by HELEN HARDT
Except it’s not Skye’s reaction that concerns me.
It’s my own.
It’s the realization that I don’t want to just be Skye’s “friend.”
I want more.
…
The next morning, because of an early meeting with a potential investor, I don’t get into my office until ten thirty.
“Good morning, Claire,” I say absently as I head straight through the door. “Any messages?”
Claire rises and enters my office to lay down a handful of message slips. “Mostly mundane stuff,” she says, “except for these three.” She shoves them toward me.
I read the name.
Kay Brown.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Three calls before ten,” Claire says. “I’m expecting the fourth any minute now.”
“What does she want?”
“What do you think? She wants the scoop on the MADD Gala.”
“She doesn’t need to get that from me.”
Claire smiles. “You’re going to make me spell it out for you, huh? Apparently you had a new woman on your arm. I’ve been hearing gossip all morning.”
“My personal life isn’t any of Kay Brown’s business. Or this office’s.”
“I didn’t say I’ve been spreading gossip, Mr. B. I’ve been hearing gossip.”
“From whom?”
“I’m not a snitch. But you can count on me not to spread any.”
I nod. Claire’s not a gossip. If she were, she’d be long gone by now. With a staff the size of mine, there’s bound to be some talk, though. I know this, and I usually let it lie.
Today, for some reason, it rubs me the wrong way.
I’ve been on the receiving end of libelous gossip stories in all the rags. I ignore it. Always. But I don’t want Skye subjected to it.
“Call Kay and tell her I’m not interested in talking,” I tell Claire.
“I will. Just so you’re aware, though, Kay knows the name of your date last night. She mentioned Skye Manning.”
I lift my eyebrows, though I don’t know why I’m surprised. Boston’s resident bloodhound can easily sniff out that kind of information.
“Very well. Make the call anyway.”
“Will do. I don’t expect that to stop her, though.”
I sigh. “Neither do I. Thanks, Claire.”
Kay Brown is relentless. She’s a hired gun for the Boston Babbler, our local gossip rag where all the stories use an “unnamed source.” I swear to God, they just make most of the shit up. I normally let it roll off my back. All the stories are forgotten as soon as the next issue rolls out.
But again, I don’t want Skye involved.
Why am I feeling so protective of her? She’s a grown woman, for God’s sake.
The emotion bubbling inside me is becoming more than disorienting.
It’s agitating.
And I don’t like feeling agitated.
My mind is racing. This day is no different from any given day in my world. I have no fewer than twenty projects in the works, no fewer than fifteen calls to return.
Definitely a lot to do.
Instead, I rise.
I know Kay Brown. She’ll be dogging Skye in no time, so I should warn her. That’s all it is. The fact that I’m itching to see Skye doesn’t enter my mind.
But I’ve never been a good liar, especially to myself.
I want to see Skye. She has to eat. I’ll take her to lunch.
“I’ll be out until two or three,” I tell Claire. “I’m heading to the food bank after lunch.”
She nods. “Got it. I put in the call to Kay, but she’s not answering her cell.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t worry. She’ll call back.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m walking into the Ames Hotel, my shoes clacking across the marble lobby, past the elevators, to the offices.
The door to Addison’s office is open, and as I get closer—
Skye’s voice. “Yeah, I eat early. Since Addie’s not in, I need to close up the office. Please excuse me.”
I walk through the door.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Skye, purse in hand, is standing in front of her desk.
Five feet away from her is none other than Kay Brown. Christ.
“Kay,” I say. “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here, since you’ve already called my office three times today.”
“Mr. Black.” She holds out her hand. “A pleasure as always.”
I take her hand and shake it firmly. “If you’ll excuse us, I need to talk to Skye.”
“Of course. How long have you two been dating?”
To Kay Brown, “of course” apparently means “not until I ask you myriad questions.” I’ll throw her a bone.
“We only met about a week ago,” I say.
“And your date at the gala?”
“We didn’t arrive together. Ms. Manning and I saw each other at the gala and talked a bit.”
Skye’s audible gulp doesn’t escape my notice. Is she upset at my response?
Kay turns to Skye. “Your lunch date, Ms. Manning, is with Mr. Black?”
“No, it’s—”
“Yes, it is,” I say, taking advantage of the situation to get Skye out of there. “Are you ready, Skye?”
She clears her throat. “Yeah, I’m ready. I need to lock up.”
“Of course.” Kay walks out the door and then turns and looks over her shoulder. “I’ll be in touch. With both of you.” And then she’s gone.
“Thanks for the save,” Skye says. “I thought she was here to see Addie.”
“I figured she’d bother you this morning after she called my office and mentioned you by name.”
