Page 39 of Based on You

He studied me for a long second. Then, without a word of protest, he picked up the two heaviest boxes and started hauling them up the stairs. I grabbed the rest. We made two quiet trips, and by the end of it, everything I owned was stacked neatly against the wall of the guest room. I stood in the doorway, staring at all my worldly things sitting inside his house, then stopped looking and went back downstairs.

"Dinner's ready," Marta called from below.

We headed back down. Marta was setting the last steaming dish on the dining table when we walked in.

"Where's Olivia?" I asked, looking around.

"She's already in her room and fast asleep," Marta reported. She looked pointedly at the two of us. "Sit. Eat."

We sat.

The long table felt different with only two plates on it. The dinner-table quiet was much softer than the tense car silence had been, domestic and peaceful, the kind that settles when a grueling day is finally done.

We ate for a few moments without talking. He reached for the bread basket. I refilled my water glass.

Then he spoke. "Seeing as we apparently have nothing to talk about, we could always circle back to our earlier conversation."

I shook my head at once. "No."

He tilted his head, innocent. "Why not?"

"No reason," I lied.

That wasn't true. The real reason was sitting right in front of me. Six foot three of him in a tailored black suit at a dinner table in his own house, casually asking me probing questions about my sex life and openly smiling at my flustered answers. Every time he did something dangerous like that, my grip on the word professional slipped another fatal inch.

"Is it because you're scared it would lead somewhere?" he challenged.

I leveled a glare at him. "Do we seriously have to talk?"

He laughed, a short, easy, rumbling sound. "We don't have to. But wasn't the silence earlier strange? Back in the car?"

A startled laugh slipped out. "You felt that too?"

"Of course I felt it." He set his silver fork down and leaned back in his chair. "The two of us are so used to talking constantly. It's calming, honestly. We could sit here talking about the different breeds of goats, and I'd be content."

I laughed, bewildered. "Why?"

He held my gaze. "What do you mean?"

"Why would you be content? Talking about goats."

He cleared his throat. He picked up his fork again, stalling. "I think you're amazing, Violet," he said quietly.

My heart knocked hard against my ribs, once, then sat there hammering.

"When Elena died," he began, his voice dropping low and even, "everyone in my life looked at me like I was a ticking bomb about to go off. The hollow condolences kept coming, even weeks after the funeral. People treated every interaction with me like they might break something." He paused, turning his water glass in slow circles on the table.

"But you… when I finally came back to work, you just resumed. You pulled up the morning briefing. You told me the schedule. It was a gentle, necessary reminder that life goes on, and there's no use holding onto the past." He looked up to meet my eyes. "I felt calm for the first time in weeks. You brought me peace."

I went still.

I stared at my plate. I stared at the wood grain of the table. I looked anywhere that wasn't his face, because his expression was open and vulnerable in a way I'd never seen before, the reserve he usually carried gone, leaving just him, looking right at me.

"We should really stop talking about sad things," I whispered.

He burst out laughing, breaking the tension. "I honestly thought you'd love to hear about how you bring me peace."

The terrifying truth was, I loved hearing it more than he'd ever guess. I kept my eyes on my plate.