In the Land of Milk and Honey

Nell E. S. Douglas

In the Land of Milk and Honey by Nell E. S. Douglas

www.NellDouglas.com

© 2017 Nell Douglas

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

author@nelldouglas.com

Cover by M. S. Olsen

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Inception

Chapter 1 - Pride before the Fall

Chapter 2 - Secrets Are like Assholes

Chapter 3 - Satellites & Reconciliations

Chapter 4 - A Surreptitious Spark

Chapter 5 - A Glimmer Named Hope

Chapter 6 - Everything Is Illuminated

Chapter 7 - The Inconceivable Conceiver

Chapter 8 - Black Holes & Revelations

Chapter 9 - Trance and Transcendentalism

Chapter 10 - A Flower in the Desert

Chapter 11 - Crossed Pollinations

Chapter 12 - Black Bloom Blossoms

Chapter 13 - Dawn of the Orchid

Chapter 14 - Garden of Good & Evil

Chapter 15 - A Streetcar Named Desire

Chapter 16 - The Celestial Harvest

Chapter 17 - Reap What’s Sown

Chapter 18 - Uncharted Terrain

Chapter 19 - The Unforgivable Deceiver

Chapter 20 - The Fall upon Us

Chapter 21 - Arks and Vices

Chapter 22 - The Spotless Blind

Chapter 23 - Apples for Alligators

Chapter 24 - Swimming in the Rocks

Chapter 25 - The Bairds and the Bees

Part Two

Chapter 26 - The Confederate/Hunter McBride

Chapter 27 - Nothing that Fragile

Chapter 28 - A Friendly Match/Hunter Interlude

Chapter 29 - Tail, Tale, Tell

Chapter 30 - The Unforgivable Deceiver II

Chapter 31 - The Peril of the Aral

Chapter 32 - A First Spring

Chapter 33 - Levies and Tolls

Chapter 34 - Remember, Remember, the First after December

Chapter 35 - A Room without Ceilings

Acknowledgments

Prologue: The Inception

He pressed himself firmly inside me, hard and smooth. I gasped, taking in a sharp lung full of cool air. A guttural groan rumbled from deep in his chest. My body burned white hot from the inside. Strange flames licked every inch of my skin, generated where our bodies joined below. In this piercing pain, masochism made sense because the pain and pleasure created the most delicious emulsion. I dug my nails into him, gripping, trembling in anticipation of what came next. His hard body became rigid against mine.

“Is this your innocence?” he asked in a hoarse voice, but he knew.

He carefully shifted his weight onto an elbow, the tendons in his shoulders and neck pulled tight. I felt a pang of guilt at my lie of omission, but I hadn’t wanted to scare him away from this tonight. As his eyes searched mine, his hardened features quickly transformed into an expression of tenderness and reverence, and I drowned in it.

I knew already if I ever had been innocent, I didn’t want to be again. Whatever he was guilty of, whatever crime he’d committed, I wanted to be guilty of too. Whatever stake he burned on, I’d burn with him. No burden could pull me away or convince me this was wrong. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to hurt for him, and nothing in my entire life had ever felt truer. I stroked my hand down the hard expanse of his back, coaxing him, begging, urging him on.

“Yes. But, please, stay with me,” I managed in rasped whisper as my spine arched and my body stretched, for him, onto him. God, it hurt but he was so beautiful and the weight of his body on mine felt like the half that was missing all along had now found home. Underneath him I felt whole, and I willed him to continue with every fiber of my being.

His eyes glittered, shaming the beams of moonlight, seeming insignificant and lusterless by comparison. He ran his fingers down my cheek and brushed my lip with his thumb, so I tasted him. No air escaped between us, his exhale was my breath, our chests rising and falling heavily, in time with one another. It was only seconds, but it felt like a lifetime while I waited for him to act or speak. He leaned down and gently pressed his forehead to me, and I was certain the beat of his heart was the only thing keeping me alive.

“Could I do worse to confess I have no regret? Not even a little,” he breathed into my hair, sounding as desperate I felt. I gently sucked the tip of his thumb. Relief washed through me, and I shook my head minutely, shyly, but I understood completely.

I took his smooth cheek in my hand and pulled his face to mine. “Please…” I said with conviction, but my words were lost. I’d lose anything, give anything, and I told him this much with my eyes. His lips formed a mischievous smile when he withdrew from inside me. At the motion I bit down on his thumb, drawing some blood, and my lids closed on their own accord.

“Don’t,” I whimpered, as his velveteen thumb slid across my lip coating it with his coppery flavor. We were blood for blood now. I clawed my fingers into his flesh, attempting to pull him back in to me, worried he’d changed his mind.

“Gabrielle, Gabrielle,” he chanted, and I needed to see him. “There is no going back for either of us now,” he confessed as he locked my gaze.

“Don’t think of the pain. It won’t always hurt,” he cautioned me, affectionately, neither of us knowing then the cataclysmic truth of his words. He pushed so deeply inside me, I didn’t think he’d ever find a way out and then all thoughts vanished.

Because in that moment, we were perfect.

~o~

No one ever warns you how fine the line is that separates love from madness. And once you’re there, there’s no way to differentiate the two. They are inextricably tied, synonyms, identical twins, one easily masquerading for the other, cruelly switching places when you desperately want the other. But if it’s real, you accept that and welcome them both because in your heart you know the secret that nobody knows.

You know that it’s worth it.

Chapter 1 - Pride before the Fall

“Don’t move,” he ordered gently.

His voice was controlled but his eyes were wide with alarm. I froze instantly where I was lying on the heated steel, my dark chocolate hair splayed out beneath me, a few locks curled around my neck. In my hyperaware state of immobility, the hand that lay dormant by my side twitched with anticipation. Not seconds ago we were all spinning in elated bliss—it was all fun and games. How quickly life changes.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” I asked urgently and in a slightly panicked tone. Despite my quickening heart rate, I obeyed his instruction. I didn’t question his motives because I trusted him.

With my life.

In the background I heard the wicked snickering of a feminine voice, mocking, taking joy in my eminent pain. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he approached in careful and deliberate steps.

He was hovering over me now. Sparkling green eyes squinted with intensity, almost surgical in his focus.

I looked back at him pleadingly and his cool breath fanned my face as he calmly said, “Stay still.” I inhaled as he spoke the words and it smelled like…cherries.

He readied his hand to strike, but it was too late. I felt a sharp sting piercing my flesh.

The bombus terrestris had won.

I yelped as soon as the bee’s stinger was imbedded in my forehead. Snapping upright, smacking my forehead on the cylindrical metal rail of the merry-go-round with such force it reverberated like a gong.

I howled my pain, but I was surrounded by laughter. Bright midday sun met me—vision slightly dazed. I scanned the tree-lined park before scowling at Violet. She gripped her rib, cackling hysterically, as she sat opposite me on the merry-go-round.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. Violet stuttered through her residual laughter, wiping away tears of amusement. My head was beginning to throb. I lowered my brows in disapproval as I rubbed my forehead, analyzing the injuries with my fingertips.

“Not funny, Smurfette.” She laughed again before clearing her throat and stealing my abandoned turkey sandwich.

“Okay, Gabrielle.” Vi rolled her eyes. She called me my formal name only in condescension. Everyone knew me as Bree. I looked over at the small boy standing inches from where I sat at the edge of the platform—the boy who had been chuckling but abruptly stopped. He was looking at me with remorse.

I smiled, hoping it would catch. “Tristan, you can laugh at Mommy all you want. “I raised my hand, brushing his cheek with my thumb.

“I tried to save you, Mom,” my son said. My face fell minutely at his words, but I caught myself and tugged the corners of my mouth up higher.

“I know, my love, you did your best,” I reassured him. He’d saved me enough.

I looked over at my sons aunt, Violet, who wore a mildly sympathetic expression. She’d caught it, too. I was “Mom” now, not “Mommy.” It shouldn’t matter, but it did. It felt like the end of an era. I sighed, not knowing how true those words were. Violet shrugged and continued to eat my lunch.

Tristan was fidgeting with his shirt hem, uncertain.

“Are you going to push or do you want me to now?” I addressed the source of his apprehension, already knowing what the answer would be.

He looked up at me with a brightened expression and grabbed the bar. “I guess I can do it,” he volunteered, disguising his eagerness.

“How fast?” He asked the question with a seriousness reserved for a professional race car driver taking a pedestrian for a ride in a Lamborghini. I beamed at an amused Violet.

“Hmm, let’s see.” She tapped her chin. “How about super-fast!”

“Are you sure?” He questioned, laced with caution, clearly concerned for our safety. His r still occasionally sounded a little like w. A little. I loved that. My smile was so wide I thought my face would crack.

I matched his concerned tone. “I think Tristan’s right, Violet. Let’s just do medium.”

He gave me a stiff nod of approval with his little chin before clasping his fingers tightly around the tube—just barely encircling the circumference—and letting his sneakers dig into the worn circular track around the platform. His body strained, but his soles quickly found purchase. Violet hummed, and I laid back down on the warm surface. I exhaled at the throbbing pain in my head but ignored it. Instead, I watched the clouds in the sky gently spin into a kaleidoscope of blues and whites, and I had to admit medium speed was pretty intense for a four year old.

We spun and hummed and didn’t even hear the hundreds of other people who were sharing the park with us today. Or maybe it’s that we didn’t acknowledge them. Our lives were full and rich, and we didn’t need anything else.

When Violet convinced me to move here she said the words I’m sure every girl that ever moved to this city from a small town has uttered, “Great things will happen for us, Bree. Big things. I can just feel it.” At the time, I laughed at her and the cliché prophecy. I wasn’t nervous for her; she was destined to find success. It was written in her DNA. I, on the other hand, was less confident. But as it turns out, she was right. I didn’t really need convincing because, although she didn’t realize it at the time, I would have followed her anywhere. I should be grateful she didn’t want to go to school on the West Coast because leaving Sweetwater, Virginia, for New York City was the best decision I’d ever made. We thrived here and prospered.

I felt the swirling scene around me slowly come to a halt, and I knew the ride was ending.

“What next?” Violet asked.

“Tag!” he announced and lunged for Violet who squealed as she dipped and dived around the open field.

We played tag for a while, and Violet and I didn’t have to pretend to lose anymore. After a few rounds of humiliatingly being pursued and caught by a child, we collapsed on the grass beside each other breathing heavily. I opened my eyes, shading them by cupping my hands just above the brow, and was greeted with a vision of a perfect little face, smiling victoriously, sunbeams radiating around his halo of honey and brandy hair, shimmering against a backdrop of crystalline blue.

“Ready?” I grinned.

“Yep. Let’s go home,” he answered triumphantly in his cute little voice; a little exhausted himself.

“I’m ready when you are, kiddo,” Vi agreed as she stood and took his hand. “By the way, Bree, your head looks terrible.”

I lifted my free hand, grazing the very swollen lump. Tristan looked up at me, laced with concern. Placating him, I said, “I’ll put some ice on it at home.”

I slid my bag across my shoulder, tossing the remnants of our picnic. Holding hands, we left the pocket park, making our way across the lush green expanse of the Great Lawn, weaving through the smattering of couples and families lying on blankets in the grass.

“One, two, three!” we counted in unison and swung Tristan into the air in front of us.

“Oomph! That’s getting harder to do,” Vi complained.

“Maybe you’re just getting old, Vi,” I joked, knowing that the real reason was because Tristan was rapidly closing the gap between their height difference. I wasn’t sure which was more insulting, but that seemed like the safer route.

“Hey now, I’m not the one with a goiter on my head. But since you mentioned it, I am in need of some oil on the old joints. Hot, wet, slippery oil,” her words laden with innuendo, baiting a reaction from me.

“Stick some Preparation H in it, Nana,” I warned. This was a little game she liked to play. The “how-can-I-get-away-with-saying-dirty-things-and-not-sound-dirty” contest. They say don’t reward bad behavior so mostly I ignored it, but that only emboldened her.

“What’s pepper-ation H?” he questioned.

“It’s nothing, honey. Just lotion for ladies who wear too much perfume and loud dresses. Like your Aunt Violet,” I said with a satisfied smirk.

“You can never wear too much eau de toilette. And my designs aren’t loud, they’re well spoken,” she countered in a dignified tone.

“Keep telling yourself that,” I teased, “You know you’re probably the one that attracted the bee.”

“I can’t help my appeal. Too sweet for my own good,” she said haughtily, batting her lashes.

I rolled my eyes. “Here we go. You know, your ego is going to trigger my gag reflex if it gets any bigger.”

“Oh! Are we talkin’ gag reflexes now?” she said through a mischievous smirk. My brow perked up.

“You are five minutes away from being disowned.” I was only partly kidding. She could make discussing the Easter Bunny sound dirty.

Undaunted, she skipped out ahead of us, shapely hips swinging, as she pranced backwards in order to face us, twirling around, smiling as she began to sing, “My milkshake brings all the bees to the park….”

We giggled and I noticed bystanders watching the show as her voice carried through the valley of the park. She ended with a grand pirouette, curtsying as a few observers joined in applause. A homeless man in short tropical running shorts cat called. She blew him a kiss.

“You’re silly, Aunt Violet,” Tristan said, shaking his head grinning as she took his hand.

“I know. Isn’t it exciting?” she asked wistfully.

From the day we met in dance class, I liked that in her. She was fearless. They grouped us according to height so although she was six and I was four, we were together. I showed up, all knees and elbows, in a pink leotard my father had purchased and a bun so tight it looked like I’d had work done. I didn’t like pink or ballet, but my father had no clue what to do with a four-year-old girl. He did what he saw on TV. Vi showed up in a black tutu and a neon headband, offered me a candy cigarette, instantly becoming my idol.

Four years later she became my sister. Out of a bizarre match of convenience, her mother, Sharon, and my father, Mitch, got married. Her mother divorced her father, The Cadillac King of Virginia, after catching him with a substantially younger woman. The dating pool in our small town was almost nonexistent and our parents were spending so much time together because of us, they thought it made sense. A neglected Sharon suggested matrimony. Mitch cracked open a six-row malt beer and nodded. A courthouse trip later, the deed was done.

Two years later they separated—Sharon making it official the following year. My dad was handsome in his way, perhaps wore his hair too long and didn’t trim his goatee often enough. Mitch caught the eye of many of my peers’ mothers at school events. He would go out most Saturday nights to a local honkey-tonk, occasionally coming home rumpled and smelling of aerosol hair spray but always sober-eyed. Honkey-tonking was the only interest he shared with Sharon, except sober eyes weren’t in Sharon’s repertoire. Total opposites besides. Sharon gave marriage a third try, with a young PE teacher. With that one tanking too, she succumbed to a lusterless fate as Sweetwater’s most iconic barfly. Mitch drank six-row malt and nodded to any question asked from the door of his woodworking shed, up until his heart gave out one day. Even as kids, we knew they didn’t make sense together—like cilantro gelato; just wrong.

Violet and I, on the other hand, were like chicken and waffles. An unlikely combo at first glance, but we complemented each other well. So we kept the title of sisters.

And four years and eleven months ago I gave her the title of Aunt.

“Aunt Violet?” Tristan asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes?”

“What’s a gag reflex?” I felt my nostrils flare as I shot daggers at the blue-streaked platinum blonde. She mouthed the word sorry and quickly tried to salvage the concept.

“It’s like when you had the flu last year and couldn’t eat mashed potatoes….” I monitored closely as she proceeded explaining with uncharacteristic maturity.

We slowly followed the winding concrete path getting closer and closer to the sounds of the bustling streets and blaring horns, and I felt him squeeze my hand tightly—and I felt reluctant. We loved Central Park in the summer. The broad oaks and sunshine so bright it practically yellowed the air. We would miss coming here soon because, much to his chagrin, we never came here after summer. But we enjoyed the day and didn’t think about falling leaves and dying trees or limbs long gone limp and my brokenhearted boy.

We soaked in the cocoon of green that hung overhead, and though every year held the promise of the mossy greens return, I’d learned that waiting was a waste of days. The seasons were about to change, although looking around now there wasn’t a clue. We lived in the moment, too busy to consider inevitabilities.

I turned my face to the sky and basked in the warmth, blissfully ambivalent fall was upon us.

Incandescently happy.

There was certainly something to be said for autumn, and we still enjoyed ourselves after summer. Madison Park is where we ran and played, spending year after year watching the flora and fauna transform; hues of green turned to rust, butterscotch turned to brandy, and cognac in to—

“Stop!” Tristan halted suddenly, breaking his grip from ours. We watched curiously as he crouched, scooping up something, before running to the edge of the sidewalk. We followed.

“What is that?” Violet asked, intrigued.

“It’s a cata-pillar,” he answered matter-of-factly. We watched wordlessly as he gently set it down in the grass.

“What a handsome young man,” I heard a female voice say. I looked up. A white-haired woman in a powder blue floral dress occupied a bench next to us. I could see her tan knee high hose peeking out and she reminded me of Mrs. Claus, though for all you knew she was a retired mercenary or an adult film star. That’s one of the quirks about the city. People are never what you expect.

“Thank you,” I answered. Tristan popped up from his crouch, and she studied his face with a pleasant expression.

“Is he yours?” Her questioning gaze shifted back and forth from Vi and me. In a city full of nannies and au pairs, that was the most common assumption. Two girls in their twenties on a leisurely stroll with a child had “hired help” written all over it. Some thought he was a sibling—some thought he was a little cousin—but as I smilingly smoothed out a mop of silky hair, the bottom line for all the false guesses was obvious.

Avoiding any real clarification, I simply nodded.

“He has your eyelashes,” she said finally. I heard Violet snort. I looked down at the thick lashes the color of bittersweet chocolate, and my heart swelled with pride.

“Yes; he does. And my ears, too.” Maybe I was reaching. His lobe did look a little like mine.

I thought I heard Violet mumble “not hardly” under her breath, but I dismissed it.

On the way out of the park, Violet insisted we visit the monument they had erected in her honor. As she rambled on about how they got the name wrong, Tristan and I smiled at each other knowingly. I had to explain previously that the cast statue of Alice in Wonderland was not, in fact, a monument to his Aunt Violet despite their resemblance and shared keenness for being drawn to rabbit holes. When he told her he knew it wasn’t her, presenting the evidence, she said they built it in advance because they knew she was coming.

I actually enjoyed stopping by the statue on our visits, although I’d never tell her that. The weathered tone of the sun-burnished metal reminded me of home. Of the moist tobacco leaves in jars of dip from the men at the mill, the worn dark caramel leather of boots that outlived expectations, and of the ceremonial snifter of bootleg bourbon that sat sentinel, waiting to welcome home the man that became a father to us both—the colors of home.

I wondered if she was reminded of this, too, and if her fondness for the fairy-tale character she fancied herself after wasn’t the reason she admired the statue at all. I smiled at the thought.

We took a cab on 59th and headed back home to the West Village. We both had apartment condos on Charles Street, but I had the better view of the Hudson—which annoyed her to no end. On the ride home, they took in the sights and I mentally went over my checklist for the night. Everyone came over on Sunday; it was ritual. We had a tight-knit group that always met at my house for dinner. Really, we were more than friends; we were a family. Usually the movie was of the animated persuasion, but we’d been branching out lately. I knew we were running behind because of our extended stay at the park, but the day had been special; the next day was his first day of kindergarten.

As we neared the towering glass building, Tristan shifted from his nestled position and I looked down to see him brush his long eyelashes a few times with the back of his fingers, and finally a satisfied smile played on his lips. I smiled, too.

Violet went to her unit to freshen up. I was struggling with the lock on my unit when the latch clicked and the door swung open. My surprise subsided as I caught a flash of gold and the extraordinarily elegant man before me who was holding a bouquet of wildflowers. Tristan ran inside and hugged his waist.

“What happened to your head?” he asked.

“August, you surprised me,” I said. “I was stung by a bee. Then I was assaulted by playground equipment.” He chuckled softly.

“It’s pretty swollen, Gabrielle. How long ago was this?” He assessed the damage while we stood in the entry.

“An hour, maybe.” I winced as a tender finger grazed my skin.

“You didn’t take the stinger out?” his blue eyes twinkled, and my own gaze flickered down to my walnut floors.

“No,” I said quietly. “We were having too much fun to leave.” I reached down and enthusiastically tickled Tristan.

“Come on.” He took my hand and led me to the bathroom. I sat on the countertop as he angled my chin towards the light while Tristan found a seat on the toilet lid, observing and asking questions of the procedure as we progressed. August patiently explained every detail, although Tristan was saddened when he learned the bee would die for losing his stinger.

After a few minutes of painful poking and prodding, he was done. I turned to my reflection in the mirror and gasped. “My gosh. It looks like I’ve grown a third eye.”

He chuckled. ”It’ll be fine. Lemon will help with the sting, and ice helps calm the swelling.”

“Thank you, August. You should have been a physician.”

“You sound like my father,” he mused. My eyes involuntarily darted to the boy sitting on the toilet who was busy mastering the tweezers.

August cleared his throat. “The others will be here shortly. Should we get ready?”

Chapter 2 - Secrets Are like Assholes

August and I went over our itinerary for the following weekend. I was joining him on a company retreat. I was his “plus one” last year, but it had been in the city. This year it was at a sprawling summerhouse resort in the Hamptons. I arranged for Tristan to stay with August’s younger sister, Jill. Although Jill loved Tristan like her own, the idea of leaving him for a whole weekend was hard. While we discussed it, I momentarily thought about backing out. That wasn’t fair to August, though. He was good to us, and if all he was asking was for me to accompany him for two days, I couldn’t say no. He was CFO of a prominent investment firm that was in the midst of a major transition. Keeping up appearances was crucial.

Tristan showed August the new cage for his pet lizard, Herman, while Violet flitted around my kitchen, needlessly opening and closing cabinet doors. I was making a grilled cheese for Tristan, who declined tonight’s offerings of lasagna. She finally stopped disorganizing my spice rack when there was a knock on the door. I craned my neck to see.

“Hi, hooker,” Violet said nonchalantly as she held the door for Jill.

Jill narrowed her eyes at Violet. Ordinarily best of friends, they’d been at odds for a few weeks. The private school required I list both a godfather and godmother on the paperwork. August got the title of the former years ago, which was a no-brainer, but I hadn’t chosen the latter yet. It was too difficult a decision, and they refused to split the title, causing years of sporadic dissent to bloom into all-out war. Jill ignored her and turned to me.

“Hi, Bree, I brought a cheesecake from Junior’s for dessert.” She gave Violet a smug look.

“Thank you, Jill,” I said graciously and raised a brow at Violet. She was going to have to up her game. Everyone knew Junior’s was the best in the city.

“Suck up,” Violet chirped.

“Suck it,” Jill chirped back, setting the dessert on the counter. Vi leered at it.

“Whoa, there, Vi,” I heard Ian’s gruff baritone as Violet had begun to close the door. “You really wanna throw out the guy that brought dinner?”

“Sorry, Ian, come on in,” Violet said, widening the door and stepping back for him to enter.

I smiled inwardly, realizing Ian had probably hid on the corner waiting for Jill to arrive so they’d share the elevator by happenstance. Wouldn’t be the first time. Ian was a burly Bostonian, we met a few years ago when we purchased our units in the building. He was a successful developer and, despite his roughneck reputation and intimidating frame; he had a heart of gold.

He wagged his auburn eyebrows at me when I caught him staring at Jill’s behind as she bent over carefully to remove the packaging off the cake. Just then Tristan came barreling in and received a round of hugs.

“Your hair’s getting dark, kid,” Ian pointed out as he ruffled his hand through it. Tristan scowled and patted it back down.

“He’s not a tow head anymore,” Jill mused. “What color would you call that?”

“I’d say buttered copper,” Violet added.

“He’ll be a brownie. I can tell,” Ian assured, then followed suit with Violet and swiped some cheese.

“Like mom?” Tristan asked as he leaped in the air to steal Ian’s cheese.

“Yep, little man, just like your momma” Ian grinned, extending his arm up over his head to hold away the prize.

The girls and I had quietly busied ourselves during the interaction, but Tristan buoyantly broke the silence.

“Hi, Jill,” he said smiling brightly. “I got this for you.” He gave a single wildflower he’d pulled from the vase on the table. I smirked up at Ian who was looking like he’d wished he’d thought of that.

“That is so sweet. Thank you, Tristan,” Jill cooed. With only a hint of uneasiness, she took the flower and smelled it.

“You’re welcome,” he said satisfactorily.

“What about me, buddy? Where’s my gift?” Ian asked teasingly.

“You don’t get one,” Tristan said plainly. “Flowers are for pretty girls.”

“Where’s my flower?” Violet asked and he shook his head exasperatedly.

“I can’t give you a flower, Auntie Violet.” We all snickered at Vi’s distressed face while he ran back into the living room.

“What the…” Ian trailed off as we all shook our heads.

“They grow up way too fast,” I commented. Jill was becoming the object of his romantic affection rather than partial maternal figure. He even called her “Jillian” now instead of “Aunt Jill”. Jill looked smug but frowned at the flower.

“Um, hello? There are bigger issues at hand here. I deserve a flower, too.” Violet persisted. “What makes Jill so special?”

“I hate to break it to ya girls, but that boy is a boob man,” Ian’s reply was met with three gasps.

“Ian!” I yelped and elbowed him lightly. I’d probably hurt my elbow on his bicep if I used any strength.

“I’m just calling it like I see it,” he said with a wink to Jill and she…blushed? Jill is not a blusher. Huh.

“I think he’s right, Bree,” Jill added conspiratorially, “I told you about that time he grabbed my boob.”

Violet and Ian laughed but I was not amused. “Jill, do not mischaracterize my son as some breast bandit. He was a year old. It was perfectly innocent.”

“I’m telling you, Bree, he knew what he was doing,” she continued, her eyes looked far away. “He tugged on my shirt and then he smirked. He smirked, for Christ’s sake! I’ve seen that look. He knew what he was doing.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I said with a chuckle.

“Yes, you’re ridiculous, Jill,” Violet mocked. “Maybe if you quit running around like a kindergarten Lolita with a purse full of suckers it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Ian’s laughter boomed. “She may have a point, Jilly, but for the record, I like the tops.”

Jill responded with the second demure blush of the evening and wordlessly exited the kitchen behind Ian. Violet and I gave each other puzzled looks as they disappeared.

“Jilly? Really? She hates nicknames,” Vi said.

“Maybe she likes who’s doing the nick-naming,” I replied.

We had dinner at the dining table without incident, but Violet refused dessert. She didn’t refrain from asking me how I was enjoying my slice of “Judas-flavored” cheesecake.

“It’s delicious, thanks,” I replied as I scooped up a forkful.

“There’s nothing like Junior’s,” Jill smirked. Vi rolled her eyes.

“We ran into Nadia in the lobby today,” Violet started carefully. “She had the baby with her.”

Jill raised her thin strawberry blonde brows, but her fork scraped her plate. “I guess there’s no accounting for taste in this building.”

“Don’t look at me,” Ian defended. “They bought a resale.”

“I didn’t think of that. It’ll probably impact my resale value having Euro-trash in the building,” Violet snickered.

“Be nice, Vi. She and Nathan have the right to live wherever they please,” August admonished. “Although, why he picked this building is puzzling.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Jill addressed us. “I’m over it.”

I eyed Jill, but she did finally seem at peace. She dated a successful banker named Nathan Hill for a few years, but the relationship was rocky. We never took to him. Jill seldom brought him around for that reason. About a year ago he impregnated a woman named Nadia, a striking Russian import—rumored to have been an escort. Unfortunately, Jill and Nathan were still dating at the time.

“Be thankful you didn’t end up Jill Hill. The poor baby is paying for their sins. Ugly as a dropped pie,” Violet tsked in what was meant as a comforting observation for Jill.

