Harley & Rose

by Carmen Jenner

  He gestures toward the room with his drink, sloshing a little of it on the floor. Apparently Oompa Loompas can’t handle their liquor. “I knew you’d pull it off.”

  I arch my brow but figure it’s best not to say anything because even though he’s been a complete douche-canoe while filming, he’s still offered me a boon that I’d never be able to repay.

  “Oh! And I saw the footage Aras shot of you and the hot lumberjack.” His eyes widen as if the thought just struck him. “We’re including it in the show.”

  My blood turns ice cold.

  “You call me when you want your own wedding planned.” Dale goes back to gesturing wildly, punctuating his words with his martini glass as if they were a news headline. “We’ll do a follow-up exclusive: San Francisco’s hottest floral designer weds childhood sweetheart.”

  “Sounds great,” I say, looking for an excuse to get as far away from that idea as possible. “Excuse me. I need a refill.”

  With filming wrapped, or my part of it anyway, I bid the bride and groom farewell. She actually hugs me, which comes as a huge surprise, but I hug her back and congratulate them again, telling her new husband to call the store on Monday and arrange their first anniversary floral arrangement in advance. I’m only half joking. Still, he promises that he will.

  I exit the museum in order to call an Uber, but it’s a nice evening so I stand on the steps in front of the building for a beat and stare up at the sky. A few stars peek through the curtain of fog. It’s nothing like the sky in Carmel, where if you walk down the beach a way, far enough from the houses, a blanket of stars shines back at you.

  Normally I’d stay at an event until takedown, but after talking with Aras I was assured that the crew had that part handled. Besides, I’ve decided I’ve earned the right to head home, slip out of my heels, and pour myself a very stiff drink.

  My phone rings, and for a beat I dare to dream that it’s Harley, but I don’t recognize the number when I glance down at the screen. I answer it, assuming it might be Dale or Aras or some other member of the crew insisting I come back. “Hello?”

  “Rose.” It’s Dermot. My heart stutters a beat, and I suck in a deep breath.

  “Hi.” Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. I don’t know if I’m ready for this conversation.

  “You were expecting someone else.” It isn’t a question.

  “No, you just caught me off guard, is all,” I say, tugging at the high-necked collar of my dress. Did the temperature gauge suddenly ratchet up to seventy degrees? “I didn’t think you’d call so soon.”

  “I don’t like wasting time,” he says. I already know that about him. I suppose it’s why I sent him that card in the first place. Only now that he’s actually calling me, I’m having second thoughts about the state of my mental health and decision-making ability. “Where are you?”

  “Leaving the Legion of Honor.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah, we filmed the wedding today for the—”

  “Hopeless bride who has no idea how to plan her own wedding, I remember,” he says, and something in his voice tells me he’s smiling.

  I laugh and shake my head, though I know he can’t see the gesture. “Wow, you really pay attention, huh?”

  “Only when my interests are piqued.”

  “So, you’re a reality-TV fan then?”

  He chuckles. It’s a dark sound that sends a shiver down my spine. “My interests are in you, Rose. I’m not sure how I can make that any clearer.”

  “Oh … I—”

  “Now, about dinner,” he says. “Have you eaten yet?”

  I haven’t. Not really. I’d snagged a couple of hors d'oeuvres from the waiters as they made their rounds, but I wasn’t involved in the sit-down dinner, as you’d expect. “No,” I say, drawing out the word as if it were a loaded question. “It’s almost eleven.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Dermot—”

  “Hang up the phone and wait for me, Rose.”

  I sigh and find myself staring at my nude peep-toe Louboutins. I wore a Ted Baker Bowkay print dress. In a powder blue. With a dreamy floral print, it’s just the right amount of color for a wedding like this without detracting from the bride or the color scheme, even if it is a tad short for a cocktail dress.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll see you soon.”

  “Do try to curb your enthusiasm,” he says, and I know he’s grinning now because I hear it in the teasing tone of his voice.