“You came here to warn me?”
“In part.”
“In part?”
“Yeah. I thought you might be up for an early lunch.”
“Sorry. I’m meeting Tessa in an hour.”
I narrow my eyes and burn her with my gaze. “Cancel.” The word comes out on a low growl.
She grasps the edge of the desk. “I can’t. Tess and I always have lunch on Mondays.”
Her phone buzzes. “Excuse me for a minute,” she says to me. “Hey, Tess.”
Pause.
“Oh?” Skye’s eyes widen.
Pause.
She clears her throat. “He said he’d replace it.”
Pause.
“Hold on a minute.” She mutes the phone and turns to me. “She got the dress.”
“Good.”
“She says it’s perfect. Did you get it repaired?”
“It was beyond repair, as you know.”
“Then how did you…?”
“I gave the remains to my personal tailor yesterday, along with your Instagram photo. He was able to replicate it.”
Her jaw drops. “In a day?”
“I’m a very good customer.” I smirk.
She unmutes the phone. “His tailor replicated it yesterday,” she tells Tessa.
Pause.
“You can tell him yourself.” She hands the phone to me.
“Ms. Logan,” I say.
“Mr. Black…I mean…Braden. Hi. I’m not sure what to say. This could totally be the same dress. Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome. Anytime.”
“You didn’t have to,” Tessa says. “What’s a dress between best friends? I wish there was some way I could repay you.”
“Actually, there is something you can do for me.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Let me take Skye to lunch today. You can have lunch with her tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding?” She laughs. “Of course! And thank you again.”
“I appreciate that. And you don’t have to keep thanking me. Have a good day.” I hand the phone back to her.
“Tess?” she says. Then she wrinkles her brow.
Tessa must have hung up.
I stare at her. “Seems you’re free for lunch after all, Skye.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Tessa said you sent the dress to her office,” Skye says to me after we order our meal at a little French bistro. “How did you know where she works?”
“That kind of information isn’t hard to find,” I reply.
“Not when you can pay for it,” she says. “Just out of curiosity, how much did that dress cost you on such short notice?”
I try to stop my lips from twitching into a smile. “I never discuss personal purchases.”
“Oh?”
“No. It’s no one’s business how much I pay for anything.”
She drops her gaze. “Well, it was nice of you. Very nice.”
“I said I’d replace it.”
“I know, but I didn’t expect you to actually replicate it. Why would you do that?”
I take a sip of water. “Because I can.”
She doesn’t reply right away. An adorable look of confusion spreads over her face instead. Why does it surprise her that I don’t discuss purchases? I have the resources to replicate a dress in twenty-four hours, so I use them. I got to tear the dress off Skye, and Tessa gets a brand-new one. A great deal, as far as I’m concerned.
“Skye,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“It might interest you to know that I had my tailor make two dresses.”
She swallows the sip of water she just took. “Oh?”
“I did. You’ll be wearing that dress again, but the next time you’ll be on my arm, and there won’t be any question as to who you’re with.”
“Will you destroy it again?” Her lips quiver slightly.
I stare at her. “Yes. Definitely.”
Her cheeks go red, and her brown eyes darken slightly. “When exactly will I be on your arm?”
“You decide.”
She lets out a short laugh. “It’s a cocktail dress, Braden. It might surprise you to know that I don’t frequent a lot of formal affairs.”
“You will now. I’m invited to a lot of them, and since you insist on dating, you’ll be accompanying me.”
“If I insist?”
Oh, she drives me to drink. Those eyes. Those lips. Those needling words that tumble out of her mouth.
“I want you in my bed, Skye. If taking you out sometimes is the way to make that happen, I’ll do it.”
“What if I want more than that?”
“What more is there?”
“A…relationship.”
I tap my fingers on the table. “I’ve told you I can’t be in a relationship with you.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t told me why.”
I wrinkle my forehead. She’s not the first woman to ask why I won’t begin a relationship. But she is the first woman I want to actually answer.
Except my only answer is that I know I’m not wired for long-term. I’ve never met a woman who challenges me enough to make me want to commit.
I don’t let my mind get to the inevitable suggestion it wants to make.
Instead, I say, “The only reason I can give you is that I don’t want a relationship.”
“Why?”
I rub my temple. “You’re persistent. I’ll give you that. But there is no answer.”
“You mean there’s no answer that will satisfy me.”
“Semantics, as you like to say.”
“I like you, Braden.”
I want to smile at her words. But I hold back. “I like you, too. I don’t sleep with people I don’t like.”
“You didn’t let me finish. I like you, but why me? You can have any woman out there. You must know that.”
