Chapter 33
Margot
Isurface slowly from sleep, awareness returning in pieces. The weight of an arm across my waist. The steady rhythm of breathing against my neck. The scent of him mingling with the cotton of my sheets.
Everett.
We're fully dressed. My jeans cutting into my hip, his shirt wrinkled beneath my cheek where I've burrowed into his chest. His body curves around mine, protective even in sleep.
Safe. The word surfaces through the fog of morning.
I've never felt safer than I do right now, wrapped in a billionaire's arms after crying myself into exhaustion.
His breathing shifts, deepens. He’s waking.
I stay still, eyes closed, unwilling to break whatever spell the night wove around us. His fingers move first. trailing along my arm, raising goosebumps. Then his palm cups my shoulder, thumb brushing the curve where my neck meets my collarbone.
"Morning," he murmurs against my hair.
I turn my face toward him, eyes opening to find him already watching me. His hair sticks up on one side. Stubble shadows his jaw. He's disheveled in ways I've never seen him, and the intimacy of it steals my breath.
"Hi," I whisper.
His mouth curves. Not the controlled CEO smile. Something softer. Younger. He reaches up, brushes a strand of hair away from my face with gentle fingers.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
Terrified. Hopeful. Confused. Grateful.
"Overwhelmed," I settle on.
"Yeah." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "Me too."
We lie there in the morning light, faces inches apart, breathing the same air. His eyes are softer. more tender than I've ever seen them.
"We still have a lot to talk about," he says quietly. "No rush. I'm going to go for my workout. You've got things planned for today, too."
I nod. The tea with Vivi. The text she sent sits unread on my phone.
"Let's take some time to be normal people again." His fingers trail down to my jaw. "Let's find being us again."
The words settle into my bones. Normal. Us. Concepts that felt impossible hours ago.
He leans forward. Presses his lips to my forehead. The kiss is chaste, reverent. Then he's pulling back, untangling himself from me, sitting up on the edge of the bed.
"Take your time," he says, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'll be in the gym if you need anything."
Then he's gone, the door closing softly behind him.
I lie there for five full minutes, staring at the ceiling, my forehead still warm from his kiss.
What am I doing?
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it, squinting at the screen.
Vivi Montclair: Still available for tea this afternoon? 2 p.m.? I have a rather terrible art studio I'd love to show you. Address below.
The message anchors me. Normal things. Normal plans. Well, not exactly normal. Tea with a woman I met at a country club while wearing borrowed confidence and a designer dress.
I type back: Yes. See you at 2.
Then I pull up Talia's contact.
Me: SOS. My apartment. 11. Bring bagels and your best advice.
Talia: Oh god what happened
Me: Everything. Nothing. I don't know. Just come.
I drag myself out of bed, muscles stiff from sleeping in clothes. The suite around me gleams with expensive taste, a location I would have only experienced in magazines, not real life before this. Everett's world. His life.
I need to leave. Need air. Need my own space with my own things where I can think without the weight of his wealth reminding me who I am. Who I'm not.
Twenty minutes later, I'm dressed in real clothes, grab my purse, check for my keys, head for the door.
In the hallway, I pause and listen for sounds of Everett. The weights clanking or the rhythmic thud of feet on a treadmill. The clank signals he's occupied. Good.
I slip down the stairs, through the foyer, and out the front door.
***
My beloved, beat up apartment smells and feels like home. I unlock the door, step inside, hit this silly new alarm, and my shoulders drop three inches.
I sink onto my futon, bury my face in my hands, and try to sort through everything the past days have thrown at me.
The girls of the 17th floor’s worry. Celeste and her advice.
Malcolm's offer. The humiliation there. My misunderstanding meeting Rowan.
My embarrassment. Everett. His patience.
His fury. His confession. His kiss on my forehead this morning.
Everything in me wants to love you.
The words echo through my skull, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.
A knock rattles my door. I check the peephole…Talia, arms loaded with bags, her usual perfect put together no matter what self, despite the Saturday morning last minute cry for bagels.
I yank the door open.
She takes one look at my face and pushes inside. "Kitchen. Now. We're doing this properly."
My tiny kitchen table groans under the weight of gourmet bagels from that place in Park Slope she loves. Cream cheese spreads in three varieties. Lox. Capers. Onions. Tomatoes. The works. Talia assembles her bagel with surgical precision, then fixes me with her no-nonsense stare.
