The Billionaire's Heart (The Silver Cross Club Book 4) (16 page)

“I’m afraid I am,” I said, and we shook hands. His grip was firm enough to crush bone.

“What have you been up to, son?” he asked. “Last I heard you were still in East Africa somewhere.” He glanced at the woman with him, and she touched his shoulder and slipped off into the crowd. Not a social encounter, then. We were talking business.

I drew Sadie forward, my fingertips on her back, steadying her at my side. “I’m recently returned,” I said, “and I’ve started a company to develop a new water filter.”

Hawthorne threw back his head and laughed. “So this is your lovely underling,” he said, smiling at Sadie, “and you’re setting her loose on me to charm me into giving you money.”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “Will it work?”

“Elliott, you’re terrible,” Sadie said.

“Ah, I like her already,” Hawthorne said. “Tell me your name, my dear. Sloane, that’s enough of you, now.”

Satisfied, I left them and went to forage for some hors d’ouevres.

I circulated, glad-handing as I went, and made a few bids on items I was sure I wouldn’t win. I knew very few people in attendance, but the hapless aid workers manning each table were more than happy to give me the full spiel about their organizations, and I got sucked into an interesting conversation about international development as a form of neocolonialism.

When the auction closed, and a tall woman stepped behind a podium to begin announcing the results, I realized I had no idea where Sadie was.

I had been keeping one eye on her as she spoke with Hawthorne. They were easy to track: his white head floating above the crowd, and her energetic hand movements tracing wide arcs between them. But at some point during my conversation I got so caught up in trying to frame the perfect argument that I forgot to monitor Sadie’s movements; and by the time I remembered, and looked for her again, she was gone.

It wasn’t cause for concern. Likely she had gone to the bathroom, or stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. There was no danger here, among all of these people, and at any rate she was a grown woman, and more than capable of taking care of herself.

To hell with it. I was worried anyway.

I waded through the crowded room, searching for Sadie, accidentally elbowing a few society matrons in the process. Behind me, the woman at the podium read off a name, and the gathered crowd broke into polite applause. I didn’t see Sadie anywhere.

I went out into the foyer, where a few clusters of people were gathered, talking quietly. Still no Sadie. She wasn’t in the coat room, or on the back patio. I loitered near the restroom for a few minutes, waiting to see if she emerged, but all I got for my efforts was a few strange looks from women going in and out.

Frustrated, and beginning to feel slightly panicked, I climbed the wide, curving spiral stairs to the second floor of the building.

Upstairs was deserted, white-walled, silent. Doorways opened off a long corridor, each one casting a square of light onto the floor. I moved toward the first entrance, my dress shoes clicking along the concrete floor, and then I stopped in the doorway when I saw who was inside the room.

Art lined the walls, framed photographs and black-and-white line drawings, and Sadie stood gazing at them, her back to me, her body a narrow column in her blue gown. It was a good color on her. I took a step forward, stopped, thought about it—but Sadie had turned at the sound of that single footstep, and it was too late for me to go back downstairs.

She offered me a smile. “Following me?”

It was too close to the truth. I didn’t respond. I walked into the room and stood at her shoulder, gazing at what she was looking at: a photograph of a woman diving underwater, the sea dark blue around her and shattered by light.

“Nice picture,” I said.

“I just read an article about freediving,” she said. “If you dive deep enough, you don’t have to keep kicking. Gravity takes over, and it just tugs you straight on down.”

“Sounds terrifying,” I said.

She shrugged. “It sounds kind of peaceful to me.”

“Sadie,” I said, and she turned to look at me, her eyes wide and dark, and bright as the sun.

I could have turned away, in that moment. I should have. I should have returned to the auction and left Sadie to examine her pictures in peace.

I didn’t.

I raised my hand and touched her cheek.

Her breath caught.

The familiar urge rose within me: to claim her, to make her mine. To show her, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she belonged to me.

She looked up at me, her eyes wide and shining, her lips parted. She wanted me to kiss her. The desire was written on her face and in the way she trembled, ever so slightly, at my touch.

It was a terrible idea, and it would probably get me sued—but I had done worse and survived it. But I wanted her, and I was tired of waiting.

“Sadie,” I said, and moved my free hand to her waist.

“’Scuse me, is there a bathroom up here?”

I jerked away from her like I had been burned. The man behind us, slumping in the doorway, glassy-eyed, clearly drunk, was no threat. But his interruption dumped metaphorical ice water on my ardor. Reality returned. Sadie was off limits. Kissing was out of the question.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down, touching her cheek where my hand had been. She brushed past me, squeezed past the man still leaning against the doorframe, and disappeared toward the stairs.

SIXTEEN

Sadie

I went to my favorite spinning class on Sunday afternoon. Afterward, when the guy who always smiled at me flashed his pearly whites, I smiled back.

It was just a smile, but it gave me a little thrill to be so forward. I had never paid much attention to him before—never
let
myself pay attention—but he was a good-looking guy, all dark curly hair and brown skin, and he had been devotedly trying to flirt with me for at least six months. It felt good to be interested.

He started making his way across the room toward me, and I wiped my sweaty face on my towel, hoping I looked at least somewhat presentable. Then I decided it was stupid to worry. He’d been looking at my sweaty clothes and wild, sweaty hair for months now, and it hadn’t scared him off. If you weren’t a disgusting mess after spinning, you weren’t doing it right.

Then he was there, standing beside my bike, looking at me with one eyebrow raised, smiling. “I thought you would never give me the time of day.”

