I can’t delete the text fast enough, but even when it’s gone, the terror of what it means presses down on me like a vise.
No matter how far I’ve run, no matter how much I want to believe I might deserve some shred of happiness in my future, my past is never going to let me go.
Chapter 2
After Nick leaves for work, I realize I’m going to lose my mind if I stay in the penthouse alone with little to do. My nerves are too on edge. My panic after seeing that awful text message has put a knot in my stomach that’s only tightened in the time since he’s been gone.
Despite the fact that I was clean and semidressed for breakfast, I strip out of my short silk kimono and take another shower—this one scalding. Beneath the punishing spray of water I try to compartmentalize the hideous past that still clings to me and the fragile, hopeful present I’ve only begun to know.
To think I had almost convinced myself that the ugliness I left behind in Pennsylvania would never find me all these years later.
Until two weeks ago, I thought I was safe. I thought that part of my life—and the secrets I ran away from—could never hurt me again.
How wrong I’d been.
There’s only one person who can understand what I’m feeling right now, but I refuse to burden my mother with this new problem of mine. God knows she’s already sacrificed more than enough where I’m concerned.
For my own sake, I need to immerse myself in the here and now, not withdraw into the fear and shame that’s clawing at me in the wake of that text. I need the cacophony of the city around me. I need some semblance of the familiar in order to find my grounding again.
When I walk up an hour later to the locked glass entrance of Vendange, the restaurant where I worked as a bartender until three and a half months ago, my friend, Tasha Lopez, hurries toward the double doors to meet me. Her loose brown spiral curls frame her soft features and long-lashed brown eyes as she tilts her head to study me for a moment through the glass.
Using one of the manager’s keys that hang from the neon green plastic coil around her wrist, Tasha opens the locks and lets me inside. Vendange doesn’t open until lunch, but half a dozen servers are already at work prepping for business. Like Tasha, the waitstaff are all wearing fitted black button-down shirts with black tuxedo vests and black slacks, a polished, understated look that perfectly complements the trendy, upscale bar and restaurant.
Before she and I have a chance to greet each other, one of the employees calls out to her from the restaurant storage room.
“Hey, Tasha? Looks like we’re down to the last three take-out boxes.”
“Check out back. I placed an order for another case earlier this week. I think I saw it when I closed up last night.” Without missing a beat, she turns to me and gives me a big hug. “You look gorgeous as usual.”
Her gaze skims my loose white silk tank, slim-fitting tan pencil skirt, and flat, saddle-brown designer sandals—just part of the generous wardrobe Nick has gifted me with since we’ve been together. I opted to wear my blonde hair unbound, a habit I’ve begun since hooking up with him. He never allows it to stay tamed for long, anyway. Today it floats around my face and shoulders in a mass of air-dried, beachy waves instead of the orderly, blown-out ponytail that was my regular style when I worked at the restaurant.
Tasha seems to approve of my new look too. She fists her hands on her hips and grins at me. “Penthouse life definitely agrees with you—even if it means I haven’t seen you in more than a week.”
It’s a none-too-subtle chide, but she’s right. I have been spending a lot of time alone with Nick, especially since I moved into his place. Tasha has her family and a large social circle of her own, but she always makes me feel special and a part of her life. After having worked together at Vendange five or more nights a week on average for the past year, she’s not only my best friend but the closest thing to family I’ve had since I moved to this city.
“Speaking of gorgeous,” she says, “where’s your smokin’ hot sex-god boyfriend today?”
“Meetings all day at his office.” A couple of weeks ago, I recall scoffing at the idea that Nick and I were a couple in the boyfriend-girlfriend sense of the word. Even though I’m not entirely sure what to call us now, it’s Tasha’s wry smile that tugs my own mouth into a smirk. “As for the smoking hot sex-god part—accurate though it may be—is that really any way to talk about your new boss?”
“Good point.” She purses her lips, looking far from contrite. “It’s totally inappropriate for me to objectify Vendange’s new owner like that. From now on, I’ll refer to him as mister smokin’ hot sex-god.”
Her laugh is big and warm, one of the most comforting sounds I know. Hooking her arm through mine, she leads me farther into the restaurant. Male and female waitstaff buzz around us setting the tables, polishing fixtures, and wiping down surfaces. I gesture to the classic uniforms on the servers and bartenders.
“I like the new dress code, by the way. No more cleavage-baring shirts with black skinny jeans and heels for the women?”
Tasha rolls her eyes. “That was the first thing I changed after I took over as manager. I also added three new servers and trained two of them myself as bartending backup. I don’t want anyone working mandatory doubles the way Joel made us do, especially those of us with kids at home. To make sure everyone gets the shifts they want, I reshuffled the schedule a bit and made a rotating call list of waitstaff who are looking for extra hours. So far, it’s working out great.”
“I can see that.”
I can’t help but be impressed. I remember how frenetic and stressful Vendange was before, when I worked here with Tasha under the previous manager’s watch. Now the pace is efficient instead of hectic. The faces of the employees are focused, yet relaxed, not anxious that they’ll earn the wrath of an overbearing jerk of a boss. Tasha appears infinitely happier, too, which makes me even more grateful for Nick’s unexpected generosity where she’s concerned.
