“I’m trying to.” The edge of his mouth quirks. “A bit out of sequence, considering last night, but, yes, Avery, I’d like to take you out. On a proper date.”
“What time?”
“You decide. You can call me later today and let me know when you’ll be free.”
“What if I decide to stay late at the studio?”
“I’ll wait.”
Then, as if the matter has been decided, he walks over to work the coffee press and fill our mugs. Without having to ask me, he adds both cream and sugar to mine—just the way I like it—and hands the mug to me.
I take a sip and damn if he wasn’t right. It’s as if I’ve never tasted good coffee before. “Oh, my God. This really is the best coffee I’ve ever had.”
With a told-you-so shrug, he clinks his mug against mine. “Trust, Ms. Ross.”
It’s a teasing remark, but we both feel its significance too. How many times did Nick say those very words to me after we first met? How often did he press me for honesty and trust, even though he knew all along that he wasn’t giving me the same thing?
Reckless.
That’s what I was with him the first time. There’s a part of me that fears I’m stepping into the same snare now, getting too comfortable too quickly. Justifying the pain we’ve both caused each other because of the pleasure we take in being together.
There is something dangerously comfortable about the way it feels to slip back into our old habits as if the past year hadn’t happened. As if last night has erased it all and we’re back together again.
It’s unsettling how much I want to believe that we can simply pick up and resume what we had. Terrifying how quickly my heart is ready to let him back in.
I set my mug down, then pivot away from him to serve our far-from-gourmet breakfast. Nick moves in behind me, brushing his knuckles tenderly along my cheek.
“You’ve gotten quiet. You okay?” When I only nod, he puts his mug on the counter next to mine, then turns me around to face him. He’s scowling, but it’s not anger I see in his eyes. “If this is going too fast for you . . . If it’s uncomfortable having me here, tell me. I’ll go.”
“No. It’s not that. And I don’t want you to go.”
“Then what?” He sounds truly worried, as if I’m the one with the power to wound him. “Avery, if you think last night was a mistake—”
“It wasn’t.” I sigh, shaking my head. “Last night felt too good to be a mistake. All of this, being with you again like this . . . it feels too good to be a mistake.”
“Because it isn’t.” His tone is as resolute as his touch is gentle. He cradles my face in his palms, searching my gaze. “I won’t let this be a mistake. Not this time. Not if you can forgive me for what I’ve done.”
“I did some awful things too. I lied to you about a lot of things and you forgave me.”
“Yes. Because I understood you kept all those things from me in order to protect yourself. From your past. From the people who could still hurt you. And, yes, even from me.” His thumb traces my lips. “I forgave you because I loved you, Avery. I still do. Christ, I would do anything for you.”
I close my eyes for a moment, letting the words sink in.
“Tell me you believe me,” he says quietly.
“I believe you, Nick.” I brush my fingers through his inky black hair, helpless to keep from touching him. “And I love you too.”
He breathes out, a sound of relief. Of hope. “Can you forgive me?”
“I already have.”
“But you don’t trust me.”
“I want to, Nick.” My mind crowds with all of the reasons I have to be careful, to be wary around him now. We both came to each other via deception, no matter how either of us needs to rationalize our actions or justify our motivations. We both have our excuses. We have our demons to be slayed. But if this is going to work—if we stand any chance of lasting—then we have to rebuild on a foundation of truth.
“Avery, tell me what I need to do.”
“No more secrets. No more games or power plays.” I shake my head, realizing my ultimatum could end this even before it begins again. But it’s the only way. Anything less would already be a lie. “I need honesty from you this time, Nick. You need to let me in. You need to trust me. If you can’t give me that—”
“I can,” he says, his voice intense with emotion. “Anything, Avery. I’m not going to lose you again.”
“You’d better mean that.”
He nods solemnly. “Every word.”
