15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Maddie
I can't believe I'm on an ice cream date with Demetrius Thornwood on a Tuesday evening. I know it's what normal people do, but it doesn't feel like it should be normal.
Just casually strolling down the street with a billionaire. Nothing to see here, just little old Madison Berwick, strutting her stuff with one of the world's most desirable bachelors. It almost feels like some supermodel is about to jump out from behind a bush and snatch him from me.
Not that I say anything. Demetrius doesn't even seem to notice when we walk down Main Street and Mrs. Kowalski spots us from across the road and makes a face that can only be described as a woman receiving a vision from the heavens.
It's that dramatic.
I look straight ahead. I eat my two scoops of black cherry. I pretend I didn't see the elderly gnome clutch her literal pearls and cover her mouth with her hand.
"You're making that face," Demetrius says just as I take another lick.
"What face?"
"The one where you're arguing with yourself."
I point my cone at him. "This is just my face. Better get used to it."
"It's not. You did the exact same thing when you were trying to decide whether to order two scoops or one."
"I ordered two, because no one in their right mind is satisfied with just one."
"I ordered one scoop."
"And you see my point."
I take a very deliberate lick of my double scoop.
He watches me and the corners of his mouth lift in a genuine, unguarded smile that takes my breath away. I can't have enough of this Demetrius.
The Demetrius of old. The Demetrius that smiles and jests and isn't concerned with governing a small empire.
I could go on ice cream dates with the old Demetrius for the rest of my life and count myself happy.
I look back down Main Street at the familiar Tuesday-evening scenery.
Old Mr. Prewitt with his basset hound doing his slow loop passes the hardware store.
The lights come on in the windows of the Wandering Gnome as Mathilda, the gnome owner of the diner, lights them up on every table.
The late-May air carries the good smell of things in bloom, something sweet on top of the usual salt-and-iodine of the ocean.
Saltford Bay in the early evening is the same as it's always been. The same oaks, the same light going warm and sideways through the leaves, the same handful of people strolling by.
But I don't feel the same. I'm so different now, I'm almost surprised people recognize me. I don't know if it's being with Demetrius or if it's the cherry ice cream, but something in me has been upgraded.
New Maddie. Bolder, happier, more confident. I like the sound of that almost as much as I love the feel of Demetrius's big, strong hand at the small of my back.
Demetrius finishes his cone before I'm halfway through mine, which isn't surprising because he is enormous. He crumples the napkin and drops it in the bin at the corner and then he takes my free hand in his like it's the most natural thing in the world. I love it more than words can say.
We walk and make small talk. It's surprisingly easy.
The waterfront piers are two blocks from Main Street, down the familiar cobblestone that runs past the harbormaster's office and the bait shop. The old wood of the pier planks goes pale in the late sun.
There are a few other people out. A young naga couple by the railing at the far end, tails coiled together as they giggle and talk low.
Two troll teenagers sitting on the dock, dangling their fishing rods.
Someone's dog, off its leash, trotting with great personal purpose toward a smell only it can identify.
Demetrius's thumb brushes the back of my hand as we walk and I look out at the harbor and let myself feel it.
Happy. I'm happy. Not performing happy. Nope. I'm just plain, uncomplicated happy.
I don't even remember a time I felt like that.
Well, that's not true. The last time I felt this happy, this unbothered and in the moment, was the last time I walked this pier with Demetrius. That felt like a lifetime ago and so close, at the same time.
I finish the last of my cone and crumple the napkin, then shove it in my pocket. Demetrius glances down at me with just the ghost of a smirk. I preempt him.
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to say anything," he says. He absolutely was going to say something.
"You were going to comment on my double scoop cone. And I would have told you that I have no regrets."
I bump his arm with my shoulder, which lands somewhere around his elbow, since he's so much taller than me.
"That is not even close to where I was aiming," I inform him.
His lips lift into a serene, satisfied smile. The kind of smile that makes me forget what I was about to say.
He turns to me on the pier with the evening light at his back and the harbor spread out behind him.
I look up at him, and then he ducks his head and kisses me.
His free hand comes up to my jaw, like he needs to hold my face in place, and then his lips close on mine, slow and unhurried and thorough.
The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding in, and I open my mouth.
He invades it eagerly, his taste mingling with mine, vanilla and sweet.
My toes curl inside my sandals.
I did not think that was an actually literal thing that happened to people. I always assumed it was a figure of speech. I am here to report that it is, in fact, completely literal, and I am experiencing it right now.
Just when my lungs are about to burst, Demetrius pulls back and looks at me, a smile just starting to show.
"You were right," he says.
"About?"
"Two scoops are better than one."
I chuckle and his fingers loosen from my jaw and slide to the back of my neck and I tip my head into his palm like some kind of extremely smitten golden retriever, which is embarrassing and also I cannot stop.
"Next time," I say.
