Chapter 6
878 Words
[The Offer]
He asked me to dinner three days later.
Jordan called — Jordan always called, which I was beginning to understand was how Ethan Cole managed the gap between what he wanted to say and the direct saying of it, an odd circumlocution for a man otherwise famous for directness — and said that Mr. Cole would like to meet to discuss the next steps regarding the children, if I was available Thursday evening.
The restaurant was quiet and expensive and the kind of place where no one raised their voice and the tables were far enough apart that private conversation was genuinely private. I arrived on time. He was already there, which I was also beginning to understand was his constant practice.
We ordered. We made the small talk of two people who are proceeding toward a significant conversation and both know it.
Then he set down his fork and said: 'I want to propose something.'
'All right,' I said.
'I want to be in my children's lives. Fully. Not two weekends a month, not a formal visitation schedule managed by lawyers. Full presence.' He looked at me with the directness that was his default. 'And I think — for them — the most stable version of that is a shared household.'
I looked at him.
'You're proposing we live together,' I said.
'I'm proposing something more formal than that,' he said. 'Marriage.'
The restaurant continued around us — the quiet murmur of other conversations, a wine glass set down, someone laughing at a distant table. I sat with the word for a moment.
'You're a stranger,' I said.
'You're the mother of my children,' he said. 'We are not, at this point, strangers in any meaningful sense.'
'We don't know each other.'
'We will.' He was very calm about this, with the specific calm of someone who has examined a problem from multiple angles and arrived at a conclusion he considers sound. 'I'm not suggesting we perform something that isn't real. I'm suggesting a structure within which something real can develop, for the benefit of three four-year-olds who deserve every possible stability their parents can provide.'
I thought about Ava's hand in his on the walk to the swings.
I thought about Mia saying: you have the same eyes as me.
I thought about the studio apartment in Brooklyn that was fine for one pediatric oncologist but was not — had never been — designed for four people.
'What would this look like?' I asked.
Something in his posture shifted slightly — almost imperceptibly, the specific relaxation of a man who has been preparing for a no and has received a question instead.
'My building has a residential floor. I have the penthouse — it's too large for one person, I've had this thought before. The children would have their own rooms, a proper play area, access to the park.' A pause. 'You would have complete autonomy. Your work, your schedule, your space. I'm not asking for anything beyond what we're both there for.'
'The children,' I said.
'The children,' he confirmed.
I looked at him across the table — this contained, precise, extraordinarily controlled man who had shown, in three hours in Central Park, more genuine warmth with three four-year-olds than I had seen from him toward any adult — and I tried to assess what I was being offered.
Not love. He hadn't suggested love. He had suggested a structure, a framework, a practical arrangement that served a genuine need. This was, I thought, either the most cynical proposal I had ever received or the most honest one.
'There are conditions,' I said.
'Name them.'
'Complete equal say in all parenting decisions. My career is not negotiable or subject to your schedule. If it doesn't work — if the children are not better for it — it ends, cleanly, and we work out a different arrangement.'
He looked at me for a moment. 'Agreed.'
'And I want it in writing,' I said. 'Not because I don't trust you. Because I want both of us to be clear on what we're agreeing to, so that neither of us misunderstands later.'
Something moved in his grey eyes. Respect, possibly. The specific kind extended to someone who has thought through a proposal as carefully as the proposer.
'My lawyers will draft something by Monday,' he said.
I looked at my wineglass. I looked at the quiet, expensive restaurant with its too-far-apart tables and its private conversations.
I thought: I am twenty-eight years old and I am about to agree to a contract marriage with a billionaire I know primarily from one night, a park afternoon, and six business meetings.
I thought: Ava held his hand.
'All right,' I said. 'Monday.'
He nodded once, with the precision of a man who considers the matter settled.
We finished dinner with the particular quality of formality that follows a significant agreement — correct and careful and just slightly unreal, the way all transitions feel before you've fully inhabited them.
In the cab on the way home, I called my mother.
'I did something,' I said.
'Was it good?' she asked.
I looked out at the city lights moving past the cab window.
'I genuinely don't know yet,' I said.
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