Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3)

by Trevion Burns

With a roll of her eyes, Nina stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

  14

  Nina took her time showering with the sweet scented soap provided by the hotel. She got herself good and soapy from head to toe, with the kind of careful attention that was inspired only when a woman was ready for a man to blow her back out.

  And she knew Jack would do just that. His eyes had been saturated with it as he’d explained to her why he needed to take her on a date. It was as clear as day, what a battle it was for him not to take her right at that moment, and that he would; if he didn’t value holding back so deeply.

  He said he wanted to get to know her first, and she believed him, but she hadn’t missed the blind desire in his eyes and the promises they told.

  And she didn’t miss it in his voice as he wrapped his arms around her waist and tucked his nose into her hair, breathing deeply.

  “You smell good,” he said as the hostess led them through the restaurant and to their seats.

  “Thank you; I showered this evening,” she bragged, laughing with him as they took their seats on either side of the table. The restaurant was young and hip, which by law meant it was so dark and cramped they were practically on top of their neighboring tables. Still, they only had eyes for each other, leaning in close as their menus were dropped, the entire world fading away.

  The waitress was there quickly to take their drink and food orders, and finally, they were alone.

  The restaurant Mr. Flynn had chosen was one of the trendiest in town, as evidenced by the nightclub that was connected to the restaurant on the second level. It sent music pounding all the way down to the first floor, prompting Nina to break into dance on various occasions.

  Jack watched her across the table, eyes shining.

  “I feel like you’re teasing me,” she said, leaning on the table just as their drinks arrived.

  He chortled, eyes lighting up.

  “And see…” She motioned to him. “The whole allure of playing hard to get? Of looking across the table, and wondering if the other person wants to rip off your clothes as much as you want to rip off theirs? That allure is gone because I already know you want my body.”

  “And you want mine.”

  “I’ve never denied wanting your body.”

  “The allure is not gone, by the way.” He licked his lips. “At least not for me.”

  “Trust me, if your allure was ever going to wear off for me, it would’ve happened a long time ago.”

  He leaned in, letting his eyes travel her body. “When would it have happened? I mean, assuming you were actually a level-headed, sane individual…”

  She cocked her lip.

  “When would my allure have worn off?” he asked.

  “If I were level-headed and sane?” She thought about it. “Probably right around the moment I sat down next to you on that plane, and you blanked me out of existence.”

  He chuckled, eyes lighting up.

  “Lucky for us,” she continued. “Level-headed and sane are two things that I will never be accused of being. It seems I’m the kind of woman that responds to abuse.”

  “I’m abusing you?” he laughed. “Because I could’ve sworn it was the other way around.”

  “Maybe not purposely, but you’re broken, Aries. Something has gone on in your life that has shattered you into a million tiny pieces, and it ain’t just that crazy blonde bride of yours.”

  He leaned back in his seat, keeping a hand on his glass of bourbon as his eyes searched hers.

  “No, it can’t be the blonde bride. A woman you can abandon at the altar would never have the power to break you this badly…” She crossed her arms on the table, leaning in and squinting at him. “It might not even be the sistagirl you left sitting in the pews.”

  He looked away, running a hand down his face.

  “Even though I think I’m a lot warmer with the sista than I am with the blonde.” She chewed her own bottom lip, cutting her eyes at him. “No, your shattered pieces are splitting you down deep. Way deeper than those two ever could.”

  A moment passed, and he snuck a look out of the corner of her eye.

  “And I’m the very non level-headed, non sane woman who has a very non level-headed, non sane propensity to try to fix men that—for whatever reason—cannot and will not be fixed.”

  “You might need a little fixing yourself.”

  “I never denied being broken.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “So that’s why your allure will never wear off. At least not with me.” She leaned back in her seat, sighing. “What’s my allure?”

  “I’m not sure you have any.”

  She threw a piece of wasabi across the table at him, earning his boisterous laugh. “I have allure all day long.”

  “Sure,” Jack nodded.

  She had no interest in his inauthentic submission. “Then why are you still here? If I have no allure? Why are you sitting across the table from me in some pretentious restaurant—one that we are way too old for, by the way—flirting? Why did you follow me halfway across the country, over the edge of a train, naked into the Marina Harbor, rotting in a jail cell, and gambling my life away… if I didn’t have allure? Why do you lie to yourself like this?”

  He looked away again. “Because it’s easier.”

  “Easier?” she beamed. “Lies are never easier, Aries. The truth is easier to stomach, and easier to remember.”

  “Sometimes the truth is the perfect way to set yourself up.”

  “For what?”

  “More cracks.”

  “If you’re already shattered, what are a few more cracks?”

  “I’m thinking this is a pretty heavy conversation for a first date.”

  “Let’s be real here. This is really more like our tenth date. In fact, we’re practically married. I bet there are actual married couples out there who will not experience, in their entire lives, half of what you and I have experienced in four damn days.”

  He laughed.

  Nina watched it. Both rows of teeth. The same smile that, once upon a time, only Rudy Kalveeno could pull from him.

