She nodded.
“I never thought you sounded like an asshole,” she said as she took a bite of her food. She closed her eyes and exhaled rather dramatically. “Damn it. That is good.”
Matthew smiled.
“Fabio knows his stuff.”
Natasha nodded.
“Clearly.” She took a sip of her wine and looked across the table at him. “My diet is usually made up of takeout food. Pizza, sometimes Chinese.” She took a bite of her food and shrugged. “Actually, it is mostly Chinese. And it is almost always at the office.”
“It is for that same reason that I decided to get Fabio on board. After all, I do spend a lot of time here rather than in Boston anyway.”
She shook her head.
“But I thought Boston was your home,” she said, and Matthew nodded.
“It is. I have a place there…not far from The Waterfront Marble Arch actually, but I only stay there a few times a year. The place is mostly under my housekeeper Yolanda’a care.”
“Let me get this straight,” she started as she looked at him. “You have a place in Boston in what I can only assume is prime real estate and the whole place is left to a housekeeper?” she asked, and he nodded.
“I needed a home base in America. And New York was too loud and busy, Florida is like a nonstop party. So, when my real estate agent brought the Boston penthouse to me, it was perfect. Quiet building where everyone minds their own business, private…at first I thought it would be a perfect place to lay low, but I was wrong. It is like every time I am out there, all I can ever think about is work.”
“So, that’s it? The place in Boston and this villa?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“Well, not really. I got this place in New Jersey. It was my grandfather’s passed on to my mother when he died and then on to me when she died. It was just a normal unimpressive place…I had it refurbished, and now it just sits there because I can never bring myself to sell it.”
“I get the emotional attachment bit,” she said in a soft voice before she took another bite of her food. “I am a victim of that myself.”
“You lost someone?” he asked, and she nodded reluctantly.
He looked at her as she sipped on her wine.
“To be honest, losing that person is what pushed me to start Big Ideas in the first place,” she said. “I was never much of a people person, but after that, all I ever wanted was to do was just work and not think about anything.”
Matthew looked at her, and for a minute there, he wanted to ask her what she was talking about. But by the look on her face, he could tell that she was hurting just thinking about it. He wanted nothing more at that moment but to know who she was. What had happened in her life that was so horrible to make her so sad. She did not know it, but he saw the sadness in her eyes that very first time they met at her office.
“Oh, shit,” she suddenly muttered to herself, and he shook his head.
“What?” he asked. “What happened?”
“What’s the time?” she asked.
“Around nine thirty. Why?”
“The job I was working on. Bars and Clefs for America’s Heroes…the concert is already on,” she said in a mild panic.
“Okay,” he said, a little confused about what was going on.
“I know this is absolutely rude, but…I…it’s just that….” Her voice trailed off, and she bit her lower lip, unsure of what she was supposed to say. “That project was personal to me and I set up a live stream feed on the site…” Her voice trailed off again, and Matthew smiled.
“We can eat in front of the TV, Natasha,” he said, and she exhaled loudly. “I haven’t done that in a while, but I would most definitely like to do it right now.”
“Okay.” She smiled at him. “This means a lot to me.”
“Anything that is important to you is important to me, Natasha. I can assure you that much,” he said as he stood up and got a tray from one of the cabinets. He put their plates and glasses there, and she grabbed the wine before they made their way to the living room. He placed the tray on the coffee table and grabbed his laptop. He looked at it for a long minute before he handed it to her.
“To be honest, I don’t even know what URL I should use,” he said, and she smiled.
“It’s okay. I got this,” she said in a soft voice as she began typing. He was looking at her as she did her work, explaining just what the whole concert was all about, but he was not really listening. All he could do was look at her as she typed, a little of her cleavage showing in the V of her bathrobe. He did not know what it was about her that turned him on so much, but whatever it was, it was working for him. Maybe it was how different she was from the women who usually hung around him. The fact that she was an actual real woman. The mere fact that her beauty was just everywhere. She exuded beauty in every sense of the word. Her heart was pure and the fact that she was a simply beautiful woman without getting layers of makeup like most women he encountered. She was just a simple person. And everything about her attracted him to her in more ways than one.
“The kids’ orchestra,” she said, snapping him back to reality.
“What?” he asked as he looked at the computer screen
“The performance that is going on right now. It is a kids’ orchestra…forty two kids all under fourteen making beautiful music together and that…” She pointed at a little girl standing in front of a microphone stand. “That is Antonia Wilcox. One of the youngest and most talented kids I know whose life has been directly affected just by being a kid born to a military family. Her father worked three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and her grandfather was in Vietnam in ’74. Her uncle’s last deployment was Desert Storm before he became an amputee. Right leg.”
“You really know a lot about this Amanda Wilcox,” Matthew said.
