I imagine it’ll get better with time.
“Hi, Raymond.” I greet the nightshift doorman with a small wave as I pass through the lobby.
“Ms. Aldridge.” He nods, offering me a smile stained with compassion.
Everyone thinks they know what happened.
They think they know my story.
They think they know me.
They know nothing.
“Good evening, Mr. Warner,” Raymond says a second later.
Reaching for the elevator call button, I catch a glimpse of the man who walked in behind me, staring at his expensive shoes and ending with his messy, sandy blond mane and those thick frames that mask the mysterious eyes I met only a moment ago.
The handsome stranger from the fountain stands beside me.
Had no idea he was a neighbor, but then how would I? No one’s taken the time to introduce themselves, to welcome me to the building, or to nosily scope out my place under the guise of delivering a tray of Neiman Marcus cookies.
Not that it comes as a surprise.
New York isn’t really known for its warm, fuzzy population, and I’m just some woman they read about on Page Six from time to time thanks to my ex.
Clearing my throat, I stare at a set of silver elevator doors emblazoned in monogrammed J’s, waiting for the soft chime to tell me this awkward moment will be over soon enough.
One thousand one ...
One thousand two ...
One thousand three ...
One thousand-ding.
The doors part and an older woman carrying a white toy poodle under her Chanel-jacketed arm squeezes past us, placing her dog on the tile floor once she’s through. The bells on its crystal-studded collar tinkle as it scurries toward the exit.
Raymond pretends to give the dog directions to the nearest restroom. The woman doesn’t laugh, but the stranger does.
Stepping inside, I clear my throat, press the button for the seventh floor, and clasp my hands in front of my hips. Staring straight ahead, I avoid eye contact as he takes the spot beside me, unmoving.
“Which floor?” I ask, still staring ahead.
“Seventh. Same as yours.”
Interesting. I’ve been here three weeks and I’ve yet to see him around because I definitely couldn’t forget a face like that.
“Did you just move in?” I ask.
“Few days ago actually.”
The elevator deposits us on the seventh floor and the stranger motions for me to step out first. Turns out my generous benefactor is not only my neighbor, but a gentleman to boot.
“Have a nice night,” I say, turning down the left hall.
Reaching into my purse, I retrieve my apartment key and head to the last door on the right, only once I get there, I sense a presence behind me. From the corner of my eye, I watch the handsome stranger retrieve his key and slide it into the lock of the door directly across the hall.
“I didn’t catch your name,” I say. I can’t complain about the people in this building being cold and unfriendly and then do the same thing to him after he’s been nothing but polite to me.
He turns to face me, capturing my gaze for a moment. “Jude Warner. And you are?”
“Love Aldridge,” I say. I’m still not used to going by my maiden name. I’ve been a LeGrand for almost the entirety of my twenties—the better part of my adult life thus far. But Love LeGrand doesn’t exist anymore. I signed her death warrant by way of divorce papers last month, hardly sorry to say goodbye to a poor soul, stuck in the shadows of a disgustingly rich husband who broke every promise he ever made. “Welcome to the building.”
With that, I show myself in.
I simply wanted to be cordial, neighborly. Jude seems like a decent man, friendly and approachable, which is rare around these parts, not to mention easy on the eyes … but meeting new people—men in particular—is the furthest thing from my mind and it’s going to be that way for the foreseeable future.
I finally got my heart back from the lying thief who stole it all those years ago, and I’ll be damned if I give it away to the first guy who so much as smiles in my direction. I might not be back to my proverbial fighting weight, but I’m not weak by any stretch of the imagination.
Besides, as far as I’m concerned, men are all the same and if one of them wants my heart, he’s going to have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
Love is for the birds.
Love Aldridge is for herself.
MY NEW PLACE REEKS of expensive cologne, fresh flowers, and old leather—not that I’m complaining. It’s a far cry from the stale pizza-scented two bedroom I’ve been sharing with my sister and nieces in Brooklyn for the past year. Besides, I’ve lived in worse places: sweaty Army barracks, tents in Iraq, beer-stained sofas in friends’ living rooms.
Sliding my barely-broken in Gucci loafers off, I head to the stainless-steel double-wide fridge and grab a bottle of beer from the middle shelf. There must be twenty different varieties here—most of which I’ve never heard of. I reach for an Arrogant Bastard, slam the door shut, and twist off the cap.
Standing in the middle of a kitchen bigger than my entire place back in Brooklyn, I drag my palm along the shiny smooth marble counter. Everything’s so clean. So untouched. White and marble and wood, chandeliers that look like they belong at the MoMA. Every square inch of this place is doused in upgrades fit for a sheikh, and while this is only my third day here, I still can’t help but gawk a little every time I walk through the door.
Earlier today, I’d done a bit of exploring … mostly drawers and nightstands … only to find condoms strategically shoved in every corner of this place. I couldn’t help but remember that rich bastard’s words to me as I left his office that day: “You’ve got my full permission to drive it like you stole it.”
It meaning … his ex-wife.
But he isn’t paying me to judge him, is he?
