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“No, honestly, it’s so interesting. I had no idea.”
He shifted the conversation over to her job which, by comparison seemed humdrum, yet he listened with the same rapt attention she’d felt while listening to him. She hoped he wasn’t faking it. And as she wondered that, she began to feel uneasy again.
He must have seen it in her eyes, seen her withdraw a little from the conversation. “I’m sorry, is there a problem?”
“My life isn’t all that interesting. Not by comparison.”
“Why compare it?”
“You can’t possibly be interested in what I’m saying.” She meant it to end the conversation, but it came out as an accusation, and he caught it.
“I should go. I’m making you uneasy, and that’s the last thing I want to do.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just… I don’t know what’s real with people anymore.”
He nodded. “The odd thing is that if you’re very rich, or very famous, it’s the same. You never really know what people want from you. You take care, Sophia. Remember, if you need any help, I’m here, and so is Doctor Forster.” He tapped her phone, grabbed one last slice of coffee cake, and strode to the door.
Sophia was transfixed by his sweet, round backside, a feeling that was utterly at odds with her anxiety, and it made her laugh out loud.
He half turned. “What? Did I sit in something?”
“No. I’m sorry. It would be difficult to explain.” At least without turning about fifteen shades of crimson. She jumped up and followed him to the door. “I appreciate what you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome. See you.” He slipped out and was gone before she could say what she really wanted to say which was, “Stay. You turn me on. You confuse me. Go. But stay.” And, “I want you.”
Thank goodness he moved quickly. She shut the door and leaned against it, a big, goofy smile on her face. She didn’t want to feel this way about any man right now, but it felt a little sweet at the same time.
Daniel had entered his name in her phone with “ICE” next to it. ICE? She had to look it up on the Internet, and discovered that it meant “In Case of Emergency.” It was what some people did when they made entries in their contact list. ICE meant that those were the people to be called if something bad happened to the phone’s owner.
She sat down and added ICE to her parents’ entry, and to the one for her aunt Elaine, who lived in San Francisco. Then she looked Daniel up and found that he had a Wikipedia entry. She’d never known anyone who had a Wikipedia entry.
Daniel Gavin Mathieson Buchanan was thirty-four years old. He had a distinguished pedigree, being the son of Thomas Stewart Buchanan, a real estate tycoon descended from the Earls of Buchanan in Scotland, and Carolina Mathieson, the daughter of actress Philippa Paige and producer George Mathieson. He had one sister, Joan Mary Buchanan Roth.
Daniel had been married at seventeen to an Irish girl he met at Cambridge, much to the dismay of both families, but the marriage, which was, by all accounts, very happy, ended tragically when Siobhan Buchanan died in a riding accident less than two years later.
“Oh how sad,” Sophia murmured.
Daniel threw himself into work, founding a medical research lab named Drake Scientific where they did research on brain injuries and how to prevent and treat them. Five years later, the company was bought by a huge biotech company, and Daniel rolled the money over into Buchanan BioTech. It was estimated that by age thirty, Daniel Buchanan had been worth a billion dollars in his own right.
“Holy shit,” Sophia said. “Holy shit.”
She read about his family life, including a terse version of his sister’s stalker incident, as the author of the page called it. It made her sick to read that after several years of harassment, Joan’s stalker tried to kill her in a knife attack at the family home in Martha’s Vineyard, but Daniel and his father stopped the man who was now behind bars.
She wished she hadn’t read that part.
Daniel’s hobbies were racing cars, classical music (he was an accomplished pianist!), martial arts, and sailing. He’d been the producer for his grandmother’s last film, Stars of the Southern Cross, a film about a woman who had been sent to a penal colony in Australia in the late eighteenth century, and who had lived to be nearly one hundred and had fought for aboriginal rights. Ms Paige had died only days after the film was greeted with critical praise at Cannes. Daniel was noted for being, not precisely reclusive, but very reserved, and disinclined to speak to the press unless he had something to promote.
He was a romantic figure; Sophia could feel it about him. She had the sense that women, and probably some men, threw themselves at his feet regularly. Then she remembered what he’d said about how, when you’re rich or famous, you never know what people really want from you, and she realized that, kind as he had been to her, he probably only wanted to extend aid and support to a woman who had suffered the same sort of trauma as his sister.
In short, he was being a nice guy. She shouldn’t read any more into it. And that, she thought, was a shame.
Several weeks passed uneventfully. Phil seemed to have disappeared, for which Sophia was grateful. She knew though that at the end of the month he’d probably try to intrude on her life again. Her birthday was the twenty-seventh of May, and Phil had never forgotten about it when they were together. She had more than enough reason to believe that he would try to contact her under the guise of wishing her a happy birthday. But rather than sitting at home fretting about what form his intrusion would take — she had not forgotten Joan Buchanan’s stalker — she decided to be proactive. She phoned Daniel.
“I feel very odd calling you, but the thing is that next Friday is my birthday, and I believe Phil is going to try to make contact. I don’t want to stay home alone, but if I go out somewhere I’m afraid he’ll follow me. I’m not sure what to do, and I thought maybe you’d have some suggestions?”
“I do. Why don’t we go to dinner together? I’ll happily run interference for you. Please invite your parents too, and make it a party. He’ll be more intimidated by their presence since he probably still wants their approval.”
It was a good idea, disappointing only in that a small part of Sophia had hoped to be alone with Daniel. But he was right. “I’ll do that. Where shall I have them meet us?”