  “Fair enough,” Jack nodded.

  Nina searched his eyes. She let a moment go by. “Tell me about your parents.”

  Jack fell back into his seat, smiling into the distance. “Ah…” he moaned.

  “You promised me total transparency.” She attempted to haggle. “I’ll tell you mine…”

  Jack took the bait, cutting a look at her. He licked his lips and then sighed. “My mother worked in finance. On the board at Goldman Sachs. My father was a surgeon.”

  “Were you close to them?”

  “With my mother.”

  “And your father?”

  Jack looked away, again. He ran his hand down his face.

  “Your brother, Chase.” Nina changed the subject. “Was he close with them?”

  Jack reclaimed her gaze. “With my mother.”

  Nina nodded, taking it all in. “So your mother was a board member at Sachs, and your father was a surgeon. They must have left you and your brother some pretty healthy inheritances.”

  “You just love to talk about other people’s money.”

  “Why become a lawyer when you’ve got all the money you’ll ever need? All lawyers talk about, is how miserable the job is. How long the hours are.”

  “I liked the job. I liked the hours.”

  “Liked?”

  “I’m not working at the moment. Right before I met you, and you upended my life, I’d just put in my notice at Harvard.”

  “You worked for Harvard?”

  “I did. Head of legal. Hated every moment.”

  “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why choose to be a lawyer, working ridiculous hours, when you could easily be laying on a yacht somewhere?”

  “It kept my mind busy. Off things I didn’t want to think about.”

  “Like what?”

  Jack paused. “What about you?” he
leaned forward. “Your family? Your parents? Your inheritances?”

  “My inheritances?” She chortled. “I am from Fordham.”

  “Fine, let’s talk about your parents then. Let’s dive into your skeletons.”

  She squinted. “Are your parents skeletons?”

  Jack shook his head. “Nope. It’s your turn now.”

  She laughed. “Okay. Well, my mother is a cleaning lady at a hotel and my father is a repair man.”

  “And your relationship?”

  “We don’t speak right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we can’t agree.”

  “Must be a pretty big disagreement to cause a rift with the two people who gave you life.”

  She held his gaze. “It is.”

  “Maybe you should forgive them,” he said.

  “Because it’s just that simple right?” she asked. “If it’s that simple, maybe you should forgive your father.”

  Jack’s eyes shot to his lap.

  Nina was grateful that her words had their desired effect, but at the same time, interested that her assumption that his father needed forgiving was right on the money. She took a sip of her martini. “Why don’t we know how to be normal?”

  Jack laughed, eyes still in his lap. “I don’t know.”

  “We don’t even have the emotional intelligence to feign shyness and awkwardness on our first date. We go straight for the jugular.”

  Silence fell in, one that neither jumped to fill. They watched one another over the table, laughing into slow sips of their drinks when they got into a foot-wrestling contest under the table.

  After their entrees were dropped, Jack nodded to her. “Why didn’t you finish law school?”

  Nina raised her eyebrows. “I wanted to. God did I want to. Turns out, law school is pretty expensive. Everybody warns you, but you don’t really believe it until you’re already underwater.”

  “You ran out of money.”

  “Fast.”

  “So you just have a JD that you’ll never finish?”

  “What am I supposed to do? Tuition is only getting higher, and the lines to get in are only getting longer, even though it’s well known that the industry is suffering.”

  Jack motioned to her. “What if you could get another loan? Would you go back and finish?”

  “The first go-round has obliterated my credit. I can’t even open a checking account, which is why I was carrying all that money. I’m in no danger of being approved for another student loan.”

  He took a hearty bite of his food and took his time savoring it. He let the new silence float between them, watching his plate. “What if I loaned you the money?”

  Her eyes shot up to him, and she stopped chewing mid-bite. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ll loan you the money for school, and you pay me back whenever you can.”

  She blinked at him.

  He blinked back.

  “I’m sorry.” She sat taller. “It’s just… kindness. From you. I’m still recovering here.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t deflect. I’m making you a legitimate offer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the moment you told me you used to be a law school student, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I knew it from the minute we met. How intelligent you are. What I can’t get my head around… is why you’re so afraid of it.”

  “What am I afraid of?”

  “Your mind,” he said. “You have a beautiful mind. You’re smart, Nina. To throw it all away in some call center would be… a real shame.”

  “I won’t take your money.”

  Jack nodded. “Success is always scarier than failure, isn’t it?”

  She shot him a look. “You don’t know me, Jack.”

  “So tell me more.”

  “Eye for an eye. I’ll tell you more when you tell me more.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Why do you hate your father?” She raised her eyebrows.

  Jack dropped his utensils. “I never said I hated him.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  He met her eyes. “My father wasn’t a good man.”

  “Define good. What’s a good man?”

  “Whatever he wasn’t.”

  “Okay…” Wanting to push for more nearly ate her alive, but she could see that this was the kind of ground that was dangerous to tread with Jack. It was the kind of dangerous ground that could end this “date” in seconds if a single wrong turn was made. So she let it go. “Okay, so… eye for an eye. Hit me.”

