Chapter 5: Champagne & Conquest
The buzzing phone sat between them like a third presence in the dark. Tom didn’t reach for it. He just lay there, the earlier softness carved away, replaced by a statue-still tension. Amy could feel the accelerated beat of his heart under her palm.
“Who was it?” she asked, her voice small in the vast bedroom.
“Work.” The word was a slab of concrete. “It’s handled.”
“At eleven-thirty on a Thursday night?”
“It’s always handled, Amy.” He finally moved, shifting out from under her to sit on the edge of the bed, his back to her. The scar from the car accident—a pale, ropey line that cut across his shoulder blade—seemed to glow in the semi-dark. “Go to sleep.”
He didn’t come back to bed. She heard him in the living room, the low, indistinct murmur of his voice on a call. She fell into a fitful sleep, the ‘T’ pendant cool against her skin.
The phone incident wasn’t mentioned again. In the morning, he was already gone, a note on the kitchen island in his sharp, slashing script: ‘Meeting in Dubai. Back Sunday. Car service will take you to and from campus. Use it. Please. -T’
The ‘please’ was underlined. Once. It felt less like a request and more like a stress fracture in his command.
She ignored the car service. She drove the Mustang, its tight suspension hugging the curves of the canyon roads towards UCLA with a new, confident grip. The freedom was a rebellion that tasted like gasoline and morning air. She immersed herself in the first week of her summer internship at the UN’s local office, a coveted position she’d won entirely on her own merit. It was a world of hushed corridors, delicate protocols, and the thrilling, low-grade panic of real stakes.
The day she returned from her first formal session, where she’d effortlessly switched between English and German to clarify a point for a flustered junior delegate, she was buzzing. She let herself into the penthouse, heels in hand, the sunset painting the open-plan living room in washes of orange and deep blue.
He was home early, standing on the balcony, a silhouette against the dying light. He heard her, turned. He’d flown for sixteen hours, but he looked immaculate, wearing a suit that probably cost more than her grandpa’s first house.
“You’re back,” she said, her excitement momentarily checked by the careful, assessing look in his eyes.
“I am.” He held up a bottle of champagne, two flutes already waiting on the teak table. “Heard you had a day. Tell me.”
He poured. She talked, the words spilling out—the intimidating room, the dense briefing papers, the moment the Austrian delegate’s face had lit up when she’d answered his question in crisp, native German. “He said I had an ear for the Tyrolean cadence,” she laughed, taking the glass he offered.
Tom listened, leaning against the balcony rail, his expression unreadable. The ocean wind played with his dark hair. “Of course you did,” he said, finally. His voice was quiet, layered with something that wasn’t just pride. It was possession, deep and geologic.
He set his glass down, untouched. In two strides he was in front of her. He didn’t kiss her. He took her glass, placed it next to his, his movements deliberate. Then his hands were on her waist, spinning her gently until her back was against the cool glass balcony door. The city sparkled far below, a distant, indifferent galaxy.
“I knew you’d conquer them,” he murmured into the space beside her ear. His breath was warm. His lips brushed her jaw. “My clever, brilliant wife.”
The kiss, when it came, wasn’t soft. It was claiming. It was a seal. His mouth was insistent, his hands sliding from her waist to the curve of her hips, pulling her against him. She could feel the tailored wool of his suit jacket under her fingers, the solid wall of his chest. She kissed him back, the adrenaline from her day transforming into a different kind of electricity.
When he broke away, they were both breathing hard. “They don’t know,” she whispered, her forehead resting against his chin. “At the internship. I didn’t list my married name. I don’t want them to know you’re my husband.”
She felt him go very still. The hands on her hips tightened, almost imperceptibly. “Why?”
“Because then it becomes about you. About this.” She gestured vaguely at the penthouse, the view. “It stops being about my German, or my research, or me. I’m just the Branson girl.”
He was silent for a long moment, his gaze searching her face. The green of his eyes looked almost black in the twilight. A war played out in his features: offense, understanding, a raw, bruising hurt. Finally, he exhaled, a slow, controlled release. He leaned in, his lips brushing her temple. “I know,” he said, the words a low concession. “Just… let me be proud. Here. With you. Let it be about that.”
The raw need in his voice disarmed her. It was the shadow from the buzzing phone, from his sudden trips, from the fortress walls. It was him asking, not commanding, for a piece of her triumph.
She answered by pulling his mouth back to hers.
