by Ava Claire
“I was doing a little shopping down on 55th when my assistant told me that he had a juicy tip. Apparently Jacob Whitmore was at some taco place on 30th.”
And she dropped everything to come and stir up drama? Lucky us.
“I was in the mood for something festive, so I decided I’d surprise yall.”
“How thoughtful,” I said through clenched teeth.
“That’s what I thought,” she winked. “I’m just hoping it was a pleasant surprise.”
About as pleasant as a mouth full of nails.
The waiter came back and Rachel ordered a dish so full of substitutions that she was better off creating her own menu item, recipe and all.
The rest of us picked at our appetizer and downed our drinks, hoping our lack of entree would inspire her to go away and if not, we’d be so buzzed that we didn’t care.
Rachel grinned around her straw before taking a hearty sip. “Thanks so much for having me, guys. What are we up to after dinner?”
“That’s it.” Megan shook her head vigorously, her locks singeing the air as she swished it back and forth. “I’m not gonna sit here and act like this isn’t bizarre. And I’m certainly not gonna play nice with the psycho woman that’s intent on ruining you, Leila.”
“Megan--”
“I get it. Appearances. You are clearly better at it than me and I can’t do it.”
Jacob pulled out his wallet and dropped a hundred and slid out behind her without another word. I moved out to join the procession, but Rachel shot out her leg, blocking me in.
“You think this is over? That Alicia Whitmore is all I have up my sleeve?” Her face was hot with animosity. “You think I’ll let you have him?”
I leaned in. “It’s been over. Now move your leg.”
“I’m going to be your shadow. Wherever you go, I go.” She gave me a withering glare. “Watch your back.”
I vaulted from the booth, almost wishing she hadn’t moved so I could plow through her. Flashes followed us out the door and we parted ways with Megan, promising that our next dinner would be drama free.
“I had fun until she walked in,” Jacob sighed heavily, opening the car door.
“Me too,” I chewed on my bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at me strangely. “Why are you apologizing?”
I reached out and closed the door. I was apologizing because I knew Rachel would never apologize for what she’d done. And I had a sinking feeling she was just getting started. Rachel was a lost cause—but I could still fix things with his mother.
****
It was no secret that Jacob thought I was wasting time trying to talk it out with his mother. When she pulled open the door and looked at me like I was walking plague, I almost tucked tail and ran. There was a part of me that told me no good would come from it. I’d open up and try and explain why her proposition hurt and she’d answer with a shrug and a resounding ‘so’. Or worse--she’d call security.
Her eyes took me in with disdain. “I’m assuming you don’t moonlight as a maid,” she said. “Though it that get up...”
I didn’t get offended. I was sure she had much worse up her sleeve. “No, I’m not the maid.”
“Then why did you come here?” she frowned. “Did Jacob send you?”
“No,” I replied. “In fact, he told me coming here would be pointless.”
“And still you came.” It wasn’t surprise or admiration at my pluck--it was something else. Almost like...curiosity. Still, she wasn’t putting out the welcome mat. “Tell me why I should let you in and not call down to the front desk. I mean, my son pays well, but not well enough for you to be in this building without a nametag and janitor’s cart.”
She was right. I’d been speechless when I stepped into Jacob’s building downtown for the first time, but after I’d convinced the doorman I had business at the Clinton Hotel and stepped inside, I’d almost reached for my wallet, sure I’d have to pay something just for breathing the air. With towering marble columns and what I was sure was original framed artwork and sculptures, the place exuded old money. I’d stuck out like a sore thumb and caught the attention of the manager immediately. He’d breezed over, a tight ‘what the hell are you doing here’ smile plastered on his face. He was geared up and ready to kick me out before I tainted the place until I told him I was a nanny, there to interview with Alicia Whitmore. He obviously only heard the ‘help’ part and zoned out the rest because anyone that met the woman knew she didn’t do children.
She was just as stylish as she’d been when we met, wearing a charcoal gray short sleeve dress, a chunky silver locket necklace and black stilettos with metallic studs along the heel. She ran her fingers through her chin length hair, black and gray locks glittering.
“I told him I was interviewing for a service position.”
“Hmm,” she said with a scoff of thinly veiled disgust. “Aren’t you clever? And why the need for the cloak and dagger charade?”
“Because I care about your son and he cares about you. We need to find some way to get along.”
She gave me a final once over, clearly searching for some reason to turn me away. With a final tiny sigh, she stepped to the side, letting me in.
“Maybe you were still asleep when I stopped by before, but my son is no fan of mine,” she said crisply before shrugging a shoulder. “I’m used to it though. Being a Whitmore is very lonely business.”
If I hadn’t seen the hurt flash across her face when Jacob said I was all the family he needed I might have believed her--even though she was trying to make it seem like her poor relationship with her son was as monumental as a broken nail.
“I read the letter he wrote to you.”
She stopped, the vulnerability returning as her mouth worked but nothing came out.
The letter I read wasn’t something exchanged by two people who hated each other. It wasn’t even the words of a family teetering on the edge, caught between wars of the past and hopes for the future. They’d been in a good place and now they were back to square one.
