PART 2:

For 2 days, Friday afternoon through Sunday evening.” Jake stood up and pushed his chair back. “Fine.” He picked up the document. “But I’m not sleeping on the sofa.” Emma blinked. “There are four guest rooms.” “Good.” He folded the document and put it in his jacket pocket. “I’ll need the details by Wednesday. I have to make arrangements for my daughter.

” It was the first time he’d said it. He watched her absorb it. “You have a daughter.” she said. “7 years old. Her name is Lily.” He looked at Emma steadily. “Is that a problem?” “No.” Emma said after a pause that lasted exactly long enough to be honest. “It isn’t.” They met again on Wednesday evening at a restaurant in Richmond, Emma’s choice, which Jake suspected cost approximately the same per entree as a week of Lily’s school lunches.

He came in his cleanest clothes, which Emma politely declined to evaluate out loud. The purpose of the dinner was preparation. Emma had a list. She went through it methodically. Her parents’ expectations, her father’s conversational tendencies, her mother’s most likely lines of interrogation, what to say if asked about their first meeting, how long they had supposedly been together, why Emma had not mentioned him sooner. Jake listened.

He asked good questions. Emma noted this. “How did we meet?” he asked. “I’ve been thinking about that. Douglas Harrington, I can say I was at his office when you delivered the car. My father knows Douglas. It’s verifiable. It’s simple. And it gives us a natural story. How long have we been together? 3 months.

Long enough to be meaningful. Short enough that they can’t demand to know why they haven’t heard about you.” Jake nodded. He was halfway through writing something on the back of a napkin. Emma frowned. “What are you doing?” “Making notes.” He turned the napkin so she could see. He had written Dad chess, hunting, Douglas connection.

Mom traditional. Cooking angle, first meeting story. Harrington delivery. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. he said. Emma stared at the napkin for a moment. “You take this seriously. You’re paying me $10,000.” Jake said. “I take everything I’m paid for seriously.” They spent an hour covering background.

At some point Jake looked at his watch, not subtly. Emma noticed. “Do you have somewhere to be?” “School pickup.” “45 minutes.” He set down his fork. “Lily’s aftercare ends at 6:00. Can someone else?” “No.” Jake said simply. Not defensively, just as a fact. Emma absorbed this. She signaled for the check.

They walked out to the parking lot together. Jake’s truck was parked next to Emma’s black company car, and the contrast was, if nothing else, efficient storytelling. He was unlocking the door when Emma said, almost despite herself, “What’s her name?” “Your daughter.” “Lily.” He looked back at her. “She’ll be with her grandmother this weekend. She’s fine with it.

She thinks I’m going to fix somebody’s house. Emma said nothing. Is that a problem? Jake asked again. No, Emma said, and this time the pause was shorter. He was backing out of the space when he heard her call after him. Carter. He rolled down the window. Emma stood in the lot with her arms folded. And for just a second, she looked less like a CEO and more like a person who wasn’t sure what she was doing.

Thank you, she said, for taking this seriously. Jake looked at her. You’re paying me too. He drove away. In his rearview mirror, he saw her standing there a moment longer before she got in her car. The Lawson family estate at Lake Coventry was the kind of property that didn’t announce itself. There was no gate with a name. No gold lettering on stone pillars.

It was simply a long gravel drive through old-growth trees that opened without warning into a view that made Jake’s chest do something unexpected. Not envy, exactly. More like recognition. The kind of beauty you see and simply believe. The house was timber and stone, two stories set close to the water. There were kayaks on a dock, flower boxes in the windows, which, even in late October, still had a few stubborn blooms in them.

Martin Lawson was waiting on the porch. He was a tall man, mid-60s, silver-haired, with the square jaw of someone who once been physically imposing and had since become merely commanding. He looked at Jake the way a man looks at a stranger who has arrived at his home in a borrowed blazer and a pair of boots that had clearly seen field work.

Dad, Emma said, coming around the car. She kissed her father’s cheek. This is Jake Carter. Martin Lawson extended his hand. His grip was firm and deliberate. Jake matched it. Carter, Martin said a beat. Then Martin said, Douglas Harrington mentioned you. Said you rebuilt his GTO from the frame up. From the floor pan, Jake corrected without thinking.

The frame was sound. Martin’s expression shifted by about 4°, not a smile, but an opening. Come inside. Carol Lawson was in the kitchen when they entered, and she was exactly as Emma had described. Warm, thorough, and possessed of the kind of hospitality that functioned simultaneously as interrogation. She hugged Emma, assessed Jake in approximately 3 seconds, and then immediately handed him a bowl of something to carry to the dining table.

Jake carried it without comment. That evening, he did three things that were not in the agreement. The first was the pump. After dinner, Martin mentioned that the pressure in the garden hose had been off for a week. Jake asked if he could look at it. Within 20 minutes, he had found the problem, a cracked fitting near the basement junction, and fixed it with a part from his truck kit that happened to fit.

Martin watched from the doorway without saying much. The second was the chess. Martin had a board set up in the study. Jake noticed it. They played after the dishes were cleared, Emma’s mother watching from an armchair with her reading glasses pushed up on her forehead, Emma watching from the hallway because she didn’t want to appear to be watching.

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