The Billionaire’s Firefighter

The firefighters had nearly finished when Adrienne came outside. Water traveled across the parking lot in thin, dirty streams, carrying fragments of her car toward the drains. Beyond the security gate, the afternoon traffic moved along the harbor road, and a woman on a bicycle slowed to look before continuing downhill. The city was going about its business. Adrienne found this briefly offensive. She stopped beside the strip of tape.

Her windshield had fallen inward. Through the opening, she could see the pale remains of the passenger seat and the blackened curve of the steering wheel. One tire had burst, leaving the car tilted toward the space where her chief financial officer usually parked. He was in Milan that day.

That morning, her jacket had caught in the rear door. She had opened it again, tucked the sleeve inside, and paused to wipe a mark from the window with her thumb.

“That motherfucker.”

Sophie stopped beside her. A few employees had followed them from the building, drawn outside by the noise or by the sight of their employer moving through reception with a speed that discouraged questions. Now they stood behind her, quiet enough that she could hear someone’s shoes scraping the pavement. Adrienne went toward the car.

A firefighter stepped into her path. His coat was open at the throat, and water darkened the fabric at his knees. She looked at the hand he raised, then past him at the wreck.

“You need to stay behind the tape.”

“That’s my car.”

“I understand.”

Something in his voice suggested that ownership was a fact of limited interest to him. Having spent the morning discussing the precise meaning of ownership with six lawyers, Adrienne found this intolerable.

“Then you understand I’d like to see it.”

“You can see it from here.” She raised her eyes to his face, registering soot, a helmet, an expression that promised no useful concessions.

“Is there anything left inside?”

“We haven’t finished checking.”

“My document case was in the trunk.”

“You’ll have to wait.”

“It contains documents.”

He glanced back at the car. “They’ll still be documents in twenty minutes, assuming they survived.” Behind Adrienne, Sophie made a small sound that might have been a cough.

“Was anyone hurt?” she asked.

“No injuries reported,” he told her. “We’re speaking to everyone who was nearby.”

Adrienne looked toward the staff entrance. A section of glass had shattered above the door, and one of the decorative planters lay on its side, soil spilled across the paving. Someone had abandoned a paper coffee cup beside it.

“Someone blew it up,” she said.

“The cause is being investigated.”

“I know who did it.”

His attention returned to her. “Did you see someone?”

“I don’t need to.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

She had already taken her phone from her pocket. Julian’s number remained in her favorites, below Sophie’s and above her housekeeper’s, an arrangement she had failed to change after the divorce. His photograph appeared when she touched it: linen shirt, wineglass, the pleased expression of a man who believed the person taking his picture loved him. Once, she had.

“Adrienne,” Sophie said. Julian answered before Adrienne could decide whether to step away.

“What?”

No greeting. He was still angry about the contract.

“You vindictive fucking bastard.” The firefighter looked at her phone, then at the employees gathered behind her.

Julian took a moment to respond. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

“Is this about yesterday?”

“You tell me.”

“I have a meeting in five minutes.”

“Cancel it. Apparently you’ve had a very busy morning already.”

“Adrienne.”

She turned toward the harbor, putting the firefighter behind her. Sunlight flashed on the water between two moored yachts. Somewhere beyond the wall, a boat engine struggled to start.

“My car is burning in the parking lot.”

The engine caught. She waited through the noise for Julian to answer.

“What do you mean, burning?”

“I mean there are firefighters putting water on it. Do you need photographs?”

“Were you in it?”

“Is that disappointment I hear?”

“Don’t be absurd. Are you hurt?”

His voice had changed. She recognized the change and resented recognizing it: the clipped efficiency he used when something had gone wrong at home, when a pipe burst or a doctor called or her mother fell on the stairs. He had once been good in an emergency. Later, she had begun to wonder how many emergencies he quietly created.

“I won the tender,” she said. “You lost. It happens. Most people manage without explosives.”

“Where are you?”

“At the office.”

“Who’s there with you?”

“Half my staff. Shall I put you on speaker?”

“Put the police on.”

She lowered the phone enough to look at it. The screen had become difficult to see in the sun.

“Don’t pretend you’re concerned.”

“Hand the phone to a police officer.”

“You called me last night and told me I would regret this.”

“I told you—”

“I remember what you told me.”

“Then remember it accurately.” She pressed the phone back against her ear.

