“That sounds good to me,” I tell him. “More than good.”
“We’re here,” Cole announces from the front seat. He parks the car, but keeps it running, talking to a man outside who trades places with him in the driver’s seat as we exit the back.
When I see where we are, I’m confused. He wasn’t kidding. We really are going on a picnic. He’s brought me to Central Park. I look down at my clothes again. “Uh . . .”
Chad holds his hand out to me. “Trust me, Mallory.”
I take his hand and we follow Cole through the winding sidewalks of the park. I’m glad it hasn’t snowed recently or I’d be sloshing through it in my brand new heels. It’s already dark out. That’s probably the only reason why Chad hasn’t been mobbed yet.
We don’t walk far, maybe a few blocks, when we come upon a large tent. It’s completely enclosed on all four sides, its white fabric walls illuminated from the inside. A beautiful woman sees us coming and hurries to carry a few more items inside the tent. She emerges a minute later and greets us. “Mr. Stone, nice to see you again. Everything has been set up as requested.” She hands him her card, pointing to the phone number on it. “If you need anything, I have a team waiting in the catering van just outside the park. Just text me at this number. Anything you need.”
I take a peek at the card. It reads: Mitchell’s NYC Catering.
“Thanks, Skylar. My friends call me Chad.” He motions to me. “And this is Mallory Schaffer.”
Skylar shakes my hand. “It’s really nice to meet you. Charlie told me all about you.” She hands me one of her cards as well. “We do girls’ night a few times a month and it would be great if you’d join us. Give me a call sometime.”
“Uh, okay. Thanks.” I slip her card in my purse. Does Chad know everyone in this city?
As she walks away, Chad explains, “Skylar is Piper’s sister. You remember Piper Mitchell from Ethan’s dinner? Skylar manages Mitchell’s. Best restaurant in the city. I met her last fall and ever since, I haven’t missed a chance to dine there when I’m in town. She insisted on being here herself instead of appointing one of her catering managers. They have another sister, too, Baylor. Charlie practically grew up with them. Great bunch of girls. You should go to girls’ night. Take Melissa.”
I shrug. It would be nice to get to know some of the people in Chad’s life. “Maybe I will.”
Cole sets up outside the front of the tent, putting a large thermos of coffee on a table next to his chair.
Chad holds the fabric door for me and I walk through, surprised to be met with a wave of heat. I look around and see what he’s done. There are a few of those tall propane heaters scattered throughout the tent enclosure. At one end of the tent there is a couch and coffee table with a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket. In the center, a well-appointed dining table for two. Strings of white lights like tiny Christmas lights line the entire ceiling, and ornate candles illuminate the dining and coffee tables. Off to the far end, there is what appears to be a smaller tent-within-a-tent. I question him with my eyes.
“Port-o-potty,” he says. “Damn nice one. Toilet flushes and everything, you should check it out.”
I can’t help myself, I walk over and peek into it. It’s nicer than my bathroom at home. I laugh at the absurdness of it all. I feel like I’ve walked into someone else’s life. Part of me wants to chastise him for spending so much money, but I know it’s not just for me. It’s for him, too. To keep what we have private. At least for now.
“Can I interest you in a drink?” Chad asks, motioning to the couch.
It’s so warm in here, I start to remove my coat on the way and he helps me, hanging it on a coat stand by the door. Who thinks of stuff like that? A coat rack inside a tent with a port-o-potty in the middle of Central Park?
He pours me a full glass of bubbly, but only a half for himself. He raises his glass. “To new beginnings.”
I smile, thinking of how my life may never be the same. I hope it won’t anyway. I hope I’ll never have to live another day without him in it. “To new beginnings,” I say, clinking my glass to his as one side of his mouth turns up in a sexy smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Chad
It’s a good thing we’re in the middle of Central Park where Cole or Skylar could walk in at any minute, because the way she looks in that dress, if we were at her house—or Ethan’s—all bets would be off.
