Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (43 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Mathematics is the queen of
the sciences, and number theory is the queen of mathematics”. - Gauss

We began our work in earnest at
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Mark and I spent most of our time in the
libraries studying. Despite our intense efforts on the problems we worked on,
Mark and I goofed off together just like we always had, and the other students
all broke off into their own cliques to study. Everything was the same, but
something inside me had changed. In less than a week, I had become someone
different.

The academy stood only a few
blocks away from the apartments, and so we walked to our study sessions every
morning and back every night. After so much time and effort spent studying, I
never wanted to do anything but collapse in my bunk at the end of the day. I
promised myself that I would go to see my mother’s grave that weekend when I
had the time to spare.

Meanwhile, Eliot stayed away
from the academy. At first I had hoped to see him during the day when we
studied, but always it was the assistants who taught the lectures and worked
with us on the math problems. After we learned the fundamentals of the work,
the assistants had no further insights to give us, and on the last day of the
week Mark and I slipped away to the library to work on our own.

“Could you call him?” Mark said,
after we had been stuck for hours working on a single line of the proof.

“Call who?”

“Dr. Herceg. Just to see if
we’re right about this part. It seems impossible.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“If he wanted to work with us,
he would work with us,” I said. “There must be a reason he’s staying away.” I
didn’t bother to mention that the reason might be me.

“Just give him a call then. If
he doesn’t want to answer, he doesn’t have to.”

“Mark…”

“What? Come on, what’s the worst
that could happen?” He looked at me with pleading eyes, and I breathed a sigh
of frustration. If there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was to be
dependent on Eliot’s help. Really, after everything that had happened between
us, I thought it would be best if I never spoke to him again. After all, I had
reached out to him, and he had pushed me away completely.

“Come on,” Mark said. “Please?”

“Fine,” I said. The problem in
front of us did seem intractable.

The phone rang four times, and I
was beginning to think that Eliot wouldn’t pick up. Even though I was nervous
to talk with him, I admit that I was disappointed. I wanted so much to hear his
voice again. Then, just before the call would have gone to voicemail, Eliot
picked up.

“Hello, Brynn.”

“Dr. Herceg?” I said quickly.
“Hi! I have you on speakerphone. Mark’s here.”

“Oh,” he said, and coughed. “Oh,
hello.”

“Hi, Dr. Herceg,” Mark said. “We
just had a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s about the projective
algorithm. We’re stuck on one spot.” Mark explained what we had done and where
we had gotten stuck. Eliot listened to half of the explanation before
interrupting.

“Wait one moment,” he said. “The
general case for the second equation you mentioned. It isn’t solved yet.”

“We’re just looking at one
specific instance,” I said. “Letting the permutative variable equal one, just
for this part.”

The phone was silent.

“And we’ve made some headway on
that instance,” Mark said. “But we’re getting stuck when we try to put it back
into the original algorithm.”

Still nothing but silence.

“Dr. Herceg?” I ventured.

“No! I mean, yes, interesting.
Very interesting, to look at that particular case. I’m going to have to take a
peek at that tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Mark
said.

“Oh, yes, yes, of course.” Eliot
sounded distracted, and I thought I could hear the sounds of a pencil
scratching on paper.

“Did you want us to come
in anyway?” Mark asked.

No
, I
thought. I couldn’t. Tomorrow was the day I had planned to go visit the
graveyard where my mother was buried.

“Hm, yes, you’re working now?”

“We’re just finishing up in the
library now,” Mark said.

“Would you mind just leaving
your work for me to look at tomorrow?” Eliot said. “Just leave it at the main
desk. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” Mark said, a bit
deflated.

“Excellent work, you two,” Eliot
said. “Brynn?”

“Yes?”

“Excellent work.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’ll see you both later.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Herceg,” Mark
said, but the line had already gone dead.

“Well,” I said. “That didn’t
help us solve our problem.”

“I’m going to come in anyway
tomorrow,” Mark said. “You in?”

“I… I can’t.”

