Masquerade: Her Billionaire - Venice

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “I was poor,” he said curtly. “So what? What’s your point?”

  God yes, he’d been poor. He’d held down two jobs while studying full time and had accumulated massive student debt on top of it, yet he always insisted on paying whenever they went out. She had a generous allowance from her father but he wouldn’t hear of her paying, not even for a coffee. Sometimes the only way she could get around that was to simply show up at his apartment with takeout. And she always made sure she brought more than they could eat so he’d have leftovers for a couple of days.

  “Yes, you were very poor and your prospects at Boston U weren’t good. You knew that as well as I did. You would continue working as a teaching adjunct and you’d have stayed there for at least another ten years, overworked and underpaid. The teaching jobs would have kept you so busy you wouldn’t have been able to do any decent research. By the time you woke up ten years later, your career would’ve been gone, you’d have been living in genteel poverty and above all, you wouldn’t have been able to hold down any jobs outside the university system. And even there, even brilliant as you are, you’d have had to hold tight to the ladder because younger, fresher, richer kids were coming right up behind you.”

  Cal’s mouth tightened. He recognized what she was saying as true. It was all true.

  “Your one big hope was that fellowship in Stanford, and the job at Benson Labs. It was your big break. And look at you.” She waved her hand at him again, top to bottom. “You own Phoenix, one of the biggest engineering companies on earth. I was involved in the Diplomacy Dossier so I didn’t pay much attention to the Tech Dossier, but even I have heard of Phoenix. It’s a big part of what makes the Accords work. Cheap water. Solving the age-old problem of potable water forever. It’s a miracle of engineering and it’s probably the biggest engineering contract on earth and it’s all your doing. I cannot imagine how hard you’ve worked to create the technology and build your company but I know that you deserve it all. I heard talk at one point of a Nobel Peace Prize for the owner of Phoenix. I had no idea that was you.”

  Cal’s face hadn’t softened but he shrugged one big shoulder. “So it was an opportunity, so what? You knew that. You’re the one who encouraged me to try out for that post-doc fellowship program, remember?”

  “I do.” Anya nodded. Cal had deserved so much more than his future would have been back in Boston. “And I was more than willing to go to California with you.”

  “Until you weren’t,” Cal said bitterly.

  How hard those days had been, after her father had told her of his illness, of the possibility of his company going belly up taking two thousand jobs with it. Thousands of employees and their families that counted on the business. She was making it work, keeping it together. Cal had had no idea of her stress, which is how she’d wanted it. There was the hope that the sale could go through before he was offered anything.

  And then he’d won the fellowship and her heart had broken. She knew what she had to do and she did it.

  Cal placed a big hand on the back of his neck and looked away, maybe at that scene ten years in the past where their lives were irrevocably shattered. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I can’t believe you thought I’d talk, that I could jeopardize the sale of your father’s company.”

  “Oh no.” Anya reached out a hand, hesitated a moment, then touched his forearm. It was hard as steel and she could feel the tension under her fingertips. So strange — they’d had sex and yet this light touch felt more intimate than the sex. Intimate and dangerous. “I told you, I didn’t think you’d talk. I knew you better than that. You’re an honorable person.”

  Cal looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “Then what the fuck, Anya! What made you —” his voice cracked.

  She reached up, gently took his chin and made him look at her. She waited a minute so he would look. Look beyond his anger and hurt.

  “I was hoping I could … run out the clock. That Dad could sell the company under his conditions, that we could save all those jobs at least for five years. I knew Dad wouldn’t last long, but he’d lived a long life under his terms. He missed my mother terribly. He was ready to go. Another few months and at least his dream of saving his employees’ jobs would come true. But then—you got the Stanford offer and …” Her throat closed up. Simply seized up. She couldn’t get anything out, it felt like thorns had grown inside her throat. It hurt to talk, it hurt to breathe. Cal was scowling at her, but she had to do this. “And I had to give you up.”

  The cords of his neck stood out. “Goddamit Anya, why? Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?”

  “Because you’d have turned the offer down,” she said simply and watched as the anger spilled out of him, like air out of a balloon. “I know you. If I told you I was having problems, and couldn’t come with you, you’d have said no to Stanford.” Again, she waved a hand at him, at the highly successful man he’d become, so very different from the harried academic he would have been, a shadow of what he could have been. All that potential — gone. He’d have done that for her without a second thought. And she’d have never forgiven herself.

  Cal shoved his hands in his tuxedo pants pockets, mouth tight.

  “You know I’m right, Cal,” she said softly, keeping her gaze on his face.

  He’d once been an open book to her. He’d been just a boy then and now he was a man. A man who’d founded a global enterprise, had fought his way up. But for just an instant there, a fleeting second, she saw the boy she’d loved so much.

  “Think back, to ten years ago. Think back to —” She swallowed heavily. “— to what we meant to each other. And imagine I come to you and say I have a terrible problem to face, that I have to shield my father while negotiating a favorable sale of the company, otherwise the lives of thousands of people will be wrecked. That I am under terrible, soul-crushing pressure. What would you have said?”

  He stood silently.

