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“What are you stressing about? Anything I can help with?”
I pull her onto my lap and she pushes her arm between my back and the chair, rubbing small circles in the space between my shoulder blades. We’ve learned it’s an effective way to relax me.
“I’m not stressed. I’m … confused? No, it’s more like bewildered or maybe befuddled.”
She laughs. “The befuddled billionaire. That would be a fun name for a segment in your podcast.”
“Hard to find high-net-worth guests willing to admit they ever experience uncertainty.”
“You could lead by example.”
“No. Only you ever see that side of me.”
“Maybe more people should.”
“Maybe. But it’s not on brand.”
Virginia pulls her hand from my back and cups her warm palm to my cheek before kissing me. And just like that, the anxiety that clenched my heart when I imagined this woman with a child—which most certainly could never be mine—evaporates.
She’s never mentioned whether she wants children. It dawns on me that not knowing is a problem, since I am very clear about what I do and do not want.
Kids are unequivocally on mydo not wantlist.
What concerns me is what is on mywantlist.
I want to spend the end of every workday with Virginia humming in my office.
I want to take the elevator with her to a condo she calls home.
I want to fall asleep and wake up with this woman until the day I die.
All my wants are selfish since she’s thirty-eight and if she wants kids, every day and night she spends with me is time wasted not finding a suitable father.
“Anything special you craving for dinner?” I ask.
She grins. “Aside from an appetizer of Power balls?”
My groin responds accordingly.
“Anything the kitchen can make for us?” I clarify.
I want to have this conversation on a full stomach, before my dick gets a voice, since easy sleep has become somewhat of a Pavlovian response to evening sex.
“Something fast so we can get to the naked part before I’m too tired to appreciate it,” she says.
A quick-to-prepare dinner of barbecued jumbo tiger prawns, saffron rice, and a gourmet salad are delivered within twenty minutes of making the call. I set the table while Virginia chats with some sickly succulents she’s rescued from all corners of the building and brought into my suite to rehabilitate. She sounds upbeat and happy, as always. She insists that all life can read energy, so the energy she projects to unwell plants must be positive and hopeful.
At first, I thought she was crazy, but since I can feel her spark from across the room, I can’t argue that she’s wrong.
We eat without looking at our phones but without much talking either. When Virginia does anything, it’s with her full focus, including eating.
“That was delicious,” she says, holding her belly and leaning away from the table.
“Crash on the couch for after dinner tea?”
Sitting on top of the maple sideboard buffet, one of Virginia’s additions to the living room, is a tray with two teacups with saucers, a matching sugar bowl, two teaspoons and a thermos that the kitchen staff deliver each night with fresh hot water when they drop off our dinner.
I’m distracted by my thoughts when I lift the tray and let it tilt too far to the left. One of the teacups slides off before I can catch it. It hits the polished concrete floor, shattering into a hundred pieces as the word “Shit!” escapes my lips.
