Chapter 6 #2
Because of the interview, she knew too much about him.
He had told her most of his secrets. Some of them she wouldn’t include in the article, they were too personal, but most of what he had said was on the record, and she would write the piece accordingly.
She owed it to her magazine to be truthful, to the best of her abilities, such as they were now.
She wondered if she could get back to an objective place when she sat down to write it.
She wondered if she should tell Henry the truth.
He could reassign it to someone else if he wanted.
But Ben’s only condition had been that she had to be the writer.
They were in a tight place on all sides.
The last day on the boat together was magical.
She had woken up in bed next to him that morning.
They showered together and made love. She had waffles for breakfast, which she hadn’t done in years, and he had fried eggs and bacon and sausages, and then they took off to their private beach and made love again, and it was even better than before.
They spent their last night talking and listening to music, and they danced on deck.
They played all of his old favorites and hers, and many were the same, since they were only three years apart, and they had a lot of history and culture in common.
He tried to explain in detail some of what he did with computers, and most of it was beyond her, but it was fascinating.
He was way out of her league. She felt as though they were both storing memories, and he promised to get back to New York as soon as he could.
They hardly slept on the last night. The boat motored to St. Martin early that morning and he drove her to the airport in the red Ferrari he kept onboard.
She was wearing jeans and boots and a T-shirt, and carrying her down jacket again, and he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
He kissed her and she walked to security and turned one last time to see him.
He was smiling and in spite of the tears in her eyes, she could see that there were tears in his eyes too.
Neither of them fully trusted Fate to bring them together again.
It had been cruel to them before. But they agreed that if they had met, there had to be a reason, and it was a reward of some kind.
Out of superstition, they didn’t make plans for when they got home.
He lived in the Dakota on Central Park West and she had her apartment in the West Village.
She was sure they would make some kind of plan.
He told her he was flying to meet the boat in Monaco in May, for the Grand Prix race.
The Karma would be back in Europe by then.
He made her promise to go with him, and she said she would.
She had thanked the captain before she left the boat, and he said he hoped to see her again, and she said she hoped so too. Those were the only promises she made, not to anger the Fates.
—
It was freezing cold when Charlotte got to New York, and there was an inch of ice and snow on the ground.
She texted Ben that she had arrived safely, then sat quietly in her living room for a while, thinking about him.
She couldn’t imagine how they would put their lives together.
He was a billionaire, and she couldn’t afford his lifestyle, but she didn’t want him paying her way.
She didn’t want to be a burden to him, or another gold digger.
He had told her they’d work it out, but she didn’t see how.
Their lives were light-years apart in every way.
Part of her regretted sleeping with him, because of the impact it would have on the interview and her ethics, but the other part of her had no regrets. She knew that for that moment, for those days, whatever happened later, she loved him.
She pulled all her notes and her research notebook out of her suitcase, read all of it, and sat down to write the article that night.
She texted Henry the next morning and told him she was writing the article at home, and he texted back that he approved.
He assumed it had gone well since he hadn’t heard from either of them after she went back for a second try.
Ben called her and she didn’t answer the call.
She didn’t want to speak to him now until she finished the piece.
She couldn’t have his voice in her head, telling her he loved her.
She had to write about him as the man he had been before they fell in love with each other.
She was trying to avoid the interview being colored by what had come later, although it would be, inevitably.
But she wanted it to be as pure as she could make it.
She worked on it nonstop for three days, living on coffee and whatever she found in her kitchen cupboards.
She didn’t leave the apartment or unpack her suitcase.
She wrote everything he had told her, the good and the bad, the things that showed what a good man he was, and his flaws, the ones he admitted and the ones she saw.
He came alive in what she had written, and she thought the reader could see that she loved him.
But it was an honorable, accurate piece, and she was proud of it when she finished.
She looked at her watch when she knew she had completed it.
It was five minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve.
She had ended the year with him, and she was happy with what she’d written.
She hoped he would be too. She read it again that night, and the next morning.
And she didn’t email it to Henry. She wanted to hand it to him after the New Year’s Day holiday.