Passion on Park Avenue (The Central Park Pact)

by Lauren Layne

  “A little short on those corner pieces, are you?”

  “I am. Getting closer though.”

  “You’re not exactly an easy puzzle yourself,” Naomi murmured, dropping a handful of spaghetti into the boiling water, and then adding a bit more for good measure, not sure how much a man like Oliver ate.

  Oliver. She was making dinner for Oliver Cunningham.

  “You’re smiling,” he said.

  “Hmm? Oh, I guess I am,” she said. “I just never imagined that the first meal I’d cook for a man would be for you.” He blinked in surprise, and she fixed him with a look. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked. Do I look like the domesticated type?”

  Oliver gestured with his wineglass to the stove, and Naomi swore at the boiling water threatening to bubble over as she fumbled for the knob to turn down the heat.

  “Very domesticated.”

  She breathed out a laugh. “I don’t suppose you cook?”

  “I used to. Not a lot, but in my midtwenties I got it in my head that I could be a pretty hot commodity on the dating market if I knew my way around the kitchen.”

  “You’d be right,” she said. “So what happened?”

  “Hmm?” He picked up the spoon and stirred the pasta sauce.

  “You said you used to cook. You don’t anymore?”

  A shadow passed over his face. “My mom got sick, and all my attention went to that. Then she passed. Then my dad got sick . . .” He gave a rueful shrug. “Pity party, I know.”

  “A justified one,” Naomi said, turning to face him. “So did it work?” she asked. “Your grand plan of setting yourself apart on the dating scene by cooking?”

  “Eventually. I made a couple of judgment errors early on.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as shrimp scampi, while delicious, has copious amounts of garlic, which doesn’t necessarily make for the most amorous scenario. Also, I spent a hell of a lot of time perfecting a ragu with fettuccine before realizing that it’s damn hard to look sexy with noodles hanging from one’s mouth.”

  “Well then, prepare to be thoroughly unseduced,” Naomi said, nodding toward the pot of boiling spaghetti.

  For a moment Oliver’s eyes seemed to heat as they drifted over her, and foolishly Naomi wished she’d made something sexier for dinner. Something fancy and easy to eat, like seared scallops, or a cheese plate, or any sort of pasta that didn’t have to be twirled, or . . .

  Nope. No. She was not going to start thinking about Oliver and sexy in the same sentence. Okay fine. She wasn’t going to continue thinking about him that way.

  “Plates,” she blurted out, pointing at her cupboard. “If you can get plates, this will be ready in just a minute.”

  Oliver gave her a knowing smirk as he set his wineglass aside. “Doesn’t get more friend-zoned than being ordered to set the table.”

  “What if I added please?” Naomi asked. “Then it’s a request, not an order.”

  “True,” he said, pulling down two plates. “But still friend-zone.”

  “Better than enemy-zone, Ollie,” she said, dropping his childhood nickname she distinctly remembered him hating.

  He went still, his eyes flickering as though with a memory, and for a second she froze, wondering if this would be it. The moment when Oliver reconciled nine-year-old Naomi Fields with twenty-nine-year-old Naomi Powell.

  Instead he gave her a vaguely menacing stare. “I’m not answering to that.”

  “What, Ollie?” she asked innocently. “It suits you.”

  “Keep it up, and I’ll have to think of a nickname for you,” he said, setting the plates on the table.

  You already have. Carrots.

  “Did you ever watch Anne of Green Gables?” she blurted, and lifted out a strand of spaghetti to test the doneness.

  “Sure, all the time. I used to have the guys over to my dorm room in college, and we’d just watch the hell out of it.”

  Naomi gave a choked laugh at his sarcasm, even as she fanned her mouth at the too-hot pasta. “So that’s a no, then.”

  “That’s a definite no. Never heard of it. Why?”

  Naomi set a colander into the sink to drain the pasta. It’s a book, turned into a movie, about a redheaded girl and a little twerp of a boy named Gilbert Blythe, who used to torment her with the nickname Carrots.

