Marcus sighs. "You're in deep with this girl."
"I've always been in deep with her."
"No." He shakes his head. "Before, she was an idea. A fantasy. A girl in a photograph you've been obsessed with since you were ten. But now she's real. She's here. And you don't know what to do with that."
He's not wrong.
For seventeen years, Jade has been a photograph. A blog I read in secret. A life I watched from a distance. I knew everything about her without her knowing I existed.
It was safe that way. Clean. My obsession couldn't hurt anyone because it was private, contained.
But now she's in my house. In my bed—well, in the guest cottage, but close enough. Now she's real and complicated and looking at me like she's trying to figure out if I'm dangerous or just intense.
The answer is both.
"Friday dinner," Marcus says. "The investors need to see you settled. Stable. Worthy of their trust and their $50 million. Can Jade handle that?"
"She'll be fine."
"That's not what I asked. Will she WANT to? Does she know what she's walking into?"
No. She doesn't. She thinks this is about me showing her my world. Thinks I'm trying to seduce her with wealth and power.
She's not wrong about the seduction part.
But she doesn't know about Friday. Doesn't know that I need her there, looking at me like she did on the yacht. Doesn't know that these investors have made it clear they won't trust a "bachelor playboy" with their money.
"I'll handle it," I tell Marcus.
"Handle it how?"
"I'll tell her we have a business dinner. That I'd like her to come. She can say no if she wants."
"Will she say no?"
I think about yesterday. The way she melted into me on the yacht. The way she looked when I told her she could have this life.
"No. She won't say no."
Marcus stands. "Just don't screw this up. This is the biggest deal we've ever had. Don't let some girl?—"
"Don't." My voice is sharp enough that he stops. "Don't call her 'some girl.'"
"Then what is she?"
The question I can't answer.
What is Jade to me?
The girl I've been obsessed with for seventeen years. The woman whose writing I've memorized. The person I paid $387,000 just to get her to notice me.
Mine. She's mine.
Except she doesn't know that yet.
"I'll take care of it," I tell Marcus. "Friday will be fine."
He leaves, and I sit in the silence of my office as the sun rises over the city.
