Page 37 of Mario
“No?”
“No. I prefer direct questions and useful answers.”
“And have I not been useful?”
“You’ve been careful.”
“That is useful.”
“Not always.”
The pen rests against the paper. Her posture is straight, her expression composed, her eyes steady on mine.
She is challenging me in an office I gave her, inside a building I own, with a visitor badge on her blazer and my name on the contract that may keep her firm alive.
She knows all of that and does it anyway.
Something old and hungry flexes in the cage I’ve kept it in for ten years.
“Careful keeps people alive,” I say.
Her expression turns thoughtful.
“Sometimes,” she says.
I study her. “And other times?”
“Other times it keeps them from doing what needs to be done.”
For one moment, I do not speak.
There are people who mistake recklessness for courage. She is not one of them. There are people who think caution is cowardice. She is not one of them either.
She understands the space between.
No wonder Lorenzo liked her.
No wonder I noticed her.
My phone vibrates once in my jacket. I ignore it.
Her eyes dip toward the sound, then return to my face.
“You can take that,” she says.
“I know.”
A faint line appears between her brows before she smooths it away.
That, too, amuses me.
She does not like men who pretend importance. She thinks ignoring a phone is a performance.
Sometimes it is.
This time, it is not.
“You were asking my priorities,” I say.
