Chasing Wishes (15 page)

"Normal from a blind man, creepy as hell from a stranger on the phone," I tell her, and she laughs. I love the sound of her laughter—it’s just so... oh, I have no words for it. I could listen to it forever.

"Okay, go fo {>"O212r it," she says. "I promise I won’t get a restraining order."

"What are you wearing?" I ask. "I’ve been wondering ever since that guy Carlos started gushing about how you looked."

"That’s your big, strange question?" she scoffs. "I was expecting something more intimidating."

"Oh admit it—you’d hang up and call the police if a stranger on the phone asked you that."

She laughs again. God, I love that sound.

"I’m wearing a long, green and brown plaid skirt with ruffles at the bottom..."

The darkness falls away inside my mind as she rebuilds the world around me. I’m in a gray, steel-walled elevator with dull fluorescent lighting buzzing overhead, and...

...there she is, radiating beauty inside my mind as her words give her form. I take in a sharp breath as my imagination brings her image to life—her beautiful, red-lipped smile, the gorgeous skirt fitted so perfectly to the curve of her hips, the fiery, copper-toned blouse blazing with color as it accentuates her bust and shows off the delicate curve of her neck...

...the tall, white chef hat perched haphazardly atop her head and long blond hair trailing down to the floor behind her.

It was a wig, and she’s not wearing a fucking chef hat either!

My imagination could use a little fine-tuning.

"...and to finish it off, I’m wearing a pair of brown leather flats and garnet earrings that glitter beautifully even under these harsh fluorescent lights," she concludes.

"I... wow," I whisper. "God, you’re beautiful."

I can almost hear the blush behind her nervous laughter. I want so badly to tell her how excited I am that she’s working with me now, how grateful I am that she’s bringing my world back to life again and painting my mind with colors I’d almost forgotten existed, but I can’t think of a way to say it without sounding even creepier than I already sound.

"Thanks," she says. "My old roommate Cassie helped me pick it all out. She wanted something that reflected the fall season."

"I think it worked," I tell her, still basking in the glow of the autumnal Rapunzel bringing life and color to my mind’s eye. She has Nina’s nose and jaw now—I recognize the sharp and yet somehow delicate, almost elf-like combination immediately. When did
that
happen?

"You look pretty nice yourself," Irene whispers to me. "That suit looks great on you."

"Thanks," I tell her, a smile creeping across my face. I had Marcus make sure I looked decent tonight for my presentation. He doesn’
t have Irene’s talent for description, though, so all I know is it’s a fitted black suit with a gray shirt and red tie. I don’t know why, but Irene’s approval somehow means a lot to me right now—I
want
to look good beside her.

The elevator beeps one last time, and as the door opens, the sexiest Rapunzel I’ve ever imagined takes my arm and guides me out into the executive boardroom, her long blond wig trailing behind her all the way.

"N
ext slide, please," says Terrence as h ~>"O21Chaptere stands at the head of the table, and I click the mouse to advance his presentation. How many times did he rehearse this thing? He can’t even see the slides and he knows exactly where he is in the presentation.

He’s the king of the room right now, the master of his little research domain as he stands before the executive board in their expensive suits and designer glasses, telling them all what modern miracles he’s worked lately. He exudes confidence and control, and every last eye in the room is in his sway. Even I’m enraptured and I have no idea what he’s saying half the time.

God, he’s so handsome it almost hurts.

He looks in my direction time and again, his green eyes drawing my gaze and holding it captive, and I have to remind myself each time that he’s not looking at me. He can’t see me; he has no idea that I can’t take my eyes off of him and no idea just how much he’s reminding me of Isaac right now.

Shame on you. He doesn’t hold a candle to Isaac,
I chastise myself.

Nobody I’ve ever met compares to Isaac, and nobody ever will. Nine years of separation and obsession made sure of that. I’ve put Isaac on a pedestal so tall that I can barely see the top of it anymore. As much as I don’t want to admit it, he’d probably be nothing like I remember if I ever met him again; he probably grew up to be just like his parents—blinded by wealth, impossibly snobbish and someone I could never, ever be with.

"So in short," says Terrence, his strong, deep voice booming throughout the meeting room, "Verta’s contracted research is approximately six months ahead of schedule. We expect to file our first-in-human registration documents by the end of next year. Any questions before I turn the floor over to Charlotte for the legal update?"

The audience remains silent until I stand and offer Terrence my arm, and then the entire executive board gives him a round of applause as I lead him back to his seat. He grins from ear to ear at the reception, and I can’t help but crack a smile myself. The strong, commanding façade he’d erected during his presentation is gone, replaced instead by an endearing, almost boyish self-consciousness as the audience applauds his work.

"You did great," I whisper, nudging him gently with my elbow. "I have no idea what any of it meant, but I can tell you that you definitely had everyone’s complete attention. They loved your presentation."

"Thanks," he whispers back with a soft smile. My heart flutters and I suddenly feel short of breath. How can something as simple as a smile have that kind of effect on me?

"Honestly," he continues as we settle into our seats at the far end of the table, "I could’ve told them I’d invented the ham sandwich and they’d still have applauded. They love
anything
that comes in ahead of schedule."

Charlotte takes the stage for her presentation, pretending I don't exist as she walks past, and Terrence and I brace ourselves as the first slide of dense legalese graces the screen. Whoever first twisted the English language into the monstrosity of legal-speak really ought to have been flogged for it.

"I wasn’t kidding, by the way," I whisper into his ear. "I really don’t know what your slides meant. I get that you invented something but I have no idea what it is. Care to explain?"

