Chapter 2 - The Little Girl Behind the Locked Door
Lucy refused to let Claire leave until the rabbit had been thoroughly examined.
“You can barely see the stitches,” she whispered.
“That’s because he’s very brave.”
“Does being brave mean you don’t cry?”
Claire glanced toward Grant.
His expression had gone still.
“No,” she said. “Sometimes it means you cry and do the hard thing anyway.”
Lucy considered that carefully before placing the rabbit beneath her chin.
The housekeeper arrived to take her upstairs. At the doorway, Lucy turned.
“Will you come back?”
Claire had negotiated six weeks of appearances, boundaries, and compensation. Nobody had mentioned a child asking questions that made a temporary arrangement feel cruel.
“If your uncle invites me.”
Lucy looked at Grant.
He nodded once.
After she left, silence settled between them.
“Your niece?”
“My sister’s daughter.”
“Where’s your sister?”
Grant looked at the half-empty glass on the side table.
“Amelia died eighteen months ago.”
Claire’s breath caught.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
He said it without ceremony, which somehow made it worse.
“Lucy’s father died when she was a baby. Amelia named me her guardian. Mother helps when I travel.”
Claire thought of the enormous house, the unfamiliar hallway, and the little girl apologizing for needing someone.
“Does she live here?”
“During school weeks. My apartment is in Boston.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“It’s temporary.”
She recognized the phrase. She used it about unpaid invoices, cracked ceiling plaster, and sleepless nights.
Temporary could stretch until it became a life.
Before she could answer, Evelyn appeared in the doorway.
“Grant, Richard needs a word about the succession vote.”
His shoulders tightened.
“I’ll be there shortly.”
Evelyn’s gaze moved to Claire’s sewing kit.
“How resourceful. I suppose practicality is essential in your circumstances.”
Claire closed the kit.
“It saves time. People rarely need to insult me twice before I understand them.”
Grant stepped between them.
“Enough, Mother.”
Evelyn studied him.
Something passed across her face—surprise first, then calculation.
On the drive home, Grant apologized.
Claire watched the coastline disappear behind them.
“You didn’t say your family knew.”
“They don’t.”
“Your mother asked what I cost.”
“She assumes everyone wants something.”
“And do they?”
He was quiet.
“Usually.”
Claire turned toward him.
“What do you want, Grant?”
“The next six weeks to pass without my personal life becoming a boardroom discussion.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
His phone lit up before he answered.
RICHARD WHITAKER.
He declined the call.
At her apartment, he walked her to the door.
“You were kind to Lucy.”
“She’s a child. That isn’t an extraordinary achievement.”
“It is in my family.”
Claire’s hand rested on her key.
“You could change that.”
Something closed behind his eyes.
“Good night, Claire.”
For the next week, their arrangement became a schedule of carefully contained performances.
A museum benefit. A hotel opening. One lunch where Grant’s assistant provided Claire with a seating chart more complicated than most wedding ceremonies.
In public, he placed a hand at her back only after she nodded. He learned how she took her coffee. She learned that he hated oysters but ate them at business dinners because nobody had asked whether he liked them in twenty years.
They laughed more than the contract required.
Then, on Thursday afternoon, he appeared at her studio carrying two paper cups.
Claire looked up from a broken archway covered in artificial ivy.
“Is this a scheduled appearance?”
“No.”
“Then I charge extra.”
“I brought coffee.”
“That buys seven minutes.”
He set one cup beside her.
Across the room, her assistant Tessa nearly dropped a vase.
Grant removed his coat.
“What happened?”
“The rental company delivered the wrong frame. I’m making it work.”
He studied the bent metal joint.
“Do you have pliers?”
Claire stared.
“Do billionaires know what those are?”
“Some of us had grandfathers who distrusted anyone unable to fix a hinge.”
Twenty minutes later, he was kneeling on the floor, jacket discarded, while Claire held the frame steady.
Tessa silently photographed them.
Claire caught her.
“Delete that.”
“Absolutely,” Tessa said, making no movement toward her phone.
Grant looked up, a loose strand of hair falling over his forehead.
Claire forgot what she had been about to say.
Later, while he washed his hands in the back room, his phone rang on the worktable.
Claire saw only the message preview.
RICHARD: We agreed the girl was temporary. Don’t forget what happens in December.
When Grant returned, she stepped away from the repaired arch.
“What happens in December?”
His expression emptied.
“The arrangement ends.”
May you like
Claire looked at him.
For the first time, she wondered whether six weeks was the deadline for something far more important than a fake romance.
