by Dani Collins
“Is it too on the nose?” Nina asked with dread.
“Shh,” he murmured, and absently took her hand.
He drew her to sit beside him, and his thumb played across her knuckles as his gaze slowly retraced the journey from the door to the unused fabrics. Finally he swiveled his attention to her, and the fierce light in his gaze made her heart pound in her chest.
“I don’t know how to take this.” She drew her hand from his and tangled her fingers over the unsteady sensation in her middle. “Are you appalled that you’ve thrown your money away? It’s okay. Just say it.”
“Nina,” he breathed. “This is what you want.” He pointed at the bench. “To knock people onto their ass.” He spoke in a tone that was stunned—moved, even.
Her insides squirmed harder and her eyes grew damp.
“You’re just being nice,” she dismissed, pushing her hands between her knees and anxiously looking over what she feared was a vanity project.
“Stop it.” He rose and pointed back to the beginning, his tone sharpening. “Look at what you’ve done. You made this.” His arm swept the whole collection. “And you know what? I’m proud that I had something to do with it. That pisses me off,” he said, pointing to the empty space. “Don’t let anyone have that kind of power over you. Especially me.”
Too late, she thought, her heart squeezing as she watched how he ran his hand over his jaw, his gaze agonized as he stared into the dust motes dancing beneath the empty spotlight.
“I hate that I had anything to do with you losing even one minute of pursuing your dream, but the rest? If you want to run yourself down, you’re going to have to find someone else to listen to it because no, Nina. This is better than I expected and I expected a lot.”
“Well, don’t make me cry,” she wailed. Although she had wanted his approval, his admiration, hearing it was too much to handle. It made her vision blur as tears soaked her lashes.
“You’re crying because you’re tired, you silly woman.”
She was tired, but this was about him and how much it meant to her. When he caught her by the wrists and tugged her into his arms, she went there gratefully, still trembling in reaction.
“I didn’t realize, Nina.” His breath tickled against her hair, and his voice wasn’t quite steady. “I didn’t realize you have no filter or shield, that what you show the world and what you showed me, is actually you. That’s too much. You know that, don’t you?”
His hand clenched in her hair behind her neck. He drew back to search her eyes.
“It’s who I was,” she acknowledged, glancing at the floating dress. “And I had to say goodbye to her.”
She’d been coming to terms with that all week. She would always have a home with her family, but the life she’d had with them in Albuquerque would never be the same. New York was no longer a place of promise where her dreams were yet to be realized. Even the artist who had imagined these pieces and turned them into reality was gone. She had felt it as she reacquainted herself with them. She still yearned to design and create, but she already knew her future work would be different. Her priorities had shifted. She had.
Even her visions of what she might have had with Reve were gone. Oh, she hoped they could continue this—affectionate embraces and a thread of trust—but she knew now that this was all they ever would have. At best, they were business partners with a past—hopefully friends—but they weren’t lovers...and they would never be soul mates.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not throwing this away. For giving me the means to make it in the first place, and for nudging me into taking this chance. No matter what happens with it, I’m grateful.”
He cupped the side of her face, his thumb moving restlessly against her cheek as he searched her eyes. He started to dip his head and then stopped himself. His mouth pulled down at one side in self-deprecation.
She wanted that kiss. Yearned for it. She went onto her tiptoes and he met her halfway.
They clashed like storm waves to a shore, forceful and beautiful and thrilling. It was the most painful kiss of her life and the most tender. Her dream was all around her, in large part thanks to him. She poured her heart into their kiss, trying to convey what it meant to her to tell her story. What he meant to her.
His breath hissed and his hands moved over her with strength, but in a way that cherished, making her feel precious and needed and safe even as her soul was bared for all to see.
Just as passion started to flare, as they canted their heads to deepen the seal of their lips, a distant bell sounded.
Reve jerked his head up and his arms tightened protectively around her.
“It’s the photographer,” she said, pulling away to press the back of her hand to her buzzing lips. “For the...things.” Her brain couldn’t find words.
Footsteps paused in the cloakroom, probably as the champagne was spotted.
“Um, hello? It’s Munir. Andre said I should come around this time to get the final shots.”
“Come in, Munir,” Nina called. “We were just leaving. I’ll text Andre to come back.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE PLANE WAS long and narrow and pointed like a pencil. It had bladed wings attached to its sides and a booster rocket as an eraser.
Nina had spent January through March living Reve’s life. Staying in his secure building with its daily housekeeping and obscenely gorgeous views had already been a lifestyle far beyond her middle-class experience. He had often spoken very casually of other extravagant things, like his house in Hawaii or his yacht in Florida, so she ought to have been prepared for this.
There was a big jump between hearing him mention a supersonic jet, however, and walking into one where he was greeted with warm familiarity.