"Next time," he agrees.
We stand there for a moment, looking at each other, the harbor behind him going pink and silver at the edges. It is the finest Tuesday evening I can remember having in forever.
That's when a flash goes off.
The flash is bright enough to catch me off-guard, a quick white pulse from my left, and I blink and turn toward it on instinct.
A gnome man is standing at the pier entrance, not more than thirty feet away, a long-lens camera trained on us.
He's short, wide-shouldered, with a massive pile of unruly dark curls on his head.
His pointed ears are poking through his hair on each side of his head, and he's wearing a jacket too heavy for the weather.
My stomach churns as I meet his gaze without understanding. Who is this man and why is he taking pictures of us?
But Demetrius doesn't seem like he has any trouble understanding the situation. In fact, he is already facing the man and his camera, an expression like thunder on his face.
The man is already moving toward us, not running, but purposeful. His camera keeps going.
"Mr. Thornwood. Dale Murch, The Western Echo.
" His voice is flat and professional as he produces what appears to be a cell phone with a mic on it, toward Demetrius's face.
"Can you address the rumors that you're planning to cut half the Windemere Maritime workforce in your first year?
Is the layoff part of your plan for the acquisition? "
Demetrius goes very still.
"Where did you get that information?" His voice has gone cold and deliberate.
The reporter doesn't flinch. He keeps walking toward us. By now, the naga couple is openly staring and the girl is lifting a cell phone in our direction. I don't need anyone to tell me she's recording this.
"Mr. Thornwood, the Windemere deal was reported to include workforce restructuring as early as..."
"Who told you about the Windemere deal?" Demetrius cuts with a tone sharp enough to draw blood.
The reporter doesn't answer. He raises the camera again.
Then he turns to me. The lens comes around and my entire body goes cold.
"And who is the woman, Mr. Thornwood? Is she your fiancée? How did you two meet each other?" The questions come fast and blunt, the practiced rapid-fire of someone who knows that some of them will hit. "Can we get a name?"
My pulse does something unhelpful behind my ears.
Then everything happens very fast. Demetrius steps in front of me, blocking my view of, well, everything. He's so large and tall, all I see is a solid block of his broad back.
And then something changes in him. The stillness goes out of him entirely.
"You point that thing at her again," he says, and his voice has dropped an entire register, gone rough at the edges in a way I've never heard from him, not once, "and I will take it apart with my bare hands and mail the pieces to your editor."
The reporter blinks. He did not expect that.
"Put it down." Demetrius takes one step forward and the reporter takes one step back, which is probably the correct instinct. "Now."
The reporter does not put the camera down. He does, however, stop moving.
Demetrius's jaw sets. He lets out a slow breath through his nose.
"You print her name," he says, and it's not controlled anymore, not calculated, it's something that has come up from somewhere much further down inside him, "or you run a single image with her in it, or you associate her with any speculation or scandal in any of your publication's output, in any format, in any medium, and I will spend a considerable amount of money making sure that you personally and that toilet paper you call a tabloid never recover from it.
We're talking litigation on a scale that will outlast your grandchildren's careers.
Think about that math before you answer. "
The reporter stares at him. He lowers the camera.
It takes him about four seconds to decide this is not the story he came here for. He backs up two steps, then three, and then he's walking back toward the pier entrance with the fast, slightly sideways walk of someone who would prefer everyone forget he was here.
Demetrius watches him go.
He stands there until the man is gone from the pier entirely, out onto the cobblestone and around the corner. I crank my neck sideways to see past him.
I know what I just saw. I've known Demetrius could be formidable. I knew he was capable of this version of himself, in an abstract way.
But knowing a thing in the abstract and watching it happening are not the same thing.
He turns to me.
"I'm sorry," he says. "That shouldn't have happened."
He's watching me.
"Are you all right?" he asks. His hand comes up to my elbow, warm and solid.
The harbor is slowly returning to its normal activity level. The naga couple at the far end of the pier has turned back to the water. The dog trots past us on its mission, undeterred by the drama. Somewhere nearby, someone has a speaker going and the music drifts over the sound of the waves.
Everything is exactly as it was. Except it's not exactly as it was, is it?
It's like an illusion breaking and revealing the mechanism behind the curtain. Nothing with Demetrius can just be, can it? Not even an ice cream date on the piers.
"I'm fine," I say. "Let's just go back, okay?"
He searches my face for a moment. He doesn't push. Then he pulls me in and wraps one arm around my shoulders, and I lean into his side. We stand there for a moment on the pier with the harbor in front of us and the last of the gold light making everything look briefly, unreasonably perfect.
I'm fine, I said. I lied.
It's not fear. It's not even doubt.
It's something quieter than both. A door slightly ajar in a room I wasn't looking at. A room full of doubt and sorrows that I don't want to take a peek in.
Because I'm absolutely not fine. Not by a big margin.