A Tour #2
It wasn’t just the topic. It was the way he talked about it, the way his passion pulled me in without effort. I wasn’t playing a part this time. I was just . . . there. And I liked it.
“Then let me show you more.” He invited me to climb back into the Jeep with a gesture, his eyes never leaving mine. “I believe our coffee should be ready by now.”
The next stop was his office. It was surprisingly utilitarian for a man of his wealth.
I’d known he had an office building in town and kept a suite at the Cosmopolitan.
But nothing in my research had prepared me for the simplistic room situated on the second floor of an unpretentious modular building—the kind construction crews use on sites.
It smelled of dust and coffee and freshly oiled gears.
A glass wall opened up a view of a section of the array, and I stood there taking it in.
I noticed the intriguing art piece on the white wall at the back of the office, stretching between the corner and the door.
My eyes were fixed on the art installation that felt like it didn’t belong.
It was made of small cubes, spheres, and pyramids affixed to the wall in what appeared to be a random pattern.
Sunlight coming from the window at my right landed on the art installation and cast shadows on the wall as it hit the geometrical shapes, but that only added to the randomness of the visual effect.
The shadows shifted in a mesmerizing, almost hypnotic dance as I moved through the office.
I controlled the visual effect of those shadows with every step I took, sideways and back.
“What is this?” I asked, turning toward Winston to find him only inches away from me, holding two coffee cups. He offered me one, but his smile waned at my question, sadness washing over his face like a shadow.
He set his coffee cup down on the steel-frame desk and touched my elbow, inviting me to follow him across the room toward the back wall. I did, and stopped straight in front of the art piece.
“I started my career in fracking, taking over the business from my father.” I’d already known this about him, and how that had ended badly, but I didn’t show my hand. “This art installation resembles the layout of my last fracking project. It was in North Dakota.”
“Oh,” I said, waiting for him to continue, and knowing there was a lot more to the story than that. But he didn’t say anything else. He just stared at the art piece, his jaw tightening.
“Do you miss it?”
He shook his head slowly and took my hand, guiding me back toward his desk. “Take a seat.”
I blinked, again caught off guard. He only nodded, pulling the chair out as if he’d anticipated my hesitation. I sat, then pushed it closer to the desk, his hands lingering on my shoulders as I did.
“What do you see now?” he asked, pointing at the mesmerizing art piece.
I turned my attention to the wall and gasped. Sunlight hit the art installation just right, projecting blotches of deep shadow on the back wall and spelling the words Never Again. The shadow-spelled words were visible only from that spot where I sat. Where he sat behind his desk every day.
Emotion choked me as I remembered what I’d read online about his North Dakota fracking business. “What happened?”
He paced the office for a moment, then retrieved his coffee cup and took a long swig, his hand trembling slightly.
“It blew up,” he said simply, leaning against the desk, his voice rough with pain.
“It was nobody’s fault; sometimes these things have blowouts.
You hit a high-pressure pocket, and the gas surge travels fast, too fast to contain—” He stopped, as if the words were too painful to speak.
“It killed people, Olivia. People I cared about.” He looked out the window, his jaws firmly clenched and deep lines ridging his forehead.
“I shut the whole thing down that day, and decided I was done with anything that could jeopardize people’s lives. There had to be a better way.”
“And there is,” I said softly, fighting the urge to reach for his hand.
“Yes, there is,” he said, his voice now firmer. The emotion gone, safely locked inside. “And I bet you didn’t come here for this.”
“How would you know that?” I asked, my voice quieter now.
He exhaled, the weight of something unspoken lingering against the silence. For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he extended his hand to me. It was a shift, a way to move past the raw edges of the conversation.
I took it, letting him pull me to my feet, drawing a quick breath to steady myself.
“I came here for you,” I blurted. “Whatever that entails.” The words slipped out before logic could catch up, before I could remind myself to play it cool.
But restraint felt pointless now. Whatever this was, this pull between us, this charged force, it had already taken hold.
He looked at me as if he’d never seen me before, his eyes searching mine, the earlier sadness in them replaced by something else—something darker, deeper, more intense.
He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his jaw, then glanced around the office as if looking for something.
“I thought you might want to see where I actually work when I’m not in town schmoozing with bankers, investors, and regulators,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
“Not just the grand speeches and shiny presentations, but the real part of it. How the sun changes lives.” His gaze flicked to the art installation on the back wall.
“And I guess . . . I wanted the company.”
It felt like an admission. Not calculated, just honest. I held my breath, hoping for more. Aching for more.
A long moment passed before he straightened, pulling himself back to the present. “Let’s get you home.”
The earlier sadness clung to him, chilling the air between us. The magic was gone.
We didn’t speak much on the ride back to my house, the hum of the engine filling the silence between us.
I should have been planning my next move, planning the steps ahead like I always did.
Instead, I replayed our conversation in my mind, reliving the way he’d looked at me, the way his voice softened when he’d talked about his work.
The way, for the first time in longer than I could remember, I hadn’t felt like I was playing a part.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
He wasn’t like the others. They’d been predictable, drawn to power and greed, tangled in their own ambitions.
Liars and cheaters. Ruthless predators. Winston was different.
He didn’t manipulate, didn’t boast, didn’t try to control. He listened. He saw people.
He had seen me.
A quiet unease settled in my chest. There was something about Winston Donovan, something I’d never had to face before. My own feelings.
They’d taken me by surprise, creeping in slowly and then rushing in all at once, leaving me breathless and unnerved.
I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for him—this was supposed to be just another job, another mark.
But with Winston, it was different. His warmth, his intensity, the way he looked at me as if he could see right through the walls I’d built . . . It scared me, and I hated that.
There was no place for feelings in my game. Feelings make women messy. Careless. And then heartbroken.
When he pulled up in front of my house, he didn’t seem to notice Jack, who leaned against a tree across the street, making absolutely no effort to be inconspicuous. I didn’t miss the stunned expression on the man’s face when he recognized Winston.
When the Jeep’s engine cut out, I turned to Winston and smiled. “Thank you for a wonderful tour.”
I wished I could see through those dark lenses. For a long moment, he just looked at me, a faint smile fluttering on his lips. Then he took my hand to his lips and whispered, “It’s your turn now, Olivia. Show me what makes you happy.”
District Attorney Mitchell: In what capacity did you interact with the defendant?
Kevin Murphy: I drove her to the DMV one day—the one on Sahara Avenue. I’m a cab driver.
District Attorney Mitchell: Did you notice anything unusual in her behavior?
Kevin Murphy: She was constantly looking to see if someone was following her.
She had me drive up the Strip for a while, to make sure.
Only then she told me to take her to the DMV.
She got pissed off in a second when I offered to take her to another DMV than the one she wanted. Short fuse on that one.
Defense Attorney Blake: Objection! Improper character evidence, Your Honor.
Judge Thomas Antunez: Overruled.