  That does make me laugh, and I hang up the phone with a smile on my face. I don’t know what to expect with this man—from one second to the next, every exchange I’ve ever had with him has left my head spinning, my heart tap-dancing in my chest, and my stomach in knots. And it might not be smart, but maybe that’s exactly what I need.

  ***

  True to his word, Dermot’s gleaming grey Maserati pulls to a stop in front of me just five minutes later. I knew he lived up on Seacliff, but I didn’t realize he was that close. I reach for the door handle but find it locked. He puts the car in park and climbs out, and I stare at him over the roof, confused. “Are we not leaving?”

  Dermot walks around to my side of the car. He wears a deep brown leather jacket, a white T-shirt, and a pair of black jeans with russet-colored boots. He looks good, younger without the suits and briefcase. He slips a hand around my waist and leans in to kiss my cheek. I try hard to ignore the flutter in my stomach as he whispers in my ear, “You look positively—”

  “If you say radiant, I may have to hurt you,” I blurt out, putting my hands on his arms to allow myself a little breathing room.

  He steps back, cants his head, and grins, those warm brown eyes spearing me where I stand. “I was going with fuckable, but radiant works too.”

  A shiver runs down my spine, and guilt slams into me at the thought of the two of us … fucking. Even after Harley left me the way he did, it still feels as if I’m betraying him by seeing Dermot tonight, which is stupid. Perhaps the real betrayal lies in me denying myself the opportunity to feel anything other than heartbreak again. But I am too raw to think about my best friend and the way he continually crushes me, casting me aside like an old toy he no longer wants to play with. I shouldn’t feel any guilt. I didn’t break us—he did. And attempting to move on isn’t wrong.

  “Rose, what’s wrong?” Dermot asks, pulling me back to the here and now.

  I blurt out, “I need to take this slow.”

  He raises his brows and says, “The friend friend?”

  “I … it’s not…” I exhale loudly and glance at the huge glimmering water fountain nearby. “I’m sorry. I know I sent you that card, and I don’t mean to give you mixed signals. I’m just …”

  He takes my hand and kisses it, the way Harley always did. Something in it forces my breath to catch in my throat, and I snatch my hand away. My gaze meets Dermot’s confused one and I glance at my shoes. He can’t have that gesture. He can touch me, he can kiss my cheek, he can slide his hand up my waist or place it at the small of my back. He can open doors for me, and say wildly inappropriate things that make me want to lean over the hood of his car and give in to him right here in front of a wedding I just designed, but he can’t have that.

  Maybe this was a bad idea.

  “Rose.” He cups my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilts my head up toward him. “I’m not a patient man. When I want something, I take it, but I just ended a twenty-two-year marriage with a woman who never gave me her heart. If there’s a chance I’ll win even just a slither of yours, I’ll learn to wait.”

  I don’t understand, so I say as much. “Why?”

  “Because extraordinary women don’t come along every day.”

  I laugh, because it’s completely cheesy, but somewhere inside, a frisson of excitement moves through me. “Oh, you are layering it on thick, aren’t you?”

  He chuckles and opens the passenger door. “Get in the car, Rose.”

  I do, and Dermot circl
es around to his side, climbing into the driver’s seat. He starts the engine and takes off before my belt is buckled, and I quickly learn that he’s a speed freak when behind the wheel. Boys and their toys.

  Our first date goes nothing like I’d expected when I sent that card with his arrangement. He doesn’t take me to a fancy restaurant in the Bay area, but a warehouse on 20th street in The Mission that houses a trendy bar full of hipsters. Over burgers that are served on a sesame-seed hotdog bun—that Dermot claims are the best in the city—and cocktails cleverly based on the Pantone color chart, we try to hold a conversation, but mostly just wind up screaming at one another to be heard over the noise. We stay until closing, and at two a.m. when he drives me home, he doesn’t attempt to take things further, nor does he ask to come up.

