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"Cruelty with good manners."

Alli didn't say anything. She wasn’t sure what to say, but if she simply shut up, he might keep talking. And she wanted him to do that. She wanted to know more about this man who fascinated her with his steely control, yet funny personality.

"My mother covered for him," Sam said. "She was the warmth in that house. All of it. She'd take us out for the whole day so he could work, and she'd make it feel like an adventure instead of an eviction. She was… She was good at it. She was so good at it that I was about nineteen before I understood what she'd been doing."

He looked at the window instead of at her.

"She disappeared when I was in college. Just gone. No note. Her car was found in a parking lot.” He said it evenly, the way you say a thing you've said a hundred times to people who already know it. “You probably already know all of this. Everyone in this town knows the story."

"We’ve hired an investigator," Sam continued. "Years later. We want answers, if we can find them. None of us has ever believed my father did enough to find her. Not for a second. And I don't think he hurt her, though. I want to be clear about that. I’ve turned it over more times than is healthy, and I don't think he did. But I think he knows more than he's ever said. And I think he's watched all of us wonder about it all these years, and it's never once cost him a night's sleep. That's the part I can't get past. Not the not knowing. The fact that he could end it, and doesn't, and it doesn't weigh anything."

“I’m so sorry, Sam.”

What did a person say to what he’d revealed? She hadn’t had a high opinion of Joel Winslow, but now…

"I've never actually said that out loud," he said, sounding faintly startled by himself. "Not to anyone outside the family anyway.”

Alli almost reached out to place her hand on his. She thought about it. Her hand was right there, six inches from his on the table, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world and the worst possible idea she’d ever had.

"I'm glad you did tell me,” she said instead. “Thank you.”

He didn’t look at her, his gaze somewhere far away. There were a dozen questions she could have asked him about his mother, but she didn’t. It was none of her business. Some pizza and soda had temporarily loosened his tongue, but she didn’t fool herself into thinking they were suddenly besties. He was her boss, and she shouldn’t forget that.

It would be far too easy to fall for a good man like Sam Winslow.

Chapter

Twelve

Sam got to the condo ten minutes early, which meant Alli had been there fifteen.

She stood on the walk with two coffees and a folded stack of flattened boxes leaning against the doorway beside her. She’d put her hair up in a clip, and she was wearing jeans. He had never seen her in jeans, and she looked good dressed casually. He noticed that he noticed, and gave himself a brief but stern talking to.

Must not notice how attractive my employee is.

“Morning,” she said, and handed him a cup. “Black. Two sugars.”

“You know how I take my coffee.”

“I’ve made you several of them.”

“Right.”

They stood there a second longer than the exchange required. Sam had spent a good part of the night thinking about the things he’d said at that conference table and had arrived at no useful conclusion except that he’d possibly said too much. He had told her about his mother. He had told her about Zack. He had used the words cruelty with good manners out loud, to an employee whom he hadn’t known long, over a paper plate of pizza.

Something had loosened in him, and he wanted it back where it belonged. It made him nervous that she now knew so much about him.

“About last night,” he started.

“The pizza was excellent.”

He looked at her. She was watching him over the lid of her coffee, perfectly pleasant, giving him the door if he wanted it.

“Yes,” he said. “It was.”

She’s letting me off the hook.

He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted, and he was still turning that over when she handed him half the boxes to carry inside. She’d thought of everything, of course. He felt like an idiot for coming here to pack but not bringing any supplies.