She Reunites With Her High School Crush, Not Realizing the Boy She Knew Is Now a Billionaire Falling
The Studio Offer and the Italian Escape
The car stopped in front of her parents’ old house where she was crashing for the weekend. Neither of them moved.
“Can I see you again?” he asked.
She looked at him, her heart thudding again. “I think I’d like that.”
His eyes lit up. “Good. Because I’m not going anywhere this time.”
He stepped out and opened her door for her like some old-school movie hero. She stepped onto the curb feeling like her life had just shifted in a way she hadn’t seen coming.
He leaned down, kissed her cheek, then whispered, “Good night, Marlo.”
As she walked up the steps, she realized something terrifying. She was already falling for him all over again.
Marlo didn’t sleep that night. She lay in her childhood bedroom staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to her ceiling. She wondered how the quiet, artistic boy she once knew had become a man with a world at his fingertips.
The room hadn’t changed, but everything else had. This included the way her heart now reacted at the thought of Vance Fletcher.
The morning sun filtered through the lace curtains, casting soft patterns across the wooden floor. She pushed off the covers and padded down the hallway to the kitchen. There she found her mother humming over a pan of scrambled eggs.
“You’re up early,” her mother said without turning.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Wedding nerves?”
“Not exactly.”
Her mother turned, brow lifting. “Happen to do some dancing last night?”
Marlo opened the fridge to hide her face. “Maybe.”
“Was it with someone I know?” her mother asked too casually.
“I doubt it.”
Her mother didn’t press, which only made Marlo more suspicious. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and tried not to think about the fact that Vance had flown into town just to see her. That kind of gesture didn’t come without meaning.
By mid-afternoon, she was back in her car driving toward the edge of town. The old textile mill had been converted into artist studios. She’d rented one for the week, hoping to update her portfolio.
She was adjusting her lens when the studio door opened.
“I was hoping I’d find you here,” came a voice she now recognized too well.
She turned, half expecting to feel awkward. Instead, she felt steadied.
“You tracked me down.”
“I asked your mom. She said you’d be here.”
Marlo set the camera aside. “That woman has no concept of privacy.”
“She said you used to spend hours in your room editing photos until your eyes went blurry.”
“I still do,” she said, walking over. “Only now there’s a lot more caffeine involved.”
Vance looked around the studio, his gaze lingering on the prints hanging on the walls.
“You’re talented. You always were.”
She folded her arms. “What do you want, Vance?”
“To make you an offer.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this about business?”
“Sort of.”
She waited.
“I need a photographer. Not just for a one-off shoot. I’ve been working on a campaign for one of my startups. Something personal. I want it to be real, grounded, human. You’re the only person I trust to capture that.”
Marlo blinked. “You trust me?”
“I do.”
“Why me?”
“Because you don’t pretend to be someone else. And you see people, Marlo. Not just faces.”
She hesitated. “This sounds like more than a few headshots.”
“It is. It’ll be travel. Big cities, maybe overseas.”
She stared at him. “So you’re asking me to drop everything and come globe-trotting with you?”
“I’m asking you to take a chance.”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she walked to the nearest wall and pulled down one of her favorite black-and-white portraits. It was a candid shot of a woman laughing in the rain.
“You know what I see in this?” she asked.
He stepped closer. “Tell me.”
“Someone who thought she had time, and then one day she realized she didn’t.”
He was quiet for a moment. “What are you afraid of?”
She looked at him. “That I’ll fall for you, and this time there won’t be a safety net.”
His eyes softened. “Maybe there never was one.”
Before she could respond, a knock echoed from the entrance. A tall man in an ironed polo stepped in holding a leatherbound folder.
“Mister Fletcher, your 2:00 is waiting at the inn.”
Marlo blinked. “You brought an assistant?”
Vance rubbed the back of his neck. “Technically, he’s my chief of staff.”
She stared. “You travel with a chief of staff?”
He looked sheepish. “There’s a lot I didn’t get to explain last night.”
“I’m starting to notice.”
The assistant gave a polite nod, then retreated. Marlo turned back to Vance.
“I’m not a prop you can add to your empire.”
“I don’t want that. I want a partner who challenges me. Someone who’s not impressed by the money or the headlines.”
She folded her arms. “And that’s me?”
“You’ve always been that person.”
Her heart thudded once, then again. She hated how much she wanted to trust him.
“I need time,” she said finally.
“Take it,” he said. “But don’t wait just because you’re scared.”
That night, Marlo sat on the back porch with her camera in her lap and the stars above her head. She thought about the boy who used to draw sketches in the margins of his notebooks.
She thought about how he’d grown into a man who could buy anything but still chose to come back for her. She powered on her camera and clicked through the shots she’d taken that afternoon.
When she reached the last one, her breath caught. It was of Vance leaning against the windowsill, the light catching the side of his face. His expression was unguarded.
