His Forever Family(11)

"Thank you, Winston."

When Winston had departed, Liberty whispered, "You come here often?"

Marcus shrugged. "Enough that they have a table waiting for me. I enjoy dining out."

"So," she said in a too-bright voice. "Business."

"Yes," he agreed, staring at the menu. "But first, dinner."

Liberty frowned at the menu. "What's good? I don't even..." Her voice trailed off. "What's haricots verts?"

"Green beans in French," Marcus said with a grin.

"Why don't they just say green beans?"

Marcus snorted. "Like commoners? Please."

Liberty gave him a nervous little smile and he remembered one of her  excuses for why she wouldn't go to the wedding with him-because she  wasn't good enough.

"What's a foam? A truffle-oil foam? Is that even food?"

"It's more of a taste-a flavor on the palate," he told her. "This isn't  the first time you've eaten in a restaurant like this, is it? We've  gone to lunches in similar places."

She didn't look him in the eyes. "We've never been here. I'd remember  it." As she said it, a waiter walked past with a balloon. He deposited  it at a nearby table and the diners popped the balloon and started  eating it.

Liberty blanched. "I'd definitely remember that. Are they..."

"It's a house specialty." This was wrong, all wrong. At the time, he'd  just wanted a nice meal with her, and Alinea was one of the nicest  restaurants in the country, with prices to match. "What do you order  when we dine out?" He felt bad that he didn't remember. True, when they  ate together at a restaurant, he was entertaining clients, but that  suddenly seemed like the sort of thing he should know about her.

She blushed. "I usually either order what you order or I order the special."

Why hadn't he ever noticed that before? "But what if you don't like what I order?"

"I'm not picky." She kept staring at the menu as if it were written in, well, a foreign language.

He plucked it from her hands. "What are you in the mood for? Steak? They have a lobster dish that's amazing."

She stared at him as if he, too, had started speaking in tongues. "There was steak on that menu?"

He grinned as the waiter came back. "I'll have the lobster plate and  the lily bulbs. The lady will have the wagyu plate and the fourteen  textures."

"Excellent choices," the waiter said. "May I recommend a 2000 Leflaive Bâtard white burgundy with that?"

"Is that the Montrachet Grand Cru?"

The waiter bowed in appreciation. "It is."

"That'll do."

"If I may be so bold," the waiter said, "we have the pâté sucrée tonight."

"That sounds fine," Marcus said, handing over the menus. He looked to  Liberty. "Unless you wanted to try the balloons? They're quite fun.  Apple flavored, right?" The waiter nodded again.

Liberty goggled at him. "No, what you ordered is fine."

In other words, she had no idea what he'd ordered. He made a mental  note that the next time he took her out to dinner to pick some place  more accessible-a nice steak house or something.

"Do I even want to know how much this is going to cost?"

Marcus waved this question away. "It's not important."

"What do you mean, it's not important? Of course it's important. I can't expect you to pay for my dinner."

That made him smile. "Did you think we were going Dutch here?"

"This isn't a business lunch, Marcus. You can't expect me to-"

Actually, he was rapidly losing his grip on what, exactly, he could  expect from her. "Liberty, stop, for heaven's sake. That bottle of wine  alone probably costs five or six hundred dollars."

All the blood drained out of her face. "And that's not important?"

He knew she was serious but... "What's a six-hundred-dollar bottle of wine to me?"

She still looked like a ghostly copy of herself. "I just-six hundred  dollars? When I was growing up..." She stumbled over her words and went  silent.

He went on. "Liberty, when you're a billionaire, at a certain point,  money loses all meaning. If it were a six-million-dollar bottle of wine,  well, it still wouldn't make a big impact in the long run."                       
       
           



       

He was not making things better, that much he could tell. She looked as  if he'd stabbed her with the business end of a wine bottle. "You-you  really mean that, don't you?"

"Money is like air. I don't think about it. I don't have to do anything  to make more of it suddenly appear. It just is." She stared at him,  openmouthed. "I understand that most people don't live like that-I'm not  a complete idiot," he hurried to add, which did not necessarily improve  things. "There's no way I'd expect you to foot part of the bill in a  place like this."

He took her in-the pale face, the eyes and mouth wide with shock-and  wondered about her life. She'd always been this smartly dressed,  exceptionally prepared young woman. Sure, he knew the suits weren't  Chanel or Armani, but she'd fit his image of a middle-class woman  working her way up.

But was she?

"So," she said nervously. "Thank you for dinner. Whatever it's going to be."

"You're welcome." There was a pause, as if she didn't know what to say  next. Frankly, he wasn't that sure, either. "So. We're not talking about  the wine."

She gave him a baleful look. For some reason, it made him grin. "No. And we're not talking about the wedding."

"No." He considered. "Are we talking about William?" Because he had  some questions for her. And they weren't necessarily fact-finding  questions, per se. He had a flood of confused emotions that he hadn't  anticipated and didn't know how to process. Tender emotions. It  was...odd. He needed to make sense of what he was feeling and he wanted  to know if Liberty was feeling the same way.

There it was again, that shy little smile. "I thought we were going to discuss business."

"Fine. Business." He thought back to something that had come up earlier. "Why do you work every Saturday?"

The question clearly caught her off guard. "What? I don't-I mean-you know about that?"

"Of course," he said. "There's very little that goes on in my company that I'm not aware of."

Her cheeks reddened as she stared at the top of the table. "I'm just  trying to get a jump on the week." But there was something about the way  she said it that didn't sit quite right. Then she looked up at him and  gave him a sly smile. "I have this boss, you see-he appreciates an  assistant who knows as much as she can about potential clients, market  conditions and so on."

"Sounds like a real bastard," he agreed. "But every Saturday?"

She shrugged, as if that were no big deal.

There was something about this he didn't like, but he was having  trouble putting his finger on it, which meant he liked it even less. "I  don't pay you to work six days a week."

"You pay me a lot," she said and then added, "It's a very generous salary. I don't mind."

"But don't you have a life?" It came out before he realized what he was saying, but there was no taking it back.

Liberty's eyes narrowed as she drew herself up and squared her shoulders.

"I mean," he quickly backtracked, "even I don't spend that much time in  the office and it's my business. It's not healthy. You've got to make  time to have a social life and-I don't know, go grocery shopping or  something."

He did some quick calculations. They ran five mornings in a row and she  was basically putting in an extra workday. "You're working sixty-hour  weeks, every week. I pay you for forty hours."

"You pay me to do a job. This is what it takes to do the job well," she  countered, looking trapped. "And for the record, I have a life. I buy  groceries. I shop. I watch television."

"Do you have a social life? Spend time with your family? Do you date?"

Her eyes flared. "Not that it's any of your business."

Maybe it wasn't. He didn't know why he'd asked about her dating, except  that he wanted to know. "Here's what I don't understand," he went on.  "When I first realized you were working weekends, I thought it was  because you were trying to get ahead-which made sense. You'd put in the  hours and prove yourself to be invaluable-which you are," he hurried to  add because this seemed like a good place for a compliment. "People who  work like you do have a plan. They have goals. They stay in a job for a  year or two, learn everything they can, and then they move on. They take  the next job that can challenge their skill set, the next job that can  lay the groundwork for the job after that-they network, build up  references, the whole nine yards. They climb a ladder. Yet it's been  three years and you're still here with me, fending off my mother and  scolding inventors who can't get their shit together. Why?"