He looked like a man who had been sitting outside for a while, not waiting for anything specific, just occupying the space because staying inside had become too static. He stood when he saw her car. She got out and walked to the foot of the steps. She didn't say anything immediately. Neither did he.
I got it back, she said. I know, he said. Diana called me. She nodded slowly. Of course, Diana had called him.
I didn't use your offer, Clare said. I know that, too. I needed you to know that I know you set up a lot of the conditions that made it possible, she said. The attorney, the board research, the blocked asset sale. I know.
He didn't look away. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was doing. I know you are. She looked at him for a moment. I want to understand why.
Not the version you gave me the other day. The version about wanting to stay in something simple for a little while. I understand that part. I want to understand the rest. He set the coffee mug on the step beside him.
After Renee died, he said, I had a long period where every person who came into my life came in through the context of what I did, what I managed, what I was worth. People who wanted access or wanted advice or wanted proximity to the fund. Not bad people necessarily, just people who saw the money first. He paused. I got used to being seen that way.
I stopped expecting anything different. After a while, I stopped minding because minding required hoping, and hoping required believing that something else was possible. He sat back down on the step. And then you were sitting in my car, he said, and you didn't know anything about me, and you were so clearly in the middle of the worst thing that had happened to you in years. And I was just a person who had stopped to ask if you needed help.
That was all I was. He looked up at her. You talked to me differently. You argued with me differently. When you were frustrated, you were frustrated with me, not with the idea of me, not with some calculation about how I might be useful.
Just with me. He picked up the mug again, turned it in his hands. I knew I should tell you. I told myself every day for 3 weeks that I was going to find the right moment. But every time I got close, I thought about what would change and something would.
Something would change in the way you looked at me or the way you weighed what I said or what you decided my motives were. And I wasn't ready for that. He looked at her directly. I wasn't protecting you, he said. I was protecting what it felt like to be known by you before you knew what I had.
And that was wrong. It was wrong because it took the choice away from you, and the choice was yours to make. Clare was quiet for a moment. The street was calm around them. A neighbor's sprinkler ran three houses down.
Somewhere farther off, a dog was barking at something it had decided was unacceptable. You were right that it would have changed things, she said finally. I know. Not the way you're probably thinking, she said. I wouldn't have trusted you less, but I would have been more careful, more guarded.
I would have spent energy figuring out your angle instead of just talking to you. She paused. And you're right that what we found in those weeks was built on something that doesn't usually get to exist. I understand why you wanted to hold on to it. She stepped up to the first step and sat down beside him.
Not close a measured distance, the kind that acknowledged something without committing to it. But I need you to understand what it cost me, she said. I was already in a situation where someone I trusted had made decisions for me about me without telling me. And then I found out that the person I had started to rely on had also been making decisions for me without telling me. Even if the intentions were completely different, the experience of it from the inside has a similarity that I'm still working through.
That's fair, he said quietly. I'm not saying it's the same. I know you're not, but it's fair. They said in silence for a moment. I don't want to manage your life, Andre said.
I've never wanted that. What I did, the investments, the attorney, the rest of it, I did it because I watched you trying to find your footing in a situation where the ground had been deliberately taken out from under you, and I had the ability to help stabilize some of it. That's it. He paused. I should have told you.
I should have let you decide what to accept. Yes, she said. If id done it right, if I'd told you who I was from the beginning, told you what I was doing and why, and let you choose, he turned to look at her. Would you have let me? She thought about it honestly.
Probably not at first, she said. I would have been suspicious. I would have spent weeks figuring out what you wanted from it. And eventually, she looked at the street. Eventually, I think I would have figured out that you just wanted to help, she said.