Between You and Me

by Lynn Turner

  “They’re grabbing something to drink across the street,” she said.

  Finn looked across the street, then tilted his head at her. “That’s a liquor store.”

  She grinned. “Mmhmm.”

  A few minutes later, a well-dressed older couple made their way across the street. The man looked to be about mid-fifties, with sepia skin and coarse, close-cropped hair. He carried a conspicuous bag of clinking glass bottles in one hand, and held the woman’s hand with the other. She didn’t look much older than Finn, although that was impossible. She had a mesmerizing walk—a regal posture with a natural sway to her hips that was just a touch above subtle—and she was drop-dead gorgeous. The couple drew closer, and he was stunned at the woman’s resemblance to Emanuela.

  Emanuela moved to embrace her parents.

  “Sorry we’re late, baby,” Mira said. “Your father got us a spa date at the Mandarin and I didn’t want to leave!”

  “Obviously,” Emanuela said with a grin. “I want you to meet Finn. Finn, my dad, Ethan and my mom, Mira.”

  “Well now,” Ethan said, shaking Finn’s hand. “So you are a Finn.”

  Emanuela exchanged a disbelieving look with her mother, but Finn didn’t mind. He’d heard all about Ethan’s reaction to his uncommon name.

  “Short for Finnegan,” he said. “Name’s been in my family for centuries, I’m afraid. An Irish tradition that won’t die.”

  “I happen to like it.” Mira stepped forward and hugged him without any hesitation, then pulled back to have a good look at him, still holding his arms. “It has character. A suitable name for such a handsome young man. And brilliant, too, we’re told.” She gave him a beautiful smile before letting go of his arms.

  His ears burned in embarrassment. “Thank you. I can see where Emmi’s beauty comes from.”

  “All right, enough of that,” Ethan said. “Let’s go on inside before this place fills up again.”

  Emanuela beamed at him, her smile matching her mother’s, and they followed her parents inside. It took a while to be seated, but they lucked out on a table toward the front near a window. Finn had never been to a place that encouraged patrons to bring their own booze, but he was more than happy to go along with it.

  “You okay with soul food, baby?” Mira asked him.

  “Might need to go easy on him,” Ethan said. “I’ve seen mighty men fall after a good helping of down home cooking.”

  “Dad…” Emanuela groaned. “Can you keep the wisecracks to a minimum?”

  “I love soul food,” Finn said. “I’m not that familiar with the Caribbean variety, but I could eat my weight in shrimp and grits.”

  Ethan looked surprised and Emanuela grinned. “He’s cultured, okay? Can we order now? I’m starving.”

  Ethan ordered for the table, a feast fit for an army, so everyone got to taste a bit of everything. There were Mattie’s famous sides like callaloo, rice and peas, and fried, overripe plantains; West Indian classics like stewed chicken and oxtails; and traditional favorites like candied yams and mac and cheese. Finn spooned a healthy portion of fried okra onto his plate and Emanuela wrinkled her nose.

  “Don’t be such a brat,” he said, kissing her nose.

  His chair was so close to hers, they nearly shared the same seat. He found every excuse to touch her, brushing her arm while she was speaking, dropping a hand to her knee for a squeeze, or draping an arm behind her chair.

  “Where are you from, baby?” Mira asked Finn, and he noticed for the first time that she’d been watching them.

  “I was born and raised in California, but I moved to Seattle for college and got hooked on the air up there.”

  “Oh, it’s wonderful,” she said. “I haven’t been back in twenty years.”

  “That’s about how long I’ve been there. A lot’s changed, but the air’s still great.”

  “How old are you, Finn?” Ethan asked.

  “Forty-two.”

  “Ever been married?”

  “Dad…”

  “It’s okay,” Finn said, squeezing Emanuela’s knee beneath the table. He had an inkling about where this was going and took a sip of wine to settle his nerves. “No.” He looked directly into Ethan’s eyes. “It’s not because I wasn’t ready to settle down. I think a lot of men get married because of some unwritten rule that it’s just what you do when you turn thirty. In some ways, my impediment helps me, because I tend to find out right from the beginning if a woman is right for me.”

