That he'd never get within a mile of her. I kept it. I'll keep keeping it for as long as you'll have me around to keep it. Nathan looked down at her hand on his. Then he turned his hand over slowly and laced his fingers through hers.
And it was the first time after everything, after the rain and the couch and the shirt and the ladder, the first time they'd actually held hands and they both went quiet at how enormous such a small thing could be. For as long as I'll have you around, Nathan repeated, "Victoria, I've got to be honest with you about something, and I need to say it before this goes one inch further because I said I don't do things halfway, and I meant it. " He took a breath. I'm not going to be able to keep up with your life. You understand? You've got the tower and the board and the 11 billion.
I fix air conditioners. I'm always going to fix air conditioners more or less or something like it. I'm never going to be your equal on paper. And there's going to come a night at some fancy dinner where somebody looks at me and looks at you and does the math out loud. And I need to know you've thought about that because I have.
And it's the only thing that scares me. Victoria was quiet for a moment, then she squeezed his hand hard. Let me tell you what I know about equals," she said. I was engaged to my equal on paper. Adrien Cole was my match.
Powerful, wealthy, respected a man the magazine said was perfect for me. We were the power couple. And that man spent 2 years making me smaller so he could steal from me. And the night my whole life fell apart. My equal left me alone in a restaurant.
And it was the man who fixes the air conditioners who drove through the rain to get me. Her voice was fierce. So don't you talk to me about equals Nathan Walker. I had an equal. He nearly destroyed me.
You know what you are. You're not my equal. You're my better. You're a better man than every equal I ever met. And I've met all of them.
I've had dinner with every powerful man in this city, and not one of them would have given a drunk woman his jacket in the rain and asked for nothing. Not one. You're not below me. You're so far above the men I used to think were my level that it's almost funny. That's not how the world's going to see it.
Then the world can go to hell. Victoria said with such flat conviction that Nathan laughed. I spent 40 years caring what the world saw. It saw a fortress. It saw an empire.