“Bullshit. She has a choice. She could’ve gotten a different apartment. She decided to live with me of her own free will.” Which is why I don’t understand why I feel any guilt over this situation whatsoever.
“Yeah, sure.” Ashton is full-on laughing now, the bastard. “So how are you going to get her to marry you? Blackmail? Torture? Kidnapping?”
“Fuck you, man. One day, you’ll meet a woman who won’t put up with your bullshit, and then you’ll see what measures you resort to.”
A strange expression crosses Ashton’s face, but I’m too pissed to dwell on it. Picking up my cup, I down my coffee in a few long gulps and stand up. “I’ve got to go.”
“Marcus, wait.” Ashton jumps to his feet and steps in front of me before I can walk away from the table. “Listen, I’m sorry, man.” He sounds genuinely contrite. “You just caught me off-guard. You have to admit it’s kind of ridiculous that you’re The Herald’s most eligible billionaire or whatever, and you have to resort to this kind of shit to get a bookstore clerk to be with you. But”—he raises his palm before I can plant my fist into his face—“having met Emma twice now, and seen the way you two are together, I understand why you’re so hung up on her.”
Some of my anger eases. “You do?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gets back to his seat, and after a moment of deliberation, I sit down as well. “I’ve always admired your drive, you know,” he says, picking up his coffee cup. “Remember that first time we all went to a bar, after our Corporate Finance exam? Barry was there, and his girlfriend, Lina? Anyway, we’d all had a few beers, and then you told us you were going to be a billionaire. Remember that?” He takes a sip.
I force my tightly curled hand to unclench. “I do, yeah.” It was a few days after Ashton and I had been partnered up on our Corporate Finance project, before we really got to know each other and became friends.
Ashton sets down his cup. “Right. Well, here’s the thing. As drunk as we were, no one laughed at your proclamation. No one was even tempted to laugh because we all knew you’d make it happen. You radiated ambition; it practically oozed from your pores. You were like a fucking missile, locked and loaded and on the way to your target. Nobody doubted that you’d get there—not our teachers, not our fellow students, and certainly not me.”
I frown. “So?”
“So I envied you that.” Ashton’s face is as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “You knew exactly what you wanted out of life, and I didn’t have a fucking clue. But recently, having observed you over the past couple of years, I realized something. That missile-like determination, that ambition that propelled you forward, you couldn’t turn it off. You made your billions, and you just kept going, unable to stop, unable to appreciate any of it.”
My frown deepens. “That’s not true. I enjoy—”
“Yeah, I know, you enjoy having the penthouse and the private plane and all that money in the bank, but has any of that truly satisfied you? I’ve never seen you pause and take it in, or appreciate it on any level beyond the most superficial.”
I exhale a frustrated breath. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I stopped envying you after a while. Like that missile, you needed to keep going, keep chasing after your ever-moving target—else you’d fall out of the sky. Take away the chase, and you’d crash and burn. Or you would’ve a couple of months ago. Now I’m not so sure.”
I cock my head. “Because of Emma?”
He nods. “At least I assume it’s because of her. You’ve been different the last couple of times I’ve seen you. Still focused, still driven, but… less machine-like, if that makes sense. Like you could actually turn it off if you wanted to.” A rueful smile touches his face. “Around Emma, you’re almost human… though from what you’ve just told me, you may have simply redirected some of that drive. Poor girl doesn’t stand a chance, does she?”
“No,” I say softly. “She doesn’t.” I’d give up every dollar in my bank account to keep her, make a thousand covert deals to ensure that she remains mine.
Ashton’s expression inexplicably softens. “You love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I love her.” I take a breath and let it out slowly. It’s getting easier to say the words, to accept them for the incontrovertible truth they are. “And you’re right. I am more human around her, happy in a way I’ve never known before. Which is why I don’t want to fuck it up. If Emma finds what I’ve done—”
“How would she find out?” Ashton says reasonably. “You’re not planning on telling her, right?”