“Miss? Are you going in?”
A well-dressed elderly couple was standing expectantly behind her, the white-haired gentleman gesturing at the door.
“Oh! Sorry. Go ahead.”
Stepping aside to let them enter, she noted the woman’s fur coat and the sizable diamond bracelet winking on her wrist. This was probably one of those super-fancy bars where a glass of wine cost twenty bucks and they’d sneer if you ordered a beer. Was he trying to impress her? She thought he knew her better, that she’d never be impressed by something like—Ugh, stop! Without any real-life interactions to go on, she’d taken to reading an ocean’s worth of meaning into every word and gesture. It was time to stop looking for clues and confront the reality.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled open the door and stepped inside, stopping to let her eyes adjust to the low golden light. The inside of the bar was almost whimsical, with what looked like children’s book illustrations on every wall. Tearing her eyes away from the colorful murals, she scanned the rest of the room, finally ready to see Peabody in person.
There was a grand piano dominating the center of the low-ceilinged room, and someone was playing—playing well, too. Semicircular banquettes lined the room, and tables were scattered throughout. The bar itself took up most of the far wall. The bartender wore a suit and tie. Gemma and Dad would never believe this place.
Her eyes roved over the patrons. This early in the evening, there were less than a dozen, almost all easily ruled out. The elderly couple who’d come in before her were settling in at a table near the piano. Two middle-aged women with teen daughters—tourists—were cheerfully chattering away in one of the booths. Two older couples occupied tables. One man sat alone at the bar with his back to her. There he was. Peabody.
But something was wrong...
She knew the shape of those broad shoulders. She knew that long frame, leaning casually over the bar. She knew that tousled auburn hair. She’d had her fingers buried in it last night as he’d—
As the realization sank in, and kept sinking, down to her stomach and lower, all the way down to her feet, a cold, blooming horror spread through her body. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. How could this...how could he...?
He turned to glance over his shoulder.
Their eyes locked, and Alex Drake surged to his feet.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Except they’d both said it, at the exact same moment, and now the words were just hanging there, any rational answer impossible to produce. There was no way he could have possibly known about her plans with Peabody unless he was...
Jess found her voice first, advancing toward him, her fury bubbling up like lava about to spill over. “I don’t know what kind of sick joke you’re playing here, Alex—”
“Me?”
All of their past encounters came rushing at her, tangling into one massive, unthinkable, ongoing betrayal. “Do you get off on humiliating me? Is that it?”
“You think I planned this?”
“What the hell else am I supposed to think?”
He straightened, his eyes blazing to life with anger. “One of us planned this, all right, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.”
* * *
“You think I set this up?”
Something passed in Jess’s eyes, but it wasn’t guilt or panic. If he didn’t know any better, Alex would have said she looked hurt. It was the first time since he’d turned to find her standing inside the door of the bar that he felt anything other than a blinding sense of betrayal. Betrayal of what, he couldn’t even answer.
His head had been a mess since last night in Jess’s kitchen. Although he liked PaperGirl, and valued their online connection, he’d been even less inclined to meet her in real life. It felt...wrong, somehow, in the wake of his encounter with Jess. But then she’d needed someone and he’d felt compelled to reach out, as a friend, to help. After all the time they’d spent talking, it was the least he could do for her.
But now somehow, inexplicably, Jess had shown up again to fuck with his head, and possibly his life. Because the years had taught him that “coincidental” encounters with women rarely ever were.
“It wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s manipulated their way into my life.”
She scoffed. “Of course. Because everybody in the whole world is out here scheming to get a piece of Alex Drake.”
He shrugged. “Well, actually, yes, in my experience.”
“God, you really are arrogant.” She took another step closer, close enough to poke her finger into his chest. “Listen here. You might have women falling all over themselves to lure you into traps, but I’m not one of them, understand?”
Somewhere deep in his chest, buried inside this burning knot of anger and confusion, something eased. Because he did know that. He had no idea what the hell was happening here, but weirdly, even when they were furious and yelling at each other, somehow, he knew he could fundamentally trust Jess. He’d always known that.
That still didn’t answer any of the hundreds of questions crowding his brain.
“Then how the hell did you get here?”
Her dark eyes burned with fury as she glared up at him. “The same way you did.”
“Excuse me?” An unfamiliar voice cut into the brittle tension surrounding them.
Alex and Jess both turned to look at the bartender. His personable smile and polite demeanor had vanished. “I’m going to need you two to take this outside.”
Shit. They were shouting at each other in the middle of goddamned Bemelmans Bar. This was not the kind of bar that witnessed fights. Every other patron in the bar was gaping openly at them. Even the piano player had stopped playing to stare.
Color flooded Jess’s cheeks and she took a step back, her chest rising and falling as she fumed. “Not a problem. I was just leaving.”
Then she spun around and strode out the way she’d come.
