KATIE
My mother kissed my cheek as she prepared to leave, her time cut short by urgent matters of state, and I was relieved. It was her usual pattern. Home one morning, gone the next.
Patterns were simply a repeated arrangement in math, in life. They used to soothe me, but lately, so many of them irritated me.
I was relieved in this case because I didn’t want to hear anything more about graduate school, and my mother was like a dog with a bone when it came to that. I needed time to think without being coerced. Oxford’s invitation was still my secret, but there was an acceptance deadline. At some point, I would have to share the details.
“You have the summer to come around to it,” Mom said, picking up her briefcase. I rolled my eyes, and she caught it. “Your point is well taken, Katherine. We understand that you’re a young woman with desires of your own, but we do know best. Staying at Columbia for your PhD is the right thing to do. You’re unique, darling. You must allow us to continue guiding you into your future.”
“I’ll consider it,” I said to keep the peace.
Later, I would unpack my rebellious thoughts, transforming them into mathematical theorems. God, I was tired, exhausted by being “unique.”
I wanted something more, to feel genuine passion and to express it in a way that ignited even more passion. I wanted to know what it was like to be outside of my small box.
But prodigies didn’t behave that way—or so my mother always insisted.
“We’ll continue to discuss. Don’t forget to find a gown for the charity event, which is also the evening we’re celebrating your birthday, and a dress for graduation.”
“I’m sure I can come up with something.”
“Get some new dresses, Katherine. I need to run now. Your father will be home tonight, and Marta is due any minute.” Mom hurried into the elevator of our classic Park Avenue penthouse, waving good-bye as the doors closed her in.
Our fifteenth-story apartment was at the top of a prewar building owned by my father and filled with huge windows and French glass doors that led outside onto a wraparound terrace with open city views.
My father was a renowned architect who had designed countless Manhattan high-rises, though he preferred the romantic structures, like the one in which we lived.
I turned away from the elevator doors and hurried to my room. I’d had breakfast with my mother, but I still planned to hit Jack’s for a latte. Patterns and all that.
Standing before the mirror inside my walk-in closet, I took two steps back to catch the full length of my reflection, head to toe. I was taller than the average woman, standing five-eight with bare feet.
“He is much taller,” I whispered.
Thomas Christopher. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, his light-blue eyes and the way he’d looked at me. Leaving Jack’s so quickly the day before without getting to know him had been a terrible mistake, I thought, one that I regretted.
It was unusual for someone to wander into Jack’s and grab my complete attention like he had done. Or more like never. That had never happened to me before.
Pink lace on the adjacent shelf caught my eye. I chuckled and then slipped into the delicate bra and matching panties. My ripped jeans and soft chambray blouse concealed them, so no one would be wise to my little secret.
I wanted to feel pretty again.
“It was Thomas,” I told my image in the mirror, saying his name aloud for the first time since meeting him at the coffeehouse. He was the one who had made me feel that way. “I think he saw me. The real me.”
The elevator chimed.
Marta, our part-time and sometimes live-in housekeeper, called out to alert me, “It’s me, Katherine. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything, sweetheart.”
Poking my head out of the closet to be sure she could hear me, I shouted, “When is Lena’s last exam?”
There wasn’t a day that I remembered when Marta wasn’t part of our household. Her daughter, Lena, and I had grown up together, though we never attended the same schools. Lena was my best friend, the sibling my parents had never given me.
Whenever Marta stayed over to cover for my absent mother and father, Lena stayed as well, sleeping in the second bed in my room.
My bedroom was large enough for two queen-size beds. Dad had renovated the apartment several years earlier, merging two guest bedrooms to create a second suite for me. The point of the new layout was to give me a private bathroom and to provide me with a quiet study space, so I wouldn’t be interrupted when he or my mother entertained.
Marta’s bedroom was the third, located on the other side of the kitchen. Maids’ rooms, as they had once been called, had attached bathrooms and were common in large prewar apartments like ours.
“It’s today, right now. I’m sure Lena would love to stay here with you tonight. Your father will be late, you know,” Marta said, now leaning against the frame of my open bedroom door.
I nodded and grabbed my bag. “I’ll call her later. I’m hanging out at Jack’s this morning if you need me for anything.”
“It’s raining hard, sweetheart. Grab an umbrella on your way out,” she shouted at my back as I headed down the hallway.
May was often the rainiest month in Manhattan, and when I stepped outside beneath the large green awning, it was pouring, just as Marta had said.
Most of the time, even in the rain, I walked to the coffeehouse. But a bolt of lightning abruptly split the sky wide open, and the trailing clap of thunder rattled my bones and my nerves.
Some people enjoyed New York’s late spring thunderstorms, but I loathed them. I disliked how the penthouse was exposed to the atmosphere and how my parents always seemed to be gone whenever the worst storms hit. The horrific ones, the ones where the city went dark.
My father’s car was there, idling at the curb, and his driver, Walter, was drinking coffee with the door attendant. Walter didn’t say a word. He gestured at the car with his chin and a smile.
I returned his smile and then fell into step with him beneath the umbrella he’d opened for me.
When we arrived at Jack’s five minutes later, it was bursting at the seams with patrons, as was usually the case when heavy rain came down. Runners taking cover, businesspeople hoping for a break in the clouds, students cramming for their finals indoors rather than at the park.
There weren’t any free tables or even any open seats in the back, none that I could see anyway, so after ordering my coconut milk latte to go, I waited near the red brick wall. I dug out my phone and scrolled through the social media feeds.
Family photos. Silly memes. Personal updates. Political posts. Unsolicited ads. Patterns. Numbers. Colors.
“Katie,” he said, startling me, soothing me.
