She turns back toward the window. Studies the block as we pass. “I can picture you here,” she says. “Walking these sidewalks. Getting the corner table at Lucia’s. Gino bringing you bread without asking.” She pauses. “It’s very you.”
It is very me. That’s the point. That’s why I chose this place tonight instead of anywhere else I could have taken her. Twenty-two-dollar entrees and handwritten menus and a man who calls me Alec, not Mr. Beckett. Every detail telling the same story: the money didn’t change me.
She’ll understand. She knows me now.
Two blocks from the restaurant, I find a spot on the street. I parallel park, kill the engine. Ella is already reaching for the door handle, eager, her energy tilted forward the way it always is when she’s anticipating something. I come around to her side and she steps out onto the sidewalk.
The evening air is mild, the warmth that lingers on concrete after the sun drops. Her hand finds mine. I can see Lucia’s sign a half block ahead, the old neon script glowing amber against the red brick.
The first flash goes off before I register the source.
Then the second. The third. A cluster of bodies stepping out from between parked cars, and the sound hits before the sense does. Shutters clicking in rapid bursts. Voices overlapping. Aggressive, professional, pitched to provoke.
“Mr. Beckett! Over here!”
“Alec, can you confirm the HoloTech deal to acquire Meridian?”
“Care to comment on the acquisition, Mr. Beckett? Can you give us a number? Is it still expected to close at nine billion?”
“As CEO, will you also be taking control of Meridian if the deal goes through?”
Then they turn their attention to Ella. “Who’s your companion, Alec? Is this official?”
There are four reporters. Maybe five. Financial press, not tabloid. Camera bodies with long lenses, the equipment of people who stake out sources for business stories. They’re here because HoloTech’s acquisition of Meridian Defense Systemshas been front-page financial news for the past several months. The deal I left hanging when Dr. Vaughn ordered me to take time off. Someone must have tipped off these vultures that HoloTech Security’s CEO was spotted in Brooklyn Heights.
They are not here for my love life. But the woman on my arm is a bonus they didn’t expect, and I can hear the shutters accelerating as they get the shot.
My hand tightens on Ella’s.
Everything sharpens. The flashes. The voices. The specific angle of the cameras. Threat assessment is what I do for a living. Evaluate, prioritize, neutralize. The instinct kicks in cold and fast, and for one efficient second I’m processing the scene the way I’d process a security breach: containment, damage control, extraction.
Then I look at Ella.
Her hand has gone rigid in mine. Her face is turned toward the photographers with her lips parted and her brows drawn together as she tries to make the words she’s hearing fit the man standing beside her.
CEO. HoloTech. Nine-billion-dollar acquisition.
I watch the confusion land first. The furrow on her forehead as she tries to parse why strangers with cameras are shouting at the tech nerd she knows as Alec. Just Alec. The guy with the meditation app and the heart condition and the dad who drove a forklift.
Then the recognition. It arrives in stages, and I can see each one because I am a man who notices everything about this woman and right now that gift is a punishment. Her eyes flick to me. Back to the photographers. Back to me. The furrow smooths out and what replaces it is worse. Her mouth closes. Her jaw sets. I can see her rewinding. The suite in Barbados. The resort. The dinners, the private beach, the boutique, the effortless way luxury moved around us like weather I never acknowledged.
Her hand loosens in mine. Not a pull. A release. Her fingers simply stop holding. She lets go, folding her arms across her chest like a shield.
The hurt comes third. It’s quiet. It doesn’t announce itself. Her blue eyes meet my stare and the trust that has lived in them since she fell asleep on my chest in Barbados is gone. Replaced by something flat and careful. She’s recalculating. Everything she thought she knew, running back through it with new numbers.
Then the anger. Not rage. Not heat. Cold and inevitable and familiar. She’s felt this before. The feeling of being the person on the outside. Fuck. I’ve done this to her.
Ella’s chin lifts. Her shoulders square. And the openness that has defined her face since the day I met her closes like a door I can hear locking from the inside.
I’ve already lost her.
I move on instinct, even though I’m late making my limbs work. I get between her and the cameras. My hand goes to the small of her back, guiding her, turning her toward the car. The photographers keep firing. I hear my name again, my company name, a question about Meridian’s board vote. I don’t respond. I get Ella to the passenger door. Open it. She gets in without looking at me.
The irony is not lost on me. I build security systems for a living. My instinct is to protect her, and protection is what destroyed this. Every day I shielded her from the truth, I was building the weapon that just went off in her face.
Damn it.
I round the car. Get in. Pull away from the curb. The photographers fall behind in the mirror.
