by Jeannie Moon
“I do, but I’m not sure of him. I have to keep my feelings out of the equation. It’s too risky, like I said, and I have to stay focused on work.”
Leah’s phone buzzed and before she could react Amy had grabbed it. Her sister keyed in her password because, predictably, Leah used the same password for everything. Then Amy smiled.
“It’s Tris. He wants to meet for dinner.” Amy bit her lip as she grinned. “What should I tell him?”
Leah shrugged. “Yep. It’s Tuesday. We always meet for burgers on Tuesday.” This was going to be a calorie day from hell.
“He said something about a new place that just opened near his apartment. Lantana?”
“That’s a five-star restaurant. It’s impossible to get in.”
“Nice. You’re going.” Amy started to type.
“No! I’m not. This isn’t what we usually do. Our Tuesday dinners are very relaxed and casual. Hell, I usually wear yoga pants.”
“You do not go out with a billionaire in yoga pants. Please tell me you’re lying.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “You do remember our brother is one of those billionaires, and we aren’t doing too badly. My portfolio is solidly in the seven figures.”
“Blah, blah. Whatever. Go out to the fancy restaurant.”
For once, Leah wanted Amy to listen to her. Just once. The phone, however, stayed in her sister’s hand. “Yes, I’d love to go to dinner,” Amy said as she typed. “Can’t wait!”
“Amy! Why did you do that?” Leah loved her sister, but sometimes she was a pain in the ass.
“What? You want to see him again. You’re practically giddy when you talk about him.”
Leah ran her thumb up and down the condensation on the water glass. “I see him pretty often. But let’s not turn this into something it’s not.”
“But nothing,” Amy snapped. “You deserve this. You deserve him.”
“We’re having fun together, I’m good with that.”
“Um, why are you going to settle?”
“I don’t consider this settling. I consider it being realistic. I mean, Tris and I are good together in bed, and we get along great. He’s a good friend, but that’s it.”
“A friend? Leah, you don’t need a friend.”
Now she was getting annoyed. Why did Amy care? “You know, you don’t have anyone, why are you so set on me being part of a couple? Worry about yourself!”
“I can’t be in a relationship right now.” Her sister’s tone deepened, her hands clenched. “I’ve accepted a new position,” she choked out. “It’s going to require me to relocate.”
“What?” Leah’s stomach vibrated with discomfort. Her eyes burned just at the thought of her sister being too far away. Even when they were in college, they were only an hour’s car ride from each other. “Where are you going?”
“It’s a great opportunity,” she shot out. “The work I’ll be doing is so important. The buildings are historic landmarks, pieces of art—”
“Where are you moving to, Amy?”
“Scotland,” she whispered.
Everything went quiet, even though they were sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Leah heard nothing but a single word rattling around in her brain.
Scotland.
Scotland? Five hours by plane, and an ocean between them. They’d never been this far apart, at least not with any permanence. “There aren’t opportunities closer to home? New York is filled with historic buildings.”
“Not like Europe. Domestically, buildings are a few hundred years old, tops. With my new firm, I could be working on structures built a thousand years ago. I can’t pass this up.”
Leah was holding it together pretty well, considering. She hadn’t even shed a tear yet, but there was still time. “Have you told Mum and Da about this?”
“Not yet. And you can’t tell them. We’ll all be at the farm on Sunday for Sally’s birthday, so I’ll break it to them then.”
“They’re going to be devastated.” She could only imagine how her parents would react, especially Mum, whose health was still a big question mark.
Her head was swimming. Amy wasn’t just her sister, she was her best friend. There had never been sibling rivalry, competition, or jealousy—the two of them had been inseparable growing up and as adults they depended on each other. They shared every milestone, every tragedy, and told each other all their secrets.
“This will be good for both of us,” Amy said with complete authority. “We’re always up each other’s butts.”
Leah may have been upset, but she hadn’t lost her ability to interpret subtext. Her sister was sending a message. “What do you mean both of us?”
Amy looked away, avoiding eye contact until she was sure of what she wanted to say. When she spoke, it was crushing. “You depend on me a lot. Maybe too much.”
“Seriously? You’re the one whose nose is all up in my business, and you’re telling me that I’m needy?”
“I care about you, and I never said needy.”
If her sister had slapped her, she wouldn’t have felt any more of a sting. She didn’t know what to say. How do you respond to someone telling you they don’t want to be around you? The ache spread from Leah’s heart through her body. Pain, betrayal, confusion. Amy was her sister, she was a busybody, but they’d always been so close. God, this hurt. Miraculously, she didn’t break down. Quietly gathering her things, Leah put forty dollars on the table and nodded to her sister.
“Leah, please wait . . .”
“I’ll see you Sunday. Don’t worry, your secret is safe.”
Amy was the one who had tears in her eyes. She knew exactly what she’d done, and all she could do was acknowledge the words. She felt bad, no doubt there, but once Amy made up her mind, there was no turning back, no matter what anyone else thought.
Leah wasn’t going to turn back, either. Without another word, she stood, and walked out of the restaurant.