  Ethan nodded. “Emanuela told us about your condition.”

  “What? That I’m white?”

  Mira and Emanuela burst into laughter.

  Ethan’s brow lifted.

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said when the women could breathe again without crying. “It’s just when people say condition, I picture something dire. Being an amputee can be challenging, even downright painful on occasion, but I consider myself lucky.”

  Ethan looked at Finn thoughtfully for a moment, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest. “What about your family? Who supported you when your parents passed away?”

  Emanuela’s hand slipped into Finn’s. He could handle himself, but he appreciated her silent show of support. “I lived with my grandfather—maternal—until I recovered and finished high school. After that, I went away for college. He died when I was twenty-nine. I have some cousins in the Midwest…” He licked his lips. “I don’t have much in the way of family now, but I was very close to my mother before the accident. She’s who I learned the most from, and Emmi is just as important to me as she was, Mr. Monroe.”

  Mira studied him intently again, but he didn’t mind. Emanuela’s parents were looking for assurance that their daughter was cared for. Mira must have been satisfied by his honesty, because she turned her attention to Emanuela.

  “Why don’t we go freshen up, baby.” It sounded like a statement, not a question.

  Emanuela frowned. “We’re not pack animals, Mom.”

  Finn stifled a laugh at Mira’s no-nonsense expression. Emanuela groaned and gave his hand a squeeze, getting up to accompany her mother to the ladies’ room. “Fine, but you two have five minutes,” she said.

  Finn couldn’t help his grin. Mother and daughter quirked their flawless brows at them for good measure, and walked toward the back of the restaurant, garnering admiring glances from other patrons on the way.

  “You heard her,” Ethan said, relaxing his posture. “Emanuela is a lot like her mother. They value my opinion, but they’ve never waited for my approval before deciding to do anything. So humor me, son. Put my mind at ease.”

  Finn could see how much Ethan loved his daughter—his very capable, self-assured and brilliant daughter—and simply needed to know that she would be cared for. He smiled. “I think I can do that.”

  ****

  “What did you say to him?” Emanuela asked Finn.

  They followed a few paces behind her parents along the fabled stretch of Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center to Central Park. It was almost nine o’clock. The summer sun had finally set, and both couples enjoyed window shopping and people watching, walking off their heavy dinner.

  “Why do you sound so surprised?” he asked. “I didn’t think he was so bad. Not at all, actually.”

  Ethan and Mira stopped so she could admire a gorgeous diamond collar necklace in one of Saks’ tantalizing window displays. Emanuela took advantage of her parents’ distraction and turned into Finn’s embrace.

  “Because I am,” she murmured into his neck. “My father usually has no less than a hundred questions for anyone I introduce. Even if they’re answered to his satisfaction, he still might not like you.”

  He pulled her away from him by her waist to look at her. “I don’t know exactly what sold him, Emmi. All I did was speak to him man-to-man. It wasn’t an interrogation. It was a conversation. Maybe you succeeded in scaring the shit out of the others and he could smell their fear,” he said, feigning horror.

&n
bsp; She smacked him in the chest. “Fine, don’t tell me.”

  He pulled her back to him and brought his face to hers. “I will, when it’s the right time.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” He pressed a lingering kiss to her lips to seal the deal.

  A very deliberate throat clearing broke the pair apart, and they looked up to see her parents eyeing them with amused interest from just a few feet away. Emanuela’s cheeks heated at the surreptitious, “Mmhmmm” coming from Mira’s lips, and Finn could only chuckle.

  “I think it’s safe to say she’ll no longer be condemning our public displays,” Ethan said.

  “Oh my God,” Emanuela groaned. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

  “Let’s,” Mira said, taking Finn by his arm. “But I’m stealing your walking partner for a while.”

