The doorbell rang with perfect timing, and I opened the door to the kid working for the restaurant delivery service holding two large cases in his hands. After tipping him, I placed the items in the oven and refrigerator as indicated on the instructions and went upstairs and showered, changing into a pair of slacks and a button-up shirt.
I could hear what sounded like a hair dryer being used in Lydia's room and my heart sped up in anticipation of being alone with her tonight. Despite all we had hanging over us, inside I was seventeen years old again. And that feeling both filled my blood with an excited anticipation unlike anything I'd experienced since I was seventeen and made me feel powerless and vulnerable at the same time.
And I should have just told you I loved you.
I stepped out into the hall at almost the same moment Lydia did, and we both stood staring at each other over the short distance, her words from earlier repeating in my head. Lydia.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Hi." She was wearing the same black dress she had been wearing before I had her change for the party yesterday, and this time, I took the time to appreciate her in it. My eyes moved from her slim legs, to her sweetly curved hips, to her luscious breasts, up to her beautiful face, and her shiny blonde hair. "You look beautiful. Your hair, it's different."
She smiled, running a hand down it. "Oh, I just straightened it."
"I like it." God, I sounded like a seventeen-year-old. But Lydia only smiled and walked toward me.
"Thank you. You look nice, too. Where are we going?"
"I ordered dinner in tonight. I thought it'd be easier to talk without worrying about a bunch of people all around us."
"Oh," she said, sounding a bit surprised. "Okay. Actually," she stopped once we'd reached the bottom of the stairs and took off her heels, sighing with what sounded like relief, "that sounds great. I'm also not sure if I'm ready to face Greenwich society again so soon."
I flinched slightly, feeling like the arse I was all over again. I took her by the hand and led her to the kitchen where I began taking the warmed food out of the oven. I handed a bottle of wine and an opener to Lydia. This all suddenly felt surreal to me, as if, unwittingly, and in only a week, Lydia had somehow become a fixture in my home. My mind was whirling with too many emotions to try to sort—I'd been at it all day and suddenly, I just wanted to sit across from her and have dinner and talk about mundane topics. I wanted her to make me laugh, and I wanted to ask her all about her life now. I wanted to know what she'd studied in college, and I wanted to hear about whether she liked her job. Or had liked her job before I came along. I closed my eyes for a second as another wave of shame hit me. So yes, I wanted this to be a real date, but it couldn’t be. I had guaranteed that with my actions.
As we brought the last of the dishes into the dining room, I said, "What if I'd come up to you at a party a few weeks ago?"
She slid into her chair, a look of confusion passing over her face. She tilted her head to look up at me. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," I continued, taking my own seat, "what if I'd walked up to you at a party and asked you out?"
She furrowed her brow, obviously considering my question very seriously. "I . . . I mean, I would have been happy to see you, Brogan. Happy and surprised and . . . I would have said yes. I would have hoped we could mend our friendship, that I could apologize and that you'd accept it." The look on her face was wistful as if she were wishing things had happened just that way. God, so did I.
I nodded, a wave of regret passing through me. Things could have been different. But they weren’t. And now they couldn't be, and I had to tell Lydia why. She raised her glass, a small smile on her lips. "To mending friendships." Oh Lydia. But I raised my glass, too, offering her a small smile.
We dug into our food, roast beef tenderloin with a Caesar crust and a side of roasted potatoes and mixed vegetables. Lydia let out a small moan. "God, this is good. You must be thrilled to be eating something I didn't cook."
I chuckled. "Actually, you're a good cook." I decided not to mention, in actuality, I had barely tasted her cooking. I'd been so busy watching her, thinking about her as she’d served Anna and me. Anna—another woman I'd used for my own selfish purposes—to make Lydia jealous. I blamed so many others for the wrongs done against me, and yet my own sins were piling up faster than poker chips during a winning streak.
Lydia and I ate in silence for another few minutes. After taking a sip of wine, she said, "So are you going to tell me what you do for work, or is it top secret?"
"I'll get to that. But first, we need to discuss us."
"Us?" she asked, her voice slightly breathy.
