“Great.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulders. “I waited tables at lunch, worked out for a few hours at the gym this afternoon and when I got home there were a couple of guys waiting in the lobby of our building. A couple of really big guys.”
“Oh?”
A white-aproned waiter with a long ponytail interrupted their conversation. “Good evening, my name’s Jimmy. Can I get you two something to drink?”
“I’ll have a glass of merlot,” Nicki said, smiling up at the short thin man with hair as long as hers.
“Coke, please.” Cole didn’t bother looking up.
“I’ll be right back with your drinks.” Jimmy darted off.
“Coke?” Nicki laughed. “Since when do you drink pop after work? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you order anything but alcohol after a tough day on the Gilchrist trading floor.”
“I don’t feel like drinking tonight.” He shouldn’t indulge in anything that would make him vulnerable, even though a good stiff scotch would go a long way toward taking the edge off his nerves and deadening his physical pain. “Tell me about these two big guys waiting for you in the lobby.”
“They weren’t waiting for me, they were waiting for you.”
“What did they look like?” Cole asked, trying to seem unconcerned.
“Like mobsters.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on.”
“I’m not kidding, Cole. They wore flashy suits and lots of gold, and sunglasses even though it was almost dark outside. They wanted to talk to you. I told them you wouldn’t be back for a while, but they said they’d wait anyway. That was around five o’clock. They weren’t in the lobby when I came back down to walk over here. They were polite, but they still gave me a bad feeling. Somehow they knew I lived with you.”
“Did one of them have curly blond hair?” Cole realized that asking in detail about the men’s physical characteristics might set off a warning bell in Nicki’s head, but he had to know. “Almost yellow in color?”
“No, both of them had dark hair.”
Jimmy returned and placed the wine and the Coke down on the table. “Are you two ready to order?” he asked.
“We haven’t even looked at the menu yet,” Cole answered. “Could you give us a few more minutes?”
“Sure.” Jimmy turned and moved off to take an order from a couple at another table.
“Were you expecting a visit from someone with curly blond hair?” Nicki’s voice wavered slightly, as if she were suddenly uneasy.
“No.” Cole picked up his glass, touched it to hers and guzzled half the soft drink in one gulp. He was thirsty as hell.
“Then why were you so specific about one of the men having curly blond hair?” she wanted to know.
“Why are you so full of questions tonight?” Cole spiced his tone with a hint of irritation, hoping she would drop the subject.
“Because I care about you,” she answered gently. “Did the men in the lobby of our building have anything to do with that incident a couple of weeks ago?”
Cole let out a long, slow breath. One night after a brutal day on the floor a few months ago, he and a trader on the corporate bond desk had gone out for a few drinks. The evening had culminated at an underground casino in Brooklyn called the Blue Moon. Cole had always heard rumors that these kinds of gambling establishments existed in New York, but had never been to one. The very private club offered craps, poker and blackjack as well as tuxedo-clad dealers and scantily dressed women who brought free drinks to the gamblers. It resembled an exclusive high-roller room in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, except that it was overtly controlled by the Mafia—controlled by people who would extend credit while you sat at their gaming table, then suddenly cut it off. And if you didn’t repay them as required, they might cut off something other than your credit.
Over the past few months Cole had become a regular at the Blue Moon’s craps tables. Two, sometimes three nights a week he would take a cab across the East River to roll the dice and relieve the stress of a trading floor day full of losses he couldn’t seem to shake. After just one knock the decrepit basement door would creak slowly open and he would step from a seedy Brooklyn street into a world of tacky opulence. Surveillance cameras had tracked his progress down the trash-strewn stairway, and the men at the door were given approval by other men watching screens in the control room to allow Cole immediate entry into the establishment. He was a good customer building up quite a tab.
Two weeks ago the men at the Blue Moon had finally demanded a five-thousand-dollar payment on his hundred-thousand-dollar gambling debt. It was late, and by that hour he had just enough money left in his wallet to pay for a cab ride back to Manhattan. He couldn’t tap an automated teller machine because he had already maxed out his limit for the twenty-four-hour period. And there were only a few dollars left in his lone account anyway. He was living paycheck to paycheck these days.
However, the three large men crowding around him in the back room of the Blue Moon didn’t want to hear excuses. They wanted money, and Nicki was Cole’s only option. He was aware that she frequently kept a good deal of cash in the apartment and could withdraw more from an ATM if she needed it. An hour later she had put together a thousand dollars and made it to Brooklyn. The men in the back room agreed to accept just the thousand dollars, but they made certain Cole understood that he needed to come up with the other four thousand quickly.
Cole had repaid Nicki during the cab ride back to Manhattan by offering to forgo her next month’s rent—exactly one thousand dollars. She had accepted the offer and up until now hadn’t mentioned the incident again. He had been hoping the issue was dead, but obviously he’d been wrong.
“I apologize for all that,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “I really do.”
“It’s okay. I just worry about you.” Her voice was soft and caring. “I always have.”
“I’m fine.”