  “Nothing. Never mind,” she said, mixing the pasta with the sauce and bringing the serving dish to the table.

  She looked up in surprise as he pulled out her chair for her. “Pretty manners, Ollie.”

  “Had to do something to make up for the loss of my cooking skills. Figured I might as well learn how to be a gentleman.”

  “You really never cook anymore?” she asked as he sat, reaching for the pasta bowl.

  “No time,” he said, setting the napkin in his lap and taking a sip of wine.

  Naomi reached over and dumped pasta on his plate. “To cook, or to date?”

  She looked up at him when he didn’t reply, and he gave her a crooked smile, sitting back in his chair. “Is that your subtle way of asking if I’m seeing anyone?”

  “Whatever gave you the impression that I’m subtle?”

  He laughed. “Good point. But to answer your question, I date about as often as I cook these days, which is . . . well, let’s just say it’s been a while.”

  Naomi sprinkled a liberal amount of cheese on her plate and pushed the container toward him. “Intentional? Or just the result of circumstances?”

  “The latter. Alzheimer’s is sort of a twenty-four-seven situation. Janice already watches Dad nine to five and during any after-hours work functions. I can’t ask her to do it for social engagements as well—the woman would never get any time off.”

  Naomi started to reply, then thought better of it, eating a mouthful of pasta instead. Oliver was giving her a knowing look. “Self-censoring looks physically painful for you. Spit it out.”

  She set her fork aside and picked up her wine. “All right then. I was going to say that I understand. Really I do. But are you sure that’s sustainable?”

  He shrugged. “What are my options? He’s my dad.”

  “Yes, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want you putting your life on hold for him.”

  “Really?” Oliver asked, a rare caustic note entering his usually carefully unreadable voice. “I think that’s exactly what the bastard would have wanted.”

  She fiddled with her fork, careful not to give away her agreement that the Walter Cunningham she remembered was the sort of selfish bastard who expected others’ lives to revolve around him.

  “So he and Serena didn’t mesh, huh?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” Oliver said, after swallowing. “It’s why I came down here in the first place. For whatever reason, he seems attached to you.”

  “For whatever reason?” she asked with a smile.

  “Yeah, well. He doesn’t know you like I do.”

  Oliver winked as he said it, and it caused a warm churn in her stomach that had nothing to do with the pasta.

  “I’m happy to stay with him during the day until Janice gets back, but I’m not accepting your money.”

  He set his fork aside. “Naomi, I can’t ask you to watch him in exchange for nothing.”

  “I won’t be the hired help,” she snapped, her own fork clattering noisily to her plate.

  “Whoa,” he said slowly, leaning back in his chair.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself and reached for her glass. “If I do this, I do this as your equal.”

  Oliver frowned. “Whatever gave you the thought I didn’t think of you as an equal?”

  Tell him! Just tell him who you are!

  And the fact that she couldn’t told Naomi the real problem. She was afraid that if she did tell him, if she revealed her past and why she was living in the building in the first place, then she really wouldn’t be his equal.

  He’d stop seeing her as confident Naomi Powell, and start seeing her as t
he daughter of the whore housekeeper who’d seduced his dad.

  “Never mind,” she said irritably, picking up her fork again.

  “Naomi.”

  “What.”

  He waited until she looked at him, then smiled slightly. “Will you please watch my father while I’m at work tomorrow? I promise not to try to insult you with money, but I’m going to insist you let me at least feed you after. Final offer.”

  She studied him, looking for a catch, but saw only . . . kindness.

  “Okay.”

  His smile grew wider, and he resumed eating. “Good.”

  After a moment, he said, “Question.”

  “What?” she asked warily.

  “Are you as prickly with female friends as you are with male friends?” He put the slightest emphasis on the last word.

  She shrugged. “Hard to say. I don’t have a ton of them.”

  “What about Claire and Audrey?”

  “They’re friends,” she admitted. “But we’ve only known each other a few months.”

