Emily felt the offer land beside her, not on her. The difference mattered. She had been braced for rescue, which is a heavy thing to be offered by a stranger in a blazer, and what Denise had put down was smaller and more respectful than rescue. A fact. A door that did not push.
“I’ll think about it,” Emily said. “Not as a polite no. As a think. And I’ll tell you if the thinking becomes a yes. You eat here. I’ve seen you twice before, though you didn’t see me, which is not an accusation. It’s the job.”
“I didn’t see you,” Denise said. “I’ll be sorry for that in a way that doesn’t become a performance either.” She took a card from her purse, plain, with the firm’s name and her own, Denise Elaine Porter, and a number written on the back in ink, not the printed one. “The printed number goes to a desk. This one goes to me. Use it or don’t. If you use it to tell me to stop speaking to my son as if he is a project, I will have earned the call.”
Caleb made a face that was all eyebrows. “You’re not a project,” he muttered, not entirely believing himself. “You just do the voice.”