Those legs. She’s wearing pale black stockings and when I reach my hand over to hold hers, placing them to rest on her thigh, I swear I can feel the outline of a garter through the fabric of her dress. Fuuuuck me. She’s wearing garter belts.
I try to think of something to get rid of my rising problem. “I’m going to need you to clear something up for me,” I say. “I need to know why you and Julian didn’t work out.”
She looks around the room, stalling like she’s pondering what or how much to tell me.
“Come on, Mal. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m leaving you here with him—again. I know you are close and, yeah, it makes me jealous as hell, but I’ll deal with it because I have to trust you as I’m asking you to trust me. But I need to know. You said you wanted different things. What does that mean exactly?”
She looks down at our entwined hands and nods. She blows out a deep sigh. “It means he wanted to screw his philosophy TA because I wouldn’t sleep with him, and it means I wanted to kill him because I wasn’t exactly okay with that.”
“Oh, shit, Mal. He cheated on you?” Warring emotions are raging through my head. Part of me wants to beat him bloody for hurting her. The other part is happy he was such a douche and she ended things. “That’s a pretty low blow. How is it you’re still friends?”
“It took a while,” she says. “I didn’t see him for three years after we broke up. But it wasn’t hard to avoid him, he was away at Penn State.”
“You said you started dating after your mom died. So you were a junior and he was a senior?”
“Yeah. It was right before summer break at the end of my junior year when we got together. But as soon as he went away to college, everything changed. We never should have dated. We were much better as friends.”
“Why didn’t he go to Berkeley like we always said?”
She gives me a sad smile. “Why didn’t you?”
“Right,” I say. “Things change. So how did you end up friends again?”
“Funny story, actually. Or maybe ironic,” she says. “Melissa and I were out at a club. She went up to the bar to get us some drinks. She came back mooning over some guy she met there who had just grabbed her out of nowhere and kissed her. Right there in the middle of the bar, some guy kissed a complete stranger. She invited him and his friends to sit with us. I about died when I saw it was Julian. He’d just graduated and was back in town interviewing for jobs. Apparently, he’d just gotten a great offer at Walters and Leeman and he was so excited, he started kissing random girls.” She smiles and I’m glad she can think about that time without being upset. “Once Mel realized who he was, she quit salivating over him. And it didn’t take long to realize we could still be friends; that we should have never tried to be anything more. That was three years ago.”
Twice now she’s said something that resonates with me. “That’s not how you think of us, is it? That we’re better as friends?”
“I’ve thought about that a lot over the past week,” she admits. “Back then, when it was the three of us, and even when Julian was in Brazil that summer and it was just you and me—I think it would have been a mistake. I think we might have ruined a great friendship. But now, well, we have all this distance. Nine years of it. There’s nothing to ruin. I mean, yes, I want to be your friend again, but I think there’s a chance we could be good at more now.”
A triumphant smile travels up my face. “I think there’s a hell of a lot more than just a chance. I’m betting on it being a sure thing. Do you know how difficult it was for me to keep my hands off you back then? I was
a horny teenager and you were this beautiful, smart, kind girl who knew everything about me. I basically walked around with a perpetual hard-on because of you.”
She almost spits out her champagne, putting a hand over her mouth as she swallows it. “You did not,” she says.
“It’s true. And some things never change.” I wink at her.
Her eyes quickly scan my lap and then she blushes when she sees I’ve caught her looking.
“Do you remember all those times we spent in your treehouse?” I ask.
She nods. “That was a lot of fun. I think about those times often.”
“My fantasies were pretty much centered around you and that treehouse and what I would do to you on the sleeping bag you kept up there.”
“Oh, my God, really?” she asks, her face taking on an even deeper shade of red than before.
“I spent a lot of time in my bathroom those days.” I laugh as she drains her glass and holds it out for more. I fill it and then I get up off the couch, holding my hand out to her. “We’d better eat before the food gets too cold. They’ve got warmers on it, but still.”