“Go fuck yourself, Julian. And if you think this is going to make me withdraw, you’ve finally become as stupid as you always hoped I was.” She ended the call before he could answer.

For a few seconds, she stood with the phone in her hand. The breeze lifted her hair against her mouth, and she pushed it away with more force than necessary. When she turned, everyone was still there. The firefighter had not moved.

“The officers will need to hear about that call,” he said.

“They can come upstairs.”

“They’ll also need your details.”

“Reception has them.”

“You’re standing here.” She looked at him, unused to encountering resistance from a man whose name she did not know.

“Adrienne Marchand.” He wrote it in a small notebook.

Her name was fixed in brushed steel beside the building entrance. He could scarcely have missed it, but he gave no indication that it meant anything to him.

“Contact number?”

Sophie supplied it while Adrienne watched another firefighter pull debris away from the front wheel. Something pale dropped onto the pavement. She could not tell what it was, and the desire to know became suddenly unbearable.

“We’re going inside,” she said.

She walked past him, close enough to smell smoke in his clothes. He let her go without another word.

***

The lobby smelled of cut lilies and floor polish. A woman from legal stood beside the reception desk with her handbag clutched under one arm, speaking rapidly to someone on the phone. She stopped when she saw Adrienne.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Adrienne said. The woman’s face reddened. Sophie pressed the elevator button.

Behind them, the receptionist rose. “Ms. Marchand, would you like—”

“Tell Martin I want the security footage preserved. Nothing overwritten, nothing deleted. Every camera.”

“He’s already downstairs.”

“Then tell him when he comes up.”

“Yes, Ms. Marchand.”

Adrienne entered the elevator and waited while Sophie followed. Only when the doors closed did she realize how loudly she had been speaking. Her phone began to vibrate. Julian.

She declined the call, then watched her own reflection in the polished doors. Cream blouse, navy pants, hair coming loose from the knot she had twisted it into before the lawyers arrived. She looked like a woman having a difficult afternoon. It seemed an inadequate description.

“The staff entrance,” Sophie said.

“What about it?”

“The car was beside it.”

“I know where I park.”

Sophie said nothing. Her silence was unusual enough to draw Adrienne’s attention from the doors.

“How many people were outside?”

“We’re finding out.”

“Find out quickly.”

“We are.”

The elevator continued upward. Adrienne could hear the mechanism somewhere above them and Sophie’s tablet shifting against the buttons of her shirt.

“Please,” Adrienne added. Sophie nodded without looking at her.

***

Sunlight lay across the conference table in Adrienne’s office. Beyond the glass, the harbor extended toward a low headland where white houses climbed between cypress trees. She had chosen this floor because she could see ships entering the port, though lately she spent most of her time facing away from the windows. The champagne from the previous evening remained in an ice bucket filled with water.

She and Sophie had opened it after the final confirmation arrived. Thirty years of operating rights at San Aurelio, subject to milestones she could recite without consulting the agreement. Julian had spent two years assuming he would win it. She had spent two years making sure he would not. The agreement lay on her desk beneath a paperweight. She sat down and opened it, then found herself looking at the date. Yesterday. Her phone vibrated again.

Stay at the office. I’m coming.

She typed with both thumbs. You’re not welcome here.

The answer arrived before she put the phone down. This is not the time.

Adrienne blocked his number. It gave her a small, unsatisfying sense of accomplishment.

She tried to read the agreement. The first paragraph concerned access rights, the second maintenance obligations. She knew both almost by heart, yet the language refused to arrange itself into meaning.

Her jacket had been in the car. A new one, dark blue, bought in London while she waited for a delayed flight. In its pocket was the silver compact her mother had given her years earlier, a small, heavy thing with a hinge that no longer closed properly. She had kept meaning to have it repaired. A knock came at the door. Sophie entered without waiting.

“Eleni was outside,” she said.

Adrienne looked up. “From accounts?”

“She was going to move her scooter. She’d reached the entrance when it happened.”

“Was she hurt?”

“No. Her husband is taking her home.” Adrienne looked at the conference table, at the two glasses beside the bottle.

“Tell her to take whatever time she needs.”

“I have.”

“And if there’s anything—”

“I told her.” Sophie’s voice was gentle now, which made Adrienne feel worse. When the door closed, she remained seated with one hand on the agreement. She had almost gone out for coffee.