I cleared my throat. "Us, meaning you, me, and your brother."
She nodded. "Right, of course." I moved my food around on my plate for a moment, trying to come up with the right words for what I was about to say. She waited, a nervous expression on her face.
"Lydia, your brother has gone from bad to worse."
She frowned. "What do you mean? I just talked to Stuart a few days ago. He texts me almost every day."
"It's easy enough to lie in a text. You can't see the person." I paused, my eyes running over the beautiful lines of her face. "He's gambling again."
Lydia looked suddenly ill. "Gambling?" she whispered, shaking her head back and forth. "He doesn't have any money, though. He can't be gambling. What is he gambling with?"
"He's been gambling on credit. And he's been losing."
She closed her eyes briefly, placing her fork down on her plate with a soft clatter. "On credit. Are you sure?"
"Very."
She let out a slow, deep breath. "Okay. If you'll give us the company back, I know I can get it on solid ground again financially. Then I'll have the means to help Stuart and—"
"I'm not giving you the company back, Lydia."
Her eyes widened, and she sat back in her chair. "I know what he did to you was horrible, Brogan. I know, I do. But look where you are and look where he is. Surely you can let go of some of that hatred. After this morning, I thought maybe—"
"It's not a matter of me hating him anymore.” I leaned forward, my elbows on the table. “Where do you think your brother is gambling? Whose credit do you think he's using?"
"I . . . I don't know."
"He's dealing with the mob. And the mob doesn't take kindly to people who can't pay back their debts. They're notoriously unforgiving on the matter."
"Unforgiving," she murmured. As the full impact of what I was saying hit her, tears filled her eyes. "Please, Brogan, there has to be another way. Could we not . . . could I not be given the responsibility to turn the company around? Surely I could raise the capital to pay Stuart’s debts. Despite all his faults, he's . . . he’s all I have. The only family I have left in the world." She paused, looking at me as if trying to read the thoughts in my mind. “If I have to, I'll sell it and pay Stuart's debts, and I'll pay you back, too. We can work out a payment schedule for the debt Stuart will still owe you—"
I shook my head back and forth slowly. "It'd be unlikely you'd get any decent offers once a buyer looked into the company finances. Frankly, it wasn't even worth the amount Stuart lost to me." But it had been what I wanted. The only thing I'd wanted at the time. Or at least the only thing I'd been willing to be honest with myself about wanting.
"Unlikely, but not impossible," she said faintly.
"And you don't have time for that anyway." I didn't mention the fact that even without Stuart's recent suicidal decisions, I wouldn't have given the company back just so they could end up exactly where they'd started. She simply didn't have the resources. My eyes met hers, and I flinched at the fear I saw in her blue-green gaze. Feck. If Stuart were here now, I'd tear him limb from limb.
She nodded. "Okay, well, this isn't your problem, obviously. I'll figure something out." She started to rise.
"Sit down, Lydia. Please." She paused, her gaze sweeping over my expression and then did as I asked.
; "I have an offer for you, and I have some demands."
"An offer? Demands?" she repeated blankly.
"Years ago, I did some work for the men who hold Stuart's loans. I might be able to buy him some more time to pay them back."
"Why would you do that?" she asked. "You planned this. Isn't it what you want?"
I pressed my lips together. "Dammit, Lydia, you have no idea what these men will do to your brother if he doesn't pay them back, what they'll do to you. I'm not a bloody monster. I admit I wanted your brother ruined, but not tortured and dead." I closed my eyes briefly. Admitting aloud that I had orchestrated her brother's ruination didn't bring me the pleasure it once had. In fact, it brought a peculiar feeling of sadness and shame.
"I will not take responsibility for your brother's fuck-ups, but I will take responsibility for my own. And I will try to help him because of you, Lydia. Because I want to keep you safe." I shook my head, pausing before I said, "I want you to come live with me in my apartment in New York City."
Her eyes widened, and she stared at me for a moment. "Is that necessary—?"
"Yes. And it's what I insist upon if I'm going to try to help Stuart."
