The apartment was small and orderly. Bookshelves lined one wall. A child’s drawing of a horse was taped beside the kitchen doorway. The couch had been repaired once, neatly. The place was full of care without any trace of performance.
Benjamin poured her coffee and sat across from her at the kitchen table.
He wore a plain gray long-sleeve shirt. No watch. No wedding ring. Nothing about him pleaded for interpretation.
Scarlet looked around once, then back at him. “I’m not here to drag you back into anything you left.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Because I wouldn’t go.”
Direct. Not rude.
She almost smiled.
Before she could answer, a bedroom door opened and a little girl padded into the kitchen with a sketchbook tucked under her arm and sleep-flattened hair gathered into two uneven braids.
She stopped when she saw Scarlet.
Children did not pretend not to assess adults. They looked directly, honestly, and with the kind of ruthless curiosity board members only wished they still possessed.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Scarlet,” Scarlet said. “I know your dad from work.”
The girl processed this. “Are you a customer?”
Scarlet huffed out a surprised laugh. “I was.”
Apparently satisfied, the child climbed into the chair at the far end of the table and opened her sketchbook. Horses. Every page horses. Wild horses, jumping horses, horses with impossible eyelashes and pink sunsets behind them.
“Khloe,” Benjamin said gently, “good morning.”
“Morning,” she murmured, already drawing.
The softness in his voice altered the whole room.
Scarlet had known he was a single father from the school records. Knowing it abstractly was one thing. Seeing the ease with which the apartment, the coffee, the child, and the silence all belonged to him was another.
He had not built a temporary retreat.
He had built a life.
Scarlet folded her hands on the table. “I need help with something specific.”
He said nothing.