I take a swig of beer and another good, hard look around.
I’ve been in places like this plenty of times before, but I was always in a plumber’s uniform and I was never there more than a few hours before heading to the next call out.
Making my way to the living room, I stand before a floor-to-ceiling window with an unobstructed view of Central Park.
People pay millions of dollars to live like this and now some rich asshole is paying me a million dollars to pretend to live like this for reasons I still don’t quite understand. He said he couldn’t tell me why for “liability purposes”—his and mine. Maybe that should’ve been a red flag, and to a guy in different circumstances, that would’ve been all the reason he needed to walk out of Hunter LeGrand’s office right then and there, but as the old adage goes … he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse—literally—because between the lines of that offer was a threat.
Taking a seat in a buttery chair the color of top shelf cognac, I bring the beer bottle to my lips as I take in the view of the city at night. It’s a different experience from this side of the bridge, almost like seeing it for the first time.
There are going to be a lot of firsts for me these next few months. First time living like a true Upper Eastsider. First time wearing nothing but designer labels. First time pretending to prefer Chopin and Bach over Bon Iver and Iron and Wine. First time dedicating my entire existence to ensuring some divorcee socialite falls madly, deeply in love with me and then breaking her heart the second the ink is dry on the marriage certificate.
Every time I think about what I’m doing, I hate myself a little bit more than the time before, but if I’m going to do this, I can’t think that way. I have to harden my heart, ignore that voice in my head that tells me how fucked up this whole thing is, and keep pushing forward.
Last month, Hunter had given me a small binder full of notes on his ex-wife. Hobbies. Interests. Favorite shops and restaurants. Most-loved travel destinations. Favorite books and movies and wines. Anything I could possibly want to know about her was in there and I was told to study those page
s, to know them frontward and backward, to memorize every little thing about Love so that I could morph myself into the kind of man she’d fall irrevocably in love with.
Meeting her tonight for the first time was surreal.
She wasn’t at all what I expected, at least not based on the things Hunter had told me. He said Love was materialistic, money-hungry, and stone cold. He said I wouldn’t like her at first, that I’d be put off the instant our eyes met. Hunter also described her as spoiled, entitled, and selfish.
But she was wearing faded Levis, throwing money into a fountain just ‘cause, and she actually introduced herself and welcomed me to the building.
The only thing that seems to match up so far is the fact that she’s a complete knockout even though the photos Hunter gave me hardly do her justice. In person, Love’s got this understated elegance about her, from her soft blonde hair to her hooded hazel eyes, to her pointed nose and high cheekbones. She could be a princess or the girl next door and it would suit her all the same.
And that runner’s body… God, I could eat my fist just thinking about it right now. Consummating this relationship will be a piece of fucking cake.
Leaning against the back of my chair, I cross my legs wide and finish my beer, accepting myself for the self-serving piece of shit that I’ve become, and when I’m done, I force myself to call it a night.
The sooner I go to bed, the sooner I can wake up and get this shit show started.
“THIS REMINDS ME OF our WVU days,” Tierney says as she takes a seat on my bed and scans my new bedroom. “Just hanging out, doing girl stuff.”
My best friend smirks, reaching for the newest edition of Elle on my nightstand and aimlessly paging through it.
“Yeah, it does.” Seated in a gray velvet chair by the window, I drag my legs in and wrap my arms around them. Tierney sitting on my bed reading one of my magazines does feel like a college flashback, but only until her phone rings and I’m reminded that we’re both pushing thirty, she’s running her own company while expecting her first baby with her new husband, and we’re up to our eyeballs in the “real world.”
“I miss those days,” she says with a soft sigh. “Life was so damn easy then, wasn’t it? I mean, we just woke up, literally rolled out of bed, and did our thing. Biggest concern was where we were going to grab drinks that night.”
I miss those days too.
I miss the days when Hunter was nothing but a broke college kid, like myself. I miss the days when he never left my side, when he looked at me with this stupid, goofy grin on his face without even realizing it half the time and my body would fire on all cylinders every time he walked in the room. I miss the five-dollar carnation bouquets and the frozen pizza candlelight dinners. The aimless drives and the dollar-theater movie matinees on free popcorn days.
But money ruins things.
And in the end, it ruined us.
We weren’t married but a year when Hunter pitched some cyber security software he’d been coding to some big corporation in Silicon Valley. It was a stretch—him landing a deal on a type of product no one had ever so much as attempted before—but he had my support and nothing to lose, so he went for it.
The day they called with an offer is a day I couldn’t forget if I tried. And believe me—I’ve tried. Many times. It’s the day that changed the entire trajectory of our marriage. It’s the day the universe took that sweet, beautiful, perfect little thing that we had, doused it in gasoline, and struck an entire book of matches.
I watched us go up in flames, only it wasn’t a quick process.
It was a slow burn that played out through harsh words, hurt feelings, through tears and sleepless nights.
Through a text message that was never intended for me …
To go from having nothing but the clothes on your back, your young wife, and a shoebox campus town apartment in Morgantown, West Virginia to having tens of millions of dollars dumped in your lap overnight was something Hunter couldn’t handle, only neither of us would know it until it was too late.
