Chapter 8: Leather and Amber Illumination
The interior of the town car smelled of aged leather, rain, and a faint trace of cedarwood. I sat near the door, my coat still damp from the sudden downpour that had trapped us outside the restaurant earlier that evening. The city lights smeared into long ribbons of red and yellow against the tinted windows, blurring the perimeter of Manhattan into an abstract wash of color.
Vincent sat across the wide leather console, resting one tattooed hand lightly on his knee. The sharp angles of his face were carved from shadow and the faint, pulsing glow of the dashboard instrument panel. For several blocks, neither of us spoke. The silence wasn't the hostile, suffocating weight that had filled the dining room back when Leo was screaming his lungs out against my shoulder; it was heavy with a different kind of gravity—the kind that comes when two people realize they've stepped across an invisible line and can't easily step back.
"You've worked at the restaurant for six months," Vincent said softly, breaking the low hum of the engine. It wasn't a question.
"Six months and three weeks," I corrected, keeping my hands folded tightly in my lap to hide the slight tremor in my fingers. "Marco hired me after the diner on Forty-Fourth let me go. I needed the steady shifts."
"Marco doesn't hire waitresses without running a background check three pages deep," Vincent murmured, his dark eyes fixed on mine with unblinking intensity. "He knew you had an apartment three blocks from the terminal, that your utility bills were thirty days past due, and that you didn't have a family name anyone in this city recognizes."
A cold spike of adrenaline hit my chest, sharp and familiar. "You checked up on me."
"In my line of work, ignorance is a fatal liability," he replied evenly, his voice devoid of malice or apology. "When a woman in a crisp white shirt and black apron walks into a room full of men who carry piece-work in their waistbands, and she keeps her head up while a child screams the place down... I want to know why she isn't running."
"I was running," I said, my voice dropping an octave as the bitterness rose in my throat. "For two years, I've been running from landlords who change the locks in the middle of the night, from car trouble on the interstate, from the kind of men who think a single mother with no backup is easy prey. I didn't run from your restaurant because my feet were tired, Vincent. And because I needed the fifty-dollar tips to buy formula."
Vincent didn't look away. The car glided smoothly through a yellow light, turning onto my street and coming to a gentle halt outside the peeling paint and flickering neon of my building's entryway. The rain beat a frantic tattoo against the roof.
"You won't have to worry about formula again," Vincent said quietly, his hand shifting on his knee.
"I'm not taking charity," I snapped, reaching for the door handle.
May you like
"It's not charity, Clara," he countered, his tone hardening just enough to command the space between us. "It's an investment in someone who doesn't fold under pressure. Think about what I said. Tomorrow is your day off. Stay with Leo."
I pushed the door open, letting the cold rain wash over my face, and stepped out onto the sidewalk without looking back.
