Falling

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  “I just mean that you’re throwing your life away,” he said.

  Alexander plucked an invisible piece of dust from his jacket sleeve and gave him a look so cold that Peter shuddered. “You being the right person to preach about morality, of course?”

  The silence, and the unspoken words between them, spread, engulfed them. Peter could hardly breathe. They had never spoken of...

  He bent over the documents again as Alexander got to his feet. The low hum of a vacuum cleaner approached.

  “Hi there, Gina!” Alexander called through the doorway.

  Peter had completely forgotten that Gina had started to clean for the firm in the evenings. Someone, his sister maybe, must have given her a recommendation, and now she was here. Alexander murmured something, and Gina made one of those feminine head movements women typically made when they were drawn into Alexander’s force field of charm. Peter himself had always had real trouble with women, and he knew that one of the reasons he didn’t respond to the interested looks he still sometimes received was that he was worried he might end up doing something worse than he had already done.

  “I’m almost done out there. Can I start in here?” Gina asked. “Empty the trash baskets and things like that?”

  “We’re a little busy,” Peter said, but the moment the words left his mouth, he heard how wrong they sounded, how self-important and condescending.

  Her lips tightened. Things always went wrong when he talked to Gina. He didn’t know why he felt so insecure around her, why he froze and started to mumble the moment he spoke.

  “We’re almost done here, Gina,” Alexander said, smoothing things over with a wide smile. “It’s great to see you. Please, don’t let us disturb you.”

  She looked slightly appeased. When she straightened her apron, Peter’s eyes followed the movement. He tried to think of something to say, something casual. But words failed him. Gina had been with his family for several years now, but he had never managed to relax around her. Somehow, everything he said sounded idiotic. And then, when he tried to untangle himself, to show he wasn’t all that bad, things just got worse.

  “I’ve signed everything,” he said instead. Alexander was leaning against the door frame, smiling at Gina. “You can go now,” Peter continued dismissively. “I need to work a little longer.” He looked at Gina. “And she needs to work too, so stop bothering her.”

  Alexander gave him a long look. “You’re such a fucking jerk,” he eventually said, and snatched up the papers. “Don’t let him boss you around,” he said to Gina.

  Peter shoved his hands into his pockets, refused to let himself be outmaneuvered in his own office. Alexander left, and he breathed out.

  “I’m going to leave soon, so you can work in peace,” he said to Gina.

  She left the room without a word and disappeared into the office.

  When Peter left half an hour later, there was no sign of her.

  Chapter 9

  The only good thing about it being Friday was that she would soon have made it through the dinner with Alexander, Isobel thought as she stepped out of the shower.

  She must have regretted going along with this crazy idea at least a hundred times by now. She should have said no. It went completely against all of her principles. But Alexander had surprised her, and now here she was: with newly waxed legs and curls in her hair.

  What would they say at Medpax if they knew what she’d done? She could tell herself it wasn’t weird for her to be going out with him as much as she liked, that he was just one donor of many. But it felt weird. She was used to finding creative solutions to the most unexpected problems. Had used her own tights as a bandage, sawed-off broom handles to splint broken legs, and paid bribes to get ahold of vital drugs. But a date like this, did that really fit into the same category? The issue was, she thought as she slathered herself in scented skin lotion she rarely used, that a tiny part of her was looking forward to it.

  She remembered how Alexander had looked when they’d met those first few times. As though he had just visited some kind of private hell. That wasn’t quite so plain any longer, but there was an occasional flash of it in those impossibly blue eyes, something that made her wonder what he was really hiding behind the charming devil-may-care façade.

  She loosened the clip holding her hair up and shook out the curls.

  The best thing would be if she could go on the date, secure the hundred thousand kronor, and then get out as quickly as she could.

  It would be even better if she had any idea what to wear.

  She cast a dissatisfied glance into her wardrobe and finally pulled out a dress she’d bought on sale before a donor dinner a few years earlier. She had never worn it. The thing was, people told her she was beautiful. Not every day, of course, but it happened. And men sometimes did a double take as she passed, at least when she had her hair down and wasn’t in a bad mood. She shouldn’t be so insecure about her appearance. It was just that her greatest asset had always been her brain. In school, she’d been the tall, weird girl who spoke French and Danish and blushed on a regular basis. She hadn’t been bullied, exactly, but she had been an outsider, hadn’t quite understood the subtle codes that made certain girls popular and others . . . something else.

  And then she had somehow managed to catch up with herself, just in time to start her medical studies. People bloomed at different ages, and she was simply better suited to being a grown-up doctor than she had been a gangly teenager. But her self-confidence with regards to her looks had never quite caught up. And it hadn’t gotten any better when she fell in love with . . . She shuddered, rapidly chasing that memory away.

