Well, I never see you during Hanukkah or on your birthday any more, she’d instantly text back. So, I might as well see you on the birthday of a man who could turn water into wine. God knows that’s a skill worth celebrating. Besides, I’m ordering chow mein and Uncle Israel’s bringing fruitcake.
And joy to the world and ding dong merrily on high if that wasn’t reason enough for Cohen to stay away.
And it had been far, far too easy to put back another meeting with his father. Too easy to leave yet another tense voicemail indicating that ‘sorry Dad, but work, you know how it is’, even though Jim, the shiftiest king of the shiftless, had no idea what a real day of work ever entailed.
Roberts-Canning had always come first for Cohen. Of that there had never been any doubt.
Until today, that was.
Until River.
Because Cohen, despite Fowler’s beliefs to the contrary, was no fool. He understood that accepting leadership of Roberts-Canning LLC meant committing himself to a lifetime of long hours in the city that never slept. He understood that it would mean putting the needs of the business before any needs of his own. Needs that, prior to meeting River, he refused to acknowledge he might even have.
After all, that’s why Canning had chosen him above all others. Because Cohen didn’t have needs. And if desire for something more ever crossed his path, he was to deal with it as he did everything else: methodically, coolly and without feeling.
Just like Canning.
He realised now, with a shudder, that for ten years he had been nothing more than a pale imitation of Canning in all his terrible glory. He’d been a man wearing a mask, not waiting for the day he could reveal his true face – because the real Cohen Ford had long since been buried – but for the day when the mask was so truly part of his skin that no one even realised he was wearing it. He’d been a man in the shadows, biding his time until Canning’s time fell, allowing him to rise into his light.
Or, perhaps, descend completely into his darkness.
There were times when Cohen wondered exactly what he was doing at Roberts-Canning. Of course he knew that on paper he was a financier, with a specialty in wealth growth and management. But ‘financier’ had never sat well with Cohen, being a word that covered a multitude of terrible sins. There were times when he sat back, having moved money three times around the world to cover a shady arms deal, and stared at the New York City skyline, reconsidering his life. Times when he knew – just knew – that given the right circumstances, the right environment, the right universe, that Canning could be truly evil rather than just diabolical.
But then perhaps, given the right conditions, so could he.
And that thought made Cohen break out in a cold sweat.
He thought of River then, imagined her sweet smile, her glorious eyes. He thought of her hands, small and delicate, but with strong, lean fingers. He recalled her smell, syrup-warm, while he remembered the feel of her lips on his.
River made and sold ice cream. Her career had brought about no pain, only joy. For her labours she was rewarded with the wide smiles of children, sticky and content. Adults took a paper cup of ice cream from her and offered up their happy, wistful sighs. Years from now, River’s work would be remembered with gladness, with open hearts and content satisfaction.
Cohen could not say the same.
What happiness had he ever brought about? Had there ever been a smile worn by others which he’d created through his own efforts? Had a genuine moment of joy ever been felt because of him?
Certainly not at home. His father left, after all. Christine too, in the end. And his mother ... Cohen swallowed hard, grim with the knowledge that to Esther he had always been a monumental disappointment. A difficult child, an unruly teen and then a detached adult. The perfectly imperfect son.
And certainly, he’d created little happiness at work. Cohen’s career, though profitable for those who had skin in the game, came at a terrible cost to others, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. No longer could he sit back and only see green arrows and increased revenue and undetected transfers. No, now Cohen saw what the world must have seen: misery, pain and profiteering of the worst calibre.
And if he accepted Canning’s job, he would become the centre of the problem. He would be a man of limitless wealth, of great power and wide opportunity ... but morally bankrupt, emotionally empty and defunct as a good human being.
And the man in the mask would die, leaving behind only a shadowed husk. A shadow Cohen didn’t think he could bear to see reflected back in the mirror.
And River ...
If Cohen took this role, he would have to give her up. It was that simple. He knew that River and the lifestyle Roberts-Canning offered were incompatible. He could have left Christine for days on end while he made deals in Dubai, or Niger, or Pakistan. He could have worked a sixteen-hour day, coming home for a brief sleep and shower before dressing and going back to the office. Cohen instinctively knew that Christine, had she stayed, would have been the perfect Roberts-Canning bride. Beautiful, vapid and entirely happy with the crumbs of attention Cohen could offer her.
Crumbs Cohen would well and truly pay for in diamonds, designer handbags and red-soled shoes.
But not River.
Cohen knew that if he were ever to be so fortunate as to have her by his side, he could never let her go. He was beginning to know himself, beginning to see the needs Canning so adamantly ordered him not to have. The thought of spending more than a day away from River, of being in a different city, a different country, a different time zone ... it made his stomach clench painfully. He felt physical pain when he contemplated not being near her.
Cohen sighed, going to the window and looking out at the view beyond. With River, he felt like he could either have everything ... or nothing at all.
From the thirty-sixth floor of the Roberts-Canning building, London thrived below. People moved like ants through lean alleys and bustling roads. Boats moved slowly down a murky river like leaves in a current. Trains weaved, snake-like, between buildings both ancient and modern. Somewhere, Big Ben chimed the hour, while above a 747 cut cleanly through the sky.
London was busy. London was alive. London was a mess of people and emotions and timetables and getting from A to B and back again, all day, every day.
But Cohen was quiet. Cohen was calm. Cohen felt, for the first time ever, utterly at peace with himself and the world. Because in a choice between River and Roberts-Canning LLC, between River and profit, between River and, well, anything ... River would always win.
Cohen opened his inbox again, finding Fowler’s bitter message congratulating him on his promotion, asking him to pencil in the board meeting where his new position would be made official.
He smiled as he typed back a reply.
Thanks, but no thanks.
The Great Greenwich Ice Creamery was thriving when Cohen walked in. Crowds of people were pressed into the little café, and a queue made its way calmly to the door and beyond. Around Cohen came the happy noises of children, licking pastel-coloured ice cream from spoons, their chins sticky with sugar and chocolate. Parents lingered near them, most with cups of steaming hot coffee or tea, but some with gleeful expressions, indulging in a scoop or two of mint chocolate chip or pistachio pecan swirl.
Cohen envied them their happiness.
River was busy behind the counter, dispensing ice cream with the assistance of a good-looking, well-built man. He was all at once talking to a customer while signing to River and clearly something amused them, because he stopped to sling an easy arm around River and laugh, before turning to the coffee machine.