As she frowns up at me, I consider the eager, ruddy-faced art history professor who’d been her escort at the university reception earlier this week. Although I hadn’t known anything about the congenial bastard until that night, I am considerably more informed now.
Brandon Snyder is a hardworking, decent man from a solid, middle-class family upstate. Stellar academic and public records. Not a single blemish on his character anywhere to be found.
Because damn it, I’ve looked.
After realizing he was dating Avery, I made it my next day’s mission to unearth every piece of data I could find on him.
In the end, all I found was a man far better suited for her than I ever could be.
Hell, if I’m keeping score, there are countless men in this city who deserve Avery more than I do. But not any one of them will ever love her the way I did . . . the way I still do.
They’ll never please her the same way.
They’ll never hurt her so deeply, either.
I lift my hand before I realize what I’m doing, needing to touch her. She steps back as if I mean to strike her instead of caress her.
“No. Don’t.” A firm shake of her head sends her loose blonde hair sifting around her shoulders. “You don’t get to do that anymore, Nick. You don’t have the right. Not that you ever did.”
“I suppose I deserve that.”
“And then some.”
Apparently, she’s had enough. She moves to the right as if to step around me. I counter, cutting off her escape. “Have you eaten yet?”
“What?”
“Lunch. I’m starving, and there’s no point in standing here trying to have a conversation in the middle of the sidewalk. So, what do you say? Let’s go somewhere more private and talk.”
“Let me guess,” she replies, sarcasm lacing every syllable. “Somewhere private as in back to your place? Maybe you think we should have this conversation in your bed?”
Christ. It wasn’t my intention to bring her home with me today, but my cock and everything else male in me responds with swift approval. “I’m definitely not opposed to the idea.”
The frown creasing her forehead deepens. “You’re unbelievable. If you want to share a meal and some conversation with someone—or anything else—I’m sure you have plenty of other options available to you. In fact, why don’t you start with the blonde you had dinner with last night?”
I scowl, if only to cover the satisfaction I feel in seeing Avery’s jealousy spike even after all this time. Even after everything that stands between us. “You mean Simone? What do you know about her?”
She scoffs under her breath. “I guess I should thank you for not attempting to lie to my face about it. I saw you with her at Gavin’s restaurant, not that I care. You’re free to fuck whoever you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Really?” I study her, reacquainting myself with every nuance of her face, every emotion that plays across her delicate features no matter how hard she tries to conceal it from me. It stung her to see me with another woman. It still does, all these hours later.
Just as it burned me to think of her with another man.
“As I recall it, you were with someone at GC last night too.”
“So, you did see me.” She says it with resignation, as if she’d be more shocked if I hadn’t noticed her presence inside the crowded restaurant. Perhaps even disappointed.
The fact is, I would sense this woman anywhere. There isn’t a place I’ve gone in this city where I haven’t been acutely, painfully aware of her.
I am drawn to her now as I have been from the beginning, even though I know I’ve forfeited the right to act on it.
No, as she said only a few moments ago, I never had that right.
Regardless, I see no reason to play games with Avery. I’ve done enough of that already. And I know that if she believes she’s right—that I screwed the woman she saw me having dinner with just a couple of nights after I asked Avery to leave her art event with me—our conversation would end right here.
“Simone Emmons lost her husband last month.”
Avery tilts her head, far from convinced. “She didn’t look the part of a grieving widow to me. Especially when she was pawing at you across the table and batting her lashes.”
I shrug, unable to offer any defense for my dinner companion. “Simone is a flirtatious woman who married a wealthy man old enough to be her grandfather. She’s also my newest client. At dinner last night, she agreed to sell one of her deceased husband’s companies to me.”
Avery snorts. “I’ll bet she did. I’ll bet you were one hard negotiator too.”
“It was just business, and it went no further than dinner.” I pause as a cluster of pedestrians moves past us on the concrete. “Do you really want to talk about Simone Emmons?”
“No.” I see some of her suspicion diffuse, but not enough to persuade her to stay. “I don’t want to talk about anything with you, Nick. I’m on my way to the studio. Or, rather, I would be if you weren’t standing in my way.”
“Let me drive you there.”
“No, thanks.” Something brittle flashes in her gaze. “I don’t accept rides from people I don’t know.”
It’s a low blow, lower than anything else she’s said to me, but a deserved one. If I were a better man, I’d let her aptly delivered jab stick and head back to my car alone. For the past year I’ve managed to resist a confrontation like this, but after seeing her a few nights ago she’s all I’ve been able to think about.
I have things to say to her.
Things I should have said back in Paris or months before.
There are things she needs to know. Things she needs to see. Ugly things that may make her hate me even more. Or worse, pity me.
“All right, Avery. Then walk with me for a while. If you decide you still don’t know me, then I’ll escort you to the nearest subway station and I’ll go. You’ll never see me again.”
She stares at me, a trace of confusion in her searching gaze. I see doubt there too. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, hesitant. “You really mean that?”
