“Guys, stop. I don’t want to date, okay? I want to feel secure in my career first before I let some guy take me out for a spin. . . . Look, don’t worry,” I assure them. “It’s all work for me from now until I get this piece done,” I vow.
I imagine his flesh against mine, him sliding inside me, his mouth on me, his moan of ecstasy, and I wish things were different for me, that I could actually have him. But this, this story, is all I can really have. Isn’t it?
He’s not a man to give anyone more, and I’m not the kind of woman to change all of her life for the wild dream of love. But what if for one night, one night, I let myself spend it with him?
18
SPINNING
Later that night I’m feverish, gathering more data at 12 a.m. It suddenly seems imperative that I get the exposé done as soon as possible because, despite what I assured my friends, I’m afraid I’ve developed somewhat of a crush.
Mooning over his pictures on the internet.
What the hell is up with that?
I stumble across another YouTube video of his father. Saint isn’t in the video, but his father is ranting about his own son on television. “He’s had business luck, he has a shrewd mind and his mother’s inheritance, but my son has no idea of the responsibility it takes to run a billion-dollar company.”
“Well, he’s proved you wrong, hasn’t he?” I mumble to the man.
He’s a handsome man, maybe fifty-five years old. He looks nothing like Malcolm, except that he’s large and virile. Malcolm got that from his father, but he got his mother’s beauty and her dazzling smile.
When I research her and her death, I find out several things. Catherine H. Ulysses, one of Malcolm’s assistants, the one I’m sure is in love with him, seemed to be at the funeral, standing close to a young Malcolm, which confirms that she’s known him for a while. And second, I find out something surprising about his mother. Saint’s mother, Juliette, was apparently big on animals, and every year made huge donations to activist groups. The day Saint saved Rosie, it was the anniversary of his mother’s death—I track back in time and find out that every year since she died Saint has saved, or adopted, one animal. Every year he visits her gravesite afterward (his cars have been spotted in the cemetery parking lot yearly).
My heart tugs. I saw him that day, and maybe he was hurting the same way I do when it’s the anniversary of Dad’s death. I remember we dropped Saint off at M4 and his car was waiting, and I never expected that he’d be heading to the cemetery, but it makes me wish I’d known before. It makes me wish I knew what makes this man tick. I could’ve been with him tonight. I could’ve let him take me out to some fancy event and then . . . then what, Rachel? Then do the most reckless thing you’ve ever done by sleeping with him, even with your most precious story on the line?
Utterly conflicted, I keep clicking links, especially the ones about him and his parents.
Gina’s chowing on cereal in her effort to get rid of the cocktail buzz she’s still harboring when we get a knock on the door, and all I hear, after she goes to answer it, are the words “. . . apartment 3C . . . dead . . .”
My blood freezes in my body as I watch Gina close the door, put her hands over her face, and burst into tears.
“Gina!” I gasp.
“Miss Sheppard,” she chokes out.
An image of her smiling, just the other day, with her pets outside, hits me. One second my face is dry, the next it’s wet with tears. This scene, this fear, of huge, unexpected loss, has haunted me my whole life. It’s been there since my father’s death, even before I had reason enough to know it was there. A feeling of complete vulnerability. Of having your world always spin and never be still for a minute for you to get your bearings.
It turns out that Lindsey Sheppard, our neighbor a few floors down, was shot and killed by a group of young men driving by in a vehicle only an hour ago.
Miss Sheppard didn’t make it to the hospital alive.
Gina and I are so shocked that, after crying passionately for ten minutes and hugging each other, we turn on the TV and watch the news. I snivel, she snivels, we both snivel. I call my mom and ask if she’s all right. She asks if I’m all right. I lie and say that I am.
“I swear I will die happy the day I don’t see all this in the news,” Gina sighs wearily, grabbing the remote and switching off the TV. She flips open my laptop and settles next to me so that we can search the news online.
When the information we find is a repeat of what we watched on the news, she gives up and pads over to the kitchen.