The legal director called while she was putting her phone in her bag. She had stood beside the door for the first few minutes, impatient, then returned to her desk when he asked her to open an attachment. If he had sent the attachment earlier, she would have been downstairs. Adrienne rose and went to the window.

From this height, she could see part of the parking lot between the building and a stand of trees. Her car was hidden beneath the angle of the roof, but she could see the fire engine and a man coiling hose. She put her fingertips against the cool glass. The next knock startled her.

“What?”

Sophie opened the door a few inches. “One of the firefighters needs to confirm some information.”

“Can’t you do it?”

“He asked to speak to you.”

A man’s voice came from beyond the door. “A few minutes, Ms. Marchand.” Adrienne turned from the window, intending to object. Without the helmet, he was a different proposition.

His hair was dark and slightly damp, flattened along one side. He had washed his face, leaving a faint smear near his ear and a red mark high on his cheekbone. His nose was a little crooked. The irregularity gave her somewhere to look before she noticed his mouth.

He wore a navy shirt with the sleeves ending above his elbows. One forearm bore a shallow scrape, clean now, a thin line of blood drying along its edge.

She had seen this man downstairs. She had spoken to him. Somehow she had failed to notice that he was beautiful.

Sophie stepped back. “I’ll be outside.” The firefighter approached the desk but did not sit.

“I need you to check the ownership details we’ve been given and acknowledge the information you provided. The police would also like to speak with you.”

“Yes. They seem very eager.”

“They generally are after something like this.” He offered her the folder.

Adrienne returned to her chair and opened it. His hands were broad, the nails short and clean except for a dark line along one thumbnail. There was no ring. She looked down quickly.

“This registration is wrong.”

“Correct it, please.”

“Where did you get it?”

“What we could read of the plate.”

She glanced at him. He was watching her without any particular expression, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he remembered everything she had said outside. She corrected the number.

“Here?”

“At the bottom.”

She read the statement before signing. He waited, shifting his weight once, and she caught the faint smell of soap beneath the smoke in his clothes.

“What’s your name?”

“Nico Ferran.”

“Were you the one speaking to me downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t recognize you.”

“You had other things on your mind.”

She could not tell whether that was an allowance or a criticism. His face offered no help. She signed and returned the folder, taking care that their hands did not touch.

“When can I have the car removed?”

“The investigators will decide when it can be released.”

“Today?”

“I don’t know.”

“I need the staff entrance usable.”

“Your facilities manager is arranging another route.”

“Has anyone checked the structural damage?”

“He’s arranging that too.”

Adrienne glanced toward the door. Martin had worked for her for eleven years. She had not asked him what he was doing; she had simply begun issuing instructions.

“When will someone tell me what happened?”

“I can’t give you a timetable.”

“Apparently no one can give me anything.” Nico closed the folder.

“You could give them a chance.” She raised her eyes.

He stood comfortably on the other side of her desk, neither challenging her posture nor retreating from it. She was accustomed to people modifying themselves in this room: sitting straighter, smiling sooner, filling silence before she had decided what to do with it. He seemed interested only in finishing his business and leaving.

“I’m having a rather difficult day,” she said.

“I noticed.”

“And you think this is helpful?”

“I think you’re asking me questions I can’t answer and getting angry when I tell you that.” She leaned back in her chair.

Outside, Sophie’s telephone rang. Adrienne listened to the muffled beginning of a conversation, grateful for something that allowed her to look away.

“Eleni,” she said. “The woman from accounts. You spoke to her?”

“My colleague did.”

“She’s all right?”

“Frightened. Her husband was with her when I came upstairs.” Adrienne nodded.

Nico’s attention moved briefly to her hands. She had clasped them in her lap so tightly that the edge of her ring pressed into the next finger. She loosened them.

“I was going to leave early,” she said.

The admission surprised her. She had not intended to tell him.

He said nothing, and she wished he would. A commonplace would have given her something to dismiss. Instead, he pulled the chair out a little.

“Do you want someone with you?”

“No.” He left the chair where it was.

“The officers can wait a few minutes.”

“I don’t need a few minutes.”

“All right.”

His acceptance irritated her almost as much as concern would have. She could not work out what she wanted from him, which was sufficiently unfamiliar to make her defensive.

“I’m perfectly capable of speaking to the police.”