  Dermot presses a soft kiss to my cheek and waits until I open the shop door before getting back in his car and driving away. And I pretend as if I hadn’t seen the light from Harley’s apartment still on, because if I think about it too hard and too long I’ll likely fall apart again, and I’ve had too good a night to have it soured by men who think I am anything less than extraordinary.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rose

  I take Dermot’s arm as we walk up the steps of the Bentley Reserve. It’s a cool San Franciscan night with fog so thick you could get lost in it. But I’m not lost. I am currently on the arm of my … boyfriend? God, that just sounds so juvenile, and can you really call us that when we haven’t even slept together? It’s been three weeks since our first dinner date—not including the mess of a meal in Hawaii—and he’s been so understanding. He doesn’t push. We’ve kissed a bunch of times, and though I’ve always enjoyed those moments, it still feels … well, wrong. Like I’m cheating on Harley. I don’t understand that at all, but I’m clearly a crazy person.

  I love spending time with Dermot. He’s charming and sweet, and surprisingly witty, not to mention gorgeous. He’s a fantastic guy, and we have chemistry that can’t be ignored. The only thing that’s missing? He isn’t my best friend.

  “Ready?” he asks, and I nod. He knows how apprehensive I am about this. I’ve been a SF native all my life, but tonight, I am crossing to the dark side. Rose Perry is attending a stuffy charity auction like the ones the parentals frequent. And I’m going willingly. After I’d agreed to Dermot’s invitation, I’d hung up the phone and considered going to my parents’ house to have my dad check my temperature and vitals to make sure I was alright. Thankfully, I didn’t need to see Dr. Dad because, as it turns out, Dermot has a doctorate too.

  He isn’t a surgeon like my father; he’s the CEO for some multi-billion-dollar stem cell clinical trial company founded right here in SF. He knows my father, they’ve worked together several times, and though my dad has never paid much attention to my sex life before, I get the feeling this is one partnership he isn’t going to be happy about. After all, Dermot is just five years younger than him. Which is kind of creepy, I know, but they may as well have been born in different centuries. Dermot’s young at heart, adventurous, and so incredibly sexy. And my father is … old.

  “Rose?” he whispers, leaning in and pressing a kiss to the curve where my shoulder meets my neck. As always, the ache begins low in my belly when he touches me like this.

  I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet and spicy licorice scent of him. “I’m ready.”

  Dermot chuckles and places his hand at the small of my back. “We haven’t even entered the building, and already your attention is waning?”

  “Well, can you blame me with how dreamy my date looks?” I straighten his bow-tie, which of course doesn’t need to be straightened at all because he looks just as downright delicious as always with it slightly off-center. And if I thought Dermot was edible in jeans a T-shirt and a designer leather jacket, he is devastating in a tux.

  “Dreamy?” His brows furrow, and he leans in and murmurs, “Where is the bastard? I’ll kill him.”

  I laugh and let him lead me into the Banking Hall. It’s filled with the sounds of a string quartet and tables that are dressed elegantly in black and white linens with blood red roses, women dressed to the nines, and men in tuxes looking ridiculously dapper. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at once.

  “Drink?”

  “Oh god yes,” I agree, and Dermot takes two elegant champagne flutes from a nearby waiter. He hands one to me and holds his out in a toast, but I’ve already drained the thing dry. “Sorry.”

  “Relax, Rose. We’ll only stay as long as absolutely necessary.”

  And now I feel bad, because I know from my parents that these tickets aren’t cheap, and neither is the sizable donation they give every year. I’ve lucked out this year though because both the Perrys and the Hamiltons have decided to make their sizable donations from the comfort of the cottage in Carmel, and thank god, because all I need right now is my mother showing up.

  Dermot sets his champagne down at a nearby table and checks the seating chart for our names. He leads me over to a half-empty table and takes my clutch from me. “Dance with me.” It isn’t a question. Dermot does that a lot—demands rather than asks—but in a strange way I like it.

  “When do we get to the part with more drinking?”

  “When you show me you can be a good girl,” he says and taps me on the ass. I swivel my head as if possessed, wondering what the hell that was about, and why he decided to do that in a room full of people, much less at all. His responding grin has me reeling as he takes my hand and leads me out onto the dancefloor. It’s filled with men and women his age and aside from the waitstaff and the musicians in the corner, it appears there’s only one other female my age, but she looks like she belongs on Housewives of Beverly Hills, so she doesn’t count.