“Come on, Brynn!” Mark was
getting pumped up just thinking about it, I could tell. “He said our work was
interesting
.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s
just tomorrow I had plans to go see my mom.” I began to tear up just thinking
about it. For the last week and a half, I had let everything else get in the
way of the real reason I was in Hungary. Guilt washed over me as I thought
about all of the lame excuses I had leaned on to prevent my going.

“Oh,” Mark said. His face drew
down into a serious expression. “Of course. I’m sorry, Brynn.” Mark put his arm
around me and hugged me sideways.

“Hey, whatever,” I said, leaning
into him. “No big deal.”

“I’ll take copious notes,” Mark
said. “Whatever he says, I’ll write down, and I promise I won’t do any more
work until you’re there.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you.”

I always seemed to owe Mark.
Especially once in college,
especially
after what happened at that
party, I already owed Mark big time.

Last year I had dared to venture
out to a party at one of the dorms on campus. I danced and drank with Shannon
and had fun, really I did. But then Shannon left and I had to go to the
bathroom. Somehow I ended up in the back courtyard of the dorm, where off in
the bushes a group of stoners passed around a pipe. I turned to leave them
alone, but as I went back through the doorway some frat guy caught me by the
arm and pulled me through the open door of a dorm room.

“Hey!” I said.

“Hey, you,” the guy said. “You
look like you might want to have some fun.”

“Sorry, I’m just lost,” I said,
and tried to push my way out. He blocked my way with his arm and grabbed my ass
with his hand. I tried to slap him off of me, but he was too strong, and as I
looked up into his eyes I realized what he wanted. Opening my mouth to scream,
I kicked out but he pressed his mouth down on mine, stifling the noise. His
mouth tasted like beer and cigarettes, and I kicked out with my legs, unable to
get out of his grip.

“Brynn?” Mark was in the
doorway, his eyes wide. The frat guy loosened his grip except for one hand that
still held me tight around the wrist. I tried to speak, but my mouth was so dry
that all I could do was cough. Apart from a couple of classes, I didn’t really
know Mark back then. We had worked together on one project for linear algebra,
that was it.

Mark took in the scene quickly
and must have realized what was going on. “Everybody’s waiting for you to go
out.” He turned to the frat guy, whose eyes were glazed with alcohol and hate.
“Come on.”

“Okay, yeah, let’s go,” I said,
but the guy didn’t let me go.

“We were just having some fun,”
the guy said. He started to close the door, but Mark stepped forward and
blocked the door with his foot.

“Her friends are waiting,” he
said firmly. The guy looked at him like he wanted to kill him, and he probably
could have. He stood at least a foot taller than Mark, and his arms felt like
pure muscle, the way his hand circled my wrist like iron shackles. I could tell
Mark was scared, but he stood fast.

“Let me go!” I cried out finally,
and the guy shoved me out the door and into Mark.

“Fatass bitch,” he mumbled.

“What did you say?” Mark stepped
between me and the guy.

“It’s okay, Mark, let’s go.” I
pulled frantically on his arm. The party—and safety—beckoned just down
the hallway. “Please, let’s just get out of here.”

“You heard the cunt,” the guy
said. “Fuck off.”

If I hadn’t pulled Mark two
steps away, he would have swung at the guy, I’m certain. But I didn’t want
anyone to get hurt because of me. The door slammed and we walked down the
hallway.

“You okay?” Mark said. His voice
trembled.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” I
said.

He had tried to convince me to
report the guy, and eventually I had gone to one of the deans and filled out a
form. I didn’t hear what happened with the guy, and I never saw him again. But
the fact that Mark had stepped forward and stood up to a guy almost twice his
size—that was something. Not a lot of people would do that, especially
for a girl they barely knew.

I snapped out of my thoughts as
Mark was finishing a sentence. “…see what happens?” He was looking up at me
eagerly, his dark eyes sparkling.

“Sorry,” I said. “What was
that?”

“Do you want to try it as an
inverse function, the way the assistant was showing us? We could see what
happens when we try it backwards.”