“Mr. Weston, it’s nice to have you aboard.” The uniformed staff placed their luggage in the stateroom located in the tail. Glancing in, Nina saw it held a king bed amid built-in furniture in glossy mahogany. The curtains were open, showing the private airfield, but the hostess touched a button that opened a skylight, allowing morning sun to pour onto the bed.
They moved into a sitting area that held a half-dozen recliners and a couple of sectionals. Everything swiveled into different configurations to allow for private conversations or conferring as a group. Tables emerged from various wall pockets for dining and holding a laptop.
Before she sat down, Nina unabashedly peeked into the galley. There was a wine fridge and something baking that smelled like fresh croissants.
She settled in a recliner that faced Reve’s, and glanced behind him at the screen showing the weather and their flight plan. She was completely intimidated.
After their kiss at the showroom last night, she’d cooked dinner, wondering if something more would happen between them. The way he’d reacted after viewing her collection had been so...
Well, she didn’t know what she’d seen or heard in him except that she felt as though he had finally seen her exactly as she was. There was little triumph or comfort in it, though. Especially when he skirted talking about any of it when they arrived back to the privacy of the penthouse. He knew how much he had meant to her and how deeply he’d hurt her, but he only brought up innocuous topics like how she planned to travel to Luxembourg.
Confused, she had wound up making calls to her family, bringing them up to speed on her plans. Reve had been talking to Australia when her long hours of work had caught up to her and she’d fallen into bed.
It was just a kiss, she kept telling herself. Same as she kept saying, It was just sex.
It was just Reve. He had this effect on her. He made her want and yearn and rationalize and wish and hope for impossible things to come true. He made her like him and laugh and want to spend every moment of her life in his presence.
But he had never wanted those sorts of roots and family ties, and she didn’t understand why.
> They took off, leaving a small bang behind them.
“That was it?” she asked.
“The boom? Yes. This technology has come a long way. The original was banned for overland travel because the booms were damaging buildings. They were also fuel hogs. You’ll be happy to hear, we use biofuel and have a near-zero carbon emission.”
This was a funny old argument they loved to dig their heels into. He called her a tree hugger who starved so she could make clothes that only rich people could buy. She called him an elite industrialist who was out of touch with the way common people really lived, even as he made off-brand car parts so blue-collar workers could save a few bucks.
They were both right and wrong, but she still bit.
“I imagine you’re happy, too, since you live on the same planet as I do.” She played with the touch screen that came out of her armrest, glancing through the various entertainment options. “This spaceship is overkill, isn’t it? I mean, we’re not transporting a kidney, are we?” She pretended to look under her seat for one. “Why do you need to be able to get to Paris in three-and-a-half hours?”
“Time is the new luxury, haven’t you heard?” He nodded at the air hostess to serve them breakfast. “And I like to surround myself with the very best. That’s why you’re in my life.”
“Ha ha.” She looked away, a tiny bit hurt that he would mock her like that.
The hostess efficiently made a table appear from the wall and flicked a tablecloth across it. Moments later, she brought fresh pastries with coffee and took their orders.
Nina noticed Reve was watching her as his thumb and finger rubbed pensively against the handle of his coffee mug.
“I bought this jet because I can. There was a time when I couldn’t afford a baloney sandwich, even though my father somehow always had enough for a bottle. That sort of thing leaves you hungry for the rest of your life. It makes you reluctant to apologize for acquiring nice things when you can afford to buy them.”
While she had known he hadn’t had much growing up, she hadn’t realized it was that bad. She bit her lip with contrition. “Why did you never tell me that before?”
“So you could see me as noble because I was once poor?”
“So I could understand you better.”
“What’s to understand? I want to eat and be warm and dry, same as everyone. I want those needs to be met consistently.”
“But you don’t believe they will be. Is that what you’re saying?” A stark, tragic truth dawned on her. “Deep down, you’re always worried that this—” she waved at the extremely high standard of living on display “—is temporary.”
“Nothing in life is permanent,” he said with conviction. “But yes. That’s why I have a dozen fail-safes. Property here, extra cash there. I’m like a dog burying bones in the yard.” He was being very self-deprecating, and it made her ache to hear it.
For her whole life, she had always taken for granted that if her life fell apart, she could fall back on her family. In fact, she had. When she had walked out on Reve, she’d cried in her father’s hotel room. She’d been home a few days later, sleeping in her old bed, pouring her heart out to her sister, who had helped her get back on her feet.
The one time she had worried her family wouldn’t be there for her had been this recent crisis. Fearing she might lose them had been the darkest, most terrifying time of her life.
She tried to imagine a whole childhood of being that isolated and unsupported. Her throat closed on a lump.
“You don’t believe people are constant, either. Do you?” she realized.
“They’re not.” He used his lobster fork to draw meat from the bright orange tail that had been butterflied and broiled. It sat amid deviled eggs and blanched beans decorated with capers and olives and mushrooms. “Even when people don’t betray you on the way out the door, they still leave.”
