Manhattan Mogul: A New York City Romance

by Tara Leigh

  And there was no Driver’s License in her wallet, which isn’t uncommon in a city where owning a car is outrageously expensive, and public transportation can take you anywhere you need to go. But if I had an address, I might be able to work my way toward her name. Her real name.

  Staring at the closed bathroom door, I feel a frown pushing onto my face, digging a groove between my eyebrows. “You didn’t fall from the damned sky,” I whisper gruffly.

  The irony of my statement hits me a moment later. Sometimes things do indeed fall out of the sky.

  They did on September 11th, 2001, forever dividing my life into Before and After.

  I can barely remember Before.

  As for After . . . Rage spiraled inside me with every glimpse of the mass grave formerly known as the World Trade Center, my lungs chafing at the stench of sulphur and rot. Cutting school and starting fights with anyone willing to hit me back, I was well on my way to getting packed off to juvenile hall. Until a barrel-chested man with a buzz cut and a nose that had been broken so many times it was just a misshapen lump in the center of his face spotted me and a neighborhood kid getting into it right outside his boxing gym and shoved us in a ring together.

  I earned my first win that day, but what I really gained was an outlet for the unwieldy emotions clouding my judgment.

  Reggie’s gym smelled of sweat and mildew, and was filled with the metallic clank of weights, the slap of gloved hands hitting sweat-slick skin and heavy bags, and the rhythmic whir of leather jump ropes kissing a cold cement floor. It was a welcome contrast to the apartment I shared with my parents and younger brother. Without Scotty, the cramped rooms were too quiet, our combined grief too oppressive.

  Reggie took pity on me, letting me train in return for sweeping floors, cleaning bathrooms, and washing wraps. I trained with amateurs, then with the pros. There was one other rule, though. Fighting was a disciplined sport, and he believed that a dull mind could never produce a strong fighter. To be welcome in his gym, I had to do well in school. Not necessarily perfect grades, just “my best.” For a kid who never put much effort into school work, barely cracking a book and content with simply passing from year to year, no one was more surprised than me when a little bit of effort resulted in straight A’s.

  Confining my fighting to the boxing ring, I stayed out of trouble and off the streets. And I discovered that I enjoyed the academic rigor of my coursework just as much as my time in the gym.

  My efforts led to a college scholarship. Internships. Job offers. An entire world of possibilities I’d never considered.

  I began my career in a building right across the street from the massive debris field that was once the World Trade Center. Intense and driven, with a head for numbers and a heart that was little more than a desiccated fossil pulsing in my chest, I was the ideal employee. Fury fueled grueling eighty-, ninety-, one-hundred-hour work weeks, my star rising with each floor of the Freedom Tower.

  Eventually, I decided to start my own company. My net worth is now valued in the hundreds of millions.

  And yet, over the years, I’ve seen first-hand how easily the trappings of success, of life itself, can be snatched away in an instant. Most days, I feel like I’m fighting an enemy whose name I’ll never know.

  Oh, I know the names of the hijackers who plowed into the World Trade Center killing my older brother. And the name of the douchebag who committed arson for a few thousand in insurance money, killing my younger brother. I know every detail of why and how my brothers died.

  But I will never understand. I will never accept.

  Ever.

  Closure is a luxury that remains so far beyond my reach I doubt I’ll ever get there. But I attended the gut-wrenching memorial service this morning, just as I’ve done every year since 2002. And afterward, I headed directly to the gym for a three-hour workout, including a brutal sparring session.

  And now I’m back in my penthouse, staring at a damn closed door.

  Who are you, Nixie Hyde?

  I shouldn’t care. But I do.

  God help me, I do.

  I’m completely out of my element, even though I’m standing in the middle of my own damn bedroom. I prefer women who want the same things I want, women who enjoy a fun night here and there but don’t expect any more from me than a series of mind-blowing orgasms. Which I deliver. Women throw themselves at me on a regular basis, and I enjoy playing with them. I appreciate the softness of their bodies and the lushness of their curves. I’m not immune to their full lips and husky laughs. But they’re interchangeable. Easily forgettable.

