"The dining room is just through here," Helen says, opening a door.
And that's when I seehim.
He's standing by the windows, looking out at the ocean, and when he turns to face me, my breath catches.
He's younger than I expected. Late twenties, maybe. Tall, dark hair, features that would be considered handsome if they weren't so carefully neutral. He's wearing dark jeans and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, casual but expensive.
But it's his eyes that stop me. Dark, intense, focused entirely on me like I'm the only thing in the room worth looking at.
"Jade," he says, and his voice is the same one from the phone call. Deep. Confident. "I'm Phoenix Crawford. Thank you for coming.”
8
PHOENIX
She posted again.
I refresh her blog for the third time in an hour, even though I have the notification set to alert me the second she publishes anything new. The post is titled "Jumping," and it's short. Just three lines about leaping into the unknown and hoping someone catches you.
She's on the plane right now, thirty thousand feet in the air and flying toward me.
I set my phone down on my desk and walk to the windows. From here, I can see the driveway, the guest cottage, the ocean beyond. The clouds rolled in an hour ago, turning everything gray and moody. It suits my mood better than sunshine would have.
Robert texted twenty minutes ago to confirm he picked her up from LAX. They should be here in forty minutes, give or take, depending on traffic.
The thought makes something twist in my chest. I don't get nervous. I've pitched to billionaire investors, closed deals worth hundreds of millions, stood in boardrooms and convinced skeptical men twice my age that I knew what I was doing. None of it made my hands shake.
But the idea of Jade Catalano walking into my house makes my pulse race.
I've spent years watching her from a distance. Years reading every word she writes on that anonymous blog where she thinks no one is paying attention. I know she takes her coffee black. I know she's afraid of failure more than she's afraid of anything else. I know she writes best late at night when she can't sleep, pouring her fears and dreams into stories about people who never quite get what they want.
I know everything about her.
And she knows nothing about me.
My phone buzzes. Marcus again, the fifth time today. I silence it without reading the message. He's nervous about the Singapore deal. They are family men and I have to appear like someone that fits in with them. Marcus thinks I need to bring a date to the investor dinner. Show them I'm stable, settled, the kind of man they can trust with half a billion dollars.
The chef finished preparing dinner an hour ago. I told him to keep it simple because I don't know what she likes. Grilled fish, roasted vegetables, a salad with citrus and herbs. Wine from a vineyard in Napa that I've been saving for a special night.
I’d say that tonight qualifies.
I walk through the house, checking details I've already checked a dozen times. There is a centerpiece of white roses mixed with pale ranunculus and eucalyptus, arranged low enough that we can see each other across the table. The table is set for two, positioned so she'll have the ocean view. The lights are dimmed just enough to be intimate without feeling like I'm trying too hard.
But who am I kidding? I am trying too hard.
I've had women in this house before. Plenty of them. Models, actresses, tech entrepreneurs who looked good in photographs and knew how to handle themselves at investor dinners.Beautiful women who understood the game we were playing, who wanted the same things I did. No strings, no expectations, just mutual pleasure and convenience.
None of them kept me up at night. None of them made me check my phone obsessively or memorize their writing or send them almost four hundred thousand dollars just to get them to notice me.
Jade Catalano is not beautiful by California standards. I've seen her photos, watched her from across coffee shops on the rare occasions I've been in Boston. She's average height, average build, with dark hair that's usually pulled back in a loose bun and eyes that are more tired than striking. She wears clothes that have been washed too many times and she doesn't know how to apply makeup the way the women out here do. She doesn’t have any fillers or botox and she likes to slouch.
And yet I can't stop thinking about her.
There's something in the way she moves through the world like she expects things to hurt and she's decided to endure them anyway. She works herself to exhaustion and writes about drowning and never once asks for help.
Until I gave it to her.
My phone buzzes. There’s a text from Robert:5 min.