* * *
Tristan glanced at his watch and was amazed he managed to arrive at Leah’s apartment on time. His meeting uptown had run long, and getting to anywhere in the city during the dinner hour was next to impossible. Thankfully, seeing Leah would put him in a better mood. She had thrown up such a wall the other day, he was surprised she’d said yes to dinner. But he wasn’t complaining, in fact it was quite the contrary.
He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since she’d left his apartment two days ago. This was unusual for him, and Tris decided to pull out all the stops. He made reservations at a restaurant in Tribeca that was impossible to get into, rather than meeting her for their usual weekly dinner. He was trying to impress her, openly, and he hoped she noticed.
Climbing the steps of her brownstone, Tristan found her name and rang the buzzer. It didn’t take long for her to answer.
“Yes?”
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Tristan?” Uh oh. “What are you doing here?”
Alright, he didn’t expect that kind of reaction. “We’re having dinner. At least that’s what I thought.”
“Oh, damn.”
“I have the text to prove it.”
She swore quietly, and he heard the door click open. He may have gotten in, but he already could see that this evening wasn’t going to turn out the way he thought. Not at all.
Her flat was on the third floor of a stunning prewar building that sported high ceilings, heavy moldings, and carved, ornate doors. He lived in a converted industrial space, which he loved, but it had none of the charm of Leah’s West Village neighborhood.
Raising his hand to knock, Tristan startled when she opened the door before he had a chance. Based on how she was dressed, they were not going out to dinner.
“Would you care to fill me in?” He proceeded carefully, because the woman standing in front of him bore no resem
blance to the gorgeous redhead he bedded forty-eight hours before. If he were honest, she looked bonkers. Nothing matched; her flannel pants clashed with the T-shirt, and her hair was pulled on top of her head in an off-kilter knot. He’d seen Leah without a full face of makeup, but tonight wasn’t about a natural look. Her swollen, puffy eyes told him she’d been crying.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t answer the text you sent, Amy did. She thought the fancier restaurant sounded nice, so when you sent the message, she answered. I’m sorry. That’s so adolescent. I feel awful.”
“I have to thank your sister for not giving you the chance to say no, but if you really didn’t want to see me, you could have let me know.” He closed the door and stepped into her place. “Or if something had upset you, you could have called.”
He’d never been inside her space. All these months and they’d always met out at some bar or eatery. But somehow, he knew what to expect. The flat was stylish without being predictable. Pops of color punctuated neutral tones. But it was warmth that permeated the whole space. Photos of her family dotted the shelves, the furniture looked comfortable and well used. There was a bookshelf filled with popular fiction, mostly mysteries from what he could tell. He learned a lot about Leah from her flat. Like most people, her home was a reflection of her.
And right now that person was a woman having some kind of breakdown. The sofa held a mussed – up blanket and a box of tissues, and a pizza box sat on the coffee table. Obviously, their dinner date was definitely off. Leah stood before him, looking very young and more fragile than he could have imagined. This woman was a puzzle and it seemed each moment he spent with her he managed to fit a few more pieces into place.
“You look very handsome,” she said on a shaky breath.
Tristan glanced at what he was wearing. He’d come straight from his meeting, so he was still in his dark gray suit. His uniform. He had to admit, he found himself mildly flattered she noticed even though she was upset. But that simple statement, the compliment, told him once again that there was a very sweet woman living under all that bluster.
“Thank you,” he began. “You, however, don’t look like yourself. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
She sniffled and blew her nose. “I guess I’m just a big baby. I try to be tough, but I’m really not.” She plopped down on the sofa and pulled the blanket to her chin. “Don’t you dare repeat that, or I’ll have to kill you or something.”
“Noted. Why are you so sad?” Tris crouched down in front of her and brushed a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Is it your job? Is there someone I need to pummel?”
She laughed through the leaking tears. “No. Would you really beat someone up for me?”
“If I needed to. Yes.”
“That’s sweet. Thank you.” Her hand dropped down to his, gripping the fingers of the hand that was resting on the couch beside her.
No one had ever called him sweet. Probably because he never usually thought about anyone but himself.
“No, this one hit closer to home.” Blinking hard, Leah tried to pull herself together. “My sister accepted a new position, and she’s going to be relocating.”
“Oh. That’s . . .” He knew the sisters were close, but Leah’s reaction seemed extreme. There had to be more to the upset than a simple relocation. “Where’s she going?”
“Scotland.”
Alright, so going to Scotland wasn’t just like boarding a plane and jetting off to Chicago for a weekend, but it wasn’t impossible to stay in touch now with smartphones and the Internet. “Wow. That must be some position.”
“It is, and it’s something she’s been working hard for. Amy went to architecture school knowing she wanted to restore old buildings. She did an internship with the National Trust in the UK and fell in love. I should have expected it, but I guess with everything that’s been going on, with my mother, and Nate and Jenna and their baby, I didn’t want to entertain the possibility.”