  My obligations are severed the moment I leave that hotel room and re-enter my own world, where my priorities are simple, straightforward, and set in stone.

  Save a life and you are responsible for it.

  Nixie Hyde, or whoever she really is, has baggage.

  And I’m carrying a double-wide load of my own. I can’t be responsible for anyone else.

  Not even a flame-haired art student hiding behind a fake name . . .

  . . . With hair the color of cognac, eyes like flames, and a dusting of pale gold freckles across the bridge of her nose that remind me of stars. Her very own constellation.

  I’m not starstruck. Not even a little.

  I can’t be.

  Nixie

  As I push into the bathroom, my shuddering sigh of relief catches in the back of my throat. Because all I see . . . is me.

  Silver octagonal tiles cover the walls, each about three inches from end to end, so shiny they might as well be mirrors. Everywhere I look, my eyes bounce off my own reflection. Hundreds of them. My face is divided into fragments. Mouth. Eye. Nose. Ear. Each individual component is magnified, multiplied. The crease between my brows. The tremble of my lower lip. The flutter of my lashes. The pulsing vein at my temple. The pallor of my skin that makes my freckles stand out in sharp relief.

  I am an anatomical catalogue. Signs of stress on the human face.

  Above the marble-topped, double-sink vanity, the tiles give way to a silver-framed mirror at least six feet wide. Seeing my whole face is less unsettling than the parts, and I stare hard at myself.

  Don’t let this guy get inside your head. It’s enough of a mess already.

  Somehow, I need to get through the next few hours. With any luck, I’ll be sleeping for most of them. And after that, I’ll never see Nash again.

  My reflection frowns at the thought and I want to reach through the mirror and shake the woman within. Wrong emotion. You should be happy, or at least relieved.

  Happy. Like I’d know what that looks like.

  I force myself to relax, to look less worried. Less weary. Less . . . hunted. The smile I force onto my lips only manages to tremble there for a minute, looking as fake as it is. As fake as the name on my ID.

  Nixie Hyde.

  Hyde is perhaps a little too on-the-nose. But it was appropriate, I couldn’t resist borrowing it. Because that’s exactly what I’m doing. Hiding.

  Nixie, at least, is somewhat related to the truth. A blend of Noelle (my real name) and Pixie, the nickname my parents gave me as a baby that eventually became Nixie.

  Of course, it’s been years—so many years—since I heard my mother whisper Oh, Nixie as she soothed a Band-Aid over a scraped knee. Since my father exclaimed Go, Nixie! as he beamed at me from the bottom of the slide at our neighborhood playground.

  What I wouldn’t give to hear them say it one last time.

  Becoming Nixie again won’t bring them back. My parents are gone, lost to me forever.

  But, hopefully, it will keep me from being found.

  The painkiller has kicked in, and so I stand up straight, square my shoulders and try again. I soften my eyes a little, tilting my head to the side so that a wisp of hair falls forward and curls beneath my jaw. This time the composed, nonchalant expression drops over my face gracefully, like a fallen leaf. There. That’s it. Pretty, but not interesting. The face of a girl who wouldn’t know a secret if sh
e stepped on it. A face a guy like Nash should look past.

  But, will he?

  Nash eyes are not just pretty (too pretty, if you ask me), they are also disconcertingly perceptive.

  Which is a problem.

  Once again, I curse myself for letting my guard down. I’ve spent months looking over my shoulder—I should have known better than to be so stupid.

  A knock on the door pulls me out of my reverie. “Are you okay?”

  Is that genuine concern in Nash’s voice, or is he worried I’m snooping through his cabinets?

  “Yeah, fine.” I turn off the water and dry my hands.

  Nash’s eyes drag over my body as I open the door, faltering slightly where the hem of his shirt meets my bare thighs. His mouth is tight, though, keeping his thoughts to himself as he wraps his arm around me. An unwelcome thrill moves through me at his touch and I avert my eyes. Maybe it’s the meds, but feigning disinterest in this man isn’t coming easy.

