But as she says goodbye then heads off into the Parisian night, the golden streetlamps casting her in a warm glow as she walks down the block, my eyes don’t stray from her silhouette. Not until she turns the corner and disappears out of sight.
Cole clears his throat. “Stare much?”
I glance at my friend, whom I’ve known for a decade and a half. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re so transparent.”
“Haven’t I always been?”
“I suppose you have. You’re not one to hide the fact that you love to look at beautiful women.”
“She’s beautiful and brilliant.”
“She is brilliant. As for her beauty, it’s probably not my place, as her business partner, to comment on it.”
I lift a brow and tuck my phone into the pocket of my trousers. “Are you saying it’s not my place either?”
“I’m saying I know you admire her for her brain. I’m saying, too, that I’ve never seen you have this sort of chemistry and connection with someone.”
I bark out a laugh. “Are you an anthropologist now? Observing humans?”
“Maybe I am. And when I do, I see how you are with her. I’m not stupid, Daniel,” Cole says as we walk down the street in the opposite direction of Scarlett, heading toward our hotel where he and Sage are staying.
“Stupid? I never once thought you were.”
He smirks. “And yet you think I don’t know you have ulterior motives?”
A scoff bursts from my chest. “I didn’t think they were hidden. But they aren’t truly ulterior motives. They’re ulterior desires, but not ones I will act on.”
“You sure about that? The way you look at her is sometimes rather relentless,” he adds.
“You think I’m relentless when it comes to the chemistry and connection?” I ask, trying to figure out what he’s getting at exactly.
He nods crisply. “I do. So be careful.”
I’m not one to mince words. “Are you worried I’ll capsize our partnership if I fuck her?”
He stops in his tracks, administers a terrific eye roll, then scoffs. “I know you’re well versed in how to mix business and pleasure. I don’t worry about that or about you. I say this because I see the two of you. I know you. I understand you. I see things you don’t see. But I also care deeply about her. And I worry about her. She’s not cut from the same nihilistic cloth as you.”
“Aww. Thank you for noticing my tailor’s fine work in stitching me together from my favorite philosopher.”
“Your tailor is a regular Nietzsche.”
“Indeed. And nothing to worry about, mate. Scarlett and I are friends. Scarlett and I go way back. Scarlett and I have a good time together.”
He tosses his head back, laughing. “Scarlett and I, Scarlett and I, Scarlett and I,” he says, imitating me. “And yes, you do. You two have quite the friendship indeed. I remember the two of you pulling the strings that made sure I met Sage.”
I shrug happily. “What can I say? We both knew that she would be perfect for you.”
“You’re like a little matchmaking agency.”
“And we have an excellent success rate.” Cole and I reach the corner, slowing to a stop near the train station. A few blocks away, the Palais Garnier looms, rich and opulent. My mouth waters as I look at it. My fingers tingle. My dreams, shelved but not forgotten, jostle their way to the front of my brain once again, like riders on the metro trying to shove their way onto the last train of the night.
My eyes lock on the grand structure, sweeping over the palatial expanse. The steps. The columns. The balustrades. The spectacle of it, commanding a most regal spot in a most beautiful city. As I stare, my bones hum with desire that I have felt for only two things in my life.
Women. And music.
As we draw closer, the desire threads through me, wraps around me, tries to whisk me to a place I once thought would be my home.
The opera house.
The apex of classical music.
My first love.
It’s a battle to tear my gaze away, a war waging inside me. I want to march up those steps, grab hold of the huge metal handle, and yank open the door.
I want to step inside.
I want to feel like I belong, like I deserve to inhale the scent of time, of art, of Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven—of all the violin concertos ever played there. I deserve to smell the rich red velvet of the seats. Gaze up at the chandelier. I bet Scarlett would get a kick out of those chandeliers.
But I need to find the will to look away. My mind cycles to topics that hurt less.
Business.
That’s easy enough.
“Remember our first hotel?” I toss out as we move past the opera house.
“They say you never forget your first time. And of course I remember her.”
A smile tips my lips. “Because it’s a she.”
“All the best things in life are. I remember everything about our one-hundred-and-fifty-room beauty in Tuscany. The views were gorgeous, the rooms sublime, the service impeccable.”
“Like we planned back in university,” I say as we slow our pace at the street corner, waiting at the light as night falls, darkening Paris.
I keep my focus trained entirely on the conversation so I don’t stare lustily at the opera house behind us.
“Thank God you were such a card shark. If we hadn’t teamed up, we would never have planned that bold move,” Cole says as the light changes and we cross the street, turning down an avenue that curves away from the object of my lust.
My chest starts to relax. The tension, the longing unwinds the farther away we go from my unrequited love.
“We also never would have had any cash,” I add, since those games swindling rich kids out of their easy-earned coin saw us through some difficult times.
Cole gives me a most devilish grin. “Neither one of us seemed to have a single cent until we started those kinds of games. Those games that sent us down the path we’re on now. Now we are the rich sons of bitches. Do you think they’d hate us now too? The college kids whose wallets we emptied after two in the morning in the basements of the dorms?”
“I can only hope so,” I say. Then I sigh, a little wistfully, a lot happily. “Money does indeed make some things better.”
But even as I say that, I’m keenly aware of how utterly untrue it is. Money doesn’t bring back your family. Money doesn’t repair mistakes. Money doesn’t ease your regret.
But it does one wonderful, miraculous thing—it makes the here and now delicious.
And since the here and now seems to be all that matters, I like money. I like what it allows. I like how it makes it possible for me to enjoy the twenty-four hours we have each day, and to enjoy them in ways I didn’t think I ever would for the longest time.
Back when my life was ripped from the headlines.
Can you believe what happened to the Culpeppers?
Oh, I feel so sorry for that family.
I wince, the memories lashing me.
I have another name now—Daniel Stewart. One so generic I could be anybody, rather than the survivor named in all those news stories many, many years ago.
“Money certainly makes things easier,” Cole says. “But better?” He deals me a questioning and serious look.