Tristan didn’t want to upset Leah any more, but he thought Amy’s job sounded pretty amazing. “Explain to me why this upset you so much. It will help if you get it off your chest.”
He should have run the second she answered the door. But instead of her tears repelling him, they compelled him to stay with her and offer comfort. He didn’t deal with crying women. He didn’t do drama, especially the family kind. But there he was, mopping her face with Kleenex, holding her hand, and giving her a shoulder to cry on.
The woman had him tied in bloody knots.
“We see each other a lot. Talk multiple times a day. She’s my best friend. I didn’t expect her to think that”—she took a long breath—"that it would be ‘good’ for us to be apart. That I was too dependent on her.”
She sniffled again, dabbed at her eyes.
“I’m going to risk getting a smack here, but are you? Dependent?”
“No more than she is. It’s a lovely codependency.” She flashed a watery smile. “Are you close to your siblings?”
“My older brothers are always on deployment, so my contact with them is pretty sporadic, but we chat when we can. My younger brother is wrapped up in his research. He’s a neuroscientist at Cambridge. I think he’d like me better if he could just examine my brain.” Leah laughed, and that was a welcome sound. “I do speak to my sister pretty regularly. I quite adore her.”
“That’s nice.” She paused, took a breath, still upset. “What she said . . . it really hurt.”
He moved into the space next to her and reached his arm across the back of the couch. Leah immediately leaned into him, startling him at first, but then, as her warmth seeped into him, Tris relaxed into the feeling. He didn’t know what to say, so he pulled her closer and dropped a kiss on top of her head. Words like that had to sting.
“I’m oversensitive. I know that. I hide the fact that I cry at the drop of a hat from pretty much everyone outside of the family. And I don’t even think my family realizes sometimes.”
He kissed her temple this time. “I’m honored to have seen the meltdown, then.”
“You should be,” she giggled. “Not just anyone gets to see this mess.”
They lapsed into a relaxed silence and Tris realized Leah was tougher than she thought, but that didn’t negate how she was feeling. “I’m sorry you’re upset, though.”
“Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his middle. “You have no idea how much it means to me that you didn’t start blathering on about how I should fix it. Or how I should feel about it.”
“I wouldn’t know how, but I can loan you a shoulder. Is that the saying?”
“Yes, and I’ll take the shoulder.”
There was something incredibly soft and lovely about Leah at that moment. The vulnerability, the depth of feeling she had for her family, came straight from her heart. He could only imagine what she might give in a relationship, and he wondered if he had it in him to be on the receiving end of something that could be so life changing.
Here he was, holding a woman who was, for lack of a better word, distraught. Her sister had dropped the bombshell regarding her move, Leah still felt at odds with her family, but once again, the trust she was putting in him was humbling.
“How was the pizza?” he asked, nodding toward the box.
“Lousy,” she said. “I didn’t think it was possible to get a bad slice of pizza in New York, but apparently it is.”
“Would you like to get cleaned up, throw on a pair of jeans, and hit up the diner around the corner?”
Leah’s eyes lit up. “I could really go for a burger and onion rings.”
“And a milk shake,” he added.
“A chocolate milk shake.”
“You’re on.”
* * *
Leah settled back against the vinyl seat and patted her belly. She was stuffed from eating every bite of her burger
and onion rings at their favorite diner, but Tristan had just ordered a brownie sundae to finish off his meal. The man was lean and muscular, but he ate like a fifteen-year-old boy. Leah would have to do extra time on the elliptical so she didn’t burst out of all her work clothes.
“Thanks for understanding about dinner,” she said quietly. “This was exactly what I needed.”
“I’m sorry for blindsiding you; I had in my head after the other day, we should, I don’t know . . .”
“Go on a date?” Her eyes met his. “Because that’s what it was.”
He blew out a long breath. “Not my best idea?”
She chuckled. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think we should date, and like I said on Sunday, I don’t think friends with benefits is a good idea, either. The other night was really great, amazing, but . . .”
“Too complicated. I understand.” He seemed to follow. Of course Leah could be misreading the situation.
“It really is. You work with my brother. I have a lousy track record with relationships, and I’m . . .” She took a breath because the next part was hard to admit. “I’m very possessive about our friendship. I don’t trust people easily, so I don’t have a lot of friends, and I don’t want anything to mess up a good thing.”
His brows drew together and he looked her straight in the eyes. Great. She’d offended him.
“Okay, first, you know sex can be just sex. It doesn’t have to have a deeper meaning attached to it. We can stay friends.”
“I guess I’m unsophisticated like that. I don’t see it that way.”
“An old-fashioned girl.” He grinned when he said it.
“I’m not judging. People can do what they want if it doesn’t hurt anyone else, but I’m speaking for myself. I guess I am a little old-fashioned.”
Tristan reached out and laced his fingers with hers. His thumb made lazy passes over her knuckles and immediately the warmth pooled in her belly. He smiled his sweetest smile.
“I won’t say I’m not disappointed. We’re great together in bed, but I respect your feelings on the matter, and I won’t risk our friendship over a tumble in the sack.”
