Closer (5 page)

“That’s called sarcasm, Enzo.”

“No,” he edged his lips closer to her ear and clicked his teeth together.  “That’s your armor.  Your protection.  And I’m the only one who has found a way to remove it.”  He drew his fingertip down the hollow of her throat, stopping it just before he fingered the crease of her cleavage, as though he expected her to dismiss everything except the sexual tension between them.

“Miss Sanchez?”

Inez turned towards the voice.  James, Sven’s driver, had exited the Rolls Royce and opened the passenger door.  Now, he beckoned her towards him.

“This is a very expensive car,” Enzo said, scanning the Rolls Royce.

“My new boyfriend owns it,” she informed him, savoring how his smug confidence withered away into confusion and uncertainty.  She strode toward James who assisted her into the car before closing the door and sealing her inside like a priceless possession.  Buzzing down the tinted window, she gazed out at Enzo.

“You’re seeing someone else?” Jealousy sharpened Enzo’s accent.

“Six months is a long time to wait, Enzo.  A girl’s got needs.  I’m sure you understand.”

He did understand, but his macho pride wasn’t happy about it.  Abruptly, he pulled open the door and pushed himself inside the car.  She slid across the leather seats, away from him, but he snagged her by the hand and squeezed it until she betrayed pain. 

“You are making a mistake.  We have a child together.”

“Yeah, and it would have been such a precious fairy tale if you had gone away and come back, still in love with me and our daughter,” she asserted, flinching only for a moment before twisting out of his clasp.  “But since I don’t believe in fairy tales, try not to miss me too much.  Unlike you, I won’t be thinking about anyone else while I’m in bed with him.”

Their eyes locked.  This time, her meaning was clear to him.  Reluctantly, he pulled back out of the car and slammed the door with fury.

Inez rubbed the burn on her wrist and hugged her purse to her chest like it was Luna.  She suppressed her urge to cry; she had already shed all her tears months ago, and now, there was nothing left except bitterness and exhaustion.  Yes, they had a child together, but she didn’t need a reminder because it was the first thing she thought about when she woke up every morning and the last thing she agonized about when she went to sleep—how on earth was she going to raise Luna by herself?  The only thing she thought about more was the fact she had been so dumb, so foolish, so ridiculously naïve to have fallen in love with a man who had conned her into believing that true love existed in the first place. 

The driver’s eyes watched Enzo in his rearview mirror before buzzing up the interior tinted window between them.  With the rare moment of privacy, Inez sighed with relief and nestled herself comfortably into the luxurious leather seats, smooth and creamy like vanilla bean ice cream.

Yes, it was true. 
Well, sort of
.  She did have a new billionaire boyfriend. Too bad for her, he was just a fake one and an even bigger asshole than Enzo.

Chapter Four

Sven settled his unpatched eye on his favorite painting in the penthouse—
Water Lilies
by the nineteenth century impressionist painter, Claude Monet.  It was a priceless painting, smuggled out of his grandmother’s estate in Amsterdam when she fled the country during the Nazi invasion and occupation.

He sank lower in his black Bugatti sofa and counted. 
Eleven, twelve, thirteen
… He strained his eyesight onto the canvas. 
Where was fourteen
? 
There
,
yes, there
…a
nd fifteen?
  He squinted again to make out the individual water lilies within the cluster of soft green, white, turquoise and pink feathered strokes. 
Such a cruel irony
, he thought, giving up for a moment and dropping his head back against the sofa’s sleek leather.  Monet had painted his
Water Lilies
series at the end of his life while almost completely blind.  It was a fleeting attempt to console himself and press on. 
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
...Yesterday, there had been at least twenty.  He had to find at least twenty. 

He scanned the lily pad cluster again before succumbing to the demoralizing sensation of defeat. Just last week, he easily had found thirty—thirty distinct water lilies.  Now, dread overwhelmed the inner core of his being.  Someday soon—sooner than he was prepared to accept—he would attempt to count the water lilies and fail to find even one.

How would he continue to design buildings without his vision?
The question terrified him, then filled him with bitter injustice.  He was only a man of thirty-eight who had made his first billion by the time he was thirty, and yet nothing could restore the one thing he desired most—his ability to perfectly see the world.  Yes, he was a designer and an architect and a businessman.  But at the core of his soul, he was an artist who loved
seeing
the world—all its beauty and all its imperfections.  He loved noticing every detail of every event that passed by him and he loved absorbing all the nuances of life through his own keen observation of it. 

