Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,37
them.
“Yes, Mr. Jensen, I am going to let you escape, but don’t let that make you think that we’re done here. We have unfinished business. However, you lucked out because Marcus and I also have unfinished business, and I don’t have any kind of guarantee that I’ll be seeing him again anytime soon. You, on the other hand…”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
I take her hand and kiss it. Marcus’s face has turned an alarming shade of red, which amuses me greatly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry. If my own unfinished business wasn’t a matter of serious urgency, I’d stay and watch the show. As I make my way through the crowd, I glance back. She’s gesticulating wildly into the air as he munches on a canapé, but there’s some serious anger behind his blasé expression. A match made in heaven.
I spin around to find a tray to put the little wooden stick that had held the bacon-wrapped scallop, but instead, I find Sam holding two glasses of champagne with a sardonic little smile on his face.
“Chris, I could say that I’m surprised to see you here, but I think we both know that would be a lie. Anyways, I asked them to let me know when you arrived. I wasn’t disappointed.” He offers a glass to me, and just as I start to shake my head, he adds, in a low tone, “It’s just grape juice, Jensen. Let’s get out of here, okay?”
I take the glass and give him a wary look. “This isn’t one of those ‘take him out into the alley and shoot him’ things, is it?”
“You’ve been in too many bad movies, old friend.”
His tone does nothing to convince me that this isn’t going to end in an alley. However, I do follow him up a stairway until we come to a stop in a room full of enormous canvases with naked men. There are a few sculptures scattered in the corners of the room, and my heart skips a beat when I see a familiar pile of orange and brown candy wrappers on the floor. Apparently, that guy was still making money. Hallie would have loved it.
“Time’s treated you well, Sam.”
His suit, obviously made on Savile Row, along with the flashy watch, tell me that maybe he’s doing a little bit better than just well, but I decide to leave that alone for now.
“It has. But then again, time tends to treat you well when you have a trust fund with a lot of zeroes, connections to some of the most powerful people in the world, a chair at a boardroom with your name on it, and a board of directors just waiting for you to finish up your wild ways and file into the same pattern as your old man.”
I concede his point with a nod. “We used to say that it was total hell to have the weight of great expectations on our shoulders. We wanted to make our own way in the world, to step out from our fathers’ shadows.”
“And yet, here we are, carbon copies of them. I’m running Evenstar and it’s just a matter of time before you step into the director’s chair.”
“I hope not.”
“We’ll see.” Sam shrugs his shoulders and gives me a small smile. “Let’s get this over with, Jensen. I have a room full of people waiting for me to give a speech so that they can cheer all of the great work I’ve done, and I’ve got a hunch that there’s somewhere else you would rather be, too. Aren’t you going to ask me how she is? Where she is?”
That’s exactly what I was going to ask him, but I’m not planning on giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he’s nailed it.
“Did you see her?”
He sighs. “Yes, I saw her.”
“Is she all right?”
“That depends on your definition of all right. And you’re assuming that I think you deserve to get that information, which I don’t.”
“Sam.”
“You know, obviously, I knew you were going to show up here. I’ve been thinking about what I was going to say to you all day. I pretty much covered every possible scenario. First, I thought about my own, more painful version, of your alley. And then, for a while, punching you in the face seemed like it might be the best idea. That would have been temporarily satisfying, but ultimately, not really good enough. I even thought about having your name removed from the guest list, but