Ache for You (Slow Burn Book 3)

by J. T. Geissinger

  “Please don’t hang up.”

  It’s Satan. Instantly my blood pressure shoots up a hundred points. “You have a death wish, don’t you?”

  He ignores my question and plows ahead with all the finesse of a bulldozer. “Five million cash plus the deed to the new house.”

  “In exchange for my soul and what’s left of my self-respect? No.”

  “I’ll throw in the apartment. The lease is up at the end of the month, but I’ll keep paying it. You could use it as a studio.”

  “Or you could buy me a studio on Fillmore in Pacific Heights like I always wanted.”

  His shout is gleeful. “Yes! Totally! You pick the place!”

  I sigh, amazed at this idiot. “That was a joke, dumbass.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He has the nerve to sound crestfallen.

  “Where are you calling me from? I want to make sure I block the number.”

  “I’m staying at a hotel downtown. And I’m gonna stay here until I can figure out how to make it up to you.”

  I picture his face as I walked down the aisle toward him, the horror in his eyes, and have to pinch the bridge of my nose hard enough so the pain distracts me from crying. “Here’s an idea: light yourself on fire.”

  There’s a pause, like he’s considering it. I jerk upright in bed. “That was another joke!”

  Big sigh. “Oh. Okay.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  In a small, pathetic voice he says, “I’m lost without you. I didn’t realize how much you meant to me until you were gone.”

  I throw a pillow across the room and shout into the phone, “Boo-frickin’-hoo, dickface! And by the way, you’re gay!”

  From somewhere downstairs, Cornelia whimpers.

  Brad’s quiet for a moment, then he heaves another big world-weary sigh. “Yeah. It’s been really hard hiding it from everyone. I feel a lot better since I told you.”

  My eyes narrow. “I swear to God, dude, I’mma cut a bitch if you keep this shit up.”

  “It’s the truth! I’ve known since I was like six or something, but you know how my dad’s always going on about family values and homosexuality being from the devil and, y’know, all that stuff.”

  I do know. Once over brunch Senator Wingate lectured me for twenty minutes about the evils of “progressives” and their “backward” ideas about marriage. I think he’s still bitter women got the vote.

  “There are plenty of people with judgmental assholes for parents who don’t go to the trouble of ruining an innocent person’s life because they’re too scared to stand up to Mommy and Daddy and live the life they really want.”

  He whispers, “I know.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why am I listening to this? “If you really want to make it up to me, come out to your parents.”

  His silence is horrified. “No . . . no, what I’m saying—”

  “I hear what you’re saying. You need to hear what I’m saying: It’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna be your beard. I need love, Brad. Real love. A life to share and a strong shoulder to lean on, someone to build a future with. Have a family with. Grow old with. I wanted all that with you but you robbed me. And the really shitty part, the thing I just can’t get over, is that you made me believe you wanted it all, too.” My voice breaks. “You made me believe you loved me as much as I loved you.”

  “I do love you,” he says urgently. “I swear I do.”

  “Even if you do, it’s not the same and you know it.”

  We’re silent for a while. I lie back down and close my eyes. I want to hang up, but I know we need to hash this out or he’ll just keep badgering me. Like another irritating person I know, he isn’t used to being told no.

  “So who’s the hottie?”

  “What?”

  “The dark-haired guy you were with yesterday with the amazing blue eyes who looks like a supermodel assassin.”

  One of the things I’d often overlooked in my mad scramble toward happily ever after is Brad’s crippling lack of emotional intelligence. I know he’s not deliberately trying to be hurtful, just as I know he needs an explanation to understand exactly why he is.

  “Give me a break! You only told me yesterday that you’re gay! We’re not at the point where we’re going to start talking about how hot other guys are!”

  “Right. Sorry.” He pauses for no more than three seconds before saying, “But who is he?”

  So much for the explanation. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he’s my stepbrother.”

  “Is he single?”

  “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that, you moron.”

  “It’s just that he’s probably the best-looking man I’ve ever seen. And so intense.” He exhales a quiet breath. “You have no idea how good it feels to be able to say that out loud.”

  I clap a hand over my eyes and kick my heels against the mattress. “Can we please be done sharing?”

  “Hold on—stepbrother? Your dad remarried?”

  “Oh ho! Welcome to the conversation! Jesus, it’s like you have selective hearing. Yes, he remarried.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t know. From what I’m told, it was all hush-hush because my father didn’t want to take any attention away from our wedding. He was planning on telling me after we got back from the honeymoon.”

  “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “Finally something on which we agree.”

  What sounds like the tearing of a plastic bag comes over the line, followed by the sound of crunching. Apparently Brad has decided it’s time for a snack.

  “So what’s his wife like?”

  “If Nurse Ratched and the iceberg that sank the Titanic had a love child, it would be her. She was the blonde yesterday who said you should be shot.”

  “Yikes. I’m surprised your dad would’ve married someone like that. He seemed so nice.”

  Brad and my father never met, but they talked on the phone a few times. We’d planned on coming to Italy after the honeymoon to see him, but like everything else, that plan is kaput.

