by Holly Rayner
Somewhere along the way, I’ve grown to care about her. I’m not sure when it happened. I wasn’t even aware of it happening. But now, sitting across the table from her at this little diner that makes her feel connected to a part of her past, I find that I want to be part of her story. I want there to be places that remind us of each other. When she rides in a fast car or stops at the top of a Ferris wheel, I want her to think of me. And what’s more, I think those settings will always make me think of her.
Does this mean that I want our relationship to be a real one?
The idea washes over me like a wave. I had to find someone to marry in a hurry, to obtain my green card. Before that deadline faced me, I never gave much attention to the idea of marriage. I always thought of it as something I’d get around to someday after I’d finished building my empire. But I have to admit that my empire is fairly well built. There are few people alive who wouldn’t call me a successful businessman.
So what am I waiting for? Was it just that I never met the right girl?
And with a pang, I remember the first night I met Leah. The night we walked up to the Hollywood sign and got to know each other as equals, before I was a billionaire who most people are afraid to approach. The night we almost turned our budding friendship into something more.
What if, somehow, everything between us now could be real? What if our marriage wasn’t a business negotiation, a contract drawn up to allow each of us to get something we really wanted? What if all we really wanted was to be married to each other?
I have a hard time imagining it—being in love, being certain—but I can imagine standing at an altar with Leah and actually, truly, promising our lives to each other. I can imagine making plans for a wedding that would feel like a celebration instead of a formality. I can imagine shopping for a home together, her tucked under my arm, or, more likely, tugging at my wrist to pull me from room to room and show me her favorite features.
Everything I’ve done over the past few weeks and months has been calculated. Every decision has been carefully made to position me for greater achievement and gain. And here, with Leah, I’ve done it again. I’ve set myself up for success, for the ability to stay in the country I love and continue to grow my business, through my marriage to her.
But even though I’m doing the right thing for myself professionally, am I doing the right thing for myself personally? Wouldn’t it make more sense, be more satisfying, to find legitimate love? Wouldn’t I be happier if whatever was growing between Leah and myself was real?
The thoughts, the possibilities, stick with me throughout our meal, snowballing and growing larger all the while. By the time we pay the bill—we have to take our check up to a cash register to pay, and we’re rewarded with little mint candies in a jar—it’s all I can think about. The presence of Leah’s body next to mine has become impossibly distracting, something I can’t bring myself not to be aware of. She seems physically warmer than everything else in the vicinity, as if there’s an energy coming from her.
We take the short walk back to my office in silence. It feels like something is escalating, like there’s a building tension, but I can’t point to the exact cause of it. Occasionally we glance at each other before looking away quickly. I don’t know what to make of it, but it feels high stakes. Something is on the horizon.
Leah’s parked across the street, in the parking lot of the deli where we had lunch, so I accompany her on the last stretch of her walk.
“This is me,” she says, indicating a silver sedan. It’s a few years old, but it’s in good condition.
Leah leans up against the driver’s-side door, and I can see that she’s delaying the moment of opening it and climbing in.
“Thank you,” she says after a few moments. “Today was a really good one too, Magnus. Especially…especially dinner. I could tell that wasn’t your first choice. You were out of your element. Thank you for making the effort.”
It’s so much more sincere than she usually is with me. I lean toward her, just a little, my thumb itching to brush her hair behind her ear.
“I should be the one thanking you,” I say. “I would never have thought to try that place.”
Her lips are parted. Her eyes are locked on mine. Her breathing is quickening.
I close the distance between us. In the split-second before our lips meet, I have second thoughts—this definitely can’t be construed as business—but then her hand is behind my neck and she’s kissing me back, she’s pulling me down to her, and a triumphant feeling swells within me as I realize she’s been feeling all the complicated and conflicting things I have.
Leah breaks away from me, gasping, still clinging to my arms. “Come back with me,” she says. “Come back to my apartment.”
I can’t say no. I can’t even imagine wanting to.
Chapter 14
Leah
The journey back to my apartment is a blur. I’m driving, but I keep nearly having to pull over, so distracted am I by Magnus beside me. If I wasn’t so familiar with this route, if I didn’t drive these streets so regularly, there would be no way I could manage this. As it is, I have to keep wrenching my attention back to the road. I check the speedometer, make sure I’m keeping the car in its proper lane, do my best to avoid frequent stops and starts that might give away either my distraction or the nature of it to a passing police officer, should one go by.
Magnus isn’t helping at all. We separated, just momentarily, to get into the car, but since then he hasn’t let go of me. He’s half out of his own seat, leaning across the armrest to gain access to me. His fingers have pulled the shoulder of my top down, and his lips are exploring, slowly and carefully, the line of my collarbone.
My breathing is much too fast, and I feel like I’m back in that purple race car, speeding along the track, adrenaline flooding my system. I keep shifting my foot to the brake, stepping down, making sure the car doesn’t go out of control, and it’s all I can do not to send it jolting along the road. I manage, just barely, to keep it in motion.