I laughed, embarrassed and happy, and wiped my face again. “I guess I didn’t miss my window, though,” I said.

“For you,” he said, “the window never closes.” He extended his hand, and we shook. He had a firm grip, and his palm was just as sweaty as mine. “I’m Tavares.”

“Sadie,” I said. He hadn’t let go of my hand.

“Sadie,” he said, rolling my name around in his mouth. “Look, I’m going to be straight with you. I want to take you out. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Right now?” I asked, laughing, a little overwhelmed.

“Right now,” he agreed. “Spinning makes me hungry enough to eat an entire cow. There’s a good burger place down the block. What do you think?”

I hesitated. I was thinking of Elliott, of his hand on my face, of his other hand touching my hip. I shoved those thoughts down deep, tamped them down where they couldn’t bother me. Tavares was attractive, interested in me, and
not my boss
. Okay: game on. “I think a burger sounds really good right now.”

We bundled into our coats and went down the street to the burger place. It was 5:00, too early for dinner in New York, and we were able to claim two prime seats at a long counter by the window, looking out on the pedestrians bustling around in the lowering dark.

Tavares talked more than he ate. I knew his entire life story within about fifteen minutes. He was a marketing director at an ad agency in Dumbo, volunteered at a nearby community center, and called his mother every weekend. He was funny, engaging, and easy to talk to. We got into a heated debate about the relative merits of PhotoShop versus Lightroom.

It was like Jesus had sent him to earth to be the perfect boyfriend for me. Okay, Lord: I could take a hint.

But I felt like I was hanging out with my brother.

I tried to feel a spark. I really did. I even “accidentally” brushed our hands together. And still: nothing.

Elliott had ruined me for other men.

After, standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, he said, “I’d like to see you again.”

I felt terrible. Who did I think I was, to turn down this kind and interesting man? But I had to do it. I couldn’t leave him to languish in false hope. “Look, you’re really great…”

He groaned and hung his head, shaking it slowly. “Right. Say no more. At least tell me that you think I’m great and you’re just hung up on another man.”

“I mean, you won’t believe me now, but that’s actually the problem,” I said. “I wish I could date you. You
are
great. My mother would love you.”

“Well, if you ever change your mind,” he said, “or if the other guy ends up breaking your heart, I’ll be at spinning every Sunday.”

I smiled at him, wishing that I felt something, wishing that life could be less complicated than it always, inevitably was. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

And then I walked home in the dark.

* * *

Monday marked the start of our final week before the conference. Elliott knew it too, because he was already in a frenzy of work by the time I arrived at the office, and he barely looked up to greet me when I set my things down on my desk—just glanced up and grunted before he went back to rifling through a stack of paperwork.

Fine. We could ignore each other. I still felt awkward about what had happened at the fundraiser on Saturday night, and I didn’t want to talk to him either. I needed some time to lick my wounds: humiliation, anger, a little bit of wistful sorrow about Tavares. Fear that I was betraying Ben, guilt for my disloyalty, and also a hot, tense, claustrophobic feeling, like I was suffocating, like I was lying beside him in the coffin and unable to fight my way out.

He still haunted me. Little ghost, little lost love. That hollow place in my chest that would never be filled.

These were melancholy thoughts for a sunny Monday morning. I made a big pot of coffee and got to work.

When I took a break for lunch, Elliott approached my desk and said, “We’ll need to work late tonight.”

I paused in unwrapping my sandwich and looked up at him. “Why’s that?”

He met my eyes, a quick hot glance like wildfire, and looked away again. “It’s the website,” he said. “I heard from the conference organizers today. They want a working website by tomorrow evening.”

“But I’m still doing the—”

“I know,” he said, stiff and distant as the North Pole. “It isn’t your fault. I’ll help you. I’ll finish the coding. Let’s finish it tonight, and then you can sleep in tomorrow morning.”

“I guess so,” I said. It was so strange to feel awkward around him again, as uncertain as I had been when I first started working for him. I didn’t know what he was thinking, and I wanted to talk about Friday, to have him reassure me that everything was okay, but I didn’t know how to ask him for that. “Okay. You’re going to order pizza, right?”

He raised an eyebrow, and for the first time that day he actually seemed like himself. “Pizza,” he repeated. “How… proletarian. Surely we can do better.”

“Indian food,” I said, and then, “Korean barbecue?”

“Now you’re talking,” he said.

After my initial rush of panic, I had to admit to myself that the website really
was
almost ready, and that finishing it tonight was within the realm of possibility. I stayed hunched over my computer through the late afternoon, until the light faded so much that I had to get up and turn on the lamps. My spine cracked. I stretched my arms over my head, working the stiffness out of my body, and turned my head to see Elliott watching me.

I couldn’t read his expression. He stood directly beneath one of the floor lamps, and his face was half-hidden in shadow. He looked mysterious and remote, like he was a stranger and not the man I had grown so fond of over the past month. I
was
fond of him. There was no point in denying it anymore. My failed date with Tavares had shown me that much.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. He took a step toward me, and the light shifted on his face. It still didn’t tell me anything useful. His expression was mild, pleasant, meaningless.

I shook my head. “Soon, probably. Maybe another hour. I’ll keep working. It was just getting too dark to see.”

He nodded. “I’ll order the food now. They always take a while.” He paused, and I waited for him to continue, but after a long moment he turned away.

I worked. I was dimly aware of Elliott rustling around at his desk, and then, after some time, putting on his coat and leaving; and then, some time after that, I heard the elevator doors open, and the smell of Korean barbecue wafted toward me.