“Huh,” I said. “Yeah, that
sounds good. Maybe just a couple more minutes. I’m pretty tired.”

“Me, too,” Mark said, although
he seemed buoyed up with enthusiasm now that Eliot had talked with us about the
problem.

I bent over to the page and got through
the first part of the proof without any trouble, then got to the hard section.
It took some manipulation, but eventually I got everything reduced to a simple
two-part solution.
No way
, I thought. Hope rose up in me as I double
checked all my work to make sure it was right. I couldn’t get excited about
this. Not yet, not until Mark had seen it.

“Hey, Mark,” I said. “Check this
out.”

He leaned over to see my page.

“How did you get—wait,
what? Holy shit, Brynn!” He pushed back his chair and stood up, the paper held
inches away from his nose. “No way!”

“Check to make sure it’s right,
first,” I said, but he was already pulling me up into a bear hug, a huge grin
on his face. I couldn’t help but laugh, he was so excited.

“Of course it’s right,” he said.
“Wow!”

“It’s just the first part,” I
said, pulling back slightly.

“The part we were stuck on!
You’re amazing!” He looked at the paper again, his eyes tracking each line. I
saw him pause on the step where I had manipulated the equation into a solution.
Tossing the page down on the table, he shook his head in wonder. He turned to
me and placed his hands on my cheeks. His fingers felt warm against my skin.

“You. Are. Amazing,” he said,
and kissed me.

At first I was too startled to
say a word, and I froze under his embrace. His lips pressed against mine,
insistent, and I was shocked to find myself responding to his kiss. My body
began to lean forward just as Mark pulled back. His face was filled with joy.

“Amazing,” he repeated, but now
his eyes darted back and forth to mine, searching me for an answer to the
question he had just posed. We had been friends for so long, and I never
realized that he might want anything more. Now I felt utterly confused, and my
mouth dropped open, searching for the right words.

“Mark…” My words ran away from
me. They always had.

A slight noise from the front of
the library made me look up over Mark’s shoulder.

Eliot was standing not thirty
feet away, and from the looks of it, he had seen everything.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After hanging up the phone,
Eliot became possessed with curiosity. They were only students, to be sure, but
he knew what Brynn was capable of, and he was intrigued by the partial
solution. He wanted to see more, and after some tossing in bed he realized that
his brain would not let him sleep until he had satisfied his curiosity. He
hopped into his car quickly and drove to the library, eager to examine their
work. He hadn
’t expected to find them still there, and he
certainly hadn’t expected to find Brynn in the arms of that boy, Mark.

What’s more, he hadn’t expected
the surge of jealousy that turned over in his stomach as he saw Brynn kiss Mark
back.

Poisonous thoughts flooded his
mind as he stood there, watching his hopes unravel in another man’s arms. He
had not known how much he cared for Brynn, or maybe he had pushed the thoughts
down again, suppressing his heart with his intellect so as to protect himself
from hurt. As much as he rebelled against the feelings of hurt and rage that
washed over him, he found his normally impenetrable inner defenses worn to a
thin shield that buckled and broke even as he stood, eyes fixed on the scene
before him.

Eliot could not bring himself to
step out of sight until it was too late. Unable to think of anything to say or
do, he simply turned and walked back down the stairs he came from. Initially he
thought she might run after him, catch him, but he was at the bottom of the
stairs and nothing had happened. Still in shock, he walked out to his car and
drove away, and kept driving.

He didn’t know where he was
going, and didn’t care. The city of Budapest loomed overhead, oppressively
tall. People downtown swarmed the sidewalks, so he drove away, finding the less
inhabited neighborhoods that stayed empty at night. Here the snow fell quietly under
the street lamps, and only a few pedestrians bothered to wander the streets.

Spired churches and decaying
walls loomed over him at every corner, and he soon came to the Danube, the
dividing line between the two parts of the city. He parked at the side of a
bridge and got out of his car. The cold of the night could not numb the hot
rage he felt boiling inside of him. He walked to the middle of the bridge and
stood there, looking out onto the river below him.