“I haven’t suggested otherwise.” She studied the scrape on his arm.

“You’re bleeding.”

He looked down, then back at her. “It’s stopped.”

“There’s a first-aid kit outside.”

“We have one.”

“Yes. Of course you do.”

For the first time, his mouth moved toward a smile. It did not quite arrive, but the possibility altered his face enough that Adrienne forgot what she had been about to say.

She had not been with anyone since Julian. Early on, there had been invitations, introductions arranged by friends, a dinner she left before dessert because the man kept asking whether she knew how rich she was. Eventually people stopped trying. She had been relieved. Now a firefighter was standing in her office with a folder under his arm, and she was wondering how old he was.

Thirty-five, perhaps. Thirty-eight. Old enough to be unimpressed with her.

“You should write down what you remember about the call last night,” he said. “Before you speak to the officers.” Her attention returned sharply.

“You heard that?”

“You weren’t quiet.”

“I was angry.”

“Yes.” She picked up her pen, rolled it between her fingers, then put it down.

“You must think I’m awful.”

“I don’t know you.” It was a more generous answer than she deserved and, somehow, less comfortable than reassurance. He moved toward the door, but before he reached it, Adrienne heard Sophie speaking outside.

“She hasn’t agreed to see you.”

Julian’s reply was too low to distinguish. Then the door opened, and he came in carrying his sunglasses in one hand. Adrienne stood.

He stopped when he saw her. His gaze moved over her face, down to her hands, then returned to her eyes. For a moment, the concentration was so familiar that she felt herself respond to it before remembering why she should not.

“Are you all right?”

“I told you not to come.” Behind him, Sophie appeared in the doorway.

“Reception let him up before I knew he was here. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Adrienne said. “Would you close the door?”

Julian stepped farther into the room. He wore a dark suit without a tie, the collar slightly open, as though he had left a meeting in a hurry. She knew the suit. She had bought it for him in Rome, during the last year when buying him things still felt like affection. Nico remained beside the visitor’s chair, folder under his arm. Julian noticed him.

“Are you with the police?”

“Fire department.”

“Was she outside when it happened?”

“You can ask me,” Adrienne said.

“I am asking him.”

“In my office.”

Julian looked back at her. “For Christ’s sake, Adrienne. I’ve just seen your car.” She came around the desk, unwilling to have him stand where he had stood so often during their marriage, with her seated and looking up.

“And?”

“And someone could have killed you.”

“The possibility had occurred to me.”

He pressed his lips together. In the silence that followed, she became conscious of Nico watching them. Julian seemed to remember him at the same moment.

“Could you give us a minute?” Nico looked at Adrienne.

The small courtesy unsettled her more than Julian’s arrival. No assumption that the marriage, although over, still gave Julian authority in this room.

“No,” she said. “He’s finishing something.”

“I’ve finished,” Nico told her. She glanced at him, stung by his refusal to supply a convenient lie. Julian opened one hand toward the door.

“Then thank you. We appreciate your help.”

“Don’t speak for me,” Adrienne said. Nico stayed where he was.

Julian lowered his hand. She watched him take in the arrangement: the desk behind her, the firefighter beside the chair, his own position nearer the door. He had once known how to move through this office without thinking. Now even choosing where to stand seemed to require a decision.

“You accused me of planting a bomb,” he said.

“I accused you of having someone plant it.”

“And that distinction makes you feel reasonable?”

“No. What would make me feel reasonable is an explanation for last night.” He looked briefly at Nico.

Adrienne folded her arms. “You can say it in front of him.”

“Our private conversations are none of his business.”

“You called my work number to threaten me over a commercial contract. There was nothing private about it.”

“I did not threaten you.”

“You told me I had no idea what I’d done.”

“Because you don’t.”

There it was again: his conviction that she had mistaken access to information for understanding it. She had heard it over restaurant tables, in bed, in the car on the way home from dinners where he let her talk and then explained afterward what everyone had really meant.

“Then enlighten me.”

Julian put his sunglasses on the conference table. They landed beside the champagne glasses. His attention caught there.

“You celebrated.”

“We won.” He touched the stem of one glass, turning it a fraction.

“Of course you did.”

Adrienne watched his hand. “Leave that alone.” He let go.

Nico shifted the folder from beneath his arm into his hand. The movement reminded them both of his presence.