“Jess, wait!” He was stuck scrambling for his coat, digging in his pocket for a wad of cash to throw on the bar, before he could sprint out after her. She’d only made it a dozen feet or so down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched against the cold, hair whipping in the sharp breeze, as she marched up Madison Avenue.
“Jess, stop. Just stop.”
He’d caught up to her in a few long strides, reaching out for her arm. She spun to face him, slapping his hands away. “Don’t touch me!”
Hands up, he took a step back. “Okay, I won’t. Just stop, so we can figure this out.”
“Oh, I’ve figured it out all right. Somehow, some way, you...you’re...”
“I’m Peabody,” he finished for her.
Saying the name out loud had the effect of defusing her anger, like puncturing a balloon. Jess turned her huge eyes on him, glassy with confusion and hurt. Now that the shock had passed, the answer was staring him straight in the face, impossible and obvious. “And you’re PaperGirl.”
Looking away, she let out a soft huff of humorless laughter, swiping at the tears she was determined not to let fall. That was Jess, never wanting the world to see her vulnerable.
“I think we should talk.”
Jess kept her eyes averted, breathing heavily. He could almost see the wheels turning in her mind, coming to grips with the situation.
“I suppose we should,” she said at last. She jerked her chin toward the bar, behind him. “But it’s cold as hell out here and I think we’ve been banned from that bar.”
Alex sighed. “And it was my favorite.”
Well, there was nothing else to be done. He was in uncharted waters from here on out. “This way.” He turned and gestured for her to walk with him, which she did. She was silent as they walked side by side around the corner onto 76th and up the block. When he reached the town house, he paused to fish his keys out of his pocket.
“Where ar
e we?” Jess stared up at the white brick facade of the house in confusion.
“My place.”
“Your place? You live here?”
“Where’d you think I lived?”
“Nowhere. I just...” She shook her head in confusion. “It’s fine.”
He pointed her toward the stairs leading to his entrance. “This way.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was a wide set of steps leading up to the carved wooden doors of the main entrance, but Alex led Jess around to the side of those, to a narrow set of five steps leading down to a more modest door. He keyed something into a keypad and pressed his thumb to a sensor.
“Are you kidding?”
“Dad’s security is pretty tight,” he murmured without looking at her.
“This is your father’s house?” She looked up again at the wide white stone five-story edifice. She didn’t think real people even lived in this area. She’d thought it was all foreign embassies and plastic surgery offices.
Alex shrugged, keeping his eyes on the door. “I have my own apartment on the ground floor.”
Inside, Alex flipped on a light. Not that she’d given much thought to where Alex lived, but if she had, it would have looked just like this—luxurious and understated at the same time. A hallway faded into darkness in front of her. An arched entrance to her left opened onto an open-plan living room with a kitchen tucked into the back of the room, all stainless steel and dark wood cabinets. The living room held an overstuffed sofa and a pair of club chairs in rich brown leather. A low coffee table was scattered with newspapers and magazines. A mahogany shelving unit housed a large flat-screen TV and an impressive-looking sound system. On the wall, there was a framed edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune’s famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” front page, no doubt the real thing.
His voice startled her back to reality. “Do you want a drink?”
“Absolutely.” Right now, alcohol was definitely in order.
“I have...” He peered into his fridge. “I have beer. And scotch.”
“Beer.”
She shrugged out of her coat and left it on the back of the sofa before following after him to the kitchen.
He handed her one and took one for himself. She twisted off the cap and took a sip. Anything to fill this painful, tense silence. She tried to keep her eyes averted from Alex, but it was impossible to ignore his presence in this small space, leaning against the kitchen counter just a few feet away, fingers picking at the label on his beer bottle.
God, she’d sat next to him last night, watching those same fingers turn his glass in circles on the bar and she’d never once realized that she’d seen them before, that Peabody had sent her a picture of those very fingers.
Alex was Peabody. Her mind had accepted the obvious, but her gut still gave a brutal lurch when she thought about it. All this time, when she’d been pouring out her heart and soul to Peabody, Alex had been on the receiving end. She felt raw, exposed, vulnerable. Would it have been this terrifying if Peabody had turned out to be a complete stranger? Or anyone else she already knew? Did she feel this scared because it was Alex?
She tried to remember everything she’d revealed to him, every secret she’d entrusted to him, and to imagine Alex reading it all, but it was impossible. The Peabody of the past several weeks was still at war with the Alex she’d known for years, the Alex of last night.
She should probably just go. What could they possibly say about this unbearably awkward situation, anyway? They’d box up this embarrassing discovery, along with that thing that happened in her kitchen last night, and pretend none of it had ever happened.
But wait a minute. About last night...
“Hey, what the hell?”
Alex blinked in confusion. “What?”