  “You don’t think it’ll last?”

  She fiddled with her fork, thinking this over. “Honestly? I don’t know. On one hand, we clicked. Almost immediately. On the other hand, the circumstances of our friendship are . . . unusual.”

  “Maybe you clicked because of the circumstances. The same man was interested in all three of you. You must have something in common.”

  “I don’t know what,” she grumbled. “Claire is kind and responsible. Audrey’s sweet and fun.”

  “And you are . . . ?”

  She smiled. “Ambitious and prickly?”

  “Driven and guarded,” he countered.

  “The first one I take as a compliment. The second I can’t help. Wouldn’t you be if you learned that the person you were sleeping with was married?”

  “Perhaps. But I also suspect you kept people at a distance long before that.”

  She pushed her plate away. “The pasta’s really not good, huh?”

  “No,” he said, looking like he wanted to press her for an answer on his last question but decided to let her dodge it. “Got any ice cream?”

  “Now you’re talking, Ollie,” she said, standing and going to the freezer. Then she turned back. “Do you need to get back to Walter?”

  He hesitated, and she saw the internal battle raging within. The compulsive need to do his duty by his father. His desire to stay.

  “I’ll double-check with Serena,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and waggling it at her. “Last call to back out of your offer.”

  Naomi pulled the lid off the Ben & Jerry’s carton and looked across her kitchen at the man who’d once made her life utterly miserable. And who also made her feel the most alive she had in years.

  “Let’s do it,” she blurted out before she could rethink the fact that she was willingly entangling herself with a family she’d spent a lifetime resenting.

  “Good,” he said, turning his attention to his phone. “Oh, one more thing.”

  “Hmm?” She dug a spoon into the carton and plopped a bite of cookie dough ice cream in her mouth.

  “You still dating Dylan with a Y?”

  The question caught her off guard, and a chunk of chocolate chip lodged in her throat.

  “Not sure that’s your business.”

  Oliver stood and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Maybe not yet.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked, as he headed to the front door.

  He gave her an enigmatic smile over his shoulder, opening her front door. But he said nothing.

  “What’s that supposed to mean!” It was a near shout now.

  The front door clicked close, and she opened her mouth to tell him he forgot his ice cream.

  Damn it. Just as well. If she and Oliver Cunningham were going to continue being in the same orbit, she was going to need the entire carton to herself.

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

  Whoa. You do know it’s just the three of us, right?” Audrey asked as she opened her front door to Naomi and took in the copious amount of wine bottles Naomi was holding.

  “It was cheaper to buy six,” Naomi replied, handing over the bottles and shrugging out of her jacket. “Also, trust me, I need at least half of that to myself.”

  “Uh-oh. What happened?” Audrey asked, leading Naomi into the kitchen.

  “Let’s wait until Claire gets here so I only have to explain the nightmare once.”

  “Here,” Claire announced, holding up her arm from where she sat on Audrey’s couch.

  Naomi craned to look at what she was watching on the TV. “Dang, you really are a baseball nut.”

  “Yup. But for you, I will turn it off.” She reached for the remote, then paused, watching something on the field that had the announcers shouting. “Correction. For you, I will mute.”

  “If Brayden hadn’t jabbed his chopstick into our dumplings, would you have turned it off for us?” Audrey asked.

  Claire wrinkled her nose, and Naomi gave Audrey a look and shook her head.

  “Damn,” Audrey said. “I’ve been working on that one. Okay, what are we eating?”

  “Not Chinese,” Claire muttered, joining them in the kitchen and checking the labels on the various bottles Naomi had brought. “Naomi can pick.”

  “You don’t want me to pick. My favorite food used to be Chef Boyardee. The off-brand kind.”

  “No, pick!” Audrey protested. “Except maybe not Chef Boy-are-whatever you just said.”

  “You’re missing out, but I’ll start you off easy. How about pizza?”

