Between You and Me

by Lynn Turner

  “I’m definitely Finn,” he said, his lips twitching. “Emmi’s told me a lot about you.”

  “She’s told me exactly as much about you, but I could hear more.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head and sitting back down.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Jamie said, quickly appraising Allie’s model-like frame and flowing, deep red mane. He turned to Emanuela. “Seriously, do you know any ugly people?”

  Emanuela simply grinned and shrugged. “Allie, Jamie. Jamie, Allie. Now sit down, I’m starving!”

  They chatted well into the evening. Cocktails turned to wine, and they had their fill of the lounge’s rich truffle fries, beef sliders dripping in gooey gruyere, and spicy tuna tacos. It was a comfortable seventy degrees by then, and Simon and Finn had both shed their jackets, with Finn’s sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Emanuela was buzzed, practically sitting in Finn’s lap by the end of the night, and Jamie was absentmindedly running his fingers through the tangled mess of hair Simon sported at the late hour.

  “God, I’m glad I’m a secure woman because you people are hopeless!” Allie said, standing up and preparing to leave.

  “We’re making you feel like a fifth wheel.” Emanuela stood to accompany her friend out and see that she caught a cab.

  Allie lifted a finely arched brow. “I’m nobody’s wheel.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am a siren.”

  “All right, Siren,” Jamie said, taking a slightly tipsy Allie’s arm. He looked at Emanuela. “Let’s see her out, then you can go back to canoodling.”

  Allie bid the others farewell, exchanging cheek kisses before letting Jamie and Emanuela escort her out. They made easy conversation on the elevator ride down. Jamie shared that he and Simon would remain in the city for a few more days. His grandparents had immigrated to a sprawling Jewish community in central Queens in the fifties, and three generations of his family were settled in a few of the cushier neighborhoods of Queens and Brooklyn. By the time they secured a cab, Allie had exchanged numbers with Jamie and promised to have coffee before his time on the East Coast came to an end.

  Allie turned to kiss his cheek. “I like you, Jamie. I’m glad Em’s gonna have you.”

  “Hey, I’m standing right here, you know,” Emanuela said, but she sobered up at the maternal look on the scarlet-haired beauty’s face. “Oh, Allie. You’re drunk.”

  Jamie waved Emanuela away. “She’s gonna have both of us.” He kissed Allie’s pale cheekbone and guided her into the seat by her elbow. “Goodnight, babe.”

  ****

  It was after midnight by the time Finn and Emanuela made it to her condo on West Ninety-Fifth Street. She’d made sure to have his carryon delivered from Simon’s hotel, and it awaited them in the security office on the first floor.

  “You have a doorman,” Finn said of the elderly tuxedoed man stationed at the main entrance.

  “I do, but I don’t want to talk about that man.”

  “No?” Finn followed her onto the elevator, his ears prickling at her suggestive tone.

  No sooner had the doors closed then Emanuela had him cornered, snaking her arms around his neck and pulling him to her. “Uh-uh,” she said against his lips.

  He wrapped an arm around her waist, beside himself at the joyful little sounds coming from somewhere in her throat, her lips eagerly mapping his face. He knew what floor she lived on from their many conversations, so he pulled away for a moment without releasing her, pushing the button for the twelfth floor.

  “Someone’s missed me,” he said into her neck.

  She giggled and slid a thigh between his legs. She gently moved it against his pants and grinned at his answering groan. “I’m not the only one.” She sighed and kissed him again.

  The month apart seemed like an eternity, so they reacquainted themselves with the feel of each other’s lips, delicate and full meeting supple and strong. Soft touches became long presses, and by the time the elevator arrived, both were breathing heavily, sharp longing coursing through their bodies.

  Emanuela adjusted the recessed lighting so the open living space was softly lit. Finn abandoned his carryon and jacket near the door, then let her pull him by the hand into her living room to stand in front of the wall of eight-foot windows.

  “I wanted to show you the view,” she said. “It’s my favorite thing about living here, seeing the city lights at night.”

  He was behind her now, wrapping her in his arms, cuddling her neck a moment to enjoy her scent. He looked out at the glittering towers in endless midnight blue. He couldn’t make out any stars, but what looked like millions of lighted windows twinkled so high up, they seemed to light the sky on their own. The place felt more alive at night than any other city he’d seen by day.

  “I can see why you love it.” His deep voice hummed through her body and he felt every tremor. With a groan, his hands left her tummy and moved up to cover her breasts.

  She gasped, arching her back and filling his hands. “Your sunrise is probably better.”

  He remembered the sunrise they watched together and turned her around to look into her eyes. “No sunrise will ever compete with that one, and I’m prepared to ruin all other nighttime skylines with you too.”

  Her shiver was anything but subtle this time, and he kissed her again. They helped each other out of their clothes, eager but not hurried, trailing kisses over newly exposed flesh until they stood naked before each other. He lifted her, hooking her legs over his arms, her thighs hugging his waist, and pressed her back to the window. She gasped, her warm flesh meeting the cool, thick glass, wrapping her arms around his shoulders for support. He grinned at her ragged breathing, knowing full well she enjoyed his blatant display of masculinity.

