Two blocks of silence.
“Ella.”
She doesn’t turn from the window.
“I was going to tell you tonight. That’s why I picked the restaurant. That’s why I brought you here, and to my brownstone, to my neighborhood. I needed you to see my actual life before I told you the rest.”
Nothing. Her profile is still. The scarf is bright against her neck, turquoise silk catching the glow of passing streetlights, and the sight of it there, my gift on her skin, makes my chest constrict.
“My company is called HoloTech. Cybersecurity. I founded it eleven years ago.” I keep my voice level. Facts first. “The Meridian acquisition they were asking about is a deal we’ve been working on for months. It’s been in the financial press. That’s why the photographers were there. They weren’t looking for you. They were looking for a business story.”
She’s listening. I can tell because her breathing has changed, but she doesn’t speak.
“The company is valued at roughly fourteen billion dollars. My personal net worth is in the range of nine to ten billion.”
The numbers hang in the air between us. I hear them the way she must be hearing them. Obscene. Incompatible with the man she believed I was.
“I didn’t tell you because of what happened to me before. Victoria. I know that isn’t fair to you.” I stop at a light. Red. The car idles. “Please try to understand. After HoloTech took off, the money changed every relationship I had. Every woman I dated, every new person who entered my life, the number was always the first thing they processed. I stopped being a person and started being a portfolio.”
The light turns green. I drive.
“You were the first person in years who looked at me and just saw a man. A grumpy, difficult man who you somehow ended up liking anyway.” I’m reaching. I can hear myself reaching. “I was afraid that if you knew everything, I’d lose what we had. I’dbecome the number to you too. And I couldn’t stand the thought of that.”
Silence.
“I was going to tell you tonight. Over dinner. That was the plan.”
More silence. Then she speaks, and her voice is steady and low, and the steadiness is the thing that tells me how bad this is. Ella’s voice shakes when she’s excited. It rises when she’s happy. It goes soft when she’s being vulnerable. This voice is none of those things. This voice is controlled.
“When I told you about the lottery.” She’s still facing the window. “On the beach. Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“I told you I won two million dollars and I was terrified of what it might do to my life. I told you about my parents. About being afraid the money would change me.” She pauses. “And you sat there and said nothing.”
“Ella, I...”
“You let me confide in you about being afraid of money while you were sitting on how much? Fourteen billion dollars?” She turns from the window. Looks at me. Her eyes are dry and clear and worse than tears. “Do you understand how that feels?”
I don’t answer. Because yes, I understand. And there is nothing I can say that doesn’t sound like an excuse.
“The dinner on the beach,” she says. “The custom menu. The private setup. I assumed you’d pulled some strings with the resort. Called in a favor, maybe. Something normal, something sweet.” Her voice stays level. “That was your money. All of that was just what dinner looks like when you’re a billionaire.”
“The restaurant was me wanting to do something special for you. That was real.”
“I believe you.” She says it simply. No sarcasm. “I believe it was real for you. But I was sitting at that table not knowingwho was paying for it or what it actually cost or what it meant that a man could arrange all of that with a phone call. You had information I didn’t have, and you made the decision that I didn’t need it.” She looks at me. “Jake used to do that. Decide what I was ready to hear.”
The name lands like a blade between my ribs.
“I’m not Jake.”
“No. You’re not. Jake thought I was too much. You thought I was too fragile to handle the truth.” She turns back to the window. “Different reasons. Same result. I’m the one who doesn’t get to decide what she knows about her own life.”
Shit. She’s right. I know it but knowing it doesn’t make my regret any less bitter to swallow. “I’m sorry, Ella. I should’ve told you before now.”
I drive. I don’t know where I’m driving. The route to Lucia’s is behind us and I’m just moving through Brooklyn now, turning when I have to, the streets passing without registering.
“On the beach that night, after dinner, I told you we were the same. You and me.” Her voice is quieter now. “I said we weren’t the kind of people who use money as power. I said I trusted you because you saw me, not what I have or what I’m worth.” She stops. “And you just held my hand and agreed.”