Not long ago he had been a man determined to leave his mark on the world through the designs of his buildings—buildings that almost defied the laws of gravity and challenged the social standards of decency.  But now, as he sloshed his Holland gin around in his tumbler, he felt nothing except the oppressive shadow of despair darkening his soul.  He had become a man trapped in a tunnel, reaching out for the flickering light at its end, knowing that if he did not escape, he would be rendered useless and irrelevant to the world once everything fell completely black.

His phone rang. Slightly drunk and despondent, he sat up straighter, glancing around as if he had forgotten where he was.  He fumbled to remove his phone from his pocket.

“Yes?”

“Miss Sanchez to see you, sir?”

“Yes,” he confirmed to the doorman.  “From this point forward, always send her up.”

Sven rose from the sofa and called into his phone. “Time?”

The robotic voice answered back. “Five fifteen. P. M.”

Five fifteen
, he considered with a frown. 
She was late
.  Sven paced unevenly around the spacious living room.  Tonight’s dinner commenced at eight, and Ebony hadn’t yet sent over their wardrobe.  There would barely be enough time for them to dress—much less familiarize themselves more with each other—before he thrust her in front of the most important people in his life.

It all suddenly felt like a grave mistake, a gross miscalculation of judgment by a man who was accustomed to the flawless precision of his own strategic decisions influencing the successful achievements within his life.  Despite his attempts to appear otherwise, he knew he was no longer the same Sven van der Meer he had been—ruthless, fearless, uncompromising.  Instead, he felt like a thin shadow who was desperate to keep up the facade of being the indomitable version of him.

The front door buzzed.

“Door—open,” he said aloud, his stern voice booming off the sleek marble floor.  The front door vibrated ajar and Inez’s blurry figure strode through it.

“You’re late,” he stated, as if it was a fact rather than an accusation.

“It’s not my fault that your driver navigates the slow lane like he’s a cadaver.”

Sven muted his smile as she approached him. 
It was true
.  James did often drive in the slow lane like a cadaver. 

“It’s a new Rolls.  I’m sure he was just being extra careful.”

“Well, next time, let me drive that thing myself and I’ll get back when you want me back.”

“Hopefully, with the car in one piece.”

“Optional.”  She shrugged and brushed past him towards the panoramic windows.  “Wowzas…that’s some view.”  Pressing her nose and forehead against the glass, she peered out across Lake Michigan, tinged pink and orange by the withering rays of twilight.

“It’s a bit of a commute,” he said, yielding to a strange desire to make his lifestyle seem more modest and accessible to her. 

“Why?  Because your office is downtown?”

“No.  Up and down the elevator.”

He heard her snort, amused by him. 
It was a start
.

His gaze lingered on her clothes.  Jeans and a wide neck T-shirt, slung to one side.  He strained his vision to make out the curve of her exposed bra strap. 
Orange
.  Then, he looked down at her feet—sneakers.

She gazed down at the tiny dots along the bike path. “It must be nice to be constantly reminded that we’re all just tiny ants in this cruel, cruel world.”

Normally, he would seize upon a remark like that and belittle it.  But there was an edge of sincerity in her voice that made him refrain from provoking her.

“And there it is…The Spire,” she proclaimed, her voice trailing off as she cast her eyes onto the twisting silver spindle of reflective glass and steel, cutting like a spear through the cityscape.  “I suppose it says something about you that you can see it directly from your penthouse.”

“Only that it’s the most important building in my career,” he asserted.  “I designed it, built it, and financed it from ground zero.  Every part of it represents me.  It is my most accomplished achievement—as an artist and as a man.”

“Too bad it’s the most hated building in the city.”

He stopped, uncertain whether to be annoyed or charmed. 
She had that effect on him
.  It was hard to take himself so seriously when she refused to.

“Can I make you a drink?” he asked, like a peace offering.

“I’m not certain I should be drinking on the job.” 

“For both of our sakes, I’m fairly certain you will need to.  Wine?” 

“French Martini. Vodka, pineapple juice, Chambord.  Shaken not stirred.”

He flinched, absorbing the complexity of her order. 
She was challenging him
,
obviously
.  And he would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he enjoyed it. 

He turned towards the kitchen, silently counting his steps.  Three months ago, when his vision had started to degenerate, he completely re-designed his penthouse to help him navigate with ease.  Six steps to the contemporary handwoven floor rug.  Six steps across it.  One step to the base of the half flight of stairs up to the entertainment bar.  Four steps up to its apex. 

“So how much help do you need these days?” she asked. 

Perhaps he had counted too loudly, or perhaps he was moving too slowly.
Like poor James, the cadaver
.

