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“Yeah, let’s go to bed like really early,” I say with a grin.
“Your eyes are amazing. So blue… like wet jewels,” he says softly.
“I was thinking the same thing about yours,” I tease.
James appears with a tray of two champagne glasses. He withdraws as unobtrusively as he arrived. We sit in the light from the dying sun, drink our champagne and talk.
“So… how does a self-confessed nerd become a billionaire?”
He leans back and closes his eyes. “I’m a hacker and a coder. A very brilliant hacker and coder. I put together a currency platform that’s worth billions.”
“I saw the photo of you and Putin. Is he your friend?”
He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Look, Raine. I don’t want to talk to you about my work. I want to keep you protected. The less you know the safer you will be.”
I swallow the mouthful of champagne, and mumble, “Okay. I understand.”
“Tell me about you?” he invites.
So I tell him about my life, the two jobs, my mother, my sister, the apartment we live in, the gratitude we feel because my sister is still alive. He asks about my childhood and my voice becomes far away and distant when I remember how happy our lives were, while my father was still alive. We had prize winning goats, hens, a cow and some pigs. My mother grew her own vegetables and my father cultivated corn. We went to bed early and were up at the crack of dawn, and we worked all the hours that God sent. There was so much to do, but the air was clean, we kept close bonds with the rest of the farming community, and we were always happy.
He leans forward eagerly. “Tell me more about this farm. What kinds of things did you do?”
“Well, I was in charge of the hens,” I say. “I fed them, I cleaned out their houses, and I collected their eggs. They were like my pets. I would squat in the dirt and open my arms and they would come running into them. They were so sweet. I loved them so much so I fought my parents and never allowed any of them to end up on our dinner table, but when we left we had to sell them all to a neighbor. They eat their chickens.”
A sigh escapes me. I haven’t spoken to anyone about them ever since we left and I feel a sense of nostalgia and sadness for my little friends. For that simple, happy life we left behind.
“Why did you come to New York?” His voice is soft in the cool evening air. The sun has already set.
I exhale the breath I was holding. “My mother’s sister was living there then and she told us to come and live with her. The Big Apple. Where the streets are paved with gold. What a shock my mother got when we arrived. Sometimes I feel we would have been better off on the farm, but we’ll never know.”
James comes to tell us dinner is ready to be served, and we move to the great dining room, our bodies touching. There is a closeness between us that wasn’t there before. I slant a glance at him. His face is closed, but I know something has changed in him. Something is different.
The dining table has been set for two. It’s clear the room is hardly ever used as our voices echo in the still air. I look around me. It feels as if I am living in a fairytale. Those horses, the land, the house, this candlelit room. I feel like Bella from Beauty and the Beast, only in my case, my beast has already been turned into a Prince.
Waiting staff come into the room. They fill the glasses in front of us with water and wine. The wine is cool and complicated. I’m not a wine person, but I like this wine.
“The wine is lovely,” I murmur.
“Yes, I have a sommelier who fills my cellar.”
“Wow, what a life you lead.”
“Actually, most of the time, I am working.”
“Do you ever get lonely, Konstantin?”
“No,” he denies instantly, then he pauses. “My work is very important to me.”
“Don’t you ever want to settle down, have a family?”
He looks away from me. “Yes, one day. But not now. I have to do this thing first. It is very important.”
“It’s the secret project you’re working on, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” And then he changes the subject. So we start talking about horses and then he invites me to go sailing in the Mediterranean with him. I feel pleasure surge into my body as I stare at him in astonishment. It’s just a small thing and it probably doesn’t mean anything, maybe he does this all the time, but he wants to see me again after the weekend.