“Violet! Not nice,” I chastised as the others laughed, including my son. I had to admit internally, I didn’t think Nathan and Nadia’s DNA strands were meant to co-mingle based on the results.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see that little goober today, too, Bree. That baby looks like the love child of Elmer Fudd and a fart.” Jill and Ian were in fits of laughter.

“Babies can’t be ugly, Violet. They are all cute in their way,” I said.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Jill added. “You ended up with Cutey McCuterson over here.” Tristan’s face lit up.

“August, some help here, please?” I implored, grinning. The last thing I wanted was for my son to start calling babies ugly.

“Gabrielle is right,” August said formally, straightening in his chair. “Babies are genetically designed to be cute. It’s a science. They are born appealing so mothers don’t abandon their own young.”

I went quiet and Violet discreetly took my hand under the table.

I hardly remember the rest of the conversation. After dinner, we piled on my white leather sectional sofa and watched our movie (Bee Movie, ironically). Ian brought over a Bruce Lee flick, and although my son loves kung fu, it is standard for them to bicker over the selection. Although I’m the youngest of the adults, Violet and Ian sometimes made me feel like a mother of three.

At the evening’s end, August and Ian said goodnight, hustling to their respective homes, and I left the girls to change and tuck in an already sleeping boy.

“The boys are gone. Break out the wine,” Violet announced, as I rejoined them in the living room. To my surprise, Jill went into the kitchen without objection and returned with three glasses and the large barrel-shaped red wine vinegar bottle from the top cabinet. It actually contained a very nice cabernet sauvignon but in my mothering paranoia, I disguised it. The white wine vinegar bottle was vodka, but Violet only brought that out in a crisis.

“Are we celebrating?” I asked, watching Jill struggle to uncork the bottle before pouring.

“No, but if you girls wanna know how my date last night went, it’s gonna take a few drinks,” Violet explained.

Yikes. I said, “That bad, huh?”

“Worse than bad,” Violet said with a sigh.

Jill’s mind seemed to be elsewhere, but before I could ask what was wrong, we were quickly swept up in Violet’s tale. And it was legendary. He asked her out in line at the coffee shop after he’d been on a run. Apparently, he gave an excellent first impression in his jogging attire and was gainfully employed, but his night time persona was less appealing.

“It was terrible. And don’t get me started on his cologne. I mean, who still wears Old Spice?”

“A casting director I met once in Milwaukee. He had a pet sloth,” Jill offered, though we wished she hadn’t.

“Oh, Jill,” I shook my head. “Hey, I think Mitch had a bottle of that!” I added, referring to my father.

“Exactly,” Violet hissed with narrowed eyes. I snickered.

“Maybe be less picky and go for the cute barista. Good on paper isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be,” I suggested. Not that I had any wisdom about dating.

“Did you even hear the story I just told you?” Violet asked incredulously. “I have been more open-minded lately, and it’s gotten me nowhere. I even edited The List!”

“Really?” Jill and I spoke in unison, astonished. The List. Violet’s constantly curated dating criteria. It included things like the appropriate length for jeans and body hair ratios.

“Yes. I whittled it to the bare bones. Hot, good kisser, at least offers to pick up the check, owns a tux, and waits for me on the other side of turnstiles.”

“Wow. Those are some serious concessions,” I admitted.

“It’s pathetic. I’m tired of flings with dunces and dunces I fling.” Violet looked down, twirling her wine glass at the stem.

“I must not be hearing right. Violet Man-eater Valentine is actually ready to settle down?” Jill asked, skeptical. Violet nodded and shrugged at once, which is hard to do, and it seemed a sad gesture.

“You’ll find him,” I squeezed her hand lightly, and she gave a smile. I finally took a sip of the wine, and I saw the girls do the same as I leaned back into the cool white leather of the sofa. That was a pretty heavy admission from my sister.

Violet enjoyed her share of companionship but maintained marriage was for Communists. When she first arrived, she quickly climbed the rungs of the social ladder. She became the muse of the ‘new Andy Warhol’, Thurgood Badue, and her picture can be found monthly in every publication south of 57th. She met Jill on “the scene” her freshman year, and they quickly became great friends.

I moved here, to attend NYU, the year after Vi. Even though there was a two-year age difference, I’d worked overtime to join in her in junior high school, skipping fifth grade. Sometimes I wonder if my nineteen-year streak of awkwardness was related to my constant effort to keep up with her and our other childhood friend Zack.

I was initially jealous of Violet and Jill’s friendship. Let’s face it, as a former runway model, Jill is intimidating. But she turned out to be a wonderful person whose friendship I found invaluable.

But Vi had definitely found her home in NYC. Her social ascent wasn’t climbing, it was more like levitating. The melting pot that is NYC is, in fact, very liquid. People tend to find their natural level. Math loving band nerds become rock stars and homecoming kings become toll booth workers. You can’t hide here, not from your potential or who you really are. My friends were the lucky ones that were and always will be stars in their own right. This city didn’t make them into the successes they are. They showed up that way. But it didn’t break them either, which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

The problem is sometimes people here want you for the wrong reasons. They were both successful women in their fields at a young age, and some men could be such snakes. I guess Violet had finally had her epiphany.

“Jill, you’re being awfully quiet over there,” I commented.

“No, I’m not.”

“You just drained half the bottle,” Violet added. It did look like she was drinking for confidence rather than comfort.

“All right.” She set her glass down. “I slept with him. With Ian,” she said slowly, gauging our reactions.

“What? When? How?” I asked.

“It’s about time. I’m tired of choking on sexual tension when you guys are in a room together,” Violet quipped.

“Bree, remember when you had to cancel last minute on meeting us for lunch two weeks ago?” Jill said, the words flooding out.

“Uh, huh,” I said innocently as I lifted my glass to my lips. Violet glanced at me with a smirk.

“We started talking, just the two of us, and it was just…different. We talked for hours at the table and never touched our food, didn’t even look at our phones. When we were done, the workday was practically over, so he walked me home and I didn’t want it to end. And I don’t think he did either.”

“Trust me, he didn’t,” I said.

“Well, if Jill gets someone who doesn’t answer his cell phone on dates, I’m putting that one back on the list,” Violet pouted and we chuckled. “But seriously, you guys are a match. I’m glad you’re finally together.” Jill’s face fell.

“You are dating now, right?” I questioned.

“No,” Jill said, sitting straighter. “It’s just a one-time deal.”

“What?!” Violet exclaimed. “Look, I just want someone I can hang out with on weekends who can keep up. You’re built for commitment, Jill.”

“Did you tell him?” I asked cautiously, and she shook her head. “He’s not going to care, Jill,” I said exasperatedly.

“How do you know?” she retorted. “Wait, you didn’t say anything, did you?”

“No! I value my face too much.”

“Look, we just know. He is crazy about you. He’s been crazy about you, nothing’s going to change that,” Violet offered.

“Yeah, but I can’t just date him. I have to be sure it could be something—long term. Otherwise, it’s not worth breaking up our group. Imagine how awkward Sundays would be?” Violet and I looked at each other with momentary wariness. “See?”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said firmly.

“Bree’s right. I’d bet the Brooklyn Bridge on it,” Violet chimed.

“He likes me now, but that’s because he doesn’t know. Look at how he is with Tristan. He was born to be a father. Do you honestly think he’d want to be with someone who can’t have his kids?”

“You can adopt. He would be just as great to any child. He has such a big heart. And he loves you. You guys were made for each other,” I reached my hand out in consolation and she took it. “You gotta do it, Jill, just tell him. It’s torture watching you two love each other from a distance,” I assured her. “And besides, insecurity doesn’t suit you. It’s like hearing a pit bull meow.”

Jill snorted.

“Or a unicorn that barks,” I added, and Jill’s face began to cheer.

“Or a monkey that… doesn’t do monkey stuff,” Violet quipped and we laughed.

“Feel better?” I asked as I patted her hand.

“Yes. I’ll tell him, but I’m blaming you hookers if it doesn’t work out.”

“So, now it’s Bree’s turn,” Violet said abruptly.

“Since when do I have a turn?” I asked incredulously.

“Since when I said it just now,” she chimed smilingly.

“Well, Tristan and I did meet a very nice man last week,” I said shyly.

“Really? Who? Someone from the school, I bet,” Violet said, rubbing her hands together. “Oh! Or the cute messenger guy.”

“Bullshit,” Jill said skeptically.

“No, really. We’re having lunch with him again next week,” I persisted, and they both seemed to perk up.

“Spill, now!” Violet was vibrating with excitement. She always accused me of secret trysts because no one could be that abstinent.

“Well, he’s charming, established, and, best of all, loves children.”

“Wow. He sounds perfect,” Violet said, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, a little too perfect,” Jill said suspiciously.

“Don’t be like that, Jill. So where is your next date?”

“A fast food place in Times Square.”

“Um, I’m happy for you, Bree.” It sounded like a question and Violet looked concerned.

“Thanks, I’m excited.”

“Wait. Bree. Didn’t you take Tristan to see Burger Clown last week?” Violet quizzed.

“Don’t judge me, Violet. Our love is real. He didn’t pay the tab, but he does wear size twenty-one shoes.”

They laughed at me while I sipped red wine. Laughter is better than questions.

“You should just marry August, Bree. He’s got it all. Fairy prince looks, awesome job, bangin’ bod,” Violet said dreamily, as Jill and I exchanged looks.

“I don’t think August and I work romantically,” I answered gingerly.

“Why not? You’ll be on that trip with him next weekend, all alone. I’d happily be trapped in a hotel room him,” Violet added with a sigh, while I laughed and Jill cringed.

“And I bet he’s got a huge—” Jill’s manicured hand flew over Violet’s mouth, muffling her next words.

“I don’t want to hear things like that about my big brother, Violet,” Jill grimaced before she removed her hand. Violet snapped at it.

“Heart,” Violet said smiling innocently. “I was going to say heart.”

“You want him because he’s the only man to ever resist your wiles,” I teased.

“Maybe,” she pondered. “But still. You should put the moves on him. See what happens,” she said and shrugged. Again, Jill and I caught each other’s gaze as we both sipped our wine.

“Look, I’m not dense,” Violet added, rolling her eyes. “I know he’s gay. Still worth a shot.” And with that, a fine mist of burgundy cabernet sprayed from both Jill and my mouths.

“I take that as a yes,” Violet said unamused as her gaze shifted back and forth from Jill and I until Jill reluctantly nodded.

“I’m just pissed no one ever came right out and told me. If not for my impeccable gaydar, I would have genuinely thrown myself at him six years ago!” For years, she’d suspected it and even tried to convince me, offering me evidence, but she had never point blank said it out loud. None of us had. Jill knew I knew, but we’d never discussed it. Just the idea of discussing something so private behind the back of an honorable man like August made me feel dirty.

“Violet,” I soothed as we blotted the rug with napkins. “Don’t be angry. It wasn’t my secret to share.”

“You really don’t have a right to be mad, Violet,” Jill justified.

“The heck I don’t,” Violet retorted and I shushed her. “Bree knew.”

“Inside voices, please,” I muttered, as I patted the rug on my hands and knees.

“Violet, he only told Bree because he had—because it was relevant,” she explained. “And secrets are like assholes. Everybody’s got one, and no one has the right to see your no-no unless you want them to. But most times, they’re best kept hidden.”

I chuckled at her analogy, but Violet didn’t laugh. Jill and I went to the supply closet and broke out the heavy artillery on my beige shag rug while Violet stewed away on the sofa. I was just about to end the night when I saw Violet gulp down the rest of the wine from all three glasses.

“So when did he tell you, Bree?” she asked, her glassy eyes peering at me, her tone hostile. Jill looked up at me, horrified, with a bottle of Resolve in one hand and a stained rag in the other. I took a deep breath.

“When I…wasn’t well,” I replied, busying myself with the cleaning. I felt like I owed her some explanation since I knew she wouldn’t have hid anything from me, but she must have known that was when he’d confided in me.

“You mean, when you were pregnant,” she clarified, in a callous tone. I felt my stomach clench.

“I think we need to call it a night,” Jill said, sobering, and stood, tugging on Violet’s arm.

‘No,” Violet snapped as she jerked her elbow away. “It needs to be said. I’m not going to dance around this anymore. It’s time to show your no-no, Bree.”

“I’m not doing this, Violet,” I warned, letting the full weight of my throatier voice counter her chiming one.

“Oh, we’re doing this, Bree. We’re doing this right now,” she hissed, and I recognized the determined look in her eye. I stood up calmly and gently laid my cleaning supplies on the coffee table before walking to the front door and holding it open.

“Hallway,” I said flatly; she knew what I meant. Violet looked satisfied, but Jill was weary as they marched past me.

“You don’t have to do this, Bree,” Jill said vehemently with sympathy in her eyes as I closed the door behind me. “You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“Stuff it, Jill. You just like things the way they are because you’re living vicariously through Bree. You’re afraid if Tristan actually has a father, you’d be cut out of your piece of the happy family pie,” Violet accused. Jill looked enraged.

“Back up the accusation truck, eggplant. It’s a long fall down from the twenty-second floor,” she warned, staring down her nose at Violet who was completely unfazed as Jill stepped forward.

I hurriedly pressed myself between them. “I think everyone should go home before anyone says anything they’ll regret,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation, and Violet backed off, but only in the physical sense.

“I’m not going to regret anything because I’ve wanted to say it for a very long time,” Violet assured. “Bree, you need to be as honest with us as you can. Tristan’s almost five and every day is like Christmas morning! I come over wondering how tall he’ll be today, or what color his hair will be, what new random interest he’s taken up, or why he prefers Gruyère over American.”

“I can’t answer those things, Violet,” I said firmly, shaking my head, holding my ground, and then she let out a growl and pinched down hard on my arm.

“Ow!”

“Cry,” she ordered with her eyes wide and wild.

“What the—”

“Cry,” she commanded and pinched down harder.

“You’re craz—”

“I said CRY, dammit,” Violet persisted, twisting my pinched skin.

“Let go,” I raised my voice. Jill began prying her off.

“You’re going too far, Violet,” Jill warned, frantically pulling Violet by the waist.

“No, I’m not. You can’t even cry, Bree. Not even for Mitch. It’s not normal. You have a right to be sad or angry or hurt, but you deny yourself everything. And you won’t even consider dating. You’ve turned yourself off.”

“That’s not true. I cried when Tristan got injured, but truthfully I have no need to cry. I’m happy every day. I have no reason to be sad, angry, or hurt. When I do, I’m sure I’ll have the appropriate reaction,” I said reasonably, as I massaged the swollen skin.

“I’m sure I’ll have the appropriate reaction,” Violet mocked in a nasal tone. “Don’t kid yourself. Something has to change, and it’s going to whether you like it or not. I can feel it. You can’t go on shielding him from not having a father. He’s walking into a minefield tomorrow totally unprepared. Children are cruel, Bree. I wish we were enough, but we’re not. He needs a Dad, or at least the truth. Is he dead? Is he alive? What’s his name? What’s his astrological sign? Give us something.” she ranted, and I saw Jill staring curious now, too.

I exhaled deeply. “I don’t know,” I answered.

“Not good enough, Bree. You were the most responsible girl in the world—the virgin Gabrielle—and we found you messed up, babbling, and months pregnant. You can’t tell me you know nothing,” she accused. “Or were you lying when you said you weren’t raped?”

“No!” I said quickly, shocked by her bluntness. “No, I wasn’t raped.”

She pressed her lips together and glanced at Jill, and it looked as though they were skeptical, but before I could say more; she cut me off.

“What if Tristan has some random genetic disorder not yet diagnosed? What if there is important medical information that his life could depend on? Then would you suddenly know something?” she antagonized, and Jill’s eyes flared wide.

She was pushing the one button she knew would trigger me. She was cruelly and misguidedly accusing me of intentionally putting my son in jeopardy. My world was prepared for many things and had protected us from the worst of it, but I was totally unprepared now. I had never anticipated an attack from the inside. So I did the only thing I could do to maintain stability.

Her expression began to soften when she realized she’d gone too far, but it was too late. My mind was made up.

“Jill,” I snapped, and she turned to me. “It’s yours.” I watched as awareness crossed both their faces. Two polar opposite reactions.

“You can’t do that, Bree.” Violet objected.

“Watch me,” I said as I opened the door to my home.

“Thank you, Bree. You won’t regret it, I promise. I’ll be the best godmother ever,” Jill asserted.

“I know you will,” I said sincerely before I closed the door on them both.

I heard hushed erratic chattering coming from the hallway, which meant they were actually yelling. The insulation around me was astounding. I quickly cleaned up the remnants from the day and got ready for bed. I cracked open Tristan’s door for a final check to find him sound asleep and slightly drooling, which was incredibly adorable, and the world was right again.

Almost an hour after the showdown, I heard a soft knock at my door so I shuffled myself out of bed. When I saw my guest through the peephole, I considered not answering.

“I left my keys,” Violet muttered, and I let her in wondering how long she’d waited to knock.

“You’re making a big mistake,” she said quietly before she walked out the door.

“I don’t think so,” I answered politely, unsure of which mistake she meant.

“Don’t come to me when you wake up in the middle of the night and Jill is over you with a meat cleaver,” she spat venomously. I almost laughed.

“She deserved it as much as you did,” I replied, and she winced at my use of the past tense.

“This is Central Park horseshit, Bree,” she spat in a hushed voice, her eyes beginning to water. “We practically raised each other. We’re sisters for Christ’s sake! You can’t keep holding that over my head. I didn’t know. I would never have pushed for a termination if I’d have known it wasn’t for the best.”

“I’m not holding it over your head, Violet. Don’t accuse me of that because I’m not the one who opened this can of worms tonight,” I said softly, contained. “But the fact is that he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Jill. And August. Acknowledging that isn’t a dig at you because I’m the guiltiest of all. We were kids. We were both confused. She saved me from the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Hindsight, Bree,” Violet reminded me, pleading.

Regretfully, I nodded. “I agree. Hindsight.”

She stood there for a while staring at me, searching for a crack, and I caught myself before I started fidgeting. She’d told me it was my ‘tell’. The elevator dinged and we both turned, surprised to see Jill stepping out.

“I had my driver turn around. I left my house keys,” she said as she stopped at the door. Her posture was straight but her eyes betrayed the façade, and Violet glared at her as I let her in. I watched as she gingerly stepped past us and silently shuffled towards the elevator, bouncing her keys in her palm.

“Jill?” I said as she got a few feet down the hall. She turned around with slumped shoulders, looking like she’d gone nine rounds with Foreman.

“How was it?” I asked with a watery smile, and her face and spirits lifted exponentially.

“Amazing. You couldn’t even imagine…” she said dreamily, searching for words. “Like, I’m ruined for all other men for all of eternity.”

“I wanna be ruined for all other men,” Violet pouted to herself in a whisper.

I just nodded.

My mind wouldn’t turn off as I lay in bed that night. It’s not like I wanted things to happen this way, but I can’t regret the course my life has taken. And it’s not like I didn’t want to have the answers to all of Violet’s questions—and more. I’d craved these answers privately sometimes. I wanted to remember, I just…couldn’t. When I reached in my mind for the puzzle pieces, it was like looking directly into the sun. There was no planet, no star, just blinding white stillness. There was nothing.

I had very little to go by. No name, no account of a conception, nothing concrete. I knew there was a time when I sought him, but, I only know this from the secondhand accounts by August, and it took me years to ask. I didn’t dare even mention my curiosity to Jill and Violet, knowing what a difficult period it was for all of us. My entire pregnancy was almost a blank, and the little I did remember I wanted to forget.

Funny thing about maturity and motherhood. You gain all this room in your mind. Spaces, corners, doors both opened and closed. I guess you could credit it to the complexity of taking responsibility for another living person. I felt more focused raising Tristan in every way, but this one vital thing…it was vapor. But Violet was right; things were changing.

In the pace of my life, with happiness as a major distraction, I’d never troubled myself intensely. Maybe I was like Jill. Maybe I didn’t really want to know. If that was truly my motive, I’d managed to keep it hidden away from even myself. Or maybe I was afraid of what I’d find there if I really, really looked. Maybe.

But I needed to try.

Chapter 3 - Satellites & Reconciliations

Clouds of billowing smoke transformed into color, and in the fumes an image slowly began to materialize.

I was walking in the park, just like the day before, when I saw Violet and Tristan ahead. They stood holding hands with their bodies turned away, appearing in deep discussion, so I stood silent. They didn’t register my presence, and when I listened, I couldn’t understand their words.

Violet pointed to something, and I followed the direction of her finger. It was empty space, but from thin air her favorite statue appeared. I laughed, realizing she was giving him the prerequisite speech again, but she quieted and turned to me solemnly. I knew it was her, but she looked ethereally foreign.

“Don’t you remember, Bree?” she asked, her eyes intelligent, knowing. I felt a pain in my chest.

“I can’t,” I replied, shaking my head.

The air began to shimmer, and I lunged to cover them as the ground quaked beneath us, but it was too late.

~o~

I woke up with a jolt, my arms outstretched grasping nothing. Through the wall of glass windows in the bedroom that faced the cityscape across the river, I could see outside that it was not yet dawn. I checked the time on my phone, which was docked on the bedside table. It was 5:00 a.m.

I puffed out a curse and flopped back onto my pillows.

~o~

Hours later, I was at my showroom reviewing invoices with my assistant, Claire. I owned and operated Valentine Designs, a furniture design firm. It began serendipitously after Tristan’s birth. On my first trip home with infant Tristan, my dad’s work shed just called to me. I’d grown up woodworking beside Mitch, assisting his big projects, making and hiding my small things. I went out while Mitch watched Tristan sleep, and in a few days I had made a dresser. Mitch drove us back to New York with it in the back of his pickup. When she saw it, Violet asked if I would make a display table version for her, so I day rented equipment, worked in her back room, and was done in a week. She put it in the flagship store for her fashion line Luxe by Marie-Violet Valentine. At Violet’s grand opening, someone offered her an obscene amount of money for it on the spot, and the rest is history.

I created a small furniture line, manufactured by hometown artisans back in Sweetwater, made from timber milled at the plant my father had been foreman of for over twenty years. It had taken one hot design to stick, and it did. Most of my business was through distributors now, factory direct, but I kept the space I’d bought next door to Violet’s as my showroom. It became additionally useful when I started taking on custom commissions for one-of-a-kind pieces. Woodworking was my first passion, after all, and the factory productions kept us comfortable.

Not bad for a girl who went to school to become a CPA.

My musings were interrupted when I heard the bell chime echo from next door and the clicking of heels. I glanced up and watched Violet hand her purse and sunglasses to her store manager, who tucked them in a drawer behind the counter.

The massive columned archway we’d blown out between our two spaces now annoyed me. I was unsettled by my dream and by last night. She never could leave well enough alone. I sighed and tried to look busy as she flipped through mail—I started fake typing when I heard her clacking across her marble floor, then across my stained concrete one. It sounded like a countdown.

“This is yours,” she said, extending an envelope. Avoiding eye contact I glimpsed the letter.

“No, it’s not,” I hit some more keys. “It’s addressed to Marie Valentine, not Mary Valentine.”

“My mistake,” she replied lightly.

I pursed my lips at the screen.

One night after the divorce, a ten-year-old Violet clawed up my tree and into my bedroom window with a suitcase tethered to her waist. Her mother had promised a mother/daughter night so she excitedly decorated their McMansion with every holiday adornment she could find. It was a madhouse with birthday streamers and orange balloons with jack-o-lantern faces flooding the floor and a holiday tree spiraled with toilet paper, dotted with cotton balls. She cried and told me how Sharon had shown up rabidly drunk at three a.m., tearing down the tree, screaming this was why her father didn’t want any part of her. She said the child support was bribe money to keep her away. Then Sharon grabbed Violet so hard she broke her arm.

My father woke up and found us huddled together crying. Violet moved in with us permanently after that, many years later mending a connection back to Sharon that consisted of casual brunches over bottomless Bloody Marys and blank envelopes with checks inside. But that night I asked my father Mitch if she could be a Valentine. I wondered if her intention with handing me the Trojan horse letter was to remind me of that.

My sympathy waned when I remembered that first day in ballet class. While she pretend puffed a candy cigarette, she informed me I couldn’t be Mary anymore because our French ballet instructor, Madame Evie, pronounced “Mary” as “Marie” and there couldn’t be two of us. She asked me my middle name—Gabrielle—and came up with Bree. Madame Evie instantly agreed and moved on. I disliked it but Vi railroaded me—convincing the other kids to call me that, too. I retaliated by calling her by her middle name instead of the name she so coveted, and no one’s known us by the treasured first name since.

She was a pushy know-it-all who disregarded other people’s feelings, even at the age of six. “Violet, whatever you’re up to, I can’t deal with your games right now,” I said tiredly.

“No games,” she chimed. “I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all. I figured you’d have stowed yourself away in Tristan’s backpack for the day.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I replied back.

“Oh, nothing.” She shrugged one shoulder and swirled her finger across the counter separating us and inspected her finger for invisible dust. “It’s just I’ve never seen the umbilical cord stretch this far.”

“You’re being a witch,” I pointed out. “But I won’t let you provoke me. I know that’s what you’re trying to do.”

“Me? Never. Oh, look at the time,” she sang, giving me the same superior treatment she gives unavailable men. “I’m having lunch downtown with two Saudi princes. Twins. Enjoy your oat crackers and whatnot.” She waved towards a brown paper lunch sack on my desk and whirled around, intentionally clacking harder on the floor.

Distressed, I called Jill. I spoke as soon as her line clicked.

“Is it wrong to want to replace Vi’s conditioner with hair remover?”

She snickered. “No, but don’t make me laugh. Hold on a sec,” she whispered quickly, the receiver became muffled. “Where’s my foam? Do you see any foam in this cup? And I said get the Venti. If you mess this up one more time ‘grande’ will be Italian for unemployment line.”

“Sorry, I’m back,” she said and I jumped when I heard a door slam closed in the background. “Is she still in Marie-Violet Valentine mode?”

“Yes, and on the scale of national security threat levels, she’s a red on the diva act,” I was shooting for playful, but it came out flat. My heart I wondered if she’d ever forgive me for making Jill the godmother.

“I can’t say I’m surprised. She is so petty, sometimes,” she tsked, and I thought of her cheesecake. “I’m glad you called. I have something I want you to take a look at.”

“Okay?”

“Well,” she stalled. “There’s this company I found. And they…find people,” she said delicately.

“Huh.”

“I know what you’re thinking, but let me explain. They have access to almost every database in the country. Millions of people registered in their system and—”

“Jill,” I interrupted in exasperation. “In order to search, don’t you need criteria? There is nothing to search.”

“There is one thing,” she paused. “It searches DNA. It’s a new database that can run Tristan’s and pull anyone that’s a match, even distantly. From there, it won’t be difficult to narrow down.”

“That’s great,” I replied, overwhelmed. “Where do they get all this DNA from?”

“Lots of places. Ancestry databases, state records, military records…”

“And by state and military records, you mean prisons, brigs, and asylums?”

“Potentially.”

“I’ve got to go, Jill. My stapler just sprouted wings and flew off to mate with a blue jay.” I hit end.

Within seconds of hanging up, my phone buzzed. I answered hoping it would lighten the mood.

“Bree!”

“Hi, Ian.”

“Hey, um,” he hesitated. Weird. “I don’t want to pry, but have you spoken with Jill yet?”

I couldn’t believe she’d recruited him.

“Ian, if this is about that cesspool database of vile criminal pond-scum, I am not interested. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but where do you all get off assuming that his father must be the bane of society? Do you think so lowly of my son that we have to start the search at the bottom? What has he ever done to deserve that? He’s a good kid, Ian. The best. This isn’t fair. None of this is fair!”

“Bree?” he said.

“Hm?” I huffed, breathing heavily from my tirade.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh.”

“It’s all right, Bree,” he soothed. That was the longest conversation I’d ever had with him on the subject. Serious Ian was not a side revealed often.

“I’m sorry. It’s fine. I’m fine,” I replied after a moment. “You were calling about Jill?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Did you guys discuss anything? You know, girlie talk?”

