Talking about work was the best way to bring her back to the moment, to keep her with him.

She started to search the couch for discarded clothing. “I don’t think we should force Hari to present.”

Not this again. But he didn’t want to argue, so he didn’t respond.

“He’s not up for it.” She found her underwear behind the uptight gray pillows on her couch and pulled it on, totally unself-conscious.

“Hari’s doing great. Why would you say that? Did he say something to you?” Vansh pushed himself off the couch, limbs still insensate, and started tidying up the soulless cushions that were such a misfit on that happy couch.

“Yes, he has, and not just to me. He’s said it to you too. He doesn’t want to be in a boardroom in front of Jiggy and his yes-men. Don’t you see? He can’t do it.”

“The man isn’t as weak as you think. As weak as he thinks. How will he believe in himself if we don’t believe in him?”

She gave him one of her fierce looks. The one that told him she wanted him to know he was being an idiot. Well, so much for the afterglow.

“You’ve created a narrative on Hari’s behalf. One that makes him a victim. Cheated, innocent, screwed over and unable to handle it,” she said.

“No, I have not. I know these things about him. They’re all true. He was cheated, screwed over. He is innocent and brilliant.”

Now she looked at him as though he were melting her heart with his naïveté. So, maybe there was some afterglow after all, just not enough for her to believe that he knew what he was doing.

“Yes,” she said too gently, adjusting his T-shirt where it bunched over his jeans. “But being capable of existing in the corporate world takes more than just brilliance with numbers and coding. He has challenges. Debilitating social anxiety that has got in his way. Maybe other challenges that have gone untreated and are responsible for some of the things that have happened to him.”

He adjusted a cushion that wouldn’t sit right. “Please tell me you’re not saying he deserves his misfortune. And please don’t act like I don’t understand what a person’s challenges can take from them.” She’d watched him on his headphones, memorizing every word on those slides. “Since when did you start believing that people deserve their misfortune? You of all people.”

That took care of every remaining trace of afterglow. Good. He didn’t want her coddling him.