  She studied the red dress thoughtfully. The price tag dangled accusingly toward her. She had bought it because it flattered her body. It emphasized her waist and legs, and with the right bra it actually made her look quite okay, if she said so herself. But it needed high heels to come into its own, and she had wimped out when it actually came to wearing it, and had chosen a safe dress and low pumps for the dinner. Still, that dinner had gone very well, and she’d managed to bring in a new donor.

  This time, there was a hundred thousand kronor at stake. Money that could mean so much to their hospital, to children who had literally nothing, boys like Marius. Medpax wasn’t a wealthy organization. The hospital needed everything. Appliances. Personnel. Medicine. She had made her decision to go back to Chad. Was already looking forward to seeing Idris. And Marius. One hundred thousand kronor was a fortune here in Sweden. In Chad it was more than that. It was the difference between dead children and living children.

  In the end there was no question.

  * * *

  Alexander was already waiting in the bar. Isobel saw his eyes widen a fraction when he caught sight of her, and then he did something she knew she wasn’t supposed to notice. He looked her body up and down, just for a split second, before he met her gaze. He came toward her, like a gentleman, ignoring everything in the room in favor of her.

  “Hey,” he said quietly.

  She wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Alexander looked even more handsome than last time. He had on slim gray pants and a dark jacket, with a tight black T-shirt underneath. His blond hair looked golden against the muted colors. She was far from a fashion expert, but even she could see that he looked stylish, wealthy . . . and hot.

  She shook her hair, hoped she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth, gripped her clutch beneath her arm, and held out her hand.

  Alexander looked down at it for a moment. A smile played on his lips, but then he politely held out his own hand and shook hers.

  “Have you been here before?” he asked.

  “No, but I’ve read about this place. I heard it was impossible to get a table.”

  “Yeah. I felt like I needed to boost my stock a little. Our meetings have been a bit . . . ahem, tense.” He held out a hand and she sat down on the stool next to his. “Champagne?”

  Isobel heard herself say yes, despite th
e fact she hadn’t been planning to drink this evening. But one small glass, what harm could it do?

  She was handed a tall glass of nearly ice-cold Bollinger. They toasted and she took a sip. Sweet Jesus, so good.

  “They don’t have menus,” Alexander said once they’d gotten their table. He had given her the seat with the best view of the restaurant, and she had to remind herself, quite firmly, that she was here for work.

  “The chef presents a tasting menu.”

  Damn it.

  “What?” he asked, studying her.

  “I’m actually a vegetarian,” she said apologetically, not wanting to cause a fuss. “But it’s okay. I’m not so strict.”

  Alexander smiled, and Isobel thought that it was biologically impossible not to be attracted to him. It was as though there were just two poles: attracted to Alexander or dead. It made no difference how much she reminded herself what she really thought of him. He was like a force of nature.

  “Don’t say that. I like that you’re strict,” he murmured. His eyes were hooded, and his voice had an undertone that went right through her. Or maybe it was just the champagne. The waiter took the bottle from the bucket and refilled her glass. Somehow, it was already empty.

  “Could you ask Anna to come out?” Alexander inquired.

  “The chef. I know her,” he explained once the waiter had disappeared.

  Of course he did.

  The chef was a young woman with a serious face. Alexander stood up when she approached, and they shook hands.

  “My guest here doesn’t eat meat,” said Alexander.

  Anna looked at her. “Fish?”

  “Ideally no,” Isobel replied apologetically.

  “No problem. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Thanks,” said Isobel.

  “Good to see you, Alexander,” said Anna, before she gave them both a quick nod and disappeared.

  Alexander sat back down with a pleased look.

  He just kept on earning points, Isobel admitted to herself. She was used to finding herself in endless discussions about being a vegetarian, most often with men who enjoyed explaining how wrong she was, but he just accepted it and adapted.

  “Is that why we got a table? Because you know the chef?” she asked.

  “I’m actually a part owner here. Though it’s my best friend, Romeo, who owns and runs the restaurant. I provided the capital when he started his first place. He has several now, all over the world, and I’ve kept investing. It means I always get a table, which suits me just fine. Anna’s one of the world’s best chefs, by the way,” he said as the food began to arrive.

  A tiny little dish.

  Isobel gave him a suspicious look. Was this a joke? She was starving. She had been working hard all week, cycled everywhere. And she had just drunk two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. If she didn’t get more food, she would commit a murder.

  “There’ll be twelve courses,” he said with a glimmer in his eye. “I promise you won’t leave here hungry, Isobel.”

  “If you say so,” she said, not entirely convinced. She took a small bite. The taste was sensational, salty and sour, the texture both soft and crispy.

  “Why do I get the feeling you don’t trust me?” he asked.

  No matter how much the pheromones and the alcohol affected her, Isobel still had full control of her brain, and yes, he was right, she didn’t trust him at all. He was polite and had made an effort for her, but there was more to trust than that.

  She put down her cutlery, picked up her glass. “Do I have to answer that?”

  “But I’m so trustworthy.”

