Everything He Had

Damian didn't let go until Clara did.

Even then, his hand stayed at her back while she settled against the pillows. She looked at the chair beside the bed, the folded blanket over its arm, the cup with cold coffee in it.

"Have you slept?"

"Some."

"Liar."

His mouth moved.

"There she is."

She tried to smile. Instead her face crumpled.

He came to sit beside her, and she pressed her forehead against his shoulder.

"Audrey's dead."

"I know."

"I sent her away. I told her she'd be all right."

"You helped her get out."

"She came back."

He waited.

"She shouldn't have come back."

His hand moved slowly through her hair.

She cried until there was nothing left to say. He didn't ask her to be sensible, didn't tell her she'd make herself ill, didn't point out that she should have known better than to go to the house.

When she finally lifted her head, his shirt was wet.

"I've ruined this."

"I've got others."

"You always have an answer."

"Only to the easy questions."

She looked at him then.

For once, he wasn't smiling.

***

February passed in small increments.

Clara could eat a full meal. She could sleep with the lamp off. She could stand by the office door without checking that it would open.

Some days were worse than others.

A kitchen trolley hitting the wall once sent her under the desk before she knew she had moved. Damian found her there, crouched down without a word, and sat on the carpet until she could come out.

She hated that he had seen it.

He seemed more concerned about the bruise on her knee.

A counselor came twice a week. Clara spoke to her because Damian stayed outside and never asked afterward what she'd said.

Lorraine and Shelby were being kept away. Lawyers and investigators asked questions through Owen. The Reeds weren't going to come looking for her again, Damian said.

She asked what that meant.

"It means they don't get near you."

"That's not a proper answer."

"It's the one I've got tonight."

She was too tired to push.

One evening she found him in the outer office with an unopened dinner tray.

"You waited?"

"Didn't know if you'd be hungry."

"Then why didn't you ask?"

He looked at her.

She understood before he answered.

He was learning how easily a question could become pressure when somebody was frightened.

Clara sat beside him.

"I'm hungry."

"Good."

He lifted the lid.

She ate from his plate because he had more potatoes. He pretended to object, then gave her the last one.

Afterward, she put her head against his shoulder.

His arm came around her slowly.

"You don't have to sit like I'm going to break," she said.

"I've seen your temper. It's the furniture I'm worried about."

She laughed for the first time in days.

He turned his head at the sound.

She looked up.

Neither moved for a moment.

Then she caught the front of his shirt and kissed him.

He went still before he kissed her back.

His hand found her face, thumb resting below her ear. She had imagined he would be impatient. The care in him was almost unbearable.

When she drew away, he followed only far enough to touch his forehead to hers.

"Clara."

"Don't say something stupid."

He let out a breath that might have become a laugh.

"I was about to make an excellent impression."

"You've left that a little late."

She kissed him again before he could argue.

Later, when she took his hand and led him through the bedroom door, she was still afraid of many things.

Tonight, he wasn't one of them.

***

Three mornings later, he put a stack of documents on the coffee table.

Clara looked at them over her toast.

"Have I been promoted?"

"Depends what answer you give me."

He wore a suit. A properly knotted tie, which meant Owen had been involved. His hair was combed, his jaw shaved, his shoes polished.

Owen stood by the desk with a woman carrying a legal pad.

Clara put down the toast.

"What have you done?"

Damian opened the top folder.

The property map appeared first.

She recognized the curve of the street before she read the heading.

Bennett Row.

Her hand stopped over the page.

"Where did you get this?"

"Bought it back."

"All of it?"

"What was left in the company's name. The debts attached to it are settled. Your parents' house too."

She looked at Owen.

He nodded.

"The lawyer will explain the ownership structure. We haven't signed away any rights that might still belong to you."

Clara touched the small square marking the courtyard.

She remembered a tin watering can. Her mother scolding her father for letting the roses grow across the path. A window she had thought very high because she was very small.

"This was your surprise."

Damian watched her.

"Yes."

The trip. The unanswered phone. His face when he found her.

She closed the folder before a tear could land on it.

"You should have told me."

"I wanted it done first."

"How much?"

"Enough."

"Damian."

"More than I wanted to pay. Less than it's worth."

She gave him a wet, exasperated look.

He opened the other folders.

The hotel. The club. A construction company. Storage units, a transport business, interests in a quarry, a small wine distributor.

"Why is there a waste-management company?"

"People keep making waste."

Despite herself, she laughed.

Then she saw the proposed transfers.

"No."

His expression changed so quickly she set the paper down.

"Clara—"

"That's too much."

"Hear me out."

He sat opposite her and straightened his jacket, an awkward movement that made her chest hurt.

"I'm not asking you to manage it. Owen does that. I want you to know what there is. What's yours if you marry me."

The room became very quiet.

Clara looked at his hands.

They were clasped between his knees, knuckles pale.

"You're proposing with a company register?"

"I've never done this before."

She looked up.

There was no joke waiting in his face.

"I can see that."

"Will you?"

She thought of Julian's polished apartment, the key she had handed back, the years spent learning how to be easy to love.

Damian was difficult. He frightened people. He made decisions too quickly and said things he should have swallowed.

He also remembered what she wanted when she wasn't in the room.

Clara put her hand on the Bennett Row folder.

"I only want this."

He didn't breathe.

"The rest can wait," she added. "We should ask the lawyer what makes sense."

His face changed.

"That's a yes?"

She nodded.

He came around the table so quickly Owen had to rescue a cup.

Clara laughed when Damian lifted her out of the chair.

"Put me down. There are witnesses."

"Good. They'll remember you said it."

***

They married at the county office on a clear March morning.

Owen brought the paperwork. Vince brought flowers that looked large enough to require their own seat belt.

Vince stood behind them holding the flowers like a weapon he had been forbidden to use. When Clara laughed, he looked so relieved that she reached back and squeezed his sleeve. Owen quietly took a photograph.

Clara signed her name carefully.

Damian watched the pen move.

Afterward, outside in the cold sunlight, he took her hand as though it had become something he was allowed to hold forever.

She let him.

By the time she returned to work, her coworkers had stopped asking when she'd be back and started saving her a place at lunch.

She didn't announce the marriage. It felt too private, too new, like a room she hadn't finished furnishing.

One Friday in May, she left last and found Julian standing beside his car.

He smiled when he saw her.

"Clara. I've been trying to reach you."