Chapter 2 #3
We stare at each other, and I can see my father weighing his options.
He could forbid me from taking the courses or threaten to cut me off financially.
He could make this a battle of wills. But he knows me well enough to recognize when I'm immovable.
And despite everything, despite his anger and his concerns, he trusts me.
I've never failed him. I’ve never let personal interests interfere with family business.
He doesn't know that this is different. That this isn't a calculated decision but something closer to compulsion.
"Fine," he says finally. "Take your archaeology courses. But Romeo—" He steps closer, his voice dropping. "Don't let this interfere with the MBA. Whatever you think you're doing here, remember that."
"I will."
“If this gets in the way of the studies I want you to focus on, then you’ll drop out of those classes. Immediately. No arguments, no negotiations. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
He nods, dismissing me, and I leave his office feeling something that might be triumph. I've won. I've gotten what I wanted. The archaeology courses are mine, and with them, access to Savannah Beauregard.
And I play my role, exactly as I’m meant to, when classes start the next day. I attend the MBA orientation, meet my cohort, play the role of serious graduate student. I finalize the details of my schedule and confirm my enrollment in all four archaeology courses.
I’m going to get close to Savannah. I’m going to discover everything I can about her. And then I’m going to either save her or ruin her.
I'm not entirely sure which, and I don’t think it matters.
I dress casually for the first day of classes—dark jeans and a fitted charcoal T-shirt, the heat bringing out the curl in my hair, well aware of what I look like.
I’ve used it to my advantage plenty of times over the years, always with a detached calculation that has never had any personal attachment to what I’m doing.
This is different. For the first time in my life, I fucking care what a woman thinks of me.
I want Savannah to look at me and want me as much as I want her.
I want to tempt that sweet little Southern girl right out of her engagement ring, and then I want to make her mine.
Being late to class is a calculation on my part.
I want to interrupt. I want her to see me when I walk in; I don’t want there to be any chance that she’s so preoccupied that she doesn’t see me already sitting down, that she overlooks me.
The professor is clearly pissed off at the interruption, but I don’t give a shit about that.
What I care about is how, when I walk in, her eyes lock onto mine. She looks pretty and perfect in jeans and a light blue linen blouse, the buttons stopping just at the V of her cleavage, and I swear I can smell summer just looking at her.
I’m instantly hard the moment her eyes catch mine. I’ve never been so fucking aroused. Every filthy thing I can imagine runs through my head as I walk into class and head for the back row, passing close enough to her as I do that I can smell her perfume.
She smells sweet, like lemons and vanilla, and my mouth waters thinking about what it will be like to taste her. I notice, too, as I walk past, that there’s no engagement ring on her hand.
Curious.
The seminar lasts two hours, and I absorb almost nothing of what Dr. Kouris says. My entire focus is on the woman in front of me.
When class ends, she gathers her things quickly and leaves before I can engineer a natural introduction. I let her go. There's no rush. I have four classes with her this semester, countless opportunities to talk to her, to get close to her. I have time.
I walk out of the building into the late afternoon sun, and for the first time in my life, I feel truly alive. Not performing, not calculating, not playing a role, but actually alive, with something real moving through my veins instead of the emptiness I’ve felt for twenty-six years.
It's dangerous, I know. It's a vulnerability, a weakness, a crack in the armor I've spent my entire life constructing. It could destroy me, could compromise everything I've built, could ruin the careful plans my father has laid out for my future.
But I can’t make myself go back.
I've seen her, and I've felt something real, and I'm never going back to the hollow existence I had before. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, whatever rules I have to break or enemies I have to make, I'm going to have her.
Savannah Beauregard is mine. She just doesn't know it yet.
I pull out my phone and text Giulia: Dinner next week? That place in Little Italy you like?
Her response comes immediately: YES! I miss you! Tuesday?
Romeo: Tuesday works. 7 p.m.
Giulia: Can't wait! Love you.
Love you too, I type back, and it's one of the only times I use those words and mean them, only with her. I know what it’s like to feel some measure of filial love, but romantic?
I have no clue what that is.
I don’t know if this is it. I should feel ridiculous, even thinking it in regard to a woman I’ve never even spoken to yet. But my every thought is consumed by her, my every breath is followed by the desire to see her. It’s an obsession, and right now, it feels like love.
I head to my car, already planning my next move.
I need to find a reason to talk to Savannah, something natural and unforced.
A question about the readings, maybe. Or an observation about Dr. Kouris's lecture style.
Something that will let me get close to her, let me hear her voice directed at me, let me see what happens when those intelligent eyes focus on my face.
I'm good at this—reading people, understanding what they want, becoming whatever they need me to be. It's how I've survived in a world where showing weakness means death. It's how I've built relationships and alliances, and the careful network of connections that make me valuable to my family.
But this is different. This isn't about survival or strategy or family business. This is about need, pure and simple. I need her the way I've never needed anything before, with an intensity that terrifies me.
It also exhilarates me.
I drive home through the city streets, and I'm already counting the hours until our next class, imagining the moment when I'll finally hear her voice, when I'll finally have a legitimate reason to be close to her.
The sun is setting over Manhattan, turning the sky orange and gold, and I feel something that might be happiness—or anticipation, the dangerous thrill of standing on the edge of something that could either save me or destroy me.
I don't know which it will be, and I don’t care.
All I know is that I've spent twenty-six years feeling nothing, and now I feel everything, and it's all because of a woman I've never spoken to, a woman whose family has every reason to hate mine.
Savannah Beauregard.
Mine.
The word echoes in my mind as I park in my building's garage and take the elevator up to my penthouse. Then pour myself a scotch and stand by the window looking out over the city.
Mine.
It's not a question. It's not a hope or a wish or a possibility. It's a certainty.
I've never been more sure of anything in my life.