“Holy shit,” Tasha gasps, dragging my attention back to the here and now. The taxi maneuvers toward the curb on my side and turns in to a U-shaped entrance in front of a monstrously tall high-rise. Tasha leans across me to gape. “Avery, is this the right building?”
I peer out my window as the driver slows to a stop under the sleek glass overhang and announces that we’ve arrived. Even so, I have to double check that the numbers etched in black on the gleaming silver plate mounted above the entrance of the tower match the address Claire gave me.
“This is it.”
Tasha exits on her side while I pay the twelve dollar fare. She’s already at my door as I climb out, a look of awe on her face. She hooks her arm through mine and leans in close as we step away from the taxi.
“Girl, do you have any idea where we are? This section of Park is prime real estate. We’re talking billionaire row. I’ll bet you can’t even get a closet-sized studio for under a couple million in this building.”
“Seriously?” My brows lift in surprise. “Apparently international commercials and Japanese game shows are lucrative business.”
Tasha grunts a non-response as I crane my neck to follow the jutting column of glass before us. It’s so high, I lose sight of it in the dark canopy of clouds blotting out the night sky. I’ve never even set foot inside a building of this caliber and as we approach the brightly lit lobby inside, I’m not sure if the sudden pounding of my heart is stemming from excitement or doubt.
I wasn’t sure about any of this to begin with; now all I have are second thoughts. I feel conspicuous and nervous. This isn’t my kind of neighborhood. It’s not even in the same orbit I’ve inhabited for any of my twenty-five years.
What the hell was Claire Prentice thinking, drafting someone she’s never even met before into house-sitting in a building like this?
Desperate, that’s what she was. Desperate and without other options as she’d openly admitted. As desperate as I am to have a roof over my head until I can somehow get back on my feet.
But I sure as hell wasn’t prepared for this.
Looking at the yards of polished marble and massive glittering crystal chandeliers that wait for me on the other side of the ultramodern lobby’s glass facade—not to mention the fact that Claire is paying me to stay here besides—there’s no question that I got the better end of our deal.
A middle-aged doorman in a dark coat and cap opens one of the chrome-trimmed glass doors and steps out to hold it open for us.
He greets Tasha and me each with a pleasant nod. “Good evening, ma’am. Ma’am.” He’s a big guy, slightly round beneath the long drape of his thick wool coat. But his hazel eyes seem genuinely kind and his smile is warm within the brackets of his gray-flecked goatee. “How can I help you ladies?”
I pause and smile back at him. “Hi. I’m Avery Ross, and this is my friend, Tasha. Claire Prentice sent me. I’m, ah . . . she’s hired me to watch her apartment while she’s out of town.”
I start foraging anxiously in my purse for her business card as if that will be ample proof, but the doorman is already nodding his head even before I hold the card out to him. “Ms. Prentice called earlier this evening to let me know you were expected, Ms. Ross. Please, both of you, come in out of the cold.”
Tasha and I step inside with the doorman following behind us. Silver-veined, gleaming marble spreads out beneath our feet, from the entrance to the towering banks of elevators across the lobby. Soaring walls of exotic dark woods and stone frame the polished steel elevator doors. Above our heads, immense, cascading crystal chandeliers glitter like waterfalls of twisting, sparkling ice.
“My name’s Manny,” the doorman says. He leads us to a reception desk across the wide expanse of the lobby. Grabbing a tablet PC from the desk, he taps on the screen a few times before handing it to me. “Please sign in where I’ve indicated, Ms. Ross. Will you be staying in Ms. Prentice’s apartment starting tonight?”
The question takes me aback, if only because I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I’m actually standing here and not dreaming. I shake my head as I scrawl my finger across the tablet in a barely legible version of my signature. “I wasn’t planning to stay, no. It’s late and we just got off work. I only wanted to stop by to check things out.”
