Nick’s tongue sweeps over mine in slow, gentling strokes. For long moments, we simply kiss and caress and hold each other. When he releases me, I nestle naked against his side, my legs drawn up onto the sofa.
I tip my head up and meet his hooded gaze. “So much for the private lingerie show you wanted.”
He grunts, a smile tugging at the corner of his sinful mouth. “What are you talking about? I thought this was only the pre-show.”
I laugh, my fingers toying idly in his mussed dark hair. His crisp white shirt is wrinkled and askew, his bespoke suit pants undone and bunched around his hips. “You look awfully sexy like this Mr. Baine, all spent and disheveled.”
One black brow wings up in dark amusement. “Who says I’m spent?”
He leans toward me and cups my breast, flicking his thumb over the nipple and making a low sound of approval when the bud tightens in response to even that brief touch. Raising my chin on the tips of his fingers, he brushes his mouth over mine in a tender kiss that leaves me sighing for more. When he draws away from me a moment later, I can’t curb my frown.
“Evidently I’m not the only one who’s not spent just yet.” He tweaks my nipple, then takes my hand and draws me up off the sofa. “Come with me.”
“Where to?”
“To freshen up,” he says. “Then I’m going to take you out for lunch. Eventually.”
Chapter 5
Nearly two hours later, Nick and I are seated at a cozy corner table, enjoying a late lunch in one of the finest restaurants in the Upper East Side. Even at the midafternoon hour, the dining room is packed. Because I’ve worked in the business for some time, I’m well aware that the wait for a reservation in any of the star chef’s handful of locations around the city can be days or even a week or more in advance.
Yet Nick and I sailed right in moments after we arrived. And although the maitre d’ was infinitely discreet as he led us away from the crowd of people waiting at the front of the house for their reservations, I don’t doubt for a second that a table “just happens to be available” whenever Dominic Baine steps through the door.
I pick at my delicious meal of grilled sea bass, trying not to stare when I spy more than a few celebrities seated among the tables and banquettes occupied by assorted suits, titans of business and media, and ladies who lunch. For all my effort, I notice I’m not the only one trying not to gape. Nick and I have not gone unnoticed either, and the surreptitious glances from several directions across the room make me fidget a bit on the plush velvet chair beneath me.
My self-consciousness isn’t helped any by the fact that beneath my blousy white silk tank, I’m wearing the new bra Nick bought for me. At his insistence, after we made love in the shower in his office’s private bathroom, I gave him the lingerie show I promised. I hadn’t intended to wear the sexy underthings to lunch, but once he saw them on me, he refused to let me take them off. Now, I can’t help feeling conspicuous for the way the tiny burgundy roses ghost beneath my top. To my mortification, I can also see my nipples, which are barely covered by the shallow balconette cups.
When I glance at Nick, he’s staring at me as he brings his glass of Lagavulin twelve-year to his lips. “Stop worrying about what anyone thinks of you, Avery.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I tell him, my voice as quiet as his—not that anyone can hear us above the hubbub of lively conversation filling the dining room. “I guess I was picturing sandwiches at a tavern or deli somewhere, not . . . this.”
He studies me over the rim of the wide-bowled glass of amber liquid. “You don’t feel comfortable here?”
I scoff softly. “Not really, no.” My gaze drops, unable to look at him as I whisper my chagrin. “If you knew we were coming here, why did you make me dress like this?”
“Because it pleases me.” He sets his drink down soundlessly on the cloth-covered table and reaches for my restless hand. His palm settles over my fingers, warm and firm. “Because I want every man in this place to look at you with the same lust that I feel for you. I want you to understand the kind of power you have.”
“Power?” My head comes up in confusion.
I try to pull my hand away from him, but he holds me in place. Oddly, his touch grounds me, centers me, even while I feel panic and outrage building in my chest. Nick knows my history. I’ve confided in him about my stepfather’s repeated abuse, about my rape the night my mother killed the son of a bitch. The very last thing I want is to draw the attention of men I don’t know.