She licked her lips, sucking the bottom one between her teeth for a moment and the movement made my guts clench. "For how long?"
"I don't know. For as long as it takes to make sure you're not in danger."
She appeared to consider the situation I'd just explained to her. Perhaps to find a way out . . . an alternative. "What will happen with De Havilland Enterprises in the meantime?" she asked, obviously hoping that once this was over she'd have a chance to reclaim her company. Would she? Would I eventually give it back? Sell it back on some payment schedule? I had told Fionn I wouldn't, but now things had changed.
"I have a team in there now whose sole specialty is bringing back companies on the brink of financial ruin."
"I see." Her eyes wandered away again, the wheels in her mind obviously turning. "And then will you sell it? Once it's on solid ground, I mean?"
"I don't know. I haven't decided anything yet."
She nodded. "My father—"
"I know. Your father created that company from nothing. He worked hard every day, and he made it what it was before your brother got his hands on it. He loved it. He was extremely proud of it."
"Yes," she said quietly.
"I'm not out to ruin what was your father's dream. I'm trying to revive it."
She let out a breath. "I guess . . . I guess that's more than what my brother was doing."
I didn't say anything. She already knew how I felt about her brother. "I was trying, you know—"
"I know. I know that." I'd had the men looking into the company finances look into Lydia and Stuart's personal finances as well. Lydia had been putting practically every dime she earned back into the company in a number of ways—advertising, endorsement, even making up for the shortfall in payroll in the last several months. And though I was sure she hadn't fully realized it, Stuart had been spending ten times as much as he was earning, underhandedly raping the profits that should have been put back into the business. Lydia had been fighting an uphill battle, one destined for failure all along. And now she was broke. Not just broke, practically penniless. I didn't even know how she'd managed to buy the groceries I'd sent her out for. I'd felt sick to my stomach this morning when I'd received the details from my investigators.
"I suppose I'll need to find a job," she said eventually as if her mind had been following the same path as mine.
"I'd be happy to keep you on at De Havilland Enterprises. But I will not hire your brother back. And I can't have you going back to work until his issues have been resolved."
For the first time since we'd begun speaking, her eyes filled with hope. "You'll let me keep working there?"
"If you'd like to, yes. Did you enjoy it?"
Her eyes skittered away. "Mostly. It's kind of hard to say, I mean, I never really got to enjoy it per se. I was always sort of in desperation mode." She let out a small, brittle laugh.
I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. It felt cold and small, and I wanted nothing more than to take her in my arms and tell her everything was going to be okay, that she didn't have to be in desperation mode anymore. I couldn't though. I couldn't because I didn't know if that was the truth or not. I was still trying to catch up with the way things had changed course.
She stared down at our hands for a moment and when she slid hers out from under mine, she used it to pick up her wine, taking a long sip. "I should call my brother . . . warn him . . ."
"It's already been done."
Her eyes lingered on my face for a moment. "How did he take it?"
"Not well."
"Maybe I should try. Maybe he'll listen to me."
"Has he ever listened to you, Lydia? Even once?"
Watching her face pale was heartbreaking. It was as if she were scrolling through years worth of interaction and examining her brother’s actions. I could hear him shouting at her to shut up. Repeatedly. By the look of pain on her face, and the way she couldn’t meet my eyes, she had found her answer. Her next words, said so softly, made me cringe inside. "No. I suppose not." She looked lost, almost . . . guilty, as if she were somehow to blame for his failings.
I sighed. "Leave it for now. He knows what he's up against. He knows where he stands, and he knows he needs to lie low. There's nothing you can do for him."
Her eyes shifted away as she took another sip of wine. After a while, she seemed to relax a little bit, taking another bite of her dinner, though it was probably cold by this time. We both ate in silence for a few more minutes. I didn't say anything, allowing Lydia to come to terms with everything we'd discussed. She'd taken in a lot tonight and still maintained her dignity and strength, and I admired her for it.
"So, what is it you do to earn all this money that you use to acquire failing companies such as ours?" she asked finally. "I know you won ours in a poker game, but I assume you've acquired failing businesses before, since you had a team in place so quickly at De Havilland Enterprises?"