“Um, Georgia? You’re flirting with a girl online when you have a girlfriend?”
Alex set his beer bottle down with a clunk and straightened away from the counter. “She’s not my girlfriend. I just met her last night.”
“Seems long enough for Georgia. I saw her text.”
“She’s a little overeager, but definitely not my girlfriend. She’s the daughter of a business associate.” He paused, looking steadily at her. “I wouldn’t do that, Jess. You and me. Last night. I wouldn’t have done that if I was involved with someone else.”
She swallowed hard and dropped her eyes. Funny, she already knew that. Whatever very complicated stew of emotions she was wading through where Alex was concerned, deep down, she knew he’d never do something like that. Maybe she hadn’t always felt so certain of him, but after last night, and everything he’d revealed, she did.
Setting down the beer she’d found impossible to drink, she rubbed her hands together. “So.”
Alex inhaled deeply. “So.”
“That’s your favorite bar.”
“What?”
“Explains why Peabody would pick a place that’s not at all my speed.”
“That’s not the only reason I picked Bemelmans.”
She looked back at him.
“Do you remember? The first time we talked online, about that short story in the New Yorker?”
Jess reached back into her memories for that beautiful short story she and Peabody had bonded over. It had taken place in New York, and then—
The last scene, were the GI meets the army nurse on the night before he ships out to war, took place in a bar on the Upper East Side. A romantic little place with piano music and children’s book illustrations painted on the walls. Her throat closed up with a sudden rush of emotion. Peabody had loved that story—because it was Alex’s favorite bar.
“This is hard,” she confessed. “Knowing that you know all that stuff I told him.”
He blew out a breath. “No kidding. I’ve never told anybody some of the stuff I told PaperGirl.”
It was so strange, hearing him talk about PaperGirl—about her—like she was someone else. Jess struggled to identify this curious flare of heat she felt in her chest when he mentioned her. It felt suspiciously like jealousy. She wasn’t going to examine that one too closely. Not yet, anyway.
Alex shifted his weight as he leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “So...the family business that PaperGirl’s sister runs...that’s Romano’s. And Gemma.”
She nodded. Then out of nowhere, a frantic little huff of laugher burst from her lips, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “It’s just... I thought you worked in a hardware store.”
“What?”
“Your family business. I thought it was a hardware store or something.”
This time she couldn’t hold back the burst of laughter. Alex’s mouth quirked, the first smile he’d allowed himself all night. “Nope. Media empire.”
She laughed again, and then she couldn’t stop as the tension of the last half hour ebbed out of her body. Then Alex had joined in, laughing so hard he had to bend over and brace his hands on his knees. She laughed and laughed, until tears streamed down her face and she could barely draw breath.
“It’s just so unbelievable,” she gasped.
Alex’s laughter ebbed, although he was still grinning widely, his white smile dazzling her for a moment. “What is?”
“You and me...all this time.”
His smile softened but didn’t disappear. “Not so unbelievable, when you think about it.”
“What do you mean? Of course it is.”
He shrugged, then straightened away from the counter. Jess’s pulse leaped in response. The laughter faded away, leaving her breathless and tingly.
“I mean, you and me.” He waved a finger back and forth between them. “We know how this works. And PaperGirl and Peabody. We know how that works.” He too
k a step toward her, and her stomach swooped with a sudden rush of nerves. “Maybe we should try them together.”
“This is crazy.” Her voice had gone all soft and breathless. “All we do is fight.”
Alex raised one eyebrow, in that enviable, sexy way of his. “That’s not all we do.”
Memories of last night, of his mouth on hers, of his hands on her body, came rushing back in. She couldn’t move, every muscle frozen in place as Alex took another step, closing the small distance between them. Her heart was about to beat its way right out of her chest.
“Jess?” he asked.
“Alex?”
“Are we going to do this? You and me? No more secret identities or misunderstandings?” He was closer now, looming over her, close enough to touch. She could almost feel the heat from his body.
If she thought too hard about it, that was a big question, with a big answer. So she didn’t think beyond the next moment, and in the next moment, she really wanted Alex to touch her.
“I think we are.”
“So?”
He leaned in and every inch of her skin prickled with anticipation.
“So... I think you should kiss me.”
That was all it took. His hands were reaching for her and she was tumbling headlong into his arms. She leaned up to him as he leaned down to her and their lips met in the middle.
Everything about Alex and her had always been so complicated. But when he kissed her, it all became so very simple. Lips parted, tongues touched, heat licked up her body, and for the moment, nothing else existed.
She gripped his shoulders, feeling her way across their solid expanse, to the tendons of his neck, and up to trace the hard line of his jaw, the elegant slant of his cheekbone.
He held her so tightly she was pulled up to her toes, left leaning on him for support. He felt solid and steady. Tonight, Alex wasn’t going anywhere.
The One I Love to Hate Page 17
