Me: a woman of words.

Him: a man of action.

Shit. I cannot, cannot, let him buy Edge. Not because he’d be my boss, that’s not even an issue anymore. But because I won’t let him throw his money away into something he’s never believed in. I won’t let him be reckless because of me.

“Edge isn’t worth what they’re offering for it,” I tell Helen. “You know that.”

“They’re not paying for Edge now. They’ve got a long-standing rivalry and they’re going to do this to the end. Your boyfriend’s father wants Edge with you in it, your boyfriend is not letting him take you on.”

“But I quit, Helen.”

“If Saint wins, you’ll come back,” she says assuredly.

When I step out of the office, nobody is working. At all. They’re all leaning in groups around their cubicles and when I come out, they hoot.

“Hey, we’re Team Malcolm!” Valentine calls.

“Team Malcolm!” Sandy says.

“TEAM MALCOLM!” the chants begin around the office.

“Guys . . .” I start, groaning.

Fuck. I laugh nervously, and go back to my seat and text him. SAINT! Edge is in an uproar?!

We’ll talk later.

What? Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint!!! I reply.

Later.

Please tell me you know what you’re doing.

You shouldn’t even have to ask.

God I LOVE you! I want to text. You’re unpredictable and you drive me crazy and I love you. But the next time I say it, it will be looking into his green eyes, and that’s that.

I sigh at that and then sit at my computer, look up Noel Saint’s image, and give him the finger.

“Take that from us at Edge. Asshole.”

He promised to come over after work. I shut the door, breathe, and look at all my things. Almost everything I love is within these walls.

I’m safe, right? The water feels a little rocky but it’s not going to turn my boat.

I grab my laptop and head to my room. It’s my baby. It’s the one thing I’d take in the event of a fire. It’s who I talk to, my laptop. And it’s who talks to me.

It’s all I need to work, really. It can feed me, feed my mother, as long as I have the will.

I can leave Edge and while I still have my laptop, there’s still hope for me.

But Saint is out for blood and it’s all because of me.

I search for this bidding war online as I wait for him.

His social media is quiet. But I see a couple of articles posted yesterday and today that catch my eye.

M4 stock dropped more than 5% after hours . . .

Shareholders are deciding to sell after Saint’s decision to invest in Tahoe Roth’s oil well, not the only bad business decision he’s made in the past quarter . . .

Rumors about entering a bidding war for Edge have sent the stock plummeting even further . . .

Sources say M4 Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Saint’s head is just not in the right place after his involvement with columnist Rachel Livingston, who exposed the universally loved magnate only recently in an article for a local magazine . . .

I click the links and stare at the pictures. We’re out having dinner together, in one. In another, he’s getting into his car. In another, he’s standing in a sea of men, looking detached and somehow . . . alone. Thoughtful.

I swear. In all the articles about him online, few of them tell you how Saint is actually generous. How come no one writes about that? Or writes about the bad side of his fame? What it might be like for a person so exposed to the world, someone continually judged—even by his girlfriend. Someone who can’t help but see skewed mirrors of himself thrust up by the media. Does he see himself as the media sees him? Or what other people see?

The Malcolm Saint you hear about in the news is reckless and intense—he doesn’t save a close friend’s business. The Saint in the media wouldn’t buy a mural to support a cause that I believed in, he wouldn’t come to my campout. The Saint in the media wouldn’t offer me a job regardless of what happened between us, just to keep me away from someone he knows could do me harm.

The Saint in the media is a powerful legend, but my boyfriend is a mysterious, thrilling man who I want to peel open and then kiss all the way inside to whatever wounds made him.

I think of his father. How frustrated Saint has been, trying to get me out of Edge and into M4. Suddenly I understand his position.

Would I want my boyfriend in harm’s way? No. Just knowing M4 is taking a hit because of some allegedly bad business calls—partly because of me—I want to comfort Saint. I want to take my measly thousand-dollar savings and go buy the three shares in M4 I could afford, just to show him I believe in him.