Or that of people who might look at me in this rarefied place and see that I don’t belong here. That I’m not like them.
That I’m less than them.
That I’m damaged . . . dirty.
“Nick, don’t—”
“No hiding, Avery. Not with me, remember?” His gaze is intense in the muted light of the restaurant. His grasp on me doesn’t lessen, but his strength is coaxing, not coercive. “You promised to trust me.” He strokes the top of my hand, slow brushes of his thumb over my skin. “You agreed that for these hundred nights, you are mine. Whatever I ask, whatever pleases me. Not merely because I demand it of you, but because you trust me enough to let me lead you into places you’ve never gone.”
I swallow, darting a glance anxiously around us. We’re beginning to draw attention from the tables nearest to ours. I feel heat flood my cheeks.
Yet as self-conscious as I am, my panic is receding. I feel the coldness of it melting away as Nick holds my hand, caressing my skin while his smoldering, yet coolly in-control gaze draws me in until he is all I see . . . all I feel. All I know.
“Do you trust me, Avery?”
“Yes.” The word rushes over my tongue without hesitation. “Yes, Nick. I trust you.”
His lips curve almost imperceptibly, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. “You see? Power.”
Gently pulling my hand to his mouth, he kisses the tips of my fingers, then releases me. Casually, he picks up his silverware and slices off a piece of his grilled lamb chop. “How’s the sea bass, Ms. Ross?”
I stare at him, astonished that he can go from full-throttle intensity to relaxed nonchalance in the blink of an eye. His abrupt change tells me our conversation is over. He’s made his point and I have to admit I do feel a certain defiance as I straighten my spine and take a sip of my Sauvignon blanc. I’m still not totally comfortable with the furtive glances—and, now, the flurry of whispers—circulating the room, but I am comfortable with Nick.
And, yes, I trust him.
“The sea bass is amazing, Mr. Baine.”
“Good,” he says, his tone heavy with sexual heat. “I promise I will never steer you wrong.”
The look he gives me is pure sin. I squirm on my chair, eager with the anticipation of finding out just how far he intends to take that vow.
We fall into a comfortable silence, both of us enjoying our food and drinks. I hadn’t realized how absolutely starved I was, but then again, Nick and I definitely know how to work up an appetite. I’m so engrossed in the joy of my five-star meal, I hardly register the muffled chime of my phone’s ringtone.
“Sorry.” Appalled to be that rude diner whose call disrupts the entire room, I hurry to reach into my purse and silence the damn thing. Nick watches me as I glance at the display, then send Tasha’s aunt to voice mail.
“Nothing you need to handle?”
I shake my head. “I’ll check my messages later.”
“Because if it’s something to do with your mother—”
“No,” I reply quickly. “No, it’s nothing like that. Just something Tasha and I talked about today.”
He grunts, taking a sip of his whisky. “I’ve been thinking about her lately. Your mother, that is.”
“You have?” I’m fiercely protective of my mom. Nick’s tone is nothing if not concerned, but God help me, as hard as I try to sound merely curious, there is a tightness in my voice that I can only pray he won’t detect. “What about her?”
He set
s his glass down, pensively rubbing his thumb along the rim. “I know people, Avery. Lawyers who might be able to help. Between Beck and I, we know dozens of the top attorneys in the country—including criminal defense lawyers. We know some judges too.”
I don’t say anything for a moment, uncertain what he might be suggesting and reluctant to guess. “She’s got a lawyer, Nick.”
He scoffs. “A public defender, who from what I’ve gathered from you would hardly be fit to represent the local dogcatcher.” As sharp as his opinion of Walter Stadler is, Nick’s careful to keep his voice quiet enough for my ears only. “I think I might be able to help. I want to help, Avery. We can get your mother a new team of lawyers right away. From there, we can work on getting her a new trial—with the kind of representation she deserved in the first place.”
I listen, stunned. Moved.
Terrified.