  ****

  They made their way onto Forty-Seventh Street in the diamond district. Emanuela and Ethan were half a block ahead, and Finn slowed his pace to match Mira’s. They’d been chatting amongst themselves the last twenty minutes.

  “I was sorry to hear about your parents,” she said. “Do you think the loss of your mother…forced you to grow up before you were ready?” She looked up ahead at Emanuela. “When I was at my worst, she was just a teenager, so I wonder sometimes if she felt cheated of some of her childhood.”

  Finn understood. “It’s one of the things Emmi and I have in common that still amazes me. I’m not sure we grew up faster, but we were certainly less naïve than many of our peers. I think that’s one of my favorite things about her. She has your worldly wisdom.”

  Mira smiled. “I think you’ve done a remarkable job becoming the man you are in spite of all the setbacks you’ve had. I can see why my baby loves you.”

  They checked to see how far Ethan and Emanuela had gotten when something in a window display caught Finn’s eye.

  “That’s lovely,” Mira said.

  “I don’t know much about this stuff,” he said. “But this looks like her. Understated and elegant—kind of like you.”

  Mira gasped. “Kind of?”

  “A lot like you,” he said with a boyish grin.

  “Hurry up, you two!” Emanuela’s voice rang out from just down the street. “We want gelato from Dad’s favorite place on Fifth.”

  His heart slammed in his chest. “Jesus,” he said, looking at Mira. “Where’d they come from?”

  “They always did have the best timing.” She took one last lingering look at the display window before calling out to Ethan. “That place is a hike and my feet are starting to hurt.”

  “It’s fine,” Emanuela said, grinning up at Finn. “Just do the thing.”

  “Okay.” He walked the short distance to the curb, stepped into the street and held out his hand.

  A yellow cab pulled up moments later and Emanuela smirked. “Shall we?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  One Month Later

  “Hey you,” Emanuela answered her cell. “How’s the world tour going?”

  Finn and Simon had begun making their scheduled appearances at the top ten engineering universities in the country, and Emanuela and Finn had become experts at phone tag.

  “So far, so good!” he said. “We’re finishing up the West Coast leg. Cal Tech tomorrow, and then we shoot for your side of the country in a few days.”

  “It’s so exciting! I watched your presentation at Berkeley last night. I thought Simon was very compelling.”

  “Simon?”

  “He’s such a great public speaker, really knows how to capture his audience. There’s something sweet about his mad scientist persona,” she said, rambling on without mercy.

  Finn groaned.

  She snickered. “I’m sure you were very good too, but I was a little too distracted by how good you looked to really pay attention to what you were saying.”

  “I’m going on the record as being outraged about your treating me like a piece of meat, Emmi. Off the record, I’ll keep in mind from now on that, while I’m trying to inspire the masses, you’re out there undressing me with your eyes.”

  “Shamelessly, I’m afraid.” She reached for a magazine on her desk. “Especially now that you’re a superstar. World tours, magazine covers—”

  “That’s out already?”

  “Mmhmmm.” She looked at Finn and Simon on the cover of Popular Mechanics Magazine. They were provocatively styled in white lab coats opened over designer duds. They wore skinny ties and slicked-back hair, standing with their feet apart and arms folded. Their expressions were fixed like James Bond, sexy and stony. Most of the left leg of Finn’s tuxedo pants was deliberately torn off, exposing the fine line on his thigh where the smart limb’s “skin” met his own. It was a stunning image and Emanuela couldn’t stop staring at it.

  “Wow, that was fast,” Finn said. “Feels like we just shot that.”

  “Their offices aren’t far from here. You two should get a copy in the next week or so. It’s really something else.”

  There was a pause.

  “I miss you, Emmi.”

  “I miss you too. If there was anything else keeping you from me, I’d be jealous.” She smiled down at the cover again. “But since you’re off cavorting with hundreds of people instead of just one, I’ll let it slide.”

  “Oh, well, I appreciate that.”

  ****

  “Miss Monroe?” Lydia poked her head into Emanuela’s office half an hour later. “Mr. Hurst would like to see you.”