  “Come on, let me help you back to bed.”

  After twenty feet that feels like a mile, I slip back beneath the sheets and pull his duvet up to my chin, my skin still tingling from our contact.

  Nash crosses to the chair in the corner, exhaling as he drops into the cushions, and turns the light off.

  “Are you really going to sit there all night?” I ask, my voice skating hoarsely through my dry throat.

  “There’s only a few hours left before morning.”

  Only a few hours . . . “September 12th,” I murmur, letting the news sink in, take root. Another three hundred and sixty four days until my most hated day of the year comes around again.

  I didn’t always feel this way. Until 2001, September 11th was my favorite day. My birthday.

  But that year, on that day, my world was torn apart.

  My parents died.

  And I became an orphan.

  As the only child to lose both her parents in the deadliest terrorist attack in history of the United States, the newspapers even gave me a catchy nickname, like they do for serial killers. Noelle Kennedy, the Orphan of 9/11.

  “That’s generally the way the calendar works.” The words themselves are snarky, but the way he says them are not. Nash’s tone is soft, maybe even a little sad. I wish I knew him well enough to ask why.

  Even though I keep the question to himself, his voice pools in my ear like warm honey, slipping inside, trickling down deep. Warming me. He has the kind of voice that should record audiobooks, or host podcasts. A voice I could listen to for hours. But voices like his—they shouldn’t belong to men who look like Nash. It simply isn’t fair. His voice should belong to a sweaty, overweight man with stubby limbs and hairy ears. Like a consolation prize for being dealt a bad hand. This guy . . . What’s the best hand in poker? Full House? Royal Flush? Four of a Kind? Nash is all of them, combined. He doesn’t need to sound as good as he looks, too.

  I’m grateful for the darkness, shielding my thoughts from view. Nash must get an ego boost every time he looks in a mirror, he definitely doesn’t need one from me.

  But I want to hear his voice again. “Nash?”

  “Yes?”

  “How did you know the guys following me were up to no good?”

  There’s a pause, filled with the kind of silence I’ve never actually heard in Manhattan. The city is always loud, no matter the hour. Glass windows are no match for the screech of car tires on asphalt, the shriek of horns at pedestrians who tempt fate on every street corner, the constant hum and pulse of an overpopulated urban jungle. In Nash luxurious apartment, the hum comes from the quiet whoosh of filtered air and the only pulse I hear is my own, knocking against my ribs.

  Finally, he says, “Instinct. Proximity, maybe.”

  “Are your . . . instincts always so spot-on?”

  “Usually.”

  I think for a moment, curious. “Have they always been?” What I really want to know is something Nash can’t answer. What the hell happened to my instincts? How could I have been so wrong? Not about the guys in the alley— I really had no idea I was being followed.

  I was distracted, to say the least. After spending the morning at the memorial service, I stayed to tour the museum. The memorial service was intense, as it is every year, but the museum is downright agonizing. The Survivor Stairs. The Survivor Tree. And from all those who didn’t survive, so many tiny details of life on display—prescription bottles, wallets, jewelry.

  It was late in the afternoon by the time I walked along the perimeter of the reflecting pools, wondering how many it would take to hold all the tears that have been shed for the men and women whose names are engraved on the seventy-six bronze plaques attached to the wall’s parapets. The sight of my own parents’ names made the sadness in my soul expand exponentially further, the pressure building until the need to run, to flee, to forget, was so overwhelming I had no choice.

  I ran.

  Away from the plaques and the parapets and the reflecting pools.

  Away from St. Paul’s Chapel, also known as The Little Chapel That Stood, because it emerged from 9/11 without even a broken window. Usually I find solace in that, but today the thick carved columns, ornate marble friezes, and solid brick facade made me want to scream. No witness to a tragedy that destroyed so many lives should escape unscathed.

  I certainly hadn’t.

