Sam seemed to have that effect on me.
We took a shuttle bus from the end of the hike back to where our RVs were parked. It was only an hour before I got a phone call from Maxine. My phone buzzing right as I was about to hop into my shower.
“Max,” I answered, still feeling lost in my sudden haze of feelings.
“Hey, buddy,” Maxine said, her clipped tone cutting right through the fog. “You’re looking happy out there on your trip.”
“Jesus. Does everyone but me check social media every two minutes?” I leaned on the edge of the shower, cradling my phone by my ear.
“Yes,” she answered. “Most of us do, actually. In fact, when one of my contacts is tagged in a photo for the first time in a while, I actually get a direct email about it. I was surprised to see your smiling mug.”
The thought made my stomach turn. How many people had gotten a damn email about a photo of me and Sam? Even though I liked the picture, it felt strange. I wasn’t used to attention where I couldn’t specifically control the outcome.
“So that’s your stepbrother?” Maxine asked.
I furrowed my brow. “How’d you know that?”
“Says it right in the caption,” she said.
“Yes, that’s my stepbrother,” I said.
She snorted. “Cute,” he said. “Looks like a guy from Kansas, that’s for sure.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” My tone came out angrier than I’d intended.
“I mean, you see him, right? I haven’t seen a tank top like that since the nineties. He looks like he just walked out of a Spencer’s store in the mall.”
I bit my tongue, heat flaring inside of me. “I’m sorry we didn’t wear three-piece suits on our Grand Canyon hike.”
“Listen. You’re back at the end of next week, right?”
I let out a long breath. “Yes,” I said.
It felt like another universe entirely. I knew that in about ten days, I’d be back in the city, to my “normal” life, whatever that meant. I’d be back to four hours of sleep a night, living on coffee, and shuffling myself from private office to private office. Making deals and having meetings day in and day out, and holing up in expensive bars and restaurants to schmooze with other investors most nights.
All of the things I was good at. And all of the things that felt totally alien to me right now.
“You’re not going to believe what I’ve got scheduled for the night you’re back,” Maxine said. I could picture her, reclining in her expensive office chair, sipping a White Russian like she always did. “Guess.”
“I don’t know, Max—”
“Guess.”
“Um, do you have some sort of yacht party happening?”
“No, but that’ll probably be on the schedule, too,” she said. “I finally got a certain someone to agree to come to town.”
I paused. “It couldn’t be—”
“Mariya Morozova,” he said.
“Wow.”
“And apparently, Mariya is very interested in meeting you.”
Mariya Morozova was the Ukrainian model turned powerhouse investor who I’d always wanted to meet. She had a huge fortune now, and for years, various friends of mine had been saying that she was like a “female version” of me. It always sounded ridiculous to me. Mariya was fully herself.
But from a distance, I had always admired her, and I understood the comparisons. Like me, she didn’t come from wealth. She’d been determined and single-minded. And also like me, she was usually single, sometimes dating men only for a few weeks before she inevitably left. Neither of us were famous, but within the tight-knit investment circles, people certainly knew who we were.
I’d always wanted to meet her. And our busy schedules had never yet intersected. For a long time, Maxine had been trying to finally get us in the same room. Mariya didn’t make it over to the U.S. very often, and both of us had plenty on our plates.
“How the hell did you manage that?” I asked.
“Told her about your penthouse.”
“That feels so cheap,” I said, a little guilty. I wanted to pick Mariya’s brain about business strategies, but I didn’t feel any need to prove a point to her. She was richer than me, anyway. “She wants to come to my house?”
“Sure does,” Maxine said proudly. “This could be amazing, Fox. For multiple reasons, not just business ones. You’ve talked about how Mariya is your dream wife, and Ben’s talked about how he wants you to get on her good side.”
Ben Chamberlight was the heir and current CEO of Chamberlight Investments. He’d grown fond of me over the years, and it was true that he’d always been in favor of me forging a bond with Mariya.
I puffed out a sigh. “That was just a silly fantasy,” I said. “I don’t even know the woman, I’ve just always thought she was smart as hell and beautiful.”
“Well, that fantasy could become real,” she said. “Once you get your ass back here and ditch your family shit, things are going to be good, my friend.”