Seven Days

I told Adrian about the interview that evening.

He was cutting carrots with the concentration he usually reserved for difficult contracts. Mia sat at the table doing subtraction.

"It's exploratory," I said. "They approached me."

He set down the knife.

"You should speak to them."

"You haven't asked where it is."

"You said Chicago."

"I said that to myself when I read the email."

He looked at me, then gave a reluctant smile. "Then you were thinking rather loudly."

Mia looked up. "Are we going on a plane?"

"Possibly just me, sweetheart. Nothing is decided."

She returned to her worksheet, but her pencil moved more slowly.

Over the next two weeks, I met Halston West twice by video. Their chief executive, Monica Vale, asked difficult questions and waited for real answers. I liked her immediately.

The role covered four regional teams. It was the kind of opportunity I had imagined while making campaign notes on the subway with Mia asleep against my arm.

Adrian listened when I talked about it. He asked what I would change first, what resources they offered, whether I liked the people.

He never asked me to stop interviewing.

Sometimes that generosity felt like distance, and I hated myself a little for resenting something I had asked him to give me.

On a Tuesday evening in May, Monica called with the offer.

Adrian was in my kitchen again. Mia had pushed her homework aside to build a tower from pencil erasers.

When I hung up, both of them were looking at me.

"They offered me the job."

His smile came first, immediate and proud.

"Claire, that's extraordinary."

Then the rest reached him.

I watched it happen, the careful stillness returning to his face.

"They sent the contract," I said. "I have seven days."

Mia's tower fell.

"Is Chicago far enough that Sunday takes longer?"

I crouched beside her chair.

"It is a flight away. But we haven't decided anything."

She nodded too quickly. Adrian drew out the chair beside her and helped rebuild the tower without trying to explain the distance away.

After she fell asleep, I found him at the kitchen window.

He turned when I entered.

"Tell me what you're thinking," I said.

"That you worked for this before I ever kissed you."

"That sounds like the answer you think you're supposed to give."

His expression tightened. "It is also true."

"I know. But I am standing here with a contract in my hand, wondering whether you would miss me, and you keep discussing my qualifications."

He crossed the kitchen.

"You think I wouldn't miss you?"

I looked down. The question sounded foolish aloud, but the fear beneath it wasn't foolish at all.

He took the contract from me and set it on the table.

"I want you in my bed," he said quietly. "I want your coat over the chair and Mia's crayons in my car. I want to know whether you've had dinner without calculating a time difference."

My throat closed.

"I want you here so badly that I have spent the last two weeks deciding which of my instincts I can trust."

I touched his shirt.

"You could have told me that."

"I was afraid you would stay because I asked."

"I might want to stay because I love being with you. That isn't the same thing."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he pulled me close, his face against my hair.

I felt the breath leave him.

"I know how to hold a room," he murmured. "I am still learning what to do when the person I want can walk out of it."

I held him tighter.

We sat on the sofa until almost midnight. He admitted he had considered opening a Chicago office. I admitted I had looked at the flight schedule before reading the full benefits package.

"You would hate the airport coffee," I said.

"I would hate the empty seat beside me more."

He kissed my wrist. The simple intimacy of it made my eyes burn.

Before he left, I asked about Vittorio.

Adrian had told me the broad outline over the preceding weeks. His uncle had wanted influence over a new part of the organization, and had mistaken my presence for leverage. Adrian had called a family meeting and removed him from decisions involving Adrian's people and properties.

"He is leaving New York," Adrian said now. "Bellini is leaving with him. Thomas has confirmed their people are withdrawing."

"Do you expect that to hold?"

"Yes. He chose to accept the arrangement rather than challenge me. Thomas will keep watching. If something changes, you hear it from me first."

I searched his face, then nodded. I hadn't forgotten the car. Neither had he.

On the third day, I flew to Chicago.

Monica showed me the restored warehouse, the river beyond the windows, the office that could be mine. I liked the team. I liked the work. That made everything harder.

At lunch, she asked what I needed to decide.

"A clear head," I said.

"We can provide a lot here. Unfortunately, that one isn't in the package."

I laughed.

She went through the role in detail: frequent travel, larger teams, less direct creative work. The title was everything I had wanted. The days themselves would be different from what I had pictured.

I wrote questions instead of trying to make myself feel grateful enough to stop asking them.

At the airport that evening, a message from Mia waited on Adrian's phone.

Mommy, he burned two pancakes. I ate toast. Please don't worry.

Below it, Adrian had added: The third pancake was entirely respectable. Your daughter refuses to amend her report.

I laughed alone at the gate.

Then he called.

"How was it?"

"Good. Complicated. I liked them."

He was quiet for a beat. "Then tell me about them."

I did. He listened while boarding announcements sounded around me, and when they called my group, he said he would be waiting at arrivals.

"You don't need to come," I said automatically.

"I know. I want to see you."

I closed my eyes.

For once, I let that be enough.