  “You live in New York, don’t you?” she asked in an attempt to change the topic of conversation as more food arrived. The dishes were small, modernist masterpieces. She couldn’t even identify what most of it was; she just listened to the poetic descriptions and then ate, drank—though more cautiously now—and enjoyed.

  “Yeah, for a few years now.”

  She knew where he lived; several journalists had written about the expensive apartment in Manhattan where the Swede lived alongside princes and multibillionaires. She had trouble even imagining that kind of wealth.

  “What do you do there?” She watched as a green soup was poured from a transparent jug.

  “Nothing much.”

  “You don’t work?”

  Alexander studied her for a moment. He played with his glass. “The official version is that I party hard, drink too much, and sleep too little.”

  Isobel thought back to all the gossip she had read. She hadn’t been able to stop herself. Now she wondered how it felt, to be exposed like that.

  “Isn’t that true, then?” she asked.

  A serious look flashed across his face, followed by something else, before his usual blinding smile reappeared. He shrugged. “I guess so,” he said, and Isobel knew he was lying.

  In other words, Alexander would rather that she, a woman he clearly wanted to impress, saw him as a superficial playboy than tell her what he really spent his days doing. Apparently she wasn’t the only one with trust issues.

  She put down her spoon and studied him as objectively as she could. There was more to Alexander than she had initially thought. Most people were multidimensional, after all. He was considerate toward her, was kind to the waitresses, and so far hadn’t allowed his gaze to wander to any other woman in the restaurant. That deserved a gold star, in Isobel’s book.

  “You’re a count too, right?” she asked as she bit into a small, fried dumpling. Though maybe Alexander didn’t have all that many sides. Maybe he was exactly what he appeared to be: a man who had been given everything in life and didn’t think about anything other than his own enjoyment. She almost hoped that was the case. It would make it easier to dismiss him.

  He pulled a face. “I hate being called count. I never use my title.”

  She dipped the last of the dumpling in the spicy sauce. There was a certain self-importance in his reply, of course. Only someone who had been born into privilege could dismiss it so nonchalantly. Still, she decided to let it pass.

  “Tell me about your work with Doctors Without Borders,” he said.

  “What do you want to know?” She set her cutlery down at the side of her plate. She had lost count of the courses but hoped there would be a dessert or two included.

  “Anything you want to talk about.”

  He was giving her attention in order to flatter her; she knew it, but it made no difference. She was here to work, and maybe she was doing the same to him.

  “I’m part of a small group of senior field-workers, an emergency pool. We get sent on acute missions at short notice.”

  “Where to?”

  She shrugged. “Wherever we’re needed. War zones, natural disasters. Asia. Africa. There was a huge hurricane in the Pacific last month. We get sent to places like that.” She thought of Syria, where it was too dangerous for them to work, of the streams of refugees and the camps. The world was an uncertain place for far too many people.

  He looked attentively at her, but she hesitated. This was where it was always difficult to find a balance. How much should she tell him? Some people couldn’t cope. All the same, she wanted to talk about it.

  “Working for MSF involves a few things. There’s the actual work in the field, of course. We’re often the first on the scene, sometimes in places where there isn’t any medical care at all. You see things that . . .” She fell silent.

  “That?”

  “That shouldn’t exist. And I’m not just talking about what people do to one another in war. The illnesses. The children who die because they’re too weak, too undernourished.”

  “It sounds awful.”

  “Yes. It makes you doubt so much in this world.”

  “Last time, you mentioned that you can cope because it goes well sometimes.”

  It made her happy that Alexander remembered. Some people simply wanted to hear about the grizzly stuff, but many of her best mem
ories came from some of the worst places on earth.

  “That’s what’s so incredible. I never feel so appreciated as a doctor as when I’m in the field. To see an undernourished child start to laugh again. To cure malaria, which is an incredibly easily treated illness, really. It’s an enormous paradox. You’re on your knees, always afraid, almost always crying, constantly feeling like you’re not doing enough, but at the same time you’re living fully.”

  His eyes were warm, and Isobel found herself getting caught up in them. He was a great listener. “It sounds as though it can be pretty intense,” he said.

  “It is. By the end of each trip, you’re completely done. You make mistakes and cross boundaries just because you’re so tired. And then maybe three kids you’re responsible for die, and you happen to go on to Facebook and see someone moaning about the weather, and everything suddenly just feels too much.”

  He didn’t speak, just continued to rest his chin in his hand and look attentively at her. He had the most beautiful hands she had ever seen, big, dappled with golden hair. She had always loved hands, could still remember how she had reeled off the Latin names in med school: carpus, metacarpus, digiti manus. The wrists, the palms, the fingers.

  “And you get very close to one another in the field,” she continued. She heard herself lower her voice, realized she had leaned forward slightly. “In a way you never quite manage at home. It’s very special.” She fell silent. She didn’t normally talk about this part of her life.

  “You said that there were several things involved in being an MSF doctor?” he reminded her.