by Calista Fox
More silence. It was nerve-wracking. She wished she could see Vin’s expression, look into his eyes. Maybe somehow convince him that releasing the sexual tension between them had done absolutely nothing to alleviate the emotional turmoil. And that was necessary, as Rogen contended.
Though it was going to take some serious effort on her and Vin’s parts.
“Vin,” she said. “It’s important.”
“Fine,” he retorted in a steely tone. She could practically feel the angst exuding from him. And it turned her on—when it really shouldn’t.
His dark and broody disposition, the intensity of his moods and desires, had always called to her. Even over the phone.
Urg.
Who’s the one who can’t escape?
A flicker of heat against her clit, because Vin’s commanding presence was powerful enough to transcend satellite technology, had Jewel a bit breathy as she gave him the address.
Then Vin said, “It’ll be about an hour and a half.”
“I’ll put a pot of sauce on the stove.”
He was quiet again.
“Vin?” Her breath was held suspended. Was he going to change his mind?
He tortured her for endless moments, then eventually told her, “I really should muster some willpower when it comes to you.”
He disconnected the call.
Okay. Still pissed.
She returned the phone to Rogen. “He’s on his way. Not in a good mood. Be forewarned.”
Grabbing her wineglass, she left the living room, passing the long dining table that sat twelve, and entered the kitchen. Rogen followed. He set the bottle of wine on the island and surveyed the space while she lifted a pot from its hook on the overhead rack and placed it on the six-burner stove. She then retrieved three frying pans and laid them out.
Rogen fell right in step with her, since they’d made pasta together dozens of times before. They’d all spent a significant amount of time in one kitchen or another when growing up.
He located her flour container while she went to the fridge and collected eggs for him, then grabbed the coiled links of hot and sweet Italian sausage wrapped in butcher paper and ground beef for her Bolognese sauce. She started browning the meat in the pans while Rogen made a mound of flour on the granite countertop with a dip in the middle where he dropped the yolks and drizzled olive oil. Then he whisked eggs and kneaded the dough, which had to rest at least an hour, so she greatly appreciated his help while she worked her tasks. She also knew Rogen loved to cook.
She set out plastic wrap for the resting period and the old-fashioned crank-handled pasta maker for when the dough was ready, so everything was on hand for him. Then she dumped crushed tomatoes into her pot and added fresh herbs, letting the sauce simmer. Rounding the counter across from Rogen, she grabbed a bamboo cutting board and used a new razor blade to shave slivers of garlic.
He said, “Maybe it’s time we address the elephant in the room.”
She let out a hollow laugh. “Vin’s not even here yet.”
Rogen smirked at her. She took a break from slicing and sipped her wine. Preparing herself to jump from yet another high cliff.
She said, “When I visited you at Trinity … I had a specific reason for being there.”
“Seeing me wasn’t enough?” He tried to jest; she could tell. But his rugged features were set in stone.
“Always,” she admitted. “But some things had changed and I needed to tell you about them.”
“What changed?”
She swallowed down a little more wine. This was about to get prickly.
Jewel scraped the garlic into a small bowl and began chopping red and green bell peppers. She said, “I went to see you at Trinity because I wanted you to know Vin and I had started dating. Secretly—we really didn’t want your parents to know, since he was living under their roof at that point. And … I was falling for him. I wanted you to hear that from me.”
She paused. Glanced up.
Rogen stared at her, his expression difficult to read. Not exactly shocked, yet still stunned. A look she couldn’t quite reconcile.
The betrayal in his tone, however, said it all. “Falling in love?”
Her stomach instantly became a tangled mess. “Yes.”
She chopped some more, concentrating on not lopping off a finger, while he digested her words. Then she gazed at him again and said, “It happened sort of out of the blue. I mean, we spent all of our time together, yes. But we didn’t plan it, Rogen. We didn’t talk about it even as we were growing closer. The relationship just … evolved.”
Oh, shit. Was that the right word? Evolved?
