“Because,” he says, and pauses again. “I missed you.”
Her fists clench, unclench. Her lips tighten. “I don’t know what to do with that, Ari,” she whispers.
“You don’t have to do anything with it,” he replies, and transmutes the knife in his hand into salt water, letting it drip from his hand to join the tide. She watches him do it. After a while, she transmutes her gun too, letting it disintegrate into the air as sand.
He looks at the dancing reflections of moonlight on the water. “I’ll try to come here at every full moon,” he says. “Maybe I’ll see you here again. Maybe not.” He nods, then takes a step away from her. “But now you know.”
She doesn’t say anything to his offer of a regular secret they can keep, and for a moment he hopes that she doesn’t take it to heart at all, that she just turns on him for good. It would be easier for them that way, knowing for sure that their friendship is at an end.
But instead, her lips tighten. And in her expression, he sees a flicker of hesitation, some acknowledgment of the idea. A maybe.
Will she come here again? He can’t be sure, but the possibility fills him with hope and dread as he watches her turn away, her face now shadowed.
“Good night, Shakespeare,” she says over her shoulder.
Ari stays on the beach until long after Sam is gone. Then he makes his way along the path too, until he reaches where he’s parked his own car.
Inside, he closes his eyes, steadies his heart. Then he calls Isla.
She picks up almost immediately. “How’d it go?” she asks.
Ari’s heart is still tight. He thinks about the odd way Sam had answered him, mentioning Will instead of Diamond, knowing more is there. Something wedged deep in his heart doesn’t want him to share everything with Isla, hurts to do it. He looks at the road winding into the darkness and imagines Sam staring back at him with those liquid dark eyes.
He is falling dangerously back in love with her; the tide of her is threatening to drown him. At the last moment, he saves himself, reminds himself that she isn’t his friend anymore.
“About as well as it could have,” he answers.
“Good. Reed will want the full details. When you get back, head straight to his place. He’s tapped you to attend the Oxford conference.”
At that, Ari’s full concentration shifts to Isla. “Why? What’s happened?”
He can almost hear the smile on Isla’s face when she answers. “We’re going to attack Grand Central again. Put them back on defense right away, full pressure, no letting up.”
They’re escalating, and quickly. Ari’s stomach turns.
“Reed wants you negotiating on our behalf with Neuewelt and Pirenne at Oxford,” she continues.
He starts to shake his head. “Rudra’s job, not mine,” he says firmly. “We’re antagonizing him too much, too soon.”
“No time to worry about that. We need to gather allies before things escalate with Grand Central, and Reed knows you’ll do a better job at it.”
“But what’s the attack before the conference? What are we doing?”
“We just got our hands on Hanover.”
Hanover. Diamond’s assistant.
Ari feels his stomach lurch. Did they move on Hanover tonight because they knew Sam would be preoccupied here with him?
“Why didn’t Reed tell me?” Ari asks.
“He didn’t need to,” Isla replies, and Ari thinks he hears a note of pity for him in her voice. “You weren’t going to be involved in it, anyway.”
Ari has the sensation that everything revolving around him is out of his control. Rudra, Grand Central, the conference, Sam. He is sinking deeper into the mud, and he doesn’t know how to get out. All he can do is agree.
“Hanover’s unlucky day,” he mutters.
Value of Grand Central’s Angel City real estate holdings: $16.3 billion
Value of Grand Central’s New York City real estate holdings: $14.7 billion
Grand Central Corporation annual revenue: $29.4 billion
Net worth of Diamond Taylor: $37.3 billion
Transcript fromLifestyles of the Superwealthy,
Ep. 23, first aired 2006
