She looked up as I stepped inside, reading my expression before I spoke.
I closed the door behind me. “Mila’s scholarship. Is it safe?”
Her expression didn’t change, but she set the tablet aside. As King Enterprises’ appointed member on the Blackwood Academy board, she would know exactly how it was structured. “From what?” she asked carefully.
“From retaliation. From anyone deciding she’s convenient leverage.”
A beat passed. “It’s held through an independent foundation,” she replied. “The principal can’t revoke it on his own.”
“That doesn’t make it untouchable.”
“No,” she admitted. “But removing it would require a formal review. Board oversight. The school won’t want that.”
Good. “Dunn has influence,” I continued. “And the principal has motive after Adriana dumped him.”
“You’re anticipating retaliation?”
“I’m eliminating risk.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then, softer, “You can’t shield her from everything.”
“I don’t need to,” I replied. “Just enough.”
Her gaze narrowed slightly. “And if ‘enough’ starts costing you?”
“It won’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I held her eyes. “She’s not leverage.”
Something shifted in her expression. “The scholarship is protected,” she said again. “As much as anything ever is.”
As much as anything ever is. Temporary security. A few more months. That was all we needed.
Claire studied me for another moment. “There are ways to build a future that doesn’t require absorbing your father’s.”
“That’s not today’s problem.”
“It will be.”
Maybe. But today was about making sure Mila couldn’t be collateral.
“I appreciate the confirmation.”
She inclined her head once.
I paused, debating whether to ask something more personal. But I needed to know—and a part of me wondered what Milamight see too. “Why do you stay? This family isn’t exactly easy to be around.”
Her lips lifted at the corners and her eyes softened. “I love your brother. Yeah, there’s a darkness in him—just like there is in all of you Kings. But there’s good too. That’s the part I choose to see.”
I let that sit then left before the conversation could turn into something else.
Darkness, yeah we had that in us. Drew’s spiral into alcohol and drugs had proved it. I’d even flirted with the same edge when Mila left. My brother had been the one who pulled me back. In that way we were alike.
But Claire was wrong about one thing. The good in us wasn’t’ something we carried on our own. The good in us was them—Claire and Mila.