There’s so much he doesn’t understand. So much he doesn’t know—can’t know.
“Nick, the trial was hell on her. And now she’s in the infirmary with no idea how long she might be recovering. I don’t think she’ll agree to any of this—”
“Then you’ll have to convince her.” He reaches out for my hand again. “Let me do this for her. For you.”
“Nick, I just . . .” I shake my head lamely as his gaze bores into me. Nick is a man used to making the whole world bend to his wishes. I’ve seen him in action, so I know he’s fully capable of moving mountains if that’s what it takes to get what he wants.
This is different. I can hardly breathe as I look at his handsome face, so full of earnest conviction. So full of determination to fix something that cannot be fixed—not the way he thinks.
I’m touched that he wants to try, that he genuinely cares about my mother’s situation, and, by extension, that he cares for me.
But there are a hundred reasons why I cannot allow him to get involved. They all jam up in my throat, along with the fear I have that one day, I won’t be able to keep them inside anymore.
“Nick.” I swallow, my mouth gone suddenly dry. My hand is still captured in his grasp, my gaze caught just as surely by the unwavering intensity of his unblinking eyes. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what to say—”
“Hello, Dominic.”
The cultured female voice catches both of us unaware.
I feel the small jolt of Nick’s pulse where his hand covers mine, but it’s there and gone in an instant. Without removing his touch from me, his face remains impassive, impossible to read. But the toneless sound of his voice tells me just how displeased he is by the interruption.
“Kathryn.”
My heart lurches in my breast. I know this woman’s name. Granted, her name is essentially all I know about her. Nick has refused to discuss her with me, other than to admit that they had been intimate at one time, years ago, when he first came to New York. He said she was only in his life for a short while, and although I try to reassure myself with that knowledge now, it’s obvious from the change in his demeanor that this woman still has some power over him.
It’s startling to realize it.
In the months I’ve been with him, I’ve known no one else who’s been able to rattle Dominic Baine’s flawless control.
She’s come in with two other women, all of them dressed in classic New York black and dripping with elegant jewelry. She waves her companions ahead as she pauses at our table and gives Nick an uncertain smile. “You look well, Dominic.”
He grunts. “You look tired, Kathryn.”
He’s rude, but he’s right, I notice. There is a vaguely haggard quality to her refined, beautiful face. She is tall and lean, almost waiflike, with a thick mane of stylish gray waves that gleam like quicksilver in the flattering light of the restaurant. The lack of lines in her porcelain skin suggests an abundance of vanity and the means with which to indulge it, but no surgeon can remove the hauntedness that lives in her dark eyes.
She glances at me briefly, and I feel an inexplicable stab of sympathy for her. Nick is reputed to be merciless when it comes to his former lovers, a fact that isn’t totally lost on me as I sit awkwardly in front of him while he freezes her out with his silence.
Kathryn affords me a pleasant, if uncertain, smile before returning her attention to Nick. He lifts his glass to his lips and drains the rest of the whisky as if she’s already moved on from our table.
“Jared mentioned he saw you a few weeks ago at the mayor’s party. It would’ve been nice if you’d come over to say hello.”
I tense at the mention of Jared Rush. I met the charming, good-looking artist around the same time I met Nick. The two men are friends, which I find interesting considering Jared intimated he had something more than a strictly platonic relationship with Kathryn. Jared also allowed that there was a time when Kathryn was practically family to Nick. Whatever he meant by that, I don’t know, because Nick refused to elaborate.
Kathryn lifts her chin, still regal even under Nick’s withering animosity. “I’ve heard about the rec center plans. It’s a good thing you’re doing. For the kids, and for you.”
He glances up at her now, almost in afterthought. His eyes are steely. Cold with something I want to say is disregard, but it’s not. Its edge is too sharp to be apathy.
Nick is seething.
“Is there something you want, Kathryn?”
