We'd be back Sunday. Two nights. Two nights. Separate beds. Obviously, I'll arrange it with the hotel in advance.
Our own rooms if possible, or at minimum a suite with I have a daughter, he said. Lily, she's seven. I'd need to arrange care. Vanessa blinked. Just once.
Of course. Whatever you need for that time off. Any assistance. I don't need assistance. He said it evenly without defensiveness.
I need to make a phone call. She nodded. He stood there for another moment looking at her at this woman who had just stripped herself down to something real and raw and entirely unlike the CEO she performed every other hour of every other day. And he thought about his own rules. Never bring drama into the office.
Never mix professional with personal. The most dangerous words a man can say are yes when everything in him already knows he should say no. I'll do it. He said. He called his mother from the stairwell.
You'll do what Patricia Brooks said. She had a voice that could carry through concrete walls when she wanted it to. And right now she clearly wanted it to. Malcolm Jerome Brooks explained that sentence again because I don't think I heard you correctly. I heard you fine the first time and I want you to tell me why.
Because she needed help and I could provide it. She needed a fake fiance, Malcolm. That is not help. That is a production. Mom, does she know you're a real person with a real daughter with real feelings that don't just turn off because something is supposed to be pretend?
Malcolm leaned against the stairwell wall. Somewhere above him, he could hear the muffled sounds of the office keyboards, a printer, someone laughing in the breakroom. The ordinary sounds of an ordinary Tuesday that had somehow become anything but. It's 2 days, he said. That's what people say before the two days become the rest of their lives.
Malcolm, you've been watching your stories again. Don't you dare dismiss me with your stories. Your grandmother watched stories. I watch human behavior. A pause.
I'll take Lily for the weekend. She can sleep in the good guest room. Malcolm almost smiled. I hadn't even asked yet. I know, but you were about to, and I'm saving us both time because clearly you've already made up your mind, and you need your mother to tell you this is either the best thing that ever happened to you or a complete disaster, and I genuinely cannot tell you which.