“You want to know if she kissed and told,” I replied smugly, leaning back in my leather swivel chair and smiling at the ceiling.

“That kinda indicates she did,” he chuckled, “She’s not returning my calls.”

“She will soon. I promise,” I assured him.

“Good to hear,” he said and he let out a big exhale. “Thanks for setting it up.”

“You should be thanking Violet, don’t you think?” We both laughed.

I’d set Ian and Jill up the same way Violet had tried to set Ian and me up. She told me I had to meet the developer for lunch to review final details. I got to the restaurant and found Ian, who I’d met once before, and sat waiting for the meeting to begin. He ordered wine and started flirtatious conversation. We were fifteen minutes into what he thought was a lunch date before we figured out Violet had set us both up. I apologized, standing to leave, but he asked me to stay. Intimidated by Ian and the prospect of dating, I used the best repellent I could think of.

“I have a baby,” I blurted. “At home. Right now. He’s probably spitting out peas as we speak.” It was meant to be gross, but I smiled at the visual.

“I know. Violet told me,” he said, pouring some wine. “Kids put some guys off. I thought to myself ‘now that’s a girl who knows how to show a guy a good time.’” He looked serious—but his seriousness faded into laughter so hearty it shook the crystal chandelier overhead like a wind chime.

“You should see your face,” he chuckled, fair-skinned and wide-jawed. I spun on my heels, embarrassed, but he grabbed my hand. “I was only kidding. Have a heart, will, ya? Please don’t make me have lunch alone.”

I stayed because something in his eyes when he spoke pleaded with me not to go. He was lonely.

He was a playboy, but as an only child with his parents in Boston, his life was void of connection. Gradually, he began hanging around my store, buying furniture like it was going out of style, bringing us lunch. When he met Jill, he was hooked. He befriended August, bickered with Violet, and bonded with Tristan like the little brother he never had. It was like the news story about the bear at the zoo that latched onto the little yellow duckling; they became best of friends.

One night after the three of us watched a movie, Tristan fell asleep between us and Ian suggested we get married. I couldn’t suppress my laughter because it reminded me of Mitch and Sharon’s misguided motive to marry. He wasn’t offended after I explained, and I’m sure looking back he’s relieved, because now that Jill left Nathan, he let himself hope for more with her. He gave her time to move on, but it didn’t take long to know he’d fallen.

“You’re right,” he relented. “Maybe I’ll send Vi some flowers.”

“That’s a good idea,” I paused. “Ian, I’m glad it’s working out for you and Jill.”

He chuckled. “Guess I’ll always be the one that got away, huh?”

I smiled. “Yes, and the circus just hasn’t been the same since.” His laugh was so loud, I had to pull away the phone.

We bantered on longer before hanging up, and then I was left to watch the clock wondering what Tristan was doing. He was a smart, thoughtful boy, but he hadn’t connected strongly with children his age. Kindergarten was becoming more nerve-wracking by the second. I tapped my pen, contemplating swinging by the schoolyard for a peek. Violet would probably harass me endlessly if she found out, but it couldn’t hurt. It was perfectly normal, right? No, it probably wasn’t. I sighed. And then I stuffed my lunch sack in my messenger bag and told Claire to hold down the fort.

I walked the few blocks to the school, enjoying the blue sky and sunshine. His teacher—coincidentally Claire’s boyfriend, Ari—informed me the children lunched on the playground picnic tables when it was nice out. As I turned the corner and approached the twenty-foot chain link fence that surrounded the playground, I tied my hair in a bun and put on my aviators, trying to look anonymous. It was one thing to go on a covert stalker mission to spy on your child—it was another thing entirely to get caught.

I saw a petite woman in a khaki trench coat and bucket fishing cap leaning against the fence with her fingers entwined in the links. I slowed down and wondered if she was another mother. As I got closer, I recognized the sunglasses that covered her face, and I froze.

There, standing longingly outside my son’s schoolyard was the girl who taught me how to braid hair and take a shot of tequila. The one who fought for me when I was picked on in school and explained to me what a period was when I told her I thought I was dying. The one who paid the hospital bill for my delivery when I couldn’t afford it, and the one who still held my hand under the table when I thought about the mother I never met. The one who gave me my name and took mine in return, then accepted and loved my son unconditionally.

I stepped closer, removing my sunglasses, revealing watery eyes. She spun in surprise. We stood stock still for several moments until a sob broke from her chest.

“You freaking bitch,” she cried, flinging herself at me in a hug. I hugged her back, hard. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” I confessed.

“Let’s not ever fight again, okay?” she released her death grip and took off her sunglasses to wipe her tears.

“Okay,” I laughed, the lump in my throat loosening. “Do you think that’s possible?” We laughed and she wiped more tears.

“Probably not.” She shook her head, sniffling.

“See, I told you I cry,” I said, as I wiped one loose tear with a smile.

“These are happy tears, they don’t count,” she remarked. “But let’s not fight about it.”

“Deal,” I nodded. “What happened to your Saudi princes?”

“I cancelled. They can wait.” She smiled. I couldn’t agree more.

“Have they come out yet?” I asked, turning to the schoolyard.

“No, not yet.”

“I brought lunch so I guess we can sit and wait—.”

“Bree,” she interrupted, “who’s that guy over there?”

“What guy?” I followed her gaze. A tall man in a baseball cap and athletic jacket—collar upturned— stared into the yard through dark sunglasses.

“Do you think he’s a creeper?” Violet asked, suspicious.

“He sure looks like one,” I added slowly. Maybe I was the pot calling the kettle black, but a semi-cloaked man hanging outside a schoolyard was a red flag in my book.

“Let’s go,” she hissed, grabbing my arm.

“What are you doing?” I asked urgently as she dragged me towards him.

“Ridding the streets of crime,” she replied and then gasped. “His hand is in his pocket. I think he’s whacking it!”

“We should call the cops and let them handle it,” I advised but followed her anyway, as she tiptoed closer. If I knew anything about Violet, I knew she wasn’t one to wait for the cavalry to show up, and I wouldn’t let her go it alone.

“We can’t wait,” she said fiercely. “On my count, we jump. I’ll get his neck and you pin his arms.”

We were only steps away from the man who was completely distracted as he checked his wristwatch, tapping his foot nervously.

“Now!” Violet yelled—and it might as well have been ‘Sparta!’ I watched in slow motion as she lunged, wrapping her arms around his neck, clinging to his back like a monkey, kicking wildly.

“What the fuck?!” the guy yelled, and I dropped my sunglasses.

“You dirty rat bastard, kiddie porn—” she sneered, and I ran to pull her off.

“Bree?” he gasped as he tried to pull the designer monkey off his back.

“Violet! Violet, stop! It’s Zack!” I shouted. She froze on his neck.

“Zack?’ she asked surprised.

“Yes, it’s Zack, you lunatic! Now get the heck off me!” She hopped down and straightened herself.

“Oops,” was all Violet said.

“I’m so sorry, Zack, we thought you were a pervert,” I explained, perfectly rational, as I picked his hat up off the ground from where it’d fallen, returning it to his scalp of jet black stubble.

He brushed it off. “Yeah, well I’m not,” he said angrily. “You two are nuts, you know that?”

Then Violet and I looked at each other and burst out in laughter because we couldn’t argue the point. Zack was our closest childhood friend from Sweetwater, and therefore probably not surprised by our behavior. He was one third of the three Amigos. He’d moved out to New York shortly after Tristan was born, but we didn’t exactly pick up where we’d left off. I think being around my son was difficult for him—he was only a floater in our group now.

“So, what exactly are you doing here?” Violet probed.

He pushed his hands in his jacket pockets. “Probably the same thing as you.” My heart softened towards him and—before Violet could spit back a cutting response—I hugged him.

“Alright, don’t get all sentimental on me now,” he said, but tightened the hug. “So, what was your plan after taking me down?” he asked amusedly as I released his neck.

“We didn’t think it out past the ‘tackle the perv’ phase,” I said, looking to Violet.

“Speak for yourself,” she sassed. “Phase two was hogtying you and dragging you behind a cab through Times Square.”

“Guys, The kids are coming out,” I said.

We sat down crisscross, up against the fence on the warm concrete—Violet and Zack at my sides. Most of the kids had trickled out when finally Tristan tumbled through the double doors. He was easy to find because, although he was one of the youngest enrolled, he was clearly one of the tallest, looking even more grown up wearing his little navy slacks and a crisp white polo shirt.

I smiled, leaning my head against Zack’s shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around me in response. I can’t explain to you the swell that washed over me when I heard footsteps and saw Ian and Jill standing above Violet. We all looked at each with smiles that said ‘I understand’ and they silently folded down to the pavement and joined our group.

“Where’s August?” Violet asked quietly.

“Work,” Jill replied, not turning from the boy eating his sandwich in the yard. “He couldn’t get away.”

No one had to say out loud that he would have been here, too, if he could. These faces were my family, my rock. They held me up and I did the same in return. In the city with more than eight million faces, notorious for its brusque demeanor and careless attitude, we’d found each other, collected one another as we passed through life because we were better together than we were apart.

I watched the little butterscotch-haired boy sit alone as the other children ran to the swing sets and seesaws—and my heart ached for him. He was the sun in all of our orbits and the catalyst for all the good we’d made of ourselves in this life. Amazing, that one small boy could help us find our destinies. In that moment, he seemed no less significant than the tiny atom that sparked the universe billions years ago, or Adam’s rib; all three having in common that they couldn’t have known at the time of creation how priceless they would be.

I wanted to run inside the schoolyard and tell the other children how great he was, or hug him and tell him it didn’t matter because he always had me. But I couldn’t fix everything. I couldn’t be everything. And as much as he’d given me, I needed to give him something back. As complete as my life was because of him, I couldn’t alone, make him whole. There was a void in his life, and in my mind; like a cigarette burn marring the finely woven fabric of our life journeys that needed to be mended and healed.

Suddenly, I thought of the statue in the park.

The monument standing proudly in the park with a whimsical girl standing triumphantly in the center—looking towards the sky—the sunlight radiating on the cast metal. I thought of sweet summer tea, rain-candied leather, the warm grain of the Heart Tree cut from Sweetwater’s park, the snifter atop our fridge, all shooting glints of…

“Bourbon,” I said suddenly. They all turned to me.

“His hair…it will be brown—dark bourbon,” I said quietly, studying my lap. Zack’s arm tightened around me as Violet leaned her head on my shoulder. I dared to look up, and Jill stared trancelike into the yard, eyes like wells; Ian held her hand, his expression tight, but his eyes shined, too.

I didn’t know how or why I knew, or where the word came from, but I knew it was true. I was baffled by the color itself, because I wasn’t sure what it meant—but I felt certain I was on the right track.

Suddenly, a dark-haired little girl approached Tristan at his table, whispering in his ear. He smiled big and bright and then ran after her until they got to the empty merry-go-round. She and a red-headed girl jumped on, and Tristan tried to hide his smile as he began to push.

For a moment, I thought it might be the second best day of my life.

~o~

That all changed when I picked Tristan up from school a few hours later. Ari met me on the stairway entrance with a disconcerted expression and ushered me into the dean’s office where Tristan sat red-faced—no longer crisply pressed.

I ran to him, wrapping him in a hug. He’d been in a fight, they told me, although it didn’t sound like much of a fight in the traditional sense. They said Tristan pushed another boy down on the floor during an art session, unprovoked—but I just couldn’t believe that. Tristan cried and said he hadn’t started it, but he would say no more. When I asked him privately when we got home what had happened—and that I wouldn’t be mad, no matter what the truth was—he still refused to talk.

I called August, and only August, who came over and sat with him for a while, counseling him on how to react in situations like that in the future. I slipped into the other room and made a phone call.

“Hello?”

“Jill.”

“What’s up, Bree?” she asked, concerned.

I swallowed back hard, drowning all the self-loathing I felt for what I was about to ask.

“Tell me more about that company.”

Chapter 4 - A Surreptitious Spark

The week flew by in a flurry, not unlike all the others before it. Tristan returned to school without incident, and I hadn’t spoken to Jill again regarding the matter we discussed Monday. On Friday afternoon I sat on my bed staring at the white box she’d dropped off labeled BioQuest Laboratories. Jill had picked up Tristan to spend the weekend with her while I accompanied August on his important business trip.

She’d told me the box contained a swab kit for Tristan. She opted for the home swab out of discretion, which I suppose I should thank her for, but when she arrived she expected us to do it then and there. I told her I’d do it Monday when we returned.

“Why not do it now and get it out of the way?”

“I don’t want to rush it. We’ll contaminate it if we do it in a hurry.”

She twisted her lips and nodded. “Fine. There’s a questionnaire in there as well. If there is anything else at all, any identifying factors you can think of, you need to include them,” she stated emphatically. I’d nodded and looked to make sure Tristan wasn’t within earshot.

I’d been intentionally ambiguous on that point because I hadn’t decided what to do with the small details I did have. I contemplated it after our talk and decided it was best to let science do its part. It made my stomach turn to know I had agreed to this, but I had to finally accept that the few ‘small details’ I did have supported the idea of starting the search at the bottom. And I was aware of myself enough to understand my tirade to Ian was the guilt talking.

As I stood in my walk-in closet picking outfits to pack for the trip, I stared up at the white moving box on the top shelf I had never un-taped. It contained stacks of black and white composition notebooks I’d used as journals since childhood. In that box there was one notebook in particular that held a single journal entry from five and half years ago, written in a manic script I hardly recognized as my own. It was the only information I had about a man who may be Tristan’s father. I discovered the entry by accident, and I barely endured reading it before packing it away in that box with the books from my childhood. It seemed no more real or helpful than my seven-year-old entry wishing Glinda the Good Witch would move to Sweetwater. So I put it away.

August arrived to pick me up in his Hampton’s best: khakis and a linen shirt in light blue that brought out his eyes. I wore my gauzy white summer dress with a turquoise necklace. We made quite a pair.

It was fun to play dress-up with August for his events. I had fewer reservations about dressing up, in general, than I did when younger. Clothes looked better on me now. I wasn’t exactly curvy—more like slimmer and toned thanks to keeping up with Tristan, but I filled out tops nicely. I was still a jeans and T-shirt girl, except the jeans were name brand instead of big mart clearance rack now, thanks to Violet. I figured Tristan deserved a mom who looked the part of a diligent mother, to a degree.

We loaded up August’s silver Mercedes sedan and started the two-hour drive while he filled me in on his current corporate conundrum. At merely thirty-two, August was one of the best and brightest and had juggernauted through the corporate world since graduating from Wharton. He held the position of CFO for a few years now, but his company, Goldfarb & Fitch, had just been bought out by a very prestigious firm based overseas. I could sense the tension in his tone.

“It won’t be like last year. This is the first time all the department heads of both companies will be in one room together. It’s supposed to help with the integration,” he explained, sounding unconvinced.

“August, I’m sure it will be fine,” I assured, resting a hand on his forearm.

“I know. It’s just more important than ever that I make the right impression. I hate to put pressure on you, but this company has old-fashioned leadership,” he paused, with a wry look. “It also has a reputation for taking over and gutting the old. My intuition tells me this is more than meets the eye.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this conference feels more like a cattle call to slaughter than a weekend getaway.”

“You’re really worried, aren’t you?” I frowned. August seemed indispensable to me.

“Yes and no. If they get rid of me, there are other opportunities for me, but I’ve invested a lot of myself in Fitch. Now I have employees to think of. If I go, they go, and a lot of the good people under me won’t have as easy a time getting work elsewhere,” he said, sounding like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“I know you’ll dazzle them,” I assured.

“That’s the idea,” he smiled beatifically.

Although New York was a forward-thinking place, the world of international high finance was less so. The titans helming these companies had wives who played tennis six days a week and children in Swiss boarding schools. They smoked cigars on yacht decks and great men like these, weren’t personally affected by little things like recessions. August had managed to keep his secret just that—a secret. He never lied, but he didn’t hesitate to give his colleagues the impression he lived like them and no one ever assumed differently. August’s world was still an old boys club, which is why I was here as his companion.

I called Tristan once, and for the rest of the ride we channel surfed the radio. He let me have my way eventually, and we put it on the classic rock I grew up listening to. Before long, we pulled up at the sprawling Whitehaven Resort. It stood on a hill, surrounded by meticulously manicured landscaping.

As we rounded the huge charcoal driveway and parked under the portico, I addressed August. “Game time, August.” I put on my sunglasses and smoothed my bronzed cheek. “Our mission, should you choose to accept it, is to schmooze the seersucker off these cricket-watching, one-percenters. No offense. Do you accept?”

“None taken. It’s a two-man job, Bree, but, yes. I accept.” He chuckled.

While August checked us in, I decided to wander a bit. The inside of the resort was equally beautiful with soaring high ceilings. It was all elegant cottage style with pale blues and butter yellows with clean whites and splashes of mint. On the second level, I found a complimentary coffee and tea set up, all silver, so I made a drink and leaned over the iron-railed balcony to watch August in the lobby below. He seemed to be in deep discussion with someone, so I people watched.

There were a few Fitch people I recognized from last year milling about when a couple at the check-in desk caught my attention. Both tall and athletic, both in muted V-neck sweaters, and I grinned when I saw them wearing matching sunglasses. They looked like sterile WASP-y perfection. I turned my head when I thought his gaze traveled in my direction, but then the tall man picked up his briefcase and headed to the elevators in long quick strides, almost too fast, but the blonde woman walked beside him. She was keeping up.

August and I finally got to our room and unpacked. It was more like an apartment than a hotel room, complete with living area and kitchenette.

“One bed, August? Don’t you think you’re being presumptive?” I kidded.

“The sofa’s a pull-out.” He blushed. “You take the bed. I have to meet with a few of my people to strategize for tomorrow. Are you okay getting dinner alone? There’s a nice restaurant in the hotel. Just charge it to the room.”

“I don’t mind eating alone, but I’m not charging it to you.”

“It’s the company’s tab and if this is my last weekend with them, I’m going out with a bang. Get the lobster.” He chuckled warmly, but the intensity of the situation hit me. His livelihood really was on the line.

August left, and I called Jill to wish Tristan goodnight, and I melted when he told me he missed me and wished that I was home. I sulked until nearly 10:00 p.m. and finally headed downstairs for a late dinner. The resort’s restaurant was packed. I took a seat at a bar high-top, and I got a weird feeling I was being watched. When I dropped my menu to peek, I spotted a familiar face and buried my head.

“Hello, Gabrielle,” he said, and with dread I laid down the menu, forcing a smile.

“Hello, Morris.” Morris Wert lifted my hand for a kiss. I lamented the loss of personal space. Narrowly built with a bristly flesh-colored beard and oversized grin, Morris had pursued me vigorously last year—in spite of the fact that I was his boss’s guest. August said he was a mathematical genius, but the genius must’ve been buried very deep.

“You are as lovely as I remember, mun cherrie amore-ay,” he flattered. Morris thought himself a worldly man who spoke flawless French. I knew from three years of study in rural public school French classes that it wasn’t the case. I admit, I enjoyed toying with him.

“And you, Morris, vous avez les dents d’un lapin,” I replied. He smiled broadly, but I could see his mind worked furiously to translate.

Giving up, he said, “You are so well spoken, my cherrie.” I grinned.

“Ms. Valentine!” called a gravelly voice as a stout, red-faced man with a bulbous nose waddled forth.

Genuinely, I said, “Mr. Fitch, so good to see you,” as he laid a furry hand on Morris’ shoulder. Angus Fitch was the CEO of the company, like his father before him, and the only person who ranked higher than August. He was a funny man in his late fifties. Also, a bit of a drunk.

“Where’s August this fine evening?”

“He had business to attend to,” I answered, smiling, observing him sway on his feet.

He tsked. “What a shame. All work and no play makes a man dull. Besides, he should know better than to let you wander amongst the wolves,” he criticized, eyeing Morris who was looking more sheep than wolf. “Come join my table, dear girl.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose—” I began.

“Nonsense. Come, come,” he sang, extending me an elbow, which I accepted gratefully. August said we needed to hob-knob. With Mr. Fitch it could be described as hobbit-knobbing. At the very least, it would be entertaining. I resisted the urge to pet his lustrous bald spot.

He lead me through the crowded bar to a large table in the corner that was filled with men conversing, having after-dinner drinks. We sat in the last available chairs.

“August won’t be joining us, but this is his lady, Ms. Valentine,” he introduced, loudly, to no one in particular. A few faces turned and held up a glass or smiled, which I returned in kind.

When my eyes traveled to the far end of the table, there was one man staring intensely. He was devastatingly handsome, and I thought I might know him from somewhere. Then I dismissed the sense of recognition. He was the man I’d seen in the lobby—Mr. V-neck.

I raised a menu to preoccupy myself. I was sure he’d seen me staring earlier in the day because when our gazes had locked. I had the sense of being caught. The waitress appeared, and I placed my order of grilled mahi-mahi and sweet tea.

“Another scotch for me, dear,” Mr. Fitch graveled out. “What about you, Danny boy, you look like you could use a drink. Another vodka?” He emphasized his suggestion by shaking his glass of dregs in the air, clumsily.

Fitch was addressing Mr. V-neck. His expression was stone, but looked a little peaked, and I didn’t think another drink was a good idea. His eyes flickered from Fitch to the awaiting waitress, to whom he only gave a slight approving nod of the chin.

Even under the dim lighting, he really was something else. He had a similar executive haircut to August, but a bit longer, and a chin of stubble. His skin was slightly sun-kissed with features that were flawless. It was a face that had a sculptural quality to it. By the time I’d rounded out my little analysis, his attention had returned from the waitress landing directly back on me. His mouth formed a tight line, and I flinched. He must be some misogynistic underling because he didn’t look thrilled with my presence at the boys’ table.

When the drinks arrived Mr. Fitch clinked his glass to a saltshaker, proposing a toast.

“To the healthy, the wealthy, and the wise…and to the merger!” he bellowed cheerfully. They all toasted with a grand flourish. I snuck a glance down table to see Mr. V-neck, or Danny, down his in one shot. I couldn’t help but notice the sharp contrast between August’s apprehensions about the acquisition and these men’s obliviousness. He was out burning the midnight oil to assure a good outcome and save their jobs while these men partied.

Mr. Fitch began telling entertaining stories that all began with “This one time, out for drinks…” to much adulation. I decided to call it a night when I started to get a strange queasy, uneasy feeling. I eyed my half-eaten mahi-mahi, scanning for evidence dinner wasn’t at fault. I then signed the bill and slipped away from the table to head back to the room.

I rounded out of the restaurant, into the lobby, and found a table from my first design line in the foyer with a potted orchid on top. I ran my hand across the birch wood, admiring my work. It never got old. I was fingering the flower petals when I was startled from my reverence.

“You like orchids,” came a smooth deep English accent. It was Danny. He seemed taller at this proximity, with a strong physical build underneath his thin gray sweater and dark charcoal slacks. He appeared to be in his late twenties, but the eyes behind his wire frame glasses seemed older.

“They’re my favorite,” I replied, with a small smile.

It looked like he was studying me. “You are with August.” Again a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” In the brighter light of the hallway, I could see his eyes were green. Not a grassy watercolor lime like my son’s, but a deep-sea green.

A long silence passed, and I asked, “You work together?”

“Yes,” he responded, darting his eyes to the flowers with furrowed brows. “He’s a good man?” he said. This time it was a question.

“The best one I know,” I affirmed, slightly affronted. I wanted to tell him August was out saving his job right now but that would’ve been rude. “I guess he missed the celebration tonight because of his meeting. I don’t know how you guys can drink so much….” At a time like this, I thought. The implication wasn’t lost. His eyes were distant, but the corner of his mouth was amused by some private joke.

“I don’t drink,” he replied. “Just water.” I furrowed my brow, confused, but realized that must have been what the head nod to the waitress was about.

“Very clever.” I relaxed, sharing his amusement. “I guess I’d do the same thing if Mr. Fitch wanted me to go drink for drink.” Sweet little bald man.

“He does like his scotch,” Danny said, looking back towards the restaurant doors.

I laughed. “That would be an understatement.” When he turned back to me, he seemed pained and I wanted to ask him what was wrong.

“I should let you go now,” he said quietly, almost to himself, but he made no move to leave. I frowned a little.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Danny,” I said.

He opened his mouth to speak and hesitated before starting again. “Good evening, Ms. Valentine,” he intoned in a smooth low voice, the kind you’d pay to hear someone to read to you in.

He bowed his head minutely before turning and descending down the hall.

~o~

In the room, I found myself alone. I double-checked the contents of my purse because I kept feeling like I was missing something. With everything accounted for, I crawled into bed.

Chapter 5 - A Glimmer Named Hope

August tiptoed in around three in the morning, and I finally fell asleep around six. When I awoke, almost six hours later, I found the note he’d left telling me he was in a meeting in one of the conference rooms and would meet me on the patio at lunch. I called Tristan and apologized for not calling first thing, but he sounded happy and distracted. He was playing horseshoes with Ian and Jill and getting ready for a cook-out at her townhouse. I told him I loved him. Jill promised to take lots of pictures.

I showered and I blew dry my long hair until it glossed. Women here typically wore pearls and boucle skirt suits, but I had my limits. I quickly dressed myself in a tailored white blouse, minimal gold jewelry and dark slim jeans and applied a little makeup before heading out the door.

Just my luck, as I hurried through the halls I bumped, literally, into a little red-haired girl who was crying. She told me she lost her big brother, so I led her up to the front desk where the girl told us her name was Amy and that she knew her mom was at the spa. They sent out a page for a lost Amy, and an irate woman in a white robe, slippers, and a face mask marched up.

“I told you to stay with your brother! Can’t I get a facial without having a crisis? It took me days to get this appointment…” she ranted to the little girl as she held her hand, dragging her behind. Maybe she was better off lost.

Outside, on a massive paver deck, they’d set up food stations with chefs serving lunch à la carte. I was hungry from having missed breakfast and made a beeline for the meat-carving table. Most of the wives and girlfriends had the same idea, and the tables were filled with ladies who lunch.

I grabbed the first vacant seat I found, only one other woman sat at the table. I was bad at introductions, but she didn’t raise her eyes from her magazine, so we ate silently. She had a short blonde bob and was very polished in—what else?—a light blue Chanel boucle dress and multi-strand pearls. All she was missing was a wide-brimmed hat with a bow. We wouldn’t have anything to talk about anyway, I concluded.

“Daniel!” she called out, waving her hand in the air, flagging someone down. Within seconds, there stood Mr. V-neck himself—Danny—flanked by two other dark-haired men. He was dressed more casually than the other men, who wore full suits and ties. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep, and I noticed for the first time his hair color was a rich, beer bottle brown.

I smiled warmly in greeting, but his face was stony and he turned away. I guess Danny and I weren’t friends when others were around.

“Join me, gentlemen,” blonde bob implored. She was English too and clearly knew how to play her role here. I realized then she was the other half of the V-neck Crew from the lobby—Danny’s other half. As she waved her hand, I also noticed the giant sparkling canary yellow diamond on her hand.

Danny’s nod was a directive; the two men filled the chairs between us as he sat at the end, the blonde at his side. As the men took to discussing financials, I picked up that they were all English. I was not impressed when they placed special orders to the kitchen, apparently too good to plate their own food or eat what the rest of us did.

“Bree!” I heard and turned at the sound of charging footsteps. I spun just in time to see little Amy barrel into my chair, giggling. Everyone had turned towards the disruption, eyeing her disapprovingly. Well, except Danny, whose eyes were closed and his brows were knitted together as if he’d just been poked with a needle. She wedged herself between the snobby suit guy, bumping his elbow, and fired away.

“Did you know my mom wears a wig sometimes?” she announced, panting heavily from her run. I laughed inappropriately loud before covering my mouth. She took that as encouragement.