It was different this time. There was a frantic, almost desperate edge to his touch. He walked her backward into the living room, never breaking the kiss, his hands already working on the buttons of her blouse. Her sensible internship clothes fell away in a trail on the polished floor. He shrugged out of his suit jacket, his tie already loose. He didn’t lead her to the bedroom. He lowered her onto the deep, cream-colored rug in the middle of the living room, the sky deepening to indigo above the floor-to-ceiling windows.
This wasn’t the tender, exploratory intimacy of the night before last. This was something darker, more visceral. It was him trying to fuse her victory to his skin, to stamp this moment of her independent success as his. He was worship and conquest all at once. His mouth was everywhere, his hands possessive, mapping her as if to memorize a territory that might slip away. He whispered things—“Mine,” and “So goddamn perfect,” and “You shine, and it’s because of you, only you,”—the words tangled between praise and a kind of frantic incantation.
She gave herself over to it, to the sheer physical overwhelm of him. The scrape of his stubble, the weight of his body, the smell of his skin mixed with salt air and champagne. It was intense, almost too much, a storm she couldn’t navigate, only weather. He fucked her with a single-minded focus that left her breathless, her fingers clutching at his back, her cries muffled against his shoulder. It felt less like making love and more like he was trying, through sheer force, to bridge the gap that her blossoming career, her separate name, had just carved between them.
After, they lay tangled on the rug, skin cooling in the conditioned air. The only light came from the city below. His head was on her stomach, his arm a heavy band across her thighs. He was utterly still.
Her mind, slowly clearing, returned to the phone. To the word ‘handled.’ To the look in his eyes when she’d said she’d hidden him.
“Tom,” she said softly, her fingers in his hair. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He didn’t lift his head. His voice, when it came, was rough, flattened. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.” He turned his face, pressing a kiss to her stomach. A gesture of apology and closure. “Your world is just starting, Amy. It’s bright and it’s clean. Let me keep the shadows off it. That’s my job.”
Before she could argue, his personal phone, not the business one, buzzed from within the discarded pile of his suit. A different, softer tone. He stiffened, then sat up in one fluid motion. He found it, glanced at the screen. This time, his face didn’t shutter. It just… emptied.
He stood, pulling on his trousers. “I have to take this,” he said, already walking towards his study. He didn’t look back.
Amy lay on the rug, exposed and suddenly cold. The taste of champagne and him was still on her lips. Her body still hummed from his. But the room felt vast and silent again, the ghost of his passion replaced by the cold reality of a closed door and a quiet, private voice speaking secrets into the dark. The future, for all her rules against perpetuity, felt suddenly, terrifyingly, entangled with a past she couldn’t see.
The future, for all her rules against perpetuity, felt suddenly, terrifyingly, entangled with a past she couldn’t see. She was still lying on the rug, the ghost of his touch like a brand, when her own phone sang out from her discarded bag. The cheerful, generic ringtone was violently out of place. She scrambled for it, her body protesting.
Her mother’s smiling face filled the screen. Amy’s heart, already unsettled, seized. “Hey, Mom.”
“Sweetheart! Your father just got the time off. We’re driving out next weekend! We’ll surprise you, see that fancy campus, meet this mysterious boyfriend of yours.” Her mother’s voice was a warm, unstoppable torrent. “Four whole days. I’m already packing the good jam.”
The floor seemed to tilt. Amy stood up, naked and dizzy, clutching the phone. The cool city light through the windows made her feel like a specimen. “Next weekend? That’s… so soon.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled,” her mother laughed, oblivious. “We won’t cramp your style. We’ll get a hotel, promise. We just want to see you. And him. Finally.”
“Mom, I…” The words ‘I’m married’ lodged in her throat, sharp and terrifying. She had told them about a boyfriend, an older, busy man. It had seemed easier, a half-truth to cushion the blinding reality of a billionaire husband, a penthouse, a life she herself was still learning to navigate. The omission now felt like a canyon opening at her feet. “Things are really hectic here. My internship…”
“All the more reason you need a home-cooked meal. We’ll be there Friday afternoon. Text me your address, honey. The real one, not that P.O. box you gave us.”
The call ended. Amy stood frozen in the dark living room, the silence now a screaming thing. They would walk into this twenty-million-dollar apartment. They would see the art, the view, the chilling perfection. They would meet Tom, with his tailored silence and world-weary eyes. They would know, instantly, that this was not a boyfriend. This was an institution.
