13. Cali
CALI
The next Wednesday, I get a text.
Does he explain how he got my phone number? No, he does not.
Does he add anything else to sound slightly less like a serial killer? No, he does not.
Does the direct, unapologetic, and unvarnished way he asks me out on a date please me in some strange way I can't quite explain?
… Maybe.
I squint at the text for a full minute, debating whether to tell him that I can't possibly send my children off into the night so I can go gallivanting with a man whose entire vibe is unsolved homicide.
I have responsibilities. My nine-year-old needs help with a diorama about photosynthesis and my six-year-old who refuses to fall asleep without me reading Goodnight Moon in what she calls "the cow voice. "
So I text back the only reasonable answer.
I have kids. I can't just leave.
RONAN: A sitter will arrive at 6:15. She has been bonded, background-checked, references available on request. CPR certified. You'll have her file before she rings the bell.
Ronan Akov is teaching me new things about myself. For instance, I didn't know that "references available on request" was dirty talk that would really rev my engine. Now, I know.
ME: You vetted a babysitter?
RONAN: I don't do things halfway, Ms. Meadows.
I set the phone face-down on the counter and walk away from it like it's something that might bite. Then I walk back, because I am weak and curious.
Sure enough, by the time I do my guilt trek back, I have a new file sitting in my email.
The sitter's name is Juliet Stein. She has a degree from Harvard in early childhood education, a record so clean that I can't even find evidence of a parking ticket, and a glowing reference from a family whose last name I recognize from the society pages.
There's also a note that she once won a regional Scrabble tournament.
Hayden is going to be thrilled.
Friday arrives the way all unwelcome inevitabilities do: too fast, and dressed up like something I should be excited about.
By six o'clock, I've tried on four outfits and discarded three, which is a personal record for a date I keep insisting isn't really a date. It's data, not a date. Data, not a date.
If I keep saying that enough times, maybe it'll actually be true.
I settle on the green wrap dress I bought myself two years ago and never had anywhere to wear. Todd thought green "washed me out," a phrase I now suspect was code for please dim yourself so I shine brighter.
Tonight, though, I don't feel washed out. I feel, against all odds, kind of pretty.
Juliet Stein rings the bell at 6:15 on the dot. She is twenty-six, radiates the calm of someone who has never once raised her voice, and within ninety seconds, has Hayden showing her his diorama and Isabella interrogating her about whether she's ever performed surgery on a narwhal.
("Not professionally," Juliet says gravely. Isabella decides on the spot that they are best friends.)
"I'll have my phone," I tell her, hovering by the door. "On me the entire time. If anything happens—"
"Ms. Meadows," Juliet says gently, "go enjoy your evening. We'll be fine. I brought Bananagrams."
Hayden looks at her like she's just announced she's secretly a fighter pilot.
The car is waiting at the curb at 6:45, black and gleaming and so quiet I have to look twice to confirm it's running. The driver, an older man with a gray beard and warm eyes, opens the door before I reach for the handle.
"Ms. Meadows," he says.
"Does everyone in this man's life just know my name?"
He smiles and doesn't answer, which I'm starting to understand is a family trait among Akov associates.
The restaurant is basically incognito. It's tucked off a side street in the West Village with no sign to announce its presence. Nothing but a heavy door and a host who looks at me, smiles, and bows.
Ronan is already there.
He stands when he sees me, and when that sends a surprise thrill racing over my skin, I remind myself to simply note it and move on. Stood up when I entered. One data point. Inconclusive.
He's in dark gray, no tie, the top button open, and he looks at me crossing the room without ever once blinking or moving an inch.
"Ms. Meadows," he says when I'm close enough.
"Mr. Akov."
"You look—" He pauses, and I brace for incredible or stunning or some other word charming men like to throw around like confetti. "—dangerous," he finishes.
I sit before I can react to that.
The table is small. Intimate, even, though the burned woman in me sees it and thinks, Nothing like forcing proximity to engender good feelings.
Classic manipulator's move. A candle between us throws Ronan's face into uneven gold, and his eyes churn, the gray and the blue not quite agreeing on what color they are.
"I should tell you," I say, unfolding my napkin and draping it over my lap, "that I'm here under protest."
"Are you now?"
"I am. This is a hostile experiment."