“And sometimes, at night, I hear her in her bedroom shaving her legs all by herself. Buzzz, buzzz, buzzz, allll night. That’s what it sounds like. Yep,” she mimed while nodding, smiling brightly. I was wide-eyed as I surveyed the table. The blonde was aghast, as was the suit directly opposite her, but the guy to my side was laughing and Danny observed her as though she were a curiosity.

“Little one, I don’t know if I’d share that with anyone else today, okay?” I suggested amusedly as a pulled a stray hair from her face.

“She won’t care,” Amy shrugged.

“Let’s keep it our little secret, anyway,” I whispered.

“Cool,” she whispered back, liking the idea of a secret.

“What’s your name, little girl?” the suit next to me asked.

“Amy.”

“Amy, I’d like you to give your mother my card. Tell her it’s in case she needs any help shaving tonight,” he said smugly, flicking out his hand. She snatched the card. I hoped he was kidding when I saw the wedding band on his finger.

“Okay! You two can come play with me now if you want!” she exclaimed to myself and Suit One, bouncing on her heels. I wondered if her mother had fed her bars of chocolate to placate her. Or possibly uppers.

Her eyes bounced back and forth from the suited man and me expectantly, he raised an eyebrow that said ‘how preposterous’, and I took a cue; even his eyebrow seemed to have a snooty English accent.

“Amy, I think the nice man has business to do, but maybe I’ll come and play later.”

“I’ll be on the hill.” She pointed beyond the pool down to the sloping grassy hills beyond and then she bolted for it. I snickered, observing her stumble once, her legs not fast enough for her body.

I checked my watch, wondering where August could be. As I did, the overcast sky parted for just a brief moment, a few beams of sunlight rebelliously breaking through the gray and lavender clouds, the rays falling like tiny radiant spotlights and in the corner of my eye, I caught a glimmer of cognac—just like a spark—and an errant thought raced through my mind, too quickly to catch.

I felt suddenly tense, like I needed some air; air somewhere else. I rose from the stuffy table and smoothed out my shirt, and by the time I looked up, Danny had risen from his chair; the other men abruptly followed suit. I was puzzled by the gesture but I snapped out of my daze, my inner tension returning, when the blonde grabbed his forearm and gave him a look like he’d just stood for the maid.

I turned, heading for the hill where Amy played and stood watching from the edge of the patio, trying to clear my head. Several children were chasing each other and I smiled, thinking of my son, but somehow I still felt…troubled.

I turned back searching for August, and finally I spotted him. Of all things, he was standing beside Danny’s chair, smiling and talking vividly—reassuring the troops, I’m sure. But as soon as he walked away he began rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. He spotted me and rushed over.

“Bree,” he said hurriedly, “I’m so sorry I missed lunch. I’ve been doing damage control all morning.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“It’s beyond helping. A total disaster.” I was going to ask more, but it seemed out of my depth.

“Don’t worry about me. Go do what you need to,” I said firmly, leaning on tiptoes to kiss his cheek in hello and goodbye.

“Are you sure?” He laid his hands on my shoulders.

“Yes. Now go be a superhero,” I teased, shooing him off. He smiled, dropping a kiss on my cheek before hurrying off.

My old distress was replaced with worry for August. Amy ran up and asked if I’d be “home base” in their game of hide and go seek. I laughed, agreeing to the distraction. Several rounds in, she ran up to me, sticking out her little leg.

“Will you tie my shoes?” she asked, cutely, so I bent down to lace them.

“You’re pretty, Bree,” she sang cheerfully then blinked. I smiled back and patted her head before she ran off screaming to the hiders, “You’re in trouble now!”

“You have an admirer.” I turned to see Danny standing a few feet behind me.

“Uh, no, just a little friend,” I replied, confused by his sudden presence.

“You make friends easily,” he supplied. I laughed at the irony; I would have made more friends sitting at the children’s table than at his. It clearly became his table once he sat.

“I found her in the hallway,” I explained. “She was lost.”

It looked like the rest of his group was gone, which explained why he was talking to me again. I was beginning to think the parallel I’d drawn between his face and a sculpture was truer than I’d realized. His face was always perfectly stoic, but he shook his head briefly as if to say, of course.

“I think they’ve got a sixth sense, you know?” I mused, watching the children play.

“About safe places to run?” I smiled at his odd guess. He obviously wasn’t a kid person.

“No. Well, sort of,” I paused, wondering how long he’d been watching the game. “I think they can sense other mothers. They seem to automatically trust us,” I clarified, watching Amy maul a boy to the ground. She reminded me of Violet. He didn’t reply, so I checked to see if he was there. He was looking at his loafers.

“You have a child,” he intoned solemnly.

“Yes,” I replied with pride. “I have a little boy.”

Finally he spoke. “I am…happy for you,” he said. I thought he was being sarcastic but when he raised his gaze and his eyes met mine, there was honesty there.

“I’m pretty happy for me, too,” I replied, thinking of my amazing little son.

“Bree! I won! I won! I caught them all!” Amy ran up and flung herself at me. I grabbed her just in time before she knocked us both over, laughing.

“See, doesn’t this just make you want to take one home?” I turned and said to the thin air where Danny had formerly been standing.

Eat your heart out, Houdini.

~o~

Many hours later I was standing in front of the two dresses lying on the bed, internally debating which to wear. Violet had pulled them for me for tonight’s formal dinner, the main event of the weekend and the primary reason I’d accompanied August. The first dress was a silky deep blue empire waist dress. It was conservative and pretty. The second was a fitted black satin gown with a thin satin belt with a diamond buckle. It was glamorous and a little sexy. I tapped my chin and thought, what would Nicole Kidman do? I grabbed the black Armani. I figured it might be time to bring out the big guns—pun intended. Well, small C-cup guns, but whatever.

I hadn’t seen August since lunch, and I’d spent the rest of the afternoon in a pottery class. While the employees were in meetings, the company arranged different activities for the significant others to participate in; like massages and facials, and some random things, like photography and pottery. It was more like a babysitting service for the pampered spouses. In fact, the only other person in my non-spa activity was the husband of a female executive. While checking in with Tristan, I finally got a text from August saying he was running late and for me to go ahead and get ready.

I slid on my dress, zipping it tight, and slipped on my black stilettos. The gown fit like a glove and made my waist look the size of a champagne flute. I’d styled my hair in soft waves, parting it on the side so a wave glided above my eyebrow, and then I added a vintage crystal hair pin on other side. My makeup was usually minimal, but I opted for dark eyes and red lips. My skin was a fair, creamy, light olive and my eyes were the color of brown sugar with a touch of gray so the palette worked and I was just rubbing in some moisturizer with a little shimmer on my bare décolletage when I heard the door open and close.

“What do you think?” I asked, sashaying out of the bathroom, extending my arms out as I whirled.

“Wow, Bree,” he breathed. “You are a stunner.”

“Is it too much?” I asked seriously, dropping my arms to my sides, noticing how exhausted he looked.

“It’s perfect,” he said, seeming to catch a second wind as he grabbed his tux from the closet. “They may just keep me on to have you around.”

“I’m here to help,” I said, watching him disappear to the bathroom. I knew I looked amazing, but I didn’t take it too seriously. I considered my packaging to be battle armor for August’s little war. I practiced walking in my heels, which made me feel ten feet tall, and completed the ensemble with diamond drop earrings and a diamond bracelet I’d borrowed from Jill.

August was showered and dressed in record time, and he would have made James Bond cry when he stepped out of the bathroom in his tux. He was hands down the best looking man I’d ever met in real life. I grabbed my clutch and we headed downstairs for cocktail hour, linking arms as we confidently entered the room.

Immediately, people swarmed August, and I was swept up meeting and greeting as we worked the room, smiling brightly arm in arm. Everyone looked great in their formal wear, though PETA would have gone wild at the amount of fur present. My cheeks began to burn from smiling, and I resisted the urge to tug at the bodice of my dress; it was garnering more attention than I’d anticipated. We were talking to a nice older couple who intrigued me with their ability to talk through clenched teeth like uber-posh ventriloquists when August tensed, then whispered in my ear.

“Head’s up. Sharks in the water.”

I laughed like he’d made a personal joke, and he smiled genuinely at my role-playing skill. I casually perused the room. Maybe the gesture looked staged, but in a room so full of façade it went unnoticed. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, despite tension being the palpable undertone of the night. I watched as the crowd parted towards the entrance for a tall couple, a shimmer of coral, and an entourage of tuxedoed men following quickly behind.

A man I recognized as John—August’s assistant—rushed towards us, quietly conveying a message to August.

“Fitch is at the bar, again. I need to go handle this,” August whispered quickly, and I nodded before he finished.

I mingled aimlessly, chatting on water-cooler level, when my Spidey-sense began to tingle. I spun my head, my hair slithering on my shoulders as I sought out my seeker, but saw no one in particular. It remained a vague ocean of tuxes, until Morris approached.

“My cherrie,” he cooed, quickly taking my hand. He surprised me when he whirled me around. I cringed as the sweaty hand gripping my fingers pulled it towards his lips. “You are a vision.”

“Thank you,” I replied tightly. Morris smiled in a way that could make a girl uneasy.

“You look positively edible tonight,” he complimented, leaning in and placing a hand on my back. I stiffened, craning away. He smelled like he’d been hanging out at the bar with Fitch. In fact, he smelled liked he’d spent the night inside a whiskey cask. He kissed the tips of my fingers, adding, “And I wouldn’t waste one morsel.”

“Uh, that’s flattering, Morris, but August will be back any moment,” I reminded him, as he leaned further in and I did the opposite.

“I don’t understand why we don’t get together sometime for—”

“Mr. Werp,” a controlled, gorgeous voice broke in.

Morris dropped my hand and stepped back immediately. I recognized the source.

Danny glared down with narrowed eyes. Morris took another step back, and that seemed like a good idea; Danny was not happy. I almost hadn’t recognized him—he was without his glasses and the stubble was gone. “Is this how the head analyst for Goldfarb & Fitch behaves around taken ladies?” he said, dripping contempt. He crowded Morris further, who visibly withered. Several partygoers watched the interaction intently, which didn’t seem called for.

“Mr. Baird,” I heard August’s calming voice before I saw him. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise,” he replied, turning to August, letting his eyes graze over me as he did.

They were standing side by side in identical tuxes and though I’d never thought it possible to consider another man handsome in August’s presence, in that moment, Danny eclipsed him completely. He was beyond dashing, and with a chin and features like that, I thought that he should never wear scruff again. His shoulders were broad but not bulky, and he was noticeably taller than August. He looked powerful and confident—indestructible.

Wait, why did August address him as Mr. Baird?

“Morris, why don’t you join Mr. Fitch at the tapas table? I hear they’re delicious,” August commanded. Morris was flush as a beet and slunk away.

August smiled, moving towards me, looping an arm around my waist. “Mr. Baird, let me introduce my companion, Ms. Gabrielle Valentine.”

Daniel’s eyes flickered at the introduction. “We’ve met,” he clipped.

“You look beautiful, as always, Ms. Valentine,” he said slowly, meaningfully, staring at me intensely and extended his open hand. Too many seconds passed until August nudge me and I placed my hand in Danny’s. His hand was large and warm, and I am ashamed to say that even though I’d believed the gesture was outdated, I truly enjoyed the warmth and moisture of his lips as they pressed into my skin, his deep green eyes looking up at me through dark lashes, never breaking away. Morris should take notes.

I felt a whisper of an inhaled breath against my skin and his thumb brush smoothly across the sensitive skin above my knuckles. His lips broke away slowly, and he lowered my hand like it was made of glass. My hand twitched involuntarily, squeezing his just before he let go. No one noticed but us. I offered him a sheepish expression in apology, but something flashed in Danny’s eyes, a glimmer of something close to…hope? I had to be mistaken.

I felt like time was standing still, the silence unnerving, so I spoke.

“Thank you. You look nice this evening, Danny,” I understated by a mile, and I felt August’s arm stiffen around me. I tore my eyes away and finally noticed Blondie was now at his side in a beaded coral gown and white fur stole. A few tuxedoed men stood around them. Her eyes, and a few others, were widened at my use of his moniker.

Blondie cleared her throat delicately and extended her hand. “August.”

“Ms. Hearst.” He kissed her hand and then smiled warmly.

“Kate, please,” she permitted.

August smiled. “It’s an honor, Kate. I believe dinner is ready. Shall we?” August extended an arm out inviting them to pass.

“Yes, Daniel, shall we?” Kate said pointedly, looping her arm through his; his stony expression quickly returning.

“We’re right behind you,” August assured them, as they passed with entourage in tow. I stepped to follow, but August spun us towards the entry door and whisked me out and around the corner until we stopped near the elevators.

“What’s going on, August?” I asked, confused.

“Bree,” he started and peered at me curiously. “How do you know Mr. Baird?”

“I met him at the restaurant last night and today at lunch. He sat at my table,” I answered honestly. He looked at me for a moment and then nodded.

“Why did you call him Danny?” he probed, tilting his head.

“That’s his name, isn’t it? It’s what Mr. Fitch called him last night,” I explained. “Why are you calling him Mr. Baird?”

August sighed. “Bree, Mr. Baird is CEO of BarclayBaird. Actually, Daniel Baird is BarclayBaird. His mother’s a Barclay and his father’s a Baird. His blood is probably the original color swatch for blue. I’m telling you this because BarclayBaird is the company that is somewhat hostilely taking us over.” He’d said it calmly, but my mouth gaped open.

August smiled bleakly, absently scratching the back of his neck. “Did Mr. Fitch really call him Danny?”

“Yes,” I recalled. “But Danny didn’t seem to mind.”

“I’m sure he didn’t,” August murmured, and I was taken aback. August wasn’t sarcastic. “Apparently, last night Mr. Baird invited Mr. Fitch and the entire board out for dinner and drinks—a bars’ worth. Mr. Fitch ended up missing every meeting today, but Mr. Baird was somehow there and ran the meetings alone. It was an embarrassment.”

“That’s because he didn’t drink,” I shook my head. “He was pretending to drink. It was just water.”

He looked startled. “How do you know this?” he quizzed.

“He told me,” I shrugged. August stared at me then frowned.

“He’s more cunning than I was made to understand. Mr. Fitch drinks, but he knew better than to go overboard last night. What else did you talk about?” August probed, and I clapped my hand over my mouth.

“I told him Mr. Fitch was a drunk!” I exclaimed. “And I made a comment about them drinking while you were saving the ship.”

August took that revelation in stride. “Mr. Baird offered me Chairman of the U.S. holdings today. He has to leave someone in charge here once he leaves for London tomorrow to head International. He found me after lunch, and that’s why I was late to the room this evening,” he mused vacantly, staring at the wall behind me.

“My gosh. Did you take it? Wait, doesn’t that mean…?”

“That Mr. Fitch gets fired? Yes,” he answered, seriously. “I told him I needed to think about it. It feels like a stab in the back to Mr. Fitch. I certainly wasn’t angling for it, but he’ll probably think that, and my schedule is hectic enough as it is. I wouldn’t have any time for family.”

I smiled knowing whom he meant by family—then frowned.

“I owe you an apology. I only spoke freely because I thought he was a Fitch guy. I asked him if you worked together and he said yes. Do you think what I said was what made him decide to fire him? I sort of implied his excessive drinking was, well, commonplace,” I confessed guiltily.

“I’ll be frank. You’re an outsider with no agenda. He probably trusted your opinion to a degree. But Mr. Baird doesn’t seem to trust anyone. The offer he made me may be a test of my Fitch loyalty. He’s completely unreadable,” he said, mildly frustrated, looking back in the direction of the party.

I nodded in agreement and then felt my phone buzzing in my clutch. I told August I’d meet him back at the dinner table. I opened the text from Jill.

J: How’s it going, chica?

G: I think I’m in Bizarro World. What are you guys doing?

J: Heading to dinner. The kid wants calamari!

I laughed at my son’s strange appetite.

J: Hold on…special message coming.

J: Mommy!

G: Hello! I miss you so, so much!

I wondered how much Jill was helping him with texting.

J: I miss u too,

J: I’m sad ur away. Please come back to me soon.

I guess she was transcribing for him. My heart broke a little.

G: It won’t be long and I’m always with you in your heart. Have a good night, my love. xoxo

J: I love you, too.

J: Have fun with your little charade. Wink. Nite-nite sexy mama.

I snorted. That must be Jill again.

“Who was that?” I jumped out of my skin and bumped in to something solid right behind me and then leaped away, the train of my gown swishing around me as I faced a very suspicious Daniel.

“Jesus Christ, how do you do that?” I gasped, clutching my chest.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he replied firmly, folding his arms.

“Are you stalking me?” I peered at him.

He peered back. “Was it another man?” He said it like, ‘you naughty girl’, and then there was that glimmer in his eye again.

“I’m feeling very stalked right now.” I shook my head and tried to walk to past him, but he blocked me.

“Excuse me,” I said indignantly.

“You’re not excused.”

“That’s not up to you,” I countered.

“Oh, I think it is,” he replied confidently and his lip twitched upward, but he resisted the smile.

“No. It isn’t, and I don’t like being deceived,” I challenged, lifting a brow. He unfolded his arms, letting them rest at his sides.

“I didn’t deceive you.” He arched one brow back. “You perceived.”

“And you did nothing to stop it. That is called deception.”

“Is it?” he replied, his eyes searching mine like he knew I thought differently.

“The distinction is obvious,” I retorted, eluding a judgment just shy of an edict. August and I were currently perpetrating a deception much bigger than his, but he couldn’t know that.

“I am not a man of many words,” Daniel replied laconically, in the tone of one who doesn’t explain himself to anyone and didn’t intend to start tonight.

“More the ‘speak softly, and carry a big stick’ type? The only reason you talked to me was to use me. You were just fishing for intel,” I accused but gulped down hard admitting my words were etched into the club that he’d used to swat down Mr. Fitch.

It looked like his patience had snapped. I may have said too much, but the self-doubt he’d created in me triggered my defenses.

“That’s not why I talked to you,” he explained finally. I narrowed my eyes.

“Then why did you?”

He just stared at me for a while. I don’t know what was running through his mind—a lot of things it seemed—but most of all, it looked like he was deciding something. And after moments of consideration, I watched resolve form in his tightened jaw.

“We should be friends,” he said in decision, not offer—but that’s not what surprised me.

“Friends?” I repeated back dumbly. Then I thought of his cohort with the ring on his finger handing out his number to help “shave her legs”, and the unsurprised look on Daniel’s face, the compliment about my appearance, and the slow kiss to my hand. I realized this banter he’d suddenly decided to engage me in could be interpreted as a caveman form of flirtation. Men like this always had women on the side…I was appalled.

“I don’t believe I’m the type of ‘friend’ you’re looking for,” I replied tartly, trying to pass him again, but he captured my wrist.

“Just friends.” He bit out each word, as if he disliked the taste of them, and slowly raised his eyes to mine. He wore the same look as Ian that first day at lunch when he asked me not to leave. I still wasn’t convinced, but pragmatism tipped the scales. I needed to play along, for August’s sake.

I exhaled.

“Just friends,” I repeated firmly, drilling it into his eyes.

“Excellent,” Daniel said satisfactorily, releasing me. I clasped my hand around the wrist he’d released, not because it hurt, because it had stirred something. My face flushed.

“And next time you want my attention, call me by name,” I instructed.

He wasn’t insulted. “Accept my apology. It’s not my habit to touch a lady who doesn’t want to be touched.”

Needing to get away, I nodded. I began walking off and he took one stride and caught my ear.

“But I wouldn’t waste one morsel, either,” he whispered to me. I watched him stride forward, disappearing through the doors, my heart pounding in my chest.

Chapter 6 - Everything Is Illuminated

I waited a few extra minutes before I walked into the dining hall to look for August, whom I found seated at a long table in the center of the room surrounded by many circular ones. Illuminated by ambient candlelight, the room buzzed with chatter and the clinking of silverware on plates. I stealthily approached the table and began to pull out my chair, but August reacted instantly and stood.

“Welcome back,” he murmured, but there was a question in his eyes.

He pulled the chair out for me and I shook my head minutely, letting him know I’d explain my tardiness later. No one else stood because of my quiet approach, but two chairs down from August’s, at the head of the table, I saw Daniel eyeing August in a whole new way. Gone was the disinterested civility; the superiority and contempt. His eyes were alert and taking in everything. There was something predatory in his observation of August, but Daniel seemed natural in this element. He was sizing him up.

Kate alluringly chatted with the man beside her. Then she slid her view to Daniel, sensing the new charge in the air. She turned to give me the same sharp look Daniel was giving August.

Everyone chatted politely between courses, but I stayed silent, busying myself with how fine the white woven tablecloth was. Kate was running the conversation, discussing fine art and how much of it she owned, when she caught my attention.

“I’ve never known why they call it a classic. It’s immature and amateurish,” she explained regarding a painting called The Son of Man, and a few people politely agreed.

“I can see why it’s a classic,” I responded, unthinking. I knew the painting from the art museum flip-book August had gifted to Tristan. Tristan thought the painting was cool—I guess I did, too.

A few heads turned, including an unpleasantly surprised Kate. Daniel, who had been only communicated in nods all night, looked up with interest.

“Art can be trying to the pedestrian eye, so as a collector, allow me to translate. It’s an ordinary man with an apple over his face. The work is average and overrated,” she sniped. A few more eyes fell on me, expectant, including August’s. I straightened in my chair.

“The palette isn’t complex, no,” I started. “But it is interesting. If all you see is a guy behind an apple, then I see why you don’t like it. You have to be interested in what’s hiding beneath a plain apple. Maybe that’s the most important part. The best part.” I hesitated, before adding, “Art dans l’entre les deux.”

Everyone looked fearful to speak at the risk of taking sides, except the bold, and drunk, Mr. Fitch. “Very good, Ms. Valentine!” he exclaimed, tilting his highball towards me cheerfully, completely unaware he was a goner. August’s eyes shined proudly, then clouded with worry. I was just pleased my rusty French came out so well.

Kate’s slim nostrils flared. “Or the worst,” she replied darkly. “That was lovely, Miss Valentine, and I’m sure with enough time anyone could make my fork sound interesting. It remains a ridiculous painting and not classic fine art.”

I made no attempt to reply because I was silently sending up a prayer of thanks that I never had to see this woman again. And an extra one for August, who was going to need all the help he could get. Then Daniel’s voice sliced through.

“Art belongs in the eye of the beholder, Kate,” Daniel said. “Perhaps Ms. Valentine finds beauty in unusual places.”

His eyes were burning with intensity when he looked at me, and I smiled in thanks for the defense, although it had sounded personal to him. I was floored when he actually smiled back. Just a little. His lips stayed closed, and he was still very controlled but something about the way that muscle moved in his cheek was very familiar, but my mind would not place it. I studied his face harder because he wasn’t turning away. I knew other people were watching but I couldn’t stop. It was like a compulsion.

I heard someone clear their throat and a drink glass thud in interruption. I rationalized that Daniel could have turned away if he was uncomfortable, but he didn’t. In fact it seemed like he was allowing me to stare, giving me consent, urging me on. He tilted his head with a look of wonder, and I just kept searching for whatever it was I’d just found. August took my hand under the table and squeezed hard.

“Bree is an artist in her own right. She designs furniture for a living,” August announced, frantic to get the conversational ball rolling. It worked. I fielded a few inquiries about my work and made polite conversation with people on the opposite side of the table from Kate, who was seething. My phone buzzed inside my clutch. August’s was buzzing as well. He showed me his screen under the table.

J: Call me please

“I’ll go call her. Wait here,” he whispered and kissed my forehead. I watched him leave and turned to find Daniel shooting daggers into his back. Sterling silver daggers, I imagine.

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably disassembling my tiramisu with my fork until August returned. His forehead was creased with distress.

“Mr. Baird, gentlemen, I must ask to be excused a little early tonight. It’s been a long day, I hope you understand,” he apologized. I was puzzled.

“Of, course,” Daniel said fluidly, setting down his silverware, and August started pulling back my chair. Daniel stood and his eyes were on me when he said, “Tomorrow, then.”

August took my hand, speaking words of agreement and apology, and rushed us out of the room.

“What’s going on now?” I asked as we waited for the elevator.

“Ian was arrested.”

“What?!”

“I’ll tell you everything on the drive back to the city. Let’s pack up and head out now. All that’s left tomorrow is the luncheon by the water, anyway. I’ll drive back alone in the morning.”

In the room, I tugged an overcoat over my gown and stuffed all else into my suitcase. August was on the phone as he packed. It sounded like an attorney on the other end.

“Ready?” he asked over the cell phone he’d cradled to his ear using his shoulder, his hands full with our luggage.

“Yes,” I replied as I opened and closed drawers. “I just know I’ve left something, and I hate when that happens.”

“What is it?” he asked, watching me separate bedding from the mattress.

“I’m not sure,” I answered with a furrowed brow crouching to the floor to look under the bed. It was the same sensation as the night before when I thought I left something from my purse at the bar, but on a much grander scale. I patted the nonexistent pockets of the black gown, scrunching up my face.

“Come on, Cinderella,” August decided. “If the resort finds your glass slipper, we’ll have it overnighted.”

While he checked out, I waited out in the night breeze for our car. I kept feeling a pull, like I should go back and look for the thing I’d left or lost. Truly, I couldn’t wait to go back home to my son, to my life, but I just couldn’t get over the sensation, a nagging feeling. Like an inkling.

“You’re leaving,” Daniel called out, surprised, which made two of us. He walked up next to me and hovered.

“Would you mind keeping little pebbles in your pocket to throw on the ground as a warning before you appear?” He was not amused and I cleared my throat lightly. “Yes, we’re leaving.”

“Where?” he demanded. He was so close and he smelled nice. Incredible actually. “Back to the city…but August returns tomorrow,” I replied slowly and shuffled a baby step back.

“And you?” He raised an eyebrow, and it didn’t look like he was thinking about it when he stepped forward minutely, gaining back whatever distance I’d made.

“No. You certainly do take your friendships seriously,” I mused nervously, tilting my flushed neck and face upwards to drink the cool air.

He stared contemplatively back into the hotel lobby while I internally stomped down my sudden flare of overwhelming attraction.

“This is goodbye, then,” Daniel said, his face still turned.

I looked inside too, with good reason: paranoia. I wanted to make sure his Kate wasn’t on her way out to stab me in the eye with a dull spoon for his uncalled for attention, and my new uncalled-for reaction. I felt transparent. Being around him made me confused. I’m sure he affected many women this way, and he seemed aware of that fact. I suddenly remembered who he was and that this was probably his intent with me. The valet pulled up with our car and began loading our luggage. I steeled myself.

“August will be great for you. You’re lucky to have him. And I hope you and Ms. Hearst have a lovely flight back to England,” I said truthfully, wishing they’d boarded hours ago, and extended my hand for a shake. “It was nice to meet you, Daniel.”

His head snapped to face me when I finished my sentence, and I grew worried.

“Say it again,” he said in a whisper, lifting his hand; stroking my bottom lip with his thumb.

I felt panicked and faint.

“I’m coming back,” Daniel declared decisively. The air that hit my lip felt like ice water when he dropped his hand. He strode back inside the hotel without another word.

I almost shouted to him that August and I couldn’t wait for him to return, but it seemed pointless. It was like talking to a steel wall anyway. A dashing, nice smelling, disappearing, engaged steel wall.

We left a few minutes after. Daniel never returned.

On the drive into city, August debriefed me. Ian had belatedly joined Jill and Tristan for dinner. Apparently, at the restaurant, Jill was followed into the ladies room by Nathan, who’d been there boozing with friends. Once he’d cornered her, he locked them in, alone, and started aggressively trying to rekindle their flame. She shoved him away, he dropped his drink, and then he snapped. Nathan grabbed her throat and slammed her into a wall.

