Page 70 of The Bonus

I chuckle and sip my scotch.

“Why are we playing chess on a Saturday night, anyway?” he asks.

My eyes roam over to the wall of windows and the twinkling New York lights way down below. “I don’t know.” I sip my scotch. “Do you ever get the feeling that there is something missing?”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, I have everything…and yet.”

“If you want something more when you live the life you do, then the rest of us mere mortals are screwed,” he replies.

I sip my drink again as I drift into deep thought. “Maybe I should get married.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “Ariana is . . .”

“Perfect.” I cut him off.

He nods.

We start a new game of chess as we both fall into our own thoughts. “I always thought when I met the one, I would be chomping at the bit to make it legal,” I say as I think out loud.

“Not sure if I’ll ever get married, to be honest,” Mark replies.

“I want children.”

“You need children to pass all this crap down to.” He gestures around my apartment.

“For the record, my eighty-million-dollar penthouse is not crap.”

He chuckles. “But does it make you happy?”

“No.” My eyes roam around the penthouse. “Doesn’t appear to.”

“So are you going to marry Ariana?”

“No.”

“Who are you going to marry then, if not her?”

“I don’t know. Ariana is beautiful and adoring, Italian and everything I should want. We’ve been together for over a year and I do love her.”

“But you’re not in love with her?”

“Maybe I’m incapable of it.”

“Probably.” He thinks for a moment. “You owe me five hundred bucks.”

“For what?”

“I’m not being your therapist for free, you know.”

“What solution have you given me, you just told me I’m incapable of love,” I fire back. “And since when did your price rise?”

He chuckles. “The truth is costly.”

I walk into my apartment just on six and see rose petals scattered up the hall.

What the hell is this?

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