He remembered the last time he
had been in Hungary. Over a decade ago, and every moment of that day stood out
as clear in his memory as a picture in a frame. They lowered her into the
ground, the coffin made out of fine polished oak. To last for years, the
undertaker had said, and Eliot wanted to shake him by the shoulders and scream
at him for the careless words. Years? What did that matter? The body inside of
the casket would stay lifeless, forever, no matter how expensive the wood crate
around it.

White rose petals covered the
top of the coffin, and as the military men lowered it into the earth—Otto
had insisted on a military guard—one corner had dipped down briefly a few
inches lower than the others, sending a cascade of white petals over the dark
glossy side of the coffin. The men quickly corrected the error, but Eliot could
not erase the image from his mind. The petals like snow coming down like an
avalanche over the coffin’s edge. The smell of the roses and the wet cold
earth. The people around him crying, and his cheeks dry through it all.

When he returned home, sitting
on the mantle inside of the house was another bouquet of white roses, sent from
his brother; nobody else knew his address. A card of condolences tucked into
the top, unsigned. Eliot had hurled the vase of roses against the wall and
still felt nothing inside of him as he watched the glass shatter, the petals
fall to the floor. There the shattered bouquet stayed for three days, the
flowers wilting and turning brown on top of the burnished hardwood floor, until
it as just another sweet dead thing. The housekeeper would sweep up the glass
and the petals carefully when she came the next week, and then they would be
gone too.

The day after the ceremony he
stood on another bridge overlooking the Danube. Perhaps it was the same as the
one he stood on now, but he could not remember. The winter had come on full
force and the ice floes crackled, breaking and refreezing under the surface
frosted in snow. An hour he stood there, looking down and wondering if the fall
would be enough.

Sometimes all there was to live
for—all he held onto—wasn’t enough. Numbness only masked the guilt
that threatened to break through at any moment and send him over the edge, but
still he stood, and stood, until someone called the police and an officer came
to the bridge to see what the trouble was.

“Just sightseeing,” he said,
when asked what he was doing.

“You don’t live here?” the
officer asked. Eliot couldn’t tell if the man recognized his face.

“No,” Eliot said. “I don’t live
here.”

As he said the words, he knew they
were true. He couldn’t continue living in a place where the same ghost occupied
every street corner, every sidewalk. He went to the airport and asked to buy a
plane ticket to America. He wanted to leave the continent behind him, to start
anew, and he knew that America would help him. In America, nobody knows or
cares about ancestors. In America he would be able to look to the future, and
let his past stay where it was, frozen under a layer of ice.

Now he stood again, looking at
the Danube. The same, yet different—the water, all of it, different. How
can we give rivers names when they change from right underneath us? The name
points to the idea of the river, not the water. Not the river itself.

He had fled to America to escape
the grief that he knew would haunt him here. He returned to Hungary buoyed by
hopes and faint memories of wonderful things, icicles like lace on the rooftops
and roses in the garden. But the roses had died back in the late chill of fall
and would not bloom again this year; the icicles hung sharp from the entryways,
pointed and dangerous. Dead and deadly things.

Brynn lured him with her beauty
and snared him with her mind, and he had dutifully avoided temptation. He’d
thought selfishly that she would wait for him until the time was right, but he
could not blame her for her impatience. Beautiful as she was, she deserved a
young man whose heart was not stitched up halfheartedly with still-festering
wounds. His was a burden to carry alone, and he had no right to hope that she
would love him, much as he desired it.

Eliot leaned out, hypnotized by
the darkness of the frozen river below. The only way to stop a river from
running was to freeze the water in it. But under the ice he could still see the
dark water roiling, turbulent. He felt lost, an outsider here as he was in
America, an expatriate returning to a country that had long forgotten his
place. How could he run away from the trouble that Brynn had brought about in
his heart?

He had already run away from his
homeland once. He did not know if he could escape the pain again.