She told me she later she’d tried to cover the marks out of embarrassment and told the boys she wanted to go somewhere else. She didn’t want to make a scene. While they waited outside for Jill’s driver, Ian went back in to use the bathroom and something happened between him and Nathan. They both got taken to the station downtown. For Jill’s sake, Ian didn’t tell them the officers the real reason behind the fisticuffs.

“Man, I just knew you were gonna be pissed,” Ian huffed, shuffling his feet. I’d pulled him aside before Sunday night dinner.

“I’m just disappointed, Ian. How could you be so irresponsible to start a fight when Tristan was with you?” I scolded. I’d understood what happened, but I wasn’t happy about it.

“Slow down, mama, I didn’t start it, and Tristan doesn’t know a thing. You didn’t see the look on Jill’s face when she got back to that table. She was out of it,” he explained, scraping his fingers through his short hair. That gave me pause. Jill was tough as nails.

“It broke my fuckin’ heart, too. I had to do something,” he continued. “I saw him watching her like an owl from the bar before it happened. I should have warned her. I should have known. I swear, I just went back in to intimidate him but then he took a swing,” he laughed heartily and shook his head like it was cute. Ian was a gentle giant, but also a sleeping giant—the kind you don’t want to wake under the wrong circumstances.

“What exactly did you do?”

“Well,” he began guiltily, “I, uh, smashed his head into a picture frame on the bar wall.”

“Ian!”

“Bree, with the way you’re lookin’ at me right now, I wanna be sorry for it, but the truth is, I’m not.” He shrugged, like it couldn’t be helped. “He deserved worse. Think about what would have happened if I wasn’t there and Jill took little man to the bathroom with her?”

“I’d kill him,” I hissed.

Ian chuckled.

“How did you manage to get arrested with all your connections? And Nathan’s, too?”

“That’s the funny part; we both have strings. He was pulling his to get me thrown in jail, and I was pulling mine to get him arrested. I guess we both forgot to cover our own asses,” he said, smiling undeterred.

“Funny.”

“It’ll be fine, Bree. It’ll probably help my image. Everyone thinks I’ve gone soft hanging out with a bunch of girls,” he nudged me. I gave him my best “mom glare” in return.

~o~

And these are the things that have interrupted my sleep and inspired disturbing dreams at night.

Early Monday morning after the trip…

I could see each individual blade of grass as my head was turned, resting my cheek against the lush cushion of the Great Lawn. Violet was lying beside me laughing at the sky, and I seemed to be laughing, too. Everything was in slow motion because when I blinked, it went dark for seconds. I turned my head upwards, and I felt each blade crush underneath me as I rotated to face the ultra-bright sun. I cupped my hands above my brow as something golden slowly began to eclipse the sun, completely blocking it.

It was a smiling Tristan standing over me, all honey and brandy, surrounded by fluffy white clouds and a crystalline blue sky. I smiled, but then concern took over. His eyes were hazel, like mine. It was wrong. I tried to speak, but nothing came out as I watched them change. So slowly, they transformed to a unique multicolor hazel, like Violet’s. Then lightening to a crystal sky blue, like August, then the aqua of the Caribbean Sea like Jill’s, then they deepened to the sea blue of Ian’s. I began to feel relief when the fresh green apple with delicate slivers of topaz that were his own eyes finally began to appear, but as the colors bled, staining his irides they began to deepen in to something much darker…and then I screamed for it to stop.

I woke to the sound of my own whimpering in a cold sweat, twisted in my sheets, my hands fisting the pillows. I took a deep breath and rolled on to my side to face the view of the city skyline. The stress of everything that happened since that first argument with Violet one week ago was affecting my sleep. I was a person always in motion and it couldn’t trouble me in my waking hours, but like a silent assailant, it crept into my slumber.

Things were getting a little crazy.

A few hours after my rude awakening, I was doing the normal Monday morning drill with Claire behind the front desk at my showroom. As we finished up payables, we flipped through the day’s papers and Ian was right; he was in The Post for his shenanigans, being toasted as the “Boston Brawler”. Nathan was well known, too, so it made for a good story. I let out a dry laugh when I read a quote from an “anonymous source”.

“Nathan and Ian go way back. They’re from the same Harvard fraternity. It was just a little brotherly roughhousing and they involved the police as a prank. I’m sure they’ll be laughing about it over drinks for years to come.”

This was clearly from Nathan’s camp, who didn’t want him exposed for the woman beater he is. Just thinking it in my head made me want to run him over with a city bus. A small picture that was mildly humorous accompanied the article. A smiling Ian in the front seat of a cop car with a doughnut hanging out of his teeth, one arm around the laughing cop in the driver’s seat and the other arm extended out the unrolled window, giving the photographer a big thumbs-up. In the back, behind the wire mesh, was Nathan. Bloodied, with his arms pinned behind him, and smiling weakly for the camera.

Jill didn’t seem eager to discuss the incident, though she spent the rest of the weekend at my house watching movies in her PJs. She even crawled in my bed with me when I got home Saturday night.

I hadn’t had a lot of time to think about my strange interaction with Daniel. August was right; he was a hard read, and I wondered if anyone knew the real him beneath the subterfuge. He was certainly a man who knew his way in life, but there were moments that made me wonder. I wasn’t sorry I’d met him because he was fascinating but probably safest to know from a distance.

I wasn’t proud of my reaction towards him at all. It was not a point of pride. For a few brief moments, it was like I was in someone else’s body. I don’t respond to men in that way and definitely not to that degree. I never have. I admire handsome people but it never connects. I don’t chase those connections nor do I seek to.

The other factor that helped me rationalize my response towards Daniel was that I’d never been away from my son for that long, which I vowed never to do again. Maybe my pent-up estrogen overtook my mommy mode sensibilities. Mix that in with an excruciatingly handsome man’s advances, mood lighting, and the fact that he stuck up for me, and voila: a recipe for lus—ugh. I can’t even say it. I can’t admit to myself I was that attracted to an engaged man; I felt like a harlot. And Daniel Baird? That type normally put me off completely.

“Bree!”

“What?”

“Your cell? It’s buzzing like crazy,” Claire looked up from her kitschy glasses. She and Ari were the most adorable couple. A young Woody Allen and an academic Betty Page. Well, except for the tattoos.

“Sorry, my mind was elsewhere,” I said, grasping my phone.

“No kidding,” she murmured and rolled her eyes.

“Hello,” I answered, giving Claire a look.

“Bree! Turn on the news!” Ian bellowed.

“Claire, turn on the TV,” I said as I muffled the phone. “What’s up?”

“My primetime debut, that’s all! One of those media gossip cameras caught me leaving the slammer Saturday night, and the local station’s been running it all morning,” he said, enthusiastically. “The phones at my office are ringing off the hook!”

“Ian, I’m glad you were there, but I think I’m still torn between giving you a trophy and wringing your neck,” I replied as Claire flicked on the flat screen that hung in the corner.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s why you need to watch. Put it on…five. Channel five,” he said excitedly, and I mouthed ‘five’ to Claire.

Indeed, there was Ian in all his macho glory exiting a police station in an Italian wool three-piece suit, fiery red hair trimmed neat, laughing and exchanging cell numbers with his new police officer friends.

“This is so gratuitous,” I said, dropping my head in my hands.

“Chillchillchill, here comes the good part,” he shushed me as he watched simultaneously.

“Mr. Foley! Mr. Foley!”

“Hey, thanks for coming out, guys!”

Ian said as he waved and swaggered towards a waiting black Escalade. I laughed as I heard him say over the phone “Man, I look good!”

“So, why’d you attack Nathan Hill?”

Ian stopped and pointed a thick finger into the lens, cocking one brow impossibly high and looking like a pro wrestling villain.

“He knows. And now he knows what the consequences are.”

“Wow! Wow! We heard he’s pretty messed up. Are you worried about public reaction at all?”

“Not in the least!” Ian said confidently, beaming a megawatt smile as he opened the door and went to jump in the truck. But then he stopped and frowned.

He muttered a bleeped curse and turned back to the camera.

“Bree, don’t freak out on me. I’ll tell ya about it later, mama.” He winked and hopped in the truck, taking off with screeching wheels. Claire started cracking up.

“See? Aren’t you proud of me now?” he asked happily.

“Yes. That was riveting, Ian,” I responded with a chuckle as Claire flipped through channels.

We were still chatting when Claire caught a channel with a familiar face. I grabbed her hand.

“Stop right there,” I said quickly. Ian said something but I shushed him.

“Daniel H. Baird II has made some radical changes this morning to his BarclayBaird Corporation, and he’s with us now to discuss it further.”

Daniel looked as handsome as ever, clean cut in a pristine navy blazer and dark blue shirt, sitting in a studio set against the backdrop of the city. Claire and I both craned closer to the screen as she declared that he was hot. What an understatement.

“What response do you have to Angus Fitch’s statement this morning regarding his firing and the fact that you’re denying him the fifteen million dollar severance package that was in his contract?”

“He violated our behavioral clause, and I have it on good authority that his actions were not an isolated incident. The board agrees,” he answered in a strong, unwavering voice.

Shit.

“And what about the rest of the firings? You cleared out most of Fitch’s upper level management. These are recognizable names; Steve Holtz, Morris Wert….”

Oh, no—not August.

“Mr. Holtz’s departure is amicable. Mr. Wert, unfortunately, is a different matter. He’s under investigation with internal review and not the type of character we want associated with our firm.”

Blacklisted on national TV—a kiss of death. No firm would hire castoffs like that.

“I would like to make an announcement, if you don’t mind, Maria. Effective today, I will be heading up the company from offices in New York.”

I was stunned. Maria Esposito—the Barbara Walters of financial news—looked stupefied.

“Mr. Baird, why have you decided to be headquartered to New York instead of London?” Maria quizzed, looking baffled.

“We are moving in a new direction,” he said directly in his powerful but enticing voice, not cracking his hard demeanor.

“Well this is all very big news, Mr. Baird, thank you for sharing that here,” she said, clearly grateful for the scoop.

“You are very welcome, Maria,” he replied smoothly, and Maria needed a few seconds to collect herself.

“Okay, well, what is your response to allegations that you made promises during the negotiations to retain most of management? That there was an implied agreement? Mr. Fitch is alleging that he and many others were told, ‘Not to worry’ by you, when they asked about maintaining some kind of position within the company. Mr. Fitch said this morning he had an unspoken agreement to sit on the board and that he is shaken’ by his dismissal.”

“They shouldn’t worry. Worry is a useless emotion. And an unspoken agreement is no agreement at all. It’s the nature of the beast,” he explained calmly.

“Don’t you think that’s a little deceptive, Mr. Baird?” Daniel looked reflective for a while before speaking.

“You know, Maria, a very dear friend recently told me I was the kind of man who ‘spoke softly and carried a big stick,’” he paused and looked directly into the camera as a smile crept in the corner of his mouth. “I believe they underestimated the size of the stick.”

I dropped the phone.

“Good gracious,” Claire panted. Maria blushed furiously and stared down at her note cards.

But I hardly heard any of them. As soon as he finished those words, an honest to goodness smile broke out on Daniel’s face, all the way up to his eyes. It was slightly crooked and revealed perfect white teeth. The way the skin stretched, from his chin to his cheek, I knew that skin. The way the muscle moved underneath the skin, the perfectly symmetrical way it balanced in his face except that one corner marginally higher. The way his lips stretched, his eyes crinkling slightly, the way the eyebrows arched upward in the corners but lowered in the center of the brow bone, implying a menace that I’d previously thought didn’t exist, the distance between his brow and his forehead, the minute flex in the nostril, I knew it all.

And yes, his hair was a rich beer bottle brown, but in the bright studio lights, not unlike the brown glass of the bottle when held against light, it glimmered and glinted. Amber, whiskey, brandy, and cognac. There was another word for hair like that.

It was like bourbon.

Although I’d never to my knowledge met Daniel Baird before this weekend in my life, I recognized that smile completely, wholly, and with every fiber of my being.

It was the face of my son.

And then everything went dark.

Chapter 7 - The Inconceivable Conceiver

“Bree? Bree! It’s not working….” A muffled voice was crying out for me.

“Are you sure? I…I don’t know if….Alright, I’ll do it!”

My eyes snapped open as icy cold water slapped my face. A foggy retro angel with cat-framed glasses and blunt black bangs kneeled beside where I was lying on what appeared to be cold, hard floor.

“Claire?” I think that was my voice.

Claire let out an exhale and rocked back on her heels to stand. “Yeah, that was her, she’s fine.” She paused, extending a hand to me, and I saw my phone cradled in her ear as she helped me to my feet behind the counter. The room spun.

“I don’t know. We were just watching this guy on television and she passed out. Some hot business guy.”

“Give me the phone,” I said quickly, remembering where I was and what just happened.

“Ian?” I spoke into the receiver.

“It’s August,” he replied, his calm voice tinged with concern.

“August,” I breathed. “I’m fine. I got lightheaded,” I added as I twisted my hair over my shoulder into a thick rope to wring dry and then grabbed some tissues to blot my face.

“Right. Well, I guess Ian told Claire to call me when you fainted.” He paused. “Bree, is there anything you want to tell me?”

“Uh, no.” Change the subject, Bree. “How are you? Are you okay? I saw the firings on TV.” I clasped my hand over my mouth because I’d just confirmed who the ‘business guy’ on TV was.

“I’m fine,” he said, sounding curious. “Mr. Baird rescinded his offer for me to head up the U.S., obviously.”

I hoped he didn’t hear me gulp when he said the name. “But you still have a job?” I recovered.

“Yes,” he responded, sounding contemplative. “Bree, when Mr. Baird came in my office this morning to discuss things, he paid special attention to the photo of you on my desk.”

I was silent.

“The one of you, Tristan and I at his first birthday party,” he added slowly. “So, I’ll ask again. Is there anything I need to know?” His tone was knowing, and concerned, not accusing.

I thought quickly. “Don’t tell him a thing. Discuss nothing. Did he ask you anything?”

“I won’t discuss a thing,” he answered just as urgently. “But he studied the picture for a while and then he complimented me on my handsome family.”

“What did you say?” My eyes widened.

“I thanked him.”

“Good,” I said as I flopped down onto my chair.

At the one year mark Tristan was a chubby, blond cherub in that generic cute baby way, and I myself wouldn’t have seen a definite resemblance between them at the time. In fact, as a lifelong brunette, he resembled fair August more than me. I had no proof that Daniel Baird was the man who’d fathered my child—other than a gut instinct and that smile—but it was probably best for the time being that he assumed August was the father. I was contemplating asking August to dig for a little more information to find out if he used to live in the city or attend school here when I was interrupted from my planning.

“Speak of the devil,” Claire said slowly as she stared through the glass front onto the sidewalk. My head popped up to follow her line of vision.

And there he was.

Daniel Baird was walking swiftly, looking amazing in a navy suit, just like in the interview. Then my bell was dinging as he pulled the door, swinging it wide and striding in purposefully with two men in suits following on his heels.

I ducked my head behind the counter. “I think I need to go,” I whispered to August who’d patiently been listening to my controlled breaths on the other end.

“What’s wrong?” he asked concernedly.

“I’ll call you later, August,” I murmured, ending the call, and found Daniel Baird standing on the other side of the marble counter, taking me in with a twinkle in his eye. Oddly, he seemed almost chipper.

“Hi,” Claire breathed dreamily, flipping her raven hair over her shoulder.

“Hello,” he replied to Claire, who looked hypnotized as her stare became vacant and her lips parted. He furrowed his brow as he took in her condition, then he turned his attention back to me. He was looking at my chest.

“You are damp, Ms. Valentine,” he observed, raising one brow and I followed his gaze downwards.

“Oh!” I gasped and clutched my arms around my chest. I’d worn a white tank top with black trousers today, and the water had seeped down the canal of my top, blooming in a transparent splotch. I held up one finger, requesting patience as I grabbed a dry hand towel from the drawer and began blotting myself with it.

“Small accident,” I explained and found him observing my drying method studiously.

“I had to throw water on her after she passed out,” Claire volunteered as her head lolled to the side, captivated.

“I think we’re good on the details, Claire,” I interrupted, nervously shifting my eyes to him, noting a concerned look on his face.

“She passed out when you were talking about your stick,” Claire giggled and smiled broadly.

His mouth crooked into a mischievous smile and he turned to me. “Fascinating,” he said curiously.

“Mm-hmm,” Claire agreed, leaning her elbows on the countertop, resting her chin in her hands with a giant gummy smile on her face.

Daniel seemed a little disapproving of the action. He turned, addressing me. “I would think you are happier to see me then, Ms. Valentine.”

I had no idea what expression I wore because I had a hundred things running through my mind—like with the daylight beaming through the room, I could finally see live and in person, all the glints of color in his hair. It was like a test swatch of all the wood stains from the finer pieces I made. Black walnut at the base, but in the light it shone molasses, mahogany, and tobacco. Then I wondered if my son’s hair would end up like that.

My head began to feel light again.

“Uh, just surprised. Is there anything I can help you with?” I asked politely, studying his features.

“Perhaps,” he said smoothly. “Why don’t you show me around?” He didn’t wait for my reply as he strolled away.

Claire gave me a confused look. I shook my head as I walked past her and joined him where he stood facing a display with his hands gathered behind his back. We both knew a man like him does not shop for his own furniture.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” I inquired, as I stood next to him and looked up at his face. That chin. I should have known that chin right away. The profile was similar, too. Tristan still had full rosy cheeks, not the chiseled, hollow cheeks and high cheekbones of Daniel. But when they smiled, the effect was the same.

I couldn’t take it. I turned and began to walk casually. Pretended, anyway.

“There is one thing I have my eye on,” he said as he approached from behind, and his footsteps felt like drums in my pounding chest.

“I, um. I can show you my best-sell—”

“You really don’t remember me, do you?” Daniel whispered into my ear. I spun, mouth agape, and we practically touched noses. He seemed surprised by my reaction and stood straight, then narrowed his eyes and began studying my face intently. “Or do you?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as he stepped forward until his body was flush with mine. My fingers were receiving corrupt brain signals, like, I should reach out and smooth the lapels of his jacket.

“We need to talk,” I said and advanced towards my back office. I heard him follow behind me with equal purpose in his steps.

I held the door open and Daniel brushed against me as he passed, the fabric of his sleeve brushing the tip of my nose. I looked back at Claire and tried to signal no interruptions, but she looked stupefied and then started pumping her fist like a touchdown had occurred.

Once I closed the door, I noticed Daniel taking the office in with scrutiny and I suddenly became self-conscious of the room. It was cream except for one wall that was old exposed red brick and mortar. It was fairly simple with a maple desk and coordinated file cabinets and a wall of shelving. There were kids’ toys everywhere on the train track rug, and framed art done by Tristan covered the walls. Tristan, my son. Maybe our son…my head got light again.

Daniel turned, removing his jacket and laying it over a chair. I couldn’t help but notice how nicely his shirt hugged his physique, and then I wanted him to put the jacket back on. This conversation was not supposed to include clothing removal. Apparently, that’s what got us here.

I gestured towards Tristan’s art table, but he waited for me to move first so I sat. He lifted the chair beside me by the back, repositioning it to face me, directly. The chairs were economy adult sized, but he seemed to dwarf it to a ridiculous degree. He sat wide legged, both feet firmly on the ground, and leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees with his hands joined in the center. We were almost touching knees so I prudently locked mine together, clasping my hands in my lap.

It was way too close for my liking. I was suspicious of his selected proximity, but he looked as serious as an attendant at a G8 Summit instead of an impromptu back office meeting in the West Village with his might-be baby mama. He raised his brow indicating he wanted me to start, and I took a breath.

“So…we’ve met before this weekend?” I asked hesitantly and watched like a hawk for his reaction. He was doing the same—watching—but at my question he seemed to stiffen as he sat up and laid his palms on his knees.

“Yes,” he replied, coolly.

“And how did we meet?” I asked, eyes narrowed. Where on Earth would I meet Daniel Baird?

His jaw tightened as he peered at me, finally blinking. Then he relaxed, leaning forward on his elbows again, waving his hand in dismissal.

“Next question,” he said, his eyes hard.

I mashed my lips together and peered into the deep green of his eyes, looking for an answer but found nothing.

“We only…met once?” I continued.

“Essentially,” he conceded, but that didn’t seem like a clear answer.

“You’ll have to refresh my memory,” I began as casually as I could. “How long ago was this?”

His face relaxed marginally. “Five years,” he answered surely.

“Oh,” I said disappointedly and leaned back in my chair.

“Seven months,” he added in a smooth voice, and my eyes widened.

“Oh.”

“And fifteen days ago,” Daniel finished softly.

“Oooh,” I replied, dumbfounded, and furrowed my brow. I wasn’t expecting that much detail. “You have a good memory.”

A smile began to spread on his lips and his eyes traveled my chest and my face, pausing on my lips.

“For some things,” he replied serenely, his gaze finally meeting my eyes.

That felt like as good an opening as anything I could have hoped for, so I went for it. I decided to move on to the six million dollar question.

“Did we…um…you know…” I sputtered out uncomfortably, hoping he would jump in, but he looked like he wanted me to say it. “Um…hook up?” I finished awkwardly, motioning my hands between what little space was between us.

He watched me with distaste and narrowed his eyes again. “Yes.” His perfect face was still, but his eyes were not happy.

And that answer pretty much sealed the deal in my mind. I sighed heavily and flopped back in my chair and turned gazing at the wall. This was surreal. I had sex with Daniel Baird. How on Earth that happened, I have no idea. The concept of this cold, calculating, ruthless man being the father of my loving, thoughtful, sweet little boy was mind-boggling.

Preposterous. Unimaginable. Inconceivable.

Suddenly, he grabbed either side of my chair and dragged it closer, scraping along the floor until my knees touched the front of his chair and his knees hovered immediately around mine. My eyes were wide, and I froze completely still as he leaned in and slowly ran the tip of his nose along my arc of my neck, inhaling his way up until he nudged my ear, causing goose bumps to prick on my skin.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know you anywhere?” he whispered in a velvety voice, his breath fanning my skin. Then he moved his face directly in front of mine and his focus darted to my lips.

My heart was pounding, and not entirely from concern, as I watched his tongue slide out, wetting his lips.

“You’re different now,” he paused, pulling back—letting his eyes search mine—then laying his hands on my knees and whispering seductively, “but I think I like you this way.” His hands were getting higher, and my breathing hitched.

I shook myself and pressed my hands firmly into his chest, which did nothing so I pushed harder. He got the picture and leaned back in his chair, somewhat annoyed and his eyes narrowed again. Since I’d clearly had some sort of one-night stand with him, he was probably thinking that’s why I’d called him in to a back office.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but I really just wanted to talk.”

“We can do that, too, if you like,” he replied, leaning forward again.

My mouth fell open and I got butterflies, but I shook myself again. He was as persistent as he was immoral.

“Don’t you have a fiancée?” I reminded him of his impropriety. “Kate—the girl with the giant ring—aren’t you engaged to her?”

“Engagements are impermanent.” He clearly had a love of semantics.

“She intends to be married to you, though,” I explained.

“Probably,” he said dryly, looking as though he hadn’t given it much thought.

“And you intend to marry her,” I finished.

“That is the perception,” he nodded once, and I knit my brows together. There was that word again….

“Do you ever give straight answers?” I asked, curious and exasperated.

“I’m usually the one doing the asking,” he replied honestly but looked preoccupied as he took my hands between his large warm ones. He seemed to be inspecting them.

“Right,” I said dumbly as I watched him release one hand and flip the other. He began to trace the creases in my palm. My heart began beating too fast again.

“And I get the answers I want,” he added. My head snapped up to see his green eyes were intense and serious. They were telling me he meant it, and he fully anticipated a repeat performance.

“As tempting as that is, I’ll have to pass.” His directness was making me nervous again, and I slowly withdrew my hands back to my lap.

“You are not so tied to August,” he said, heavy with implication. “I saw your personal messages,” he remarked, as though it gave him a free pass to Bree-land.

“And those were just that. Personal,” I punctuated, remembering who I was dealing with.

He narrowed his eyes at me, and his nostrils flared a little but then he reverted to the charming man I’d seen on TV.

“I thought we were friends, Ms. Valentine,” he said, and there it was. The dazzling smile accompanied by eyes that were like vast glittering mossy green lakes you just wanted to go skinny dipping in.

“Yeah, friends,” I muttered despondently.

He looked at me quizzically.

Yeah. Friends, one-night stand, mother of your child….

Up until that moment, I couldn’t have listed one logical reason why I would have ever had sex with him, but that smile must have a played a big role. He was incredibly handsome with a body made for sin, but I never went for that type, or any type for that matter. Back then I was shy, awkward, and insecure. I would have never had the confidence to talk to a man like this, and for the life of me I can’t imagine why he would have wanted me. But that smile must have been my downfall. It was totally disarming. Disarming enough to make a baby with.

“I need to get back to work, but thank you for stopping by,” I said quickly, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the little back room without windows and witnesses.

“You may see me out,” he said, taking back the reigns. He stood, sliding his blazer back on, and followed me out to the showroom. I was surprised when he stopped and seemed to be looking around at the displays.

“This is all yours.”

“Yes,” I answered, but I had already become transfixed by the pair of glasses tucked in his breast pocket at my eye level.

“You’ve done well,” he stated, and when my gaze flicked up to his there was pride there. Then he looked confused when he finally noticed my sneaking hand that was reaching out to see what his prescription was.

“Thanks,” I said and darted my eyes to the eyeglasses. “May I?”

His lip twitched and he seemed amused as he nodded. I gingerly pulled the wire frames put of his pocket and slowly unfolded them.

“Franz Lists.” He observed the music playing in the background. I was busy telescoping the backwards frames in front of my eyes. I couldn’t tell the prescription. They looked almost clear. I should make an appointment for Tristan, anyway.

“I prefer classic rock, but he’s my favorite pianist,” I replied smilingly as I refolded the glasses. “When he gave concerts women would scream out for him and faint. The parlors he played in were standing room only, and they say he caused a mania in his audience,” I finished, tucking his glasses in his pocket and absentmindedly patting them for good measure.

“I know,” he replied as his big hand covered mine, which had rested on his pocket after the pat. I gave him a confused look and discreetly slid my hand from under his when something hit me.

“Do you play?” I questioned.

“No,” he answered. “Why do you ask?” He seemed suspicious as his jaw tightened. He peered down at me.

“Just wondering about something I have,” I dismissed, thinking of my journal entry, but it couldn’t be. I headed for the front when I heard him ask from behind me, “Did you keep it?”

I froze and turned my head back to him. “Keep what?” I inquired slowly. Did he mean the baby? Did he know I got pregnant? I was growing unbearably paranoid.

We both stared at each other like we both had a card to play we weren’t ready to show. Finally, his jaw became less tense and he strode forward towards the front. I silently followed.

Claire was chatting up one of the suited men that had come in with Daniel, and the other suit tinkered with an expensive lamp on one the displays. Grunts, I decided. Neither appeared to have any other mission than just being there and walking Daniel from place to place. I turned up to face Daniel who was still eyeing me like a specimen in a lab scope.

“You have convinced me you truly don’t remember,” he said. “Perhaps now you need a little reminding.”

“Right,” I replied uncomfortably, pursing my lips. That sounded like a proposition but my mind was elsewhere. Little did he know I did have a reminder—a four-foot tall, laughing, smiling, calamari-eating reminder. “Well, thanks for coming by.”

“The pleasure is mine,” he said to my chest.

“Oops.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “So you’ll be around for a while? In town, I mean.” I needed time to sort this all out.

“I mean to stay indefinitely,” he replied. “I told you I was coming back,” Daniel added, his lip crooking up in the corner, and I remembered what he’d said that night under the portico.

I was speechless as I watched him stride towards the door, and his men fell in line behind him.

“Next time you plan on getting damp for me, Ms. Valentine, do wait until I can join you,” he called from over his shoulder, winking at Claire who started fanning herself. I could’ve used a little air myself.