  Emanuela pursed her lips. Philip usually called her himself or stopped by her office if he needed something. “Did he say what about?”

  “No, he just asked me to tell you to stop by his office as soon as you get a chance.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Lids.”

  She saved her work, locked her computer, and headed to Philip’s office. Things seemed to be returning to some semblance of normal between them. Their old camaraderie wasn’t completely restored, but being in each other’s company was feeling more comfortable. He looked directly at her more instead of somewhere off to the side when he spoke. They were back in sync, delegating to each other during meetings as seamlessly as they’d always done. She released a soft breath and knocked on his open office door.

  “Come on in, Em,” he said, after looking up at her briefly. “Have a seat.”

  She smiled and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. When he didn’t say anything after a few seconds, she spoke up. “Lydia said you wanted to see me. Is everything okay?”

  He finished scribbling some notes, then sat back to look at her a moment, his face expressionless. “How long have you been seeing Doctor Kane?”

  Her face fell. “Excuse me?”

  “Something seemed off about you two during our meeting,” he said in a measured tone. “There was this energy—tension.” He motioned a hand in the air for emphasis, getting up from his chair and rounding his desk to sit at its edge in front of her. “I suspected you were uncomfortable with him, and made a mental note to ask if he’d been bothering you. But as the meeting went on, I began to wonder if it was something else entirely.”

  Emanuela quickly adjusted her initial look of surprise, carefully replacing it with her stoic mask, but remained silent.

  “You don’t deny it,” he said.

  “Why do I need to deny anything? Am I on trial?”

  “Of course not.” He sighed, getting up to pace in front of the large windows behind his desk. He turned his back to her and looked out at the city below, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I couldn’t be sure of what I was picking up on, so I had Andy in IT check him out.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You violated his privacy? Philip!”

  He turned to look at her. “I had access to his hard drive, but I kept the investigation to a minimum. I could have discovered more than I did.”

  “So I should commend you then? For keeping your violation of his privacy to his personal email account?”


  “There was no violation. I have a right to monitor emails as I see fit, based on the privacy agreement he signed. You know that, Emanuela.”

  Ah, the fine print. It never bothered her before because it never affected her directly. It was just part of the job. Nothing personal. Except that it was very personal.

  “As you see fit,” Emanuela said. She nodded rapidly in disbelief, her body and mind at odds with what she was hearing, and released a heavy sigh. She was obviously no longer talking to her boss, and questioned whether she was talking to her friend. “Why didn’t you just ask me? As long as we’ve known each other—as close as we’ve been—you felt you had to go behind my back?”

  He stared at her for a pregnant moment. “As a friend?”

  “As a friend.” She spat the word as though it burned her tongue before it passed from her lips.

  Philip at least looked ashamed. “I sensed something was going on with you two during the meeting. He was watching you like a hawk—You looked pretty damned uncomfortable, Em. And I don’t know, a switch went off. I couldn’t tell from your interactions whether it was mutual or one-sided. Given the way things between us had changed, it would have put you in an awkward spot to bring it up in conversation. When I saw the truth in those emails—”

  He looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then back at her. “I was so looking forward to meeting him,” he said, not actually saying Finn’s name. “A man I had so much admiration for came out of nowhere and—”

  “It’s not a contest,” Emanuela said. “I’m not a prize.”

  He threw his hands up. “You’re right, Em. And I’m sorry, but I cannot unlearn the information I’ve obtained. The fact of the matter is that your boyfr—Doctor Kane’s—dealings could reflect poorly on this firm.”

  “His dealings?” She felt her stomach drop, immediately registering what Philip was referring to. “He isn’t selling these things from the trunk of his car, Philip! He’s producing safe medical devices and giving them to people in need! Children!” She shot to her feet then, too wound up to remain seated.

  “So why has he gone to such lengths to keep his charitable work from being discovered?” he asked. “And why have you never mentioned it, Em? Surely if it’s such a selfless cause, there should be no reason for the secrecy.”