“Jesus, Bea.” It comes out harsher than I intend. “You shouldn’t have to bribe the city with your grandmother’s heirlooms.”
“It wasn’t a bribe,” she says, chin lifting. “It was… lubrication.”
I wince. “That’s worse.”
“It worked.” She looks back at the river, jaw setting firmer. “We needed that meeting and the inspections for Newside before the board had an excuse to stall it. She made three calls and—boom—suddenly our paperwork wasn’t at the bottom of a stack covered in donut crumbs.”
I drag my hand over my face and immediately regret it when my brow twinges. “You can just tell me next time. I’ll eat the donut crumbs stack to get to the permits.”
“You can’t even stomach a five-star dinner your brother cooked,” she says, then sighs. “I didn’t want to ask you.”
“Because you didn’t want me to know you were living in a shoebox and liquidating heirlooms to keep my calendar from collapsing?”
“No, because you didn’t believe in me. And I damn sure wasn’t going to give you the satisfaction of failing.”
“I don’t want you to give up your things for me.” I breathe out through my nose, measure the words so I don’t spook her back into her professional silence. “Here’s the deal. You don’t do that again. Not the bag, not your rent, not your safety, not your sanity. If the city needs pushing, I push. If the board tries to choke us, I choke back. That’s my job.”
“And my job,” she cuts in, “is to make sure you can do yours. Which, shockingly, sometimes requires lubrication.”
I almost smile. Almost. “You’re impossible.”
“Says the man who showed up at a family dinner wearing concealer that doesn’t even match his skin.”
“Fair.” I shift and my ribs flare. “Jesus.”
Instantly, her hand lands on my forearm like muscle memory, light but there. “Where are you on the pain scale?”
“A gentleman never tells.”
She rolls her eyes and leaves her hand there anyway. Warm. Grounding. Dangerous.
“Bea,” I say, because if I don’t say this now, I won’t. “I can put you on Ezra’s budget temporarily. Housing stipend for key personnel. Crisis justification: King Building fire displaced staff. It’s clean, and you won’t be connected to me.”
“No.”
“It’s policy-adjacent.”
“It’s career-ending if anyone decides to twist it,” she says quietly. “And I don’t want anything that looks like… you taking care of me.”
I stare at the windshield. “I want to take care of you.”
The admission is followed by a heavy silence. I’ve never said anything like that to anyone.
“That’s the problem,” she whispers. “We both want things we shouldn’t.”
“Let’s make one thing clear.” I carefully place one hand on the steering wheel. “I’m not apologizing for wanting you.” My voice comes out low, steady. “I am apologizing for making today harder. That’s all.”
She scoffs. “Martin was going to make it hard regardless. He can smell sin from three blocks away.”
“Then let him choke on it.”
Her mouth twitches, then softens. “Tempting. But he’d turn it into a TED Talk about reforming sin into content.”
I huff out something like a laugh and immediately regret it as my ribs bite. She notices. Of course she does. Her thumb moves once over my forearm, absent, like she’s soothing a wild animal without realizing it.
“Ground rules,” I say, because if I keep staring at her mouth, I’m going to make a very stupid decision, and we will never have time to agree on anything. “We need them.”
She tilts her head. “Go on, Mr. King.”