No.
Because she and Vin hadn’t morphed from friends to lovers. They’d literally been thrust into it. Like a switch had been thrown. One day they were trying to wade through Rogen being gone and Vin’s parents dying and Jewel was just waiting, waiting, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Then they’d been discussing Bayli and Jonathan plotting out their let’s finally do it! date, and Vin had challenged Jewel about positions and tempted her with his extensive knowledge and … well … when he’d kissed her down by the river, she’d been out of her mind with wanting him.
That clawing sensation—that was the first time she’d experienced it.
She’d broken the kiss. Their eyes had locked. And Vin had known. He’d known exactly what to do to her. Things Rogen never had.
Honestly, Vin possessed a skill set to boggle a girl’s mind.
The brooding had been something a little more complex to deal with, yet Jewel had somehow convinced herself that she understood Vin in a way no one else could, particularly following the harrowing deaths of his parents. And maybe it’d been true. For a while.
In a tight voice, Rogen said, “So you went to New York to tell me you were fucking my best friend.”
He deserved to be pissy.
She calmly—so she hoped—repeated, “No, I went to tell you I was falling in love with him. Vin and I had both agreed to go to San Francisco State together. He had yet to tell you he wasn’t going to Yale with you. It felt as though we actually had a future, Vin and I. Whereas with you … well, you had internships in Italy and college on the opposite coast, and come on, Rogen. That whole star-crossed-lovers thing … At some point, you have to admit that we’re on completely different trajectories.”
Which had broken her heart wide open. Vin had helped to heal it.
Look how that turned out.
Karma, like nostalgia, could also be a bit of a bitch sometimes.
Rogen asked, “So, what—you and Vin were fated?”
She felt his agitation across the five feet separating them. “Clearly not.”
“Jewel.” He reached for the Saran to wrap the dough but then just stared at her. “The three of us haven’t hung out as a group since we were sixteen. Okay, yeah, I doubt anything was going on between the two of you then—”
“Nothing was going on then, Rogen,” she assured him. “When you and I were actually together, that was it. Just us.”
“But the other day at Bristol’s. He fucked you, didn’t he?”
She went back to chopping.
They were entering sketchy territory here. The problem with this direction of conversation was that, yes, the air needed to be cleared. But it also meant that they were tiptoeing toward that forbidden notion Jewel had been toying with.
Did she have the courage to broach that subject?
“Jewel.” Rogen interrupted her mental debate. “I know what you look like after you’ve had an orgasm. Your neck gets flushed. Your eyes dance a little. I know, okay?”
“But you don’t really know. When it comes to me and Vin, you don’t know. Nor do I. Because after I left Trinity, and you and I hadn’t slept together that night—”
“We did sleep together. In the same bed. I snuck you into my dorm room.”
“But we didn’t have sex.”
“You said you were having your period.”
She groaned. “I told you that so you wouldn’t wonder why I couldn’t make love with you. I couldn’t cheat on Vin.”
“And yet,” Rogen challenged, “you never actually got around to telling me about the two of you.”
“Correct.” She dumped the peppers into another bowl and collected fresh mushrooms to cut up. She was halfway through the container when she glanced over at him and said, “I took one look at you and I just couldn’t do it. All the old feelings, all the memories, flooded me and I just … I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of anything other than how great it was to see you. How much I missed being with you.”
Fat drops welled in her eyes. Jewel shut them, ashamed.
She’d never understood at the age of eighteen how she could be in love with two men at the same time. It hadn’t seemed logical. Certainly not practical. Completely selfish.
Aha!
Perhaps that was the primary cause between her push and pull with the very tempting ménage concept when it came to Rogen and Vin.
But that wasn’t currently the issue at hand. Just a festering thought that taunted her.
She opened her eyes and stared at Rogen. “I spent the weekend with you, because I wanted one last bit of time together,” she said. “Vin and I were going to prom and then graduating. Then we were both supposed to be at SFSU. But none of that happened.”
