The Woman He Married

Clara answered the next question before the joke could grow legs.

It concerned the street repairs. She had numbers for that, photographs, something concrete to put between herself and other people's amusement.

Damian let her work.

He spoke to the man beside him, exchanged cards, listened to a proposal he would need Owen to examine properly in the morning.

A server bent near his shoulder.

He said something quietly.

Five minutes later, Clara received a fresh plate, a small bowl of soup, and the fish she had been too busy talking to reach.

She looked across the table.

Damian raised his eyebrows a fraction.

Eat.

She smiled and obeyed because, for once, somebody telling her what to do had noticed what she needed.

Julian saw the exchange.

He looked at the plate, then at the broad, composed man on the other side of the table.

"He pays attention," he said quietly.

Clara glanced at him.

"Yes."

He poured water into her glass.

"Have you thought about what I said? Cambridge?"

"I have."

"And?"

She put down her fork.

"I need to finish the first phase here. Bennett Row too. Applications deserve more work than I can give them right now."

"You could leave the project to somebody else."

"I don't want to."

"Don't limit yourself because he's here."

She looked at her husband again.

He was listening to a man explain something with an expression that suggested he was being polite at considerable personal expense.

"It isn't a limit," she said.

Julian waited.

"This is my town. My parents' street. If I leave before I know what we've made of it, I'll regret it. Universities will still be there next year."

"So will Briarhaven."

"But I might not have this chance in it again."

He looked down at his glass.

After a moment, he lifted it toward her.

"Then I'll expect a very good portfolio when you do come."

"I intend to have one."

They touched glasses.

Across the table, Damian saw the smile without hearing what had earned it.

He kept his own conversation going.

***

They sent the guests back to Westbridge late that night.

Vince organized the cars. Owen checked luggage and flight times as though he could personally prevent every lost suitcase in the country.

Damian stood by the entrance shaking hands.

One of the visitors pulled him aside.

"Come up to the city next month. My daughter works in investment. Smart girl. You two would get along."

Damian smiled.

"My wife and I would be happy to see you when the next section opens. Bring the family."

The man blinked, then recovered.

"Married?"

"Several years now."

"Good for you. Hard to keep priorities straight when business takes off."

Damian glanced through the glass doors.

Clara was holding her professor's coat while he searched every pocket for glasses already on his face.

"Some things make it easier," Damian said.

He closed the man's car door and stepped back.

Vince waited until it pulled away.

"Something to tell you."

Damian turned.

"Ethan."

His expression changed.

"What about him?"

"Purchasing records. Owen's people found three thousand dollars off the books. Supplier paid him."

Damian looked toward the lobby.

Clara had returned the coat and was saying good night, smiling with the patient affection she gave her teachers even when she was exhausted.

"Total order?"

"One hundred and fifty thousand."

"What did he buy?"

"Materials for the Row. Brick, tile, some specialist batches."

Damian said nothing.

He remembered giving Vince permission to find Ethan work after Clara had declined to ask. A small kindness. A man with a family, an education, nowhere to go.

Vince had placed him with the construction business. There had been managers between Ethan and Damian, other people meant to know their part of the work.

Three thousand dollars was almost nothing beside the payroll.

It was not nothing beside the rules.

"Who knows?"

"Accounts team. Me. Owen."

"The goods?"

"Invoices match the deliveries. Site people signed them in."

Damian looked down at the pavement.

"Talk to him. Get the money back. Check it properly."

"And Clara?"

He watched her come through the door.

"Not tonight."

***

Owen came out with the last travel folder and stopped beside them.

"We need to go through the purchase approvals tomorrow," he told Damian.

"I know."

"Not just Ethan's. Everybody who signed."

Vince looked offended.

"I told you I'd sort it."

"Then you won't mind showing me how it was sorted."

Damian looked between them. In another mood, he might have told them to stop arguing on the pavement. Tonight he was grateful that Owen could insist on something without needing to win the room.

"Morning," he said. "First thing."

Owen nodded and went back inside.

Vince watched him go.

"He could trust me occasionally."

"He does. That's why he's asking you."

Vince considered that, unconvinced but quieter. Damian put a hand against the back of his neck, briefly, the way he had when they were younger.

"Check it," he said. "I want to know it's right."

Vince nodded properly this time and put a reminder into his phone before he forgot.

Vince went to leave.

Clara stopped him.

"You're driving them all the way back?"

"Yes."

"Then stay in Westbridge. Don't come back half asleep."

"I've done worse."

"That isn't an argument."

Vince looked toward Damian, who was putting his jacket around Clara's shoulders.

"You heard her," he said.

"Yes, boss."

Clara smiled.

"Good night, Vince."

He went to the car feeling oddly less tired.

***

In the elevator, Damian took her hand.

"You done looking after everybody?"

"Not quite. You look neglected."

"Terribly."

She laughed and leaned against him.

The small gesture went through him with enough force to make him close his eyes.

He could lose money. Contracts. Land. All the things people thought defined him.

He wasn't sure he knew how to lose this.

Upstairs, Clara dropped her bag on the desk and turned to find him watching her.

"What?"

He came closer.

"Nothing."

"You've been strange all week."

"Busy."

"So have I. That's different."

He touched her face, then kissed her.

She let the questions go for a while.

The room held the old, familiar things: her books, his shirts, the lamp she liked, the bed that had once seemed ridiculously large.

He drew her toward it as though returning there might make every other worry manageable.

***

Later, she lay with her cheek against his shoulder.

"Will you stay tomorrow?" he asked.

"Where?"

"Here. With me."

"I work downstairs."

"Afterward."

She lifted her head.

"Yes."

He brushed her hair away from her mouth.

"And after that?"

She looked at him for a long moment.

"What are you actually asking?"

He could have said it then. About Julian. About the petition Owen had told him about. About the fear that the only thing holding her beside him was how much easier he made her life.

Instead he said, "Don't divorce me."

Her face softened.

"I'm here."

It wasn't quite an answer. He took it anyway.

He kissed her forehead, her cheek, the corner of her mouth, until she laughed and told him he was being greedy.

"Probably."

"Definitely."

He rested his hand lightly over her stomach.

"A baby?"

She went still.

He felt it immediately.

"Not now," she said.

"I didn't mean this second."

"You look as though you did."

He gave a small, embarrassed smile.

She put her hand over his and moved it to her waist.

"I have so much I haven't done."

"I know."

"Do you?"

He looked at her, then nodded.

She settled against him again.

He held her without arguing, though the wanting remained, tangled with things he didn't like to examine.

Downstairs, somebody wheeled a trolley along the corridor. Farther away, a door closed.

Clara fell asleep.

Damian stayed awake long enough to hear the first rain touch the window.