“Twenty-three,” I repeat. “So that means you’ll never… I mean, it’s…”
He decides to put me out of my misery. “Let me help you out, by answering some of the most frequently asked questions. No, I will never walk again. No, there’s no stem cell research right now that I could get involved in. This is it—forever. Yes, I live alone without a nurse helping me. And no, I’m not so depressed I want to kill myself. I enjoy being alive, thank you very much.”
I inhale sharply. “People don’t really ask you that.”
“Oh, they definitely do.”
I watched as he lifts his wine glass to drain what’s left of it. I notice he holds it loosely supporting the weight of the glass with his fingers rather than pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.
“And no,” he adds, “I can’t move my fingers. My hands don’t work. That one was a real punch in the teeth when I was twenty-three.”
“But I saw you moving your fingers,” I protest.
“It’s a trick.” He winks at me as he releases his wine glass. “When I extend my wrist, my hand closes into a fist. But I can’t do it without moving my wrist.”
He demonstrates for me how when he bent his wrist back, his fingers close. It makes me think of that handshake he gave me yesterday. He can move his fingers, but not very well. It makes me wonder how he does anything. How does he dress himself? Bathe? He told me he was independent, but it’s hard to imagine. I wonder if he was lying, the same way I was lying about having a boyfriend. I wouldn’t blame him. Who wants to admit to needing a nurse?
“Any other questions?” he asks me. “This is your shot to ask.”
Of course, I’ve got about a million questions, but none of them are appropriate to ask my new boss. So I shake my head no.
“So,” he says, “aren’t you going to tell me why your project is the best one? And everyone else’s is shit?”
I frown. “No. Why would I do that?”
“That’s what your buddy Nathan did.”
“He didn’t!” I gasp.
“Oh, he did.” Luke glances down at his wine glass like he wishes there were more. I don’t remember if he drank much in college. He had quite a bit of alcohol in him when he confessed his feelings for me—I always attributed it to that. “But don’t worry, he said nice things about you.”
Well, that’s a small consolation. “Oh.”
“In fact, I’d say he’s got quite the infatuation with you.”
I cringe. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I would say he definitely does,” Luke says in that confident tone of his. “Tell me, Ellie, does he know about your fake boyfriend?”
My mouth falls open. “My…”
“Yeah.” He grins crookedly. “What did you say his name was? Matt? Mark? It doesn’t matter, does it?
I drop my eyes, looking down at my decimated salad. “Um…”
Strangely, he doesn’t seem upset. “You’re not a very good liar, Ellie.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“The question is,” he says, “why did you feel like you had to lie?”
I don’t have a good answer to that one. His brown eyes meet mine, and I wonder what he’s thinking. I can’t help but think that I’m glad he knows I don’t have a boyfriend.
Even though nothing could ever happen between us. I mean, he’s my boss’s boss’s boss.
Thankfully, he doesn’t push me for an answer.
Chapter 6
On the drive back to the office, Luke pushes me for more details about my project. He wants to know everything there is to know, and even though I thought I knew everything there was to know, he comes up with questions I can’t answer on the spot.
“I can get you a report tomorrow,” I say. “I can have all the details you want.” I add, “I promise, this project is feasible, and the timeline will make you happy.”
Luke cocks his head to the side. “I know.”
I frown at him. “You know?”
He lays his fist into the horn as somebody cuts him off. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Ellie.”
A secret? “What?”
“Your project is the whole reason I bought Mediapp.”
My head is spinning. Of course, I’ve been excited about our project, but it never occurred to me that it had created any sort of buzz outside the company. It makes me feel happy, but it’s a lot of pressure.
Also, did he buy the company because of the project? Or the fact that I was the one working on it?
“You’re one of the smartest people I ever met,” Luke says. “If anyone can make this happen, it’s you.”
My cheeks flush at the compliment. “Well, if I’m so smart, how come you’re the one with the billion-dollar company?”
He winks at me. “Because I’m smarter.”
I would protest, but he might be right. As irritating as he was in our expository writing class, there was a time when I came to realize he wasn’t quite the dumb legacy kid I believed him to be.
It was the day we got our grades back on our first paper. Dr. Cole handed them out in the last five minutes of class, and I was horrified to find a big red B on the top.
I was sick over it. I never got Bs in high school. Never. Maybe an A-, if I’d been battling the flu or something. But a B? How could I get a B? My paper was brilliant! I could argue any point expertly—didn’t Dr. Cole know I was captain of the debate team in high school?
As I skimmed through her comments, I felt something kick me in the ankle. Hard. I looked up and saw Luke’s brown eyes staring into mine. “Hey, Twelve Fingers,” he said. “What did you get?”
“None of your business,” I snapped at him. I eyed the paper in his hands. “What did you get?”
He turned his paper over to show me the red A at the top. Even though I tried to check my reaction, my jaw dropped. This was patently unfair. There was no way his paper was better than mine. Dr. Cole just favored him because he was rich and handsome.
“You could read it if you’d like.” He grinned as he slid the paper towards me. “Maybe you could learn something for your next assignment.”
I wanted to punch him in his smug face. Instead, I yanked the paper out of his hand and skimmed the first few paragraphs. And just as I thought—it was awful.
Well, not completely awful. He wasn’t entirely illiterate. And he did make some good points about Raymond Carver. But it wasn’t better than mine.
“Too bad they didn’t teach you to write back in Jersey,” Luke said, still grinning at me.
I didn’t punch him, but I threw his essay back in his face. He blinked at me, surprised but still clearly very amused. “Too bad you didn’t keep those extra fingers. I bet you could pack more of a punch.”
I was so distracted by my rage that Luke took this opportunity to yank my own essay paper out from below my left hand. He raised his eyebrows at me when he saw the B. Even though I should have grabbed it back from him, I didn’t. I wanted him to read it and realize how much better it was than his own essay. That I was the one who deserved the A, not him.