“Who was that guy?” she asked like she wanted to know where he’d been all her life.

Looking down at the framed photo of my son on my desk, I replied, “Just a friend.”

Chapter 8 - Black Holes & Revelations

By late afternoon, I’d called a meeting of the minds. I spent my lunch break watching Tristan play from behind the fence at his school while contemplating what my next move should be but came up with nothing. It’s not every day you find the father of your child and it’s a one in ten million day that Daniel Baird is that man. I still hadn’t determined whether those odds were in the ‘I can’t believe I have the lucky numbers!’ category, or in the, ‘I can’t believe I’ve been selected as human tribute in a dystopian fantasy’ column.

Daniel did not appear to be a kid person, and he didn’t have any of his own from what I’d discovered. That would have made things easier. Truly, he didn’t seem to be much of a people person in general. I had seen the more charismatic side to him, but he appeared acutely aware of his effect on people. He’d used ‘the smile that raised one thousand white flags’ only when he was trying to manipulate a situation or distract someone from his intentions. Like dodging damaging questions in a national interview or trying to come across as harmless towards me. And possibly to take my virginity. All of which confirmed what I suspected; Daniel Baird was not harmless.

But I needed to compartmentalize whatever his salacious intentions were with me from the greater issue at hand. The greatest issue and mystery of my life. That he had fathered my fatherless son. I ushered Violet and Jill in quickly. Ian was already here. I’d just left him and Tristan playing Transformers on the floor of his room.

“You’d better be feeding us,” Violet clipped as she peeked in the kitchen. “I skipped a catered production meeting for this.”

“You don’t look like you’ve skipped many meals, lately,” Jill said lightly.

“When you don’t make your living as a hanger, you can do that,” Violet grinned and winked up while swinging her fuller hip into Jill’s lank one. They’d spent the last few hours together so their tolerances of each other had expired.

“Get serious,” I chided, as I breezed past them into the living room. “I need to talk to you guys. And stop picking on each other.”

“Fun police,” they complained, looking at each other. I blew out some air.

With the brains of the operation, August, stuck at the office, this was going to be a smaller meeting of the minds than I’d hoped. A meeting of the smaller minds. But maybe our tinier heads combined could come up with something rational. Separately we were intelligent people, but somehow when we got together our IQs plummeted. We were like the opposite of the Power Rangers. I decided to tell them tonight, it sounded like August suspected something anyway, because it was eating away at me.

“Please, this is serious. I have something important I want to discuss with you,” I said, and they both sat on the couch.

“Is it Tristan? What happened?” Jill asked as worry flashed on her flawless face.

“No. Well, sort of, but he’s fine,” I assured them, but Violet narrowed her eyes.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road,” Ian announced, clapping his hands together, strolling into the living room. “I put in The Crocodile Hunter. Little man should be good for a minute or so.”

“Great, have a seat,” I encouraged, indicating the sofa and noticed the tension between Jill and Ian. She’d ignored him since Saturday night, and although he wouldn’t admit it, he was hurt. I shook it off and tried to ready myself for the revelation I was about to drop.

“Bree, stop pacing you’re freaking me out,” Jill begged, leaning forward.

“Okay.” I halted. I took a mental shot of whiskey and announced, “I think I found Tristan’s father.”

No one said a word for a really long time, and I finally raised my head to gauge their reactions. Violet and Jill looked like they’d been hit by a truck. Ian looked confused.

“What do you mean you think you found his father?” Violet finally spoke.

“Did that company get back to you already?” Jill tilted her head. “I only sent it out on Friday.”

“What company?” I asked, then remembered her DNA thing. “You sent that out without my permission?” I asked incredulous. That required a sample from Tristan, which I didn’t take. She leaned back in the sofa.

“I didn’t know if you would, so I—”

“Stop the presses,” Violet interrupted holding her hands up. “You found him without this company. Tristan’s biological father. On your own.”

“Well, yes. I found him by accident, actually,” I explained, pacing once again.

“How?” three astonished voices asked.

“This weekend at the thing with August. I met this man and then I saw him smile on TV and then I passed out and I just knew. I know—it’s weird—but it’s him,” I finished, throwing my hands in the air.

“Bree,” Violet assuaged, “Do you wanna have a seat, sweetie?”

I looked up at them with a furrowed brow, and all three looked like they were ready to put me in a straightjacket. I pursed my lips together in exasperation.

“Look here,” I said quickly, and kneeled down to flip open my laptop on the coffee table. I thought about preparing a PowerPoint on it because I knew they wouldn’t believe it. As I typed in Daniel Baird in the search toolbar and hit images, I heard three gasps behind me. I couldn’t look at their faces; instead I tapped the screen a few times. “Just look.”

I got up and began pacing. Jill and Violet fought for a better view until they were practically on each other’s laps, jostling the edge of the screen. Ian leaned over against the cushions, peering at the screen apprehensively.

“Dang,” Violet let out a catcall as they scrolled through pictures, then she looked up and shook her head. “He’s fine, but I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“He is what I’m getting at,” I stated pointing to the laptop.

Jill clicked her teeth. “You’re saying that Daniel Baird—the Daniel Baird, BarclayBaird Corporation Daniel Baird, Son of British Parliament member Sir Daniel Hawthorne Baird and Lady Sophie Barclay-Baird—had random unprotected sex with you in the city and fathered Tristan?” She had that straightjacket look on her face again. When she put it that way, it did sound crazy.

“Is all that true?” I lowered my brow. She arched hers back at me. “I mean all that stuff you just said about his family and all that?”

“Yes.” She looked skeptically down at the screen, replying vaguely, “He’s been around. Nathan knew of him. He sort of idolized him. I suppose a lot of the Wall Street guys do. I think they even went to Harvard together.”

“Bree, I think you may be barking up the wrong tree,” Ian added and lowered one brow, but I didn’t miss him frown when Jill said Nathan’s name.

Violet nodded and looked at the screen. “I guess I see a slight resemblance but nothing that would stand out.” Then she looked up at me with pity in her eyes and shook her head then turned to Jill. “This is like one of those sad episodes on daytime where the lady brings on the wrong guy,” she tsked quietly. Jill shook her head sadly, agreeing. “You are NOT the father!” Vi announced, pointing to the screen. They both giggled. Even Ian stifled a chuckle.

“What?” I exclaimed and kneeled down, flipping the laptop towards me.

“I see what you mean,” I conceded as I scrolled through the images. Dozens of pictures of Daniel looking stoic and controlled at all types of events, dressed to the nines. Galas, balls, posing with celebrities, politicians…all serious and powerful. Some included Kate at his side looking elegant and in place. I sighed and went to pull up the online version of the interview from today. “Watch this.”

I stood back up and faced them as all three huddled in on the playing video. I placed my hands on my hips.

“Daaa…” Violet started at the ‘stick’ part, but then, Vi froze. Jill narrowed her eyes to get a better look, I guessed, and Ian frowned. They wordlessly snapped the laptop closed, placing it on the coffee table and sliding back in their seats. They knew that smile as well as I did.

“Jesus Christ, Bree,” Ian muttered sympathetically and shook his head, then Jill cut in.

“I see it. I do, honestly, but a resemblance could be just that. Maybe he has a doppelgänger somewhere,” she grasped, looking through glass out into the Hudson.

“Bree, I don’t know about this,” Violet added nervously.

“I realize how crackpot all this must sound, but I have other proof. He came in to my store today and said he remembered me. I asked him some questions and he told me that we…um…did the horizontal cha-cha,” I added, and scowled at my nervous habit of saying things wrong. I started again slowly in a serious voice. “I mean, he confirmed we had intercourse around the time of conception.”

Violet’s eyes were saucers and Jill’s jaw flapped open wide. Ian seemed to be in deep thought.

“He told you that you guys had sex!” Violet exclaimed and then clapped her hand over her mouth. I nodded and she quickly leaned back over and reopened the laptop. Her eyebrows flew up her forehead. Vi exclaimed a choice curse, and Jill elbowed her. Vi straightened back up. “Sorry.”

“The reason I’m sharing this piece of information with you is because I have no idea what to do now.” I huffed, crossing my arms.

“You’d be forfeiting substantial back child support, but, if it’s really him, I recommend a hard kick in the tush and adios,” Jill replied sharply.

“That’s not helpful, Jill,” I admonished and turned to Violet who was busy making come hither faces at the monitor. I cleared my throat and she straightened.

“I don’t know, Bree. It doesn’t really make sense.” Vi frowned. “You wouldn’t even talk to guys back then. Zack was obsessed with you, but you wouldn’t give him the time of day. Remember when you first moved here and I hooked you up with that hot drummer, Tyler? I begged you to go out with him, and when you finally did, you wouldn’t go past third with him after like eight dates.”

“Yes, I remember,” I leered. “And I remember he told everyone in your circle that’s why he quit asking me out. For the record, he stole third.”

“Exactly,” Violet said, satisfied. “So were you secretly dating or something?”

“No, he said it was one night,” I recalled from our conversation earlier. “And he knew the exact date.”

“When was it?” Jill asked quickly and I recited what he told me as she scrolled through her calendar. “That was…New Year’s Day.”

Shit.

“Your birthday,” Violet concluded with confusion and looked up at me. “Do you remember what we did that night?”

I wasn’t surprised she didn’t remember. She and Jill were partiers back then. Shit. The more things made sense, the more confusing they became.

“We went out,” I said. “We got separated.”

“Oh. That was the last night I saw you before…I saw you again.” Violet went quiet.

“You mean before you found me,” I supplied, repeating back what August had told me once a long time ago.

“Do you remember anything?” Jill probed gently. She leaned forward on the edge of her seat.

“No,” I answered honestly, but I had a journal entry that said different. Shit.

“Bree, what do you remember?” Violet pried carefully. I sighed and sat on the edge of the coffee table and stared at my dining table in the adjacent room.

“I don’t remember that night at all. I remember you getting me dressed and doing my makeup and hair on New Year’s Eve day…and then…I remember waking up in a hospital bed and you telling me I was about five months pregnant,” I finished numbly, and I felt a hand start rubbing my back. I turned slightly and smiled at Ian, drawing some strength.

“Look, whatever the hell it was, that’s the past. I need to know what to do now,” I said firmly. I didn’t like the sympathy because despite it all, my life was better than I could have ever hoped for. I didn’t have anything to regret. I stood up and turned to face them.

“I don’t know how to tell him, or if I should, or how any of this works,” I admitted.

“You should tell him,” Violet said with resolve and nodded her head. “You should call him now and tell him.”

“No, no. You need to have someone steal his water glass or similar so you can test it. The dates are close, but you cannot accuse a man like that of having an illegitimate child with you without having science and God and Santa Claus behind you,” Jill declared, sternly shaking her head.

I let their words sink in and paced the floor for a few minutes while they watched me like a human game of badminton.

“If you must hold us hostage in this condo any longer, provide snacks,” Violet announced, popping up from her chair. Jill gave me a lingering look and followed her to the kitchen.

I flopped onto the sofa, picking my nails. I turned to Ian, beside me, who had been silent a long while.

“What do you think, Ian?” I asked quietly.

“Dunno, Bree.” He sighed and reached around to scratch the back of his broad pale neck. “But I’d be careful with it.”

I probed Ian. “You seem to be the most uncomfortable with this.”

“Maybe, but that might be because I know him better than you girls do,” he replied casually.

“Really? You know him, know him?” I asked, taken aback. He nodded.

“We went to school together,” he confirmed. “He was a year younger, but we were on the same soccer team.”

I nodded my head slowly. “What was he like?”

“The same I guess. Cocky, stuck up, just like everyone that went to Harvard. But Daniel wasn’t all bad,” he reflected. “Did I ever tell you how my parents made their money?” I smiled and nodded. He smiled back and chuckled. “Coming from a family in South Boston that got rich off a chain of pawn shops wasn’t exactly looked upon well in the Ivy League set. There was this goalie whose parents were big time, but he sucked. I guess he didn’t suck, but I was better. Trust me,” he nudged me with a smile of full on dimples. “Daniel became captain his sophomore year and had him benched. He got me first string.”

“That’s good, right?”

“For me? You bet. There was some backlash from the kid’s family, but Baird kept me in. Convinced the coaches, even with the heat from the administrators. I always appreciated that. He was fair,” he assessed, squinting at the far wall. It looked like there was more to the story.

“But…?” I prompted, and he turned to me with a mega-watt smile.

“But,” Ian began. “Other than that, he wasn’t really a good guy, Bree. He was always real intense, real serious. He mainly hung out with the other strikers on the team. One was loaded but a total psycho, that guy. They were a fuckin’ pair, let me tell ya. Daniel, though, had a girlfriend he cheated on constantly. We all acted like that, but he didn’t even try hiding it. He could be vicious on the field, and off sometimes. He was definitely big status on campus and he used it.”

I sighed, wondering what on Earth possessed me to sleep with him. “I have faith it’ll work out.”

“Plus you got your good luck charm,” Ian smiled and nudged my arm, indicating Tristan. “If you want, you can come with me to this lounge on Friday. It’s only alumni that are doing big business in the city. He might be there. You’d get a chance to feel him out yourself.”

“Thanks. I may take you up on that.”

“Think you could talk Jill into coming, too?” he hedged with a smile. I nodded, I’d try.

Tristan barreled into the room in his blue PJs. I held out my arms, signaling for him to come over, but he looked towards the kitchen and a smile quirked up on his lips.

“I’ll be right back,” he said and bolted back to the bedroom. Jill came wandering back in with an amused look on her face, and Violet trailed on her heels eating ice cream from the carton. He ran back in and right up to Jill.

“I made this for you, Jillian,” he told her with a smile, and she kneeled to look at the piece of construction paper in his hands and a smile lit up on her face.

Ian leaned down in my ear and whispered, “Boob man.” I smacked him and he chuckled, but then I thought of Daniel at my office today checking out my chest.

“It’s beautiful. The best gift ever,” she gushed as she hugged him tightly. He seemed to be blushing when she let him go and showed the picture off to us as we ooh’d and aah’d.

“Hey, isn’t that the drawing you gave Mommy earlier today?” I asked slowly of the crayon landscape. His bright green eyes widened because he’d been busted.

“I’ll make you another one tomorrow, Mom. Promise,” he admitted and fidgeted with his nightshirt.

I pursed my lips and began to wonder what other unsavory traits Daniel had passed on to my son. I shook my head. “Bath time,” I announced to him as I popped up and made my way to return him to his room.

He hugged Jill and was still hugging Violet by the time I got to him. She seemed to be hugging him really tight, which I thought was touching.

“Tristan?” Vi said as she stroked his hair, and I thought she was going a little overboard on the sentimentality.

“Yeah?”

“Oh, dear sweet boy. Sugar plum, baby cakes…” she cooed, channeling her inner mommy dearest as she took his face between her hands and searched his eyes adoringly.

“Huh?” he said confusedly.

“How would you feel about Auntie Violet being your new step-mommy?” Vi asked in a baby voice. I tugged her by the arm, hearing laughter behind us.

“What’s she talking about, Mom?” he puzzled.

“Nothing at all, baby,” I answered as I narrowed my eyes at Violet and tried to shoot a laser at her.

As we made our way down the hall, I heard her say, “What? I’m calling dibs.”

After his bath, Tristan snuggled under his covers right away, and we talked about school for a bit before his eyes drooped down and I watched him fall asleep peacefully. I cupped his little cheek in my hand and thought about what this all meant for him. I decided then and there that I needed to make whatever decision would protect him best. I knew all too well what rejection from a parent felt like.

If Daniel didn’t want to claim him, it was his loss. If he denied Tristan, I wouldn’t tell him who his father was because I can’t imagine the sting of watching such a highly visible man carry on a happy life knowing he wanted nothing to do with him. I never wanted him to feel not good enough because that could never be true. Children are too fragile for that kind of pain, and I would make sure that never happened. I kissed him on the forehead and shut off the lights, determined to do my best for him.

“I’m heading out,” Violet informed me as I joined her in the kitchen. She kissed my cheek and headed for the front door, and I just had to know.

“Violet, what happened when you found me?” I asked.

She looked hesitant and surprised by my question. “Bree,” she sighed. “You really want to know?”

“I think I need to,” I replied, and she searched my eyes for a few moments before pursing her lips. She seemed reluctant.

“Well…back then you know how I was busy all the time. Just starting my line after graduating and you were still in school at the dorms. It was normal for you to blow me off because you were so super focused on school and keeping your scholarship and I was traveling…partying,” she admitted guiltily. I gave her a reassuring smile to continue.

“So, after that New Year’s, it seemed normal when I’d call and you’d tell me you were buried under tests, books, studying…whatever. I was in and out of the country and didn’t even realize how much time had passed since I’d seen you. We’d had an argument. So I stopped by your dorm one day so you couldn’t blow me off any longer. That’s when the school told me you’d left,” she trailed off.

“Keep going,” I encouraged her when she seemed to be getting emotional.

“The cops found you at the park. With a crazy street woman who was a known addict. She ratted you out. They thought maybe a deal had gone wrong between you. They brought you to the hospital. I didn’t even recognize you,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You told them you were meeting someone. You weren’t well, Bree.” she dropped her head to the ground as her voice cracked.

“It’s alright, Vi. I’m fine now,” I soothed her. She let out a humorless laugh.

“Bree, I was supposed to watch over you. We got Mitch to let you move here because I promised I would take care of you. It’s my fault,” she said in a weak voice.

“It happened,” I said with a shrug, and she gave me a tight-lipped grin. “Who did I say I was waiting for?”

“When they asked, you broke down crying and kept mumbling, ‘he did this to you.’ When we asked you if you’d been raped you shouted ‘no’, over and over. But we thought you had Stockholm syndrome or maybe you’d been captive or something.” She paused, assessing my reaction, and then continued. “You never said. You screamed for a day. The nurses tied you down after you kept ripping everything out. The feeding tube, the IVs. That’s when you went catatonic. A few days, but thankfully you came out. I called Jill and she helped me take you home, but you screamed at us and fought. You were months pregnant. Even when you woke up, you were in bad shape,” she faltered. “After I checked you out, you agreed to…not have it. I refused to speak about it, but you were scared and so was I, so I started looking for late term places. That’s when Jill brought in August. You remember that part, right?” she asked, looking suddenly very tired and worn.

“Parts,” I replied, honestly. It was still foggy in my mind though. “I don’t know, it was all so crazy.” I shook my head.

“It was a crazy time,” she added sadly and looked down at the floor. “I’m glad you found him, though. All these years Jill and I have really thought the worst, so this is kind of a relief, right?”

“Right,” I replied, uncertain.

“I better get going, Bree. By the way, those bags are all your new season clothes. Whatever doesn’t fit, just give back.”

I locked the door behind her and glanced at the pile of shopping bags. Much of my wardrobe was thanks to her generosity. I dressed well only because she stocked my closet with options, like the designer messenger bag she’d given me to use as a diaper bag. I thought it was too much, but she called it ‘transitional’. Turns out she was right. Maybe I should put more stock in Violet’s advice.

Then I noticed Jill’s Prada overnight bag sitting right next to the clothing bags and saw her on the sofa flipping through channels on the TV.

“You don’t mind if I crash here, do you?” she asked shyly.

“Not at all. You know where the blankets are,” I smiled and headed to my room.

About half an hour later, I was tucked in bed when I heard my door creak open.

“Do you mind?” Jill asked, and I shook my head before flopping it back down on the pillow. She did the same thing Saturday night, and I woke in the early morning to the sound of her softly weeping and rocking herself. I wanted to comfort her, but she’d just be embarrassed for being caught.

She curled in on the other side of the bed and sighed heavily.

“You should call Ian,” I advised.

“I should,” she admitted. “The whole thing is a mess.”

“Are you scared?” I hedged. She seemed to not want to be alone for one second.

“A little,” Jill confessed.

“That wasn’t the first time, was it?” I concluded from what Ian had seen.

“Nope. Not by a long shot.”

“Jill! Why didn’t you tell us? I never liked that asshole.”

She chuckled dryly. “I stayed because it was comfortable. Not the abuse, but we knew each other’s baggage. It’s easy to stick with bullshit when you’re terrified of starting over. Then I finally move on, and he has to go and ruin it,” she whispered bitterly. “But that piece of info doesn’t leave this room, okay? The last thing I need is Ian going Rambo on Nathan.”

I laughed at the visual; it wasn’t a stretch. “My lips are sealed, but I’ll still kill him with my bare hands if I see him,” I threatened. Jill snickered.

“It helps being around you,” she said. “It’s nice to be around someone who has more drama than I do.”

“Just keep your kangaroo feet on your side of the bed.”

“Thanks, Bree,” she whispered sincerely, and I heard her take in a breath to speak. “Are you scared?”

I let the question tumble around in my head for a minute and I answered honestly.

“A little.”

I knew I could shade the sun with all the hurdles I had ahead of me, but for the first time in my life I knew my son’s father. I just didn’t know if that father wanted a son.

Chapter 9 - Trance and Transcendentalism

About an hour later, once Jill was sound asleep, I delicately pulled the covers back, easing my feet onto the floor. It took me several minutes to open the top drawer of my nightstand while retrieving my nail clipper because her sporadic snoring startled me as the wood of the drawer creakily slid out. I turned to her once more in the dark and barely made out her twisted form in the sheets taking up most of the bed while drool dribbled down her chin. It just didn’t look as cute on Jill as it did on Tristan I mused internally.

Satisfied that she was deep in REM, I tiptoed my way to my walk-in closet and gently closed the door behind me before turning on the lights. I pulled out my step stool and carefully pulled down the packed box from the top shelf, wobbling once, and then sat cross-legged on the ground in front of it as I sliced the seam of tape with the file on the nail clipper.

There it was. At the very bottom of the stacks of books that held my childhood fantasies, darkest nightmares, and wildest dreams, was a deteriorated black and white composition notebook that held a single entry from over five years ago. The book was tattered with water damage and ink bleed on the pages, some ripped completely out; nothing like all my other neatly organized and labeled books. I carefully separated yellowed pages to find the entry I was looking for, and it didn’t take me long to recognize the manic script it was written in that I’d only laid eyes on once after mistakenly finding it and then hiding it away. I’d almost destroyed it. It scared me for myself and for my son.

And now, this was the piece of the Daniel Baird puzzle that confused and concerned me the most. I read the following five-year-old journal entry silently.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was real.

You didn’t dream it and you’re not crazy.

Don’t ever let their eyes convince you.

He was real.

It was New Year’s Eve. I’d gone out for the night with Jill and Violet to an upscale nightclub in the theater district to celebrate. The place was packed as the party raged on, but by 1:00 a.m. I was exhausted and wanted to go home. I told them so, but they had just met two guys there and had many drinks, so they were nowhere near ready to leave. I threatened to leave without them, but they were beyond idle threats and rational thought, so I shoved their purses into their arms and told them to hold back their own hair when they wound up puking in the decrepit bathroom stall of the club. I’d take the train home on my own I said.

They didn’t stop me, but of course, I didn’t leave. They probably knew that. It wasn’t the first time. I hid, sitting in the corner of the loud, crowded club. Waiting and watching. I couldn’t leave them there in their heavily inebriated condition with those sleazy Manhattanites, and I knew there was no way I’d find my own way home. I never left campus without them. They moved out of sight, so I stood and watched the top of Jill’s golden ginger hair as is it bobbed and bounced to the music. By 2:00 a.m. they announced no more drink service, and I knew the venue would kick everyone out soon, so I hustled through the sweaty masses to rejoin my group. I grabbed Jill’s arm, but when the woman turned around, it wasn’t Jill.

I kept my cool as I went to the outside door of the club and watched the entire crowd of drunken partygoers drain from inside into the streets, but Violet and Jill never came out. I begged the doorman to let me back in to search, but he refused.

That’s when I panicked. I was so worried for them. I was always the sober one, the designated driver, the one that made sure no one slipped things in their drinks, and I’d thrown a fit and abandoned them. I’d sulked since the ball drop because as of midnight, it was officially my nineteenth birthday—and nobody noticed. It was petty of me because I had all the next day to enjoy it, but it stung that Violet hadn’t acknowledged it at after the ball drop like all the years before. And now they were missing. Did those slime-balls take them home? Where to? All I could think of was my father’s old line, “You could be dead in a ditch.”

I didn’t have any money and my cell phone was dead. I cursed myself for not carrying a purse. I walked through the streets for blocks and ended up on the Upper East Side. I needed a phone, so I went inside the first safe place I could find still open at this hour: The Waldorf Astoria Hotel. I called Violet’s and Jillian’s phones repeatedly, leaving frantic voicemails until the concierge told me if I wasn’t a guest, I had to leave. I asked her if I could use the restroom first, and she agreed.

I splashed water on my face and tried to regroup, deciding I would wait outside Jill’s studio apartment in Midtown. It was the closest to here, I knew that much, and if they didn’t show by morning, I’d try to track down Jill’s brother to help—and possibly the police.

I walked through the halls of the hotel as I made my way out. It was opulently decorated in gilded golds and looked like a French palace. There were banquet halls where private parties were still in full swing with music flooding the halls. There was a string quartet in the lounge, a live rock cover band playing all the obnoxious New Year’s songs in a separate ballroom, and couples covered in confetti laughed and blew horns between kisses as they headed up to their rooms. But through all that noise, there was an undercurrent of something that caught my attention. Something I couldn’t ignore.

I closed my eyes and focused on the sound until it led me to a closed set of double doors in the far corner. With an uncommon bravery, I peeked inside and was overcome with sound of a baby grand piano’s cry, the notes taking ownership of the air like it was borrowed to begin with, and the back of a lone dark-haired figure playing like his life hung on it.

The room was ornate and completely mirrored with a large crystal chandelier hung in the center, but the piano was the only furniture there. Table and chairs that had been broken down were leaned against the walls, which I only observed through my peripheral vision because my eyes were glued to the instrument. I craned my neck in to see the player in the reflection, but his hair covered everything, and he leaned over so far his nose was practically touching the piano. He must be a master, I thought to myself. Some prodigy of Juilliard because this rivaled everything I’d ever heard from the greats.

It was the most intensely melancholy sound. It was sweet and sorrowful, bitter and beautiful. It didn’t wail, it wept. I’d never heard anything like it. It chilled me and warmed me all at once. I could see the back of the player as he hunched over the black lacquered instrument of only wood and metal, but he was making it human and it was giving him everything it had. I watched his spinal column writhe like a snake, his music the charmer, and his shoulder blades shift with each movement underneath the thin white fabric of his shirt. His fingers moved furiously across the keys demanding more, and it gave it all. He wasn’t patient as I watched his head jerk swiftly on certain notes, and nod slowly, encouragingly on others while frenzied hands crept and lunged along the ivory and ebony ladies at his tips. But I wasn’t witnessing a seduction; it was a pillaging in its rawest form.

The bittersweet yearning of the piece wound into a resigned acceptance and after the final note, a quiet sob echoed through the empty room. The player became completely immobile, and my eyes flickered from where they’d been mesmerized on the keys to meet the reflection of enraged eyes under a formidable lowered brow.

Completely mortified that I’d intruded on something so private, I ran, moving as fast as my legs could take me, and hoping they wouldn’t fail. I stumbled once so I gathered my dress in my hand as I blew past the concierge who was shouting something, and out the front door of the hotel I ran.

The cold night air filled my lungs in big gusts and my cheeks stung, but I kept moving. Around the block and then another, until finally they gave out. I stepped into the covered entry of a small closed deli and leaned against the glass, sliding to the cold concrete ground. I pulled the skirt of my dress around my ankles and wrapped my arms around my knees, still panting, heart racing. Quiet steps approached me but I couldn’t see straight, so I tried to be still.

But he was there. The player.

He was easily over six feet tall and thin. His dingy white T-shirt hung limply on his hunched shoulders and an equally dingy white dress shirt was slung over the left, and I noticed underneath the fabric of the hanging shirt that his sagging jeans were bunched at the waist. He took one step, closing our distance, and sat down next to me, inches away. All I could think to do was bury my face in my knees and let my hair cover me.