"My first project for Verta was a neural-electronic interface. This versice.is on is correcting some flaws in the design plan," he says, and I stare blankly at him.

"Okay... brain cells, electronics... I need something in normal human speak, please."

He smiles at me and butterflies flutter in my stomach again.

"It’s a device that can take nerve impulses and convert them into the sort of electrical signal that a machine can understand," he explains. "So, let’s say you made a mechanical hand for an amputee. It’d take what your brain tells your real hand to do, and then translate it into a language the mechanical replacement can understand and work with."

"That... holy shit," I whisper in awe.

"Don’t give me too much credit there," he whispers back. "One, my research staff deserves most of the credit, and two, it didn’t actually work the first time. Turns out that a binary output for sensitivity wasn’t the best idea."

"Meaning?"

"Imagine that you’re the one who had the surgery to install that mechanical hand, and you’re just now finding out that it can either be all the way open or clenched so tightly that it shatters your wine glass," he says. "Not the most useful invention anymore, is it?"

He reaches out, hunting for his bottle of water on the table, and I catch his hand in mine and guide it to its destination. Just touching his hand makes my pulse quicken, and I snatch my hand away as soon as he’s found his water.

"So yeah," he whispers after taking a drink. "We’re trying to do it right this time."

We fall silent as Charlotte drones on and on about mind numbing legal whatevers, and my eyes start to glaze over. I shake myself awake just in time see Terrence’s eyelids flutter shut. I nudge him with my elbow and he startles upright in his chair again.

"You’re drifting. Pay attention," I whisper, nudging him again, this time more playfully.

"I couldn’t care less what she’s saying anymore," he whispers back. "I hired her to handle the legal shit specifically so I wouldn’t have to care."

He grins mischievously, and I stifle a quiet laugh as everyone stands up around us.

"We’ll be taking a five minute break," calls out Charlotte, "and then we’ll branch into the results of the first-round clinical suitability studies from there."

My stomach growls so loudly that I’m certain everyone in the room heard it, and Terrence snickers at me.

"Sorry," I apologize in embarrassment. "I’m a bit hungry."

"Tell me about it," he says, nodding in agreement. "No food at a dinner meeting? Sure, the champagne and catering they used to serve was going a bit overboard, but not even sandwiches now? Man, these guys are getting cheap."

I stand up and stretch my aching legs while the board members raid the small table of sodas and bottled water, and Terrence braces himself against the table and clambers to his feet.

"Mind joining me for a quick walk?" he asks. "I need to move around a bit and get the blood flowing to my legs again."

I loop my arm through his and guide him out the door, and the second we’re outside, he yanks out his cell phone—a fancy, new-fangled smart phone easily worth a month of my old apartment's rent—and hands it to me.

"Our driver’s name is Alex," he tells me. "Call him and tell him to meet us out front with a pizza as soon as he can. Screw going back into that meeting."

"Wait, isn’t the board going to notice you’re gone?" I ask, staring at him as if he has three heads.

"Yep, and I’m my own boss, so they can’t do a damned thing about it," he answers in smug satisfaction. "I’ll stay for the full thing when they stop being cheap bastards and actually provide food. For now, though, order that pizza and let’s get the hell out of here."

****

I
hold the passenger-side door of the limousine open for Terrence, and suddenly the scent of cheese pizza hits me. Tomato sauce, melted cheese, a shiny black car... I’m back in New Haven again.

Isaac holds open the door for me, and as I get into his black Mercedes, his face is somehow all green eyes and gorgeous smile. We’re going to finally see the stars together—we’re going to watch the meteor shower from his rooftop for once instead of hiding up on mine like we’ve been for nearly six months now.

"Irene? Are you okay?"

Terrence’s low, concerned voice breaks me out of my flashback, and I quickly pull myself together and help him into the limo.

"Sorry about that—the smell of pizza was just... reminding me of something."

Limousines are so strange. It’s as if someone sat down one day and said, "I think I’ll invent the most inconvenient car ever and market it as a luxury." It’s twice as long as Cassie’s old, taxi-style Grand Marquis, and yet it’s almost entirely wasted space. The back passenger compartment—comfortable or not—only has one long, brown leather seat taking up the entire driver-side wall. A full bar and mini-fridge claim domain over the rest of the passenger compartment—or they would if the bar wasn’t entirely empty. Instead, we have a cheese pie from Mystic Pizza and a two-liter bottle of Rocket Pop instead. I have no idea what brand the knock-off soda is pretending to be, and I suspect that I’ll regret it when I find out.

"Oh thank God—I am so,
so
hungry," moans Terrence as I hand him a slice, and he munches happily on it.

"Got any napkins or plates up there?" I call up to the driver.

"Nope – sorry," he answers, shaking his head as we pull away from the curb. "Forgot to ask. My bad."

"Right... I’ll just be careful then."

My stomach grumbles loudly and I delicately take a slice for myself. The pizza smells so good that I can hardly contain myself. It’s all I can do not to inhale my slice and go back for seconds, stuffing myself like a total pig.

"You’d better dig in before I eat it all, Irene," teases Terrence as he goes back for his third slice already. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu hits me again, and I stare at him in silence for a long time before taking a bite.

It can’t be a coincidence... can it?

"You know," I tell him, carefully picking my words as I try to remember what I said so many years ago, "I’m eating pizza in a car worth more than everything I own added together. What if I spill grease on the seats? I don’t want you to flip out on me."

Terrence freezes in place, his third slice hovering a mere inch from his lips, and it feels as if the world has stopped around me.