“All right, then.” Manny reaches around the counter of the reception desk and hands me a card. “That’s the number for the lobby phone. If you need anything at all, you just let me know how I can help.” He gestures toward the elevator banks. “Ms. Prentice’s apartment is on the fifth floor, number 501. Take a left off the elevator.”
“Thanks, Manny.” I nod to him and pocket the card, grateful for his welcoming nature. Some of my anxiety has faded under the warmth of his smile. Maybe I won’t feel quite so alone or out of place here, knowing there will be at least one friendly face in the building.
I give him a small wave, then Tasha and I head for the elevators. Neither of the two cars are parked on the ground level, so, as we wait for one to come down, I can’t resist pivoting for another look at the opulence of the lobby.
A moment later, a soft chime sounds behind me as the elevator comes to a rest. I wheel back around and step toward the doors as soon as they slide open.
I don’t even register that the wall I’m facing is human until I’ve almost crashed right into him.
I stop short and lift my head with a half-formed apology on my lips. The sound evaporates on my tongue as I glance up and my gaze collides with a pair of cerulean blue eyes. They skewer me from under the slash of inky black brows.
Brows that are furrowed into a deep scowl at the uncouth clod who nearly body-slammed her way onto the elevator.
“Um, sorry.”
No reply from him. Not even a flicker of polite response in his handsome, sharply cut features. Under a crown of dark hair that’s neatly trimmed, fit for a boardroom, but thick with rebellious waves that catch the light in a glossy, raven’s wing sheen, his face is a blending of hard, chiseled angles. With his high cheekbones and square jaw, I’d be tempted to call his face brutal if not for the supple line of his mouth.
And he’s tall and muscular too, dressed in a dark gray track jacket and pants that do little to disguise the physically fit body within. Despite his athletic appearance, I can tell immediately that he’s not some meat-head gym rat who’s more brawn than brain.
No, this man’s eyes blast me with the kind of intelligence and seriousness—a powerful confidence—that I can’t ignore.
A shocking and inexplicable heat pours through me as he holds my gaze. His stare is bold, unflinching, as if he’s accustomed to taking his fill of anything in his sights. That air of assumption should offend me for many reasons, but as his brilliant blue eyes travel the length of me, all I feel is the rapid igniting of every cell in my body.
Tasha clears her throat when my muteness appears to be permanent. “Pardon us, please.”
He barely acknowledges her comment, nor her huff of indignation that follows. No, those piercing eyes staying rooted on me alone. I feel stripped bare under that hard gaze, as if he can see right through me with a single glance and knows I don’t belong here. Even worse, the barely imperceptible twist of his lips seems to say that he’s very much aware of the effect he has on me.
He doesn’t move, then I am mortified to realize it’s because I’m standing in his way.
I wince inwardly and step aside, wishing I would just melt into the crack between the marble floor and the elevator shaft before I embarrass myself any more.
His path cleared, he steps into the lobby without a word.
I follow Tasha into the elevator, but all of my attention is on the dark-haired stranger now prowling across the marble with fluid, almost urgent strides.
I hear Manny greet him as the elevator doors slide shut, blocking my view.
“Evening, Mr. Baine. Enjoy your run, sir.”
Once we’re sealed inside the car, my breath leaks out of me o
n a groan.
Tasha arches a brow. “Hot as sin, but obviously a superior prick. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of that one, honey.”
As if I need the warning.
Whoever he is, I doubt I’ll be seeing much of Mr. Baine. In fact, I’m already promising myself I’ll head in the opposite direction if I ever see him in the building again while I’m here. God knows, I don’t need to relive tonight’s awkward semi-introduction with the man anytime soon.
I push the button for the fifth floor, wishing it was as easy to push the memory of those searing blue eyes from my mind. The man radiated a palpable heat and power that I can still feel riding my skin—tripping all of my senses—as we ascend to Claire’s apartment.
Oh, yes, I definitely intend to avoid the hot-as-sin, arrogant—disturbingly arousing—Mr. Baine at all costs.
