“I wasn’t going to say this tonight.”
“Say what?”
He hesitated, which told her immediately that whatever it was mattered.
“Three weeks ago,” he said, “someone started probing one of my company’s client databases.”
Autumn’s brows drew together.
“What kind of client?”
“Private.”
“That means serious.”
“Yes.”
“And you think that has something to do with this?”
“I think I don’t like coincidences.”
Autumn went still.
“So this isn’t just a bad blind date story.”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Before he could answer, his phone buzzed again.
Both of them looked down instantly.
Unknown number.
Text message.
You should have listened the first time. Go home, Luke.
A silence fell between them that seemed to swallow the restaurant whole.
Autumn inhaled slowly.
“That’s not from me.”
“I know.”
Luke’s voice was calm, but only on the surface.
Underneath it, something old and tightly controlled had locked into place.
Autumn had the sudden, uneasy feeling that the tired, guarded man who had been stood up in a booth a few minutes ago was not the full version of the person sitting across from her.
He typed nothing.
He simply locked the screen.
“You get threatening texts often?” she asked.
“Not on first dates.”
She let out a breath that might have become a laugh in different circumstances.
“So what now?”
He looked at the window, at the storm outside, then back at her.
“Now I ask whether you live alone.”
That made her stiffen.
He lifted a hand immediately.
“Not because I’m assuming anything. Because if someone accessed your messages, I need to know whether you’re walking back into that alone tonight.”
The blunt practicality of it disarmed her.
She leaned back and folded her arms beneath his coat.
“No,” she said. “I have a doorman building.”
“Good.”
“And you?”
“My daughter is at my sister’s tonight.”
Something changed in the air when he said daughter.
Autumn’s eyes dropped for a second.
Then rose again.
“How old?”
“Eight.”
Her expression softened.
“She knows you’re on a date?”
“She helped pick the restaurant.”
That surprised a smile out of her.
“She approved a steakhouse?”
“She approved the dessert menu.”
That time, the smile lingered.
“She sounds smart.”
“She is.”
His voice warmed when he said it.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for Autumn to hear the father in him.
The part of him that had not died when the rest of his life broke open.
He noticed her studying him.
“What?”
“You don’t talk like a man who dates often.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why tonight?”
He looked at the coffee between his hands.
Because my daughter said loneliness has started following me around the house, he thought.
Because my sister said grief and loyalty are not the same thing.
Because I was tired of pretending I was finished with every possibility that still scared me.
What he said instead was simpler.
“I was persuaded.”
Autumn’s eyes softened with understanding.
“By someone small and relentless?”
He looked up sharply.
“You too?”
She nodded.
“My grandmother.”
That made him laugh quietly.
A real laugh this time.
Short, rusty, but real.