  And in my rush to get to the subway, my eyes blurry from tears, I got lost. Unlike the organized grid system of midtown, the lower tip of Manhattan is filled with short, narrow streets haphazardly crossing much longer, wider ones. Modern steel skyscrapers tower majestically beside dilapidated three-story relics of a different age, and intermittent alleys are the unavoidable byproduct of three centuries of uneven urban development. They’re also a shortcut when navigating crowded sidewalks.

  Wanting desperately to get back to a space where I could break down in private, I ducked into the alley without a second thought, not hearing the footsteps behind me.

  “I don’t know,” Nash says. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “You’re lucky,” I whisper. “I bet it saves you a lot of trouble.” I’m talking more to myself than to Nash, and thinking about another man entirely. A man I thought I’d known. A man I once loved.

  But apparently I didn’t know him as well as I thought.

  And he didn’t love me at all.

  The pain meds have loosened something inside of me, the filter I use to shield the truth. Or maybe it’s just this dark, quiet room that’s done it. It feels like I’m speaking into a yawning black void.

  But I’m not. Nash is listening to every word. “What kind of trouble are you in, Nixie?”

  “I’m not—” I try to backtrack. “I just mean, in general.”

  “Ah. You’re asking for a friend.”

  Just as it’s better to laugh than to cry, I’d rather be mad than sad. “You know what, spare me your sarcasm.”

  “Spare me your lies,” he shoots back.

  “I’m not lying.” Of course, I’m lying.

  “Well, it sure looked like something was chasing you into that alley.”

  “Those two guys.”

  “You don’t want to tell me—fine. But don’t insult my intelligence. I know what I saw. You—”

  I interrupt, twitching at the derision that’s crept into his voice. “You know, for someone I’ve never met, you were paying pretty close attention to me.”

  A frightening possibility bursts into my brain and I jerk upright, ignoring the sizzle of pain that breaks through the veil of drugs. I kick my legs out from under the covers. “Oh my god—is this some kind of trap? Did he send you? Does he know I’m here?”

  Nash is out of his chair and across the room in a flash, his hand sliding across my bare thigh. Stopping when his fingertips brush against lace. “Who?” he barks.

  Shock spirals up from deep in my stomach, mixing with something I haven’t felt much of in at least a year. Desire.

  Not until tonight, anyway. Nash seem
s to have that effect on me.

  But it’s just a spark, and it’s snuffed out by the torrent of fear streaming through me. “Are you going to take me back to him?”

  “Take you? Where?” His roar is that of a lion guarding his pride, and I immediately realize my mistake. Nash is not a man who would do another’s bidding.

  When I don’t answer, he asks again. “Nixie, who is he? Who are you hiding from?”

  I struggle to clear my head. Nash’s thumb, sweeping over my hipbone and sending goose bumps racing across my skin, isn’t helping. “No—nowhere. It’s just . . . It’s been a really long day. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “I think you know exactly what you’re saying. And if you’d just finish saying it, I could help you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “Didn’t stop me before.”

  “Well, I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.”

  “Have it your way.” He expels an exasperated huff and backs away from me. His footsteps fall softly on the rug, then stop. There’s a quiet rustle as he sits back down. I can feel him stewing from twenty feet away. “For the record, this isn’t a trap. I’m not taking you anywhere, or to anyone.”

  A few minutes pass before I murmur, “Nash?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “What?”

  “Come after me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sleep is pulling at me, but I hold on tight. Not yet. “Yes, you do.”

  “Maybe I’m just a sucker for an underdog.”

  I want to laugh, but I’m too tired. “You’re not a sucker for anything.”

  He grunts an acknowledgement, and when he speaks again his tone is heavier. It cuts through the darkness with ease. “If you’re going to keep asking me questions, I’m going to expect some answers out of you too.”

  The edge of his voice drags along my spine, and I shiver. If I tell the truth, he’ll only have more questions. And I’m too tired to keep my lies straight. “Good night, Nash.”