A continuation in conversation.
'What do you have against opera houses?'
He refused to turn to face her. 'I would not call whatever this is 'pleasantly surprising'.
'No, I wouldn't think you could.'
'Why is it, every time I turn the corner, I see your face?'
'Perhaps you're looking for it?'
'I think not.'
Silence.
'I was considering our previous,' he paused trying to decide on the most appropriate term. 'Business arrangement.'
'Hmmm?'
The chimes to reclaim their seats sounded across the clammer of those who were there to see and be seen and the moment was lost.
His grandfather had acquired some ceremonial daggers in exchange for advice many years before insider trading became easier to track and they had sat in a glass cabinet between the entry hall and the boardroom for as long as he could remember.
After dismissing the meeting, he sat in the boardroom until darkness had slipped its fingers into every crevice of the city. A light glinted across his page and his head jerked up to see her perched on the edge of the large expanse of table twirling a dagger through her fingers.
'Those are decorative.'
'Just because they're pretty doesn't mean they're not knives.'
He couldn't attest to their sharpness, but in her hands he was confident they would be just as lethal now as they had been in their prime.
'I have a solution to the problem you were alluding to at the opera.'
She was intuitive, he would give her that.
'I was not alluding to anything.'
'It involves fire.'
'Absolutely not.'
An arched brow.
'Well I see my time is wasted here.'
'You can leave when I say you can leave!' He refused to let her dictate to him.
She stood and looked steadily at him for a full, unbroken minute.
'On a scale of one to ten, just how frustrated are you with me right now?'
There was no intimidating her and she knew it.
As usual, any recognisable source material is not mine.
