Page 42 of The Perfect Mistake

“It’s a movie night under the stars. Apparently, they’re transforming the schoolyard, there will be outdoor picnic areas and space heaters.” He sighs. “Kids were talking about it today at school, about how their moms and their dads are going… Willa wants to go, too.”

“Of course she does,” I say softly. “Do you have the time?”

“We have investors flying in from Belgium tomorrow. I’m supposed to have dinner with them. It’ll be an insult to reschedule, but I can do it.”

“Send Connie instead, if she’s free.”

He runs a hand over his jaw, considering. Maybe I’ve overstepped by making a suggestion. But they’re both Connovans, after all. And they both work for and represent Contron.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he says after a while. “Yeah. Could work.”

“What’s the fundraiser for? At school?”

“I don’t have a faintest idea,” he says. “Endangered beetles in the Amazon. Orphaned pelicans in Florida. Something or other that St. Regis has decided is a worthwhile cause.”

That makes me laugh. I hadn’t expected a critique from him. “Yeah, that sounds like something a private school would deem worthy.”

“Yes,” he says. “Needs to be palatable and easy to explain to the kids, you know? God forbid it’s an actual social cause here in the city.”

I pull my legs up beneath me and turn to him. “I didn’t expect you to… I don’t know.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m capable of criticizing my own. Very willing, too.”

“Clearly.” I pick at the edge of a throw pillow. “Is that why you avoid any school events?”

He glances briefly back at the laptop, but I don’t think he’s actually working anymore. “One of many reasons,” he says, and his voice deepens. “There’s a degree of… small talk that’s necessary, and I don’t feel up to it anymore. I just don’t care where other people are planning to vacation.”

I smile. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

There’s faint humor in his hazel eyes. “No? I guess you can see right through me.”

“A bit, maybe. But you’re pretty opaque.”

Alec doesn’t look away. “Am I?”

“Yes. Seems like you don’t really let anyone in, or show what you’re thinking. Or feeling, for that matter.” I shrug and feel suddenly embarrassed to have said all that. But it’s easy to lose my composure around him. “I think maybe you prefer it that way, too.”

He’s quiet. The silence is filled by the rapid sparring of two characters on screen, but I can’t make out a single word. He runs a hand along the sharp cut of his jaw. “Well,” he says finally. “I think I do, too. Or at least I have for a long time.”

Since your wife died.

I don’t say it. It’s not something we’ve ever spoken about. I’ve cried in his arms at his sister’s wedding party over my failed career, and my hip, but we can still move on like it never happened. However, something tells me he won’t handle a question about his own past the same way.

“Doesn’t it get lonely, sometimes?” I ask. My voice feels quiet in the large room. “To be a one-man fortress.”

He smiles just a little, the corner of his lips tipping up. It softens the stern expression around his eyes. “A one-man fortress,” he repeats. His hand rests next to mine on the back of the couch. “Maybe that’s what I have to be.”

“Maybe it feels like that,” I say. “But I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“No.” It’s hard to look away from him when he’s sitting this close. His presence is a physical thing, enveloping me entirely. “Maybe build a drawbridge over the moat. Let some family and friends in. I think there are times when everyone needs someone to lean on.”

His eyes darken. “And you, Isabel? Who do you lean on?”

“Oh.” I hesitate, feeling a flush creep up my neck. “My parents and my siblings. Connie. A few high school friends.”

“You’re close with your family,” he says. It’s not a question, it’s a statement. “No partner?”

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