  I put one arm on Dermot’s shoulder and link my hand with his. The smile he gives me catches me off guard, and I find myself blushing to the roots of my hair because there’s a world of promise in his eyes. It forces my heart to trip all over itself, but a knot of fear tightens my insides. I glance around the room, feeling awkward and out of place and so strange in his arms, as if I don’t quite belong here either. There has always been one place, one person to whom I belonged, but he doesn’t want me, and even now, four weeks on, that cuts like a knife. Because it could have been perfect and real, and he threw it all away. He threw me away.

  Dermot’s hand brushes the hair back from my eyes. He leans in and gently presses his lips to mine in a whisper of a kiss. I swallow around the lump in my throat. My eyes prick, but I blink back that moisture.

  “What I wouldn’t give to be the man consuming your thoughts,” he whispers.

  I stop dancing, staring up at him, my eyes pleading with him to forgive me, or change the subject or just go back to ignoring it like he usually does.

  He doesn’t. His gaze bores into mine, and my skin feels hot and prickly all over, and just when I’m about to lie, I hear it. A shrill laugh that strikes fear in the center of my heart.

  Wild-eyed, I grab hold of Dermot’s arm and spin us so that my back is to her. I wince and hold very still, praying she hasn’t seen me. Dermot wears a vaguely amused expression. Seconds later, I’m tapped on the shoulder. I exhale loudly.

  “Rose, darling, I thought that was you,” my mother says. I pull away from Dermot and feign my surprise, pretending I didn’t just deliberately ignore her. “What are you doing here?”

  She pulls me into a hug and air-kisses me, likely eyeing Dermot over my shoulder. “Is this your date? Mr. Carter, I thought you were a happily married man.”

  “Separated, actually. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Perry.” Dermot doesn’t bother shaking hands—he pulls her close and plants a kiss on her cheek. I glance around the room, and find my dad at a nearby table. He watches us like a hawk, and he is not happy. Harley’s parents stand with him, and when I meet Rochelle’s eyes I have to swallow back bile. God. I’m not the one to blame here, her stupid, stubborn asshole son is, and yet I’m riddled wi
th guilt and shame and remorse, because just like me, she knows this situation is … well, kind of fucked, actually. There is no other word for it.

  “Oh please, call me Evelyn,” Mom says.

  “Evelyn,” Dermot says with a nod.

  Mom turns her attention back to me. “This dress—oh, Rose, it’s stunning. Wherever did you get it? And those shoes—who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

  I smooth my hand down the front of my black strapless Elie Saab gown. It’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, even though the thigh slit almost comes to my hip and has me breaking out in hives about showing so much skin. “They were a gift from Dermot.”

  Mom grins. It looks dangerous. “Really?”

  “You look lovely too, Evelyn,” Dermot says. “It’s not hard to see where my Rose gets her beauty.”

  My Rose. My thoughts are echoed by my dad repeating the term of endearment as he sidles up to Mom and glares at my date.

  “Hello Herb,” Dermot says, offering his hand to shake. My dad glares harder.

  “Herb,” my mother chastises, at the same time as I say, “Dad.”

  He shakes his hand, though it’s clear he’d rather be doing other things with it, like punching Dermot in the face.

  “Nice to see you both,” Dermot says, completely unfazed by my father’s rudeness.

  “Yes, what are you doing here?” I stare at my mother with a Lucy-you-got-some-’splainin’-to-do look. The only reason I decided to come was because I knew she’d be out of town. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the only reason—I did want to see if Dermot in a tux lived up to my fantasies. Which was just plain stupid because … Dermot. In. A. Tux. “I thought you were headed to Carmel?”

  “We were, but Rochelle decided she wanted to stay close to the city this weekend, and it seemed a shame to go without them. I mean, we’ve never done that, so here we are.” She waves Rochelle and Dean over, then she grabs my arm and whispers, “She needed some cheering up. She’s been awfully down lately.”