She was quiet for a long moment before turning to the wet bar and pouring Evian into a glass. She took the longest sip in history before she put the glass down and pivoted to me. Her face was cleared of all emotion besides indifference.
“You don’t even have his last name and you’re already snooping?” She let out a bitter chuckle. “My son is going to get exactly what he deserves.”
She was trying hard to make me think that she didn’t care, but I refused to back down. “I know that your marriage was tough--”
“Tough?” She repeated the word like it was poison. “Tough is grinning and bearing it through a party filled with people you can’t stand. Tough is finding your dream dress and wearing it to a function where another woman had the exact same dream. Tough is finding a new stylist that you don’t have to micromanage. My marriage wasn’t tough. My marriage was hell.” She paused at the mirror beside the bar, but she wasn’t looking at her reflection. She was a hundred miles away, lost in a memory.
“I knew Carlton Whitmore would break my heart the minute I met him. I was at some stuffy event with my parents, my mother parading me around to every eligible bachelor in the room.” She tinkered with her locket. “It was Cliff Kensington’s 56th birthday and we were all celebrating the fact that his latest investments made everyone in the room five percent wealthier than when they woke up. I was bored out of my mind when the door swung open and this God of a man strolled in with a woman on each arm. Everyone over forty thought he was disgusting and everyone below was mesmerized.
I’d seen his movies and he was more handsome in person than he’d been on the screen. HIs skin was golden but it wasn’t from St. Barts or tennis matches at the club. It was the caramel brown of a man that lived his life with the top down. A man who lived for adventure. He was like sin come to life right in front of me.
Of course my mother would have rather chewed off her arm than take me over to meet him, even though
he was as wealthy if not more so than those in attendance. He was nouveau rich and it was sacrilegious. And even though I had stars in my eyes, I snuck out on the patio to smoke and pout because guys like Carlton didn’t go for sweet, society girls. They went for sex kittens like the ones at his side. And even if he did, I’d seen the papers. Carlton Whitmore didn’t hold fidelity in high regard.” She stopped toying with her necklace. “I couldn’t light my cigarette and there he was, his bright blue eyes burning like flames.
Funny thing is, he told me not to fall in love with him from day one. He told me he’d break my heart. But the heart wants what the heart wants. Even when he was sleeping with everything he met with a vagina, I was faithful. I gave him a son that he barely saw and played the role of the good wife that stood by him while he disgraced me with his trysts. When he met that Italian woman...” She trailed off, looking at me in the mirror. “He was willing to give her what he could never give me.”
I shifted, not sure what to say to that.
She sniffed, elongating her neck. “I know you know about her. The fact that my son introduced you to that...that...” Her voice caught and she looked away, gathering herself. Hiding away the show of emotion. “You probably think she can walk on water. Jacob said he wished she was his mother more than once.” Not even decades of pretending could dull the edge of jealousy in her words.
“I met her, yes,” I said quietly.
“And I’m sure she told you about her fairytale romance with my husband?”
I was trying to be understanding and non-confrontational, but I felt the need to defend Allegra even though I didn’t agree with her past actions. “She cared about him, but it was never some storybook romance. She felt guilty about the role she played.”
“Oh I bet,” Alicia said with a haughty snort. “He gave her all and would have given her more but she didn’t want that.” When I frowned, her lips curved into a sadistic grin. “Oh my goodness--so the angel isn’t quite so perfect. She left out the part where my husband offered up me and Jacob like sacrificial lambs and said he wanted to marry her.”
With the story Allegra told me, she made it seem like she got tired of waiting for a commitment. I had no idea that Jacob’s father was planning on leaving his family to start over with his mistress. “I didn’t know...”
“Well, she declined. And here’s the hilarious part. I respected her for it. She was smarter than I was. Stronger. I knew the kind of man Carlton was and I married him anyway. But not Allegra. Not the love of his miserable life.” She glared at me. “Let me tell you about love. Love makes you weak. And marriage? That’s a show you put on for the rest of the world until one of you gets tired of it. Or dies.”
The last thing I thought I’d be feeling for Alicia Whitmore was pity, but there it was. I could almost picture her, head over heels in love with a man that hurt her over and over again. How could she go on? How could she grin and bear it as he stomped on her heart until it was nothing but fragments of what it used to be?
My mouth fell open when things clicked and I saw beyond her brash play at the penthouse. Of course she’d been happy that her son found love and wanted marriage despite the horrible example he’d grown up with. But when Rachel told her I was playing some sort of game, that it was all a charade, only the contract, of course she’d try to spare her son. Maybe her husband butchered her heart and made her either or unable or incapable of being the mom Jacob deserved as a kid, but she could do right by him now. She wanted real love for her son.
And I needed to convince her that’s what we had.
“I need you to know that I understand that in your own--” Twisted? Depraved? Asshole-y? “--unique way, you were trying to do what was best for your son. But I can assure you that Rachel Laraby does not have Jacob’s best interests at heart.”
She crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing in disbelief. “You can understand why I’m not surprised to hear you say that. It’s exactly what she said you’d say.”