“Look at me,” he ordered, and I did. And he was looking back.

But he didn’t look upset. His hair was wild and greasy, falling in his face, and he looked weeks into the process of growing an ungroomed beard, the shade of an old penny. His cheekbones protruded from above the uneven line of facial hair, and dark circles resided under tired eyes. His skin was sallow and although it was very cold and he was grossly underdressed, beads of sweat like dew formed around the corners of his forehead. His nose looked like it belonged on a statue for all its perfection except for a small healing mark on the bridge, and he had a single cigarette tucked behind his ear, held in place by his tangle of hair.

But despite all this, the first thing I noticed were his eyes. Dark and distant, pupils almost wholly dilated but rimmed in brilliant moss green.

“Beautiful,” he said finally in a distant voice, and I watched his hand reach up. “May I touch it?” he asked desperately. I didn’t answer. His reach advanced, and I felt him touch the silver tiara I’d put on at the party. He pulled his hand away and studied glitter from the tiara on the pads of his fingertips glistening as it caught moonlight. He rubbed his fingers together until the glitter flaked away. Timidly, I reached my own hand to my face and realized I was crying, with slick tears running everywhere. There were blotches on the white fabric of my skirt where I’d hidden my face and I wondered for how long, fearing it was my sob that broke the quiet. He appeared contemplative, but the wonderment died when his eyes went dark. “How cruel to have come now,” he said harshly before lifting to his feet. As I heard his footsteps begin to fade, I grew uncomfortable with the distance; so I followed them.

His posture was stiff but his stride was long, and I was practically jogging just to maintain our small gap. I don’t know how many blocks we went like that for, but I can say we passed under many street lamps. From shadow to light, shadow to light; before stopping underneath one. Silhouetted in the lamplight, he cupped his hand to his face and I saw a flicker followed by a warm crimson glow before he exhaled a cloud of smoke. I could see the bones in his brow as he pulled from the cigarette, and I stopped just short of him, unsure of how close I wanted to be.

“Why are you here?” he asked in a hard voice. It looked like he was addressing the cigarette.

“I…I got lost.” He stared down at me for a moment, brows furrowed and a crease in his forehead.

Finally, he nodded and said, “I understand,” and he sounded like he did.

I felt relief but didn’t dare speak as I watched him smoke and look around the dimly lit streets. It looked like he was enjoying the frigid night air.

“Are you going to stop following me?” he asked, like it didn’t matter either way. I thought about his question for a moment.

“I…I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“Do you always stutter this much?” There was mild irritation in his tone.

“No,” I said quietly. “Not usually.”

“But you usually follow strange men,” he countered, as if it were fact.

“No. I don’t usually do that either.”

“So be it,” he said. He flicked the cigarette and began to walk again.

I was beginning to understand the absurdity of my behavior, but I didn’t deny myself the impulse to continue. I was enthralled, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt. Since he was now aware I was behind him, I thought he would slow his pace, as a courtesy. But he kept his smooth swift gait, and I could barely keep up. The streets were slushy and slick, still littered with the discards from the occasion’s revelry and when cars passed occasionally, he’d duck his head. I wondered what he was hiding from or if he was on the run. When he neared a flock of pigeons feasting on a pile of rubbish, they cawed and fled at his footfalls as if sensing coming danger.

He never quite stayed still, though. Always fidgeting, scratching his forearm or the back of his neck. He’d re-sling the dress shirt periodically, alternating shoulders as if the weight were a burden. He finally stuffed his hands in his pockets and began humming in a deep smooth voice, and for a moment I closed my eyes and smiled. When we got to the heavily wooded edge of Central Park, I hesitated out of instinct. He turned his head over his shoulder with one brow arched and the corner of his mouth lifted deviously.

“Aren’t you coming?” he dared, feeling confident this was the end of the line.

For so long, I’d been the responsible one and if this were any of my friends, I would have told them they were mad, but as I watched his figure melt into the fog between the trees, my feet moved of their own volition. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the snow-covered ground crushing under the weight of his soles and branches snapping so I used that as my guide. My silver leather flats were soaked, freezing my toes, and my hair snagged on many branches until finally I arrived at the edge of a very small clearing with a bench and a monument-like boulder.

In the spring, this was probably a sunny, lovely little picnic area full of blossoms and butterflies, but with the moonlight casting its eerie blue silver light on the lightly snow-capped boulders, it was much less inviting. The surrounding trees created lurid shadows in the snow of gnarled and mangled dying limbs. And the player was nowhere to be seen. My breathing quickened and I scanned the area, irrationally worried he was gone.

“You’re quite tempting, you know,” a deep smooth voice whispered into my hair and I jumped in surprise, my heels lifting off the ground, following my heart’s lead. He stalked around me slowly, and I felt the cold air swirl as he came to stand before me. My heartbeat paused when he smiled crookedly, but it wasn’t an entirely pleasant gesture.

“You should go while you still can,” he warned, taking a small step closer, now inches away, his presence blocking the light of the moon. He was looking down at me, a gaunt face shadowed in darkness, his eyes blazing wildly with some unknown emotion while desperately searching mine for…something. It didn’t go unnoticed that he was the only one expelling the crystallized fog of an exhale, and I felt spared when he finally turned and walked out into the clearing. He went to a bench in the center and sat.

When my heart and lungs began functioning again, they quickly started making up for lost time. What was I doing? I was alone with a strange man who I had now determined was no eccentric beatnik artist. His clothes were unclean and there were scratches covering his arms long before we passed through the woods. Whatever he was, the player, the lost one, the villain, it was all very real. And he was warning me of whatever it was he was capable of. My sense of flight was warring with something, masochistic curiosity perhaps, and I considered all these things as I watched him sitting on the bench, leaning back, long arms stretched out, thrumming the edges, humming to no one.

The something won.

I went to him, where he sat on the bench hunched forward, elbows resting on knees, hands dangling limply between them.

“You’ve lost your halo,” he said, and nodded towards my head. I was confused so I reached up and patted my hair. The silver glitter “Happy New Year” tiara he’d admired before, was gone—a sacrifice to the branches. I wanted to correct him but it seemed pointless.

“I—” I stopped so I wouldn’t stutter. “Guess I did.”

“That’s what happens when you follow a man like me into the dark,” he admonished, still warning me.

I sighed because what could I do about it now? “It’s fine,” I answered quietly.

“I had one once,” he said fondly, looking down at his shoes, clasping his hands together.

“A tiar…halo?” I asked, puzzled. Maybe they called them that in England, which I had now deduced was the source of his accent. The same way they call sneakers “trainers” and feathered hats “fascinators.” He nodded.

“I lost mine, too,” he said, sounding disappointed. I guessed they didn’t sell them over there because he made it sound valuable. I just hate when you fall in love with something not easily available in your country.

“I feel that way about chouquettes,” I thought aloud.

“What?” he asked confusedly as his head snapped up.

“Y… you know, it’s like a little bon-bon with crème?” I said self-consciously, and I felt myself blush under his intense gaze. I went with Violet to Paris for her atelier apprenticeship the previous summer. Jill came too and they paid my way, but my spending money was tight so at patisseries I ordered only chouquettes. I was sick of them until I came back. Now I craved them all the time.

“You’re very strange,” he said, tilting his head. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or offended. “But I suppose the little things are most missed,” he added wisely, and I nodded in agreement, feeling more at ease.

My teeth had begun to chatter audibly; just looking at him made me shiver. His clothing was minimal but it clung to him with sweat and I thought he was catching hypothermia.

“You can have my scarf if you like,” I offered timidly, indicating the thick fluffy white that covered my neck like a collapsed turban. My dress was long and I had a thick, camel-colored wool coat that fell past my thigh, so I thought I could spare it.

“What for?” he asked simply, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“You’re going to freeze to death,” I explained gingerly.

An empty sound of realization was all he replied.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asked, suspicious, but slightly annoyed.

“Not really,” I replied pathetically. All of a sudden feeling like my friends had ditched me, instead of the other way around.

He stretched back out on the bench and began tapping his knee rapidly as if it were piano keys. I was looking down at where my shoes poked out from under my dress and wondered how much longer until my toes got frostbite when he suddenly moved. By the time my eyes flicked up he had removed his shirt revealing a thin, bare, chiseled torso.

He scaled the snowy boulder until he stood on top. I was stunned. In the moonlight I saw his skin was pale and slick with sweat, it appeared to be the color and texture of Vaseline. His hipbone jutted out from his dark washed ripped jeans; sagging too low. His hair was impossibly wild and he pulled something out of his pocket.

“A shame about the snow,” he mumbled as he tended to the small bag of powder in his hands. The other thing he’d withdrawn, he dropped and looked down at. Then he stomped it. It looked like a syringe. “It won’t be long now,” he added sullenly, but I didn’t think he was talking to me.

He extended an arm and shook out the bags contents, and it seemed to hang in the heavy winter air for a moment until a breeze caught the speckles of dust and they swirled around the glistening skin of his bare chest. In the light watching him there, broken and triumphant, surrounded in a cloud of dust, shimmering in the moonlight, his body seemed unwell and his mind seemed even less so. His music was haunting and pained, all hope drained from the melody. And now it was clear, the song and the player were one in the same. He looked frightening and magnificently beautiful in the most tragic way. Just like his music.

I jolted backwards when he leaped from the rock with unearthly grace and landed in front of me in a crouch with one hand pressed into the snow.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he growled, as he quickly rose to his full height.

“L…Like what?” I stammered, unsure of what he was accusing. I took a small step back as he moved towards me.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” he snapped, stepping forward. His chest was heaving, and he raked his hand though his hair and tugged at the ends.

I began shaking my head vigorously with my hands extended by sides. I was completely lost by his words and his temper.

“Don’t look at me like I’m like you,” he accused, eyes narrowed, shoulders rigid with tension. “Because I’m not.”

“I know that,” I said in a whisper, because it seemed like the response that would anger him least. Was he bragging? Was he telling me he was better than me?

“I don’t know why you’re here, but it won’t make a difference,” he stated cruelly, tauntingly. “It changes nothing.”

I didn’t know why I was there either or what difference he was referring to, but his callus observation was a bullseye to the core of my insecure nature and my eyes began to well. I was always there. It never mattered, and I never made a difference.

Not even with the people who were supposed to love me. I was a coat rack to my friends, a doormat to my peers, and a housekeeper to my father. And I was an absolute nonentity to my mother. I went through life completely invisible to everyone. My entire existence was of no consequence.

My mother married Mitch at nineteen, after she’d met him at a local country western bar when she was passing through town. He was older, reliable, with a steady job, and she was beautiful, young, and wild. No one knew why she went home with him that night or why she married him the next week, but they all found out a few months after I was born when she disappeared. She inherited her trust fund from her family that held the stipulation she be married and upon the arrival of her first born, and only then, she’d get her money. She picked out the most simple, gullible man she could find to suck in to her manipulative game.

But she abandoned me. She’d held me and gotten to know me in the months it had taken her to secretly finalize the paperwork and get money transferred, but it wasn’t enough to make her stay. I didn’t make any difference to her plan. She could have taken me with her, but she didn’t. I was just a pawn to begin with. She did all that just to end up getting killed in a car accident, high as a kite with some guy in a band she’d met at a bar. And here I was, with some druggie musician in the middle of the woods. Unaccounted for because no one thought I was significant enough to count.

My head snapped up when he spoke.

“Stop that. Now,” he ordered impatiently as he walked to the bench. “Do not cry for me.”

Yes, he thought he was better than me, and he was vain beyond belief. My blood began to boil at this arrogant lunatic, and I was flooded with too many emotions at once. A man who appeared to live in a cardboard box: Even he didn’t want me around. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. I was foolishly letting him rip into the last shred of self-esteem I’d managed to salvage for myself.

“I’m not crying for you, you stupid, selfish boy!” I blurted out through a sob and he spun around to face me. His eyes were filled with rage, but it only fueled my own.

“You can stay here and destroy yourself if you want because that’s what you’re doing with your drugs and your…bullshit, but I’m leaving,” I spat out.

Because that’s what this was. The destruction of another person. As soon as the words left my lips, I knew they were true. He had a death wish and my morbid curiosity was now costing me, which is what I deserved, but I’d had enough. I turned on my heels and didn’t start running until I was in the cover of woods.

I couldn’t believe what a fool I was for becoming entranced by some strange sad boy. I’d put my safety on the line to entertain a warped whim. Branches whipped me as I passed, and I grabbed onto the bark of trunks to steady myself. A thick fog had settled, and I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead or above. I listened for the sound of cars and civilization to use as my compass, but I heard nothing. I began to see my own zigzagged footprints in the snow, so I’d turn and try another route. I looked up, trying to find a skyscraper as a beacon but a fog had rolled in and I was so deep in the thick of it, there were none to be seen.

Defeated and exhausted, I fell to the ground underneath a large tree trunk. The snow was melting underneath, soaking the fabric of my dress, and to my own humiliation, I began to cry again. I was thinking of how ironic it was that just hours before I was worried Violet and Jill would be the ones found frozen in a ditch, but now I was winning that contest. I was already contemplating who would give my eulogy when I caught a glimpse of something white. He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow while taking in my condition.

It looked like there were two of him.

“Did you come to finish me off?” I asked in a weepy voice. I didn’t think I’d like the answer. I was just lucid enough to understand I was suffering from sleep deprivation and the cold.

“No,” he said quietly, not making eye contact.

“Then what are you doing here?” I asked, as I wiped away a tear and he continued to frown.

“You’re not supposed to cry.” He stated it like my behavior was the oddity of the night.

I let out a humorless laugh that sounded a little unstable even to my own ears.

“Get up,” he said brusquely, like I was wasting his time.

“I wouldn’t want to put you out. Aren’t you running late to be the keynote speaker at some junkie convention under the bridge?” I asked flatly as he strode past, my brain filter completely shut down. I was sure I’d crossed the line, but as he turned to face me, his features fought between amusement and annoyance.

“Aren’t you afraid to be left behind?” he inquired, peering.

I pressed my lips together. “All the time,” I admitted pathetically. I was expecting a snappy retort, but after a moment he nodded appreciatively, unfolding his arms.

“Come on,” he said, extending me a hand. I glared at it.

“No,” I refused, dignified in my cloudy state.

“You’re going to freeze to death,” he said, using my words against me.

“So be it,” I retorted angrily, playing his game.

He returned a glare as he walked past. I debated my choices as his footsteps grew faint and, in a moment of clarity, I scrambled to my feet. I wouldn’t say I’d rather freeze than follow him; it was a coin toss. Luck prevailed. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the fog thinned and I saw city lights ahead. When I exited the woods, he was waiting at the edge.

“Thank you,” I said curtly as I dusted off my soggy attire and pulled a few twigs from my tangled hair.

“You’re welcome,” he said formally, but for the first time he looked amused. “But you shouldn’t thank me.”

“Why?” I asked. I was getting a little tired of being told what to do.

“I’ve ruined you,” he said, taking in my disheveled appearance again.

“It happens more that you’d think,” I said, thinking of all the outfits I’d borrowed from my sister that came back imperfect. He seemed less belligerent than before, so I took a chance. “Why did you help me?” I quizzed. He was no boy scout, but he’d walked slowly on our trek out, which I assumed was for my benefit.

He stared out into the woods. “I’m not sure,” he replied, sounding perplexed by the idea.

I snorted in a very unladylike fashion. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have thanked you. Good night,” I said and hit the sidewalk again.

“Do you know where you’re going?” he called out. I turned and narrowed my eyes.

“Do you?” His expression softened.

“No, but that’s not important.”

He walked out into the street and looked both ways before he let out a loud whistle. He kept his gaze down the street towards the intersection until he dropped it to the ground and made his way back to the sidewalk. A few seconds later a yellow cab pulled up and he opened the back door and looked at me expectantly.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“You’re going home,” he informed me.

“I can walk,” I defended. A lie.

“It’s too dangerous to walk alone,” he protested. I let the irony of his statement pass. “And you’re in no condition for it.”

“You could walk me?” I hedged, surprising myself.

“That’s impossible,” he said, matter-of-factly, and I was a little disappointed though I had no reason to be. The cabby yelled out that the meter was running. “Get in,” he commanded.

“I don’t have any money,” I said incredulously, nodding towards the cab.

“My treat,” he offered and reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of folded bills, which I was stunned he had. He really looked like he could use that money for more important things and he sensed my reluctance.

“Let’s make a deal. You offered me your scarf earlier. I’ll purchase it from you. For the fare,” he compromised reasonably. I hugged my arms around my shoulders and shivered because my wet clothes were turning to ice. The scarf was a gift from Violet and worth much more than the twenty, but it still seemed like he was getting the raw end of the deal. Suddenly, I had an idea.

“Play for me. Tomorrow,” I said quickly. He looked momentarily confused before he exhaled deeply and shook his head. “Why? Do you think you’re a Beatle or something?” I said, hiding my hurt.

“Groupies are everywhere,” he quipped.

“Yes…well, I don’t fall for hype.”

“What do you fall for, then?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I glanced down. “Besides, Wings was better,” I justified, hiding a blush.

“I’m still hallucinating,” he replied, watching me closer. The cabbie honked his horn, impatiently. Urgently, he insisted, “Get in.”

“No. Not until you agree. Play for me.”

“I cannot offer that,” he said with finality.

“And I don’t accept charity,” I replied and began walking away, holding my breath.

“Fine,” he called out from behind me, and I smiled to myself before heading back towards the cab. He moved his hand out dramatically, gesturing for me slide in the car but before I ducked my head in, I needed to be sure. He’d caved too easily.

I peered at him. “Do you really promise?”

His nostrils flared a little and he went completely still. He was standing a few inches away from me, and in the bright streetlight I could see he was sweating profusely, every pore of his forehead visible. His skin had gone gray, and his breathing was shallow. The periwinkle blue veins in his neck were pulsing, and his tired eyes glistened with resignation and regret as he spoke.

“If…if I am able to…I will. That is all I can promise,” he answered slowly, selecting his words carefully, and it was the saddest thing I’d ever heard.

I understood what he was saying: if he made it until then, he would be there, but he didn’t think he would. My eyes watered, and I pressed my lips together while I nodded. I wanted to convince him to let me take him for help, but what little I knew of him made me certain he would refuse. My request was unfair and I’d asked for too much.

Without a second thought, I was unraveling my scarf and looping it around his neck. He was taken off guard, but as I reached up to knot it under his scruffy chin, he gripped my wrist in his long fingers and closed his eyes as he leaned down to inhale the exposed sliver of skin on my wrist as if he were sampling a perfume. I felt the coarse brush of his frosty cold facial hair and the softer brush of chapped lips that were surprisingly warm before he pressed his lips forcefully onto my skin in a brief and savoring kiss. Against my frozen skin his lips seared like a brand, but all I was thinking of was how waxen his eyelids were.

“Please try,” I begged, voice cracking, eyes pleading, tears falling, and for once, completely unashamed.

“Tomorrow,” he answered, but his eyes said goodbye, and my heart broke for the lost boy, the villain, and the player. I unfurled the hand that had been clutching the scarf in a painfully tight fist, and he released my wrist before taking a step back. I slid in the back seat unable to think or speak, while he leaned in the passenger window and handed the cabby the fare and extra tip, instructing him to make sure I got home safely.

He closed my door and I watched him from the window step onto the curb, turning in profile to give me a thin reassuring smile that was anything but, and when we pulled off, I felt like I’d made a mistake and left something important behind.

I didn’t sleep when I got back to my dorm room. Instead I sat at my desk and stared out the window into the streets. I watched a group of pigeons flocking until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I showered and almost dozed off in its spray before I crawled under the covers, wrapped in my towel, to hide. I was disgusted with myself for watching him self-destruct and doing nothing to stop it. He was cruel and distant, but he didn’t deserve to be observed like a wounded animal taking its final breath. Just like an animal, he secluded himself to die alone. He’d made it clear over and over he didn’t want my company but I ignored him. I was no better than a snuff film voyeur. I gave him no dignity in his darkest hour, and instead of trying to help, I watched. My phone rang but I ignored it and sent emails out to the girls telling them I was sick. Because I was, in fact, a very sick person.

I fell asleep sometime after I convinced myself to put it all behind me. I wouldn’t go back. If he was there, he would just call me vile things for being a twisted example of humanity, or maybe he’d still be out-of-his-mind high and hurt me or worse. And if he wasn’t there…well, my conscience couldn’t handle that. It was better if I never knew what happened to him, so I could pretend like he’d made it and entered some work program, attended weekly meetings, counseled others, and married a kind, pretty French Canadian school teacher in New Jersey who would stand by his side if he relapsed.

Two-point-five kids, adopted stray, matching denim shirts….Yes, that was the picture I wanted so badly, and so I kept it. And with that image alone, I’d finally allowed myself to lay my head down.

I woke up sweating, burning with fever, and saw out the window the sun was gone. I’d only had a few hours of sleep and I began pacing the room. I felt so restless and distressed so I grasped at my manufactured image of a suburban heaven, but it was now wrong and discomforting and I wondered if my subconscious had robbed me of my solace as punishment. I sat down on my bed and started biting my nails, a habit I don’t have and ordinarily find gross, and I knew I needed to know for sure. Before I could second-guess myself, I’d dressed and was taking a cab to Manhattan.

It was only a little after nine when I arrived at the Waldorf but I decided to wait inside. I snuck past the desk and heard the sound of a piano being tuned coming down the hall and my spirit lifted. I took a deep breath before I peeked into the piano room, but I froze when I saw something I didn’t expect. A silver haired man in a waiter’s uniform tinkering on the keys. I also didn’t expect to see the entire room elaborately set up for an extravagant event.

I was in a panic. I wished we made better plans, but he said if he did come, it would be to play for me. My mind roamed to worst-case scenario—that he wouldn’t make it at all. I was scrambling as I hailed a cab and headed to the only other place I could I think of: The Park.

Once the cab dropped me off, I circled the edge of the woods trying to estimate where I’d entered the night before, but I felt like time was wasting so I walked straight in. My boots trudged through the day’s newly fallen snow and every step felt more urgent. After a while I saw the tree line end in the distance and I slowed my pace. My heart thudded inside my chest as I neared, and when I reached the edge I almost fell to my knees and cried. He was there. Alive.

And there that night, in the darkness and cold, alone, where nothing glowed and blackness thrived, and the life around us died, I did what I knew I would always look back on as either the most right or wrong mistake of my life. I went to him.

Chapter 10 - A Flower in the Desert

I closed the notebook, squeezing my eyes shut.

I couldn’t lie; the journal entry frightened me. But when I read it, it was like I was reading someone else’s life. I wasn’t the same girl and, although I knew it was me, it just didn’t feel real. Based on the timeline, accent, and eyes, it had to have been Daniel, but nothing else made sense. He even denied playing piano. In my mind, I couldn’t reconcile this man, the player, with the Daniel Baird I’d just met.

I took into consideration that I was in the middle of some sort of breakdown when I wrote that entry, but I didn’t think I’d made it up either. It was almost as if I’d written it to convince myself not to doubt it later. A chunk of pages following that entry had been ripped out. All that remained were blank pages, in the back, so I had no more detail than that.

But what if Daniel was still a drug addict? I knew about big Wall Street guys with thousand-dollar-a-day habits. He seemed too controlled for that, but maybe he’d mastered the art of controlling the addiction. It’s possible he’d sought treatment and was now in recovery, because he didn’t even drink alcohol. But that still left the suicidal part.

It seemed like he’d had some sort of breakdown, along with everything else, which concerned me for Tristan’s welfare. He already had a mother with a lapse and now he had a father with one, too. I’d heard these things were hereditary, and I’d long suspected my short bout was inherited from my own mother who was a drug abuser and manic-depressive. Mitch even told me she’d experience sudden fits and manic episodes, but I guessed poor Mitch was the one who actually ‘experienced’ the fits.

As much as I loathed this idea, it was possible when I went in the woods that night I did drugs with Daniel and became instantly hooked. With my mother’s addictive personality, maybe that first try was enough. I’d never even smoked a cigarette before then. That would explain my secluded, secretive, volatile behavior, and why I still had the wherewithal to cover for myself. They say addicts are the best deceivers, and that would also explain my dramatic weight loss, deteriorated health. It could also explain whom I was waiting for. It made my stomach churn to think that Daniel had possibly taken me to his dealer or some other druggie friends of his. Maybe I was waiting for a dealer that day they found me pregnant in the park.

The concept seemed far-fetched, but, when I compared it to the fact that I’d had unprotected sex with someone whom I thought to be a homeless drug addict then went mental and had his baby, it seemed feasible by comparison.

With the time sequence, Daniel must have been my first. Then I wondered how many other men I might have slept with during my breakdown. I didn’t have money for drugs, so how would I have paid? It made me scared and angry to think it was possible that Daniel Baird may have introduced me to or traded me off to friends after he was done with me. That’s the reason I was never even sure the piano player I described was the father at all; because I never actually knew if it had been him, someone else, or one of multiple candidates. I just knew in my last clear memory I was definitely still a virgin.

But the last line of the entry made me feel like I’d made a choice. It was a conscious decision. I’d obviously written it after it happened, and there seemed to be a willingness to be there. When I read that last line, I felt like in my broken down state I’d accepted responsibility for what I was getting myself into—I just wasn’t sure how it would turn out.

And almost six years later, I still wasn’t sure.

What I knew now was that I had a little boy who needed me. If I took drugs with Daniel, I had to take responsibility for that. And if this was the card he wasn’t ready to play when we talked at my office, the reason behind his vague answers, a fear of being exposed, then it would stay with me. Just like Jill’s abuse, August’s sexuality, and Violet’s secrets, I’d keep it sacred just the same. There was no need to embarrass my son’s father if this was his private shame. It made me sympathetic towards him in a way.

Although I was exceedingly curious what could’ve put Daniel in such a dire situation, it wasn’t my place to dig. Hopefully, in time, we could form a relationship based on trust and partnership as Tristan’s parents and I could get some answers.

Hopefully.

Tuesday I finally spoke with August and he seemed unsurprised by the revelation. Shocked by its verification but not entirely surprised. He understood how outrageous a concept it was just as well as I did, but he was always perceptive and helped me sort some things out.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“He took an interest in you that was above and beyond what was called for. It was more than I thought he was capable of. The only thing I’ve known him to care about is his position in the company. That night at dinner when you were looking at each other…there was something about it that felt…private. Not romantic, exactly, just intense,” he finished hesitantly.

“I think that’s when I was starting to recognize him but didn’t realize how.”

“Do you think that’s all there was to it?” he asked simply.

“Of course,” I said and hid back the fact that I had lustful feelings towards him later that night. It seemed a hazard of his presence for all women.

He opted not to expand further, so I cut to the chase, “So you agree the mixer’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s wise,” he replied in his thoughtful voice. “It’s important to take measured steps. He’s not a man who likes surprises or acts without reason. Be patient and I’ll plan something formal with the attorneys for us to have a sit down and ask him to submit to a DNA test to be sure. I think he’ll appreciate us handling it discreetly and succinctly.”

“That sounds like a plan,” I said, relieved I finally had one.

~o~

I decided to go with Ian to the mixer in hopes Daniel would be there. It was a public place, so it seemed like a good opportunity to try to learn exactly who Daniel Baird was as a person today as opposed to the disturbing figure I’d recorded meeting all those years ago. We seemed to do better in groups of people. Like at the dinner, when there wasn’t opportunity for things to get…off track. He was actually relatively kind during those interactions, and I needed to be more secure about his true nature before I threw my child into the fray.

Ian showed up around 6:00 p.m. to pick me up, and I kissed August and Tristan goodbye before we left. The event was being held at Moran’s down on Wall Street, and the place was pretty full when we arrived.

