“No, she’s an engineer. MIT student. Smart kid, bad at interviews. She needs a job in engineering.”
He glanced up from his pad with a slow blink. “That will take a minute but all right. What else?”
“I need to clear my schedule next week to do a visit at Emme’s school,” I said.
“Stella must be thrilled,” he said under his breath. He was right about that. My publicist was over the moon. “Hopefullyshe’s generating some talking points for you because you’re going to do more harm than good if you walk into a classroom and glare at the children.”
“I will notglareat the children,” I replied. “Stella said I could read a story about sports and perseverance, or some other bullshit.”
He set his pen down and exhaled loudly. “As you’re aware, there’s not a lot you could do to make the people of this town turn against you. They don’t mind that you have the personality of a moss-covered rock because your passing stats are superhuman. They don’t care nearly as much about Poppy’s songs as they do about winning championships. However, if their kids come home from school crying about the mean man who growled a story at them, we’re going to have a real problem on our hands.”
“First of all, I will not be mean or growl at them,” I growled. “And second, Emme would never let that fly. She’d take over before anyone started crying and then slap me upside the head.”
He peered at me, his head cocked. He was silent for a long moment, a smile gradually splitting his face. He ran his fingers over his mustache. “I’m going to like her, aren’t I?”
“So much.” I’d wondered about her classroom last night. What it would look like, what it would feel like to be in Miss Ahlborg’s class. Every time I thought about second grade, I was reminded of how simple life was back then. But second grade wasn’t simple for Emme, not this year. I was going to fix that. I was going to fix a lot of things.
While I could.
Jakobi cleared his throat. “You’re smiling.”
“Unlikely.” I snapped my fingers. “I need to make a donation too,” I added. “What’s the right number for that? Half a million? More? I don’t want to lowball this.”
Jakobi closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “A donation for what purpose?”
“For—for whatever. I don’t care. Schools always need money and there’s nothing cold or arrogant about hanging around with some kids and leaving a pile of cash.”
Jakobi made a note, muttering to himself and shaking his head. “Let’s do some research. I’ll send someone down there to put eyes on the playground and athletic fields. Get a sense of what they need so we can make something up about your charitable vision. That way, it at least looks like we have a reason to throw money at your girl’s school.”
My girl.
Liquid heat spread through my chest. It felt good for a minute, but then the truth of it seared straight through my skin and all the way down to my bones. It fucking hurt.
Just like it always had.
“There’s one more thing.” I tapped my phone and turned it toward Jakobi. “We might need to buy this building.”
Another slow blink, a slight pinch of his brows. “She’s requesting real estate?”
“No,” I said carefully, “and she can’t know that I’m looking into this.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered.
“Her apartment should be condemned. The windows are literally falling apart. I’m pretty sure someone died on the kitchen floor. If we get so much as a sprinkle of rain, the ceiling is going to disintegrate like a paper towel.”
He copied down the address. “Then why is it you want to buy the place?”
“Because then I can repair the roof and windows and whatever else the fuck is wrong with it. I offered up my condo, but she blew that off like a multimillion-dollar penthouse hadnothing on her quirky corner of the North End. So what am I supposed to do? Sit on my fucking hands?”
With a thoughtful nod, Jakobi closed his folio and returned his pen to his suit coat. He draped an arm over the back of the chair beside him and studied me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. It was like curiosity—yet smug about it. “I’ll be damned.”
“What?” I snarled.
He smiled at me then, wide and toothy and definitely smug. “Ryan Ralston has a heart,” he said. “I haven’t seen it until now because you left it with her.”
I stared down at the table. My hip ached and my skull was full of iron spikes and I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Emme’s eyes went soft and dreamy when I told her how I imagined our wedding. Like there was a slim chance that she’d want that, and not for a business deal or to get back at a shitty ex.
Jakobi pushed to his feet. “Does she have any idea?”
