I Married a Billionaire: Lost & Found(26)
Author: Melanie Marchande

"Well," he said, after a moment of silence. "They said you wanted to talk to me. Here I am."

The man swallowed, audibly. He finally looked up.

"I’m sorry," he said. "I went over it in my head, a million times, but now I don’t know what to say anymore."

Daniel’s mouth twisted. "Well, I’m glad I came all the way down here."

The man sighed, his head resting in his hands. "I don’t know. I don’t know where to start, exactly. I got a phone call yesterday telling me I could be facing up to five years in federal prison, and then I drove all night to get here. My head’s not exactly…"

"It’s fine," said Daniel, flatly. "It’s going to be fine, all you have to do is tell them what you know."

"They’re sending over a public defender," he said. "After that, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do."

Daniel drummed his fingers lightly on the table.

"It wasn’t right, how we treated you," said the man, finally. "I’ve…I wish I could say I realized it right away, but it’s been gradual. I think about it a lot. Especially lately. It’s hard to even walk down the street without seeing your name on some headline."

"I’m aware," said Daniel.

"I just thought you should know." He looked at the wall for a few moments. "You know, if I’d thought Jim was serious about this, I would have told him to leave you alone. But I had no idea. I thought he was just…venting." He took a deep breath. "But apparently, he was serious about it. I didn’t realize until he started asking me for money to help out with ‘the cause.’ That was what he called it. I explained to him that I was still paying off my student loans, and barely making my rent every month, but I guess I should have told him what I was really thinking. A million times I ranted about it to my wife, I told her how he needed to just let go, and leave you alone, but I never said it to him. Maybe if I had…but that’s not the point, I guess. I can do something about it now. I just wish it hadn’t gone this far."

"Well, you couldn’t have known," I put in, since Daniel didn’t seem like he was going to respond anytime soon.

Silence reigned, for a few more minutes.

"Is that all?" Daniel said, finally.

"I just wanted you to know I’m sorry," said the man. "And I don’t hold it against you."

Daniel straightened, suddenly. "Don’t hold what against me?"

The man looked up, blankly. "I’m sorry," he said. "I shouldn’t have brought it up."

I looked over at Daniel; he waited for another moment, and then stood up abruptly and went towards the door. I followed him, glancing back at the other man as we left. But he didn’t look up as we left. He just kept staring at the table, his head in his hands.

"He feels bad," I said, when we were out in the car.

"Yes, well," said Daniel. "Try as I might, I can’t drum up too much sympathy."

I knew he had a right to feel that way, but there was still something unsettled in the pit of my stomach.

We came home to a notice on the door. They’d tried to deliver a certified letter, something overnighted. Daniel hurried to the post office, and I stayed behind, updating Lindsey on everything that had happened.

Daniel came back in a little while, with an expression on his face that looked like it might almost become a smile.

"They granted the petition," he said. "I’ve got a new judge."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Congratulations, Danny. Have I said that enough times yet?" Lindsey was so excited she could hardly contain herself.

"You know this means we have to start over completely, don’t you?" said Daniel, but he was smiling. "I’m going to be up all night tomorrow working with my lawyer, we have to completely re-build the entire case and present the whole thing over again. This essentially resets the timetable."

"But this time you have a judge who’s not determined to crucify you," I said. "And that makes all the difference." So he’d be working all night. The night of my showing. I had no idea why a feeling of sick disappointment blossomed in my chest; I’d already decided he wasn’t invited.

"Do you really have to work all night? Can’t it wait?" Lindsey wanted to know.

"The new judge is fitting me in starting next week," he said. "And my lawyer’s got cases booked during the day until then, so we have to work after-hours. Otherwise I’d have to wait for months and months to even get started. This whole thing has thrown the trial schedule for a loop."

"Well, that’s ridiculous," said Lindsey. "Can you at least relax and celebrate tonight?"

"Maybe," he said. "As long as ‘celebrating’ means takeout and beer in the kitchen. There’s absolutely no way I’m subjecting myself to being in the public eye."

"Okay, fair enough." Lindsey opened one of the kitchen drawers. "I’ll start digging for menus."

"I can’t believe you still have all those," I said, eyeing the massive stack of wrinkled paper that Lindsey pulled out of the drawer. "You know it’s all online now, right?"

"You say that," Daniel replied. "But you remember that Italian place we wanted to try once? Didn’t even have so much as a profile online. We had to go and read the menu at the table, like we were in the dark ages." He grinned. "I’m in the mood for anything, Linds."

