“You’re frustrated. And you just dumped a whole cup in one spot. How’s the orchid and its roots way over here going to get anything?”
She rolled her eyes, but then she watched as I got more water and trickled it in, circling the plant. “You said before that you don’t nurture plants. Was that a lie? Maybe you should water the plants.”
“I can do that.”
“If you’re here, that is.”
I chuckled. “Fair comment, Morina. You get one more. I’m sorry for not being around.”
“One more? Then what?”
The way she questioned me, I had half a mind to take her over my knee. I glared at her, ready to tell her just what a punishment from me would look like.”
“It’s fine.” She sighed out before I could and slumped onto the counter. “If I can have friends over or–”
“Do you have many friends?” The girl was a free-spirited loner as I was learning. If she couldn’t take home a dog and she hadn’t called a girl since I’d been around her, I doubted she had many. “What’s the name of that girl you were with the first night we…?”
I stopped talking when she side-eyed me. “Linny’s busy a lot.”
“Linny let you go on a jet with a man you barely knew.”
“You were very convincing, Bastian. And Linny will trust any human in the world. She travels and believes in the good, not the bad of anyone. She once took a cab in the middle of Mexico with three men who were twice her size by herself without a cell phone.” She poked my chest and smirked. “Also, don’t discount that you have a way about you. You gave her your card and everything.”
A lot of men could have done the same. I hummed low. “Don’t trust a man when he does that.”
“No other man’s ever done that. I normally just go find a private–”
“I don’t want to know.” I shook my head as something twisted in my stomach. I returned to Ivy and sat on the couch. “Want to watch the rest of this movie?”
“The princess cartoon?” Her eyebrows lifted.
“Don’t you want to see how it ends?” I was ashamed at how much the film intrigued me.
She yawned but shrugged. Before she came over, she grabbed a lighter and pulled a stick from a little vase she’d placed on the counter. She inserted it into a wood plate with a lip.
“What’s that?”
“Just a bit of incense. It’s supposed to–”
“Do you believe in all that?”
“Of course. The oils have proven to be great in diffusers and this incense is soaked in citrus and peppermint. You liked my shake right?”
I nodded. They were probably the scents I couldn’t get off my jet.
“Well, you can get the same effect with smells. Taste and smell are tied very closely together.”
“Did you read all about those oils in one sitting?”
“Yes, but…” She paused. “Are you going to say I need to read that offensive file again?”
I didn’t hold back a smile. “Come on. If you’re not interested in the movie. You can read while I watch and ask me questions.”
She stomped her foot like a petulant child, but she meandered back over and placed the file on her lap.
I gave her credit. She got through another page before looking up. “There’s a lot of money here if my grandma really owns all that stock.”
I nodded. She glanced up and down the page, her midnight eyes trying to decipher something. “You are seriously going to pay me that much money for some shares in this company?”
I didn’t hesitate. “This is the last company my father had his hands in. I’ve changed hundreds over the past five years. I’ve righted illegal dealings, I’ve cleaned up shitty organization, and I’ve made my family a profit we won’t ever see the end of. I’m cleaning up my legacy.”
“You want this for something other than profit then?”
“I have enough profit if I’m able to buy these shares, right?”
She sighed and combed a hand through her hair. “Can you explain to me what you want to do to my city?”
“Sure.” I sat back and told her what I pictured. “The UK has done this, and I think we have all the workings to do it here. I’ve talked with engineers. We have plans drawn up in that file but essentially, we want to transition to clean, green energy. It’ll be more secure for your city and all the skilled oil and gas workers in the long term. We’d be giving them a foundation to work on for years, and we’d get government buy in. We just need the board to vote that way. Ronald, the owner of ShellOil and part owner of this company, won’t do that. Without your vote or mine, they’ll push more oil at the risk of causing a spill or something catastrophic.”
I stopped, giving her time to process even though I wanted to keep talking.
“You really believe in this, don’t you?”
“We converted in California and it’s gone very well.”
“My grandma wanted this?”
“I think so. She didn’t trust me though.”
“Why?”
“My father was a shifty man, Morina. He didn’t shake your hand and keep his word. He crept around at night and stabbed you in the back.”
She bit her lip and stared at me, then nodded. “I believe we can be better than the ones before us. After we’re married, let’s go to the plant, and I want to hear you make those calls to the government. We get that started and I’ll hand over the shares to you.”
“I’ll pay you.”
She smirked. “It won’t change my life, Bastian. I have what I want out of it. I just want what’s best for the town.”
With that, she went back to reading and got through another five pages before her head slumped onto my shoulder and her eyes closed on a long blink. They didn’t open back up.
How quickly she’d trusted me like she knew me, like I was a man of my word. I had been to everyone I’d done business with. I’d bent over backwards to be different from my father. I’d always been furious when people compared me to him and didn’t trust me immediately.
Yet, with her, I wanted her to push back. She shouldn’t be barreling into just handing over that much money. Was she crazy?
Or was I crazy for wanting to make sure I dotted and crossed every I and T in making this a perfect transaction? If she wanted to dive headfirst into a shit deal and get nothing out of it, all the better for me.
Right?
Except Morina was becoming something more than just an obstacle. She was nice and weird in a way that I wasn’t used to. She was trusting and eccentric with her beads and her incense.
She lived in a land of sand castles on a beach and surfing and cuddly puppies.
That packet held the greed and viciousness that came with money.
Something dark like oil would pour into Morina’s pure water, and I just wanted to get her out unscathed.
My father never did that.
And yet, now it was all I wanted.
The movie ended with the girl finding magic in just being herself. I sighed and turned to Morina, who breathed heavily on me.
I needed to get her to a bed and Ivy to one also.
“Morina?” I whispered and she stirred against me. “Want to go to your bedroom?”
She shook her head and with her eyes still completely closed, crawled onto my lap. Somehow she folded into a little warm ball and snuggled against me.