The Billionaire’s Heartbeat

Chapter 2: A World Apart

John Snow’s world of luxury was crafted almost to perfection, built on the labor of a life far

from luxurious. The penthouse overlooked the busy city of Manhattan, a building of glass and

steel built with treasures from all over the world: one-of-a-kind artworks, handcrafted

furnishings, and examples of sculptures that spoke of exclusivity. These were not things to John;

they were symbols of his triumph, physical reminders of every sacrifice, sleepless night, and

ruthless decisions that made his way to wealth and power.

The penthouse was itself an almost fortress, built to leach the world – and any threat to it – out.

There were floor-to-ceiling windows with a sweeping view of New York, but John often felt like

he was above it all, detached. His day-to-day was a carousel, high-end meetings, business deals,

and society events, moving in the same circle as Manhattan’s elite, shielded by perceived aloof

untouchable social stature. Very few people really knew him, and people respected him, people

feared him, but John wanted it to stay that way. His armor was his success, and though he'd wear

it with pride, he would never care to tear it off to dismiss anyone who dared question the length

he put into gaining wealth as naïve or weak.

The world Emma Brooks lived in was so far removed from the one I was posting in it might as

well have been on another planet. She rented a little modest apartment in a quiet neighborhood

far from the sparkling towers of Manhattan. Secondhand furniture, photos, and handmade gifts

that people she had helped in her years. John’s world was organized meticulously while Emma’s

world was a mish-mash of mismatched, treasured items, now stories and memories. She had

lived simply; her life was fueled by something quite different from profit margin, luxury

branding.

Emma worked for a non-profit that worked with homeless families; she coordinated resources

and organized food drives and job training workshops. At times, she was on her feet all day and

found juggling several tasks, stretching limited funds, and giving more than she’d probably

should. Happiness, however, was not about her things, the new lives she helped create, the

children reunited with their parents or the families whose new hope depended on her. But she

drove herself half to death trying to make ends meet and without music money couldn’t buy that

sense of fulfillment something John’s world just couldn’t comprehend.

If perhaps their paths happened to cross like two opposing forces had crashed. You didn't have

too many of them, so you knew their true purpose, and you knew in turn to appreciate them, and

that's what drew John to Emma's warmth, Emma's sense of purpose, for what it is, without lots of

them herself. They all time had more in their world than that. This was a woman who wasn’t

here more than he had and didn’t seem to need what he had. She didn’t care about his wealth or

his status, it confused him and fascinated her.

John didn’t want a mirror, he got a reflection, who he’d never cared about, never thought about.

She simply couldn’t be, even to challenge his beliefs or even to hold a point of view so foreign to

him. This was the first time where he questioned exactly why he was so successful compared to

others and if he was successful at all. He thought maybe he'd be lucky and lose it all tomorrow

and have nothing. Was there really no more to life than those boardroom victories and adding to

his net worth?

Emma had a wobbly view, however, of John. Success was a weapon, wealth, a badge; he was the

example of the type of person she had always clung to as quietly resenting: allegedly, a

successful person who was mutilated through contentment. She didn’t know why someone

would value something blindly when there were people still alive and living in so much pain.

She didn’t have any intentions to stay away but she was attracted towards him. John gave her the

odd flicker of something vulnerable, something she hadn’t expected with John.

It was curious Emma should be curious at first, and not admire, for John was so unacquainted.

She saw glimpses of humanity and her feelings changed. In her presence, he let down his guard,

the fleeting, the almost inadvertent authenticity. He wasn’t always an impenetrable tycoon, but

he had been a man, and a prisoner to his wealth as others are to their poverty, Emma could see

now.

They were, undoubtedly and sometimes, impossibly, different. John didn’t understand how

anyone could even exist with that little and be okay; Emma didn’t understand how anyone could

willingly forfeit humanity, community, compassion for profit, and power. There were moments

when she simply couldn’t be drawn into his world, success, the lifestyle of his life, and the

opportunity to actually be able to make a difference on a mass scale. She knew however that if

she took that step into that world that she would risk everything she loved about herself.

John would have to grasp a kind of success entirely new to Emma. He began to doubt himself,

and the drive to be rich and of vacuousness went along with it. Until Emma lived his life, he was

always under the impression that money would solve every problem. Maybe this was true wealth

— what was true wealth in things, in power, in the ability to open up one's door and help

someone to whom there is no price.

It became their duet – Emma’s insistent challenge to his values versus John’s need to wield

whatever control he could, over whatever, every time. They frustrated and fascinated each other,

anyway, making it necessary for the other to differ in seeing life. As fractured as their thoughts

and culture, their acrimonious clash of assets could never meld them together ... until the grief of

needing to come together forced them to remember where they came from – two worlds that

were never supposed to join.

But in all of their many arguments, they couldn't untangle what Emma said. In turn, Emma was

hooked on John’s masked complexity, wondering what all that heartfelt must be hiding: Couldn’t

have been worth the money for him. Their worlds were opposite, but yes, maybe the difference

between their worlds was the seed of something neither could bear themselves to understand yet.