  “What would you have done? I can’t even to begin to imagine you saying, ‘Sorry babe. That’s on you, not on me. Not my problem. I have the opportunity of a lifetime and I’m not missing it.’ Not in my wildest imagination. You would have been incapable of leaving me if you’d thought I was in trouble. Am I right?” He still didn’t say anything, though his jaw clenched. She took a step closer to him. “Am I right?”

  He nodded, a jerk of his head. Not wanting to admit it.

  “You were young and in love and so sure of yourself. No way you’d have abandoned me. You couldn’t see the future, but I could. Very well. You beat incredible odds getting as far as you had, but you were at the end of the road where you were. That PhD wasn’t going to get you much further if you wanted to stay in Boston with me. They were already loading you down with TA jobs and editing scientific papers and having you all but sweeping the floors of the labs. There wasn’t a big project for you to join. You’d have been stuck there forever and maybe not even unhappy, but you wouldn’t have reached your full potential. You certainly wouldn’t have been what you are now. The head of Phoenix, a man who changed the world. I don’t know much about the Technical Dossier. The Diplomatic Dossier was hard enough. But even I know that without cheap water, the Accords would never have taken place. You did that, Cal. You’re right up there with Gates and Jobs and it never would have happened without that fellowship at Stanford. I could see it then, plain as day, how far you’d get. And you couldn’t see it. The only way to get you to go was to push you away.”

  The memory of that sharp, unending pain nearly brought her to her knees. That afternoon she’d felt as if she were cutting her own heart right out of her chest. She’d thought they had time, but no. She’d had to devastate the man she loved and destroy her own heart in the process. Her throat was sore, the words coming out as if cut by knives. “So that’s what I did.”

  “Jesus, Anya.” He was pale, features tight, lines bracketing his mouth. “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you didn’t come to me at least after
the sale. I remember reading about it later the next year. Why didn’t you come to me then, explain everything?”

  “I did,” she said softly.

  Oh God, she’d thought of him every single day. Because she wanted to touch him, hold him, she groped for something else to hold. Her cell. She picked it up from the top of the piano, clutched it, the very symbol of how in tune they were, always had been, probably always would be. But she wanted to hold him, not the cell, so she put it back down.

  “What?”

  “I did come to you. We made the sale, the jobs were saved, and my father died. After I buried him, that very same day, I flew out to California, hired a car and drove to Palo Alto. I didn’t even look you up before leaving. All I could think about was being free of obligations and making my way back to you. It was evening when I arrived, dark, but I was in a frenzy to see you. I drove around while trying to book a hotel room on the phone — there was some kind of conference and everything was full — and then I saw you.”

  He breathed out. “When was this?”

  “End of July.”

  “Shit.”

  She closed her eyes, remembering. “Yeah. I was waiting for a traffic light to turn green when I saw you with this beautiful woman. The two of you crossed the street right in front of me. You were arm in arm. She had a huge rock on her left-hand ring finger. That wasn’t so bad. But you had a gold wedding band.”

  He blew out a gusty breath. “I met Martina in April and we were married a couple of months later.”

  Didn’t take you long to forget me, she thought, but didn’t say. She didn’t have any right to snark or anger. But if she thought her heart had broken back in Boston when she left him, that was nothing. Watching Cal cross the street right in front of her in Palo Alto, arm in arm with a beautiful woman, the two of them laughing and staring into each other’s eyes, the very picture of two people in love — well that had made her heart implode in her chest.

  “I looked you up, then, finally. Should have done that before jumping on to a plane. And there it was, the wedding announcement. I looked at it then looked up at the two of you crossing the street.”

  It still hurt, ten years later. Watching Cal and his new bride

  cross the street, walk down the opposite sidewalk to a fancy restaurant, watching him open the door for his bride with that protective aura she had thought was for her and her alone … it had been such a shock that she’d had to pull over on the next street and wait for her hands to stop shaking. She couldn’t drive in that moment, it was like she’d been concussed, only in the heart.

  It had hurt to breathe.

  She couldn’t stay the night in Palo Alto, simply couldn’t. So she turned around and drove back to SFO and waited on a hard, uncomfortable chair all night for the early flight back to Boston, staring into space, feeling each slow, painful beat of her heart.

  Cal watched her, those light eyes almost glowing. “We married in June and were divorced by November.”

  Anya let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “What went wrong?”

  He shrugged a broad shoulder. “She wasn’t you. She looked like you, a little. But she wasn’t you.”

  There was nothing to say to that.

  “You made us lose ten years.” His voice was hard, jaw muscles working.

  There was nothing to say to that, either. Except she had to try. Watching him carefully, speaking as if her words were so volatile they could spark an explosion, she said, “We did lose the last ten years. But —” Anya carefully gathered her courage, feeling as if she were leaning out over a huge precipice, about to fall into an abyss. “But maybe not the next ten years.”

  She blinked back tears. It wasn’t the moment for tears. And she thought she’d cried herself out years ago.

  The thin tendril of hope hung out there, quivering and trembling. It could be severed by a sharp word or shake of the head.

  But still … The words were out there in the world.

  Maybe not the next ten years.

