Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
I scroll up and find it last on my list. Room is listed as checked out. Maybe they had other plans? I head into the sitting area to see if anything else has been touched, but it looks good as new. The bedroom too. The bed hasn’t been slept in.
It’s like my own personal leaving present—my last room, the most important room, doesn’t need to be serviced. I just saved myself ninety minutes. Somebody must have failed to check in last night.
And then my gaze catches on the curtains. The turndown team must have been in last night, so I need to reset for a daytime check-in. I set to work, undoing the turndown by changing where the water is kept and moving the remote control, opening the curtains and returning the slippers to the dressing room. I double back into the bathroom and see that the bathmat has been set out, as is always the case in a turndown, and I hang it back up.
I turn three hundred and sixty degrees, sweeping my gaze up to the ceiling and down to the floor so I make sure everything’s in place.
Bathroom done. Then I head to the bedroom for a final check.
Bedroom done.
As I’m heading through the bedroom area, my gaze snags on the desk. My stomach flips at the memory of Bennett behind me, my uniform pushed up to my waist.
That’s when I see it.
A magazine.
Most of the magazines are set out on the coffee table as per hotel protocol. One of the turndown team must have missed it and I need to put it back. I reach for the magazine and it takes me a second, maybe two or three, to understand what I’m seeing.
It’s Forbes, but it’s marked as a special edition.
The headline reads, “The Most Powerful Man in Tech: Unmasked.”
There’s no doubt who’s staring back at me from the cover.
Bennett.
My eye goes to the top of the cover, to the bottom, looking for a date, but there isn’t one. What’s happening? Is this a mock-up? Something he’s had created just for me? There’s a newsstand just along from the hotel and I step toward the window, seeing if I can make it out. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see from up here. Even if this was an actual copy of Forbes, it’s not like the newsstand is going to have it stapled to the roof.
I run my fingers over the picture of Bennett’s face, then flick open the front page. I’m not an avid reader of Forbes, but it looks legit. All over, it’s stamped special edition and it’s not as thick as the copies I’ve picked up from time to time, but other than that, it looks the same.
I skip the contents page and land on another image of Bennett. This one’s a picture of him behind a desk, dressed in his suit, looking serious and seriously sexy.
It has been so hard to stay away from him these last days. On most evenings, I’ve been so close to calling him, going to him, desperate to feel his fingers hooked over my hips, his lips on my neck, his laugh in my chest.
I’ve been willing all thoughts of him away, but he seems to follow me. Even into empty hotel rooms.
The article is an interview with Bennett. I collapse back into the office chair and start reading. He talks about the reasons he’s been so secretive. He speaks openly about all the things he clearly found it so difficult to tell me. The price his mom paid for fame. His concerns for her. Kathleen’s death, and how that led to a rebirth. How he didn’t want to have the life she did, wanted to build something from the ground up.
I’m confused. I don’t understand whether this is a public interview or whether he’s created this magazine just for me. I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to say.
I keep reading, and it’s so nice to hear his voice in the answers to the questions. The intelligence, the wit. The unrelenting charm.
And then he’s asked a final question: Why is he coming forward now, after all these years protecting his identity so fiercely?
“I realize I can’t have the personal life I want without being more open.”
“That’s cryptic,” the interviewer says. “Tell us more about your personal life. Are you an eligible bachelor or a happily married man?”
“I’ve met the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with,” he answers.
My heart disintegrates in my chest.
He’s done this for me. I know for certain that this isn’t some weird mock-up. He’s given this interview to Forbes.
My phone buzzes, and I already know before I have it in my hand that it’s Bennett.
It’s an email with just a link attached.
It’s the interview online. He knew I’d doubt whether it was public.