I'll be wondering if I'm staying because I want to or because I need what you provide. She stood still. What if I told you the offer had nothing to do with us? She said. Then I'd tell you that you're smart enough to know that's not true.
She opened her mouth, closed it. He was right. She had asked the question. She had created the opportunity. The line between professional judgment and personal intervention had been something she had crossed without examining whether she had the right to.
"I just don't want to watch you lose what you built," she said. Her voice came out quieter than she intended. I know, he said, and he stepped forward and looked at her with an expression she had not seen before. Careful and direct and something else she couldn't fully name. But you don't get to decide what I'm willing to lose.
Even if you can afford the thing I'm losing. She drove home and sat in her car in the parking garage for a long time. He came to her apartment that night. He had not been there before. He stood in the entryway with his jacket still on and looked at the view the city lights across San Francisco Bay, the dark shape of the Marin Headlands beyond for a moment without speaking.
I should have said the rest of it earlier, he said. You don't have to. I do. He turned from the window. I noticed you the night of the Bayview Grand opening.
The moment you walked into the ballroom, I didn't ignore you because you weren't interesting to me. He paused. I kept my distance because I could see exactly how this goes wrong. Man in workclo, woman worth 8 billion. I know what people would say and I know what I'd start to wonder about myself.
She was very still. I'm not afraid of your money. He said, "I'm afraid of not knowing 6 months or a year from now whether I'm with you because I love you or because of what your life looks like from the outside. I'm afraid of becoming someone I don't recognize. She looked at him across the room.
Then don't take anything from me, she said. Don't take the contracts or the money or the help. Take this. Just this. He was quiet for a long moment.