He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s…” She cleared her throat. “…nothing.”
“Say it anyway.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Say it anyway.”
She blew on a fry for longer than necessary. Gave a sharp exhale. “There’s someone in the office. A consultant.” She poked the fry twice into the mayonnaise. “She has a way of making me feel like I don’t belong there. While smiling like she’s rooting for me.”
Rafael leaned back, waiting for her to continue.
“It was fine. Until she arrived. Now everything I do comes with a comment.”
“Like what?”
“Stupid stuff. ‘You ask such interesting questions…the kind most people are afraid to ask out loud.’ Or, ‘There’s something so earnest about the way you try to state your case.’ She’s asked my team twice this week to be patient with me because I’mtrying my best.”
He chewed a croquette as he listened.
“I hate that it bothers me. They’re such little things. But it’s like walking through a rose bush over and over.” Her fingers curled around her water bottle. “Like I’m bleeding from tiny scratches.”
Rafael rubbed his hands together, shaking the salt off his fingers. “Why do you let her get to you?”
Bea blinked. “What?”
“You’re not stupid. You know what she’s doing. So why does it land?”
She thought for a moment. Not because she didn’t already know the answer, but because she hadn’t been planning to share it withhim, of all people. He had a way of watching that stripped the layers she kept on for everyone else.
But she wanted to hear what it sounded like when she said it to a person other than Claire, who’d been on her side since before she could even tie her shoes.
“Because part of me worries she’s right,” Bea confessed. “Like…maybe I am just there because of Gage. Maybe I don’t belong in it the way she does, because I wasn’t born into any of it.”
It landed with a sick sort of relief. Like lancing something that had been throbbing under the surface.
Then just as quickly, the doubt surged back. What the hell was she doing, saying this to him?
The city moved around them. Footsteps, the rumble of traffic. The silence dragged a second too long.
“Rafael,” she muttered, “you better say something soon or I might hit you.”
That earned a faint tilt of his mouth. “You got into St. Ives University through the Exceptional Women program, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You know what that is?”
“A scholarship?”
He shook his head. “It’s a recruitment strategy.”
That drew her eyes to his and kept them there.
“Ever wonder why the UR’s so short on women, but doesn’t throw open the gates?” He let that hang. “This country doesn’t import placeholders, Bea. It selects women who are two things at once: a weapon. And a gift.”
The words hit. A chill raced down her arms.
