The Kingmaker

“They do a little, yeah.”

“Then I’m saving them.”

He narrows his eyes and drops his hands from me, but the corners of his mouth twitch. How can lips be firm and so lush?

“I’m as bad as your dad. I kept thinking maybe something happened to you or . . .” His shoulders lift and fall, and he looks away.

“Or?”

“Maybe you changed your mind about getting to know each other.” He looks back to me and there’s an unexpected flash of uncertainty. Maxim doesn’t strike me as an uncertain man.

“I have the feeling you’re the kind of guy people like to get to know. I’m no exception. Sorry if I worried you.”

“You can make it up to me over dinner.”

“I’d like that.”

“Great.” He stands and picks up his book. “I’ll let you get inside to relax a little, get changed. Eight o’clock okay to come back for you?”

“Sure,” I reply distractedly, my attention caught by the cover of his book.

“Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer.” I turn down the corners of my mouth, simultaneously intrigued and already half dozing. “The Antarctic, huh?”

“I know Ernest Shackleton isn’t exactly a household name . . .” he laughs, picking up the book and closing it, holding it, “. . . but he’s kind of a big deal as far as expeditions go.”

“Are expeditions your thing then? Is there even any place left to expedition to?”

“Oh, yeah.” He lifts his brows and studies the cover. “On both counts. There’s a ton left to explore and most of it interests me very much. I’m actually leaving for Antarctica next week.”

My heart wobbles and my whole body goes still. If I counted up every minute I’ve ever spent with this man, it wouldn’t even equal a day, but hearing he’s leaving next week . . . hell, I’m leaving next week. Whatever this is or could be, it’s most likely short-lived. I need to remember that.

“Wow, Antarctica. A trip to the most remote place on the planet. Were you drafted? Is it a condition for your degree or something?”

“I applied and it’s actually a pretty competitive process. I’ll be there all winter and staying through November, which is Antarctic summer. The research you can get in the two seasons is completely different, and I want exposure to both. I’ll be inland until around September and then will study along the peninsula on an ice-capable ship for the summer. Some of the best clues we have, some of the best predictors of how the planet is changing and what the implications of it will be, are in the Antarctic.”

“When I say I want to save the world, I mean people, but you mean—”

“The actual planet, yeah, but that is people. The rapid changes in our planet—that’s one of the most urgent crises we face, and the people who can actually do the most about it aren’t paying attention, or don’t seem to care.”

I was mistaken. That flare, that spark in his eyes, I mistook for ambition? It’s passion. It’s zeal. It’s an important distinction, and I recognize it because it burns through me, too.

“If you ask me, there are plenty of things more urgent than melting ice caps,” I say, watching for his response to my words. “Like the fact that an astounding number of Native American women are sexually assaulted, and there’s barely any data or concern when we go missing. Or the fact that children in certain parts of the world, in America, don’t have enough food.”

“Agreed, those things are urgent, but to put it in perspective, the Antarctic holds ninety percent of the planet’s ice and seventy percent of our freshwater. Do you know what that means?”

“It’s really cold and wet there?” I ask w

ith a self-mocking grin.

He smiles back, but there is a graveness to the set of his mouth. “It means that if all the ice in Antarctica melted, global sea levels would increase so much that London, New York, Sydney—major cities would be underwater.”

“Holy crap.”

“It’s unlikely that it would all melt, but things are changing rapidly. We could wait until it’s too late to do a damn thing, which is why we should be doing those things now. While we can.” He caresses my cheekbone. “And you wouldn’t have to worry about all those people you want to help, Nix, because they’d all be dead. So, yes. I want to save the world, too.”

I feel chagrined and incredibly turned on and concerned about the planet all of a sudden. I want to recycle and dry hump him in the middle of the square. These feelings, seemingly at odds with one another, confuse me. Or maybe it’s him being so much more than I bargained for, and exactly what I was hoping.

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