“Like me?” she asked in a thin voice.
“You. My PA left a couple of months ago. She worked for me for four years and I never once made her cry. I asked. She made six figures and had two months of paid vacation every year. She said it was the best job she’d ever had, but she was getting married and wanted to start a family. Now I’m training Melvin.” He lifted a shoulder, conveying his lack of enthusiasm. “He’s fine, but I’ve learned my lesson and won’t get attached.”
Nina broke the yolk on her poached egg so it oozed across the lox stacked with asparagus and tomato on toasted crostini. “Will you tell me what happened with her?”
“Her? Oh. Her.” His mouth twisted. “It’s all online. I was involved with a sex advice blogger who filmed us during an intimate moment without my knowledge. She also posted it to her site without my permission.”
Nina had the feeling his lawyer had crafted that statement because it sounded word for word how he’d described it the first night they’d had dinner. I like to get this out of the way, he’d said. So you understand why I am so adamant about not allowing people to use me for their personal gain.
Since it had never been her intention to do so, and he had clearly not wanted to talk more about it, she’d pushed the whole thing to the back of her mind. He must have thought she hadn’t appreciated how truly devastating it must have been.
“Would you tell me how you got together?” She was treading very carefully. “What led her to think that would be okay?”
He kept his gaze on his plate as he chewed and swallowed, then chased it with a gulp of orange juice. Just when she thought he was going to ignore her question, he spoke.
“We got together because I was twenty-two and she was a very sexually experienced twenty-nine. I was getting press for closing in on my first million. She had her blog and was determined to make her first million by thirty. She said she wanted to achieve it in her own way, without a man helping her. How ironic is that?”
He spoke with droll amusement but glowered into the middle distance.
“Was she angry with you?”
“Not at all. She was on a kick of trying to normalize older women sleeping with younger men. She was already writing posts about our sex life, and I didn’t care because she was only using my first name. I didn’t know about the video until I got a call from a reporter. I told her to take it down. She said I should enjoy the publicity and left it up. To be fair, I did benefit from it. And the publicity around the court case.”
“Did she think that justified it? What happened when you went to the police?”
“They said it was her word against mine. By the time we went to court, she was claiming she’d done it to expose the lack of teeth in revenge porn laws. She came to court armed with a hundred instances where men had done something similar to women and had their cases dismissed. There was no way for her to lose at that point. Either she would become a martyr, suffering a heftier punishment than any man ever had, or our case would be dismissed like all the rest. Either way, her website was making hundreds of thousands in advertising. She made her million by thirty with months to spare,” he said with false admiration.
“What happened? Was she found guilty or...?”
“She paid a fine of five hundred dollars and did thirty days of community service.”
“Are you serious?”
“The laws are inadequate,” he said with a fatalistic shrug, though she could tell he was still simmering with rage beneath his laissez-faire attitude.
“What about civil damages?”
“We settled out of court.” He dipped another morsel of lobster into his melted butter. “There was no win for me in publicly flogging someone who was being lauded as a social activist for revealing a flaw in the system. I just wanted out of the spotlight. She had already received a pile of donations for her legal fund, so I had her roll it into a nonprofit that pays the fees for other victims pursuing justice for similar crimes. She is not allowed to speak my name, and whenever our
tape is regurgitated into the blogosphere, I bill her for the takedown expenses.”
“You must hate her so much.” Nina did. She had never before wanted to cause another person harm, but she sure did now.
His expression darkened. “I’m angry with myself for allowing it to happen.”
“Reve. That’s called victim blaming. She did that to you. You didn’t provoke or invite it.”
“Nina.” He mocked her tone of intervention. “A person like you, who has every reason to believe in others, is not to blame when someone takes your sincerely offered trust and crushes it under their heel. I already knew people could be rotten to the core. I failed to protect myself because I thought we had something.”
“You loved her?” Oh, that was a dagger to the heart. Her fingers went numb. She set down her cutlery with a clatter so she wouldn’t drop it.
“I don’t know what I thought I felt.” His cheek ticked and he didn’t meet her gaze. “Whatever it was, she betrayed it in a very public and humiliating way.”
She nodded jerkily. No wonder he hated paparazzi so much. She contemplated why she was going to Europe and how much attention she might garner.
“There’s still time to distance yourself from me, you know. Before my identity comes out and things blow up.”
“I know,” he said gravely. “I will.”
His quiet assertion caused her throat to close up. As she coughed and tried to recover, she realized breakfast was over for her.
Reve had offered up his heart to another woman, and she had essentially sold it to the highest bidder. Nina had no idea how to help him get past that. Why would he want to? It would mean leaving himself open to another betrayal like the one he’d already suffered. His inner walls had been forged in fire and she understood why he fought so hard to keep them in place.
Reve’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out, glanced at it and said contemplatively, “Humph...” Then he set the phone facedown.