Then he kisses me, gathering me close and holding me there for the longest time. When we separate I look up into ocean blue eyes that have gone stormy with desire. The same desire that’s smoldering inside me.
Nick kisses me again, slow and deep.
He pushes his shirt off my shoulders and it drops onto the checked tile of my kitchen floor.
Our breakfast will be cold, but I don’t care. I can’t even mourn the phenomenal cup of coffee I won’t be drinking after all.
Not when I have Nick’s promise to hold on to and his arms wrapped around me.
Right now there is nothing more I need.
Chapter 13
I’m still thinking about Avery when my personal attorney Andrew Beckham walks into my office and sets a stack of contracts and a rolled up blueprint on my desk.
I glance at the cover page on the papers, then look up at Beck. “The deal on the Australian high-rise cleared?”
He nods, looking smugly confident. “You told me to look for cracks in the regulatory code that was obstructing the sale. Well, I found one.”
Intrigued, I lean back in my chair as he takes a seat on the other side of the desk from me. I’ve worked with Beck for years, consider him my best friend in many ways. With his rich brown skin and arresting pale green eyes, he’s the kind of guy who turns female heads every time he walks in the room. But behind the knife-edge cheekbones and smooth-as-silk smile is one of the sharpest minds I’ve ever encountered.
Fortunately for me, he works for Baine International.
“The current tower already exceeds new height restrictions that were passed a few years ago,” he explains. “Because we’re planning extensive renovations and expansion of the existing footprint, our request to be grandfathered in under the old regulation was denied.”
“Which is why we agreed we wouldn’t build up,” I remind him. “But our team on the ground in Melbourne seemed pretty convinced last night in our conference call that our hands were going to be tied on any kind of expansion.”
“They were right.” Beck’s mouth starts to curve, lifting the corners of his trim goatee. “But we can sidestep the regulations if we incorporate a new community area into our plans.”
I frown, already considering our options. “You’re talking about building a small park or playground for the building?”
Beck nods. “It’ll add to the overall cost of the project, but we’ll recoup it in less than ten years simply based on the current building revenue. Plus, we’ll be improving the quality of life for the residents.”
“Good work.” I pick up my pen and scribble my signature on the agreements. “Now we just have to figure out how to make it happen.”
He chuckles. “You mean you have to figure it out. I just connect dots and push paper, my friend.”
We both pause when my assistant, Lily Fontana, appears in the open doorway. “Excuse me for interrupting. Nick, there’s a job foreman from a YMCA construction site in New Jersey on the phone. He says he just received a shipment of drawer pulls and cabinet knobs delivered to him and he’s not sure what to do with them.”
Beck and I exchange a confused look. “Why’s he calling us?”
“Because the shipment is addressed to you. It was supposed to be delivered to the recreation center job site. The supplier sent it to the wrong place.”
“What do we have on site now?”
Lily’s face blanches a little. “Um, nothing. I checked with our site
foreman before I bothered you. Rudy says no one realized the parts hadn’t arrived yet. Someone checked them off the punch list by mistake.”
I don’t hold back the harsh curse that rips off my tongue. The rec center is the first thing I’ve actually built from the ground up, not acquired and improved or torn down to start again. It’s personal. More important to me than anything I’ve ever done in business before.
So even a minor fuck up like this matters.
“Have Rudy order the parts again. I’ll pick them up myself if I have to.”
“He’s already tried to get some more delivered. They’re on backorder. They won’t be in until next month.”
“Unbelievable. More than a million in kitchen equipment installed in that place but no one bothered to look at the cabinets? Jesus Christ.” I rake a hand over my head. “Tomorrow we’re going to have a couple dozen reporters out there on a private press tour ahead of the ribbon-cutting in a few days. Are you telling me there’s a chance we won’t have any hardware on the drawers or cabinets?”
“I’ll go pick them up from the New Jersey location,” Lily offers.