“Magnus,” I whisper. “We shouldn’t…”
But he’s paying me no attention, his head dipping lower now to follow the line of my shirt neckline.
I lift up my arm to make room for him to duck below it, and then I grip the steering wheel tightly with both hands. I’m wearing a V-neck today, and Magnus plants soft kisses along the shape of the V. When he gets to the lowest point, I feel an involuntary shiver run through me, and I just hope we arrive quickly.
A part of me can’t believe this is happening at all. Magnus Johansen! Of all people! True, we’re engaged to be married, but none of that is real. It is a charade, a farce. But his hands moving below the hemline of my shirt, exploring the planes of my stomach—that’s real. Nothing in the world has ever been more real. And here I am, driving toward my house, toward the place where my bed is, apparently just to see where this leads. What am I doing?
It occurs to me in the break when his hands are off me, when his lips are off me, when he’s out of the car and hurrying around to the driver’s-side door to pull me out too, that it’s too bad a member of the press isn’t around now to capture this. No one could deny the passion between us if they saw us now.
I use the short break to try to calm my breathing, hoping for reason to prevail while it has a chance to do so. But all too soon—and not nearly soon enough—my car door is being wrenched open, and then Magnus is there, grabbing me by the wrist and tugging me out into his arms, catching me against him, my lips falling perfectly against his lips so it’s as if we never stopped kissing at all.
We’re too wrapped up in each other to separate even as we make our way up the stairs of my apartment building. The old banister rattles and wiggles behind my back as Magnus presses me up against it, and the tiny corner of my mind that isn’t completely wrapped up in him is distracted by how rundown the building is. I hope Magnus doesn’t notice.
We make it upstairs and then the key is in the lock, the knob is turni
ng, and we’re stumbling through the door.
Immediately, I feel as though I’ve been plunged into ice water.
It’s not just the fact that I never bring men back here, although I don’t. It’s that this apartment is mine alone, and has been ever since the day I moved in. It’s a comfortable place, a safe place. It’s home. I can let my hair down here. I don’t have to worry about impressing Magnus Johansen.
But now, for the first time, I see it through someone else’s eyes. Magnus’ eyes. And then I see the chipped paint of my walls and the older, well-loved furniture that was Gran’s. This is a complete picture, an image of a life.
Magnus knows, the moment he looks around this room—and I can see the realization breaking over his face, like he’s waking up—that I am not successful. Not the way he is. Not the way tech designers define it. He knows that the five years since we last met haven’t been filled with ambitious, fruitful projects, as I led him to believe in his office. If they had been, I wouldn’t be living like this.
Magnus has pulled away from me slightly. He’s walking around the living room, taking in the sights. I see him approach my bookshelf and run a finger over the old books there—not old as in valuable first editions, but old as in brought from Gran’s house. He moves to my collection of movies, pulls one out, and sees the orange sticker on the cover indicating that I bought it from a discount bin for $4.99. He moves into the kitchen, which adjoins the living room. The bottle of wine on my counter, re-corked from last night, is a cheap white, easily recognizable to anyone who’s ever walked through a grocery store. My television is small and rests atop an old steamer trunk. There’s nothing in here that suggests wealth or class.
Magnus turns to look at me, a question on his lips, but it dies before he can ask it. I can see the thought forming in his head—how can he ask it? How can he ask me why I’m clearly so much less well off than he took me to be? And yet, it’s so very understandable that he’s dying to know why I misrepresented myself, and what the true story is.
“Until recently I was living with my grandmother,” I say quietly. “She got sick a few years ago, and I moved into her house so that I could be there for her at all times, whenever she needed me. Which meant sacrificing certain…professional opportunities.”
I draw a breath. “I had to accept that you can only put one thing in your life first. And for me, that was Gran. When someone had to travel for my company, I had to turn them down. When there were late-night business meetings with potential clients, I had to beg off. I had to be home every evening to make sure Gran was all right.”
“Your app,” Magnus says. “That’s what inspired you to create your app. If you’d had someone to help you, things might have been different.”
“I don’t resent my grandmother,” I say. It seems vital that he understand this. “I loved her with all my heart. I was so glad to be able to be in her life for those last few years. But if there had been someone—who could sit with her every now and then. Someone I could have called if something came up at work, so I wouldn’t have had to rush right home every evening. If some of the time I could have put myself and my career first without sacrificing her health and happiness…it might have changed everything.
Magnus nods, frowning. “Did she pass?” he asks gently.
“Six months ago,” I tell him. “I sold her house to pay off the medical bills and moved back into my old apartment building. So now I’m exactly where I was five years ago. I haven’t been able to make any progress in my career. I haven’t been able to increase my savings or even broaden my social life.”
I laugh, and to my surprise it doesn’t sound bitter. “I haven’t really even been on a date since Gran got sick.”
“Until now,” Magnus says.
“This isn’t a date,” I say. “Not a real one, anyway. We both know that, so there’s no use in pretending. It’s not like there are any cameras up here.”