Panic, cold and slick, washed over her. She fumbled for her clothes, her hands shaking. She needed to talk to Tom. Now. This was a problem he couldn’t “handle” with a phone call in the dark. This was her family. Her simple, jam-making, small-town family who thought a nice boyfriend was a teacher or an engineer.
She pulled on his discarded shirt, her fingers trembling on the cufflinks. It smelled like him, that mix of sandalwood and control. She paced towards his study, the shirt swallowing her frame. Light bled from under the door. She could hear the low rumble of his voice, but not the words.
She raised her hand to knock just as the door opened. He stood there, phone still in hand, his face a mask of composed fatigue. The shadow from the night of the buzzing phone was now a permanent resident in his eyes. He looked at her, at his shirt on her body, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his voice gravelly.
“My parents.” The words tumbled out in a rushed, terrified whisper. “They’re visiting. Next weekend. They’re driving here. They want to meet my boyfriend.”
He blinked. Processing. The business of threats and shadows was his native language; this domestic ambush was not. “Okay.”
“No, Tom, it’s not okay.” Her voice cracked. “I never told them. I never told them we’re married. They think you’re just… some guy I’m dating.”
A profound stillness settled over him. He leaned against the doorframe, his head tilting slightly. The green of his eyes was analytical now, assessing the parameters of this new, unexpected problem. “Why?”
“Because it’s insane!” she burst out, gesturing wildly at the space around them. “How do I explain this? How do I explain you? ‘Hey, Mom, Dad, this is Tom. We got married in a courthouse eight months ago. He’s thirty-eight. He owns a building downtown. Possibly several. The watch he’s wearing could pay off your mortgage.’” She was breathing too fast, nearing hyperventilation. “They’ll think I’ve sold myself or lost my mind. Or both.”
He was silent for a long moment, watching her unravel. Then, very slowly, he reached out and took her trembling hands in his. His palms were warm, grounding. “Amy. Look at me.” She did. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know!” It was a wail of pure helplessness. “I can’t tell them over the phone. But if they just show up here…”
“Then we’ll be here,” he said, his tone utterly, deceptively calm. “We’ll meet them. We’ll have dinner.”
“In a private dining room at a place where the menu has no prices? Tom, they want to go to The Olive Garden. They think The Cheesecake Factory is fancy.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. It wasn’t mocking. It was something stranger, like nostalgia for a simplicity he’d never known. “Then we’ll go to The Olive Garden. I’ll wear a… polo shirt.” He said the words as if describing a costume for an alien ritual.
“And what do we say? ‘Surprise, we’re married!’?”
He pulled her closer, his hands moving to her shoulders. “We say the truth. That we fell in love, quickly. That we wanted it to be ours before the world made it a spectacle. That I adore you. That I respect your brilliance and your independence.” He spoke slowly, each point a deliberate plank in a bridge he was building over the canyon for her. “The money is just a fact, Amy. Like your father’s job is a fact. We don’t lead with it. We lead with us.”
His calm was a lifeline, pulling her back from the edge of pure panic. She sagged against him, her forehead pressing into his chest. “They’ll be hurt. I lied.”
“You omitted.” He corrected softly, his chin resting on her head. “To protect them. And maybe yourself. We’ll handle the hurt together. I’m good at handling things.”
She remembered the low voice in the dark. It’s handled. This was different. This was hers. And he was offering to step into it, to wear a polo shirt and eat endless breadsticks for her.
“Okay,” she whispered, the word muffled by his shirt. “Okay.”
“Good.” He held her for another minute, his hand stroking her hair. Then he gently guided her back. “Now. Text your mother. Tell her you’re thrilled. Give her this address. And tell her…” He paused, the strategist re-emerging. “Tell her your boyfriend would be honored to host them for dinner. Here. On Friday night. We’ll order in. Something… normal.”
She nodded, the plan forming a fragile order out of the chaos. She started to turn, then stopped. “Tom? That call before… is whatever that is… is it going to be a problem when they’re here?”
His expression closed, just for a second. A shutter clicking shut. “No,” he said, and the finality in his voice was absolute. “That won’t touch this. I promise you that.”
She wanted to believe him. She needed to believe him. She walked back to the living room, picked up her phone, and stared at her mother’s contact photo. Her finger hovered. Taking a deep, ragged breath, she began to type, the glow of the screen illuminating a face etched with dread and a desperate, fragile hope.
Mom, that’s amazing! Can’t wait. Here’s the address…