Chapter 2—The Man Behind The Stare

"Robin's POV"

He was there again.

I caught him the second I unloaded my supplies, same position near the hallway, same dark suit, same quiet that felt too intentional to be accidental. I told myself not to read into it and got to work. There was a full wall to finish before lunch and I was not going to let some man in an expensive suit throw off my timing.

I lasted about four minutes before I looked back.

He was still there, watching me with that calm, unhurried attention that had nothing to do with checking on the renovation. I'd worked enough job sites to know the difference between someone monitoring a project and someone watching a person. This was the second one, and it sat with me in a way I didn't entirely know how to shake off.

I turned back to the wall and kept my strokes even. The cream paint went on smooth and I focused on that, on the clean line forming at the edge of the trim, on the sound of the roller and nothing else.

The thing was, I couldn't call it threatening. Couldn't even call it uncomfortable, not really, and that was the part that bothered me most. It just sat there, low and quiet, like something I wasn't ready to look at directly.

By the time I packed up for the day he was gone. I loaded my supplies into the truck, sat behind the wheel with the engine off, and stared at the building entrance for probably longer than I should have before I pulled out my phone and called Mitchell.

She picked up on the second ring, distracted and bright the way she always was when she was in the middle of something, which was basically always.

"How's the job?"

"Job's fine," I said. "But there's this man. Been watching me work two days straight now. Tall, dark hair, always in a suit that looks expensive. He just stands there and watches. Doesn't ask anything, doesn't say anything, doesn't even pretend he's doing something else."

I heard her set something down on her end.

"Describe him again."

"Dark hair, neat. Suit fits like it was made for him. Stands like he owns the room, which knowing this place, he probably does."

Mitchell went quiet for just a second, and then she laughed, the kind that told me she already knew exactly what she was about to say.

"Robin. That's Christopher Hall."

"Who?"

"The CEO. He built that company. Golden Anchor Homes is his." She paused. "Christopher Hall has been standing in his own lobby watching you paint walls."

I looked out through the windshield. "He's probably checking on the renovation."

"For two days. In silence. Just watching you." She laughed again. "Okay, Robin."

"Mitchell."

"I'm just saying what's right in front of you."

I told her I had to go and ended the call before she could run with it any further, but I sat there another few minutes before I started the engine, which I chose not to examine too closely.

*********

Turner's nephew's birthday came around that weekend and Turner had been asking me about it for two weeks, so I went, mostly because I needed somewhere to be that wasn't my apartment or a job site. I put on a decent shirt, told myself it was just a party, and took a cab downtown. The venue was the kind of place where everything cost something, tall ceilings, low music, staff circling with trays like the whole thing had been rehearsed. I let Turner drag me through a round of introductions and tried to keep up with names I forgot almost immediately.

I was somewhere in the middle of a conversation I wasn't fully following when I felt it.

That same low pull, the kind that lives in the chest before it makes it to the brain.

I turned and found him across the room without even meaning to.

Christopher Hall. Sitting apart from the rest of the party in a way that didn't look accidental, two large men flanking him that were obviously not there for the cake. He had his phone out but he wasn't really looking at it, jacket perfect, posture easy, like the warmth and noise of the room was something happening at a distance he'd chosen.

He looked exactly like he had at Golden Anchor Homes. Contained. Like everything around him moved and he simply didn't have to.

I looked away and tried to get back into the conversation I'd drifted out of.

Then from the corner of my eye I saw him put the phone away.

I felt his attention before I confirmed it, that same specific quality from the lobby, the kind that lands differently than a passing glance. When I turned to meet it, he didn't look away. He held it for a moment, steady and unbothered, then stood, said something brief to the men beside him, and started moving through the crowd.

I noticed he was heading toward me before I'd decided what to do about it.

He moved without rushing, pausing once to acknowledge someone who greeted him, then closed the remaining distance and stopped at a comfortable range. Up close he was even more measured than he appeared from across a room, like composure was something he wore the way other people wore cologne.

"I didn't expect to see you here," he said.

"Same," I said. "Small world."

"Turner's family and mine have some overlap." He didn't offer more than that, and his eyes moved over me briefly in a way that was just short of subtle.

"You handle home repairs as well? Outside of commercial work?"

"Depends on the job," I said. "But generally, yes."

"I have something at my apartment that needs attention. A shelf fitting that's worked itself loose." He reached into his jacket and held out a card between two fingers. "I'd cover your usual rate and travel. This week, if you have availability."

I took the card. It had weight to it, the kind that meant it was printed on something that cost more than it needed to.

"I can fit that in," I said.

"Good." Something moved at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile but close enough to notice. "Thursday. I'll send a driver."

"Thursday works."

He nodded, the kind that meant things were settled, and moved back into the party the same way he'd arrived, smooth and unhurried and completely at ease.

I stood there with his card in my hand and no particular reason to keep staring at the space he'd just left.

A shelf. A straightforward repair job. Nothing unusual about any of it.

So I couldn't explain why I'd said yes before he'd even finished asking. I was a handyman. He was a CEO. He had assistants and property managers and probably an entire team of people whose job it was to handle exactly this kind of thing. There was nothing about this that needed to be me specifically.

And yet I'd said yes without hesitating, and even now, standing in the middle of a birthday party with his card in my pocket, some quiet part of me was already thinking about Thursday.