"Give me the goods."
So I do. All of it. The girls. Their questions.
Their well put out ‘we’ve seen this before’ concerns.
Malcolm cornering me at the kid’s workshop.
His offer. His it felt slimy offer. Coming home to find Everett with Rowan.
Misinterpreting everything. The door conversation.
Everett's confession. His offer to fund my play with no strings. His declaration.
Everything in me wants to love you.
Talia sets down her bagel and reaches across the table. She squeezes my hand.
"That man is gone for you," she says.
"He wants to restructure my employment so we can keep seeing each other after the merger closes."
"Smart and ethical." She picks up her bagel again, takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. "So what's the problem?"
"The problem?" I laugh, sharp and incredulous. "The problem is none of this makes sense. I was printing scripts on recycled paper. Now I'm living in a mansion with a billionaire who says he wants to love me. How is that my life?"
"It's your life because you're brave and you said yes when an opportunity knocked." Talia leans back, crosses her arms. "You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For him to wake up and realize you're not worth the hassle. For this to be some elaborate joke."
Heat climbs my neck. "Not exactly…"
"It's exactly what you're doing." Her voice softens. "Margot. None of this makes sense. There's no reason why you both should feel the same way you do. No reason why a fake arrangement should've turned real. No reason why he'd chase you down a city block after Bergdorf's."
The memory surfaces. His face when he caught up to me. The rawness. The fear.
"You keep being surprised by him," Talia continues. "By the thoughtful things he does. By how he listens. By how he sees you. Maybe stop being surprised and start accepting it."
"What if I'm wrong? What if I'm reading too much into…"
"What if you're not?" She cuts me off. "What if he means every word? What if this is real and terrifying and worth the risk?"
I pick at my bagel. The lox glistens, pink and delicate, but my appetite has vanished.
"There's no guarantee," Talia says quietly. "I thought Todd was my one. That we would be married by now and I'd be pumping out babies. Stuff happened. Life happened. We ended."
I glance up. She rarely talks about Todd. The relationship that almost was.
"No guarantees," she repeats. "Do I regret it?
None of it. When it was good and real, there was no better feeling in the world.
Do I miss it? Oh, yes. Every day." Her eyes meet mine.
"I believe it's out there for me to find again.
Maybe you're his? Maybe he's yours? Maybe you get to find out together? "
The words settle into my chest, heavy and hopeful.
"What if I lose myself?" I whisper.
"Then you find yourself again. With or without him. You're not some delicate flower, Margot. You're steel wrapped in softness. You'll survive whatever comes."
We sit in silence. And then my neighbor starts practicing saxophone, off-key and enthusiastic.
Talia checks her phone. "It's one-thirty."
I blink. Hours have passed. "I have tea at two."
"Then go." She stands, starts clearing plates. "Go meet your mystery new best friend. Go be fabulous. Go live your weird, beautiful, impossible life."
I laugh despite everything. I stand and I hug her hard.
"Thank you," I murmur against her shoulder.
"Always." She pulls back, cups my face. "Now go. And text me every detail."
***
The address Vivi sent leads me to a warehouse in Red Hook. It’s industrial and brick and completely unexpected. I park my Civic and then stand on the sidewalk, double-checking the address.
This can't be right.
I knock anyway.
The door opens immediately. Vivi Montclair stands there in paint-splattered overalls, silver hair twisted into a messy bun, her face lighting up when she sees me.
"Margot!" She pulls me into a hug that smells like turpentine mixed with expensive perfume. "Come in, come in. Don't mind the mess."
The interior explodes with color. Canvases lean against the brick walls. Paint-splattered tarps cover the concrete floor. Industrial windows flood the space with afternoon light. And everywhere, literally everywhere, are paintings.
Terrible paintings.
Vivi catches my expression and laughs. "I know. They're dreadful. Sterling used to say I had more enthusiasm than talent." She gestures around the space. "I love to paint. I'm terrible at it. I keep this studio so I don't mess up the house."
She's not wrong. The paintings are enthusiastic in the way a child's art is enthusiastic. There all bold color and wild brushstrokes and absolutely no technique. I bite my lip, trying not to laugh.
"Go ahead," Vivi says. "Laugh. Everyone does. Sterling commissioned a professional critic once to review my work. The poor man tried so hard to be kind." She grins. "He called it 'viscerally committed to its own vision.'"