As much as I wanted to ask her what the hell was wrong with her for even listening to a single word Rachel said, I knew that there was no way to know how long Rachel had been bashing me or what she said. God, if Rachel tried to set it up like I was the other woman…No. I had to go about this differently. I needed to appeal to the mother in her.
“I didn’t come here to get into all that. I came here because I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. We both love Jacob and want him to be happy and this tension just puts him in the middle. I want to work past it. We need to work through this, Alicia.”
She looked like she was considering it and I held my breath. This was it. This could be the moment where we started over. Maybe she didn’t trust me, but she had to see that I loved Jacob.
Right?
“For now, I think its best we just stay out of each other’s way.”
I opened my mouth for a final appeal, but she shot that down by walking briskly to the door. I swallowed the frustration and tried to walk out with my head high, but as soon as the door closed solidly behind me, I felt the emotion knot in my throat.
At least you tried.
****
I leaned back in my swivel chair, the thing making a squeal that used to drive me batty. I’d had it since college and Jacob offered to buy me another, not-so-subtly hinting that I made more than enough money to afford the top of the line. Even though the squeal was usually tantamount to nails on a chalkboard, I couldn’t chuck it. It reminded me of a simpler time. A time when working for a firm like Whitmore and Creighton had been little more than a dream.
It was like a ratty t-shirt that had seen better days but you still gravitated to the comfort in its worn threads. And considering the staff wine reception was sure to draw Rachel like flies on crap, I needed a little comfort. But instead, the squeaky hinges admonished me for wanting to hide out. I had every right to go to the wine reception. Still, after the epic fail with Alicia, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to grin and bear it if Rachel decided to show up, armed with every insulting joke in creation.
The drum at my door made me snap to a ninety degree angle and put on a mask of professionalism. When Jacob appeared in the doorway, I dropped all pretenses like I had it together and let my curly hair wash onto my face.
He circled around my desk, perching on the edge beside me. “We don’t have to go. Maybe something pressing came up and we had to fly to London.”
I let out a groan.
“Spain.”
I grunted.
“Bora Bora?”
Anywhere but here sounded like heaven. But there was a key feature the destination had to have. “Security detail, military grade, to keep your Mom and Rachel out?”
“It can be arranged.”
I peered at him through a veil of chocolate brown curls, expecting to see a smirk or some look along the lines of, ‘Yeah right’. But he was just studying me, willing and able to do anything to make me feel better. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”
“When it comes to you, the word ‘no’ doesn’t exist.”
Be still my beating heart...
We could sneak out the executive elevators, down to the garage and be climbing on his jet just as all the premium liquor was kicking in and Rachel was really pulling out all the stops.
“No,” I said firmly, for my benefit as much as his. I flipped my hair out of my eyes and stood up tall. “It’s just a drink or two and some h'orderves. I can do it.” I forced a smile. “I’m a professional.” I stood up, sliding the skirt down a bit and smiling at the way his eyes traveled over my curves like he was wishing I’d gone with running away. We could have finally made use of the private chamber on board.
“I don’t know how you expect me to keep my eyes off you,” he said, his voice like a slow hand stripping me down.
I slid up against him. Eye to eye. Lip to lip. “I don’t.”
I pressed my lips against his, finding a little piece of bliss and forgetting about everything else but my fingers loc
ked in his hair and his lips locked against mine. I tried to hold onto his taste as we took the elevator up to the roof.
The early evening air was brisk and warm. The roof, usually lined with wicker furniture and flowers, was the perfect oasis from deadlines or to enjoy a cup of coffee or lunch. It was transformed into a set-up fit for any swanky bar or nightclub. White globes and cylinder lanterns cast a warm, ethereal glow over the rest of the simple, classic furnishings. White, modern chairs and ebony sculptures framed the space. Servers dressed in black made the circuit.
Jacob wrangled two glasses of wine for us before he had to step away to take a call and I scanned the people, looking for Claudia. I stopped when I saw Snap Girl from Research and Development, whose actual name was Elle Kent.
She gave me a tiny wave and wandered over, giving me a peevish smile. “Leila, right?”
So we were pretending that we hadn’t engaged in clipped, awkward conversation half a dozen times. “That’s right. And you’re Elle?” Even though I wasn’t a big fan of reintroducing myself, she was clearly trying to be friendly and since I had little to no friends at Whitmore and Creighton, I decided to overlook her amnesia.
She blushed and gave me a nervous giggle that was clearly the product of several glasses of wine. “That’s me!” She gestured around us. “It looks amazing out here, huh?”
Whitmore and Creighton knew how to put on a party. The jazz band lowered their volume, drawing attention to the small stage off to the side. Missy slipped up to the forefront, dressed in her usual fierce all black get up, but her hair hung in soft, carefree waves around her face. She ruffled her locks demurely before speaking.
“I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for stepping away from their desks and sticking around to unwind with us. Enjoy!”
Everyone gave her a polite round of applause and she sauntered off to a cluster of white lounge chaises in the corner. It was clear, even now, that there was the hierarchy and she was in the VIP section. When I narrowed my gaze, I saw Rachel sitting in the center, dressed in a ruby red dress that was a dead ringer for the one I wore to the restaurant in Venice when I cut her dinner with Jacob short.