“Antonia,” she corrected him, and he nodded.
“Antonia. Sorry about that.”
He switched on his TV and connected the stream to the big screen.
“That’s better, right?” he asked when he switched on the home theater system and she nodded.
“So much better,” she said as she leaned back, slowly eating as she watched the concert, and he placed the laptop back on the coffee table. “This is…the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she added in a soft voice.
He took a bite of his own food as he looked at the screen.
“You mentioned that this was important to you,” he said, and she nodded.
“It is one of the most important projects I have ever worked on.” She took a sip of her wine. “It was personal for me.”
Matthew shrugged as he took another bite of his food.
“Would it be an imposition if I asked how this was personal for you?” he asked just as Antonia began belting out the first few bars of Andrea Bocelli and Sara Brightman’s Time to Say Goodbye.
“I used to have this boyfriend…fiancé actually. His name was Kyle Barlow,” she started without looking at him. “He died a couple of years ago while on the way to deliver food and medicine to a medical camp…” Her voice trailed off, and he could see that she was fighting tears. And probably this was not the first time it had happened. Judging by the way she was watching the girl sing, it was obvious that the sadness in her eyes was because she had never really gotten over her fiancé’s death. “He’d asked to marry me before he left, but…” She forced out a laugh. “I wanted a proper wedding rather than something rushed at the court house. And it was also because I knew that he was going to come back. He always, always came back to me. So, I said no to a courthouse wedding and the house in Fort Meade because I was not ready to start a new life alone. I told him that I would wait for him to get back.” She forced out another laugh. “I never even let him see me in the wedding dress because I always knew that he was going to be back, but he never came.”
By this time, she was done fighting back the tears. He noticed a tear rolling down her cheek when Antonia began singing the chorus.
&
nbsp; “He loved the opera. I never got the appeal to be honest, but he did. So, I learned to love it and this song…this was the first song that reached out to me when I heard it. So, when the kids’ orchestra found out that one of the key people who was going to make sure that their mummies, daddies, brothers, and sisters were going to watch them perform, they got this song on their set list.” She looked at him. “It was never part of their set, but Kyle’s unit told them and they did it for me. So, if B-CAH never paid me, it was fine. This is payment enough for me.”
She exhaled loudly and put her plate on the coffee table so she could brush off her tears.
“I’m sorry. This is embarrassing,” she said as she buried her face in her hands. She was about to get up and leave when he held her hand in his
“This is important to you,” he said. “And I don’t want you to miss it.” ‘She sat back down, and he draped an arm around her shoulders. “If you need to let it out, go ahead and just do it. I am here for you.”
He stroked her chin gently and used his thumb to wipe a tear off her cheek before she rested her head on him as they sat there in silence. The only sound in the house was of the orchestra making sweet music and the young Antonia singing her heart out. He did not even realize that they actually sat through the entire concert, all four and a half hours of it, and he loved every minute of it. He especially loved the fact that she fell asleep in his arms right there after the concert was over,
He did not want to move an inch because he was scared that the slightest movement would wake her up. Instead, he pulled the blanket from the couch and draped it over the two of them before he closed his eyes and exhaled softly.
“Fuck,” he thought as he stroked her hair. He suddenly understood why he was so drawn to her. Why he was so smitten by her. He had seen the same kind of brokenness in her that he had in him. And that was what had made him look at her the way he did. He liked her at first, but now it was clear. He was falling for her.
Chapter 6
When Natasha’s eyes fluttered open, she was still in the living room at Matthew’s villa and it took her a few seconds before she realized that she had fallen asleep in his arms.
“Hey there,” she heard Matthew’s voice, and she slowly pulled away from him.
“Hey,” she said. “What time is it?”
“Depends. Boston time or local time?” he said, and she looked at him.
“Local time?” she asked.
“A little after four in the morning,” he said, and she rubbed her temple slowly.
“I should have never tried resetting my internal clock. I am more messed up than ever,” she said, and he forced out a laugh.
“I know what you are talking about a little too well,” he said. “I used to do that when I first started out with Matt the Nomad and I was always exhausted.”
“Tell me about it,” she said.
“How about some coffee?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Sounds like just what I need,” she said, and he got up before he walked to the kitchen, leaving her in the living room. “Wait, is this still the B-CAH feed?” she asked as she looked at the computer screen.
“Yeah, I never changed anything after you slept.”
“Whoa…they have raised almost two million dollars so far,” she said.
“That’s good, right?” he asked, and she nodded.
“It’s great. The organizers didn’t have any political help or anything, so we never really expected this much…no one did,” she said.
“It is always better to get more than less, right?” he asked, and Natasha nodded.
“I guess,” she said.
“Do you want it black or should I put some milk in it?” he asked.
“Just a little milk, thanks,” she said. “Some sugar too.”