She didn’t remember taking it, but she knew what it meant. He wasn’t just part of her past anymore. He was pressing into her future, and she had no idea if her heart would survive it.
Marlo’s phone rang at exactly 7:00 the next morning. She groaned, dragging it off the nightstand.
“Hello?”
“Pack a weekend bag,” Vance said.
“No preamble?”
“I’m sending a car.”
She sat up. “What? Why?”
“Trust me. It’s not work. Wear something comfortable.”
The line went dead before she could argue. An hour later, a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up in front of her parents’ house.
The driver, dressed in a crisp dark suit, stepped out and opened the back door with a quiet nod. A white envelope waited on the seat.
Inside was a boarding pass, private terminal, and first class credentials. Her name was printed in bold letters. She stared at it, then she stared at the driver.
“Where is this taking me?”
He didn’t blink. “Mister Fletcher asked that you be surprised.”
She hesitated for only a moment before climbing in. At the private hangar, a sleek jet stood gleaming on the tarmac. Its engines hummed low and the stairs were already down.
A flight attendant waited at the top with a smile too polished to be anything less than trained. Marlo stepped inside and froze.
The cabin was more luxurious than any hotel suite she’d ever seen. There were cream leather seats, polished wood paneling, fresh orchids, and crystal vases.
At the back, seated at a table with two cappuccinos steaming beside an open laptop, was Vance. He looked up.
“You made it.”
She dropped into the seat across from him. “You sent a plane.”
He handed her one of the mugs. “I figured it was more persuasive than flowers.”
She wrapped her hands around the cup, still trying to process. “You didn’t even tell me where we’re going.”
“I thought it might ruin the surprise.” He leaned back. “But if you hate surprises, I can tell you.”
“No,” she said, watching him carefully. “I want to see what someone like you thinks counts as surprising.”
His smile deepened, but he didn’t respond. Two hours later, the jet touched down on a narrow strip carved into green hills.
They transferred to a vintage convertible that wound along a coast lined with cliffs and wildflowers. The air smelled like citrus and salt. Marlo leaned out the window, her camera already up.
“Where are we?” she asked, snapping a photo of a stone cottage nestled into a vineyard.
“Amalfi,” he said. “There’s a villa here I’ve been restoring. I thought you might want to see it.”
She turned to him, stunned. “You own a villa in Italy?”
“I didn’t say I lived in it. I’ve barely been here.”
“I bought it because I thought one day, maybe, I’d bring someone who’d actually appreciate it.”
He pulled through an ivy-covered gate and parked in front of a sprawling estate with terracotta roofs and shuttered windows. Olive trees lined the path to the front door.
The air was quiet, golden with late afternoon sun. Inside, the villa was all stone archways, hand-painted tile, and open balconies that overlooked the sea. Every detail looked preserved, like history had been held still.
Marlo stood in the center of the main hall, her camera forgotten at her side. “This is unreal.”
“I thought you might want to photograph something different,” he said. “Something timeless.”
She turned to him. “You flew me across the world for inspiration?”
“I flew you across the world because I wanted to know you outside of where we were.”
She searched his face. “And what do you think you’ll find?”
“That you’re even more dangerous than I remembered.”
Her breath caught. That night, they had dinner on the balcony. They had sea bass glazed in lemon, heirloom tomatoes still warm from the sun, and wine from the vineyard just beyond the courtyard.
A string quartet played softly below, their music drifting up with the breeze. Marlo set her fork down and looked at him.
“This feels like a dream.”
“Then don’t wake up yet.”
She hesitated, then asked, “What happened to you after high school?”
He leaned back, his expression shifting. “I left for Stanford. Got an internship with a startup that ended up being my company.”
“I didn’t sleep for 3 years. Then one day I looked up and realized I’d built something that people wanted, and I hadn’t spoken to anyone who actually knew me in years.”
She studied him. “Is that why you came back?”
“I came back because I saw one of your photos in a gallery in New York. It was part of a community exhibit. You didn’t even sign it, but I knew it was yours.”
She blinked, stunned. “You recognized my work?”
“Every line of it.”
Her heart twisted.
“And then I found out you were coming home for the wedding.” He paused. “I booked a flight the next day.”
She didn’t know what to say. He stood and walked to the edge of the balcony, the wind catching his shirt.
“This life I have, it’s loud. Constant. People around me want things, need things. But none of them ever look at me like you do.”
She crossed the distance between them slowly. “How do I look at you?”
“Like you’re trying to decide if I’m still the guy who used to walk you home from the library.”
She touched his sleeve. “Are you?”
His voice was low. “I hope so.”
He turned toward her, the space between them vanishing. “I was going to wait to say this,” he said. “But I can’t.”
Her pulse skittered.
“I don’t want this to be a weekend. I don’t want it to be a memory. I want more of this. Of you.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “I don’t know how to do this with you.”
“Then let’s figure it out together.”
