Chapter 14 - Ask Before You Help

Callum waited until Ailsa finished the call before asking the question he would normally have skipped.

"What outcome would actually help?"

She looked at him as if he had changed languages.

They were back in Exit's meeting room. Mairi had left ten minutes earlier with accommodation costs, two partner responses, and a warning that the office equipment budget was officially imaginary.

Ailsa set down her phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying a different way," Callum said.

"Of what?"

"Helping."

Her expression became immediately suspicious.

Callum had expected that.

Yesterday, he would have treated suspicion as an obstacle to remove. Today he stayed in his chair.

Ailsa folded her arms. "You already know what I don't want."

"Yes."

"No calls to the provider. No Sinclair offer to cover the gap. No communications campaign. No one from your side explaining Exit to people who already think your side controls Exit."

"Yes," Callum said.

"And you still think there's something you can do."

"I think there might be. I'm asking you."

The silence stretched.

Callum could see her testing the sentence for hidden machinery.

Finally she said, "The provider does not need reassurance. They need the separation between Sinclair money and Exit made real today."

"What can I do?"

"Get your lawyers to answer Exit's counsel on the protections that matter to them. Nothing else. No provider call. No statement. No money."

Callum felt the larger solution rise and let it go. "Only what you asked."

"Only that."

He made one call, gave the limit, and stopped when it was done.

Ailsa watched him as if waiting for hidden machinery. None came.

Callum understood what she was testing. The useful thing was not whether he could produce a faster answer. It was whether the help remained hers after she accepted it.

He could think of half a dozen ways to make the result bigger. Every one of them would turn her narrow yes into his project. So he sat with the limit instead of improving it.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, he looked around the cramped meeting room: mismatched chairs, the printer that ground every twelve minutes, a handwritten rota taped beside the door because the scheduling software had stopped syncing.

There were a dozen things he could fix before dinner.

He fixed none of them.

That afternoon, the provider received the protections it had asked to see and restored two urgent placements while the wider concern remained under review.

Ailsa ended the call without celebrating. The problem had narrowed, not vanished.

Callum let that be enough.

The improvement was small enough to frustrate him: two placements, no wider victory, no clean repair of the suspicion around Exit. A week ago he would have treated that as an unfinished job. Now he could see the difference between unfinished and not his.

Ailsa picked up the ring from where she had turned it inward against her palm while talking, then settled it back into place.

"You didn't call them."

"You told me not to," Callum said.

"You didn't push the full agreement through."

"You told me not to," Callum said.

"You didn't even ask to see what my lawyer sent."

"Was I supposed to?" Callum asked.

"No."

"Then why are we reviewing my restraint like an unusual weather event?" Callum asked.

"Because for you, it is."

He laughed before he could stop himself.

Ailsa looked mildly startled by the sound.

That was becoming a problem.

His phone vibrated.

His chief of staff.

The car was downstairs. They were due at a business foundation reception where the engagement would be photographed whether either of them liked it or not.

Callum showed Ailsa the message.

She gathered her coat.

"Back to pretending."

"Apparently."

The drive took twelve minutes.

They spent ten of them discussing nothing important.

That was new too.

At the entrance, cameras crowded behind the barrier. Beyond the glass doors, reception was full of people measuring every inch between Callum and his supposed fiancée.

His instinct was familiar.

Take control of the entrance. Put a hand at her back. Move.

Instead, he stepped out of the car first and turned.

Ailsa emerged beside him.

Callum held out his hand.

He did not reach for hers.

He waited.

The cameras had already started firing.

Ailsa looked at his open hand.

Then at him.

For one second, he thought she would ignore it.

She placed her hand in his.

He had guided her through crowds before.

This time, no reporter had cornered them and she did not need him to create a path.

She reached for him first.

The choice came before either of them moved.

Callum closed his fingers around hers.

They walked toward the entrance together.

At the doors, Ailsa leaned slightly closer.

"Don't look so pleased with yourself," Callum said.

"I'm not."

"You're terrible at lying for a man in a fake engagement."

He looked down at her.

"You took my hand," Callum said.

"For the cameras."

"Of course."

Her grip tightened once.

A warning.

Or punctuation.

Callum decided not to improve the interpretation.

Inside, they passed the first cluster of guests and the pressure of the cameras fell away.

He loosened his hand.

Ailsa did not immediately pull hers free.

Half a second.

Nothing more.

Then she let go.

Callum respected that too.

"You asked what would help," she said quietly.

He looked at her.

"And?"

"And you listened to the answer."

It was not trust.

He knew better than to call it that.

But it was no longer the expression she gave him when she expected every offer to conceal a command.

Callum had spent most of his life believing competence meant seeing the solution before anyone else did.

Ailsa Fraser was teaching him an irritating alternative.

Sometimes competence was asking which problem was actually his to solve.

Across the room, someone called their names.

Ailsa glanced toward the crowd, then back at him.

"Ready?"

Callum offered his arm this time.

She rolled her eyes.

Then took it.

"Don't make a habit of this."

He led them forward.

"I wouldn't dare."