Fuck, do I? As difficult as it would be to keep a promise like that, I know I owe her the choice. The choice I didn’t give her before. I owe her the truth . . . and the why.
“Yes, Avery. I mean it. You have my word.”
For a long while, she says nothing. Doesn’t so much as blink as she weighs my promise in unbearable silence. She can break me right here and now, but I wonder if she truly understands her power. Watching her leave the first time was hard enough. Knowing how deeply I’d hurt her was a torment that’s eaten at me like a cancer ever since.
She doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t believe that I can be held to any promises, nor should she. But I would do this for her now. Not only because I know it’s the best thing for her, but because I also know the shame that’s waiting at the end of the path I’m asking her to walk with me.
I haven’t opened that door since the moment Avery entered my life.
I’m not at all certain I want to do it now.
She watches me too closely, already far too aware of the fissures in my soul.
“Okay, Nick,” she says softly. “Lead the way.”
Chapter 7
Nick leaves his BMW disregarded at the curb outside Vendange as we begin walking.
I’d been mentally commending myself for holding my ground and refusing to make the mistake of being alone with him, but even amid the rush and bustle of Manhattan and its constantly moving sea of humanity, the only thing I’m truly aware of is him.
My senses stir as we walk side by side on the concrete, our arms not quite brushing against each other as clusters of pedestrians ebb and flow around us. I know the scent and the feel and the taste of every inch of his perfectly honed body, no matter how desperately I want to pretend I don’t.
He smells amazing. Spicy and warm, intoxicatingly masculine, something that can’t be bought or manufactured, but is his alone. Everyth
ing female in me wants to lean in to that scent, to carry it on my skin like a brand. Especially when I watch other women glance at him in open interest as we pass them on the street.
“How’s Tasha doing?”
The casual question catches me off guard. I know Nick’s got an agenda for this conversation, and the fact that he’s starting it with small talk only makes my nerves jangle even more than they were already.
“She’s fine.” I keep Tasha’s baby news to myself, even though it takes some effort not to share it with Nick. Calling him a stranger back at the curb was easier than treating him like one when he’s walking so close to me I can focus on little else. “Tasha’s doing great. She’s amazing. I’m so proud of everything she’s done with Vendange.”
Nick grunts in acknowledgment. “The new owner couldn’t be more pleased, either. And the bastard ought to be. He got the restaurant for a song and it’s nearly doubled in business in the past several months.”
Thinking about how quickly he’d divested himself of the business—along with me—I can’t help the bite in my reply. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Nick. I know how you love to win.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, well. I’ll get over it.”
“I’m sure you will. I’m sure you’ve already moved on to bigger and better things. You’re pretty good at that.”
The look he swivels on me is penetratingly intense. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know, Nick.”
“Do you.” It’s not a question, more a challenge. But just because his dinner date last night was a client doesn’t mean there haven’t been other women. With Nick’s considerable appetite when it comes to sex, I don’t doubt that he’s got a string of available women at his beck and call in a moment’s notice. “And what about you, Avery? Has moving on without me been easy for you?”
“It sure as hell should be. I was taught by a master.” I give him a pointed glance. “No pun intended.”
His brow quirks, sin playing at the edges of his sensual mouth. But there is no playfulness in the stare that holds steady on me as we near the traffic light at the end of the block. “Are you saying it hasn’t been easy, or that you haven’t moved on? Because either way, I think your smitten Professor Snyder would be dismayed to hear that.”
“This isn’t about Brandon, so you can leave him out of the picture.”
“I don’t think he’s in the picture at all. If he was, you’d have left me high and dry at the curb back there.”
I bark a laugh. “God, you’re arrogant. If I thought you knew how to take no for an answer, I would have left you at the curb.” I shoot him a sidelong glance. “I still should.”
His smile is subtle, more amused than threatened. “This way.”
For the briefest second I feel the heat of his palm hovering at the small of my back as we round the corner off Madison, but Nick doesn’t touch me. His warmth is there and gone so quickly I might have imagined it, leaving me both disappointed and relieved. I fold my arms as we walk for a while in silence, if only to avoid any more inadvertent contact with him. My senses are hyperaware enough as it is. I don’t need any tactile reminders of how good it feels to touch him or feel his touch on me.
We pass shops and boutique hotels and eateries, the sidewalk thickening with pedestrians as we near the corner of broad, busy Fifth Avenue. Waiting at the traffic light, a mother holds the hand of her young daughter and points toward the Public Library across the street with its pair of majestic marble lions flanking the grand entrance. I can’t help but smile at the excitement in the child’s face as Nick and I step past them. He notices my distraction too.
“I trust your mother is in good health and doing well?”
My gaze snaps to him, although it’s not the strangest question he could ask. He knows more about my mom than most people. Things I confided in him when we were together. Things he eventually learned in spite of my efforts to hold on to my mom’s secrets and my own.
And now I have to wonder . . .