  “Is this okay?” she asked, eyeing his leg.

  “I’ll be fine. I probably won’t last long anyway. Missed you too much.”

  “You can make it up to me later. But one of these days, we should make it to a bed first,” she said breathlessly against his lips.

  He moved against her and moaned. “Maybe next time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The sun hadn’t yet risen when Finn woke up. He knew instantly that he was alone in Emanuela’s bed and missed her warmth already. After an athletic romp against a window in her living room, they spent the better part of the night making love, and sleeping curled into each other in turns.

  The room was quiet, and no sound came from the bathroom. Having no interest in being apart from her so soon, he tugged on his boxers, put on his leg, and went to look for her. He didn’t search for long, and what he caught her doing in the living room sent him laughing into the palm of his hand. He startled her, of course, and she yelped, turning from the window to look in his direction.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, her cheeks turning red.

  “You didn’t.” He looked pointedly at the glass cleaner and cloth in her hands. “You’re one of those people.”

  She frowned. “Those people?”

  He bent to kiss her nose. “If you couldn’t sleep, you could have tapped my shoulder or something. I would’ve found some way to help you out.” He pulled away with a wide, salacious grin.

  “That’s precisely why I didn’t wake you.”

  “Here, let me.” He took the items from her and moved to finish the job, spritzing the solution over the window where she couldn’t reach and wiping it clean. When he was finished, she put the cleaning supplies away and joined him on the couch. He eyed her svelte form in his wrinkled shirt, pulling her across his lap. “I was gonna ask why you’re up so early, but I guess I don’t need to.”

  The living room was immaculate but for the coffee table, which was covered in organized piles of what looked to be important documents. A few highlighters and pens were scattered about, and the coffeemaker whirred quietly from the kitchen.

  Emanuela sank into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’ve been working on something really big. It’s taken up most of my
free time lately, and I’m worried that it could blow up in my face.”

  His brow creased at her tone and her reluctance to look him in the eyes. There was a lack of absolute confidence when she spoke that wasn’t like her at all. She definitely wasn’t talking about Hurst Capital. He lifted her chin with two of his fingers and looked into her eyes. “Emmi?”

  She hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath. “Last weekend, I told you I’d done some thinking—a lot of thinking, actually.”

  “You did.”

  He’d wondered what was on her mind during her drive to her parents’ house, but decided not to push her. She was obviously nervous about whatever it was, so he rubbed her thigh, both soothing and encouraging her to keep talking.

  “You’re always telling me that time doesn’t matter for us because it doesn’t change the way we feel—and I believe that. I’ve never felt like this about anyone else,” she said. “As long as you’re alive, I don’t want anyone else.”

  “Emmi—”

  “I know.” She stopped him with a touch to his lips. “You’re always so generous. You tell me what you’re feeling all the time.”

  “You’re right,” he said, kissing her fingers and linking their hands. “No more interruptions.”

  “I want everything with you.” She looked into his eyes, bringing their joined hands to her tummy. “Everything. But we’ll never have those things if we keep talking about it without doing anything—if I don’t do anything. I realize now that it should be me.”

  “You do?”

  She shrugged. “It was always going to be me. I knew that and it scared me. I had a plan when I finished grad school. My job at the firm was never supposed to be permanent, but the money was good and Philip was an amazing teacher. So I thought, ‘Why not stay here until I figure out what I want to do?’ I was starting to feel like my dream wouldn’t happen because I was past thirty and parts of my dream still hadn’t become clear.”

  Finn laughed softly at that, and she gave him a playful shove. “Laugh all you want but it’s different for you. You can probably make babies until your teeth fall out.”

  “You don’t have to have it all figured out right now, Emmi.” He tucked one of her many errant curls behind her ear. “As much as I want you to have my babies, I won’t pressure you. I can support us until you figure it out. If it comes to it, we can see someone—a fertility doctor or a voodoo priestess or a fairy godmother—”

  “It won’t come to that,” she said. She spoke with a self-assuredness he hadn’t heard from her since they sat down. “All this time, I’ve been trying to figure out a way for us to be together without feeling like I’m losing my career.”

  He frowned, but Emanuela quickly spoke again. “Say what you will, Finn, but three thousand miles is a hell of a commute. We both know we can’t keep flying back and forth forever. I could ask you to move here but I’ve seen you in your natural habitat—”

  She giggled, her back arching at Finn’s retaliatory tickling.

  “You’d be a fish out of water,” she said when she could speak again. “Besides, Simon and Jamie are there and I couldn’t ask you to leave your only family.”

  “You have family too. You’d be giving up a lot.”

  “I would,” she said. “But I’ve come up with something that could make us both happy and give me something fulfilling to do. The hours wouldn’t be as demanding and I could—we could—start a family of our own.”

  This all sounded wonderful to Finn, but there was a catch in her voice. “What is it?”

  She took a deep breath and slid from his lap. She reached for a stapled document on the coffee table and handed it to him. “I have a proposal for you.”