There is a part of me that will always consider him my hero for the way he stepped in to protect my friend from Joel’s unwanted advances. In true Dominic Baine fashion, he managed to purchase the restaurant out from under Joel and have the bastard tossed out on his ass—all in the space of a few hours. Nick claimed it was all in the interest of a good business investment, but I know he also did it to help Tasha. He did it for me, even though we’d been in the middle of a big argument and on the verge of breaking up when Tasha arrived at Nick’s building in tears after walking off the job following Joel’s harassment of her.
She folds her arms and exhales a slow sigh. “I still can’t believe I’m managing one of the most popular restaurants in the city.”
“Why can’t you believe it? You’re good at this. You deserve this.”
“Thanks.” Her gaze lights on me with tender gratitude. But there is a question in her eyes too. “What about you, Ave?”
“What about me?”
She hesitates for a moment, studying me as we stand near the long bar where she and I so often worked together. “Everything okay with you?”
“Yeah. Everything’s great.”
My reply is automatic, honed by years of practice in pretending I’m fine despite the turmoil inside me. Maybe Tasha has experience doing the same, because she tilts her head, her eyes searching mine. It’s all I can do to resist the urge to shutter myself from her scrutiny.
Not that it would work with her anyway. In the relatively short time we’ve been friends, she always seems to see right through me.
“How’s your mom doing?”
Even though I confided in Tasha a couple of weeks ago, after Nick and I came back from the prison in Pennsylvania, it still jars me to hear someone ask about my mother. Her incarceration for murdering her abusive husband had been a secret I’d kept for a decade—one of many I wanted to leave behind me when I moved to New York. I’m certain I’d still be keeping her a secret, but then she took a bad fall and I had no choice but to rush to the
prison to be with her.
Nick followed me there, even though it was the last place I wanted him to be. I didn’t want anyone to see that part of my life, least of all him. But he stayed with me for as long as I needed. And then, when I was ready, he brought me back home.
“She’s okay, all things considered,” I tell Tasha. “Her broken ribs and pierced lung are on the mend, but her leg is healing slower than they hoped. They tell me she’ll be in the infirmary for a while yet, possibly a month.”
Tasha nods. “She’s lucky. A fall down a flight of stairs like that could be deadly at her age.”
“I know.” And even as I say it, my thoughts turn to the threatening text I received this morning. The man who sent it had also called me soon after my mother’s accident.
At the time I hadn’t questioned how he knew about her fall so quickly. I was too shaken by the sound of his voice—and by the fact that he had found me—after so many years. Now, I have to wonder if he’d had something to do with harming my mom. Could her fall have been something other than accidental? The very possibility makes the chill in my blood turn even colder.
I can’t suppress my shudder, and I only hope Tasha doesn’t spot my discomfort before one of the new bar staff comes over to speak with her. As they go over the day’s specials on a tablet, I breathe a sigh of relief for the moment’s distraction. I need it, if only to get a grip on my suddenly racing heartbeat and the clamminess that’s gathering at the back of my neck.
“On second thought, I’d prefer a less obvious wine pairing with the roasted duck,” Tasha says. “The Chardonnay is good, but can we try something more interesting?”
“We could do a red,” the other woman suggests. “Cabernet or Pinot noir would both work equally well.”
Tasha shakes her head. “Again, too expected.”
“What about a Carménère?” When both women look at me, I shrug. “We tasted a nice Chilean one last spring, if I recall. Do we still stock it?”
“We do,” Tasha says, a grin spreading over her face. “And you’re right. It’s perfect. Go with that one,” she instructs the other employee before sending her off to change the menu. “God, I miss working with you, Avery. You ever want to come back, just say the word.”
I slant her a look. “And work at the restaurant my boyfriend now owns? I don’t think so. But I do need to find work soon. I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have something productive to do during the day when Nick is working. Besides, I can’t stand the idea of depending on him for room and board while I’m not contributing anything.”
Tasha smirks. “I doubt he’d say you’re not earning your keep. Besides, what about your art? Haven’t you been painting?”
“Not for a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks, maybe.”
I try to sound nonchalant, but she catches on. “You mean, not since you moved in with him.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” At her contemplative, vaguely disapproving look, I rush to explain. “When Nick and I are together, there’s no time for anything else. In case you haven’t gathered, the man is . . . intense.”
“I’ve gathered,” she says, a droll look in her eyes. “What about when you two aren’t tearing each other’s clothes off? You said yourself you need something to do while he’s busy being king of the corporate world.”
“I want to paint,” I admit. “But I can’t exactly set up in the penthouse and do it.”
“Why the hell not? Did Nick say you couldn’t?”
“No, of course not. But there’s no space—”
Her brows rise. “Don’t tell me you can’t find one little corner for yourself in an apartment that spans two floors and more than eight-thousand square feet.”
“No, that’s not the problem either. It’s Nick. Really, the problem is me.” I blow out a sigh. “I’m not ready for him to see my new work. I want it to be good first.”
“Because he told you that it wasn’t.”
