Chapter 2 #2
Once he described inheritance as winning a race from the passenger seat.
I saved that line.
Naturally.
Maybe he made his first money in crypto.
Cybersecurity.
Private networks.
Some impossible piece of software he sold before anyone realized the programmer couldn't legally sign the contract alone.
Maybe now he has enough.
Not billions.
Enough.
A beautiful apartment somewhere.
A motorcycle he doesn't need.
One expensive watch he bought himself and pretends not to care about.
This imaginary Ghost is getting dangerously specific.
I shut down that thought.
The café door opens.
A couple enters.
They are approximately my age.
Maybe younger.
He touches the small of her back as they walk toward a table.
She leans into him without thinking.
Easy.
That is the part I envy.
Not the touching.
The certainty.
She knows his name.
Knows the shape of his hand.
Knows what expression he'll make when she steals food from his plate.
I have spent years developing feelings for a blinking green dot.
Excellent.
My gaze drops back to NULL.
What if Ghost is disappointing in person?
That's the practical fear.
Not danger.
Disappointment.
What if I finally meet him and the entire thing dies in five minutes?
Maybe he has bad teeth.
Maybe he smells wrong.
Maybe he talks with food in his mouth.
Maybe his laugh irritates me.
Maybe he is one of those men who communicates beautifully through a screen and becomes painfully shy in a room.
Or worse, maybe he thinks I am disappointing.
I glance toward my reflection in the café window.
Caramel curls.
Blue eyes.
Pink mouth.
I've never struggled for male attention.
Attention is cheap.
I've learned that.
Beauty attracts men who think attraction is achievement.
They smile at me like we have both been blessed because they have shoulders and I have breasts.
Then twenty minutes later I'm staring at an emergency exit wondering whether climbing through it would be socially acceptable.
Ghost knows my mind.
That is considerably more frightening than someone knowing my body.
What if he looks at me and the mystery is better than the woman?
I chew my lower lip.
The same one I once photographed for him.
His response had arrived eleven seconds later.
GHOST: Cruel.
I remember lying in bed smiling at the screen like an idiot.
Then the photograph he sent back.
No face.
Just a white shirt dragged upward enough to show part of a stomach that had absolutely no business belonging to the kind of man I had invented.
That picture caused problems.
Considerable problems.
Ghost is either unusually committed to the long con or he is physically—
I stop myself.
No.
I am not sitting in a Paris café fantasizing about anonymous abdominal muscles before ten in the morning.
My coffee arrives.
I thank the waiter.
When he's gone, I open the photograph vault.
This is research.
The image appears.
Dark fabric.
Male hand.
A sharp line of muscle.
Skin.
No identifying tattoos.
No background.
No useful reflection.
I zoom in.
Not because I'm perverse.
Because I'm a hacker.
Obviously.
His hand looks young.
That's something.
Long fingers.
No age spots.
No visible wedding band, although that proves nothing.
His body looks young too.
Maybe late twenties at most.
Unless Igor is committed to Pilates.
I laugh under my breath.
A woman at the next table glances over.
I close the photograph.
Then immediately open the one of my own mouth that I sent him.
Insane.
I am losing perspective.
The wedding invitation isn't even an invitation yet.
It's the possibility of one.
Weeks from now, Ghost may put encrypted details into NULL.
I could say no.
I should say no.
London was bad enough.
That night I had gotten close.
Closer than he knows.
I saw a tall man on the bridge.
Dark coat.
Hands in his pockets.
Still as the city moved around him.
Could have been Ghost.
Could have been someone waiting for a taxi.
I had shut down enough cameras that even I couldn't reconstruct it later.
That had been the point.
I wanted the choice to remain mine.
Then I saw him standing there.
And panicked.
Not because he looked dangerous.
Because he didn't.
Because suddenly Ghost might become real.
And real things can leave.
Screens are safer.
NULL is safer.
People don't know where you live.
They don't touch you.
They don't die.
I stare at the coffee.
That last thought comes from Papa.
It always does.
I push it away.
My screen flashes.
Ghost.
My stomach does something humiliating.
GHOST: Alive, Miss London Bridge?
I stare.
Then laugh.
He is awake.
European time.
As usual.
VESPER: I told you I hate that name.
GHOST: My friends disagree.
VESPER: Your friends are animals.
GHOST: Accurate.
I hesitate.
Then:
VESPER: How bad is the hangover?
His answer takes longer.
GHOST: Offensive.
I grin.
VESPER: Deserved.
GHOST: Also accurate.
I picture my imaginary Italian hacker sitting somewhere with black coffee, hair disordered, possibly regretting every decision from the previous evening.
Warm kitchen.
Stone house.
His mother somewhere nearby yelling that he should eat something.
Ridiculous.
GHOST: You reread the conversation.
My smile disappears.
I look around as though he might somehow be standing outside the café.
VESPER: Why would you think that?
GHOST: Because you've been online for nine minutes without saying anything.
I glance at the timer.