  “Done,” Audrey said, pulling out her phone. “There’s a place around the corner that does this classic Neapolitan crust, with homemade smoked mozzarella and—”

  “No, not fancy pizza,” Naomi interrupted. “Homemade cheese? Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, where do you get your pizza?”

  “Let’s just say it’s not the kind of place that has an online ordering system,” Naomi said, already dialing a number from the Favorites menu of her phone.

  “Hey, Claudio,” she said the moment an almost unintelligible rumble of Italian sounded in her ear.

  “Naomi! Mia Bella. The regular?”

  She grinned at the familiar greeting. “The regular times three. I’m about to introduce two friends to the best meal of their life. Grab a pen though, ’kay? I need Jorge to come to my friend’s house.”

  A minute later she set her phone back on the counter. “Done. They should be here in an hour. Or so.”

  “An hour? It’s Thursday night. My guys’ smoked mozzarella could get made from scratch faster than that!”

  Claire handed Audrey a glass of red wine. “Probably not. The mozzarella, yes, that can be done in thirty minutes. The smoked part would take longer.”

  “Are you making this up?”

  “Nope.” Claire sipped her own wine. “Brayden and I took a cheese-making class once. Back before I knew he was, you know. Dipping into other fondue pots.”

  “Nice.” Naomi lifted her hand and Claire gave her a high five, while Audrey pouted.

  “How is that better than my chopstick one!” she protested.

  “Well, for starters, nobody sticks a chopstick into a dumpling. Second of all, the word dumpling is just . . . no. Keep working on it.”

  “Fine,” Audrey muttered. “But for real, Naomi, is your pizza coming from Italy?”

  “Nope. Belmont.”

  “Oh God, is someone trying to create some new Manhattan neighborhood where there isn’t one again?” Claire asked.

  “Nope. Belmont is in the northwest Bronx.”

  Audrey’s eyes bugged out. “You order pizza from the Bronx?”

  “And they deliver?” Claire added.

  “They do when I pay them an extra fifty bucks, plus extra for the delivery guy.”

  “An extra fifty bucks for a pizza. It must be amazing.”

  “Not really,” Naomi said. “But when
I was in seventh grade, my mom went through a rare patch of being able to keep not only one job, but two. Claudio fed me dinner pretty much every day that year while she worked back-to-back shifts. This is my way of paying him back.”

  “Well then, I can’t wait to try it,” Audrey said with an approving nod as they all went into the living room and sat on the couch. “Now, how about you tell us why your wineglass is filled to the brim. Bad day?”

  “Not really,” Naomi said, swirling her wine. “It’s just been . . . weird.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m kind of sort of helping take care of Walter Cunningham.”

  “Who? Wait. Oliver’s father? The one who slept with your mom and then threw her out?” Claire asked incredulously.

  Naomi made a face. “Sort of?”

  “Why? What do you mean you’re taking care of him?”

  “He has Alzheimer’s, and as far as the why, I don’t really know. It’s like one moment I was reminding myself that I moved into the building to show them that the girl they kicked to the streets could buy the entire building they live in and then some. And the next . . . they’re not the same. I mean, Walter, obviously not, because of the dementia. But Oliver, too. And before I knew it, I had this weird urge to help an old man who’s sick, even knowing he’s a jerk. Used to be a jerk. Whatever. And now you think I’m crazy.”

  “Not crazy,” Claire said slowly. “But are you doing it for Walter? Or for his son?”

  Naomi’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

  Claire swirled her wine. “Meaning that we saw the way Oliver Cunningham looks at you like he doesn’t know whether he wants to kiss you or shove you against the wall, or shove you against the wall to kiss you . . .”

  “Please stop,” Audrey said, dabbing her brow dramatically. “I haven’t been pushed against the wall ever. But seriously. What is going on with you two? You guys looked mighty friendly leaving my party last weekend.”

  “Did we?” Naomi said sarcastically. “Or did we maybe look that way because you two conspired to set us up.”

  “Claire’s the one who brought him.”

  “You’re the one who made sure Naomi sat next to him,” Claire countered.