"All the best ones are. The Stanford Prison Experiment was inhumane and unethical. But it's also the only psychological experiment anyone has ever heard of."
I roll my eyes. "Of course you'd be a fan of mind games and the manipulation of power."
"I'm not a fan," he says, mild and unoffended. "I'm a student."
"Potato, potato."
"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it, Ms. Meadows," he says sagely. He hands me a menu. "And those who don't order their own wine are doomed to drink the house red."
I laugh, then cover my mouth with my hand. "That's very generous of you, to let me make decisions in my own life."
"I find," he says, "that I prefer it when you do."
A server in a pressed suit comes over. Ronan speaks to him in Italian, which makes my eyes bulge out of their sockets. It's fast and smooth and I have no idea what he's saying, but it sounds good, the real deal. I have to work hard to keep my face flat.
"What did you order?" I ask when he's done.
"One of everything."
I gawk at him. "We don't need all that food!"
He shrugs. "Then we won't eat it. But I'm not a man who limits himself, and I don't think doing so is some noble self-sacrifice. Life is meant to be lived. It's also meant to be shared. I invited you here tonight because I'd like to do both."
That shuts me up even more. With no better options, I decide to allow it.
"So." I fold my hands in front of him and fix him with my serious business glare. "Date one. Let's get on with it. What's the format here? Do you interview me? Do I interview you?"
"You tell me," Ronan says. He leans back, one arm draped over the chair, completely at ease in a way that I find faintly infuriating. "Ask me something."
I weigh my options. There are the obvious questions—What's your relationship history? How much money do you actually have? Are you on good terms with your mother?—but I figure I'll save the heavy artillery for date three. Assuming we make it that far.
So I go with something else.
"What's your middle name?"
His eyebrow ticks up. "Maksim."
"Ronan Maksim Akov." I test it. "Sounds like a man who owns at least one yacht."
"Two."
"Why am I not surprised?" I take a sip of water. "And what do you name a yacht when you have two?"
"The Yacht and The Other Yacht," he says. "I'm not creative."
I suppress a giggle. "What's the worst thing you've ever cooked?"
He blinks. "I don't cook," he says.
"Red flag," I declare. "I knew I'd find one sooner or later."
"I wish I could, but I never learned." A pang of pain crosses his face, brief, gone before I can even be sure I saw it. "There wasn't anyone to teach me."
I wince, instantly feeling like a stone-cold bitch. I bet he'd tell me if I pressed, but I'd feel invasive and rude, and something tells me it's not the right move. Not now. Not yet.
"Is it my turn?" he asks, sensing my silence.
I nod, grateful that the sommelier comes along then to pour our wines and fill the awkward gap.
"My first question," Ronan says. "What were you like before him?"
It's not what I expected. It knifes in under the ribs somewhere, in a soft spot I forgot I had.
"That's a strange question."
"I'm a strange man. You've said so yourself. Repeatedly."
I look down at the candle and think about it. Before Todd. What a concept. Did I even exist before then? Some days, it feels like a dream, badly remembered, mostly made-up.
"Before him," I say slowly, "I was… bold.
I cared about—I don't know. Everything. I'd argue with strangers.
I once made a boyfriend break up with me because I wouldn't stop correcting his pronunciation of 'nuclear.
'" I laugh, surprised by the sudden memory.
"I built things. I had this whole—I had a vision.
I was going to change things, to be someone. And then…"
I stop. Because the answer to what were you like before him is the same as the answer to what did he take away from you, and I didn't see that until it was already out of my mouth.
Ronan doesn't fill the silence. He lets me simmer in it, patient.
"And then I let someone else take the pen," I finish. "I let him tell the story of who I was. Spoiler: it wasn't a flattering edit."
"No," he agrees. "But you took the pen back. I watched you do it."
I toy with my wine glass. When I'm feeling brave enough, I glance up at Ronan's face in the candlelight. "That was almost a nice thing to say."
His mouth quirks. "Don't get used to it."
The first of the appetizers arrives then. The octopus is, I am furious to report, extraordinary. I decide not to tell Hayden about it. Might break his delicate heart. And he's only got one of them, not nine.
Ronan watches me eat with a cryptic, gentle smile painted on his face the whole time. It's wild how even his tiniest facial expressions make me so curious about the man. What are you thinking right now? What are you feeling? What do you see when you look at me?