Lindsey gave him a mock salute, her nose buried in a binder’s worth of menus.

We talked about everything but the trial over dinner, and Lindsey turned in early, determined to get a full night’s sleep before a teleconference she had in the morning. Daniel and I stayed up, talking, even laughing a little, and it was almost – almost – like all this had never happened.

But not quite.

I looked at him now, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the accusations. I wasn’t naive; I’d always assumed that someone of Daniel’s prominence had probably conducted himself with less-than-pristine ethics at some point in his career. But assuming and knowing were very different things.

When I’d first married him, it was just a business deal. I didn’t concern myself with what kind of person he was, beyond his ability to honor our agreement. But somewhere along the way I’d managed to fall in love with the man. And now, I was actually getting to know him. It was deeply unsettling, which I supposed was the cost of doing things backwards.

Jesus Maddy, stop being such a drama queen. It’s not like he’s in organized crime.

"So," I heard myself say after a lull. "It’s going to be weird facing Paulson in court again, right? After all those years?"

He was looking at me sidelong. "I suppose," he said.

"I bet you thought you’d never run into him again."

"Well, the matter was settled." He rotated his beer bottle around, slowly, over and over again. "In a very literal sense of the word. Non-disclosure agreements were signed."

"But you can’t really blame him for holding a grudge." I paused. "I mean, without taking sides or anything."

"Without taking sides, he had nothing without me," said Daniel, tightly. "And he knows that."

I shrugged. "Maybe it’s not as obvious to him as it is to you. Not that I was there, of course. I don’t know what happened. But whatever kind of…you know, misunderstanding…"

A muscle in Daniel’s jaw twitched. "There was no misunderstanding," he said. "All of them, they just wanted a taste."

"Well," I said. "That would be your perspective."

"Well," said Daniel. "As you say – you weren’t there."

My head was buzzing.

"And what if I did?" he said, his voice suddenly growing louder. "What if I did steal it?"

I couldn’t look at him. "I don’t know," I said.

"Would it change the way you feel about me?"

There it was – the question I’d been afraid to ask myself, all this time. I hadn’t exactly invited my feelings for him, but now that they were here, I didn’t know how I could live without them. I was afraid to look them in the face, but I was even more afraid to let them go.

What if he did do it?

What if he made that mistake, all those years ago? Blinded by ambition, or frustrated by inaction, or driven by some forces that I simply couldn’t understand, and never would?

Would it change the way I felt about him? Was there anything he could do, that would make me love him less?

Suddenly, I knew the answer. And it terrified me. But not at all in the way that I expected.

"Of course not," I said, my voice sounding much more bitter than I intended.

"Well then," he said. "It doesn’t matter, does it?"

"I’d like to know," I said. "I’d like to know that you trust me."

"You know that already," he said.

"You keep saying that." I stared at my beer. "But ever since this whole thing went down, you’ve barely talked to me. And I don’t know if it’s because you just don’t have any energy left, or if it’s because you’re hiding something. But either way, I don’t really know how you expect me to feel about it."

"I didn’t want to burden you," he said, in a tone that suggested even he wasn’t convinced of this excuse.

"Wrong," I said. "Try again."

I heard him shift a little on the stool, and I finally looked at him again. He’d turned towards me, his face indescribably tired and sad. He was picking at the label of his beer bottle with his thumb.

"People always think they want to help," he said. "But they don’t. Not really. Nobody wants to hear about how much I worry. How that’s the only thing that drives me. People ask all the time. Every interview, there’s some variation of it. What pushes you forward? What makes you tick? Nobody wants to hear the real answer. It’s fear. Fear of losing ground, fear of becoming irrelevant. Every accomplishment just becomes another albatross around your neck. The bar’s being raised, every day, every hour, every minute. Something like this happens, and it just confirms every fear I’ve ever had. It validates all those sleepless nights. I spend every free moment thinking of something that can go wrong – of how the rug’s going to get pulled out from under my feet – but I still never manage to guess at what actually happens. This f**king disaster, and the one before – two, if you count Flo trying to ruin our f**king lives – who could have possibly seen that coming?"

"So why worry?" I said, quietly.

He stared at me, balefully.

"I’m not trying to be flippant," I said, laying my hand on top of his. His thumb finally stilled. "I’m serious. If you can’t possibly see it coming, when it happens, why spend time worrying about it?"

"Because I can’t stop," he said, looking at me incredulously. As if it were that obvious.

"Can’t, or won’t?"