Page 56 of The Undercover Billionaire's Baby

“Good, then. That’s fine.”

“Wait, Lana?”

She didn’t say anything, and I thought she’d hung up. But I could still hear the TV on her end, some comedy with a laugh track. Ha-ha. Ha-ha.

“Listen, I— I have no explanation. No good one, anyway. I set up my schedule so I’d be done by three. Four at the latest, so?—”

“It’s after nine.”

The studio audience erupted in gales of laughter. I wanted to tell Lana to turn it off, but it sounded a lot like she’d turned it up.

“I thought it was earlier. The light in the sky. I’ve been here since four, not that that’s an excuse. But I could still?—”

“Since four? I thought you finished at three.”

“Four in the morning. I’ve been here since then. If I left now, I could be there by, uh…”

“Close to midnight.” Lana sighed, and the TV cut out. “Forget it, okay? It didn’t work out.”

A sudden cold feeling spread through my chest, like I’d gulped down a whole bowl of ice cream at once. It didn’t work out. Did she mean our date, or us?

“I’m tired,” she said. “And I ate too much pizza. So if you’re okay, I—I need to go.”

I groped for the words that would make this right, but I couldn’t find them. They didn’t exist. I’d lost track of time like the damn fool I was, let my chance slip by me, and now it was gone. How could I explain to her how time compressed? How everything felt like it was happening at once, asteroids from in front of me, asteroids on my back, and that alien spaceship dropping its bombs? Nine o’clock felt like three felt like noon felt like five.

“Let me make it up to you.”

“What, for tonight?” Lana made a gusty sound, not quite a laugh. “It’s not just tonight. It’s been this whole month. I’ve barely heard from you. You’re always busy. I kept telling myself, it’ll settle down. He’s just getting used to it. It’ll be like it was. But this is your life now, and I’m…” She drew a shuddering breath. My throat went tight.

“Lana?”

“I need to move on.”

“From us? Are you…?” I couldn’t say it, but I knew it was true. Lana was done with me, and I guessed I deserved it. I’d promised to be there, and I never had, not tonight or most other nights. Just like Dad had before me, I’d chosen work.

“I get it,” I said. “Maybe it’s for the best. We could keep fooling ourselves, drawing it out. But our lives are too different, like you said.”

Lana didn’t say anything, but her breathing went heavy. Had she wanted me to fight for her? To make this hard?

“Maybe one day,” I started.

“I have to go.” For a few moments, she hung on the line — waiting, maybe, for me to save us. Or maybe her eyes were blurred, and she couldn’t see to hang up. But then the line beeped, and she was gone. And we were over, easy as that.

I headed upstairs, back to my office. My big penthouse office that used to be Dad’s. I stood at the window and looked out on Boston, and wasn’t this everything I’d wanted all my life? Wasn’t this what success felt like? How it felt to be happy?

Maybe Lana and Haverford had been like my NASA dream: a dream that belonged to one season of life. A sweet summer dream that died off in fall. I wasn’t going to Jupiter or moving to the island. I was where I was meant to be, doing what I’d worked my whole life for. And Dad was proud of me, so there was that.

“This is enough,” I told my empty office. “This is me standing on top of the world.”

I dropped into Dad’s old chair and buried my face in my hands.

CHAPTER 23

LANA

“Can you imagine being so rich you don’t work all summer?” Alice stood in the window watching the street, nigh empty now the summer was over. “I don’t get how they do it. How do they not lose their jobs? Are they all teachers, or something? Or do they all just commute? Duh, they commute. It’s not that far to Boston. Or I guess some of them could work from home.”

I sat not listening, sipping my coffee. It tasted weird, sour, and I pushed it away.

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