Chapter 5
“Holy shit, will you look at this place?” Tasha sails ahead of me into Claire’s empty apartment as I pause to close the door behind us. “Avery, you have to see this. It’s incredible!”
She’s right, it is. I’m barely able to contain my own amazement as I follow her inside. More gleaming marble covers the floors up here, from the foyer that’s almost the size of my entire rental in Brooklyn, to the serenely elegant space that spreads out in all directions from the apartment’s entrance.
In the living room, a dimmed crystal chandelier casts an inviting glow over creamy upholstered furniture and a pale gray patterned rug. Built-in bookcases line the entire span of the far wall, packed with enough reading material to keep someone busy for a couple of years. Delicate accent tables hold small collections of art objects and interesting trinkets that Claire has likely picked up from her travels. The entire room is a sophisticated, visual feast—all of it perfectly arranged before a pair of ten-foot square windows that look out at the sparkling nighttime city that surrounds us.
For what certainly isn’t the first time, I find myself caught in disbelief that Claire Prentice’s bad luck tonight has become my life-line.
And what a life-line it is.
I walk up to the immense panes of glass and can only stare out in awe at the incredible view. I’ve never longed for extravagance, and, God knows, I’ve never come close to having it, but I feel like a princess in her tower as I stand in the elegance of Claire’s living room and look out at the city lights. The clusters of buildings overlap each other in my field of view, thousands of illuminated windows glittering like diamonds in the darkness. I can’t wait to see the view from here in the daylight. With a few months ahead of me while Claire is away, maybe I’ll even have the chance to paint it.
“Hey, check out this amazing kitchen!” Tasha calls from the adjacent area. “You sure you don’t wanna come stay at my house and I’ll water Claire’s plants for the next four months? Hell, I’ll even let you keep the money.”
I laugh quietly and shake my head. I have no doubt I’d be far more comfortable in Tasha’s cramped Queens duplex than here, but I know she’s only kidding about trading places with me. At least, I think she’s kidding.
We spend the next hour taking stock of Claire’s gorgeous apartment. While Tasha ogles Claire’s designer wardrobe and enviable shoe collection, I move through the place making a mental checklist of things I need to figure out or ask Manny or the building manager about when I come back.
Eventually, Tasha and I lock up, then head down to the lobby to leave. We say our goodbyes outside the building, where I ignore her protests and spring for separate taxis home for both of us. After cursing me for being stubborn and wasting good money, she gives me a hug then follows Manny to the opened door of her cab, waving as she takes off.
I walk over to the other idling vehicle.
“Here you go, Ms. Ross,” Manny says, holding the door for me. “Shall we look forward to seeing you tomorrow, then?”
“Ah, I guess so,” I say as I climb into the backseat, though part of me is still processing the idea of trading my tiny apartment for this kind of opulence, even if only temporarily.
This isn’t my world, and I’ll do well to remember that. After four months, my time here will be up and I’ll go back to the life I’ve made for myself in the real world. All of my problems will be waiting to reclaim me on the other side of this brief escape from reality . . . along with the secrets I carry that will never let me go.
With reminders of my past clinging to me, I pause to look up at the kind doorman before he closes my door. “Goodnight, Manny. And please, call me Avery.”
“Very well, then. Goodnight, Miss Avery.” He winks and inclines his head in a slight bow as he closes the door, then gives the roof of the taxi a light pat to send it on its way.
I tell the driver my address, then settle back for the forty-minute ride. As we cruise down Park Avenue, I study the neighborhood that’s going to be mine for the next few months.
And when I spot the dark figure of a lone runner on the opposite sidewalk, heading back in the direction of the building, I can’t help the jolt of recognition—of visceral awareness—that arrows through me.
Mr. Baine.
His strides are long, fluid. Aggressive. His muscular body slices through the darkness like a blade. Like a man who expects the world around him to make way for him, simply because he’s there.