  “I guess falling in love with terrible people runs in the family.”

  He’s hurt by the sarcasm in my tone. “I’m not terrible! I’m just—”

  “Selfish? Immature? Cowardly? Shallow?”

  He crunches another mouthful of whatever he’s eating for a while. Then he swallows and sighs. “Yeah. I suppose I am terrible.”

  “So what’re you gonna do about it?”

  “I need your help!”

  “Unless it’s for castration, count me out. You’re a big boy. Fix your own damn self.”

  “How about this—”

  “No.”

  There must be something in my tone that sounds unequivocal because it shuts him up. Then in a quiet voice, he says, “I’m sorry. I know I messed up. I know I hurt you. I just got caught up in the whole thing. The planning, your excitement, my parents’ excitement. I was so happy that everyone else was happy, but then it felt like I was riding a speeding train and there was no way to get off.”

  “You could’ve jumped and saved everyone a lot of trouble,” I say, my tone cutting.

  “If I could go back and change it, believe me, I would. I’d do everything differently.”

  He sounds so sincere I believe him. More than anything, that makes me sad.

  “Please, if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I . . .” He takes a few deep breaths. When he speaks again, his voice is raw with emotion. “I do care about you. I do love you, in my way. More than anything in the world, I wanted to be what you wanted. I never thought anyone would ever want me for myself.”

  Tears again. Quiet, like he’s trying to muffle them.

  In spite of my rage, I feel sorry for him. There’s nothing sadder than a grown man crying.

  Except maybe a bride deserted at the altar on her wedding day in front of three hundred guests in a gown she sewed herself from fabric her dead father se
nt her.

  What a clusterfuck.

  “Look. If you really want to do something for me, have all my stuff at the apartment packed up and put it into storage. I’m not gonna be back in time to get that done before the lease is up.”

  “Done. What else?”

  “Come out to your parents.”

  He groans theatrically, as if he’s been stabbed. “I can’t!”

  “So what’s your plan, then, genius? Troll some other stupid girl into falling in love with you so you can keep up this charade of being someone you’re not? Because if I find out you do that, I’ll out you myself.”

  There’s a moment of shocked silence. Then he says in a tremulous whisper, “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  “Kimber!”

  He has the audacity to sound offended. “You’re lucky I won’t do it anyway, you putz. I don’t believe in revenge, but I won’t let you do to anyone else what you did to me.”

  “But if I don’t marry, my father will cut me off! Where am I gonna get money?”

  “Try getting a job like the rest of us!”

  “Doing what? You know the only things I’m good at are working out and planning vacations.”

  I think of all the time we spent together at the gym and researching trips we’d never end up taking, and get depressed all over again.

  Sometimes what passes for a relationship is nothing more than having someone around to fill your free time.

  “You’re good at mixing cocktails and chatting up strangers, too. You could get a job on a cruise ship.”

  “Ha.”

  “I have a solution, but you’re not going to like it.”

  He says cautiously, “What is it?”

  “Marry a dude.”

  He scoffs. “Please.”

  “I’m serious. Ask your attorney what that trust actually says. Get a copy of it and read it. I’ll bet your father didn’t put anything in there that stipulates you have to marry a woman. The thought never would have even occurred to Mr. Family Values.”

  Brad’s quiet for a while, then he starts munching again, furiously fast.

  “Yeah, marinate on it. And while you’re marinating, go back to the States.”

  “Before you hang up, I have one last thing to say.”

  “What is it?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Do you think your stepbrother is into guys?”

  This idiot. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. “It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far in life without being murdered. You’re the most clueless person I’ve ever met.”

  I hang up before he can ask me for Matteo’s phone number.

  TWENTY-TWO

  MATTEO

  Two days later, she still hasn’t called me.

  Forty-eight hours. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes. One hundred seventy-two thousand eight hundred seconds. That kiss replays in my mind’s eye the entire time. My erection has become a cliché.

  By Wednesday afternoon I’m wound so tight I could snap.

  “What’s wrong with you?” scolds Antonio, frowning at me over the rims of his glasses. “You’ve been pacing like a caged tiger since yesterday!”

  We’re in the atelier, working on the new collection. Scratch that. One hundred full-time master sewers and technical staff are working on the new collection—I’m wearing grooves in the floor. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  Antonio watches me execute three more agitated passes in front of his desk. He’s dressed in his never-changing outfit of black turtleneck, black slacks, and snowy-white athletic shoes. A measuring tape dangles from his neck, curling at the ends. An elastic pincushion bristling with needles hugs his wrist. He leans back in his chair, lights a cigarette, and exhales a cloud of smoke.

  “What’s her name?”

  I don’t bother asking how he knows my mood is due to a woman. His sixth sense is uncanny. His mother was a gypsy fortune-teller. I think it runs in the genes.

  “Kimber.”

  He squints at me through the coils of gray fumes wafting around his head. “As in, ly?”

  “She shortened it.”

  The squint deepens.

  “There were five Kimberlys in her kindergarten class.”