I’d assumed I would never see Thomas again.
His voice had been so close to my ear, so close. Goose bumps ran up my arms.
I made a mental note about how I adored his British pronunciation. Kay-tee.
I looked up at him, and he captured my breath, my words, with his shocking blue stare.
“Hi,” was all that I managed to say.
“Hi,” he repeated with a smile that lifted only half of his mouth. “Have coffee with me.”
Four words, no ask, not really. I nodded. There was something about Thomas, something unspoken and elusive and commanding that was part of what made him so attractive. It was insane really. I was compelled to do what he wanted me to do.
“There are no tables available,” I said.
“Come with me.”
Thomas guided me to an area in the back, furnished with worn leather chairs and a similar old sofa. I’d never used the space before. It was meant for relaxed conversations, but it always seemed to be occupied by young brainstorming entrepreneurs. Without a word, he angled his head, sending two guys in their mid-twenties away from the sofa to find another workspace nearby.
“Thanks, man,” he said to them.
Did he know them? I had no idea, but it didn’t matter. He was a man who was comfortable with taking whatever he wanted. Given his impressive size, I imagined the taking-of-things part was easy enough for him to accomplish.
Thomas turned to me. He was six foot four—it was my curse to know these things—and his shoulders were wider than any that I’d ever seen up close. He wore slim jeans with blown-out knees and a blush T-shirt that clung to his well-defined chest muscles and biceps.
In a soft pink shirt, he was the embodiment of complete masculinity. A small amount of ink was visible above the shirt’s neckline, peeking up from his chest. More emerged from the bottom edge of his right sleeve. A serious urge to see those tattoos, to know what expressions he had characterized with them, overwhelmed me.
The beating of my heart and the sound of my breath rushed through my ears. A new sensation.
Adrenaline, I told myself.
I continued to stare at him, inspecting every inch of his face and his body while he did the same thing to me.
Dark blond hair. Long and thick on top, short sides.
He looked at his watch.
The watch—a modern Patek, like my father’s—revealed that despite his informal clothing, he was a wealthy businessman of some type. With the relaxation of Wall Street’s dress code, it was often hard to tell the difference between the newer generation on Wall Street and the guys at college.
“Do you have more time this morning?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. You?”
He nodded. “I’ll grab our drinks from the counter.” His blue eyes hardened a little. “Don’t run out on me again, Katie.”
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I wanted to get to know him.
“I’m here,” I countered.
Glad for an opportunity to pull myself together, I sat on the sofa and watched him walk through the center of the table-filled room and step in front of other people waiting at the service counter.
He was so damn confident, and I was so damn captivated by that confidence.
My phone was still in my hand, I realized. Lena wouldn’t get her messages for a few hours, but I tapped out a quick text to her anyway.
Can you stay over tonight? Call
when you get this.
Lena was good at testing the waters, dating men and women older than she was, and she would love the fact that I was opening myself up to talk to Thomas. God knew her advice wasn’t always the best, but at least she was experienced in dating, which was more than one could say about me.
Reckless as she sometimes was, Lena was all that I had when it came to navigating matters of the heart.
I inhaled deeply and released the breath, wondering why Thomas had made it a point to come back today and have coffee with me. He was older than me, and he was the kind of man who could have anyone that he wanted. Why me?
One thing I did know was that his first impression of me had been different than it was for most people. I’d made sure of it. I loved the idea that he couldn’t project the prodigy pretense onto me before I allowed him to do it. Of course, I planned to tell him because it would become obvious if we were going to have any real conversation at all.
I wanted that, wanted authentic conversation with him. But still, I wasn’t going to show all my cards at once. Not this time. That never worked out well for me. Unloading the prodigy thing and the fact that I was the governor’s daughter would change the way Thomas looked at me, as it had with everyone else who’d ever shown interest in me.
“So,” I started, taking my cup from Thomas as he returned and sat on the leather sofa beside me, “you’re new here. Are you on business or visiting someone?”
He took a sip of his coffee and stared at me for a moment. “I would quite like to know you, Katie, so let’s get our curricula vitae out of the way, yeah?”
All or nothing. There it was, quickly put on the table before me.
It was a bold move on his part—to demand we knock out the initial background information right away. Unable to stop myself from encouraging his bravado or accepting his winner-take-all position, I allowed my lips to curve into a small, approving smile.
He continued, “I’m from South East England, here on business, setting up an international office for the private equity firm that I own with my brother. I expect to travel between New York and London quite a lot. I’m an Oxford graduate with a master’s in mathematical finance. I’m not married, not seeing anyone.”
I should have known, should have seen his predisposition for numbers when he caught me up in his ice-colored eyes. People like him—people like us, we wore the identity on our soul, but somehow, I’d missed it with him. He would soon recognize it in me, if he hadn’t already.
“I’m a New Yorker, born and raised, but I plan to travel. I’m graduating summa cum laude from Columbia University this month with a degree in mathematics. Columbia is expecting me for grad school, but another interesting offer has grabbed my attention,” I said, watching his eyes drop to my mouth. Once, twice.
“And I’m not seeing anyone,” I added in a more reserved manner.
Thomas stretched out his free hand and waited for me to offer mine.
Unlike the morning before, I gave it to him.
He held my fingers in his and caressed them with his thumb. “You forgot the part about how beautiful you are.”
Something fiery shot through my abdomen, taking me by surprise, further undermining my courage. My face grew warm. I couldn’t think of how to respond.
Where were the numeric expressions that should have been course-plotting through my head, giving my control back to me?
A small smile hit one side of his mouth again—an absolute panty-melting smirk. He was pleased with my flushed cheeks.
“I couldn’t ask for anything more, Katie,” he said.