“I’ve told you.”
“Yeah. You like my lips and my breasts. So do plenty of other men, and sexy lips and big tits aren’t that hard to find.”
“I won’t deny that those are fine features of yours, but I also told you the thing I like most about you. Your need for control.”
She takes a sip of water and sets her glass down harshly. “So I’m a game. If I give you control, you win. Is that it?”
How wrong she is. I don’t play games. I’ve made that clear to her. But this isn’t a conversation to have in a restaurant. I can see how she might perceive some of what’s between us as a game. Soon, though, she’ll see it’s something much more exciting than any game.
“If you give me control,” I say, “we both win.”
“And how long do you expect this arrangement to last?” she asks. “Until you get tired of me?”
This time, I can’t hold back my chuckle. “As long as you want it to.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why is that?”
She huffs softly. “Because you can have anyone. You’ll get tired of me long before I get tired of you.”
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’ll see.”
The waiter brings our meals, and she stares at the coq au vin on her plate.
A minute passes. Then another.
I take a bite of my sole and swallow. “Nothing to say? That’s not like you.” I know how to break the ice. I rise and lay my napkin across the back of my chair. I remove my phone from my pocket, crouch down next to her, and snap a selfie of us. “What the hell? Let’s get them talking.”
“You’re Instagramming?”
“Kay will have the whole city talking about us within a day anyway, so why not? You’re not embarrassed to be seen with me, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then there’s no problem that I can see.” I edit the photo slightly to adjust the lighting and then post it.
Her phone dings in her purse.
“Tagged you,” I say.
She pulls out her phone.
“You should make your profile public,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because my followers will want to know you.”
“I’m a private person, Braden.”
“Not anymore.”
I hope she understands the truth of those words. If she wants to “date” me, she’s going to be in the public eye. Kay Brown accosting her at her workplace is clear evidence of the situation.
She lifts her eyebrows. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
I laugh. I really, really laugh. The things she says… “You did, though. You wanted to date, Skye. This is what dating me is like.” I thrust my phone back in my pocket. “In fact, I’m on my way to do some charity work. Why don’t you join me?”
“You do charity work?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No.”
Right. Her eyebrows nearly shooting off her forehead gives her away. But why would this surprise her?
“I give a lot of money to charity,” I say, “but there’s no substitute for diving in and getting your hands dirty.”
She looks down at her work clothes. “I’m not really dressed to get my hands dirty.”
“Just an expression, Skye. Though I do help with a community garden in my old neighborhood, that’s not what I’m doing today.”
“Yeah? What are you doing today?”
“You mean ‘what are we doing today?’”
She smiles. “Okay, what are we doing today?”
“Wait and see.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I remain mum about the plans while we finish our lunch. Once we leave the restaurant, Christopher picks us up and drives us to a food pantry in South Boston.
I know the place well.
My mother brought Ben and me to this place when I was a little boy, but I don’t advertise that fact.
“I come here once a week for an hour and hand out food,” I tell Skye. “Let’s go.”
We exit the car and walk past the line of people waiting and into the building.
Several people rush to greet me.
“Nice to see you, Mr. Black,” Denny, a young man who volunteers often, says.
I wave and give him a pat on the back.
“Braden!” Cheryl, who runs the place, grabs my hand. “I see you’ve brought a friend.”
“Cheryl, this is Skye.”
Cheryl holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Skye.”
“Cheryl’s an old friend,” I say. “We used to be neighbors.”
“When he was just a little guy,” Cheryl says. “We’re all so proud of his success.”
Skye’s good. She hides her shock well from Cheryl, but I can still see it. I’m connected to this woman in a way that’s new to me, hypersensitive to her every reaction.
This time, it’s not as frightening as it was when I first made the realization. It’s more enlightening. Makes my chest tighten.
“You all had a hand in it,” I say to Cheryl.
“He’s an amazing person,” she says to Skye. “Never forgets his roots. His donations keep us in business. We’re able to help more people than ever these days.”
Skye smiles.
She’s happy about this side of me, and that makes me happy. I’ve never brought a woman to the food pantry. Never had the desire to.
I grab a shopping cart. “This place means a lot to me. Come on, Skye. I’ll show you the ropes.” I take the cart to the person at the head of the line. “I’m Braden.” I hold out my hand.
A young woman carrying a toddler places the child in the buggy seat and then shakes my hand. “Elise.”
“How many people in your household, Elise?” I ask.
“Just Benji and me.”
Benji.
The name shifts me back in time. Benji. My mother called my brother Benji. Brady and Benji.
Each of us took one of her hands when we came here to get free food from the volunteers.
