had died when he was fourteen, and he had been sent to boarding school, because his father didn't know what else to do with him. He had hated boarding school, detested the kids, and missed his parents. And while he was away at school, his father seemed to have drunk himself to death and spent the last of his money. He died when Sam was in his senior year, though Sam didn't tell Alex what he had died of. Sam had gone to college then on the small amount of money his grandparents had left him. His parents had left him nothing. He'd gone to Harvard and done well, and he didn't say anything to Alex about being lonely when he was in college. He made it sound like a great time, though thinking about it, she knew that it must have been rough for him to have no family at all by the time he was seventeen. But it didn't seem to have hurt him.
After Harvard undergraduate, he had eventually moved on to Harvard Business School, and had been totally enamored with venture capital. He'd found a job the minute he graduated, and in the eight years since he had made fortunes for several of his clients.
“And what about you?” she had asked quietly, watching his eyes as they walked along the beach at sunset. “There's more to life than venture capital and Wall Street.” She wanted to get to know him better. She had just had the most exciting weekend of her life, and she hadn't even slept with him. She wanted to know more about Sam Parker before they disappeared back to their own lives after they left California.
“Is there more to life than Wall Street?” he laughed, slipping an arm around her. “No one's ever told me. What is there, Alex?” He had stopped walking and looked down at her. He was enormously taken with her, even then, but a little bit afraid to show it. Her long red hair had been flying in the breeze, her green eyes looked deep into his and made him feel a stirring he had never felt before. In some ways, it scared him.
“What about people? Relationships?” She knew he had never been married, but she didn't know more than that. She assumed, just looking at him, and watching his easy style, that he must have had hundreds of girlfriends.
“No time for those,” Sam teased, as he pulled her a little closer and they continued walking. “I'm too busy.”
“And too important?” she asked pointedly, fearing that he might be conceited. He certainly had every reason to be, but so far she hadn't seen it.
“Who said that? I'm not important, I'm just having a good time.”
“Everyone knows who you are,” she said matter-of-factly, “even here. Los Angeles, New York …Silicon Valley, for sure …Tokyo …where else? Paris? London? Rome? It's a pretty big picture.”
“And not exactly a correct one. I work hard, that's all. So do you. No big deal.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled down at her, but they both knew there was a lot more to it than he admitted.
“I don't fly to California in my clients' planes, Sam. My clients come to me by cab. If they're lucky. The rest of them come by subway.” She grinned and he laughed.
“Okay, so mine are luckier. Maybe I am too. Maybe I won't be lucky forever. Like my father.”
“Are you afraid of that happening to you too? Losing everything?” It was an intriguing side to him, and clearly a motivating factor.
“Maybe. But he was a fool … a nice fool …but a fool. I think it killed him when my mother died. He gave up. He lost his grip, he was like that when she was sick too. He loved her so much that he just couldn't handle it when she went. It killed him.” He had long since decided that he would never let that happen to him. He would never love anyone enough to let them pull him down with them.
“It must have been awful for you,” Alex said sympathetically, “you were so young.”
“You grow up fast when you're the only one you have,” he said soberly, and then he smiled sadly, “or maybe you never do. My friends say I'm still a kid. I think I like that. It keeps me from getting too serious. There's no point getting too serious in life. It's no fun when you start to do that.” But Alex was, she