  He lifted a brow at her, accepting the papers with a distinct feeling of déjà vu. His mind took him back to his beachfront deck where he asked her to trust him before she signed a nondisclosure agreement. Several of their conversations over the past few months ran through his mind. And then he knew.

  “Emanuela.”

  “Hear me out—”

  “You wrote a proposal?” He couldn’t believe what he was reading, his eyes skimming the first page.

  “I-yes, but this way there’d be no reason to hide it, Finn. I know everything there is to know about running a nonprofit. Think of how many more people you could help with the donations it’d receive?”

  “And the ethics concerns?” he said, feeling his jaw tense. “Are those no longer relevant?”

  It was the biggest point of contention for him, but she was already picking up a few more documents, riddled with highlighted segments in different colors, and handing them to him.

  “Of course they are.” Her voice was gentle, not a hint of her business veneer in her tone. “There are measures we can take to prevent the printed prosthetics from being sold for profit. The first is getting your program copyrighted. That will keep anyone from being able to use the code you wrote to create a similar program and print for-profit products.”

  He shook his head and looked up at her. “That only stops someone from using my code in its entirety. What’s to stop someone from taking sections of the code to do the same thing?”

  “That’s why we get a patent.”

  “You can’t patent a program, Emanuela.”

  “But you can patent what it does,” she said. “You can patent the process. We include the program in the background information when we file. That way, the code you’ve written and the function of the program in printing the final products is protected.”

  The sun was rising as she stood there, and he thought about what a spectacle they must make—him in his underwear and her naked beneath his rumpled dress shirt, pitching a proposal to him in her living room.

  “Say yes, Finn. We could live on the same coast, in the same city. My job would be all the more fulfilling knowing that I’m being entrusted to take on your dream, expand it to reach more people in need.”

  It was a long moment before he finished going over the documents. When he did, his voice returned to its rich, honeyed tone. “You’ve really thought this through.”

  “I have.”

  “You’ve even found donors?” he asked in amazement.

  She nodded. “But nothing is final until you say so.”

  He couldn’t believe his ears. “How?”

  “You’d be surprised how many biotech companies could use tax write-offs,” she said. “It isn’t very sentimental but it’s pretty standard. It’s more than enough to get started, and with proper branding, we’ll have regular donations coming in soon after.”

  “I have no idea what that means.” He was starting to feel the time difference.

  She took the papers from his lap and set them back on the table. “C’mere.”

  Finn allowed her to pull him up and wrap his arms around her waist. She took his face in her hands, and looked at him with every confidence in her eyes. “I know what it means. There are a lot of things you understand that I don’t. There will be things—details—that I am equipped to handle that you aren’t. I just…”

  Her hands fell to his upper arms. “I trust you. If being with you means no longer living here, I know that, even if it’s not easy, it’s going to be okay. So by the same token, this is what I’m good at. If you trust me, I can make this work for us, Finn.”

  He saw the plea in her eyes, and realization hit him hard. This was everything he’d been waiting for. The sign he asked for—the sign that she was ready to make a real life with him. He knew the effort she put into planning her future with him was far more significant than some grand romantic gesture. She was entrusting him with her life and it meant everything to him. He decided then and there that he’d take care of the grand romantic gestures.

  “I trust you, Emmi.”

  A clear path was laid before them with those words. It was a moment both exciting and frightening in magnitude, and Finn didn’t have the energy to tackle the new questions shining in Emanuela’s eyes right then.


  “Later,” he promised, kissing her nose. “For now, let’s just go back to bed. We don’t need to be anywhere for a while and I’ve got to get a little thief out of my stolen shirt.”

  He bent and swept her up in his arms, the coffee forgotten.

  ****

  They dragged themselves out of bed around eleven o’clock and showered together—which proved challenging, and eventful. Finn assured her that he was content doing whatever it was she normally did on a Sunday, so they spent the afternoon in Chelsea, sightseeing and eating their way through the Market. Afterward, they wandered through the art district, stopping by a few galleries along the way before returning to Emanuela’s condo to get ready for an evening with her parents.

  “You look handsome.” She waggled her brows, her eyes traveling the length of him with deliberate slowness. He was stylishly casual for an evening out in July. His gray chinos and navy shirt hugged him just enough to hint at the well-toned muscles beneath.

  “Thanks, beautiful. You look good enough to eat,” he said, biting the air at her playfully.

  She wore a red cotton halter dress that stopped just above her knee and a thin navy belt. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that flipped over her shoulder as she maneuvered away from Finn.

  “I know,” he said, adjusting his tone to mimic her. “Behave.”

  “I’m starting to feel an attachment to this jacket,” she said about his sport coat. She slipped her feet into her sandals. “So many good memories.”

  His lips parted at the sexy gleam in her eye, but she’d already walked out the door. He cursed under his breath.

  “I heard that,” she called from the hallway.

  “You behave,” he said.

  She locked her door, and they were off.

  ****

  “They’re coming,” Emanuela said.

  They waited for her parents outside of Mattie’s Caribbean Café in Harlem. The sidewalk in front of the restaurant was filling with hungry patrons, mostly from Uptown. It was seven o’clock and the place was packed. A steady flow of people picking up their meals, walked in and out of the doors.