  Her father told me the story over dinner one night of how his six-year-old daughter had informed her startled teacher she was to be addressed as Kimber from that day forward. Kims were everywhere, she’d said, and she was only willing to give up two letters in the name of distinctness.

  I’d chuckled at the precociousness of it, never guessing I’d find myself on the other end of that formidable will soon enough.

  Smoking thoughtfully, Antonio lets me make another few passes in front of his desk. Then he removes his glasses and folds his arms over his chest. “The woman in the bar the other night.”

  “Yes.”

  He murmurs, “Very beautiful.” Then he waits, knowing silence is the most effective way to get me to speak.

  I stop, prop my hands on my hips, and look up at the ceiling. I listen to sewing machines whirr and technicians conferring in hushed voice for a few moments before saying, “The new designs are hers.”

  He snaps his fingers, excited at the news. “Ah! Good! I need to ask her about the feathers on look number twenty. Valentina has ordered the bleached peacock, but there’s a delicate floating accent on the hem that could either be ostrich or . . . what is this face you’re making? You look like you ate a plate of bad clams.”

  I gaze at him meaningfully. “The designs are hers.”

  He jolts upright in his chair, staring at me with wide eyes. “You didn’t buy them from her?”

  “No.”

  “She hasn’t given you permission to use them?”

  “No.”

  Astonished, he gapes at me. His face drains of color. “That’s theft! She’ll sue! She’ll ruin your name!”

  “Not when I’m done with her, she won’t.”

  He barks out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re going to put her in a sex coma, is that it?”

  Hopefully. “I’m going to convince her it’s better to have me as a friend than an enemy.”

  That throws Antonio for a loop. His face goes through a series of interesting expressions, including confusion and suspicion, until finally it settles on dismay.

  “You’ve threatened this poor woman?”

  He says that too loud. Several people at workstations nearby stop sewing, lift their heads, and glance over at us. I glower at them, and they quickly go back to work.

  “Of course not! You know me better than that.”

  “Then I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Antonio takes a long drag from his cigarette. He’s so agitated he doesn’t notice when a fat clump of ash falls onto the middle of his chest and rolls down his shirt, bouncing off his belly and scattering. Then, as he does, he turns practical.

  “Stealing isn’t the way to compensate for the designs that snake Riccardo destroyed when he left. This is beneath the House of Moretti. This is beneath you. We’ll scale down the show—”

  “There has to be fifty pieces,” I interrupt, starting to pace again. “We always show fifty new looks!”

  “Of our own,” he replies, his tone bone-dry.

  I don’t want to tell him exactly what I have planned, so I wave a hand dismissively in the air. “Think of it as a collaboration.”

  “I’ll do no such thing!” he says, indignant. “We don’t collaborate with anyone!”

  “Interesting that’s your takeaway on the situation.”

  He huffs and slumps down into his chair. “Eh, my takeaway. My takeaway is that you’ve lost your mind. I should look for a new job now, before word gets out that I work in a den of thieves and I’m unemployable.” He tsks, muttering to himself. “To think of all the years of dedicated service I’ve given you. My loyalty repaid like this.” He makes a resigned sweeping gesture with his arms, as if the polizia are closing i
n, guns drawn. “I’ll die in disgrace. Ah!”

  He throws an arm over his eyes and whimpers.

  I think he gets his sense of melodrama from his mother, too.

  I pull up a chair across from his desk, sink into it, and drag my hands through my hair. “You asked what was wrong with me. I told you.”

  “So accusing! You’d think I was the thief here!” he cries from behind his arm.

  “I never said I stole the designs, you carping old woman. We traded.”

  He peeks out from beneath his arm and eyes me suspiciously. “Traded?”

  “For a plane ticket.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Casting off his air of doom, he straightens and breaks into a grin. “A trade! This is business! This is good!”

  He’s forgotten I told him I didn’t get permission, so I have to clarify. “But I promised her I wouldn’t use her designs in the show.”

  His expression goes from glee to horror. “This is bad. This is very bad.”

  “What if I said she’s my stepsister?”

  He doesn’t react for a moment. Then I see him recall the state I was in when I returned to our table at the bar after I spoke to her, how the front of my trousers were tented, and he blanches. He makes the sign of the cross over his chest.

  “Sorry—ex-stepsister.”

  “But . . . you’re attracted to her.”

  “Of course I’m attracted to her. A man would have to be blind not to be attracted to her.” And that sweet red strawberry mouth. Fuck.

  I can tell Antonio is thinking hard because he always looks as if he’s about to have a stroke when he’s mulling over a problem.

  Then he pronounces, “It still seems like a sin.”

  “It’s not a sin,” I say angrily. “Why does everything have to be a sin?”

  He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “I don’t make the rules. Talk to the pope.”

  Exasperated, I jump to my feet and start another round of pacing. “I don’t need to talk to the pope. It’s not a sin. It’s not illegal. It’s not anything.”

  “If it’s not anything, why are you so worked up?”

  Good question. My tie feels like a noose. I yank at it angrily, manage to loosen it enough to breathe, and keep pacing. “She’s ignoring me.”