Page 6 of His Daughter

"That muddies the waters. We're still trying to close this deal and I don't need complications."

Julian took a bite of his apple and chewed, watching me with that look he got when he was about to say something clever. "Well," he said, "looks like you've finally matured. Did someone sneak something in your food?"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't you have work to do? The Caine acquisition won't close on its own. The man is a stubborn old goose, and you're the best person to loosen him up."

Julian scoffed and swung his legs off the desk. "Me? I'm an artist, Hale. You can't just point me at — "

Suddenly, my phone rang.

We both looked at the screen. The name glowed against the dark glass.

Kira.

Julian stopped chewing.

I watched it ring. Two. Three. Then I reached over and declined. The screen went dark.

Julian nodded at the phone. "Kira is still bothering you?"

"She can't take the hint." I loosened my tie and pulled it over my head, tossing it on the desk. "And I sure as hell won't let her back in. She can't fool me twice."

Julian nodded, took another bite of his apple, and let it go.

But the image was already behind my eyes — Kira sitting across from me at a place she'd picked—a Dominican spot in Washington Heights with plastic chairs and a TV above the bar playing a baseball game nobody was watching. She'd ordered for both of us in Spanish, and when I raised an eyebrow, she'd laughed and said, “Trust me.” The food arrived on mismatched plates, and it was the best meal I'd eaten in months. She watched me eat with this look on her face — warm, amused, like she was seeing someone I hadn't meant to show her.

I shut it down and shoved it back into whatever drawer it kept crawling out of.

She left. That's what people did, and it was fine. It was on my terms.

"Go bother Caine," I told Julian.

He raised the apple in a mock salute and disappeared.

I sat down, pulled the Lassiter file toward me, and worked through the fourteen things that needed my attention before the London call at four.

The city was already dark when I stepped out of the lobby. Graham had the car idling at the curb. I slid into the back seat without speaking, and he pulled into the river of red taillights heading uptown. The leather seat was cool against my back. I loosened the top two buttons of my shirt and let my head fall against the headrest.

We pulled up to the building, and the doorman had the glass door open before my foot hit the sidewalk. "Evening, Mr. Hale." I nodded, crossed the lobby, and took the private elevator up.

The penthouse was dark.

I stood inside the door and didn't reach for the lights. The city glowed through the floor-to-ceiling windows — forty stories of lit-up grid moving and breathing below me, and up here, nothing. Just the hum of an empty apartment.

I dropped my keys on the kitchen counter. The sound was loud against the marble. The fridge held sparkling water, leftover Thai food, and a bottle of Sancerre that Julian had left the last time he showed up uninvited. I ignored all of it and poured two fingers of whiskey.

The apartment was three months old. A designer had furnished it based on a single meeting where I'd said, "I don't care, just make it look finished." And it did. It also looked like no one lived here. The books on the shelves were arranged by color. I hadn't read any of them. No photographs. No objects that meant anything. Just space and surfaces, clean and impersonal.

I'd never been good at staying. That wasn't self-pity, but it was arithmetic. When a room got too familiar, and the walls felt like they still carried the ghost of the old tenant, I moved just like others waited for the next season. The previous penthouse had lasted fourteen months. But she'd been there, and even after she walked out, the rooms smelled like her perfume for weeks. I sold it within the month.

This place had three months left. I should start looking.

My father had done the same thing with houses. Different ones for different women, none of them the one my mother lived in, all of them temporary by design. I wasn't like him. I told myself that regularly enough that it almost worked.

I stood at the window with my drink, watching the city. My phone buzzed against the marble countertop.

I walked over and set the whiskey down. The screen glowed in the dark kitchen.

Kira.