Chapter 34
Caroline
One morning, while I was spinning on the exercise bike at the gym, Lucien texted me. I kept spinning, but I lowered the resistance a bit while replying to him.
Lucien: Are you ready to write my biography? Or do I need to seduce you with sushi on my boat once more before you will agree?
Me: Calling your yacht a boat is like calling New York a village. Your yacht is basically a floating mansion.
Lucien: I cannot help but observe that this answer is not a no.
Me: You should observe that it’s not a yes, either.
Lucien: It is not a yes at this time. Will it become a yes in the near future?
I currently had about twenty pages of notes on Lucien Moreau on my laptop.
I’d been doing research on him, beginning with what was publicly available online and eventually reaching out to people in the business world who had personal dealings with him.
Now that I was making significant progress on the Blackstone biography, the idea of a follow-up project centered around Lucien was a lot more appealing.
It felt less daunting than it had a month ago when he first tried to hire me.
I wasn’t going to tell him that, though. Not yet.
Me: My primary focus right now is Harrison’s book. I can’t allow myself to be distracted.
Lucien: Would a lovely evening in Toronto be distracting? Masaki Saito has reserved his entire restaurant for me tonight. If I send my jet, you can be here in time for pre-dinner drinks.
Me: That is extremely tempting. But I will have to pass.
Lucien: My Toronto flat has a beautiful view of Lake Ontario. I would love to spend the evening with you. We could take our time, rather than feeling rushed to return to a party.
Me: I thought you never slept with the same woman more than once?
Lucien: Where would you get such an outrageous idea?
Me: You have a reputation. You’re famous for discarding women the way normal men discard tissues.
Lucien: I would make an exception. For you.
My watch beeped; my heart rate had jumped up into Zone Four, way too high for the workout I was doing on the bike. I slowed to a stop and toweled off my face.
Lucien’s offer was tempting. But that’s why I had to say no.
Me: Another time. Perhaps.
I thought about Lucien’s offer for the rest of the day. I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I daydreamed about that day on his yacht, the way his fingers interlaced over mine on the edge of the chair while I cried out with an almost painful amount of ecstasy.
The next day, I thought more about his biography.
He had already offered me an insane amount of money to write it.
I knew I could probably negotiate an even higher number.
Maybe enough to retire. Or I could quit my job and write biographies full-time.
My agent had put feelers out, and was already getting whispers of other New York celebrities who would hire me after the Blackstone biography came out.
If I released that book, then Lucien’s biography, I would have a lot of momentum in the industry.
But even if I agreed to it, I had a larger concern: The Wall Street Journal. That job was important to me, far more important than any billionaire fling. I loved being a journalist. I had spent my entire life working up to that position, and wasn’t sure I was ready to stop.
If I could write Lucien’s biography and return to my job at the same time, though…
“I’m glad your project is going well,” Eddie said when I called him that afternoon. “We’re eager to have you return to work. I miss you, Caroline.”
“I miss you too!” I said. “And I miss your wife’s brownies.”
He chuckled on the other end of the phone. “Between you and me, I’m not happy with Jonathan’s work. He’s a fine writer, but he doesn’t have your edge.”
“I know. I read his piece on Russian oil prices yesterday. So does that mean I can work on another biography on the side when I eventually come back to The Journal?”
There was a pause. I pictured Eddie chewing on his fingernails, which he only did when he was struggling to decide something. “Let’s get lunch on Saturday and discuss it.”
“That’s not a no!” I said excitedly.
“It’s not. Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’ll see you then.”
I was giddy with excitement for the rest of the day. Harrison even commented on it when I was at his place that night.
“I’m just happy with how well your biography is going,” I told him.
“I have another reason for you to be happy,” he said with a smile, pausing to refill both of our wine glasses. “Block off Saturday on your calendar. We have plans.”
“This Saturday?” I asked. “Just the evening?”
“The entire day. I’ll send the car to pick you up at nine in the morning.”
“I have lunch plans.”
“Cancel them,” he said.
“Can I know why I’m canceling?” I asked.
All he said was, “No.”
I took a long sip of my wine to give myself a moment to think. “I know I’m your biographer, and I’ve been happy to bend my schedule to accommodate you so far. But I don’t really like you ordering me around like this.”
“Caroline.” He waited until I met his gaze. “Whatever plans you have, reschedule them. I promise this will be worth it.”
I instinctively wanted to push back, if only to set some healthy boundaries. But there was a sparkle of something in his eye that stopped me. I trusted him.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll reschedule.”