“He was right,” I admit, surprised at how the sting of Nick’s critique of my art has lessened over time. “He said I was holding back and that it showed on my canvas. He says he believes I have talent, that I have it inside me to be great.”
He said a lot more than that, truths I’m only beginning to understand since we’ve been together. Nick said my art was self-conscious, afraid . . . like me.
But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to let him in.
I can’t. Not all the way.
Not when there are things I can’t allow him to see.
Tasha puts her hand on my wrist, her eyes soft with sympathy, as if I’ve just spoken all of my fears aloud. “You need to paint, Avery. I’ve seen how much it means to you. It’s part of you.”
“I know.” I nod, grateful for her understanding. “I’ll find a way.”
“What about renting a little studio somewhere?”
“I don’t have the money for that.”
“You made five grand from house-sitting for Claire Prentice four months ago.”
“Yes, and after paying back rent on my old apartment in Brooklyn, then renting a car to go see my mom two weeks ago, plus dozens of other little expenses, I’ve got less than half of it left.”
“Maybe I can help.” Before I can ask what she means, she pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket and calls her husband, Antonio. “Hey, babe. Does Aunt Rosa have any friends who might have a small, unfurnished space to rent here in the city? I’m talking dirt cheap, but not dangerous cheap.” She pauses and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, because we don’t already have a perfectly good bedroom for that. I’m talking about a place for Avery to use as a studio for a while.”
“What?” I shake my head in protest, but there’s no stopping her.
“Okay, great. No, just have her call Avery if she finds something. I’ll text you her number in a minute. Yep, love you, too, babe.”
“Tasha—”
“Don’t even start,” she says, already slipping her phone back into her pocket. “You’ve done so much for me, this is the least I can do for you.” As she speaks, someone calls out from the back office, alerting her to a delivery that needs a signature. “Listen, I gotta go take care of a few more things before we open.”
“All right,” I relent, as she pulls me into a brief hug.
“Come back and see me later this week, if you can manage to drag yourself away from your other favorite creative pursuit,” she says with a wink. “We can chat about him over a glass of Carménère.”
Chapter 3
The warm summer weather is so nice when I leave Vendange, I decide to walk instead of hailing a taxi or riding the subway back to the Upper East Side. Hundreds of other people apparently have the same idea. Rather than fall in line with the corporate types and other Manhattanites who rush past me on Madison Avenue, I take my time, strolling along the broad sidewalk with the crowds of meandering tourists and window shoppers.
Up and down this bustling stretch of asphalt, concrete, and towering steel, exclusive boutiques stand side-by-side with national brands of all kinds, as well as upscale designer stores, and financial institutions. I’m not in the market for anything specific, but as I approach a luxe lingerie shop, I can’t help myself from pausing at the brass-framed windows to admire all of the lacy, satiny things secreted inside.
It isn’t hard to imagine how hot Nick’s gaze would smolder if he saw me in one of those sexy undergarments . . . or how quickly his strong hands would work to peel it off me in his need to get inside me.
My nipples tighten at the thought. A flush of heat races through me, warmth I feel most intensely between my bare thighs, which now tremble a bit beneath my light linen skirt.
Curiosity, and the desire to drive Nick even a fraction as crazy as he makes me, finally gets the better of me. With a smile curving my lips, I open the glass doors and step inside.
Soft classical music and delicate perfume drift on the comfortably cool air of the boutique. I nod in gre
eting to one of the half-dozen elegantly outfitted saleswomen who are all busy with other customers. Glad for the privacy to browse on my own, I head toward the section in the back of the shop where the prettiest items are on display in mirrored glass alcoves and stacked glass drawers.
I’m immediately drawn to one of the bra and panty sets I saw in the window. Both comprised of delicate champagne lace and see-through mesh, each piece is embroidered with burgundy satin roses and dainty ribbon trim. The effect is sweetly innocent, yet decadently sexy.
“Lovely, isn’t it?”
I turn to find one of the sales attendants approaching. The pretty black woman who smiled at me when I came in. She walks toward me with the fluid grace of a runway model, her stylish, slender figure, high cheekbones, and arresting light green eyes completing the effect.
I nod as she comes to stand beside me at the display. “It’s perfect.”
“Would you like to try them on? I’m Evelyn. I’ll be happy to help you find your sizes and show you to a fitting room.”
“Okay, thanks.”
I tell her what I wear, then, after retrieving my sizes from within a pair of locked drawers, she brings me into a serene private dressing area that’s practically the size of my old studio apartment in Brooklyn.
Evelyn carefully places the bra and panties on a glass vanity table. Next to it is a taupe velvet upholstered bench seat sitting atop a soft rug woven in a feminine pattern of soothing neutrals. Large mirrors and soft, boudoir lighting ensure every angle is presented in the most complimentary fashion.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Evelyn says.
I sit down on the cushioned bench and skate my fingers over the barely-there translucent lace cups of the bra, shivering at the thought of Nick doing the same while I’m wearing it. He’ll love this, I’m sure. And I’m excited at the idea of watching him unwrap me later tonight and discovering my surprise.
Excited, that is, until I see the price.
Nearly a thousand dollars for the two pieces.