Nicki heard the code word right away: Cole always said that when the world seemed to be closing in around him. “ ‘Fine’?” She tilted her head subtly forward, as if paying homage to him. “All hail the Wall Builder.” It was her nickname for Cole when he was putting up emotional barriers. “It’s that I-don’t-need-anybody-else Cole Egan showing his face again.”
“Don’t start with me,” he warned good-naturedly. She knew him so well, he suddenly realized. “Today I—” But he interrupted himself before he finished the sentence.
“You what?” She sensed that he had been about to tell her something important. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.” For a moment he had considered telling her of his father’s death, but he needed more time alone with it before he could say anything.
“You just won’t accept help. It’s that manly thing, I guess.”
“I took your thousand dollars two weeks ago,” Cole pointed out.
“I’m not talking about financial help,” she said.
“I’m talking about something more important, like someone to lean on emotionally when you’ve had a bad day.”
“Mmm.” Cole glanced away.
Nicki took a sip of wine. “Cole, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you got a Federal Express package today from your mortgage company. It was marked ‘Urgent’ on the outside, so I opened it. I wasn’t prying, I just thought you might want to know what was in it right away.”
“What do they want?”
“They want to be paid immediately or they claim they’ll take legal action.”
Cole scratched his head, grinned, then waved at the waiter. “Now I will accept a little help.” A little liquid support, he thought to himself. “Scotch on the rocks, Jimmy,” he yelled across the restaurant.
Jimmy moved to the bar and returned quickly with the drink. “Here you are.”
“Thanks.” Cole took the glass from the waiter. This wasn’t a
good idea, but the hell with it. He nodded in Nicki’s direction, said, “Here’s to rewriting history,” then took a long swallow.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing.”
Nicki shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“How I do what?” he asked, setting the glass down on the table after another long and welcome swallow.
“You’ve got some pretty serious money problems and you don’t seem worried. I don’t know how you can be so calm.”
Cole had been as honest with Nicki about his financial troubles—the gambling debt, the in-arrears mortgage, almost no money in his bank account and minimal bonus prospects from Gilchrist in January—as she had been about her modeling agency rejections. “Nicki, a hundred years from now no one will even know we were here,” he answered, winking.
“At Emilio’s?” A curious expression came to her face. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Not the restaurant.”
“What, then?”
“Here-here.” Two dimples and the character lines in his cheeks appeared as he smiled broadly. “No one will know we existed. You know, on earth.”
It was Nicki’s turn to roll her eyes in exasperation. “I know something’s wrong, now that I hear the Cole Egan what-the-hell attitude toward life.”
“What do you mean?”
“You always get existential when something really bad happens. It’s your escape hatch.”
“You’re wrong,” he protested, taking another gulp of the stiff drink.
“Wager it all every day and never look back,” Nicki said, ignoring him. “You can’t win if you don’t take risks, and you never know if today is your last day, so risk it all because no one will care about you when you’re gone. It’s that bet-the-ranch, screw-the-world, make-it-big-or-bust attitude that’s tainted your brain ever since I can remember.” She toyed with her napkin. “At some point that attitude is going to catch up with you.”
“Nah.” Cole gazed at her as he took another sip of the drink. God, she was beautiful. “It’ll all work out.” As long as the videotape was still in its hiding place, he thought to himself.
Nicki shook her head. “You just love putting yourself in precarious situations and somehow finding a way out, don’t you, Cole? Beating the odds makes winning sweeter. That’s what you told me that Fourth of July before you moved to New York, while we were watching the fireworks over Lake Superior.” She smiled at him. “You know you’re crazy.”
“Not really.”
“Oh, yeah, and self-destructive.”
“I think you enrolled in at least one too many psychology courses in college.”
Nicki took another sip of wine. “It’s your darn father’s fault,” she said, ignoring Cole’s curriculum crack. “If he hadn’t shipped you off to live with your aunt and uncle after your mother died, you’d be a normal well-adjusted male.” She hesitated and gave him a playful look. “As well adjusted as that can ever be.” She laughed, leaned over the table and kissed him on the cheek again. “But if your father hadn’t sent you to Duluth, I would never have met you.” She pulled back slowly. “And you probably wouldn’t have that devil-may-care streak all the women you date seem to find so irresistible.”
Cole watched her intently as she settled back onto the seat. She was beautiful and smart and he was terribly attracted to her. He always had been. And there seemed to be a spark on her side as well. But nothing had ever happened between them, even since she had come to live in New York. They were just roommates. Nicki’s parents were neighbors of his aunt and uncle back in Duluth, and he was acting as a big brother—as he always had—while she embarked on her modeling career. He was protecting a naive Midwestern woman from the dangers of the big city in exchange for the thousand-dollar-a-month rent payment he so desperately needed to keep his penthouse creditor at bay.
Cole sipped his scotch. Maybe that was it. Maybe they were both afraid of starting anything because of the connection back home. Or because they’d known each other for so long and they were worried they might destroy a wonderful friendship if they became lovers and the relationship didn’t work out. Or because she was five years his junior. He had always been too old for her as they were growing up. She was still a child when he was in high school and starting college, but perhaps they had reached a point now where the age difference no longer mattered. Cole laughed to himself quietly. Maybe he was just deluding himself about the spark on her side.
