by Lily Zante
Suddenly, she no longer felt like a stranger or someone who watched these types of snippets on the evening News. She felt a part of it, and proud to be by Tobias’s side, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world when he looked at her the way he did, as if she belonged to him.
Soon they were seated and over the course of their meal, she made polite conversation with everyone. After a while Tobias got up and walked to the stage to deliver his speech. The muscles around her heart clenched as she watched him on the podium speaking easily and addressing the crowd, with an impassioned speech. He spoke of what a privilege it was to honor those who strived to make things better for others less fortunate. He didn’t mention his own work with the adoption centers, but instead he concentrated on the tireless workers whose selfless determination, and in many cases volunteer work behind the scenes, made life bearable for others. She found herself caught up in him, in the way he spoke, in the way his eyes held everyone captive. She looked around at the audience to see everyone watching him with rapt attention. When he finished his speech, it was to thunderous applause.
“You were brilliant,” she whispered, when the audience had stopped clapping. Then one of the women from their table got up and delivered her speech so eloquently that Savannah felt almost envious of her confidence.
They sat through a round of more speeches and presentations and the evening felt surreal. She still found it hard to believe that she was sitting here, at a Gala dinner with this man. She kept expecting the dream to end.
He leaned in closer, nipped her ear, making her smile as she tilted her head towards his face. “Your parents aren’t expecting you back tonight, are they?”
She hadn’t said anything to them about what time she would be back but she knew that Jacob would be waiting up for her. “I can’t come over,” she said, making an apologetic face. “Jacob’s waiting up for me.”
He grimaced. “Then you must get back. We’ve got all week to make up for lost time, starting tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow night.
She had barely caught her breath from this evening, but the reminder that she had a week with Tobias away from this craziness, cheered her up even more.
When they left the hotel, the crowd outside seemed to have doubled in size. “Word got around fast,” she heard Tobias mutter as he pulled her to his side and slipped a protective hand around her waist. This time the cameras didn’t stop flashing for one second. The blinding lights suddenly made her feel nauseous. “This way, Ma’am.” The security guard led them quickly to the waiting limo and opened the door for her.
This time Tobias got in alongside her. The doors closed and Morris drove off. Even through the tinted windows, she could see the camera flashes lighting up the darkness like fireworks gone awry.
Chapter 15
“You were on TV, Mommy!” Jacob leapt at her as soon as she walked through the door. Then he did a double take, his eyes widening as he looked her up and down. “You look awesome!”
“Thanks, honey,” she said, hugging him. “How come you’re all still up?” She wasn’t sure what she expected, but not for all of them to be wide awake at nearly midnight.
Her mother and father stood up and looked at her in awe. “You look so different,” her mother exclaimed, holding her hands together in front of her chest. “Savannah dear. You look so…” She shook her head.
“You look beautiful, Ruby Red,” her father said. “Didn’t Mr. Stone want to come in?”
“I didn’t think to ask him, Dad. It was so late.” She took her shoes off with Jacob still stuck to her side, his arms around her waist. “Let me put my things down, Jacob.” Morris had stopped by Tobias’s condo so that she could rush inside and grab her things. She could have changed back into her jeans but she wasn’t ready to take off her glamorous dress yet.
“Mr. Stone looked so cool! And you looked so beautiful!” Her son was still ecstatic.
“I hope Grandpa hasn’t been giving you sweets?” She looked at her parents and wondered if they’d spoiled him with a bowl of M&Ms again.
“You look so beautiful!” Her mother’s eyes gleamed.
Jacob giggled. “Grandma found you on the TV channel.”
“The celebrity channel,” her mother explained. “You looked like movie stars. He really is a dashing young man, isn’t he?”
“And Grandpa Googled you,” Jacob told her. She stared at her father in disbelief, unaware that he even knew the Wi-Fi password. “I told him how to,” Jacob explained.
“You’re on the internet, Ruby Red. I found some sites with a couple of pictures of you both getting out of the car.” Her father had that worried look about his face. She wanted to tell him not to be, that Tobias would keep her safe, that he had security, that Colt could never touch her now, but she didn’t want to say this in front of her son.
“Hush now, Dale. They looked so good together.”
“You went in a limousine, Mommy?”
She nodded.
“I sure hope Henry Carson saw that.”
“Jacob Samuel Page,” replied Savannah, walking towards the couch. Under her parents’ gazes, the thigh high cut on her dress and one bare shoulder revealed too much. She suddenly felt self-conscious. She placed her hands on her son’s shoulder and sat down so that their faces were level. “I know you’re excited that mommy and Tobias are…” How to put it, “are good friends.”
“He’s your boyfriend, Mommy.” Jacob said. “Lenny’s sister has a boyfriend and she says it’s a big deal.” Savannah narrowed her eyes. Lenny’s sister was eight. “Honey, I don’t want you showing off, or bragging about me and Mr. Stone. Did you hear me?” He made a face as if his hopes had been crushed. “Did you hear me, Jacob Samuel Page?” He stared at her with puppy dog eyes. “Because if I so much as catch a whiff of it, I will not be a happy Mommy.”
“Okay,” he replied, his mood deflated.
