She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. That's actually the thing I'm most grateful I figured out. Something moved across Daniel's face. Not quite pain.
Daniel Ross did not look like a man who spent much time with pain. More like irritation. The specific irritation of a man who had expected a different response and was now having to improvise. He looked back at Ethan. How long have you two been?
He moved his hand between them in a vague gesture. That's not your business, Ethan said. It kind of is, actually. Clare and I have history. History isn't the same as claim.
Daniel blinked like Ethan had said something he hadn't expected from him specifically and was now reassessing. Ethan felt that assessment happening and met it without flinching, which was harder than it looked because everything in him, the careful, responsible, walls up version of him that had kept him safe for 4 years, was shouting to sit down, to deescalate, to not be the man who makes a scene at a bar on a Friday night. But Clare was sitting exactly where she'd chosen to sit. And he was done making himself small. History, Daniel repeated.
And now the smile came back. And this time it had an edge to it. Sure. Okay. He looked directly at Clare.
Does he know about Daniel? Her voice dropped one full degree. I'm just asking if he knows the whole picture about the year and a half. About why we ended about stop. Why you want to do this with him?
Shouldn't he know? I said stop. It was the sharpest thing Ethan had ever heard Clare say. He'd heard her firm before in project meetings when someone tried to dismiss her work in conversations when she was drawing a line. But this was different.
This was the sound of someone who had learned through specific painful experience exactly what this man was capable of and was refusing to let it happen again. The table heard it. Daniel heard it. He stopped. But he didn't leave.
He just rec-alibrated again, shifted his weight, picked up the drink he'd apparently had in his hand this whole time, and took a slow sip of it like they were having a perfectly pleasant conversation. I just think, he said, and now his voice was almost gentle. Which was worse? That you deserve better than a project, Clare. And that's what this is.
He nodded at Ethan. He's a project. He's a sad story you want to fix. You've always done this. You find broken things in you.