Chapter Eight

Isolde's POV

It rained on the second Thursday of November, the cold sideways kind that gets under your collar and into your bones. I had no umbrella. I stood at the front of the tower, holding my handbag over my head, wondering whether the bus would come before I froze.

A black car pulled up to the curb. The back window slid down.

"Get in," Dacre said.

"It's fine. The bus will..."

"Miss Laurent."

I got in.

The leather was warm. The car smelled faintly of cedar and rain. Dacre did not look at me. He looked at the road, and his driver, a silent man named Pell who I decided must be Mrs. Pell's husband, took the turn onto Marlowe Street without being told.

"How do you know my address?"

"It is on your file."

"Right." I laughed, and it came out nervous. "Of course."

We rode a while without speaking. The wipers beat a slow rhythm. I watched the streetlights stretch into long golden streaks across the glass.

"You do not have to tell me," he said at last. "Anything. I want that to be clear."

"I know."

"But I will tell you this. If you need a day off, you take it. If you need a doctor, my driver takes you. If you need anything, you ask Marcus, and he will pretend to be annoyed and then do it."

"Mr. Knight..."

"I am not asking for anything in return."

I turned to look at him. His profile in the dim light was all sharp lines. A muscle moved in his jaw. I thought, this is a man who has never been thanked for being kind, because he never lets anyone see it.

"Thank you," I said anyway.

He didn't answer, but his hand, resting on his knee, closed slowly into a fist and opened again.

We stopped at the end of Marlowe Street. The little house was lit up from inside, yellow in the dark. I could see my grandmother's silhouette moving across the window, and a bubble of warmth rose in my chest.

"Would you like to come in?" I heard myself say. "My grandmother always cooks too much."

He looked at me like I had asked him to jump off a roof.

"I would not want to intrude."

"You would be doing me a favor. She's been asking about my boss all week. She thinks I'm making him up."

For a second I thought he would refuse. Then he said, very quietly, "Pell. Wait here," and opened his door.

My grandmother met us at the porch in her blue house dress, flour on her forearms, her glasses sliding down her nose. She looked at me, looked at the man behind me, and her eyebrows climbed slowly all the way to her scarf.

"Grandma, this is Mr. Knight. My boss. He gave me a ride because of the rain."

"Mr. Knight." She wiped her hand on her dress and held it out. "You are very tall."

"Mrs. Laurent." He took her hand carefully, like it might break. "Dacre, please."

"Dacre." She tasted it. "Do you eat meat?"

"I do."

"Good. Come in. Don't mind the mess."

There was no mess. My grandmother had been cleaning for a visitor since she heard the car. I saw the lace doily on the table that she only took out at Christmas.

We sat at the small kitchen table with the cracked corner. Dacre Knight, one of the richest men in the country, folded himself onto a wooden chair that creaked under him and accepted a plate of rice and chicken stew as if he had been offered a medal. He ate slowly. He ate everything. When my grandmother asked whether he wanted more, he said yes, and she looked so pleased that I almost laughed.

"Isolde tells me you own the company," she said.

"I founded it."

"Where are your parents?"

The spoon in his hand went still.

"Grandma," I said.

"It's all right." He set the spoon down. "They died when I was nineteen. A house fire."

The kitchen went silent. The kettle ticked on the stove.

"I am sorry, child," my grandmother said softly. She reached across the table and put her small hand on his scarred wrist. I don't know whether she knew what she was touching. "Isolde lost hers young as well."

"I know."

"Then you understand."

"I do."

They looked at each other for a long moment, and something passed between them that I was not part of. When she pulled her hand back, he did not move his.

After dinner I walked him to the door. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The street shone black and silver. He stood on the porch with his hands in his pockets, and I stood in the doorway with the light behind me.

"She is remarkable," he said.

"She's everything."

"I can see that." He glanced at me. "So are you."

I did not know what to say. A drop of rain slid off the porch roof and landed between us on the floorboards.

"Good night, Miss Laurent."

"Good night, Mr. Knight."

He went down the steps. The car door closed. I watched the taillights fade into the wet, then locked the door and leaned back against it.

My grandmother was at the sink, washing the plates, her back to me.

"That man looks at you," she said, "like you are the only warm place in the room."

"Grandma."

"I am old, not blind." She rinsed a bowl. "I am not saying anything. I am only saying I know what I saw."

I laughed it off. I kissed her cheek and went to my room, and I did not sleep for a long time.

At midnight my old phone buzzed on the nightstand. I almost didn't look. When I did, the name on the screen made the room tilt.

Saffron.

I had not seen it since the day I signed. I had kept the number out of habit, never deleting it, never answering it. The screen stayed lit for six rings, seven, eight, then went dark.

A message appeared beneath it a second later.

Where are you staying?

I stared at the words until my eyes burned. Then the phone lit up again in my hand, and it was ringing.