Page 12 of His Daughter

"Right." Margot recovered faster than I did. "87% of families transitioned to long-term stable housing within eighteen months. We track them through the full cycle."

"Impressive," Claire said. She turned to me. "And the qualitative side? You mentioned case studies."

I stood, moved to the front of the room with the clicker, and opened with Terry, one of our most recent cases.

"Terry is thirty-one. Two kids, ages four and seven. She had a restraining order against her ex-husband that expired six weeks before her housing placement came through." I clicked to the next slide. "During those six weeks, Terry and her children had nowhere safe to go. The shelter waitlist was ninety days. The transitional housing program had frozen intake. She called our office at midnight on a Tuesday because there was nowhere else to call. By Wednesday morning, we had her in an emergency unit."

Claire's pen kept moving. I opened my mouth to continue, then glanced toward the end of the table.

He was watching me. His eyes appeared gray from this angle, intense — matching his aura better than the innocent blue earlier.

I looked away. "Our program exists to close that gap. The women we serve fall between the shelter system and the street, and the window in which they're most vulnerable is — "

I glanced again. I didn't mean to. My eyes just went there, pulled like a compass needle. He was still looking at me, chin resting on his hand, elbow on the armrest, eyes pale and clear, framed by dark lashes. My thumb fumbled on the clicker. The slide jumped past the one I needed. I clicked back.

"Sorry." I cleared my throat. "The vulnerability window." I tugged at my collar. The room was warm. "The vulnerability window is typically four to seven months — the period between crisis displacement and stable housing, where the system loses the most women."

I kept my eyes on Claire, on the slides, on the numbers. Then I looked at him again.

He hadn't moved. Neither had his eyes. I felt his focus like a palm pressed flat against my back. I could feel it on my skin, on the side of my face, on my hands. Like standing in a beam of light in a dark room.

I hated that I was aware of it. Hated that my body tracked his gaze.

Stop it. I was a grown woman. I would not lose my footing because a man was looking at me from across a conference table.

I held his gaze for two seconds, then three. His expression didn't change. He didn't smile, look away, or adjust.

I couldn't take it any longer. I looked back at my slides. My hand was unsteady on the clicker. A curl had come loose from my bun; I tucked it behind my ear. I forced myself through the last two slides with my eyes fixed on the screen. If I looked at him one more time, I'd lose the thread of my own sentence.

Reaching the last slide, I finished, sat down, took a sip of water, and set the glass down. It clinked against the table. I felt Margot's eyes on me. I didn't glance back.

"Thank you both," Claire said. She closed her notebook and folded her hands on top of it. "The data is strong. The program model is clearly effective."

"We think so," Margot said.

Claire paused. "I want to be transparent. Vanguard's CSR budget for this quarter is fully allocated. The work is impressive, and the need is clear, but the timing doesn't align with our current funding cycle." She looked at me. "I could revisit this in Q3."

The third quarter was four months away. We didn't have four months.

"On what grounds does the timing not work?" I kept my voice level. "Is it the program model? The impact data? The ask amount?"

"Purely a budget question. We have existing commitments through June, and the evaluation cycle for new partnerships doesn't reopen until September."

"I understand." I did understand. It was the word no that stung. "Thank you for your time, Claire. We appreciate the consideration." I gathered the printouts and slid them back into my tote.

Margot closed her laptop.

We stood. Claire shook our hands. The meeting was over.

The man at the end of the table hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, and hadn't looked away from me once.

I walked fast down the hallway. Margot kept pace beside me, already talking. "Okay, so CSR is out, but listen, I've been looking at the Harmon Foundation, and there's also the city grant cycle opening in — "

"Ms. Calloway?"

We stopped and turned. A young man in a slim gray suit was walking toward us. "Mr. Hale would like to see you in his office, if you have a moment."

Mr. Hale? I looked at Margot. Her eyebrows climbed into her hairline.