“You see that painting with the water lilies?” He pointed across the living room, seeking to divert her attention away from him.  “Today, I can only see twenty of the lilies.”

“Um…you mean the Monet painting on the wall?”

“Yes.”  He fumbled around the liquor cabinet, searching for his mixer and martini glasses.

“The friggin’
real
Monet painting on your wall?”

He stopped to consider her slang.  “You mean as opposed to a $9.99 print from art.com or something?”

“Don’t be a jackass.  I’m serious.”

He paused, confused.  That time, he hadn’t actually intended to be an ass. 
Art history major
, he thought, feeling through the cabinets for the vodka and the Chambord. 
Yes, he remembered now
.  Then, he considered reprimanding her for disrespecting him as her boss; he couldn’t allow her to do that tonight—not during dinner.  But truth be known, he rather liked the way she so flippantly called him a jackass. 

“It’s an original, I assure you,” he confirmed and let the rest slide.

She crossed her arms and challenged him.  “Sotheby’s just auctioned off one of those painting from his
Water Lilies
series for forty million dollars.”

Sven grimaced. He couldn’t help it.  Forty million dollars was an insultingly low sum for a Monet original, especially one of his later works. “Well, then…I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get rid of it at my garage sale last week.”

“With all of your billionaire friends?” she sniped before releasing an unguarded laugh. 
Like a mischievous child
, he thought, as if the thought of a garage sale put on by a bunch of billionaires was the funniest thing in the world.

“Trying to get rid of all our unwanted Degas ballerinas,” he said, playing along.

“And girlie pastel Renoirs.”

“And boring Pissarro landscapes.”

“And erratic van Gogh self-portraits, especially those imbalanced ones with only one ear.” 

He stopped and studied her.  Most Americans mispronounced it as “van Go.”  But she said it exactly like it was meant to be pronounced—“van Goth.”  It was a Dutch name, after all.

“Have you been there?” She nodded to the painting.

“Where?” He questioned her, shaking up her martini.  Although he knew exactly what she meant and it surprised him. 
She was always surprising him
.

“Giverny.”

Sven paused with a smirk.  He wasn’t used to conversing with women who knew about Monet’s studio sanctuary just outside of Paris. 
A Northwestern girl who could have gone to Harvard or Yale
.

“Of course.  Have you?”

“God no, but I’d love to…” her voice trailed off as she pushed closer towards the painting, replacing her scorn for a private moment of indulgence. “So you can only see twenty water lilies?” she finally asked before attempting to count them herself.

He waited for her to confirm there were far more water lilies than twenty. 

“There’s at least twenty little ones in the dappling beneath the bridge’s shadow,” she confirmed. “You can’t see them from there?”

Sven didn’t glance up.  He didn’t need to.  “No…not anymore.”

“Hm.” She surveyed him like she was assessing how that directly affected her—and their arrangement.

He topped of her drink. “Vodka, Chambord, and fresh lemon juice, which will have to substitute for pineapple juice.” He started down the half-flight of stairs, but forgot to count the steps.  He stumbled on the final one, losing his balance and a bit of his dignity. 

“Damn it,” he cursed at himself. The drink splashed across his hand and seeped into his cuff of his sleeve, the raspberry Chambord immediately staining it pink.

“Here, take it off so we can run it under cold water,” she offered.

Skeptical, he peered at her.

“The quicker the better,” she insisted, taking the martini glass from his hands and setting it down on the end table.  She reached out for his wrist and started to unfasten his cufflink.

“I have a hundred shirts like this one.  Let’s not make a production of it.”

She firmly placed the diamond cuff link into the palm of his hand.  He winced as she dug it into his flesh.  “Please don’t tell me you’re one of these billionaires who just throws dirty shirts and towels and sheets away instead of laundering them.  Please tell me that’s something they make up in celebrity magazines for us plebeians to snicker at because it makes us feel better, not because it can possibly be true.”

He didn’t respond.  There
was
truth in it and he didn’t have the energy to deny it.  He hated stained clothes, towels and sheets.

“Busted,” she sassed and deposited the second cufflink into his palm.  Without permission, she tugged his hands out of his sleeves before drawing off his shirt completely.

The cold air pricked his skin and his muscles flinched under her gaze.  He heard the hesitation in her breath, as if she had just realized what she had done.  She had just undressed him—and they both knew it. 

She was close enough now that he caught the scent of her detergent, or shampoo, or deodorant—something scented like lilacs and mint. 

“Okay, let’s see some of this plebeian magic,” he quipped.