Overseas (6 page)

“Look here a moment.” He motioned to me. “This is what I’ve done.”

I got up slowly, almost trancelike, and stepped to the other sofa. He didn’t look up. “Look.” He pointed at the screen. “Don’t you think that’s more reasonable? Here, sit down. Hold the book a moment. Now if we look at year four…”

I eased myself down next to him on the cushion, trying not to place myself too close, but it was no use. I could feel the slight warmth drifting from his body, smell the clean scent of his skin, hear the faint rush of his breath into the intimacy of the air between us. He was still holding out the presentation; I took it, folding back the previous pages with deliberate care.

“Just a moment,” he said, “pardon me,” and reached across my lap to the lamp table next to the sofa. He opened a drawer at the top and withdrew a pen. “Now,” he went on, taking the book from me and scribbling something into the margin, “I think we need to shift this assumption…”

“You’re left-handed,” I murmured. I thought I said it to myself, but it must have come out aloud.

“No, right,” he said absently, and then closed his eyes. “I mean, yes, left.”

I forced out a laugh. “I’m confused. Ambidextrous?”

“No. Just some nerve damage a while back. I learned to write with my left hand.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” I said, and then added, after a pause, “But wasn’t that you playing the piano, when I came up?”

He looked surprised, and then embarrassed. “And here I thought the walls were soundproof. Sorry about that.”

“No, it was lovely.”

“It was execrable. But to answer your question, it doesn’t affect my dexterity so much, or at least not anymore. It’s just the grip that’s painful.” He held up his right hand to demonstrate.

“Wow. How did it happen?”

The color in his cheeks intensified. “Car accident.”

“Oh no!” I couldn’t help myself. I could almost hear the horrifying crunch of glass and metal. I only just stopped my hand before it reached up to grasp his.

“Oh, it wasn’t as bad as that,” he said easily, wiggling his fingers. “Still whole, after all.”

“You should be more careful,” I said.

“You’re assuming it was my fault.”

“Wasn’t it? I can just picture you driving your brand-new Porsche at a hundred miles an hour down the freeway, celebrating your first big bonus.”

“Hmm.” His expression turned speculative. “And what did
you
do with your first bonus?”

I laughed. “I’m just an analyst, remember? My share of the bonus pool amounts to about a shot-glass-full. I think I went out and got a new pair of shoes, last time, and socked the rest away in the apartment fund.”

“Apartment fund?” He seemed amused.

“My roommate’s wearing a little thin,” I said. “I’d like to buy my own place. Which at this rate will be a hall closet in Washington Heights, but that’s why I’m going to business school.”

“Business school! You’re joking, surely.”

“No, I’m serious. Why would I be joking?”

“Because you’re too good for this. Come now, you don’t really want to be an
investment banker
all your life, do you?”

“Why not?”

“That’s the wrong question. Not
why not
, but rather
why
? Why waste
your life around chaps like that Banner idiot?” He looked genuinely concerned.

I shifted my gaze downward and fingered the edge of the presentation. “Look, I’m from Wisconsin. Typical suburban environment. I left to make something of myself, and Wall Street seemed the obvious place to start. Where the action was.”

“From Wisconsin,” he said. “I’d never have guessed Wisconsin.”

“Well, we don’t
all
sound like we’ve just stepped off the set of
Fargo
.”

“That’s not what I meant. I…” He checked himself. “In any case, I never went to business school, and it hasn’t done me any harm.”

“Yes, but you’re…” I waved my hand at him.

A phone rang, somewhere behind us: the library, probably.

“I’m what?” he pressed.

“Aren’t you going to get that?”

“It can wait. Answer the question.”

“I can’t answer it with a phone ringing in my ears. Will you please?”

He sighed and got up; I heard his footsteps disappear around the back of the sofa and drew a deep breath. I didn’t think I could take much more of this. All my high-minded principles had evaporated, just when I needed them most, just when I was tumbling into exactly the sort of situation I’d wanted to avoid. Because Julian Laurence—beautiful, brilliant, leonine Julian—could eat me for breakfast. Could swallow my heart whole and go bounding off with it, never to be seen again. And I doubted I had the willpower to stop him.

The ringing stopped, and the low musical murmur of his voice drifted between the rooms. I rose from the sofa and walked to one of the bookshelves built in on either side of the mantel. The fire had been going for some time. It was small and compact and extremely hot, hissing and popping discreetly in a pile of spent ash. I ran my fingers along the spines of the books. A wide-ranging collection, I thought to myself, smiling; it ran the gamut from Dean Koontz to Winston Churchill to Virgil, in the original Latin. Nothing like a British boarding-school education.

The books were packed in tightly; in fact, no room had been left for anything
but
books. No pictures, no
objets
, no random clutter. Nothing personal, really, unless you considered a man’s choice of reading material the most personal thing of all.

“Snooping, I see,” came Julian’s voice, far too close.

I jumped. “Jeez! You just took a year off my life.” I nodded my head to the shelves. “Do you really read Latin?”

“Not a terribly useful skill these days, is it?”

“Not everything has to be useful. I assume you learned it at school?”

“Yes, an old-fashioned education.”