Jewel rounded the island to tend to the meat on the stove, draining the grease, putting links in the food processor to grind into fine pieces, and then pouring it and the ground beef into her pot of sauce. She sprinkled in hot pepper flakes and stirred. Rogen cleaned the counter and washed his hands.
She returned to the island to mince onion and then started to sauté the vegetables. Rogen set up the pasta machine.
When she felt a modicum of composure, because cooking was therapeutic for them both, she told him, “Vin never showed up on prom night. I tried calling, e-mailing. Didn’t hear a peep. I had to phone the estate, I was so worried about him. Thank God one of the housekeepers answered, not your mom. Georgina said Vin had packed a bag and left that morning. Your father arranged for Vin to take his final exams and he’d graduated, though he’d not attended the ceremony. I had no idea where he went—no one seemed to know. Even you told me he hadn’t shared his plans with you. And he didn’t ever respond to me. I don’t know why he left. I don’t know why he left … me.”
The pain returned. Escalating.
So much for culinary therapy.
“I screwed the whole damn thing up,” she said miserably.
Rogen let out a long breath. Planted his hands on his waist. “No, it wasn’t you, Jewel. It was me.”
Her gaze narrowed on him. He’d suggested that earlier.
“Fuck.” Rogen winced. “I didn’t know. I didn’t … goddamn it. I didn’t know—about the two of you.” He shook his head. “Sure, I had some suspicions. But nothing concrete. Until now. He and I didn’t talk about you—and I couldn’t afford to buy into any thoughts of you and Vin.… It would have sucked the soul right from me if he’d gone on and on about the two of you at school, at the movies, at parties, whatever. When I couldn’t be there with you.”
Rogen’s raw emotions sliced through her. He’d initially fought the idea of prep school when his father had enrolled him. He didn’t want to leave River Cross, Vin, Jewel. But, invariably, she knew Rogen had felt the exact same about the mansion that she had—it was too frail and breakable an environment to exist in. Rogen’s mother had taken to her room (and, rumor had it, pills), and Gian was a bear to be around. Not to mention, Rogen had found it next to impossible to be there without Taylor.
So for his own mental well-being, and to keep the peace in his already-ravaged family, he’d eventually conceded to Trinity.
Continuing, Rogen said, “Vin sent an e-mail to my BlackBerry that Sunday you were in New York. Said you’d gone MIA for the weekend and he couldn’t reach you. Asked if I’d heard from you. I replied that you were fine, that you’d been with me at Trinity, and that I’d just dropped you off at the airport and you were on your way home. That was when the communication went dark. I couldn’t reach him, either. Not after that.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Jewel’s heart wrenched. Guilt slammed into her. Vin had known? All this time? He’d known she’d gone to see Rogen—but he had no clue why. And that must have been what sent him over the edge.
Vin’s declaration when they were alone at Bristol’s flashed in her mind.
You didn’t lose me … I was just never enough for you.
Her stomach lurched. Jewel instantly felt sick.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“Jewel, I’m so sorry.”
She believed him. Because this meant Rogen had inadvertently hurt Vin, too. And that wasn’t in Rogen’s nature.
“It’s not your fault,” she assured him, her head still spinning. “I should have told Vin up front what my plans were, or had him go with me. I just didn’t want us coming at you as a couple without giving you some advance warning. And it never really occurred to me when he didn’t respond to my calls that that was the reason he didn’t want to speak with me. If Vin thought you and I were getting back together or were seeing each other behind his back, he would have confronted us. That’s the way he is. Instead, he just … vanished. So I didn’t think it was because of us.”
“I figured it had something to do with his parents.”
“That’s exactly what I thought, at first. He was graduating high school, entering another phase of his life—and they weren’t there to see how great he’d turned out, to celebrate his perfect GPA and the fact that he’d gotten into all the Ivy League schools he’d applied to, even though he’d decided to stay in state.”