I put my hand on the small of her back as I walk her across the room. Heat radiates between us through the thin material of her dress. Something else radiates as well. Desire? Passion? Whatever the hell it is, I haven’t felt it in nine years. That’s not true, I haven’t felt it ever. Not like this. I hold out the chair for her and then I serve her the salad from the cooler. She smiles up at me. “I think I like this, you serving me. Must be a novelty for you, huh?”
“I don’t have servants, Mal. I hate the fact that I have to be driven around like a little kid, but sometimes it’s a necessity of the job. Maybe there was a time when I thought people should serve me, but I was a stupid prick. Not anymore. Never again.”
“Speaking of Cole. Are you going to hire him full-time?” she asks, her eyes filled with hope.
I nod. “Already did. Offered him the job yesterday. Damned if I’m not going to have security around when you are with me. You are my top priority, Mal. I mean that.”
We finish our salads and I get the main dish out from the propane warmer. It’s some kind of chicken and pasta with asparagus. I pretty much let Skylar set the menu. I’m not too picky when it comes to food.
“This looks delicious,” Mallory says when I put it down on the table. She closes her eyes and takes in the aroma of the dish in front of her.
God that’s sexy. It’s the same thing she did to me in the car when I leaned over to put her seatbelt on. Makes me a bit jealous of her dinner. “I’ve never had a bad meal at Mitchell’s,” I tell her. “You should go there sometime.”
She takes a bite of her food, rolling her eyes toward the heavens at the taste of it. “Oh, wow,” she says around her food. “I totally will.”
My pocket vibrates twice in quick succession, it’s the special code alerting me to a text from Megan. I recently set Mal up with her own special code so I don’t miss a text from her either. Damn. If it were anyone else, I would ignore it. But it’s Megan. I have to check it.
I pull my phone from my pocket and nod to it. “Sorry,” I say. “I just need to answer this text. I’ll just be a second.” I tap out a response to Megan and send it.
“It’s okay,” Mallory says, politely. “Is it your manager?”
Shit. Why did she have to ask? I don’t want to lie to her.
“No,” I say, tapping out another quick text. “It’s a friend from L.A.” I put away my phone. “There, all done. No more interruptions.”
I can tell she’s disappointed by my non-explanation. But Mal wouldn’t understand. And I can’t risk ruining our first date. I quickly change the subject. “Save room for dessert,” I say. “It’s your favorite.” Then I frown. “Or at least it was.”
“You had them make me dirt cake?” she asks, eyes wide in surprise.
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t have them make it,” I tell her. “I did.”
She freezes, her fork halfway to her mouth. “You made dirt cake for me?”
I smile with pride. “Of course I did. I told you, I’m here to serve.”
She laughs. “I can see it now,” she says. “The famous Thad Stone crushing up Oreos and mixing chocolate pudding and whip cream. Wait . . . you didn’t get gummy worms did you?”
“Hell yes, I got gummy worms. What kind of dirt cake doesn’t have gummy worms?”
She puts her utensils down on her plate, ending her meal that was only half eaten. “Who needs this drivel when we can have some of that? Bring it on.”
Now I’m laughing with her. I clear our plates and dive back into the cooler to bring out the individual portions of dirt cake I made earlier today.
“Oh, my God!” she squeals. “You even put them in miniature flower pots. I love it! Thank you, Chad.”
Her smile. This girl. Shit, I’ll make her dirt cake every damn day if it makes her this happy.
After our bellies are full, we move back to the couch and I turn on some music from my phone.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?” she asks.
I know what she’s asking just by looking into her eyes. “You want to know where we go from here. What happens next, right?”
She nods. “I know you have a lot of things on your plate and that my job seems insignificant in comparison, but I have commitments too.”
“Of course you do,” I say. “I wouldn’t ask you to give those up.”