  “Why is it taking so long to finalize your divorce? If you’re as deeply in debt as you claim, it can’t be about money. The only thing I can think of is that there’s still something between you…”

  “It’s over,” Nina said. “Anthony and I are over.”

  “So why? Why hasn’t the divorce been finalized? Why are you in such a hurry to get back to New York to battle it out some more?”

  “I told you. Anthony is trying to take half of my money, and I need that money.”

  “Ten minutes ago you said you were broke.”

  “I didn’t say I was broke; I said I had bad credit.”

  “Why don’t you just give him half the money and wipe your hands of this?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “How so?”

  “I didn’t push you on your dad, did I?” she asked. “Please don’t push me on this.”

  Jack searched her eyes, food forgotten. “Would you ever get married again?”

  “Probably not,” she said. “Do you think you’ll ever finish getting married?”

  He laughed. “No. Probably not. I keep trying to get inside this…” He made a cube with his hands. “This box that the world tells me I’m supposed to fit in. To want the things, I’m supposed to want. Do the things I’m supposed to do. But that’s just not who I am.”

  “So you don’t want to get married?”

  “Maybe not. Or maybe I just haven’t met a woman who can help me believe in it. I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you just tell it like it is, Aries? You don’t want to get married because you’re scared your wife is going to walk away with half one day.”

  “It’s so easy for women to say that. Give it another hundred years, when women are making double what they’re making now—when women are the primary breadwinners, and see how quickly the tables turn. How hesitant those women will be to walk down the aisle with a man who brings less than she does to the table. Hell, marriage might become obsolete.”

  “How incredibly sexist.”

  “It’s not sexist. It’s real. Woman have always had the power, and for years, men have done a phenomenal job convincing you that you don’t. But that tide is turning…”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Men marry women because they need pussy. They need sex. Women marry men because they need to be taken care of. They need to feel protected. Safe. Emotionally, mentally, financially… But they don’t need dick the way men need pussy. They never will. Once we get to a point that the woman is the breadwinner, marriage will become a thing of the past.”

  “Not as long as women are being conditioned to want it. From the moment we’re born, we’re being told what we’re supposed to want. What makes us the best woman. A real woman. ‘First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.’ Who is singing that song on the playground? Not the boys.”

  “Is that why you got married?” Jack asked, motioning to her with his fork. “Because society told you to?”

  “No. I got married because I was pregnant, so my version of that nursery rhyme was a little ass backwards.”

  Jack chortled, and then his face fell. “Wait… pregnant?”

  The smile vanished from Nina’s face. “What?”

  “You just said you got married because you were pregnant,” Jack said. “Are you somebody’s mom?” he beamed.

  “Would that be so terrible? You look like you’ve seen a
ghost.”

  “Yes, it would be terrible. Children are terrible.”

  “Children are the only people on Earth who are worth a damn before the adults get to work screwing them up.”

  Jack squinted. “Are you somebody’s mom?”

  She swallowed, her eyes falling. “I was pregnant…”

  When she struggled to continue, Jack sat taller, dropping his fork on his plate. It clanked, and he brought a napkin up to his mouth. “I’m sorry, Nina… I shouldn’t have pried.”

  She kept her eyes down. “You don’t have to be sorry. We’re getting to know each other, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Jack didn’t push her, and she didn’t volunteer more information. They finished their dinner with lighter subjects, both too afraid to continue delving any deeper than they already had.

  ***

  After learning free nightclub entry was included with their dinner, it had only taken Nina half an hour, and two more glasses of bourbon, to convince Jack to take her upstairs and give her one dance.

  Strobes blasted arrhythmic beams down on them as she dragged him behind her, and they had to turn their bodies to the side just to squeeze through the thick crowd—taking knees and elbows to various body parts in the process.

  After waiting in line, Nina collapsed onto the bar, holding her breath when she felt Jack’s arms wrap around her from behind. He pushed in close to save space, and Nina nearly screamed when the shockwaves hurtling through her became almost too much to bear. The warm beds of his fingers brushed the skin between her pants and crop top, and she found herself meeting eyes with the bartender, desperate for a distraction.

  Jack pushed in closer, his arousal pressed into her as she gave the bartender their order along with the free drink tickets that had come with their meal.

  The bartender dropped their order in under a minute before disappearing down the never-ending line of patrons clamoring. Nina swiped up their drinks, two vodka red bulls, which she’d insisted would transform Jack into a dancing fool.

  He’d given her his signature skeptical look, but thirty minutes after they’d finished their drinks, she was able to pull him onto the dance floor with little argument or relent.

  In fact, as the music pounded all around them and the strobe lights caught his smiling eyes and lips, he seemed almost eager. Of course, in true Almeida fashion, he still had the presence of mind to make her work for it, pretending to pull back. They both knew, however, that if Jack truly didn’t want to be pulled onto that dance floor, he wouldn’t have been.