Jewel fought a wave of emotion. Sure, Vin could have been feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable at that pivotal point of his life. But the bottom line was, he’d found out about her trip to see Rogen. It all made sense now. How Vin had distanced himself from her, and from Rogen for a time. How Vin had taunted her at the gala. Why he’d been so angry and hurt at Bristol’s. Why he’d advised Rogen against giving her the land she wanted.
“Oh, goddamn,” she said on a heavy breath. “Rogen … we called him to come see us tonight, to help us with a joint venture between the two of us. How much more in-the-face is that? And … there’s no way in hell he’s going to agree to represent us.”
“This is a professional issue, Jewel. Not a personal one.”
“How can you say that?” she demanded. “Everything about the three of us is personal. Rogen, one of the reasons Vin was so hostile toward me on Sunday was because … he sort of … he was…” She tripped over the words. “He was there. At your house. The night of the party. He saw us—he watched us.”
Rogen stopped cranking dough through the pasta maker, flattening it into narrow sheets. He stared at her.
She gave a slow nod. “I opened my eyes and he was standing just inside the doors.”
Rogen’s jaw clenched. He went back to working the dough. Jewel poured more Sangiovese and kept self-medicating in hopes of easing her tension while Rogen laid out sheet after sheet on parchment paper. He appeared deep in thought and it ate at her to not know what he was thinking.
Finally, he told her, “Had I been with any other woman that night, Vin would have joined us. Vice versa.”
Her eyes popped.
Didn’t see that blatant honesty coming.
He said, “You’re not the first woman we’ve ‘shared,’ Jewel. But this is not the same thing. Not the same scenario. At all.”
She recovered and eyed him curiously. “The redhead?”
“Yeah. Holly McCormick. I’d taken her out for dinner one night, when we first met. A week or so later, Vin brought her into the city for an opera. We’d both slept with her separately, then…”
The word together was one that had become lodged in Jewel’s brain.
Rogen continued his work, not saying anything further. As tho
ugh he wanted her to process what all a ménage might entail. Was it something he wanted to engage in with her? Had he and Vin discussed this after the night of the gala?
Before she could digest all of that, Jewel had to battle a serious bout of jealousy because Rogen and Vin had been with other women. She’d accepted that long ago—in theory. The reality of them making love to someone else was actually a jagged pill to swallow. It made everything inside her pull tight until it was difficult to breathe.
Rogen gave her more to chew on. “Holly liked Vin’s aggressiveness. And she liked my—”
“Natural instinct. I’m well aware of the contrasts.” They were going to need more wine to get through this discussion. She left the kitchen to retrieve another bottle from the wet bar. She’d turned one of the spare bedrooms into a full-blown cellar and tasting room for when she entertained clients or Bayli and Scarlet came into the city for a girls’ night. But she kept a dozen or so of her favorites close at hand. Some women collected shoes; Jewel collected award-winning reds.
She returned to the island where Rogen was now running the dough through the attachment he’d snapped on, cutting long strands of linguine. Jewel poured for them both, then crossed to the far wall and pulled out the mounted wooden rods that looked like rolling pins framed by decorative black wrought-iron arms. There were three staggered tiers and she dusted them with flour, then started to hang the pasta to dry, evenly spacing out the thin strips.
Her mother had always preferred to leave the pasta in small spiraled piles on the counter. Jewel’s grandmother had used racks similar to the ones Jewel had installed in order to drape the dough. It felt more authentic that way, though Jewel really wasn’t sure there was any difference in the outcome.
When she was done, she popped a loaf of Italian bread in the oven while Rogen stirred the sauce. The fragrance of the herbs and meats filled the room. Though all the activity provided absolutely no distraction from her new obsession over what it might be like to be with Rogen and Vin.
At the same time.
Nor did the sight of Rogen, so skilled and helpful alongside her, looking so right in her kitchen, make it easy to push her forbidden thoughts aside. He kept her pulse thumping erratically. Especially since he hadn’t put his shirt back on.