“I pretty much have to be here Monday through Friday every week,” she explains. “Except summer, but that’s a long way off. How are we going to have time to see each other?”
“We’ll make the time,” I tell her. “I’ll make the time.” I pick up my phone and pull up my calendar. “Let’s schedule something right now so we know what’s next. So we have something to look forward to.”
She smiles, getting her phone out as well. She pages through her mostly blank calendar as I peek over her shoulder. She tosses her phone back into her purse, laughing. “Who am I kidding,” she says. “My life is boring as hell.”
I put my hand up on the back of her neck. “You are anything but boring, Mal. I promise you that.” I pull her face towards mine and rest our foreheads together. Her lips are close, so close I can almost smell the lip gloss she had on earlier. I want to taste those strawberry lips. I want to feel her tongue with mine. I want to do all that and more. But the build-up is so much fun, so I release her neck and pull away. I swear I can hear a faint mewl down in her throat and I have to hold back my chuckle.
I turn my attention back to my phone. “I’ll be in Vancouver for a week on a press junket and then I have to go to L.A. for the Academy Awards ceremony. I might be able to squeeze in a weekend after that, but then I have to be back in L.A. for some pre-production meetings for the Defcon sequel. We start shooting this summer.”
Mallory is so quiet I have to look up from my phone to see why. She takes a deep breath and blows it out. “Sorry,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief. “I think I’ve finally been hit with the enormity of all this. I mean, Academy Awards ceremony? Pre-production meetings? Shooting a film? You’re a movie star, Chad. Are you sure we can even make this work? I mean, I’m just a teacher.”
“Would you please quit saying that? Being a teacher is what you do, it’s who you are. I happen to love that it’s who you are. And yes, we can make this work. So get your calendar back out and pencil me in for two weeks from Friday.”
She pulls up her calendar again and smiles. “Oh, that’s a long weekend. I have that Friday off.”
“Great, then I’ll come Thursday.” I add it to my calendar and then type out a text.
She raises a brow at me. “Friend in L.A. again?”
Shit. She was bothered by that. “I just texted my travel agent. Told her to fly me in that Thursday afternoon until Sunday night. You okay with that?”
“You can do it just like that?” she asks. “Don’t you have to clear it with your manager or Kendra
or somebody?”
I laugh. “I know it might not seem like it sometimes, but they work for me, not the other way around as Paul would have everyone think.”
She studies me for a minute. “You’re not actually winning an Oscar, are you?”
I laugh at the mention of it. “Not even close.”
“I bet you will for Defcon One,” she says. “It was a great movie. You were stunning. I was thoroughly impressed.”
I beam with pride at her compliment. “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you. But no, I won’t win for that. Apocalyptic movies rarely get nominated for Oscars.”
“Oh, well they should,” she says.
I grab her phone from her and block out all three days with my name. She looks at it and smiles. Then she bites her lip. Damn, if I only knew what she was thinking right this second. Because if it’s the same thing I’m thinking, that weekend might just turn out to be the best fucking weekend of my life. Pun intended.
Mallory falls asleep on me in the car on the way home. I guess the problem with me not drinking much is that I tend to give others too much to make up the difference. I wrap my arm around her and let her head sink into the crook of my neck. I inhale the scent of her hair, memorizing it so I can remember it later when she’s not with me. I know she thinks that because I’m rich and make movies and have fans that she’s not enough for me. She couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only is she enough, she’s the only.
“Wake up, baby; you’re home.” I contemplate carrying her up to her house, but I know if I did—if I had her in my arms that way, I wouldn’t be able to let her go. But she’s had too much to drink. I won’t be the guy who takes advantage.
“Sorry,” she says, embarrassed that she dozed off. “I didn’t mean to ruin our last few minutes together.”
I squeeze her hand. “Are you kidding? I’ve been wanting you to sleep with me for years.”
Stone Promises (A Stone Brothers Novel) Page 14
