“Your wife should attend too,” he adds smoothly.
Sarah. Wait, how does he know about Sarah?
“You know I’m married?”
“I know everything about my employees and their partners.”
An ice cold chill touches my body. His intensity and lack of emotion is chilling. His attention to detail does not make you feel special, it’s terrifying.
“She’d like that,” I say. Thinking of Sarah and her endless quest for greed. Her hunger for a life that doesn’t feel like a hallway with no doors.
“I imagine she would,” he hisses under his breath, talking like he knows her. I want to bite back at the remark, but he continues to speak.
“I want to discuss funding,” he continues. “Studio space. Materials. Exposure.”
My heart gallops at the speed of a train. I can feel heat rise from my neck and spread up to my face. Warmth blooms and I know my face is blushing. This is unknown territory to me. This attention and belief, and he hasn’t even seen my work. But I still don’t get why…why is he doing this?
“That’s —” I struggle to finish the sentence. “That’s incredible.”
He watches my reaction carefully. There is no warmth, just one hundred percent focus on my reaction. If I didn’t know any better I would think Ethan is an alien who has never met a human before, as he seems so perplexed by my responses.
“Dinner tomorrow evening,” he says. “I’ll send the address to your phone.”
“You already have my number?”
“Yes.”
Of course he does.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“Because your talent is being wasted.”
“That’s not —”
“You sort paper,” he interrupts. “You burn your hands at night for free.”
His voice sharpens just enough to cut.
“You deserve more than survival.”
The words shouldn’t affect me the way they do. They shouldn’t slide under my ribs and twist. It makes me think of Sarah’s frustration of what I do and my dreams of my own workshop. Then I think of my father’s voice telling me I could make anything.
“I don’t understand why you care,” I admit.
He stands and moves over toward me. It feels predatory the way he is looking at me, like he is about to kidnap me or hurt me.
“I don’t care,” he says quietly. “I invest.”
“In people?”
“In outcomes.”
I nod slowly, and look down at the ground as the eye contact is too much. My head feels full of cotton, unable to comprehend what’s happening. I need to get out of here.
“I need to get back to work,” I say.
“Yes, you may go.”
