I thank her and then head up in the elevator. Breathe, Rachel.
Catherine is already on her feet when I get off, also a bit flustered by the surprise visit. “He’s with some of his board, if you’ll just take a seat for a moment.” I smile weakly and grip the M in my fist, tugging it and rubbing it against the R.
As I wait, I listen to his four assistants take calls and type on their keyboards. I smooth my skirt down my thighs when the door to his office opens and a pack of businessmen emerge.
They’re all screaming confidence and power. “Good day, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Thompson,” Catherine calls to the businessmen as they head to the elevators.
And then I hear his voice from within the room. It’s so deep—familiar—I feel it like a low hum, vibrating in the deepest part of my body.
“He should’ve known if he wanted to play hardball, I’d be game. I’d strike a home run before he even realized he made a mistake throwing a ball my way,” he says decidedly to the man with him. Then he spots me and lifts his eyebrows and the ruthless smile he’s wearing—the one directed at the person he means to crush—starts to fade when he sees me sitting here, my eyes maybe a little red as I struggle not to show how crestfallen I feel.
“We’ll settle this once and for all tomorrow at two,” he tells the businessman in a lower voice.
The man nods and leaves. My gaze is caught—my heart is frozen—as Saint slowly stalks forward. Directly toward me. He takes me gently by the arm as I stand, and leads me to his office, and I know by his gentle but firm grip that he knows I’m not okay.
Inside his office, he pulls me into his arms, tells me, “Breathe.”
I grip his tie and nod.
“You came to me,” he groans then, in my ear, as if that thought undoes him.
“Always,” I whisper, still gripping his tie.
“Mr. Saint,” his intercom beeps. “Your one o’clock just arrived?”
I watch him walk with that confident stride of his to his desk as I try to hold myself together. With a press of a finger, he tells her, “Reschedule. I’m going to need an hour.”
I shake my head. “Don’t, really. I’m all right. I just came to let you know . . . I’m out. I leapt.”
I spread my arms out and turn to stare out his window, not sure how I feel about my next words. Scared? Hopeful?
“I’m a free agent.”
“Then turn around and look at me, Rachel,” he whispers.
Hearing the raw emotion in his voice, I turn.
Holding my gaze with fierce intensity, he lifts the phone on his desk and dials a number. “We back down,” he says, and then, he hangs up, very slowly. Click.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I admit. “I just wanted to . . .”
“Know that I kept my promise,” he finishes.
“Yes, but . . . no. I wanted to see you, Saint. I always want to see you when I’m happiest, or saddest, or . . . I just always want to see you.”
I watch a dozen emotions skid through his eyes. “I’m here for you, Rachel.”
“I know,” I say. And for the first time I believe it, 100 percent.
Maybe no man has ever been there for me before. No father, brother, boyfriend, and now, I believe Malcolm Saint is here for me because he wants to be. My chest hurts with love.
“So you just backed out?”
“That’s right.” He shrugs dismissively. “There’s a binding agreement running through the auction, legally binding the winner to go through with the purchase. The bragging rights will cost him a fortune.”
My body’s shaking. I didn’t realize, in my haste to come here, that when I dumped my old stuff outside of Edge, I also dumped my sweater. Really Livingston?! The air-conditioning is blasting as high as these top business corporations always keep it. I’m shivering so much the last part of what I say is through clenched teeth.
“I know you said I could work at M4 but—”
“But you’re right, it’s not ideal for us,” he quietly admits, eyes probing me in silence. “I won’t be holding you back, Rachel. Tying you down where you’re not happy.”
My teeth chatter. “You know my reasons are because I want us . . . more. I’m going to start freelancing . . .” I stop talking when he crosses his office to a familiar, pristine white, smooth space on the wall.
With a tap, he opens the hidden closet and takes out a jacket. “Here.”
“I don’t . . .” He puts it over my shoulders and the brush of his fingers on the back of my neck triggers a tremor down my spine. “Saint, don’t,” I say. I’m afraid that his touch is going to make me crumble from the inside out.
His eyes look liquid on me as he touches the R and the M necklace resting at the base of my throat. “What happened to Malcolm?” he teases me.
I can see he’s trying to make me happy and it makes me love him all the more.
“Malcolm,” I then say, with a smile. His eyes go liquid with heated tenderness as he takes my hand. “Come with me now.”
“I’m sorry you had to butt heads with your father for me,” I tell him as we board the elevator.
We stop one floor down, and Saint tells the pair of businessmen about to board, “Take the next one,” and they instantly retreat.
He looks at me once we’re alone again. “You grew up without a father. In your mind, he would’ve cared for you, appreciated you, he would’ve talked to you. I had a father, but every time I threw a ball, he threw it farther just to show me how short my range was. Every time I built something, he smashed it in the simplest way he could, to show me all the flaws in my plans. Not all fathers lift you up. Some stick their foot out to trip you.” He speaks without inflection, as if it’s only a fact of life. “In the beginning, you try harder just to show him that you can. Then, you do it to prove to yourself that you can. Until there comes a day when you simply do things because you can. I’m not doing this for my father. I wasn’t backing Edge.”
He opens a room on the eleventh floor. “I was backing you, Rachel.”
I glance around at a dozen computers, high-tech equipment, the offices in the corners. It looks like a . . . newsroom.
“This is where Interface started. Before we went corporate. When it was just an idea, the start.” He signals around, and as I take in the impressive room, I feel him eyeing me with a gaze that is both achingly gentle and silently contemplative. “So you see, it’s standing here . . . just waiting for another great idea. Another great start.”