Colbert reappeared on the screen, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Months ago, I hated Harrison Blackstone.
I thought he was the personification of everything wrong with this city, and the entire world.
Now I was doing whatever he asked, without any information.
Canceling plans with Eddie, my oldest friend and colleague.
That realization bothered me all week. Even though Eddie agreed to reschedule without a second thought, I wondered if I was allowing myself to change too much. I had been away from The Journal too long, and was too wrapped up in Harrison Blackstone. My priorities were all out of whack.
Then, on Thursday night, I fell asleep with my head on Harrison’s shoulder. One moment we were watching Seth Meyers, and the next moment he was gently shaking me awake.
I jumped up like the couch was covered with spiders. “Shit. Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said gently. “It’s not a big deal. Really.”
I practically fled from his penthouse after that, skipping our goodbye hug. I struggled to sleep, tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable in my bed.
My mind raced.
The next morning, after a few hours of fitful sleep, I stared at myself in the mirror. I used to think of myself as a powerful New York woman, someone who was as dangerous with a keyboard as an assassin with a blade. A counter to the rich and powerful who ran this city.
Now? I wasn’t sure who the woman was looking back at me.
I had to stop hanging out with Harrison personally. We needed to return to a professional relationship, meeting only at his office, even if the times weren’t convenient. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became.
His car picked me up and drove me to the airport.
Harrison told me to pack light; he said I didn’t need anything fancy to wear, just enough clothes for a single night, which of course confused me even more about whatever this surprise was.
I was tempted to cancel altogether, but was afraid that might damage our professional relationship.
By the time I arrived at Teterboro, I decided the easiest thing would be to tell him tonight. That I couldn’t come to his penthouse anymore, and that it was time for us to return to a regular schedule between subject and writer.
“So,” I said while striding onto the plane. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
Rafael was pacing at the back of the plane, his phone held to his ear. He gave me a small smile that only I could see.
Harrison was in his usual chair, one leg crossed over the other while he read today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal. “A wedding,” he said, casually flipping to the next page. “You’re my plus-one.”
“Are you going to tell me more than that?”
“Yes. But not until we arrive.” He glanced up and smiled. “Surprises are more fun when they remain surprises.”
His plus-one. Yeah. The lines were definitely getting blurred at this point.
I took the seat across from him and opened my laptop.
He was trying to get a rise out of me, but I had editing to do, so I pushed him out of my mind.
And for the most part, I was able to focus on my work, although there was a brief moment where that became difficult when Rafael took the seat across the aisle from us, grumbling about something related to security.
Lucien texted me during the flight to say that he couldn’t stop thinking about me.
For now, I ignored it. But deep down, he had stayed in the back of my mind, too.
The feel of his lips on my body, and the way his fingers dug into my skin.
The way he pronounced my name, his accent turning the word Caroline into something exotic.
I wondered what I was going to do about that. For now, I pushed it aside.
Mountains rose up as we descended to a private airstrip. According to my phone, we were in the middle of nowhere, Montana. But as the plane taxied, I saw a line of private jets parked on the runway.
“So, it’s one of your billionaire buddies getting married?” I asked.
“Kind of,” Harrison said with a grin. He was enjoying this.
That annoyed me. Especially since I had decided to reestablish our professional boundaries tonight.
“At some point, it stops being a fun surprise and starts feeling like a kidnapping,” I scolded.
“I don’t know what kind of women you typically fly around the world on mystery trips, but I like to know where I’m going, and for what, and for how long.
Because if I’d known you were going to drag me to the wedding of some billionaire I’ve never even heard of, I probably would have declined. ”
Infuriatingly, Harrison’s smile deepened. “Oh, you know her.”
“It’s a her?” I paused to think. “One of the Walton daughters? Miriam Adelson? Or is it that woman who inherited all of David Koch’s fortune?”
“This billionaire is entirely self-made,” he clarified, as if it were a clue to some game.
“Surprised you haven’t figured it out yet,” Rafael said, favoring me with a smile. “It might be, quite literally, the most famous wedding in the history of the world.”
That’s when it hit me.
A self-made billionaire.
A woman.
Famously getting married soon.
I’d been vaguely aware of it in the news, but had been so focused on everything with Harrison that it didn’t register.
“You’re joking,” I breathed. “It can’t be.”
Harrison flashed a toothy smile. “You just figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Are we… are we guests at the wedding of…”
“That’s right,” Harrison said dramatically. “Tonight, we’re guests at the wedding of Taylor Swift.”