He made his way back to the living room and sat next to her.
“Thanks,” she said when she took the cup from him.
“What is this charity for again?” he asked, and she took a long deep breath.
“Giving our soldiers a taste of home while they are away. Stuff like this concert…and a percentage of the money raised goes to the research for better prosthetics,” she explained. “That was the initial idea actually. Getting better prostheses for ex-military personnel so that they can live a normal life or something close to it.”
“So, the research is mostly robotics?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Something like that…amputees have a hard time settling back into normal life because…well, nothing is normal any longer. Everything has somehow changed and having a plastic or metallic limb does not exactly make it easier.”
“So, this research is somehow going to make everything better?” he asked, and she nodded.
“There is a neurosurgeon who approached the military with his invention…a microchip that works with the brain rather than for the brain. So, all the impulses controlled by the brain like walking and moving the arms and fingers are not so hard. It is quite revolutionary really…sorry to bore you with the details.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t be. It sounds like an honorable project,” he said, and she nodded.
“It is.”
“I would like to be part of the movement,” he said, and she shook her head. “How do I donate?”
“You don’t have to do it just because it is important to me,” she said, and he shook his head.
“I told you. What is important to you is important to me too,” he said as she looked into his eyes.
“Okay.” She reached for his laptop and pointed to a red dialog box on the bottom of the page. “Just click here and follow the instructions.”
He put his cup down and took the laptop from her and did as she said. She watched as he made his donation and then placed the laptop back on the table.
“You gave too much,” she said when she saw the figure reflect a ten thousand dollar increase, and he shook his head.
“There is no such thing as giving too much to an honorable cause,” he said. “Besides, this is just a small sacrifice compared to what our military does. I mean, I am able to live the life I do because of the work they do.”
She smiled at him.
“Thank you, and the brave men and women of America thank you too,” she said. “Their families as well.”
He smiled and took a sip of his own coffee and shut down the computer before he switched on the TV again. He did not really care for what was playing on the screen. So, he just sat there next to her in silence as they both sipped on their coffee.
“I’m sorry about your fiancé,” he said after a long silence.
She looked at him and nodded.
“I know how hard a loss of a loved one can be,” he said as she took a sip of her coffee.
“Your grandfather and your mother?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“Yes and no. My grandfather had been sick for a long time, so we were prepared for it. But my mother…” He shook his head. “Drunk driver.”
She looked at him and bit her lower lip.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. It has been a few years. Six to be exact.”
She took a sip of her coffee and leaned back.
“They say time heals all wounds, but I don’t know if that is true,” she said and he forced out a cynical laugh.
“I know that a little too well,” he said. “Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I feel the same kind of emptiness…I miss her sweet potato pie and her cranberry sauce which was simply amazing.” He smiled. “And she had this dark sense of humor which is probably why I liked Yolanda so much.”
“Your housekeeper?” Natasha asked, and he nodded.
“Honestly, she should scare me. I mean, the things she says…she makes it sound like she knows every bad person there is to know back in Mexico. So, she keeps on saying that she knows people can take care of certain situations.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“My publicis
t, Missy, she is kind of a pain in the ass, but she is good at her job,” he started. “But Yolanda doesn’t like her one bit. Matter of fact, she keeps on saying that she knows someone in Juarez who can take care of her and make it look like an accident.”
“Oh my God, that’s horrible!”
Matthew shook his head.
“If you met her, you would be asking Yolanda if you could get a direct line to this uncle or cousin in Juarez.”
She shook her head and took one last sip.
“She can’t be that bad,” she said, and he looked at her, smiling.
“If I knew another publicist who could do what she does, I would have fired her a long time ago.”
She put her now empty cup on the table.
“I guess we all know someone or a few people like that.”
He smiled as he took one last sip of his coffee as she got up and looked around.
“Is it too late or early to ask for a tour?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“There is not much to see really. I mean, upstairs it is just the bedrooms and the media room…” he started, and she shook her head.
“Actually, I just want a tour of that,” she said as she pointed to the yard. “The pool area and the flower garden.”
He smiled and nodded.
“Okay,” he said as he walked to the large screen door. He opened it and waited for her to walk through before he followed her outside. “There isn’t much to see really. It’s just the pool and the flower garden as you called it.”
She looked at him as they stood on the edge of the pool.
“Really? You have never noticed the flower garden?” she asked, and Matthew shrugged.
“Well, I know there are flowers and they look beautiful.”
She shook her head.
“The entire yard has some kind of a red rose hedge and it is well bordered by daffodils and dream flowers,” she said before she turned around to look at him. He had an eyebrow raised over the other.
“How do you know so much about flowers?” he asked. “Are you some kind of secret green thumb Martha Stewart?”
She shrugged as she began walking around the pool’s edge.
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