Trent, somewhere in this building, a wedding this evening, a family breakfast in an hour, and behind him, sleeping 8 ft away in the room. He had not expected to share a woman who had asked him for 48 hours and had somehow already gotten far more than that without either of them negotiating for it. He heard the bed shift, then quiet, then her feet on the floor. She appeared in the doorway of the sitting area in her pajamas hair down eyes still carrying the remnant of sleep. She looked at him sitting there with his phone in his hands.
Lily, she said. Yeah. She wanted to give me a report. Was it comprehensive? Extremely.
Something almost like a smile. She moved to the small coffee setup on the dresser and started it going. He watched her do it the ordinary morning motion of someone making coffee in an unfamiliar room and thought about what she'd said in the dark last night. That's what worries me. The family breakfast is at 8, she said with her back to him.
I know. My mother will have set it up so that as many people as possible are there. She does that. She engineers attendance. Trent will be there, Malcolm said almost certainly.
She turned around with two mugs, handed him one, sat in the other chair, the one across from him, not beside him, and wrapped both hands around her own mug. He'll be different this morning, softer, more personal. Last night he was measuring you. This morning he'll try to build a rapport. Why?
Because he's smart and because he's figured out that the direct challenge approach last night didn't give him what he wanted. She looked into her coffee. He'll try to make you like him. That's his real skill. He makes people like him and then he uses it.
He can try. I'm not saying he'll succeed. I'm saying she looked up. I'm saying be careful with what you share with him specifically. He's very good at making you feel like you're the only person in a conversation.
Malcolm looked at her steadily. You liked him? He said once. She didn't flinch from it. I did.
She said he's genuinely compelling. That's not a retroactive delusion. He's actually intelligent and interesting. And when he decides to focus on you, it feels significant. A pause right up until it doesn't.
What changed? She was quiet for a moment. The coffee steamed between her hands. I got promoted, she said. The first time when I made VP and he took me to dinner to celebrate and spent the first 40 minutes talking about a case he'd won.