Christ, I am the biggest schmuk alive.
Alexis and Gerald sit on the step above the sunken couch, watching me pace with perplexed expressions.
I run my hands through my hair for the fiftieth time, just as my cell phone vibrates in my pocket, and I dive for it, praying that it’s her. But it’s Ambrose’s name on the screen.
I hit the green button.
“I fucked up,” I say without preamble.
There is a short pause, and then I hear the sound of a glass being placed down on a surface.
“Dio mio! I was calling to congratulate you on the deal. Have you angered Barnes already? This is unlike you, Luca.”
“I fucked up with Amelia.”
All I hear from his end is a chuckle, and I scowl into the phone, my hands clenching as I wait for him to speak.
“Well?” I demand after almost half a minute of silence.
“You fucked up how, my friend? By not realizing you adore her until now?”
“Oh, great. You’re telling me you knew?”
“Of course, I knew. From the first moment I stepped into your office that day. She is clever, principled, and without ego. She is perfect for you. But of course, you are not used to women of her caliber. I was worried you might be an idiot. What did you do?”
“Oh, thanks, Ambrose, you’re making me feel so much better.”
“A friend’s job is not to make someonefeelbetter, it is to tell the truth when no one else will.”
I sigh, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “You promise you won’t judge me too harshly?”
“I promise to judge you very harshly indeed if you have hurt that young girl. She adored you.”
I stare ahead into the bright lights of New York beneath me. I can see tiny cars racing up and down the street and the lights of office workers at their desks long into the night.
“She was an escort,” I say finally. “She was paid to look at me that way. How can that mean anything at all?”
There is a long, agonizing silence, and then Ambrose sighs heavily.
“You silly boy. One cannot pretend at everything.”
I slump down on a barstool, closing my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Believe it or not, my friend, I have seen escorts in my time before. Intelligent, usually savvy businesswomen who know what they are doing to make a man come back for more. Amelia was none of those things. She was authentic.”
“But she was only there because I paid her to be.”
“And why is she gone? I assume sheisgone, or you would not sound so bereft.”
I stand up, beginning to pace again as I start to explain everything that has happened between me and Amelia since the night we spent with Ambrose.
I add in as much detail as I can, including the trip to the Maldives, and that final, horrible fuck on the plane. I lay it out as clearly as I can, and every word that comes out of my mouth makes me feel worse than the last.
When I finish speaking, he doesn’t say anything immediately. Ambrose is measured in everything he does and rarely leaps to conclusions or makes rash decisions.
“What would you like me to say, Luca?” he asks finally.
I slump down in my seat as Alexis mews at me and trots over to curl up on my lap. I bury my hand in her long, white fur.