  Cal didn’t say anything, anything at all. Every moment somehow gave the words more weight and heft. They were taking on a life of their own.

  Anya felt hollowed out, almost devastated with hope. This was crazy. Any second Cal was going to turn his back, walk out the door and carry the rest of her life away with him. He was angry and he had every right to be angry. She’d hurt him, badly. She hadn’t wanted to, but she had. And if there were a time machine to take her back to that terrible moment in time, she’d do it again. Cal had deserved his moment in the sun. He’d earned everything that had come to him. No way she’d take it away.

  The words were still there, a possibility shimmering in the air. Maybe not the next ten years.

  The lights flickered once, twice.

  Or was it her heart?

  Say something, Cal. The words were right there, she could taste them in her mouth. But she also didn’t want him to say anything. Like that scientific paradox Cal told her about — Schrodinger’s Cat. Until you opened the box, you didn’t know if the cat was dead or alive.

  Until Cal spoke, she didn’t know whether to hope or not.

  “The next ten years,” he said, voice flat and low.

  Tension gripped her throat. She couldn’t say anything, no words would come out. All she could do was nod.

  “Hmm.” A corner of his mouth went up. “I like the sound of that.”

  Was that — was that a smile? Then she ran through what he’d said. He liked the sound of the next ten years.

  A raw sound came from her throat. Not a sob. More like her heart trying to fight its way out of her throat. She fell into his arms, crying wildly. She’d just finished crying and here she was again. She never cried, but now it was like her eyes were created to leak water.

  Her arms went around his waist and she leaned into him, just like she used to. And just like before, his arms went around her in a tight embrace. She felt safe, protected. She hadn’t felt protected like this for ten years. He didn’t try to shush her, he just bent his head over hers and cupped the back of her head and let her cry. She felt a kiss on the top of her head and cried harder.

  Oh God, this felt so good! She’d missed this, missed this so fiercely. And now — now he was back. The Cal she’d loved so much.

  Anya shifted her head and kissed him right over his heart. Right on a very expensive Egyptian cotton pleated tuxedo shirt, leaving a lipstick kiss.

  She laughed, voice soggy. “I left lipstick stains on your shirt.”

  “Do I look like I care?” She felt the vibration of his deep voice against her cheek resting on his chest and sighed happily.

  His firm fingers on her chin lifted her face to his. His face was — oh God. Yes. This was Cal, her Cal, come back to life. He looked like he’d dropped decades and he was smiling.

  “Anya,” he murmured and kissed her. She opened her mouth and her heart to him, kissing him back and —

  The lights went out.

  It took her a second to realize that the lights had blacked out and that it wasn’t she who’d blacked out.

  There was a snick of the door opening, but the lights must have been out all over the villa because there was no light coming from the hall. There was just a tenuous glow from the torches flickering in the corners outside.

  The music had stopped, voices rising in surprise and consternation.

  And suddenly there were shadows darker than the darkness. Hard hands yanked her away. The sounds of meaty thuds, a cry of pain from a male voice that wasn’t Cal’s. Another thud, the crash of wood breaking. The hard hands holding her tightened as she tried to break away. There was a struggle going on, dark and deadly, grunts of violence, the heavy breathing of combat, the sounds of flesh striking flesh.

  Cal was fighting. He was a good fighter, had been a martial arts adept all his life.

  Had these men come to kidnap him? If so, he was giving them the fight of their lives.

  Anya stopped struggling and didn’t make a
sound. The last thing Cal needed was to be distracted by her, by her voice, by fear for her.

  She couldn’t help him in any way but by her stillness and silence so she was still and silent.

  A body flew across the room, landing against what she remembered was a console with an antique mirror above it. She felt the rush of air as the body flew past. The mirror fell in crystalline shards that tinkled as they fell to the floor, a macabre contrast to the sounds of violence.

  Could that body have been Cal? Was he now lying in a pool of blood from a thousand cuts?

  No, the animal-like sounds of close battle continued. A fist connected with a stomach, breath leaving a body with a pained whoosh. A sudden crack of a bone breaking.

  A low, male voice said something in Chinese. The spray. What —

  The sound of liquid spraying, the sound of a body thudding heavily to the floor.

  Someone switched on a flashlight with a narrow beam set on low. But it was enough to get a dim perception of the situation.

  There were two men standing, other than the one gripping her from behind, plus two men on the ground, very still. One of them was Cal and her heart nearly stopped.

  The two men standing had pushed up goggles onto their foreheads. Night vision goggles. These sons of bitches had had night vision! Not only had they outnumbered Cal five to one — they’d been able to see while he was fighting blind.

  And now Cal was motionless on the ground, as if asleep or … no. She wasn’t going there. Cal couldn’t be dead, simply couldn’t. The narrow beam of the flashlight cast him in pitiless shades of light and darkness but she couldn’t see a pool of blood around him.

  Maybe …

  Yes!

  His broad chest was slowly rising and falling! Oh God! Anya put a hand to her mouth to suppress a sob of relief. The less attention she drew to herself the better. But now that she knew Cal was alive, a rush of rage bolted through her.