Chapter 20: Stay

Piers's POV

I watched Brevoort mouth the word across the boardroom, and I watched Ellery see it.

She did not nod and she did not look away.

"Tomorrow," she said, quietly, to the air between them.

Then she turned back to me and put her hand flat on my sleeve.

"Take me out of here," she said. "Please."

I took her out.

We walked along the river in the grey afternoon, not speaking, with her arm through mine.

I had been in a good many rooms where somebody was ruined.

I had never before wanted to stand in front of a woman and block the view.

I did not say so.

At the lab, the corridor was empty.

It was nearly six, and everyone had gone home.

She stopped at the door of my office.

"Can I sit in here?" she said. "I don't want to go home yet."

"You may sit anywhere."

She sat on the edge of my desk with her coat open.

I leaned against the filing cabinet and kept my hands in my pockets.

"You're doing the thing again," she said.

"What thing?"

"Standing far away so I'll decide."

"Am I?"

"You are, and it's very annoying."

I took my hands out of my pockets.

"There's a letter on that blotter," I said.

"I wrote it last week and have not sent it."

She picked it up.

It was a single page on department paper.

"It's an extension," she said slowly. "Three years. The research fellowship, on the main salary band."

"With a seat on the project committee."

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