Nine minutes.
Twenty-three seconds.
Annoying man.
VESPER: Maybe I was busy.
GHOST: In NULL?
VESPER: Maybe I enjoy staring at your name.
I send it before thinking.
The typing indicator stops.
For several seconds, nothing.
Good.
Finally managed to shut him up.
Then:
GHOST: Dangerous confession before breakfast.
Heat slips into my cheeks.
VESPER: Who said it's before breakfast?
GHOST: Your mood.
I roll my eyes.
VESPER: You know nothing about my mood.
GHOST: You're contemplating the invitation.
I stop.
There it is.
No jokes.
My fingers hover.
VESPER: There is no invitation.
GHOST: Yet.
VESPER: Convenient.
GHOST: Nervous?
My pride reacts immediately.
VESPER: Never.
His response appears fast.
GHOST: Liar.
I stare.
He knows.
Not everything.
Enough.
I lean back and cross one leg beneath the other.
VESPER: Perhaps I am evaluating risk.
GHOST: Sensible.
VESPER: You could be sixty.
GHOST: Fifty-nine.
I laugh.
VESPER: Russian.
GHOST: Obviously.
VESPER: Gold teeth.
GHOST: Only two. Lost the others in a knife fight.
I almost choke on coffee.
That is suspiciously close to what his friends were joking about.
I type:
VESPER: Your friends have poisoned you.
GHOST: Sergei is growing on me.
VESPER: Maybe Sergei is better looking.
GHOST: Impossible.
My pulse skips.
Cocky bastard.
VESPER: There he is.
GHOST: Who?
VESPER: The ego.
GHOST: You like the ego.
I bite my lip.
Maybe.
The ridiculous thing is that I probably would.
I want somebody confident enough not to shrink when I beat him at something.
A man who doesn't need me to pretend he's smarter.
Someone who can lose a round and immediately start planning the next.
Ghost.
Always Ghost.
I look toward the couple at the other table.
The woman is stealing bites from the man's croissant.
He pretends to object.
Then pushes the plate closer.
Something inside me aches.
I'm lonely.
There.
Ugly truth.
Not alone.
Lonely.
There is a difference.
I have contacts.
Colleagues.
People I can drink wine with.
Men who ask me out.
Women I trust enough for dinner.
But nobody gets all the way inside.
Nobody except a man whose name I don't know.
Maybe that's why the wedding invitation scares me.
Because if Ghost is terrible in person, I lose the illusion.
But what if he isn't?
That possibility is worse.
What if he's everything?
My eyes drift back to his abdominal photograph before I stop myself.
Intelligence.
Humor.
The strange flashes of kindness he thinks he hides beneath sarcasm.
A body that appears promising from the limited evidence available.
What if his voice is deep enough to do something unfortunate to my nervous system?
What if he smells good?
What if he looks at me the same way he writes to me?
What if I walk into that wedding and know him immediately?
My tooth catches my lower lip.
The pulse beneath my skin changes.
No.
Absolutely not.
This is how women get murdered in documentaries.
Or married.
Unclear which is more alarming.
NULL flashes.
GHOST: You disappeared again.
I smile.
VESPER: Thinking.
GHOST: Dangerous.
VESPER: Perhaps I am imagining Sergei.
GHOST: Please stop.
VESPER: White tank top. Two gold teeth.
GHOST: I hate everyone.
VESPER: That sounds like my Ghost.
The typing indicator stays there.
A long time.
Then:
GHOST: Your Ghost?
My chest tightens.
I didn't mean to write that.
Or maybe I did.
The café suddenly feels too warm.
I could correct it.
Make a joke.
Disappear.
Old instincts.
Instead I stare at the screen.
Then type slowly.
VESPER: Don't make it weird.
His answer arrives.
GHOST: Far too late for that.
I laugh softly.
But my heart is beating harder now.
Weeks.
The invitation is weeks away.
I have time to reconsider.
Time to decide this is reckless.
Time to convince myself the safest thing I can do is stay behind the screen.
Except London already proved what safety gets me.
Ninety-seven minutes of Ghost waiting alone.
Years of wondering what I missed.
Maybe I'm tired of wondering.
I close the photograph vault.
Leave NULL open.
Outside, Paris continues around me, indifferent to whether one anonymous woman decides to meet one anonymous man.
I take another sip of coffee.
Then send one final message.
VESPER: When the invitation comes, I'll read it.
The response is immediate.
GHOST: Progress.
I smile.
VESPER: Do not celebrate.
GHOST: Too late.
VESPER: I still might not come.
The three dots appear.
Then:
GHOST: You will.
Arrogant.
Impossible.
My pulse quickens anyway.
VESPER: How can you be so sure?
His answer takes long enough that I lean closer.
GHOST: Because you're as curious about me as I am about you.
I stare at the words.
Damn him.
He is right.
And that may be the most dangerous thing about Ghost.
Not that I don't know who he is.
That somehow, without knowing who I am, he already knows exactly where to aim.