Julian turned toward him. “What exactly are you waiting for?”

“A decision from Ms. Marchand.”

“About what?”

“Whether she wants me to leave.” Adrienne felt a brief, unwilling warmth toward him, followed almost immediately by embarrassment that he could see she needed the offer.

“Stay,” she said. Julian’s face settled.

“All right.” He took a breath, then faced her again.

“I’ve spoken to Alain. He can have two people here within the hour. They’ll take you home and stay until we know what happened.”

“No.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

“I don’t have to accept it, either.”

“Your security allowed someone to get close enough to destroy your car.”

“And your solution is to put your people in charge of me?”

“My solution is to keep you alive.”

“Then give the police whatever you know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“You seem very certain about what my security failed to do.”

“I drove past a burned-out car, Adrienne. It wasn’t a difficult conclusion.” He moved toward her, and she stepped back before she could stop herself. Julian stopped. Nico’s eyes lifted from the folder. The distance between them was scarcely an arm’s length, but Julian looked at it as though she had opened something much larger.

“You think I would hurt you?”

She remembered asking him a different version of that question during the divorce. Would he really challenge the valuation he had signed? Would he really release emails from her mother’s illness to establish that she had neglected the business? Each time, he had looked hurt that she could believe it, and each time his lawyers had done it anyway.

“I think you know how to arrange things so you don’t have to watch.” His expression tightened.

“You took San Aurelio knowing what it meant to my company.”

“I took it knowing what it meant to mine.”

“Four hundred people work for me.”

“Then you should have submitted a better bid.”

He looked away, toward the harbor. She knew she had struck where she intended, and the satisfaction was ugly enough that she wanted Nico to leave after all. Julian rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“You still think this is a game between us.”

“You came here and made it one.”

“I came here because I was afraid.” The admission quieted her.

For several seconds, she could hear Sophie talking beyond the door and the dull hum of the air-conditioning. Julian stood with his hands empty at his sides. He had always been most persuasive when he stopped trying to appear persuasive. Then he looked at Nico.

“And apparently I interrupted something.” Adrienne’s face grew hot.

Nico glanced at her, then back at Julian. “I was asking whether she was ready to speak to the officers.”

“I’m sure.”

“Julian,” she said. Her voice was low enough to make him look at her.

“Go.”

He studied her. Perhaps he was deciding whether the embarrassment he had caused would make her easier to reach. Perhaps he was simply angry. She had spent too many years interpreting his face and still could not reliably tell.

“You need to be careful who you trust.”

“Starting with you.” He retrieved his sunglasses.

At the door, he paused. “Alain will call Sophie. At least hear what he has to say.”

“He can speak to our security director.” Julian nodded once, accepting the concession as though it had been his suggestion. After he left, Adrienne remained standing beside the desk.

Nico waited while she walked to the conference table and moved the champagne glasses into the bucket. The stems struck one another with a small, bright sound.

“I imagine that was entertaining,” she said.

“No.”

“You don’t have to be polite.”

“I’m not being polite.”

She looked at him. His expression gave her nothing to work against.

“I shouldn’t have kept you here.”

“Probably not.” She laughed under her breath, without quite meaning to.

He glanced toward the door. “Do you still want to speak to the officers?”

“Yes.” Her phone sounded before either moved. The message came from an unfamiliar number, but she recognized Julian’s phrasing immediately.

Let Alain help. You can be furious with me afterward.

Beneath it was a photograph. She opened it and saw herself standing outside beside Sophie, phone raised to her ear. Nico was a little farther away. The angle showed the tops of their heads and the white lines dividing the parking spaces. Adrienne enlarged the image.

“What is it?” Nico asked. She looked toward the windows, then across the hall to the opposite wing of the building.

“Come here.” He approached, and she held the phone between them.

The photograph had been taken from above, through glass. Along one edge, a faint reflection showed part of a ceiling light.

“He sent you that?” Nico asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just now.” He studied it without taking the phone from her hand.

Adrienne thought of Julian standing in this room a minute earlier, offering men of his own choosing to guard her. He had known someone was watching. He might even have spoken to them before coming upstairs. For the first time since she had seen the car, anger failed to arrive ahead of everything else.

“Who took it?” she asked. Nico looked toward the closed door.

“Show them this. And tell them exactly when he sent it.”