“The parole board finally decided to let her go about eight months ago. A new chairman was appointed and Mom’s case got fast-tracked for another review.” Since he doesn’t react with anything more than a slight nod, my suspicions about her abrupt release from prison in Pennsylvania after a decade of little hope are all but confirmed. “You had something to do with it?”
He gives a vague shrug as we continue to walk. “As luck would have it, Beck went to law school with the state’s Attorney General.”
Beck being Andrew Beckham, Nick’s personal lawyer and good friend. I’ve met the handsome African-American a few times, enough to have recognized there is probably no one Nick trusts more as a colleague or a confidant.
“There may have been some conversations on the golf course between the AG and the Governor about the need for fresh eyes on the parole board,” Nick says. “Fortunately, it didn’t take too much convincing that your mother is no danger to society any more now than she was ten years ago.”
I know I’m gaping, but I can hardly help it. Even though Nick once told me he’d be willing to leverage his connections and assets to assist my mom with her legal problems, I can’t believe he actually followed through with it. Not only because I forbade him to interfere in my life or hers in order to protect the awful secret that she and I shared.
I hadn’t wanted Nick to know what lies I’d buried in my past. I wanted the abuse I’d suffered to stay behind me, along with the truth about my stepfather’s murder and the fact that my mother had sacrificed so much—including her freedom—in order to protect me.
But Nick did find out. And when those secrets threatened to explode in my face with the reappearance of my stepbrother, Rodney Coyle, and his threats against my mother and me, Nick was the one who stopped him. He saved my life, I have no doubt.
And now I realize he’s given me something even more precious: my mother’s freedom.
I shake my head, virtually at a loss for words. “Thank you, Nick. This is a gift I can never repay.”
“I’ll never ask you to. Besides, money has its advantages. Why not make full use of them?”
“Is that how you justified what you did to me?” The question blurts off my tongue before I can stop it. I want to be grateful for the risks and the expense he’s no doubt taken to help my mom, but the wounded part of me is still bitter and confused about the way Nick manipulated my life when we first met. Now that I’ve said it, there’s little point in talking about anything else until we get past it.
If we can get past it.
He slows beside me on the sidewalk. I pause, too, feeling as if we’ve reached the end of our path here today. His face is so hard to read, sober and contemplative, yet filled with a torment that takes me aback.
“I owe you an apology, Avery. For everything.”
I shake my head. “No, Nick. You owe me answers. I don’t need an apology unless you can make me understand how you could do what you did. I need you to make me understand why.”
People jostle past us on both sides, more than one turning an askance look on us as my voice rises with the hurt and confusion I’ve been holding inside for the better part of a year. I don’t care if I’m creating a bit of a scene right here in the middle of Fifth Avenue. All of the emotion that’s been trapped inside me percolates to the surface as if the wounds are still fresh.
In so many ways, they are.
So is the depth of what I still feel for this man.
“Dammit, Nick, I need to know what the hell I meant to you—if I meant a damn thing at all.”
He doesn’t say anything for what seems like an eternity. His handsome face is grim, uncertain. It’s only in that moment that I realize where we are. Where we’ve stopped.
I glance at the large window behind him, then up at the sign above the door.
“Dominion,” I murmur.
Nick’s gallery. The one where some of my art used to hang before he and I ever met. Before we knew anything about each other.
Or so I believed.
“You brought me here deliberately?”
“If you want answers, Avery, then we need to start at the beginning.”
Chapter 8
I wait, confused and apprehensive, as Nick unlocks the gallery door and gestures for me to step inside with him. Dominion is closed today. The invitingly contemporary space is dim and unlit except for the sunlight coming in from the street, the only sounds the continuous drone of rushing traffic punctuated by the occasional blast of vehicle horn or wail of a siren.
I’ve been to Nick’s gallery more than a few times, yet as I cross the threshold with him now I feel as though I’m stepping into foreign territory. I can’t imagine what he means by bringing me here, and something inside me is afraid to guess. The grave look he gives me as we enter does nothing to reassure me.
“What’s going on, Nick?”
He doesn’t answer. The anxiety I felt at the door deepens into dread as he leads me soberly through the main exhibit room of the gallery, past the dozens of remarkable paintings displayed on the walls. My gaze catches on one particular piece—a haunting, startlingly intimate work titled Beauty. It seems like forever since I’ve seen this portrait of Kathryn Tremont. Not since the beginning of my time with Nick.
A memory of that night flashes through my mind. He and I standing in front of Beauty, speaking to each other for the first time. That piercing cerulean gaze enthralling me, seeing through to the most naked corners of my soul while in a single conversation he wickedly, expertly, peeled away my secrets, my desires, and my self-control.
We left the gallery together that night and headed straight to his bed.
Reckless. That’s what I called it then, what I know it to be with even more certainty after all this time and heartache later.
But that night isn’t the beginning Nick is taking me back to. I realize this as he continues farther into the gallery, toward a darkened hallway away from the main exhibition area.
I can sense there is something more that I don’t know, something bigger. Something I may not want to see any more than he seems eager to show me.