He watches me eat. I let him, because the alternative is telling him to stop and I'm not confident I want him to. His gaze is warm in the cool cabin. Steady. The look of a man who is genuinely interested in what I'm thinking and not just waiting for his turn to talk.
Robert never looked at me like that. Robert looked at me with admiration, with desire, with competitive respect. But neverwith the quiet, focused attention of someone who simply wants to understand how my mind works.
"You're staring," I say.
"You're eating. I've been trying to get you to eat a full meal for two days. I'm savoring the victory."
"You've been trying. From forty yards away. With professional detachment."
"You wanted space. I gave you space."
"I didn't ask for space."
"You moved all your meetings to conflict with our sessions. You started taking breakfast alone. You stopped making eye contact at dinner." He counts each one off without accusation. Observation. Just observation. "You didn't ask for space with words. You asked for it with behavior. I read behavior."
The accuracy of it stings. Not because he's wrong, but because being read this precisely is a vulnerability I'm not accustomed to. In twenty years of board meetings, negotiations, and surgical teams, I've been the one reading the room. Having someone read me this clearly is like being opened on an operating table while still conscious.
"You're right," I say. "I was avoiding you."
"I know."
"It wasn't because of anything you did wrong."
"I know that too."
"It was because of what almost happened on the mountain."
"The almost-kiss." He says it plain. No drama, no weight. Just naming the thing I've been circling for two days.
"Yes."
"And you've been avoiding me because you wanted it to happen, and that scares you."
I set my fork down. "You're very confident for a man who's making assumptions about what I want."
"I'm confident because I was there. Because your pulse was hammering. Because you looked at my mouth three times before I touched you. And because you've been avoiding me ever since, which tells me the almost bothers you more than the actual would have."
My chest tightens. He's right. The almost is worse. The almost lives in the space where I can still pretend I wouldn't have kissed him back, and that pretense is getting thinner every day.
"Hayes. You're thirty-three years old."
"I'm aware."
"I'm forty."
"Also aware."
"I'm your client."
"I've reviewed the arrangement."
"This is a terrible idea."
"Probably."
"I don't do reckless. I don't do impulsive. I spent ten years cutting open human hearts, and the only reason those people survived is because I never once let emotion influence my hands."
"Your hands aren't holding a scalpel right now, Lex."