Was that a note of strain in his voice? I turned and looked at him. His face had changed, had dimmed somehow, as though he’d gone through and turned off all the unnecessary lights. “Everything all right?” I asked. “The phone call, I mean?”

“Yes, yes. Quite all right.” He folded his arms and smiled, somewhat forced. “I’ve got to fly up to Boston tomorrow, that’s all.”

“On Christmas Eve?”

“Hard luck, I know.”

“Don’t you…” I swallowed. “Aren’t you going anywhere for Christmas?”

He shrugged. “Geoff has me over for Christmas dinner every year. And services, of course.”

“Your family isn’t…”

“Around,” he finished for me. “Don’t worry. I’m over it, as they say. See anything you like?” He nodded upward, and I followed his eye.

“Oh, wow,” I said. “Patrick O’Brian. Are those first editions?”

“I indulge myself.” He sounded embarrassed.

“I love O’Brian. Historical fiction in general. My friends were always giving me crap about it in college; everyone else was reading chick lit.
Shopaholic
, that kind of thing. Michelle thinks I was born in the wrong century.” I laughed stiffly.

He didn’t reply.

I turned around. He looked peculiar, preoccupied. The tiny lines about his eyes had deepened; his mouth compressed in an unyielding line. I tried to think of something to say, but he spoke first.

“Do
you
?” he asked, his voice wound tight.

“Do I what?”

“Think you were born in the wrong century.”

I laughed. “Well, not
literally
, I guess. I mean, who wants to die in childbirth? But I do sometimes wish…” My voice trailed off.

“Wish what?”

“Well, nothing’s a life or death struggle anymore, is it? The era of honor and sacrifice is over.” I looked again at the O’Brian novels, lined up in order. “Jack Aubrey’s full of human failings—so’s Maturin—but they have principles, and they’d give their lives for them. Or for each other. Now it’s all about money and status and celebrity. Not that people haven’t always cared about those things, but it used to be considered venal, didn’t it?” I shrugged. “It’s like nobody bothers to grow up anymore. We just want to be kids all our lives. Collecting toys, having fun.”

“So what’s the remedy?”

“There is no remedy. We are who we are, right? Life moves on. You can’t get it back.”

“Yes,” he said. “Quite. Here you are, off to business school, after all.”

“Here
you
are, running a hedge fund.”

He smiled at that. “So what would you propose, to win my soul back?”

“I don’t know. Not one of those pansy philanthropic foundations, that’s for sure. Something more interesting. More skin in the game. Maybe manning your own letter of marque and going after all those Somali pirates, off the African coast.”

He began laughing, a rich comfortable sound. “You’re priceless. And where would I find a crew reckless enough to go along with me?”

“I’d go in a heartbeat,” I said, without thinking.

The smallest pause, and then: “Would you, now?”

Oh, genius, Kate
. I cleared my throat and looked back at the bookcase. “Well, except for having to earn a living and all.”

“Ah. Hadn’t we better get back to work, then?”

I checked my watch. The two sides of my brain struggled: the one that wanted desperately to stay, all night and all week and really all my life, drowning in the light from that beautiful face of his; and the one that wanted to bolt away in mortal fear.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’ve already stayed too long. I’ve got an early flight from LaGuardia tomorrow morning and, to be honest, I haven’t had much sleep the last few days.”

I couldn’t quite bring myself to meet his eyes, but I felt them penetrating me. “What an ass I am,” he said. “You’re exhausted, of course.”

“A little.”

“My fault, I expect, demanding all these rewrites.” He ran a hand through his golden hair. “I beg your pardon. Go home and sleep. I’ll have a look at these over Christmas and we’ll speak again when you’re back in the city.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll just get your coat,” he said, moving to the sofa and lifting it from the back. He held it out to me. “Here you are, then.”

I let him help me into the coat, a novel experience, and then grabbed my laptop bag and headed numbly for the hallway.

“Look,” I heard him say, and I turned at once, nearly burying my nose into his sweater.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Sorry,” he said, at the same time; we smiled awkwardly, stepping apart. “Look, I… would it be at all proper…” He closed his eyes, and opened them again with a slight rueful tilt to his mouth. “I suppose I’m trying to ask whether I might see a little of you, after Christmas.”

“Um, sure.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and examined the wall behind his shoulder. “You have my e-mail, right?”

“Yes. I…” He stopped. “Will you look at me a moment?”

“What is it?” I asked, dragging my eyes to meet his gaze.

“Christ,” I thought I heard him whisper, under his breath, and then, more audibly, “I just want to be clear that it’s nothing to do with ChemoDerma, or any of that rubbish.”

“Look here. Don’t go around insulting my client, if you think you want to see me again.”
Not bad, Wilson. How did you manage
that?

He smiled again, more fully. “ChemoDerma’s a lovely, lovely company. I can’t stop thinking about it. I shall tuck that charming little pitch book under my pillow tonight.”

“Much better.”

He reached one crooked finger into the space between us; it hovered for an instant, and brushed along the line of my jaw. “Have a safe flight tomorrow,” he said.

“You too.”

And then, somehow, I found the strength to turn and walk out.

4.

[via e-mail]