And with that, the heat and passion that existed between us in such powerful degrees on our way up the stairs seems to evaporate like raindrops in the sunlight. We might as well be back in Magnus’ office discussing business matters.
But Magnus shakes his head. “If this is the closest thing you’ve had to a date in five years, then I think it still counts for something,” he says. “After all, here you are with a rather handsome man”—he preens a little, but in a self-deprecating way, and I laugh—“after a delicious dinner of fine toasted cheese with accompanying broth of tomato. Can you imagine anything more romantic?”
“Don’t make fun of my restaurant,” I chide him. “Just because I’m not rich doesn’t mean I don’t have good taste, you know. I think that place is pretty great. And they do a fantastic job with what they have.”
“Like you,” Magnus says, looking around the room again. “I do think the place is very nice, Leah. And I wasn’t mocking our dinner, I promise. You’ve taken me by surprise here, that’s all. You’re very good at that.”
“Are you angry?” I ask hesitantly.
If he’s angry because I’m not rich enough to marry, I’ll throw him out by his shirt collar, but if he’s angry because I misrepresented my business success…well, I’m not sure I can hold that against him.
But Magnus shakes his head. “Of course, I’m not angry,” he says quietly. “The truth is that it’s me who should be apologizing to you, Leah. You came to Vipers’ Nest just like I did, hoping for a chance to reach out and seize your dream, hoping that you’d be able to make a pitch to the biggest names in the industry and get them to recognize what you were worth. I know that feeling because it’s the same feeling I had back then. We all wanted the same thing from that show, from those men. And I’m the one who walked away with it.”
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I’m not saying I was unworthy. The Vipers were smart, and when they heard my idea, they liked it. But I’m terrible at making presentations. I knew I was tweaking the circumstances when I made my way up to them in the bar and ordered a round for everyone. I knew I would perform better in a low-pressure situation where everyone was happy. I told myself I was just practicing my pitch for the following day, seeing what they responded to so I could make last-minute tweaks. I told myself it wasn’t cheating, not really, that anyone could have found the Vipers that night and done what I did. I was being savvy, not underhanded.”
He sighs and wipes a hand across his brow. I stare.
“What are you saying?” I ask. I don’t know what to make of this. Is it a confession? An apology? Is it possible that, after all this time, and after all the hours we’ve spent together, Magnus is finally aware of what his presence in my life has cost me?
“I think you were going to win,” he says. “That’s what I think, Leah. Especially since this afternoon. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, actually. Your presentation was brilliant, just perfect. And I know that when we were in Los Angeles all those years ago, you were promoting a different product—but look at how many data-mining shield apps have sprung up in the intervening years. Yours could have captured the market. I think the Vipers would have seen the potential there, and I think your presentation would have been well crafted enough to sell it to them.”
“It was a good presentation,” I admit quietly.
I flash back, suddenly and painfully, to the hours spent at Gran’s house practicing what I was going to say. She was a wonderful audience, knowing how not just to listen and cheer me on but to ask me incisive questions that forced me to examine my own work again and again. By the time I boarded the plane to LA, I was confident that my work was airtight. Magnus is right; I would have impressed the Vipers.
“Your life would have been totally different, wouldn’t it,” Magnus says quietly. It isn’t a question. “You would have won the contest if I’d given you the chance to compete. And then your app would have skyrocketed, and the money would have allowed you to care for your grandmother, and you’d be the one with the big office and the big name.”
“We don’t know that,” I say, because it’s painful to think of that life while I’m standing in the middle of this one. “You might have won. Someone else altogether might have. We don’t know what would have happened.”
“No, Leah,” Magnus says. “It would have been you. You should have won, and I took it from you. I’m sorry, Leah. I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
It’s like a punch to the gut, Magnus asking for my forgiveness. It’s something I’ve wanted for years, if only so I could throw it back in his face. “No, I can’t forgive you,” I would declare before stalking off, not even deigning to look back. Or perhaps I’d be more subtle. “Maybe you should think of this the next time you cheat someone out of an opportunity.” That would be cutting. That would rip him open the way he deserved.
But he’s looking into my eyes, waiting for my answer, waiting for my pardon for this crime he’s only just found himself guilty of, and the pain he must be feeling washes over me. He never meant to hurt me. He’s telling the truth. He approached the Vipers that night because he was anxious about his ability to give a presentation. He didn’t know they would hand over the prize right then and there. It never occurred to him that he might be damaging me so thoroughly, and now that he sees the consequences of his actions laid out before him, his remorse is genuine.
“Of course, I forgive you,” I say, surprised at the ease with which it comes.
And then his lips are on mine again, almost before I have time to think, and there’s a split-second where he starts to draw away, giving me the choice, allowing me to pull him close.
I walk backward, steering us toward the bedroom, kicking open the door behind me. I don’t remember whether I made the bed this morning, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m tipping backward and Magnus is falling on top of me, and then all we are is hands and breath and bodies and hearts.