By the end of that first week, he’d signed a lease on an apartment in some trendy Manhattan neighborhood, sold my vintage Subaru and his used Honda, and rented a moving van—all of this without so much as consulting me.
By the end of the first year, he’d invested in half a dozen startups, the majority of which were profitable and one of which he ended up buying outright: a little company called Blue Stream Records.
And as if we weren’t already set for life, the universe decided to make it rain once again a couple of years after Hunter signed a handful of major artists and developed a state-of-the-art streaming service which grew by thousands of users every time we blinked.
The money poured in.
We couldn’t stop it.
It was a blessing and then a curse, and it was fun until it wasn’t.
“I’m richer than God, Love,” Hunter said to me once with a wild look in his dark eyes. And it was always like that. He was the rich one. I was just the wife. He was the one with the money and the connections and the overnight notoriety. I was just the girl on his arm who’d loved him before he was anyone special because he was always special to me.
Hunter’s business endeavors took us from obscurity to red carpets, from Gap to Givenchy, from a studio apartment to a penthouse.
I’ll never forget coming home from a run one day to someone in my closet, tossing out my entire wardrobe and replacing it with designer pieces she was pulling out of the department store bags that littered the floor.
Hunter had hired her to give me a new look—one that was more appropriate for our new lifestyle. At the time, I thought it was a sweet gesture. It was early in our Manhattan tenure and I thought he was spoiling me, treating me to all the nice things he could never afford before, as a way to celebrate our big move. But now I know it was only a control thing for him.
His insecurities and his bloated ego needed an eleven in a world where everyone in his world were content to have tens.
First it was the wardrobe. Then it was the hair and makeup. The driver. The regular manicures and diamond facials. Then it was the jewelry, the galas, the couture.
But I never wanted any of it.
I only wanted Hunter—the Hunter that I first fell in love with.
We had nothing when we tied the knot, which meant we had no reason to sign a pre-nup, which meant I was entitled to half his earnings as well as alimony.
I didn’t want all of that money, but my attorney pushed for it, telling me how much I deserved it for putting up with Hunter all those years, and then he reminded me that I could always give it away.
I found my vindication there, in that suggestion.
That money might have ruined Hunter and obliterated our marriage, but I could still do some good with it.
In the end, despite Hunter retaining one of the best divorce lawyers in the city, I managed to snag a generous lump sum, a handful of assets, and a monthly alimony payment that added up to a whopping eight figures a year.
The only way my ex would ever have to stop paying me alimony is if he goes bankrupt or if I remarry—and it’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens again.
“Let’s go grab a coffee or something,” Tierney says, folding the magazine and tossing it aside. “It’s either that or I take a nap right here on your brand-new bed.”
Smiling, she extends her arms, fingers wiggling with impatience.
Getting up from my chair, I make my way across the room, taking her hands and helping her roll off my bed.
“Need help putting your shoes on too?” I ask.
“Maybe.” She winks, and I follow her down the hall toward the little foyer of my apartment. It pales in comparison to the one I had before in the penthouse with Hunter, but I’m perfectly fine with that. In fact, I love that it’s cozier. I love how it’s comfortable and updated without being pretentious and over the top. The complete opposite of the one I had before. A dainty, flush mount chandelier hangs above us,
and I step into my ballet flats while Tierney stuffs her swollen feet into a pair of red-bottomed heels.
I don’t tell her she’s crazy—she might bite my head off like she did when I asked her if it was okay for her to drink coffee while pregnant. It was an honest question, but she referred me to Google and then gave me her obstetrician’s phone number in case I wanted to confirm with her myself.
Screw it.
“We’re walking,” I remind her. I gave up the driving service when I moved here. Everything I need is within walking distance, and if I want to shed that old LeGrand skin, that means parting ways with unnecessary luxuries like chauffeurs and imported SUVs. “I can loan you a pair of sneakers if you want?”
Tierney looks at me like I’m insane for so much as suggesting that she’s incapable of waddling to the corner in five-inch stilettos whilst seven months pregnant, and then she reaches for the door knob.
Following her to the hall, I pull the door closed and lock up, only when I turn to leave, I see the door across the hall swinging open. A moment later, out steps a shirtless Jude dressed for a summer run in the park—at least I presume. Navy athletic shorts rest low in his angled hips, the inverted muscles of his lower abdomen pointing down before disappearing beneath his waistband. When he rests a hand on his hip, I catch a glimpse of the bulging veins in his arm … my mind immediately going somewhere else completely.
Our eyes catch and my heart stutters without permission.
Redirecting my thoughts is the easy part. Keeping my body from reacting to a sight like this is the part that’ll give me a run for my money.
“Oh. My,” Tierney says in a deep Joan Crawford-esque manner, lifting her palm to her chest as she drinks him in. Subtle is a language she’s never been able to master.
I mouth the word “sorry” to my neighbor and link my arm into hers in an attempt to drag her away.
P.S. I Dare You (PS Series Book 3) Page 16
