He held her gaze. “Safer than anywhere else in New York.”
She almost said, That sounds like something a dangerous man would say.
Instead she asked, “Why me?”
For the first time, something like warmth flickered in his eyes.
“Because money can buy skill,” he said. “It cannot buy kindness.”
She did not answer then.
Vincent slid an envelope across the table. “Take three days.”
Grace picked it up.
The envelope felt much heavier than paper should.
Part 3
Grace didn’t sleep the first night after Vincent’s offer.
She lay awake staring at the water stain on her ceiling while her mind swung violently between two truths.
He was a criminal.
He was a father with a broken little girl.
Each truth canceled the other and yet somehow made the other more powerful.
By morning she had not reached a decision, so she went to Maggie.
Her grandmother listened from the armchair in her new room at the nursing home while Grace paced between the window and the bed, wringing the strap of her purse.
“Eight thousand dollars a month, Grandma. Health insurance. A private room for me. Better care for you. Everything changes if I say yes.”
Maggie nodded. “And if you say no?”
“I stay where I am.”
“Which is?”
“Behind on everything. Terrified. Jobless.”
Maggie waited. “That’s one side. What’s the other?”
Grace stopped pacing. “He’s Vincent Moretti.”
Maggie made a small thoughtful sound but did not appear shocked.
“He admitted it,” Grace said. “He didn’t deny anything. He just said his daughter needs me.”
“And does she?”
Grace saw Mia on the couch, feverish and brave, whispering about warm hands and calling for her mother. Her answer came quietly.
“Yes.”
Maggie smiled in that calm way she had when she already knew what Grace would do long before Grace knew it herself. “Then there’s your answer.”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s dangerous.”
“Sweetheart,” Maggie said, “a man can be dangerous and still love his child. Another man can wear a church suit and be rotten to the bone. Life is not tidy.”
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