together. “Okay?”
“No, not okay.” I exhale slowly. “But I understand.”
That seems to unsettle her more than anger would have.
“I’m trying, Talia.”
“I know.”
“No.” My voice lowers. “I’m trying to become the kind of man who doesn’t make you regret eventually saying yes.”
The words cost more than I expect. Maybe because they are truer than the polished version I intended to offer.
Talia looks at me for a long moment. “You think I’m waiting for you to prove something.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Her honesty is soft and brutal at once. “But not only that.”
“What else?”
She looks toward the window, where the city reflects back at us in dim, fractured shapes. “I’m waiting to see whether I can trust myself around you.”
Everything in me stills.
“That sounds dangerous.”