Chapter 286: Mia’s True Feeling And Sean Responses
She looked at him with the evaluating quality. Running the assessment. Coming up with something that made her uncomfortable because it didn’t match the frame she’d been operating in.
"You feel sorry for me," she said. Quiet. Direct. Not accusatory. Just a statement she’d been sitting with for a while. "Everything you did. The hotel. The agent. The federal case. The investment club. This." She gestured at the restaurant. "You feel sorry for what happened to me and you’ve been doing things because of that."
Sean put his fork down.
"Mia," he said.
"It’s okay if you do," she said. "I understand why you would. The situation was." She pressed her lips together. "I’m not worth a Michelin star restaurant and a ninety-one percent conviction rate attorney and a federal case. I know what I am. I’m a nineteen year old who got into a bad situation because she trusted the wrong people and got out because someone with a lot of money and connections decided to help."
She said it evenly. Not self-pitying. The Mia version of hard honesty.
Sean looked at her across the table.
The city sat forty-two floors below them and the restaurant moved quietly around them and he looked at the person across from him and felt something very clear.
He stood up.
She looked up at him, surprised.
He came around the table and she started to say something and he pulled her to her feet and held her, not dramatically, just his arms around her, her chin against his shoulder, and she went very still the way she went still when something arrived that she hadn’t modeled in advance.
"Stop," he said. Quietly.
"I’m not," she started.
"You’re building a case," he said. "You’re building a case against yourself with the evidence arranged in one direction and you’re presenting it to me like I’m supposed to rule on it." He held her. "Stop."
She exhaled against his shoulder.
"If I pitied you," he said, "I would have given you money and moved on. I’ve given money to people I’ve never met. I don’t take them to investment club meetings. I don’t think about what they’d find interesting at a restaurant." He paused. "I don’t agree to dates with people I pity."
She didn’t say anything.
"You kept a notebook," he said. "For two months in a situation that would have made most people stop looking outward entirely. You kept a notebook because you couldn’t help your instinct to document what was real even when being real was the most expensive thing available to you." He felt her shift slightly. "You walked into an investment club meeting cold and asked one question that nobody else in the room had thought of. You got to thirty-one minutes on a document read in four days when Elena Voss said twenty-five was her benchmark." He paused. "You planned a date by researching what I would find interesting instead of what was easy for you. You asked for the window table. You memorized the menu on a Tuesday."
"Those are small things," she said. Muffled against his shoulder.
"They’re not small things," he said. "They’re exactly the things. They’re the specific shape of who you are and it’s not a small shape."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "You noticed all of that."
"I notice things," he said.
"About me specifically," she said.
"About you specifically," he said.
She pulled back slightly and looked at him from close range with the sharp dark eyes that had been evaluating things since a Sunday afternoon road and whatever they found in his face this time was different from what they’d found before.
"You mean all of that," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"All of it," she said.
"All of it," he said.
She looked at him for another moment.
Then she kissed him, Sean held her waist and kissed her back and felt the specific thing that happened when something that had been approaching for a while finally arrived and turned out to be exactly what it had been approaching toward.
She pulled back after a moment and looked at him.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed, which was the first time he’d seen that specific thing from her.
"The bill," she said.
"I’ll handle it," he said.
"I invited you," she said.
"I know," he said.
"Sean," she said.
"Mia," he said.
She looked at him with the expression of someone who had decided to let one argument go on a night that had already required significant flexibility in her usual approach to things.
"Fine," she said.
He paid.
[3,200 dollars spent]
[Balance: $68,751,315]
[6,400 dollars received — 2x baseline]
[New Balance: $68,757,715]
He looked at the receipt for one moment and the smile arrived without him choosing it.
She was watching his face. "What," she said.
"The bill is significant," he said.
She looked at the table. "I can contribute."
"Mia," he said.
"It’s a lot," she said.
"I know," he said. "That’s what I’m smiling about."
She looked at him. "I don’t understand."
"You thought about what I would find interesting," he said. "You looked at me and you thought he’s seen expensive places, he should go somewhere that matches what he is, and you found the Aldermere and you made a reservation and you asked for the window table and you learned the menu on a Tuesday." He held her gaze. "That’s exactly how you are. You always find a way to make the thing possible. Whatever the thing is, you find the best version of it and then you make it happen."
Her cheeks went red again.
Properly this time.
"Stop," she said.
"I’m noting it," he said. "You note things. I’m noting a thing."
"You’re being." She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "You’re being a lot right now."
"I know," he said.
She looked at the view one more time. The city below them, the Friday evening version of it, warm and indifferent and enormous.
Then she looked at him.
"Your driver," she said. "James. Is he outside."
"Yes," he said.
"Okay," she said.
She stood. Picked up her bag. Looked at him with the evaluating eyes that had landed somewhere completely different from where they started the evening.
"Come on," she said.
They walked to the elevator together and the restaurant moved quietly around them and the host said goodnight as they passed and Mia walked with the forward energy she always had except tonight it was carrying something additional.
The elevator was mirrored.
She looked at their reflection briefly.
"Sean," she said.
"Yeah."
"I’m going to think about what you said," she said. "About all of it. For a while."
"Take your time," he said.
"I always do," she said. "You’re patient about that."
"You always get somewhere good when you finish," he said.
The elevator opened onto the lobby.
James was at the curb when they came through the door, the car waiting with the particular readiness James always had, like he’d been expecting the exact moment they’d appear.
He opened the door.
Mia got in.
Sean got in beside her.
"James," he said.
"Sir," said James.
"There’s a hotel near here," said Sean. "The Claridge. Take us there."
"Of course sir," said James.
Mia sat beside him and their hands found each other in the back seat without either of them making a decision about it, and the Claridge was four minutes away.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[Mia Jeon — Favorability: 74]
[Fourth slot parameters: continuing calculation]
[The system is still observing.]