Before She Asked

"I want you."

He answered without hesitation, and the certainty sent heat through me.

"I wanted to ask you before your daughter ever walked into my corridor," he said. "I didn't trust myself to ask in a way that left your work untouched."

I held the edge of my desk behind me.

"Since when?"

"Do you remember the winter launch meeting? You told me my preferred concept looked like an expensive apology."

"It did."

His mouth curved. "Everyone else agreed with me. You stayed after the meeting and made me look at the other proposal."

"You approved it."

"I approved it before you finished arguing. I let you continue because I liked watching you forget to be afraid of me."

My breath caught. That meeting had been five months earlier.

"You are unbelievably irritating."

"I have other qualities. Have dinner with me and assess them."

I laughed, nervous and delighted in a way I hadn't felt for years.

"One dinner. Somewhere I can pronounce the menu."

"I can arrange that."

"And no buying the restaurant because we dislike the table."

"Your conditions are becoming restrictive."

My mother arrived Friday afternoon, took one look at the dress laid across my bed, and asked whether the handsome boss had finally developed courage.

"Mia has been talking," I said.

"Mia described his shoes. You described his emails with suspicious enthusiasm."

I wore a dark green dress with a soft neckline and sleeves that left my wrists bare. My mother fastened my necklace. For a moment I saw myself as she must have: excited, frightened, trying to remember how to be something besides necessary.

"You look beautiful," she said.

I looked down before my eyes could fill.

Adrian arrived at seven. Thomas stayed beside the car while he came upstairs carrying flowers.

Mia inspected them.

"You can't eat those," she told him.

"I was told your mother preferred them to a bag of potatoes."

"She likes potatoes too."

"I will remember that."

Then he saw me.

His expression changed so openly that I stopped beside the kitchen doorway. His eyes traveled slowly over my dress, then returned to my face.

"Claire," he said, as though he had forgotten the rest of the sentence.

For once, I didn't mind.

At the restaurant, he chose a table along the wall. Thomas waited outside. The narrow West Village dining room smelled of garlic, bread, and warm wine. Adrian's knee brushed mine beneath the table, and neither of us moved it away.

We talked about things that had no budget attached. He hated olives. I loved terrible disaster films. He confessed that Lily had once painted his nails blue while he slept and that he had attended breakfast with three investors before noticing.

"Did anyone say anything?"

"One man complimented my confidence."

I laughed so hard that the couple beside us looked over.

Adrian watched me with a pleasure that made the room feel smaller.

When he asked about Mia's father, I traced a finger along my glass.

"Daniel accepted a job overseas before she was born. We exchanged emails for a while. His last message arrived before her second birthday."

"He knows how to find you?"

"He has always known."

Adrian's jaw tightened. He looked toward the window, then back at me.

"What did you do the day she was born?"

Nobody had asked me that in years.

"I called my mother. She missed the birth by forty minutes. The nurse took our first photograph. I remember trying to hold Mia and my phone at the same time."

His hand covered mine on the table.

The tenderness of it undid something I had held tightly for a long time. I stared at his fingers until I could speak without sounding different.

"It was still a good day."

"I believe you."

He didn't make a speech about what Daniel deserved. He stayed with the memory I had given him, his thumb moving once over my knuckles.

After dinner, we walked half a block before his car caught up. The air smelled of approaching rain. He placed his coat around my shoulders, and its warmth surrounded me.

"You will be cold," I said.

"I am trying very hard to impress you. Please cooperate."

I slipped my hand through his arm.

At my building, he walked me to the small landing outside my apartment. The hall light hummed overhead. Downstairs, the front door closed behind a neighbor.

He looked at my mouth.

"I have spent the entire evening thinking about this," he said.

"You weren't concentrating on the olives?"

"I was suffering on two fronts."

I stepped closer and caught his tie.

His breath changed.

The first kiss was surprisingly careful. His hand settled against my cheek, warm and steady, and his mouth moved over mine as though giving me time to discover how much I wanted it.

Then I pulled him closer.

He made a low sound and backed me gently against the wall. His other hand found my waist. I felt his restraint in the tension of his fingers, in the way he paused before deepening the kiss.

I had imagined him cold. Nothing about him was cold now.

When we separated, my hand was still tangled in his tie.

"That complicates dinner," I whispered.

His forehead rested against mine. "I was hoping it would."

From the other side of my door, Mia announced, "Grandma says you should stop standing in the hallway because Mrs. Feldman can hear everything."

Adrian closed his eyes.

I covered my mouth, shaking with laughter.

"Your daughter has exceptional timing," he murmured.

"She has exceptional hearing."

He kissed my forehead, slower than the joke deserved. "I would like to see you again."

"You will."

"I mean before Monday's budget meeting."

I opened the door reluctantly. Mia stood there in pajamas, Gerald tucked under one arm.

"Have you learned pancakes yet?" she asked him.

"I have not had the opportunity."

"You can come Sunday. Mommy bought chocolate chips."

He looked at me, his expression still carrying the intimacy of the landing.

This time, I didn't invent plans for him.

"Come at nine," I said. "I'll leave room at the table."