“Weren’t you cold in that dress?” Her father asked, “It looks like its been ripped to shreds.”
“Nonsense, Dale. She looks lovely. That’s what they call high fashion, isn’t it dear? Tell us all about it,” her mother made herself comfortable on the couch.
“Jean, I think it’s getting late. You can find out all about it tomorrow. And you young man,” her father looked at Jacob, “I think it’s time you went to bed.”
“Grandpa’s right,” said Savannah. She wanted some time to herself, to climb down from the high of the evening. “You go to bed, and I’ll be over in a while.”
But the land line rang. For a moment she was paralyzed, wondering who would call this late. For a short, terrified moment the image of Colt flashed up. But he didn’t have her home number. She answered it without thinking.
“Are you freakin’ serious?” Kay shrieked. “Tobias Freakin’ Stone and YOU?”
Oh, shit. Kay, and she hadn’t said a word to her cousin at all.
“Is it true? How can you? How can you date THAT MAN AND NOT TELL ME?” Kay sounded almost hysterical. Then, calm again, “Is it true? Or is that your Doppelganger? They haven’t said who she is but I swear it’s the spitting image of you. I mean you look identical. You look freakin’ amazing.”
Savannah held the phone a few inches away from her ear. “It’s Kay,” she mouthed to her parents and Jacob who were staring at her. As they slowly shuffled off to bed, she put the phone to her ear again.
“I was going to tell you,” Savannah began, but her words were weak and her voice bore no conviction. In all the rush of the past week and the nervousness and excitement around the event, she’d completely forgotten that she had intended to forewarn Kay, to tell her gently. “I got really busy trying to find my—”
“I ask myself: how the hell can my own cousin forget to mention that she’s dating THE HOTTEST MAN IN NEW YORK? My cousin wouldn’t do that to me, WOULD SHE?” Savannah slumped further into the couch and listened. Kay continued, “And if she was DATING THE HOTTEST MAN IN NEW YORK, maybe she’d have the decency to tell me first
instead of it showing up in my newsfeed!”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I meant to tell you a few days ago—mom said you’d called, but things got hectic. I only had a week to find something decent to wear.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“A few weeks…or months.”
“MONTHS?”
“Two months, maybe three.” It depended when she started counting it—from that first kiss, or from the first time they’d made love? Or had it all started long before that first kiss?
“Three freakin’ months and you couldn’t find a minute to pick up the phone and TELL ME THAT YOU WERE SLEEPING WITH TOBIAS STONE?” Kay was beyond hysterical.
“I wasn’t sure myself!” Savannah shot back. “I wasn’t sure and then we kind of didn’t get on, and then we kind of did.”
“Unbelievable.” Her cousin muttered.
“Why are you so upset?”
“I’m not, I’m happy for you but I’m pissed that I found out through the ‘net. I don’t understand it, Sav. I’ve been going on about this hot guy ever since you told me you worked in his company, I’ve been joking about meeting you at work—”
“Joking?”
“I was getting all excited that I might get to see this guy when I met you at work or something. But to find out you’ve been secretly dating him. You could have said something.”
“It’s been complicated.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It hasn’t been easy,” Savannah insisted.
“Is he good in bed?”
“Kay!”
“What? It’s a valid question. Have you been in his private jet yet?”
Savannah wasn’t sure that now would be the right time to tell her cousin that they would be flying to Miami in the private jet tomorrow. “No,” she replied, truthfully. “We’ve been keeping it quiet.”
Kay puffed out loudly. “Not any more. Someone posted pictures online. You look freakin’ amazing.”
“Thanks.”
“Does this mean I can hang out with you guys when I come back?”
Chapter 16
“Jacob would love this,” she exclaimed, wandering around his private jet, trying to tone down her obvious awe. “Then next time we must bring him,” Tobias said.
She’d never known a plane to have large tables, or a bathroom, or a toilet that looked like this, let alone a bedroom with cupboards and side cabinets. She had never in her wildest dreams imagined that the inside of a plane could look like a luxury condo.
When he’d shown her the bedroom, she had almost laughed at the strangeness of it.
A bed, in a room, with carpet. A normal bedroom, but in a plane. Jacob would have loved it. She’d taken him ice-skating in Bryant Park this morning, while her parents had stayed at home. She’d wanted to spend as much of the day with him, precious one-on-one time for them after a week in which she’d felt she had neglected him. Jacob seemed happy that she was going with Tobias—in his little mind he already had a plan for how things would turn out, and she worried about that. She especially worried about how high his expectations were for them.
By the time they came home late in the afternoon, he was exhausted but happy. It had made her departure easier. What made it even easier was her parents’ approval of Tobias, despite not having met him. Her father’s online investigations into him seemed to have left his mind at ease. She had wanted them to meet Tobias but the last two weeks had stormed past like a hurricane and she didn’t want their first meeting to be rushed.
They had taken off from New York an hour ago, and now sat facing one another in the big, cream comfortable leather seats. It was a world away from economy class.
“What is it?” she asked, seeing Tobias shaking his head as he looked at his cell phone. “Matthias commenting on the Gala dinner. He says his latest girlfriend was talking about us.”
