annual lunch, Charlotte had asked Matt and Holly—she’d tried to sound casual and relaxed—if they knew of a job that Rocco might have. Maybe he could do something on their farm.
Matt and Holly were sorry, they couldn’t. They themselves were just getting by.
Then Matt said, “What about Andrew John? I hear he’s hiring. All the stuff he’s been doing to restore the soil and plant cover crops and make the farm organic is finally done. This year he’s planted his first market crops.”
“Wouldn’t it be awkward for you?” Holly asked. “I mean, it was your family farm, and now—”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte said. “Rocco might be okay with it. All of that seems so far in the past. The old house is gone, so there wouldn’t be that—”
Holly still looked dubious, but Matt said, “Think about it.”
Charlotte did think about it. She thought about it so hard that she was distracted all through lunch.
She didn’t really know Andrew John. In fact she didn’t know him at all. The only time she’d met him was at the office during the real estate closing.
That day he’d been very gracious and smiled warmly when they were introduced. Then he’d sat more or less silently as his lawyer and Charlotte’s lawyer arranged the transfer of the farm. Charlotte remembers the words dazzlingly handsome occurring to her. She’d been embarrassed even to think a cliché like that.
Now she had no idea how to get in touch with him. She could call or email his Manhattan office, but what were the chances of getting through? If she left it up to Rocco, it would never happen. Rocco would give up when the first unfriendly receptionist blew him off, or the first out-of-office reply email bounced back and discouraged him from going further.
Charlotte drank three glasses of wine at lunch with Matt and Holly. She probably shouldn’t have been driving, but she felt okay. In fact she felt an infusion of courage, as if she’d been dosed with some intense shot of bravery that didn’t feel like her natural state.
The force of her need to help Rocco made her turn off the road just past where her childhood home used to be. She headed up the long driveway to where she knew Andrew John lived.
She’d expected men with machine guns to come charging out of the bushes. But that didn’t happen. She assumed that at least there would be a locked gate where you had to speak into a box or press a code. But there wasn’t even that.
There was one car—a Range Rover—parked in front of the impossibly stylish, rectangular glass structure.
Andrew John answered the door. She explained who she was.
He smiled and said, “Of course. I remember you from the closing.” He invited her in.
From the moment she stepped into the house, they both knew what was going to happen. It was on. Just like that. Eli, Andrew John’s wife and children, their lives before and after this afternoon. None of that existed—or anyway, it had temporarily ceased to exist.
She was painfully self-conscious, aware of him watching her as she moved through the sleek, transparent box in which he lived, as close to nature as you could be without actually being outdoors. He watched her admire the view. He came and stood beside her.
It was as if she were observing herself from a distance—moving, speaking, listening, responding. Nothing she did was remotely like anything she would normally say or do. She wasn’t walking the way she normally walked. She couldn’t. He was watching.
She was prowling the edges of his house. And Andrew John watched her prowl.
The fact that she couldn’t look at him was a sign of . . . what? Of how tall he was, how handsome he was, and (she had to admit) how rich and powerful he was. She’d never cared about any of that before. Now she finally understood the appeal.
She almost forgot why she was there—how desperately she wanted him to hire her brother.
He asked if she wanted a glass of wine. She nodded. He filled her glass, which almost immediately seemed to be empty, though she couldn’t remember drinking it. He filled it again.
After the second glass she blurted out, “My brother, Rocco, needs a job. He can do a lot of things. He’s very capable. He should work for you.”
Andrew John said, “Sure. If it wouldn’t be awkward . . .”
Charlotte said, “That would be up to you.”
Just watching him think was exciting.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell my