Page 119 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

“Well, that is an interesting thing to hear you say. Especially considering your apartment is one of the softest places I’ve ever been.”

“You know that’s for the women who come to visit.”

“Maybe the daisies are for me,” she said. She did her best not to dwell on the reality of other women visiting him. She had seen those other women. She had seen them in bed together. Of course, it felt different now. Sharp.

She held on to him more firmly, and began to lead him out of the room. “Two more steps and then we’re at the stairs,” she said.

“Thank you.”

There was a hardness to his tone, and she could tell that he wasn’t happy that he had to be led.

“It is temporary,” she said. “You’ll be just fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No. I don’t. But I used to say it to my mother all the same. I told her that she would be fine, and then I told her that I would be fine. Because what else are you supposed to say? That I don’t know?” Her heart started to beat faster. He kept in step with her, as if the familiarity that he had with stairs helped. But of course he had one hand on her, one on the railing, and she did her level best to keep him steady. He must hate this. But she hated it too. Hated being put in this position again. Hated that he wouldn’t even let her give him the lip service that would at least make her feel better.

“What are you supposed to say to someone? That you might not be fine? That it might be like this for you forever. It might be. Maybe you won’t be okay. None of us will be.” She let out a heavy sigh, and her foot reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s just floor now. You stand here, I’m going to go into the kitchen and get food.”

“What if I don’t wish to wait?”

“That’s too bad. There are going to be concessions that you have to make. That I have to make.”

She went and she picked up the basket of food, and stood there for a moment. She took a deep breath. And she tried to make some sense out of her feelings. Her utterly selfish, uncharitable, mixed-up feelings. Because she wanted to kiss him, and she wanted to shake him, and she wanted to go and find a doctor and rail at them for not fixing him immediately, because she also hated seeing him helpless. As much as she hated seeing him hopeless.

She took a deep breath, and went back out to where he was. “I’m here,” she said.

He didn’t reach his hand out for her, she went and grabbed it. “Come on,” she said, propelling him toward the door.

“You have too much power over me,” he said.

She paused for a moment. “Well, that’s unusual.”

“I am aware that I generally enjoy an outsized amount of power. I do not enjoy the loss of it.”

“You never really had it,” she said, tugging him out the door. “I mean, if it makes you feel better. That’s one thing you learn when you have a parent who gets ill. Or, if you ever get hurt. Or sick. We live under the illusion of having control. That if we do certain things our lives will turn out a certain way. But it isn’t true. Even I have fallen back into that belief system. I guess it’s just been too long since life coldcocked me. Not so much right now.”

“Does my injury inconvenience you?”

“I already said that it did,” she said. “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m not. It’s only... Whatever power you thought you had, it was never real.”

He let out a hard, short laugh. “I suppose not.”

“It doesn’t mean that your father is in control over you. Also, you’re a billionaire, so technically, you don’t even need the public to like you. You could just step away from everything, never work again.”

“But don’t you understand how that feels... Wrong.”

The sun was shining through the trees, and it really was a beautiful day outside. There were no daisies, but there were other wildflowers, and she was tempted to drag him through them. No one would ever know, least of all him. She didn’t, though. Instead, she walked with him to the shade of a large, expansive willow. She spread a blanket out on the ground, and then guided him down to sit beside her. It was beautiful. But, much like everything in her life, it was the simile of something tranquil. Because this wasn’t the truth of it. He was here under sufferance, they were hiding from a rabid media. She was his keeper more than anything else, and the fact that she had been his lover probably meant nothing to him.

It meant everything to her.

It had been a singular experience as far as she was concerned.

And of course for him... It had basically just been a Tuesday.

He might’ve even forgotten that they’d slept together. He had hit his head, after all, and it might have been any woman.

Really, it might have been any woman.