“Latest girlfriend?”
Tobias waved his hand. “I can’t keep up. He doesn’t mention names, they change so frequently, and I don’t ask.”
“What did she say?”
“She liked your dress.”
Savannah smiled. “Kay called me when I got back last night.”
“Kay?”
“My cousin.”
“The one in Hong Kong?”
Savannah nodded. “She was upset that I hadn’t told her about us.”
“Upset? Why?”
“Just…” She couldn’t divulge why without telling him about his Stone groupie. “We’re very close and I guess I would have, but this last week I didn’t get a moment to catch my breath.”
“Imagine if you’d come with me to Hong Kong and ran into her.”
“Thank goodness I didn’t.” She didn’t want to think about the consequences of meeting Tobias and her cousin face-to-face. Dealing with her on the phone had been hard enough.
“You should have heard her last night. Talk about whining. Anyway, she’s returning to the city in the summer and maybe I can introduce you both then?” She would need to make that happen because it was the only way she could see that Kay might forgive her.
“Maybe you can come with me if I return to Hong Kong?” he asked.
“Will you be returning?” Savannah asked. “I thought you and Matthias had a difference of opinion regarding the Far East.”
Tobias shrugged. “It’s more than a difference of opinion.”
“What, specifically?”
“Things are unsettled globally at the moment. The markets are shifting everywhere and there’s a lot of uncertainty and gloom. The EU in Europe is in danger of collapsing and the Far East has its share of problems. I don’t want to expose myself to those types of risks—not for my customers. From the work you’re doing for me you know we’ve been focused heavily in a lot of tech startups. Matthias and I have been visiting them over the eighteen months, trying to spread our investments. I want to move away from relying on an economy that seems shaky but Matthias seems otherwise convinced.”
“If you’ve always trusted your gut, then why don’t you now?”
“Because Matthias always has a good reason. There are times when I can’t see the wood for the trees, but Matthias, he always sees the bigger picture.”
“But if your own instinct has gotten you to where you are now,” she persisted, “doesn’t that tell you something? I mean,” she was out of her depth, she didn’t completely understand about stocks and portfolios but what Tobias was telling her was simple; that he was ignoring his own feelings. “You have your doubts about China and this Yanling guy as well as your investments overseas yet you’re willing to push them to one side. Does Matthias really carry so much weight?”
“He’s my equal and I trust him implicitly.” She nodded, keenly aware of that fact.
“He was the hotshot until I joined a small investment management firm owned by Becker Schwartz, the man who was to become my mentor. He did something that nobody had done before.”
“What was that?”
“He believed in me. I’d come from a school system in which teachers didn’t have much time for me. I had a few special classes here and there but I still struggled with my lessons. I’m mildly dyslexic,” he explained, “and so reading and spelling and writing were a chore. Numbers were easier, but only just. But when I worked for Becker, the graphs and charts all started to make sense. I could analyze them and see patterns. It was almost as if I could ‘read’ the data. The systems he taught me and the pointers he gave me started to make sense. It no longer felt like a struggle to make sense of things around me. He didn’t treat me like an idiot or someone who was slow. His belief in me made all the difference.” She couldn’t imagine Tobias Stone ever not having unshakeable faith in himself and his admission surprised her. “I could finally do things, make judgements, predictions, and they were usually right. That’s when Becker started to spend more time with me than with Matthias. He seemed to value my opinion more and he concentrated more of his time and attention on me
.”
“That’s why you feel guilty.”
“I never said I feel guilty.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Tobias gave her a look that was expressionless, as if he refuted what she’d said. She tried to frame it differently. “Maybe not guilty but maybe you feel you might have overshadowed him and that’s why you overcompensate.”
“Overcompensate?” Tobias’s jaw tightened as if he didn’t share her view. “Matthias is more like a brother to me. I won’t ever not consider his opinion.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, crossing her legs and placing her arms over the soft, plush armrests. She hadn’t meant to make the atmosphere awkward, not now at the start of their vacation, but she didn’t know Matthias and she wasn’t sure she trusted him as much as Tobias did. Still, they went back a long way. They had history.
“I know you might not warm to him, Savannah, and I’m aware that he has a certain sexist side to him that grates on most women. I don’t blame you for feeling wary around him. Plenty of times, he’s made me want to throw up, but the man isn’t all bad. Most of it is a front.”
They sat quietly for a few moments, letting the awkwardness dissipate.
“Where will you live when she gets back?”
“Who?”
“Your cousin.”
“I’ll figure something out,” she replied, even though it was starting to worry her.
“You will.” Tobias seemed sure of it but she had her doubts. The onset of spring with its blooming flowers and falling cherry blossoms was a sharp reminder that time was passing quickly. She wanted it to slow down so that she could make the most of each moment with this man but summer would be upon them soon enough.
She had no idea how things would develop between her and Tobias. Her idea of moving out of the city to the suburbs where she could afford the rents seemed less and less appealing, especially since it meant she might have to change jobs. Anything that was an hour’s commute from work and with no Rosalee around to help her, in addition to the prospect of Jacob having to change schools again, gave her nightmares. She didn’t want to think about it.