Chapter 8 Phoenix
PHOENIX
She posted again.
I refresh her blog for the third time in an hour, even though I have the notification set to alert me the second she publishes anything new. The post is titled "Jumping," and it's short. Just three lines about leaping into the unknown and hoping someone catches you.
She's on the plane right now, thirty thousand feet in the air and flying toward me.
I set my phone down on my desk and walk to the windows. From here, I can see the driveway, the guest cottage, the ocean beyond. The clouds rolled in an hour ago, turning everything gray and moody. It suits my mood better than sunshine would have.
Robert texted twenty minutes ago to confirm he picked her up from LAX. They should be here in forty minutes, give or take, depending on traffic.
The thought makes something twist in my chest. I don't get nervous. I've pitched to billionaire investors, closed deals worth hundreds of millions, stood in boardrooms and convinced skeptical men twice my age that I knew what I was doing. None of it made my hands shake.
But the idea of Jade Catalano walking into my house makes my pulse race.
I've spent years watching her from a distance.
Years reading every word she writes on that anonymous blog where she thinks no one is paying attention.
I know she takes her coffee black. I know she's afraid of failure more than she's afraid of anything else.
I know she writes best late at night when she can't sleep, pouring her fears and dreams into stories about people who never quite get what they want.
I know everything about her.
And she knows nothing about me.
My phone buzzes. Marcus again, the fifth time today.
I silence it without reading the message.
He's nervous about the Singapore deal. They are family men and I have to appear like someone that fits in with them.
Marcus thinks I need to bring a date to the investor dinner.
Show them I'm stable, settled, the kind of man they can trust with half a billion dollars.
The chef finished preparing dinner an hour ago. I told him to keep it simple because I don't know what she likes. Grilled fish, roasted vegetables, a salad with citrus and herbs. Wine from a vineyard in Napa that I've been saving for a special night.
I’d say that tonight qualifies.
I walk through the house, checking details I've already checked a dozen times.
There is a centerpiece of white roses mixed with pale ranunculus and eucalyptus, arranged low enough that we can see each other across the table.
The table is set for two, positioned so she'll have the ocean view.
The lights are dimmed just enough to be intimate without feeling like I'm trying too hard.
But who am I kidding? I am trying too hard.
I've had women in this house before. Plenty of them.
Models, actresses, tech entrepreneurs who looked good in photographs and knew how to handle themselves at investor dinners.
Beautiful women who understood the game we were playing, who wanted the same things I did.
No strings, no expectations, just mutual pleasure and convenience.
None of them kept me up at night. None of them made me check my phone obsessively or memorize their writing or send them almost four hundred thousand dollars just to get them to notice me.
Jade Catalano is not beautiful by California standards.
I've seen her photos, watched her from across coffee shops on the rare occasions I've been in Boston.
She's average height, average build, with dark hair that's usually pulled back in a loose bun and eyes that are more tired than striking.
She wears clothes that have been washed too many times and she doesn't know how to apply makeup the way the women out here do. She doesn’t have any fillers or botox and she likes to slouch.
And yet I can't stop thinking about her.
There's something in the way she moves through the world like she expects things to hurt and she's decided to endure them anyway. She works herself to exhaustion and writes about drowning and never once asks for help.
Until I gave it to her.
My phone buzzes. There’s a text from Robert: 5 min.
I look down at my shirt. The gray one I put on twenty minutes ago after changing out of the blue one I wore before that. They both feel too formal. I don’t want to look like I'm trying too hard.
I take the stairs to my bedroom and change again.
Jeans, the ones that actually fit properly.
A white linen shirt, sleeves rolled to my elbows.
I look…casual. Like I'm not the kind of man who refreshes her blog fifty times a day or tracks her location or has spent the last week making sure every detail of her arrival is perfect.
By the time I come back downstairs, I can see headlights in the driveway. Robert's car pulls up to the guest cottage, and my heart does something it's never done before. It stutters.
I watch from the main house as Robert helps her out of the car. She's smaller than I expected, or maybe the cottage just makes her look small. She's wearing jeans and a jacket, and even from here I can see the way she hesitates before following Robert inside.
She's terrified.
Good. So am I.
I give her some time to settle in, to shower if she wants, to text her friend and tell her she's still alive. Time to decide if she's staying or running.
The ocean is getting rougher. I can hear the waves even through the glass, crashing against the rocks with more force than usual. A storm is coming, probably by morning. The weather report said rain, which almost never happens in May, but here it is anyway.
Everything about this week feels like an anomaly.
Helen appears in the dining room doorway. "Sir, it's almost seven. Should I bring her over?"
"Yes. Thank you, Helen."
"The dinner is ready whenever you are."
"Perfect."
She leaves, and I'm alone with my racing pulse and the roses and the table set for two.
I walk to the windows and look out at the ocean because I need something to do with my hands.
The water is dark gray now, almost black where it meets the horizon.
The clouds press down low enough that I can't see where the sky ends and the water begins.
Behind me, I hear the door open. Hear Helen's voice saying something I don't process.
Then I turn around, and there she is.
Jade Catalano. In my house. Looking at me with those dark eyes that I've only seen through screens and from across crowded rooms.
She's more beautiful than her photographs. That's the first thing I notice. The camera doesn't capture the way she holds herself, careful and guarded, or the intelligence in her expression, or the exhaustion that lingers around her eyes like a shadow.
She's wearing a black dress that's simple and slightly too big, like she lost weight since she bought it. Her hair is down, falling past her shoulders, still damp from a shower. A simple chain around her neck. Minimal makeup. She looks nothing like the women I usually bring to this house.
She looks… real.
"Jade," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I expected. "I'm Phoenix Crawford. Thank you for coming."
Her eyes widen slightly. She wasn't expecting me to be young, I can tell. She probably pictured someone in his fifties with gray hair and maybe a gut.
"Hi," she says in a quiet voice. "Thank you for the ticket. And the money. And all of this."
She gestures vaguely at the room, at the house, at everything.
"You're welcome." I move closer but stop a careful distance away. I don't want to crowd her. Don't want to make her feel trapped. "How was the flight?"
"Long. But comfortable. I've never flown first class before."
"I'm glad you liked it." I can't stop looking at her and cataloging every detail. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. Her eyes dart to the floor and then to the ocean, anywhere but directly at me.
She's nervous. Terrified, actually.
"Would you like to sit?" I gesture to the dining room, to the table with the ocean view and the roses and the wine I've been saving. “We can start dinner anytime.”
"Okay." She follows me to the table, and I pull out her chair before she can do it herself. Her surprise is subtle but I catch it. She sits, and I take the seat across from her.
I can see the details I couldn't see from across the room when I went to spy on her in Boston. She has a small scar on her jawline. Her eyelashes are darker at the tips. The tension in her shoulders suggests she's ready to bolt at any second.
I've waited years for this moment.
And now that she's here, sitting across from me in my house, I realize something that makes my pulse quicken with a hunger I've never felt before.
I'm not letting her go.
The thought of her leaving, of her walking back through that door and disappearing into her small life back East, makes something dark and possessive coil in my chest.
One week. That's what I promised her. Seven days to show her everything I can be, everything I can give her, every reason why she should stay.
Seven days to make her mine in every way that matters.
And if seven days isn't enough, I'll find a way to make her stay anyway.
Everything starts now.