She didn’t have anything prepared, so she answered in the most honest way. “I’m not filing on Monday.”
Alexandra didn’t move. For three or four seconds, nothing in her expression or posture changed at all, then there was a barelyperceptible shift around her mouth as her lips tightened. Her eyes stayed firmly on Simone.
“But you have the votes you need,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You have Patricia’s brief.”
“Yes,” Simone repeated.
“You could file on Monday and have my company by the end of the quarter.”
“I know.”
Alexandra was quiet for a moment. She uncrossed her arms and put her hands on the counter behind her and gripped the edge of it. Simone watched as her knuckles whitened then eased.
“So why aren’t you?”
Simone knew she was going to have to answer this question in one form or another. But the truth is, she could barely answer it to herself, much less another person and certainly not to Alexandra. She should have scripted something, anything, on the drive over, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “I can’t do it to you.”
Alexandra’s eyes narrowed. “Youcan’tdo it to me, or youwon’t?”
Simone kept her gaze steady on Alexandra’s eyes. “I can’t.”
Alexandra stared at her, and everything else besides the space between them fell away. The normal hum of kitchen appliances disappeared, and the fire shifted in their hearth, a coal collapsing into another coal, a sound so quiet Simone wouldn’t have heard it if not for the silence between them.
Finally, Alexandra spoke. “You could be lying.”
“You’re right,” Simone said. “I could be.”
“Or you could be running a softer version of the same play. Stand down on Monday, wait for me to read it as mercy and be grateful, and lower the rest of my defenses so I accept terms Iotherwise wouldn’t have accepted.” She paused, giving Simone a once-over. “I’ve watched people do that. I’ve done it myself too.”
Alexandra stood there assessing her—clinical and judging, no warmth in her expression. Simone didn’t flinch from the scrutiny.
“I know you have, and I can’t prove to you I’m not doing this. And I’m not going to insult your intelligence and try. You’ll see what I do or don’t do on Monday. Watch as long as you need to.”
“And in the meantime…?”
“In the meantime, I’m here.”
“Why?”
It was another question that Simone didn’t have a clearly formed answer to yet. She couldn’t even tell herself why she was here much less communicate it to Alexandra. “Because I want to be here. Quite frankly, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Or with anyone else. It just took me until today to realize it, though.”
Alexandra stayed pressed against the counter, but her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch before she looked away out the window at the lake. She turned back to Simone. “I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t have anything left to give to anyone right now.”
“I’m not here to take anything from you.”
Alexandra closed her eyes. The afternoon light highlighted her face, and Simone could feel the pull to cross the kitchen, to stand close enough to touch her. Simone crossed the kitchen, the floor creaking under her feet.
Alexandra opened her eyes, her chin lowered to look at Simone. “I can’t decide if you’re very brave or very stupid.”
“Neither can I,” she whispered.
Simone raised a hand and let her thumb move across Alexandra’s cheekbone. Alexandra leaned down and rested her forehead against Simone’s, and they stood there, breathing each other’s air and not saying a word.
Simone felt the warmth of Alexandra’s breath mingling with her own, a soft rhythm that tugged at something deep in her chest. The kitchen around them still hummed faintly—the low buzz of the refrigerator, the distant tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway—but it all faded under the weight of this closeness. Simone’s thumb lingered on Alexandra’s cheekbone, tracing the sharp line with a reverence she hadn’t allowed herself to express before. No more games, no more maneuvering for control. Just this.