“No. That’s all right,” I tell her. Even though she’s always willing to go above and beyond, this is my problem to handle. “I’ll make sure the parts get to the site. I want to walk through again by myself before the press descends on the place anyway.”
She frowns. “Sorry, Nick.”
“Not your fault.” No, it’s mine. I should have been monitoring the progress more closely. The truth is, I’ve had one primary concern for the past week or so and that’s Avery. Although I’d only be lying to myself if I try to pretend my head has been fully in the game for the entire past year. “Thank you, Lily. I’ll handle this.”
“Okay. I’ll text you the address.”
She retreats to her desk and a few seconds later, her message hits my phone.
“Anything I can do?” Beck asks as he takes the signed contracts and slides them into a folder.
“Yeah.” I slant him a wry look as I stand up. “Be ready with bail money in case I discover any other disasters when I get to the rec center site.”
He chuckles as he pivots and heads out the door.
“Hey, you think I’m joking?”
I step out from behind my desk to retrieve my suit jacket from the closet. I’m shrugging into it when my cell phone chimes. No need to look at the screen before my dark mood starts to lift. It’s Avery’s ring tone, the one I set for her more than a year ago. The one I never had the heart to delete in all the time we’d been apart.
“Hello, beautiful.” There is a pause on the other end of the line. “Avery?”
“Hi.” Another pause, followed by her quiet laugh. “I think it’s going to take a little time for me to get used to hearing your voice in my ear. Especially hearing you say that.”
It’s how I often greeted her when she’d call me, and it feels astonishingly normal to be doing so again. I nod to Lily as I walk past her desk on my way out to the elevator.
“Where are you at?”
“The studio. I got here a few minutes ago.”
I glance at my watch and push the button for the executive garage. It’s still early in the day, not yet eleven o’clock. I dropped her off at Kathryn’s around nine. “How did things go this morning?”
“Kathryn was awake when I got there. She sat up in bed for a while and we talked for about forty-five minutes before she started nodding off.” I hear the optimism in Avery’s voice, but I also hear the concern. “Pauline, her nurse, told me she’s refusing to take her pain meds today. Kathryn says they only make her want to sleep more. We already know how she feels about missing out on anything.”
I grunt in acknowledgment. “That’s one thing that’ll never change.”
“I hope it won’t,” she says, going quiet and somber on me. “The minute Kathryn stops caring that she’s not at the center of all the action I’ll know it’s time to brace myself for the worst.”
She’s right about that. I exit the descended elevator and wake my car with a jab of the remote. The black M6 chirps in its parking spot near the lift. “Have you had a chance to talk to your sculptor friend? I’m curious to hear what went wrong with Derek Kingston.”
Although I’m reluctant to bring up yet another worry of hers, I’d rather steer Avery away from fears of Kathryn’s furthering decline. Hell, there are countless things I’d rather talk about other than disease and dying too.
“What went wrong?” Avery seems to choke a bit on the answer. “They slept together.”
“Ah, Christ.” I climb behind the wheel of my car and start the engine. Then I hit the hands-free, putting Avery on the speakers. Hearing her voice surround me is a pleasure I want to savor. “Didn’t I tell you when she met the guy that she wouldn’t want to get involved with him?”
“Yes, you did. The same way a lot of people I know tried to warn me about you.”
I scowl into my rearview mirror as I back out of the parking space. Although I had to concede the point to her on that one, it didn’t mean I had to agree. “Our situation is different. You and I are different.”
“She’s in love with him, Nick. I don’t think she realizes it yet, but I can tell. I can see it in her eyes when she talks about him. Even when she’s insisting he’s the most aggravating man she’s ever met.”
“Maybe I need to have a talk with Kingston, one on one,” I suggest. “Make sure he understands that if he hurts this woman he’ll have to answer to me. Say the word and I’ll head out to Brooklyn Heights right now.”
