"I'm not trying to buy her good graces. I'm trying to repay a debt."
"Uh-huh." His tone was skeptical. "And it has nothing to do with the fact that she's apparently the first woman in years who's made your daughter light up like that?"
I didn't answer.
After James left, I sat alone in the dark, turning the whiskey glass in my hands. I thought about Claire Cross in her threadbare apartment with her empty cupboards and her fierce, proud eyes. I thought about how Millie had talked about her the whole drive home: the nice lady, the soup like Mama used to make it, the blanket that she gifted my daughter.
I thought about control, and how I'd built my entire life around maintaining it. How I'd failed to control the things that mattered most: My wife's illness, my daughter's safety, the poison slowly seeping into my home through Victoria's carefully constructed cruelty.
Claire had nothing. No money, no power, no leverage.
Maybe she doesn't want money. Maybe she wants something else.
I didn't know what else to offer. Money was the language I spoke, the tool I wielded, the solution to every problem I'd ever faced.
But as I sat there in the dark, I struggled and thought of something else. It couldn’t be a reward, she'd refused that. I was starting to understand that pushing it would only insult her. It had to be something different. Something she couldn't refuse because it wouldn't look like charity.
Her rent. Her student loans. A job offer she'd be crazy to turn down.
I'd give her back her stability, her security, her future. It was the only way I knew how to say thank you. The only currency I understood.
A small part of me wanted to see her again, wanted to understand how someone could have so little and still give so freely… well.
That was just curiosity. Nothing more.
I finished my whiskey and reached for my phone. It was about time to make some calls.
Claire Cross had no idea what was about to hit her. But she would, by morning.
And something told me she wasn't going to take it well.
3.Claire
Iwoke up to my landlord calling at 7 AM, which could only mean one thing: I was about to be homeless even faster than expected.
Except that wasn't what he wanted to tell me at all.
The phone shrieked on my nightstand, dragging me from a fitful sleep filled with shivering children and gray-blue eyes. I fumbled for it, squinting at the caller ID through crusty eyes.Everett Properties.Mr. Halstead. My stomach dropped through the floor.
"Nope," I muttered, declining the call. "Not doing this at six in the morning. A girl needs coffee before she gets kicked out."
It rang again. Same number.
"Persistent," I said to no one. Declined again.
Third call. The man was relentless. Either my apartment was on fire, or he really,reallywanted to remind me that I had seventy-two hours to vacate. With a groan, I answered.
"Mr. Halstead, I know about the notice. I'm working on it, I swear, I just need?—"
"Miss Cross!" He cut me off, and his voice was... cheerful? Mr. Halstead didn't do cheerful. Mr. Halstead did gruff,annoyed, and vaguely threatening. "Good news! Wonderful news, actually."
I sat up slowly, suspicion creeping in. "What kind of wonderful news?"
"Your rent has been paid in full. Six months, prepaid, as of last night." He actually chuckled. "Wire transfer from something called the Sterling Family Trust. Cleared without a hitch."
At that point, I was sitting down, it’s not every day that your rent vanishes, and I was struggling to understand whether this was a prank or an act of god. But I heard one familiar word.
Sterling...