He took one more swallow of scotch. “Let’s go out on a date tonight,” he suggested boldly. They had gone out before in the city, but always in a group or with the understanding that it wasn’t really a date. “Just you and me.”
Nicki was watching someone at the bar. As she turned back toward Cole, a nervous smile played across her lips. “What?”
“Let’s go out on a date,” he repeated. “A real date. None of this friend stuff.”
“Would I still have to pay you rent?” she asked slyly. Then she glanced around to see if anyone had heard her questions, as if she were surprised at herself for saying the words.
“Of course,” he said, raising one eyebrow and grinning. “Agreeing to one date doesn’t absolve you of your financial obligations.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!” She laughed, reached across the table and grabbed his forearm.
The pain shot up his arm all the way to his shoulder. Instantly he groaned and pulled back. The hit to the cut had been too direct to hide the hurt.
“Are you okay?” She had heard the pain in his voice. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine, Nicki,” he said, using a paternal tone. “So what about our date? I’ve got an errand to run first, but we could go out after that.” The fire in his arm slowly subsided.
She glanced down at the table. “I’m supposed to see Maria later on.”
Cole reached again for his drink. Maria was another model, almost as pretty as Nicki. Together they made a striking pair. Since coming to New York, Maria was the only real friend Nicki had made, and when Nicki wasn’t out with Cole, she was out with Maria. The two women had become almost inseparable over the past few months. It was strange, now that he thought about it. When the three of them were in the apartment together, Maria was cold to him, almost protective about Nicki.
He frowned. That bastard Lewis Gebauer had made a stupid crack this afternoon on the trading floor about Cole’s honey liking girls. He must have been talking about Nicki liking Maria. Cole shook his head. That couldn’t be. But then, Gebauer had known about his bonus freeze-out and his in-arrears mortgage. And Cole had run into Maria coming out of Nicki’s bedroom early one morning last week as he was headed to the shower. Maria claimed to have slept on the couch and quickly volunteered that she had simply gone into Nicki’s room to say goodbye before she left. But she had seemed nervous.
Suddenly Cole caught a fleeting glimpse of curly blond, almost yellow, hair moving past the bottom of the restaurant’s elevated front window. He rose quickly from his seat and bolted to the door, but by the time he reached the sidewalk there was no sign of a man with curly blond hair.
“What is your problem tonight? You’re like a cat on a hot tin roof.”
Cole turned around quickly. Nicki had followed him out of the restaurant.
“Are you okay?” She smiled up at him sweetly.
“I’m fine,” he said. How the hell was he going to explain this?
“What were you doing?”
“I thought I saw Mick Jagger walk past the window,” he stammered. “I was going to get his autograph for you, but it turned out not to be him.”
“I’m not really into the Rolling Stones, Cole. They’re a little old for me, so I’m not very disappointed.” She wasn’t completely convinced by Cole’s explanation, but it didn’t matter. “But thanks anyway.”
“Sure.”
&n
bsp; “Cole?”
“Yes?” He glanced into her eyes. She was so young and innocent and nice. The cutthroat modeling world hadn’t poisoned her, not yet anyway. She was still the same lovely girl he had known growing up in Duluth.
“I’m really glad you asked me out,” she said softly. “I didn’t think you ever would.”
“So you’ll go?”
She nodded. “Of course. I had a crush on you when I was ten years old, for crying out loud, and it’s only gotten stronger since. I care very much about you, Cole. It’s half the reason I came to New York.”
“Well, why didn’t you say something before this? You could have saved me a lot of stress.” He laughed loudly out of relief. “I’ve been wondering whether or not to bring this up for months, ever since you got here.”
“I guess I’m just shy.” She hesitated. “And I couldn’t bear the thought of you saying no.”
“As if I would.” Not in a million years, he thought to himself. “What about Maria?”
“No problem. I’ll call her and cancel. She was going to meet me at the apartment after our dinner.” Nicki checked her watch. “I can probably catch her before she leaves her place in the Village.”
“Couldn’t you call her on her cell phone?” Cole asked.
Nicki shook her head. “She doesn’t carry one. Maria agrees with my attitude toward cell phones. She doesn’t like people being able to reach her all the time. And we think people walking down the sidewalk or sitting on the subway with phones stuck to their ears are obnoxious.”
Cole nodded to himself. Of course. Nicki had no need to make herself feel important by carrying a phone with her everywhere she went. In her own quiet way, she had complete confidence in herself and didn’t need status symbols to bolster her self-image.
Nicki took Cole’s hands in hers. “I want a kiss.”
“Right here?”
“Yes. I guess I’m not as shy—”
But Cole didn’t allow her to finish. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist, pulled her to him and kissed her deeply. And their intense mutual attraction, which had lingered beneath the surface for so long, erupted suddenly and passionately on the New York City sidewalk, far away from the quiet Duluth neighborhood where it had begun.
The Legacy Page 4