If I need reasons to stay away from a man like him—from any man, in fact—I have plenty. But that doesn’t keep my pulse from speeding up as I watch his powerful body move. It doesn’t keep my skin from heating and tightening at the memory of penetratingly sharp blue eyes piercing me—stripping me bare—earlier tonight.
He is not for me. I know this.
But once I see him, I can’t stop looking.
Not until the distance stretches between us and he vanishes into the night behind me.
~ ~ ~
After a restless night on the pull-down bed in my one-room studio, reality wakes me in the form of my landlord pounding on my door just before eight in the morning. Dreams of glittering high-rises and glowering blue-eyed strangers dissolve under the relentless hammering.
“Avery, I know you’re in there!” my landlord, Leo, shouts to me in his smoker’s rasp through the dead bolted door. “We need to talk about the apartment.”
Bam-bam-bam.
“Come on, open up, now. I know you got the eviction notice I left for you. How long you think you can avoid me? Avery?”
He pounds again. At the same time, my cell phone starts ringing.
On a groan, I throw the blanket off me and drag my eyelids open to see who’s calling.
Wonderful. It’s my mother. The last thing I want is for her to hear my landlord threatening to break down my door and toss me out onto the street. She worries about me enough as it is. I’m not about to add any stress to her life.
“I’ll come down to your office in an hour,” I tell Leo as I get out of bed with my phone in hand. “I promise.”
“That’s what you told me last week,” he reminds me.
When he starts banging again, I curse under my breath and pad out of the cramped living room-slash-dining room. I have to dodge the riverscape painting that sits half-completed on my easel as I make my way into the bathroom and close myself inside.
Seated on the cold lid of the toilet, I slump down with my elbows on my knees and accept my mother’s call.
“I tried to call you yesterday,” she says after we move past the usual preamble and hellos. “You didn’t pick up, so I figured you must’ve had a busy day working.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I missed you, Mom. Things have been crazy here.”
“You sound tired, honey. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” I straighten up when I hear the concern in her reedy voice. Thankfully, Leo’s decided to quit his pounding and shouting, so my attempt to reassure her stands at least half a chance of being believed. “Everything is going great with me, Mom.”
“Oh, that’s good, sweetheart.” I picture her face on the other end
of the line, her relieved smile, which I can hear in her voice. “Tell me about your new painting. Did your friend at the gallery like it?”
“Yeah, she did. Margot thinks it’s going to do really well.” The lie slides off my tongue without hesitation, but it leaves a bitter residue of guilt in my throat.
“Of course it will do well, honey. They all have. How many paintings have you sold now?”
I shake my head in silence, grateful that I don’t have to look her in the eye every time I feed her this fairy tale of how I want her to imagine my life here in New York. She’s given me so much, made sacrifices I can never hope to reconcile, all in the hopes of offering me a better life than she’s had.
And while I know she loves me unconditionally, I feel a responsibility to make something of myself. I want to prove to her—and to myself—that I might actually be worth all of it one day.
“I’m not sure how many paintings I’ve sold, Mom. I guess I haven’t kept close track.”
“Well then, we’ll have to make a list next time we talk,” she suggests cheerfully.
“Okay, sure,” I say. “Let’s do that.”
“I’m just so proud of you, Avery. I always have been. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, Mom. I know.”
We talk for a little while about inconsequential things. The group of ladies she plays cards with on the weekends. The awful weather, which, she informs me, is making her arthritis act up. It soothes me, our conversation about everyday minutiae. I crave the normalcy of it, even though it also makes me ache sometimes that it’s been so long since I’ve been to see her.
After a few minutes, she sighs. I try not to hear the decades of weariness in that slow exhalation.
“Well, honey . . . they’re telling me I have to wrap up now. My call time is almost over.”
“All right,” I murmur. “I know.”
It’s never easy to say goodbye to her. Our allotted fifteen minutes always go so fast.
For the past nine years, this has been our primary connection to each other—a handful of sentences shared over the airwaves, meted out in daily quarter-hour increments.