His animosity toward this woman is obvious, if only to me. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve spent these past months studying him with almost worshipful interest. I know him. I like to think I know him better than most anyone else. But now that I’m feeling the glacial force of his reaction to Kathryn, I have my doubts.
“I only wanted to tell you that if you need my help at any point. If you need my backing—”
“I don’t.”
The clipped reply silences her. For a long moment, she just stands there, although I hesitate to call her defeated. “All right, Dominic. I understand.” She reaches up to smooth a nonexistent flaw in her perfectly coiffed hair. Light, mottled spots speckle the back of her slender, bejeweled hand, another small betrayal of her age. “Pardon me for interrupting your lunch.”
She glances at me, and I wonder if there is anything she would say to me if Nick weren’t sitting here, vibrating with leashed rage. Would she warn me away from him the way Margot, my friend who works at Nick’s gallery, had? Or would Kathryn take greater pleasure in watching me crash and burn once Nick tires of me the way he apparently had with her?
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until it rushes out of me in the wake of her departure. She glides fluidly away to join her chattering companions, while a pall settles over the corner I share with Nick.
“I’m sorry about that.” He releases my hand, his own retreating smoothly, even casually, back to his side of the table. I feel the absence like a gust of cold air has just swept through the room. In fact, it has.
The chill that exists between Nick and Kathryn has now expanded to engulf me too.
We finish our meal in an awful, uncomfortable silence. As soon as the waiter appears to remove our plates, Nick requests the check.
I’m desperate for him to talk to me, to explain what just happened and why this woman still seems to have such a disturbingly strong hold on his emotions. It’s all I can do to keep my questions to myself as we get up from the table and head out to meet Nick’s limo at the curb.
Patrick is waiting at the back passenger door for us as we step toward him, Nick’s palm settled at the small of my spine. I’m relieved by the contact, and by the small kiss he places on my cheek as the driver opens the door for us.
I climb in first, waiting for Nick to slide in behind me.
Instead he pauses outside the car. “Patrick, please take Avery back to Park Place. I’ve got a few things to finish up at the office. I’ll catch a cab from here.”
“What?” I peer out at him, confused. I don’t doubt he’s got plenty of work waiting for him at his office, but I know damn well that
this is a brush off. An evasion. He doesn’t want to deal the questions he must know I’ll have, so he’s shutting me out as surely as he did Kathryn. “Nick—”
“Patrick will make sure you get home safely. I’ll see you later tonight.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to argue or respond. Closing the door, he nods to his driver, then steps away to hail a taxi while the limo eases into traffic and speeds me off without him.
Chapter 6
The doorman at the Park Place building meets me at the limo with his usual cheerfulness as Patrick drives under the glass-roofed porte cochère. Thick and barrel-chested, he’s dressed in a dark suit with twin ribands of silver piping at the wrists, despite the August heat. “Good afternoon, Ms. Ross.”
“Hello, Manny.”
The big, middle-aged man with the quick smile and warm hazel eyes has been nothing but kind to me from the first night I showed up here. I’d come with Tasha in tow, the two of us eager to check out the apartment I’d been hired to housesit for another of the building’s residents, Claire Prentice, an actress I’d met while working at Vendange.
That was also the same night I first laid eyes on Nick, after nearly crashing right into him in the elevator. Four and a half months ago seems like yesterday sometimes. It seems like forever too.
He’s become a part of my life, and there are days when I can’t imagine what it would be like without him. When Nick looks at me sometimes, I want to think he feels the same inexorable connection to me. I believe he does.
Yet after today—after his almost visceral reaction to a woman from his past, followed by his abrupt dismissal of me—I wonder if I know anything about him at all. I wonder if he’ll ever truly allow me in.
“Do you have any other packages with you today, Ms. Ross—er, Avery?”
I’m amused to note Manny’s switch to less formality with me—something I insisted on soon after I moved in to the building. In spite of the confusion and anger I’m still carrying from lunch, it’s not difficult to manage a smile for the one man who’s always got a twinkling grin or a kind word for me.