John lets the screen door shut and crosses the porch to sit with me. The swing dips when he sits and wraps his arm around me to pull me closer to him.
“They're here for you,” John whispers into my ear and splays his hand over my belly. I love it when he does that. When his eyes light up with hope. We didn’t plan this little one, but I’m so grateful and happy. And so is John.
I kiss him, feeling a rush of warmth flow through me. I would never have guessed our lives would turn out like this. It’s nearly picture perfect.
At the sound of the door opening again, I pull away, feeling the heat of a blush on my cheeks. John just smiles as he stands and helps me to my feet. The wooden swing gently hits the back of my legs as I get my balance and say goodbye to a group of my coworkers.
“We’re heading out,” Karen says as she waves her hand, the other occupied by a paper plate covered with aluminum foil. A young woman who must be in her early forties, or maybe late thirties walks out with the group. She’s in her gardening clothes and in an instant, I know she’s one of our new neighbors. They live down the road and closer to John’s shop. The closest neighbors we have.
“I really appreciate the invitation,” she says as she stops in front of us. I’ve only had a few conversations with her, but she’s a sweet woman, alone out here for the most part.
“Of course,” I answer her. “I’m so happy you came.” I can’t help the smile on my face or the small yawn that comes after it as John makes small talk with her. I watch him as he talks. It’s night and day from where he was just two short years ago. He’s not perfect, but neither am I. Together though, we’ve gotten through everything. One thing that the memory can always hold on to, is love. There’s never a doubt in either of us that the other person doesn’t truly love them. That’s rare and special and I can’t get over how powerful it is.
“How did you two meet?” our new neighbor asks as she grips her drink in both of her hands. She looks between the two of us with a smile on her face. “You’re such a good-looking couple,” she says. I wish the smile that wants to come to the surface were genuine, but it’s not.
She’s not the first to ask.
And a part of me deep down is terrified that they’ll all find out the truth. Another part wants to scream it out loud and tell everyone what we’ve gone through. Together.
I keep the smile on my face as my husband wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him. A lie slips so easily from his lips. It’s a struggle every time, to listen to words that are false, meant to hide the truth.
No one wants to hear our story. The real story. When they ask how we met, no one would expect the harsh reality of our pasts. No one would be able to understand. They would judge us. And they’d never forget it.
I sure as fuck won’t.
It’s dark and twisted.
But that doesn’t make it any less of what it is.
A love story. Our love story.
And I’m so grateful we got a happily ever after. Stories like ours aren’t meant to end like this. It’s only because we stayed together. Only because our love was stronger than our pain.
The End
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King of Wall Street
King of Wall Street
By: Louise Bay
Chapter 1
Harper
Ten. Whole. Minutes. It didn’t sound like a long time, but as I sat across from Max King, the so-called King of Wall Street, while he silently read through the first draft of a report I’d produced on the textile industry in Bangladesh, it felt like a lifetime.
Resisting the urge to revert to my fourteen-year-old self and ask him what he was thinking, I glanced around, trying to find something else to fixate on.
Max’s office suited him perfectly—the A/C was set to the average temperature of an igloo; the walls, ceilings, and floors were all blinding white, adding to the arctic ambience. His desk was glass and chrome, and the New York sun bled through the opaque blinds, trying without success to thaw the frost that penetrated the room. I hated it. Every time I entered the place I had the urge to flash my bra or graffiti the walls in bright red lipstick. It was the place fun came to die.
Max’s sigh pulled my attention back to his long index finger that he trailed down the page of my research. He shook his head. My stomach somersaulted. I knew impressing him would be an impossible task but that didn’t mean I hadn’t secretly hoped I’d nailed it. I’d worked so hard on this report, my first research for the Max King. I’d barely slept, working double so I didn’t neglect my other duties in the office. I’d printed off and examined everything that had been written on the industry in the last decade. I’d pored over the statistics, trying to find patterns and draw conclusions. And I’d scoured the King & Associates archives trying to find any historical research that we’d produced so we could explain any inconsistencies. I’d covered every base, hadn’t I? When I’d printed it out earlier that morning, long before anyone else had arrived, I’d been happy—proud even. I’d done a good job.
“You spoke to Marvin about the latest data?” he asked.
I nodded, though he didn’t look up, so I said, “Yes. All the graphs are based on the latest figures.” Did they look wrong? Had he expected something else?
I just wanted him to say, “Good job.”
I’d been desperate to work for Max King since before I enrolled at business school. He was the power behind the throne of many of the Wall Street success stories in the last few years. King & Associates provided investment banks with critical research that helped their investment decisions. I liked the idea that there were a ton of flashy suits from investment banks shouting about how rich they were and the man who had made it happen was happy to go quietly about his business, just being amazing at what he did. Understated, determined, supremely successful—he was everything I wanted to be. When I got the offer during my final semester to be a junior researcher at King & Associates, I was thrilled, but I also felt an odd sense that the universe was simply unravelling how it should, as though it was simply the next step in my destiny.
Destiny could kiss my ass. My first six weeks in my new position had been nothing I’d expected. I’d assumed I’d be surrounded by ambitious, intelligent, well-dressed twenty and thirty somethings and I’d been right about that. And the clients we worked for—almost every investment bank in Manhattan—were phenomenal and lived up to every expectation I’d had. Max King, however, had turned out to be a huge letdown. The fact was, despite being crazy smart, respected by everyone on Wall Street, and looking as if he should have been on a poster on teenage me’s bedroom wall, he was . . .