She laughs. “Don’t you dare! Besides, you won’t find him at Dektech’s headquarters. He just left the studio with Lita. They went somewhere to talk. At least, that’s what they said they were going to do. Personally, I think they’ve got other plans than just talking.”
“Sounds good to me. What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“I don’t know.” I can feel the smile in her voice. “You got any ideas?”
“Hundreds of them.” Even as I speak, I’m already ignoring the GPS route toward New Jersey, heading instead for Avery’s studio in East Harlem. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
Chapter 14
“When you said you wanted to take me out on a proper date today, Nick, I have to admit I wasn’t picturing kitchen hardware and Hoboken, New Jersey.”
I slant a glance at Avery in the passenger seat as we near the end of the Lincoln Tunnel on our way back into the city. She’s wearing the same flowy white off-the-shoulder top and denim shorts she had on when we left her house this morning, her silky blonde hair loose around her shoulders. She looks ethereal sitting beside me as we emerge from the tunnel and sunlight through the windshield bathes her in an angelic glow.
My angel. A miracle I know I damn well don’t deserve.
I can’t resist reaching across to touch the velvety curve of her cheek. “We’ll take care of the proper date tonight. This is just an errand I needed to run.”
She arches a slender brow. “I didn’t realize Dominic Baine, corporate titan, personally runs his own errands.”
“I do when it matters.”
“And a case of brushed stainless steel drawer pulls and cabinet knobs is one of those times that it matters?”
“Absolutely.”
“Interesting.”
I grin. “Got you wondering, don’t I?”
She doesn’t give me the satisfaction of an answer, but I see the little smirk she tries to keep from me as she looks out the window at the passing landscape of the city. Eventually, we turn onto Twenty-fifth in Chelsea and head toward a residential block where clusters of tan brick apartment buildings flank both sides of the busy street.
Situated between a group of them on a section of the neighborhood where a couple of eyesore tenement relics from the Sixties used to stand is a brand-new construction brick-and-glass complex with a small parking area on the side of it.
I see Avery frown, studying the b
uilding and the banner announcing the grand opening later this week. She pivots around to face me, a look of delight dancing in her beautiful green eyes.
“Oh, my God. Nick, this is the youth recreation center. Your rec center.”
When I first told her about my plans for the project, it had been little more than sketches and schematics on paper. A dream I’d been trying to make happen for a couple of years before I met her. “Would you like to go inside and have a look?”
Her entire face lights up. “Yes!”
I park, then ditch my suit coat in the backseat and grab the box of hardware, tucking it under my arm as we head toward the entrance. Avery’s practically bouncing with enthusiasm by the time it takes me to unlock the door and let her in.
As I shut the door behind us, she wades ahead of me into the spacious lobby, her long tan legs carrying her to the center of the room. Her head swivels from the gleaming floor inlaid with motivational quotes about overcoming adversity, to the open rafters of the ceiling festooned with hanging kites that look like wind-filled sails, to the painted mural that runs the entire length of the walls that will greet everyone who enters the center.
I watch her take in everything, all of the details I personally selected and oversaw. When she glances back at me, it’s as if my pride is hers too. “This is incredible, Nick. This place, it’s all you, isn’t it?”
I shrug casually, only because inside me something soft, something alarmingly vulnerable, squeezes tight at her praise. I clear my throat and point toward the mural that’s a bright tangle of trees, flowers, animals, and people, all of it connected by a joyful randomness of color and abstract flourishes. “We brought in kids from the surrounding neighborhoods to paint this. I wanted the community to understand this center belongs to them, not me.”
Avery’s voice is quiet with unabashed wonder. “This is amazing, Nick. It’s perfect.”
“Not quite.” I jiggle the box of kitchen hardware. “Just one last thing to take care of. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
I bring her through the central lobby into the large gymnasium. Benches surround the regulation-size basketball court, which is outfitted with multiple hoops. Rolling carts filled with a dozen brand-new balls stand in one corner. In the other is a collection of wrestling mats and volleyball nets.