Page 10 of Burn this City

“But the money …”

“Fuck the money,” Jack said softly. “Do I look like I’m hurting for it?”

Now she looked at him and wiped at her eyes, so he reached out behind her and offered her the kitchen roll. She accepted with a teary smile and a nod, ripped off a sheet and dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose. “I didn’t believe I was heading for the right house.”

“Why not?” He cast a glance at the timer. Ten more minutes.

“It does explain a few things.” She took a few deep, fortifying breaths, and he stepped back and around to his seat. “Like, everything. I mean, I knew you were loaded. But not how loaded.”

“I knew you were loaded. But not how loaded.”

“That’s the right word.” Like a gun. Or with a weight.Focus on her.He shook his head.

She took a few deep, fortifying breaths, and he stepped back and around to his seat. “It does explain a few things. Like, everything. I mean.”

He ignored that. “Do you have any other plans?”

“I think I want to work with my hands. I’ve looked at some courses online, and I think I’ll become an electrician. I talked with a few people and they said they’d take me on as an apprentice. I’ve read the demand for electricians is growing faster than for other professions—eight percent per year. That sounds pretty good, right?”

“Eight percent is very impressive.” A doubling in nine years.

“And I can get qualified in ten months if I focus on it.” There it was, the light in her eyes.

The timer. He stood and grabbed oven gloves to take the lasagna out. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“I’m just off work so yeah I’m hungry.” He succeeded in cutting out a piece of lasagna tidily and it didn’t collapse on her plate. He managed the trick for his own too, then put the lasagna back in the oven but switched off the heat.

She dug in the moment he’d picked up his fork again. “Oh my God, that’s crack. No way I’ll finish all of it, but this isso good.”

He smiled, enjoying her response to Gino’s best almost as much as the food itself. Lasagna was the ultimate comfort food in his book, but such a hassle to make at home. Better to leave that effort to restaurant staff who could hover over the bubbling sauces for hours until they’d fully revealed their flavor. While he could have put one together a passable lasagna if forced to, he didn’t usually have the patience and sheer stretches of time it took to make a truly good one.

While they ate, she gave him the whole run-down—how she planned to start her own business and market to women primarily so they wouldn’t have to deal with sexist assholes not taking them seriously. All Jack could offer was that it wasn’t easy to get a good electrician in town, and a reliable one with manners would stand out like a unicorn. She’d be a hot commodity. Plus, of course, nobody would shout at her while she was re-wiring their house.

“But enough about me, what about you?” she asked after polishing off a good half of her portion.

“Been keeping busy.”

“You do look tired. Stressed?” Then, after a small pause: “Working too hard?”

“Oh, without a doubt.” He took a mouthful from the Chianti, forcing himself to focus on the mingling tastes until the wine overpowered the beef and tomato and cheese. He held the wine above his plate and watched her face carefully, inviting the question.

“So … what do you actually do?”

“I’m a consultant.”

“Oh. Consulting on what?”

“Business. I make sure people don’t kill each other.” He grinned to turn the truth into a kind of joke. “And that pays pretty well.”

She picked up her fork but now merely played with her food, taking small bites for the taste, but eventually, she pushed the plate away. “Can I ask why you needed to see me so urgently? I thought it must be something bad. If it is, can we just talk about it and get it over with?”

Damn. He’d done his best to keep the urgency out of the texts he’d sent. His stomach flipped again, and he needed a moment to work through the nausea that came with it. Maybe the lasagna had been a terrible idea after all. He’d hoped it would soothe and settle him, like a childhood favorite. But nothing on earth had that power right now.

“It’s bad, right?” she asked when he didn’t answer.

He hated how perceptive she was to mood shifts. He had a good poker face, or he couldn’t do what he did, couldn’t have survived as long as he had, or been as useful to Andrea and Andrea’s father. But nothing escaped somebody whose very survival had depended on anticipating the moods of a volatile, violent ex.

“It’s kind of bad and it kind of isn’t.” He reached out and took her hand, glad she closed her fingers around his, completely trusting. That she still had capacity to trust was a damn miracle, but he accepted it as the boon it was. “I have an offer to make. Think about it before you answer. Will you do that? Just hear me out?”

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