"Yes," he says, after a moment. "I believe we were."
I let go of her hand.
I gesture to the chair two seats down from mine — close enough to be cordial, far enough to be professional — and she moves to it without hesitation, setting her laptop on the table and pulling out the chair.
Rosalie is watching me, but I can't look at her.
I sit back down at the head of my table, in my building, in the life I built out of the rubble of the boy she doesn't recognize, and I fold my hands in front of me and look at Blaire Monroe with the expression of a man who has never seen her before in his life.
I have explicitly avoided looking into Blaire Alexander for ten years. I never wanted to hear her name again, so I wasn't going to actively seek out information on her. When I left Houston, I left Michael Bennett behind and never looked back. I still let Rosalie call me Michael, but that's for her sake, not mine.
"So," I say. "Let's see if you're worth what they're paying you."
"Mr. Sullivan." Rosalie's voice carries the specific frequency she reserves for when I am embarrassing her professionally.
I still don't look at her. I keep my eyes on Blaire.
Other than expressive raised eyebrows, the room is very quiet.
Blaire blinks once. It was there and gone, carefully covered by a blank expression, but I know what I saw. Anger flickered across her face for just a second. She folds her hands on the table and leans forward slightly.
"I've read your file, Mr. Sullivan." Her voice is calm. Warm, even. Like I haven't just implied she's a line item. "I didn't have as much time to prepare as I'd like, given I just took on your case Friday, and everything moved quickly from there."
Without taking my eyes off her I say, "If she can't show up prepared on her first day, what exactly are we doing here? She's a waste of money and quite frankly a waste of my fucking time."
Rosalie clears her throat. Loudly.
Blaire doesn't even flinch, which surprises me.
"Bennet." Frank's voice carries a warning.
Damnit. I know I’m letting my emotions lead this conversation and I need to dial it back.
Then Blaire raises her hand, nods to Frank, and says, "It's okay. I've handled toddlers with more bite."
So much for dialing it back.
Game. Fucking.On.
"What I'm saying, Mr. Sullivan," she continues, completely unbothered, "is that I read a thirty-two page brief and spoke with your board, but I haven't spoken with you directly. I walkedinto a board meeting that's apparently been running for hours, in a building I was notified I'd be living in approximately forty minutes ago." She tilts her head slightly. "So, no, Mr. Sullivan, I am not unprepared. I am efficient at what I do. And if you did a quick Google search, you'd see I'm also the best at what I fucking do."
Someone at the far end of the table coughs in a way that might be a laugh.
I stare her down coolly. She matches my energy.
There it is — that thing she always had, that quality I spent four years studying from a careful distance in high school hallways. The complete and total refusal to be made small. She didn't have the vocabulary for it at eighteen, just the instinct. At twenty-eight, she has both, and she's sitting two seats down from me in my conference room deploying them like she was born to it.
Which she was. She just didn't know it, yet when I knew her.
"Alright." I lean back in my chair. "You've read the file. Tell me something that isn't in it."
She looks around the room with the brief, efficient scan of someone taking inventory. Then she looks back at me.
"May I ask a personal question?"
I gesture to go ahead with an open hand and a nod.
"Are you homosexual?"