"Accurate assumption." I paused. "I do a little bit of everything." She raised an eyebrow, and I took a sip of my wine, relaxing now, too. She'd listened to what I had to say and though she hadn't said the words, I knew I had her agreement about coming to live with me in New York and letting me provide the protection she could very well need. Helping Stuart in any manner whatsoever made me furious and disgusted, but if it meant keeping Lydia safe, I'd do it anyway. And truth be told, even though Stuart had made his own choices, my actions had caused a new level of desperation, and I couldn't ignore that fact. Arseways. "You might remember I'm good with numbers."
She nodded. "Yes, of course."
"The short of it is that I earned enough money to use my talent to make some very profitable investments. I did that for a few years. I still dabble in investing, and I own a number of businesses that I have at least some involvement in, but mostly, I do what I want to do."
She stared at me for several moments. "You . . . do what you want to do. What does that mean exactly?"
I shrugged. I knew I was being evasive, but it was difficult to describe what I did—I had never attempted to put it into words before. "Whatever comes up. Nothing illegal, if that's what you're thinking."
She considered me for another moment before saying, "And the money you earned to begin making the investments?"
"That, Lydia, is another story and not something I feel like discussing right now."
She ran her pointer finger around the rim of her wine glass. "Some of it has to do with what you told me the other night—"
"Some, yes."
She licked her lips again and blood rushed to my groin. The relief of her agreement to my proposal, combined with the wine, was causing my thoughts to turn in a different direction—back to Lydia and how much I wanted her.
"The man at your party, Fionn. He works with you?"
"Yes.
He's my business partner. I met him a couple months after I'd moved to the Bronx. He was in a similar position as me. Desperate. We became a team of sorts, I guess you'd say."
Sadness moved across her features. "He seems like a nice guy."
"He's the best man I've ever known."
She studied me as she nodded. "I'm glad you . . . had somebody watching out for you," she said softly.
"He did what he could."
We were both quiet for a moment before Lydia asked, "And once you have me safe and sound in New York City, what exactly am I supposed to do, contained in one apartment all day long?"
I swirled the last sip of wine and brought it to my lips, finishing off the glass. "I have a whole new set of drawers and cabinets there for you to re-arrange."
"Ha ha."
I laughed. "I suppose I could give you some work to do for my company. Let's see how it goes."
She nodded, and I stood up to begin clearing the dishes. When the table was cleared and the food was put away, I poured us each another glass of wine. Turning to her, I asked, "Tired? We could take our wine down to the water." Why did asking her that make my heart jump with nervous anticipation? Why did I feel like I was asking her out on a date and if she said no, I'd be crushed? We'd settled things between us for now. She had no real reason to spend any time with me at all.
"That sounds nice." I let out a relieved breath. "But I think I'll change into something a little more comfortable."
"Okay."
I finished up in the kitchen and then sat at the counter and answered a few emails on my phone. Twenty minutes later when Lydia still hadn't come down, I became restless. What was taking her so long? Grabbing the half bottle of wine and our glasses, I decided it was time to go get her so we could catch the last of the sunset. Glancing out the window I saw the wash of red and orange was already low on the horizon, the clouds tinged in gold.
"Lydia?" I called, knocking lightly on her door. When I didn't get an answer, I opened it slowly, calling her name again. The room was empty and my heart lurched unpleasantly. Had she left? But then I noticed movement beyond the French doors and saw her. My heart rate slowed, and I moved toward the doors. She had changed into a loose blue dress of some kind that was falling off one shoulder. She was standing at the rail of the widow’s walk—her hands joined on the ledge—watching the last of the sun as it slipped beyond the horizon. The lingering light cast her hair in a pale yellow glow—a few strands lifting in the summer breeze—and I could see the outline of her profile, the mouthwatering shape of her body beneath the light material of the dress. I was entranced. I stood there for a moment just watching her, memorizing this moment, and knowing that for me, there would never be another woman as beautiful as Lydia De Havilland standing on my balcony watching the day slip into dusk.