He stepped off the curb, grabbing the door handle. He stopped. He turned back to Sloane. For a second, the urgency of the moment suspended. They stood on the wet pavement, two people from completely different universes who had violently collided for exactly 1 hour.
"Thank you for the steak," Dean said. His voice was rough. "And I'm sorry for ruining the date." "You didn't ruin it," Sloane said quietly. She pulled her coat tighter against the wind. "It was the most honest 45 minutes I've had in a decade." Dean managed a small, tired smile.
"Drive slow on that spare. Tomorrow, take it to a real shop, not a dealership. They'll overcharge you for a rim. Ask for a guy named Mike at Fourth Avenue Auto. Tell him Dean sent you.
He won't rip you off. I manage real estate empires, Dean. I think I can handle a mechanic. Just telling you how it is, boss. He climbed into the cab of the truck.
The heavy door slammed shut with a metallic rattle. He rolled the window down halfway. Hey, Sloane. She stepped closer to the curb. Yes?
Don't let the board of directors tell you who to be, Dean said, looking down at her from the driver's seat. The Ice Queen thing works for you. You own it. If they want a soft family man, tell them to hire a mascot. Before she could respond, he put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb.
The tail lights flared red, fading quickly as he merged onto the main avenue, rushing back to his reality. Sloane stood on the curb, the cold seeping through her expensive boots. She watched the empty street long after he was gone. The valet cleared his throat softly, holding the door to her Porsche open. Ms. Kensington, your car.
Sloane looked at the sleek charcoal gray machine. She looked at the muddy spare tire on the front right wheel. A tangible piece of evidence that the last 2 hours hadn't been a strange, stress-induced hallucination. She slid into the driver's seat. The leather was cold.
The dashboard lit up with a dozen digital alerts, warning her of the compromised tire pressure, pinging her with missed emails from her CFO demanding her attention. She gripped the steering wheel. Her hands were perfectly clean. No grease, no mud. For the first time in her life, Sloane Kensington felt like she had absolutely nothing.
She reached into her purse, pulled out her phone, and opened her contacts. She scrolled past the venture capitalists, the lawyers, and her father's direct line. She opened a text thread with her executive assistant. Find me the address for a mechanic on Fourth Avenue, she typed. A place that won't rip me off.
She hit send, put the car in gear, and drove exactly 35 miles an hour into the dark. The digital thermometer let out a rapid, high-pitched beep. 98.6, Dean exhaled. The breath shuddered on the way out, carrying 12 hours of compressed anxiety with it. He slumped against the doorframe of Abby's bedroom, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest under the tangled superhero blanket.
Her skin was pale again, the flushed, terrifying red of a high fever completely gone. She was deeply asleep, breathing easily through her nose. It was 5:30 a.m. Outside, the Seattle sky was shifting from pitch black to a bruised, wet purple. Dean didn't go back to bed. There was no point.
He walked into his cramped kitchen, his joints aching in a dull, familiar rhythm. He filled the coffee pot with tap water, dumped three scoops of cheap grounds into the filter, and hit the power switch. While it brewed, he walked over to the garbage can by the door. His suit jacket was draped over the back of a dining chair, stiff with dried mud and rainwater. He picked it up.
He checked the pockets, pulled out his house keys and a single breath mint, and then dropped the polyester jacket into the trash. He tossed the muddy slacks in right on top of it. He didn't have the money or the energy for dry cleaning. Besides, the suit had done its job. It had proven Laura wrong.
Dean poured a mug of black coffee, leaned against the laminate counter, and stared at the blank wall. His mind drifted back to the restaurant, to the sharp, dark eyes of a billionaire who had looked at his grease-stained hands and hadn't flinched, to the way she had dismantled that snobby waiter with surgical precision. He shook his head, taking a bitter sip of the coffee. A fluke, he told himself. A weird collision on a rainy Tuesday.
She was probably already back in her high-rise ruining some hedge fund managers morning having completely forgotten about the guy in the battered Ford. At exactly that moment, Sloane was staring at her father across a sprawling mahogany conference table. The boardroom of Kensington Holdings was on the 42nd floor. The walls were floor-to-ceiling glass offering a panoramic view of the city waking up below. To Sloane, the city usually looked like a chessboard.
Today, it just looked gray. "The optics, Sloane." Her father said. He was 70 with a head of thick white hair and a voice that commanded boardrooms and terrified junior analysts. "You fired three executives in a month. The stock dipped 2% yesterday.
The shareholders think you lack stability." "The executives were stealing, Arthur." Sloane said flatly, not using his title or dad. "I don't keep thieves on the payroll for the sake of stability. The stock will rebound by Friday." "They want to see that you have a life outside of this building." Her father pressed leaning forward. "They want to see you married, grounded. Did you even go to the dinner last night?" "I went." "And?" Sloane looked down at her hands.
They rested on top of a letter folio. Her nails were perfectly manicured. Her skin was flawless. No grease, no mud, no proof that she existed in the real world at all. She thought about the little girl with the 102° fever.
She thought about a man who walked away from $300 because he didn't need a tip for basic human decency. "And?" Sloane said, her voice dropping into a register that made the three other board members in the room suddenly stop checking their phones. "I am done playing this game." Her father frowned. "Excuse me?" "I am the CEO of this company. I doubled our commercial real estate portfolio in 3 years.
I cut overhead by 15%. I am good at my job. She stood up. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to.
If the shareholders are worried about optics, tell them to look at the quarterly profit margins. But I am not auditioning for a husband to make a room full of old men feel comfortable about a woman holding the checkbook. Do not ever set me up on a blind date again. She closed her folio, picked it up, and walked out of the room. The silence she left in her wake was absolute.
10 minutes later, Sloane was behind the wheel of her Porsche. The spare tire thumped a dull irregular rhythm against the asphalt as she drove down 4th Avenue. The neighborhood was industrial, corrugated metal warehouses, chain-link fences, and the heavy smell of diesel exhaust. She pulled into the cracked concrete lot of 4th Avenue Auto. It was a massive cinder block building with three open bays.
The noise inside was deafening. The screech of pneumatic drills, the clatter of dropped wrenches, the blare of a classic rock radio station. Sloane stepped out of the car. She was wearing a tailored black blazer and dark jeans. She felt entirely out of place.
A man slid out from under a lifted Toyota on a wooden creeper. He wore dark blue coveralls smeared with oil and a baseball cap pulled low. He wiped his hands on a red shop rag and walked over to her. "Can I help you?" he asked. His voice was gravelly, carrying over the noise of the shop.
"I'm looking for Mike," Sloane said. "You found him." Mike looked at her, then looked past her at the Porsche. He whistled low. "Nice ride. You shouldn't be driving on that spare, lady.
It's a donut, rated for 50 miles." "Um I'm aware," Sloane said. "I need the main tire replaced. The rim might be bent, but I need an honest assessment. I was told you wouldn't rip me off. Mike crossed his arms.
He was a big man, built like a brick wall. He looked at her with a heavy dose of skepticism. Yeah? Who told you that? Dean Mitchell.
Mike's expression instantly changed. The skepticism vanished, replaced by a warm, knowing grin. He walked past her, crouching down by the front right wheel of the Porsche. He ran a thick, calloused finger over the lug nuts on the spare. Star pattern.
Torque down tight, Mike muttered to himself. He stood back up, wiping his hands again. Yeah, that's Dean's work. The guy cannot drive past hazard lights without pulling over. It's a sickness.
You know him well? Sloane asked. Dean? Mike laughed loudly. Lady, I've known Dean for 10 years.