I had dressed in a black knee-length cocktail dress and low black heels, and I wore a khaki trench coat over it. My hair was down with the long layers swept across like bangs. Ian, of course, was in a designer dark navy suit with tiny pinstripes, complete with waistcoat, silk tie, and cufflinks. The place was dark with wood paneling and collegiate crests hung on the walls. It was an old school, Rat Pack kind of place.

“I don’t see him,” I observed on tiptoes as I craned my neck around. The place was filled with other nicely dressed people in their twenties and thirties, all in similar attire. We were hanging out near the hors d’oeuvres table in the far corner while Ian quality tested every kind they had.

“He’ll be here. I’ve heard a lot about him being in town, and the other alums were buzzing about it this week. There’s a lot of talk about him moving the company. Word on the street is his dad’s not too happy about it,” he shared as he checked out a woman in a short red dress.

I frowned a little, thinking about what Daniel had said about coming back, but surely he didn’t mean it that way. I doubt he relocated his company just to get me in bed. That would be crazy.

“Ian, how old is Daniel?” I asked curiously.

“I think he’s twenty-eight,” Ian replied nonchalantly.

“Do you know long he’s been running this company?” I inquired, trying to put together some sort of timeline in my head.

“Ah, let’s see. Just a year or two, I think. I just remember the press release when his dad retired and ran for some sort of office over in England. That’s when he took over,” he answered but seemed uncertain. “A lot of people thought he wasn’t ready because of his age. Nepotism and all that. But he’d worked his way up. The guy’s a business genius and handed the board their asses when he took over. Oh!”

“What?” I asked as I whipped my head around. He patted my back quickly in excitement.

“Tuna rolls. Be right back, Bree,” he said quickly as he chased down a waiter with a silver tray hoisted in the air.

Ian was gone a while, but I didn’t talk to anyone except when someone would ask what year I graduated. Once they found out I didn’t go to Harvard, the conversation ended, which was fine by me. They seemed uptight with their scotch on the rocks and golf trips abroad. I looked around wondering what fulfilled them.

“Ms. Valentine,” I heard a smooth voice that I recognized right away, and I don’t know why, but it made me smile really big.

“Hi, Daniel,” I replied through my grin as I turned to see him standing next to me.

He looked great in a charcoal gray suit and white shirt with no tie. And amazingly, he returned my smile-for-no-reason tenfold, all the way up to the eyes as he studied me. He was so good looking it almost hurt.

“Now this is how you should look when you see me, Ms. Valentine,” he said, sounding sincere, and his green eyes danced as he raised his hand and brushed my chin with his thumb. My mouth hung open a bit until he moved his hand.

“You mean dry?” I retorted self-deprecatingly, gesturing down at my outfit, trying to stay focused on building friendly rapport.

“Optional,” he replied, and the smile got a little devious before he became serious and looked at me with interest. “What brings you here tonight?”

“I’m here with a friend,” I answered, wondering if I should be offended he didn’t assume I was an alumnus, and noticed two guys in nice suits walked up behind him looking like they wanted autographs. Or his personal number.

“I think you’ve got some fans,” I said quietly and darted my eyes around his arm. As soon as he tilted his head enough to see them, the bored face returned.

“You will be here a while?” he asked, but his eyes were asking me to stay. I nodded before he strode off.

I bounced on my heels a little bit, really excited about my five seconds of progress. “Ian! Ian!” I called in a hushed voice as I flagged him down.

He smiled and made his way over. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked.

“Good stuff, Ian. This was a great idea. Thank you,” I gushed as I rose on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. He chuckled.

“Glad to help. Now I need your help. Taste this,” he said, putting a strange hors d’oeuvre in my face.

“It smells,” I replied and fanned the air.

“Come on, Bree. It’s an Irish delicacy just like my Nan used to make. Now do that thing where you can taste something and know how to make it. I forgot what it’s called, but you should make this for Sundays,” he pleaded, eagerly shoving the slimy bite in my face. I told him I wouldn’t do this again after last time I made him Dublin Coddle. Yuk.

“Fine,” I relented, taking a bite from the napkin he held out. Sausage, mushroom, parsley, liver?

“Mr. Foley,” Daniel pronounced with an edge.

I furrowed my brow up at him as I swallowed hard. Daniel had lost all the pleasantness from before. My eyes darted to Ian who was peering at Daniel curiously and then a smirk crossed his lips.

“Baird. How are ya?” he asked nonchalantly as he popped in the rest of the hors d’oeuvre I’d taken a bite of and chewed it with a smile.

“I see you’ve met Ms. Valentine,” he stated, his narrowed eyes stayed fixed on Ian.

“Yeah, Bree and I go way back,” he grinned and patted my shoulder. Daniel was looking at the hand like if he stared hard enough, it might catch fire.

“Bree,” he repeated to himself. His eyes flashed at Ian and his hands rolled into fists. “Yes, I saw your performance on television this week, Foley. Always the hothead.”

“It can get hot,” Ian replied slyly with a smirk, and it came across a little like a warning. I didn’t like where we were headed.

“Ian invited me to come. He said it would be a nice little get together, so I thought I’d check it out,” I interrupted. Daniel’s eyes met mine.

“I see,” he said tightly. “And where is August tonight?” he asked with a cocked brow watching Ian’s reaction.

“Oh, he’s babysitting,” Ian supplied with a wink, and I elbowed him. “Little mama here needs a night out every now and then.”

“I see,” Daniel observed quietly as Kate came up by his side wearing a tight black skirt suit. She must be six feet and still shorter than Daniel. Her head came to his ear. I also noticed the five-eight brunette next to her holding an infant, and the slick-haired man in suspenders beside them. Ian stiffened beside me.

“Daniel, you remember Nathan Hill. And this is his fiancée, Nadia,” Kate announced as she laid a hand on his shoulder, and I think Daniel gave the most subtle, droll eye roll I’d ever seen.

Ian was practically blowing steam out of his ears. Nathan looked worried as he ran his fingers through his dull brown hair.

“They wanted to come and say hello. They just had a baby, isn’t that wonderful?” Kate said cheerfully, but she seemed like she was up to something.

Daniel just turned to face them and raised his brow before nodding his chin a millimeter. They both seemed very excited by the gesture.

“Is so nice to meet choo,” Nadia purred with a Russian accent—and if she wasn’t currently cuddling her ticket into the upper crust, she looked like she would probably be cuddling Daniel’s “ticket”. She bounced the baby, flipping her hair, and she noticed me. “Oh, hell-o Gabrielle.”

“Hi, Nadia,” I replied and tried not to grimace because she’d actually done Jill a huge favor.

Kate didn’t recognize me at first but when her nostrils flared, I knew she’d placed me; then promptly ignored me.

“And who might this be?” Kate asked, batting fine lashes at Ian who grinned wide and held out his hand. She placed hers in it and smiled.

“Ian. Ian Foley,” he said in his Casanova voice as he bent to kiss it. “It’s always nice to meet a beautiful lady,” he added with a wink, and Kate laid her hand on her chest, flattered. Daniel looked at his watch, and Nathan captured his attention with a question about bonds.

“You’re just darling. I’m Kate,” she replied to Ian and then turned back to Nadia. “Nadia, how old is little Nathan?”

“Oh, hees tree mounthes ohld,” she cooed and held him out to Kate. “Here, you can hoyld heem.”

“Just precious,” Kate said as she reached across an irritated-looking Daniel and grabbed the baby. Only Nadia would bring a baby to cocktail party, fearing she’d be denied entry without her little Hill.

“Isn’t he the handsomest?” Kate crooned, batting her lashes. She held the baby towards Ian and me who both widened our eyes. Kate had a smirk on her face, and I knew she was setting us up because, sadly, Violet was right. You could say the baby had not yet grown into its features. He looked like an eighty-year-old man. Ian cough-laughed and then started choking. I beat his back to get him to knock it off.

“Yeah…he’s…uh…something else,” Ian said but his face was beet red. Nadia and Kate turned to me. I was such a terrible liar, and I was nervous so I blurted out the first thing that popped in my head.

I told her Nathan Jr. looked like a boiled potato rolled in margarine.

“Comme une pomme de terre bouillie roulé dans la margarine,” flowed out. I recoiled from my words, hoping my split-second switch kept me from getting jumped. I guess there was at least one other person in the group who spoke French because Nathan stopped dead in his tracks, whipping his head towards me with furious eyes, then sadly at his baby. And Daniel laughed.

It was truly a great laugh, not too loud, not too rough. It was as smooth as his voice but honest, not sugarcoated. It was second only to the sound of my son’s. He quickly disguised it, coughing into his fist once, but Kate looked at him like he’d just laid a golden egg from his nostril.

Even Ian looked surprised and he squeezed my shoulder. Then Daniel strode off, with Nathan trailing behind him.

“Oh, is good to use foreign langweeg with baybees. I speak Russian to heem awl the time,” Nadia said as she smiled and cuddled the baby back from Kate. “What did you tell heem?”

I looked into Nadia’s eyes and saw a proud mom. Ashamed of myself, I tried to grin genuinely. “He is a beautiful gift,” I lied reassuringly then looked over at a confused Ian. Even if she did crush Jill by confronting her with the affair, their baby wasn’t the backstabbing, woman-beating cheater.

“Yes, hees very healthy, too,” Nadia cooed and patted his back. He was a little on the plump side. “When are you and Dahn-yall going to hafv cheeldrin?”

My head snapped up. I exhaled when I saw she was talking to Kate.

“Oh, no. Daniel and I aren’t going to have children,” she chided, like it was a cute novelty but the responsibility to carry on the human race should be left up to people who don’t own sailboats. “Now come, let’s go show your lovely boy to the Coopers. I know they’d enjoy that.”

She spun around and sauntered off with Nadia without looking at me twice. I shivered as I realized this woman could be Tristan’s stepmother one day. Violet’s proposition was looking better all the time. I hung around the table while Ian made himself scarce, but I didn’t see Daniel for the rest of the night. On the ride home, I gave Ian an earful.

“Ian, what the hell was that? I thought you said you guys were friends?” I asked incredulously.

“Whoa, now. I said I knew him, not that we were friends.”

“But that was barely civil and the whole point was to befriend him,” I reprimanded.

“I know,” he exhaled a long breath, “but he just brings it out of me. I’d almost forgotten what a prick he can be! Calling me Mr. Foley, like he didn’t see my balls in the locker room every day for two years. That was just his way of telling me I can’t call him by his name. That we’re not cool anymore,” Ian explained and rolled his eyes.

“Well, you went overboard. I know what you’re like when I’m not around, but you put it on thick intentionally,” I said, bypassing the locker room statement.

“I know. I let him get the best of me. It’s just that he used to get any girl he wanted. He would take a girl from another guy if he felt like it, and he took one of my girls once. She was cute, too. You’re not supposed to do that to teammates; it’s an unspoken rule. So when I saw him getting all froggy over you, I couldn’t help but push his buttons,” he said with a smirk. “Then he made that underhanded hothead comment he’d used after he pulled from a title game once. The fucker.”

“Ian, this is not a game or some college girl grudge. He is the father of Tristan,” I explained, trying to keep myself calm.

“I know,” Ian said, stunned, staring out the windshield. “It’s crazy. But anyways, I guess you must have been pretty decent in the sack. I should have taken my chance when I had one,” he said eying me and wagging his brows.

“Remind me again when you had a chance?” I retorted sarcastically. “And don’t talk about me and you having sex. That’s like incest.”

“Yeah, I guess it is kind of gross, but we’ll never know unless we try,” he kidded before he burst out laughing.

“It is pretty sad that I can’t remember the only time I know I’ve ever had sex in my life,” I said lamely as I drew squiggles with my finger on the inside of the fogged up Escalade window as the rain trickled down outside.

“Nah, Bree, you’re lucky,” he sighed heavily. “You get to do it right next time. Most people would kill for a do-over in that department. I know my first girlfriend would. You’re like a born-again virgin or some shit.”

“Or some shit,” I breathed out weakly, fogging over the old squiggles on the glass.

When Ian dropped me off around eight thirty, Tristan was already out for the night. August left shortly thereafter. I told him how it went, and he didn’t seem as disappointed as I was.

Jill had made a very good point; the last thing I wanted was to be some society victim accusing a wealthy man of fathering a child out of wedlock. Luckily, Daniel had already seen I was a business owner and not in need financially.

He clearly didn’t like children, and tonight I’d learned he didn’t want them either. That was probably the worst news I could have gotten, but if there was any child that could change someone’s mind about that, it was Tristan. Maybe Daniel didn’t want them because he thought they’d hinder their busy travel schedules, but with Tristan that wouldn’t be a problem. Then I started wondering what kind of visitation he’d want if he chose to be involved at all. Although I think I’m pretty great, his family will likely see Tristan as not one of them, which I considered a good thing.

I was thinking all these things as I sat at my dining table, snipping photos for Tristan’s newest scrapbook when I started to get an ache in my hand from the scissors. I peeked up at the clock and saw it was almost midnight and decided to pack it in for the night.

I was double checking to see if it was locked and when I swung the door open, there was Daniel Baird standing at my doorstep. I was even more surprised because he was wearing dark wash jeans and a white shirt under a zipped leather jacket with upturned collar. Dressed like that, he looked more like a handsome graduate student or clothing model than a CEO.

“Hi,” I greeted him confusedly in a breath, and he took one long step past me into my home.

“Where’s August?” he asked directly as he paused a step past me and scanned the space ahead.

“Oh, uh, not here,” I answered, shaking my head, sounding stupefied as I noticed tiny raindrops glistening in his hair like little twinkle lights. “What are you doing?” I managed out, stunned as I watched him take long strides deeper in to my abode. He angled his head towards a door and raised a brow inquiringly.

“Your room?” he asked, as if it wasn’t the most bizarre thing in the world for Daniel Baird to be standing in my living room at midnight.

“Uh…yeah, it is but what are you—” I stumbled dumbfounded, but I stopped mid-sentence when I watched him head straight in. After a few confused moments I followed.

“Daniel what are you doing?” I asked, concerned as I watched him carry my suitcase out of my closet, tossing it on the bed purposefully. He didn’t answer, and I had to ask again.

“Packing,” he declared as he turned back to the closet completely undeterred.

“Daniel. I’m not sure what’s going on but…” I trailed off with my palms held out in surrender as I watched him appear from my closet with a thick stack of clothes on hangers cradled in his strong arms. He threw them into the open case. “Daniel, you need to stop,” I ordered in a shaky voice as I followed him to the closet door and panic set in.

“I’ll buy you new things, then,” he agreed with a slight nod as he stepped closer to me with a tightened jaw and his green eyes were glowing with intensity. He fully expected me to go with him.

“I’m not going anywhere. I have a little boy asleep in the other room, and I think you need to leave,” I informed him in my calmest voice.

“You’re coming. Have August pick up his son,” he ordered harshly, folding his long arms across his chest in resolve as if he was waiting for me to make the call. This was spiraling downward quickly.

“Listen to me. I’m not leaving and neither is my child. You’re the one who needs to leave,” I said firmly as I quickly made my way out to the living room and pointed a shaky finger towards the front door and his eyes narrowed at me.

“Ian Foley was the worst of them all. What do you think he wants from you?” he hissed venomously, crowding close.

“Ian is a friend,” I defended, but he didn’t seem to be hearing one word I said.

“And August? You said he’s a good man, yet you’re out on the town with another,” he accused and raised one brow, eying me disdainfully.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said vehemently.

“Are you in love with them?” he asked harshly as he glowered down at me and his eyes searched mine. “Do you care for anyone that deeply?” he interrogated as his nostrils flared slightly, and his eyes were boring so deeply in to mine I couldn’t look away.

My breath caught in my throat and then I shook my head. “I don’t appreciate being interrogated by you in my home,” I replied angrily as I turned away from his intense gaze. On the inside I was shaking.

“Have there been so many you have forgotten?” he accused angrily, but his eyes were searching as he stepped forward to tower over me.

“Daniel, please leave,” I begged pointing to the door because I wasn’t sure if there were others and if maybe that’s what drove me to the edge.

“This is your revenge,” he accused, but his eyes just wanted answers. “Or am I so forgettable to you?” he asked with pride and raised a brow.

“I really don’t remember,” I pleaded with him to understand, and he seemed to shake himself back to the present when his eyes flickered and went hard again.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re coming tonight,” he said and his face was stone while it seemed like every muscle in his body went tight, like he was going to take me whether I liked it or not.

“Daniel, I’m not going anywhere with you. I hardly even know you!” I exclaimed as my eyes searched for my cell phone, but they landed on the door. “No. Look, I think you need to go home. We can talk again tomorrow when you’ve calmed down.” I turned quickly to show him the door.

Before I knew what was happening, his arms wrapped around me and I was pinned against the wall and he was kissing me. Hard. Daniel’s lips pressed firm and moist, trapping my own, but before I could think to respond, he pulled away, breathing heavily.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his frenzied eyes probing me. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

My heart pounded and his sudden change in demeanor stunned me to silence. My mouth hung open, but I was too confused to speak.

“I can’t allow myself to believe it sometimes. It’s you,” his rough whisper trailed off, while he rubbed his hands up and down my arms like he’d drawn me up through cracked ice in a frozen lake. “I cannot let this go again.”

“Daniel, I…”

“No,” he interrupted his voice harsh but the hand caressing my hair was anything but. “This is the only way. Tonight.”

“Mommy?” a small scared voice called, and I gasped at the sight of Tristan in his light blue PJs walking toward us, dragging his blanket behind him.

I pressed my hands against Daniel’s chest until finally he relented and stepped back, but his eyes never left mine.

“Everything’s fine, honey, go back to bed. Mommy’s okay,” I explained quickly, grasping for reigns.

“Who are you?” Tristan interrogated, his nostrils flared slightly revealing how upset he was by the scene he’d just witnessed.

Daniel, who was clearly on a mission tonight, still hadn’t taken his attention away from me, but upon the inquisition his face relaxed into the charming measured man I’d seen on TV.

“My name is Daniel. I am a friend of your mother’s,” he stated formally, the image of control.

My eyes darted back and forth, and I knew I needed to calm myself.

“Yes, my love, he’s just a friend. Please go back to bed now. I’ll be there in a minute,” I soothed.

Tristan didn’t want to disobey me, but I could see the conflict in his eyes. And then his little face firmed with bravery.

“You’re not my Mommy’s friend,” he accused, returning his innocent gaze to Daniel who narrowed his in return.

“I assure you, young man, I am,” he said pleasantly, but I could tell he thought it was out of line for a little boy to question an adult’s authority.

“How come I’ve never seen you before?” Tristan persisted curiously, and Daniel cocked a brow.

“I’m from England,” Daniel replied politely.

“Is that why you’re talking funny?” Tristan asked and tilted his head up to Daniel with a quizzical expression.

“Yes,” he answered and then he smiled beautifully, disarmingly. Tristan returned it with an equally glorious one of his own.

“Okay,” Tristan relented, looking to me, and I gave him a reassuring smile, relieved his curiosity was satisfied and I quickly stepped to shoo him into bed. “I’m Tristan. It’s nice to meet you,” he stated, extending his hand. Damn August and his manners.

Daniel strode towards him and crouched down to meet his level. “Likewise,” he said.

Tristan gave a sturdy shake despite how absurdly small his hand looked in Daniel’s, and I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that this was not a complete disaster. It was entirely salvageable and actually advantageous. The groundwork was laid, and it would make the revelation to them both much easier. The plan was still intact.

His head angled slightly, studying Tristan’s face. And his grass green eyes.

“How old are you?” Daniel abruptly asked. My heart skipped.

“I’m four,” Tristan responded, grinning.

Daniel nodded thoughtfully, and I stepped towards them.

“But I’ll be five next month,” Tristan volunteered, sounding like he hoped that was a better answer.

Daniel’s eyes widened minutely, and then his face became unreadable.

I swayed on my feet before I found my voice. “It’s getting late, and we have a busy day tomorrow. He really should be getting back to bed,” I rushed out.

Daniel’s eyes were slits now, and if he was aware of me at all, it was only in the peripheral.

He gave a tight-lipped grin. “Five is a good age, Tristan,” he continued in a controlled voice. “Tell me, what do you do for fun?”

Tristan seemed pleasantly surprised. “I like to go to the zoo. And sometimes the park. I like my school, too.”

“Those are excellent interests. Who takes you to all these places?” Daniel pressed and Tristan looked thrown off.

“Uh, my Mom does. Or sometimes August,” he nervously answered, thinking very hard.

It didn’t escape Daniel’s attention that Tristan called August by first name. He seemed to inhale sharply.

“And what about your father?” Daniel inquired directly, curiously.

Tristan looked like someone flushed his pet lizard and then asked him the secret of the universe.

“That’s enough,” I snapped, crushed, desperate, enraged.

Afraid.

Tristan’s eyes were wet and confused. Their hands, still clasped long after the shake, were finally released when Daniel swiftly rose to stand.

“Your mother is right. It is indeed very, very late for this,” he said sharply.

His composed form briefly turned to me, revealing narrowed eyes blazing fiercely with anger. And I withered. Then he left.

Chapter 11 - Crossed Pollinations

I called August right after Daniel’s swift departure and asked him to come over. Tristan was still upset and we lay in my bed with Tristan between us, assuring him everything was fine and that Daniel really was a friend and not an intruder of some sort. He nodded while looking down at his little fingers as they fidgeted with the sheets, but there was confusion in his eyes and I could tell he was holding back. Tristan was braver than any little boy should ever have to be.

“What exactly happened, Bree?” August asked quietly after Tristan had fallen asleep. He was lying on the other side of the bed propping himself up on his elbow facing me.

“Honestly? I don’t know. He just showed up and he wanted me to go with him. I’m not sure where or why, but he seemed pretty confident about it. We were…discussing it when Tristan woke up, and Daniel was there, and he began asking questions….Daniel just figured it out,” I answered. I was downplaying it for my own sake. The whole night was a blur of chaos except for how utterly vivid it was watching them shake hands of the same flesh and unknowingly smiling the same smile.

A father and a son meeting for the first time. One finally meeting the person they’ve been waiting for their whole life.

“Did Daniel say anything, explicitly, about, you know,” August probed cautiously and darted his eyes down to the sleeping boy.

“No. But he knows. I’m sure of it,” I answered firmly with downcast eyes.

August pursed his lips and nodded. “I’ll call the attorney tomorrow and let them know to move up contacting his people for the DNA test and any other matters that may come up. There’s no point in putting it off now that Daniel knows,” he affirmed. “He didn’t say anything compromising to Tristan?”

“Not directly, but he rattled him.” I looked down at Tristan’s dark chocolate lashes. He was so inquisitive, but I was always patient with him because he was patient with me. I didn’t know how to be a good mother; he’d taught me how. And there were questions he’d never asked.

“He’s never asked me, you know. I could see in his eyes he wanted to so badly tonight—before you got here. It hurts him.”

August was quiet for a while and then he sighed and scratched his hair blond hair.

“He asked me once,” August said gently, and my eyes met his. “He…he asked me if I would be his Dad.”

I watched him look down at Tristan, and although his expression was steady, his eyes seemed glassy.

“I’m so sorry, August,” I breathed in a broken whisper. “I didn’t mean…I never meant to put you in that kind of position.”

We were both quiet for a while and then he gave me a thin, reassuring smile.

“It’s fine,” he finally said quietly. Sometimes I did wish August was his father just for the sake of simplicity, and both of us knew that five years ago, it was almost the truth. His eyes met mine again with surety and resolve. “I’m staying here tonight. In case he comes back.”

“That’s not necessary,” I assured him while my mind flashed to Daniel’s angry eyes and I sighed. “He’s not coming back.”

“Nevertheless,” he replied as he lifted himself off the bed and pushed the sleeves of his dusty blue thermal nightshirt over his forearms. I’d woken him up when I called and he raced over. “I’ll make sure we’re locked up for the night. I’ll be on the sofa if you need me,” he affirmed with a smile, but his eyes were tired.

“Goodnight, August,” I responded in a hushed voice. He clicked off the lights. I curled up in bed and fell asleep next to my son peacefully because we were safe.

~o~

The next morning I woke up and realized that everything was a mess. An absolute mess.

That was not how I envisioned their first meeting and it was anything but ideal. For starters, waking up in the middle of the night to find your mother in an embrace, kissing some man you’ve never even met before was traumatic enough—especially considering Tristan had never seen me kissing anyone—but I wondered how much of the conversation he’d heard. What’s worse was Tristan’s first impression of the man that is his father was not a good one. I didn’t appreciate Daniel intimidating my son whether he meant to or not, although, it was clear Daniel was actually containing the magnitude of his feelings about it.

Was he angry with me? If he was, he had no right to be. I’d made it more than clear that I didn’t know him, so he couldn’t have expected me to track him down and tell him years ago.

Based on my reaction, I think Daniel realized that I’d already discovered he was the father and just hadn’t told him yet. But he couldn’t have expected me to walk into that mixer and announce that he’d fathered a child with me.

Maybe he was just angry at the situation. He did have a legacy to carry on. Probably the last thing he was expecting was an out-of-wedlock child with a random girl he’d had a one-night stand with; during his episode of self-destruction and drug use, no less, although it did seem like more to him. Tristan was a living reminder of a very dark time for him, and maybe he was angry with himself for being so reckless. Although he appeared to have a large sexual prowess, I doubt that included negligently impregnating women. I wondered if that was why he was so insulted that I didn’t remember. I imagine most women would never forget being with him intimately.

I had no clue what kind of woman I’d been when I was with him, because his impression of me seemed totally off base. But, the same way he was a different Daniel in my journal entry, maybe I was a different Bree with him, too. I can’t imagine what I could have done to give him the impression I’d be willing to abandon my child to leave with him.

Based on his behavior last night, I had to lend credence to the possibility Daniel still used. Maybe he’d relapsed and wanted his old “drug buddy” back. I had no idea, but the things he said to me floated loosely in my mind. He didn’t seem to be intoxicated, exactly, but his behavior was so unexplainably irrational….Then I demoted the idea; recalling how methodical he was. He knew exactly what he was doing—he had a plan—and his demeanor only changed once I refused. For a man like Daniel, that surely seldom occurred.

I was sitting at the dining table with August the next morning when I made a decision, and once Tristan went to his room to feed his pet lizard, I stated my case.

“August, I want you to hold off on having our attorneys contact his,” I began peaceably as came back from putting our dirty waffle plates in the sink.

He looked thoughtful for a moment before he spoke. “Bree, it’s your decision, but this is the way things like this get done. I don’t want there to be any more potentially damaging friction between the two of you,” he protested and raised a brow, reminding me of what transpired last night.

“I agree, which is why I think I should try to smooth this out between he and I. If he’s upset with anyone, he needs to take it up with me and not take it out on Tristan. And I certainly don’t want him to think I’m coming after him with legal actions because that’s not what I want. I don’t care if Tristan has a father on paper, I only care if he gets a father in person. I think he will react badly or get the wrong impression of what I expect from him if I just send him paperwork for a blood test. He’ll think I’m pursuing him for the wrong reasons,” I explained reasonably.

“I see your point,” he agreed as he squinted his eyes and took a sip from his coffee mug. “If you want to reach out to him, I’ll give you his email address. That’s probably the best way. Be polite but concise. He seems to be blurring the lines about his boundaries with you,” he finished with a frown. August was the gentlest man I knew, but he was also protective.

I was nervous about what kind of treatment Daniel would give him come Monday after some of the things he’d said, and I hated that this situation was embroiling him on all fronts.

August seemed thoughtful before he spoke again. “We’ll give it one week. If he doesn’t respond to your olive branch, then we’ll have the attorney contact him,” he held his hand out, stopping me before I interrupted. “Bree, the only reason we’ll be contacting him is to get his medical history and we’ll do it discreetly. Think about how many years we’ve pined away for that type of information.”

I nodded in agreement. It was the least Daniel could do. The very least.

On Sunday I decided to send the email so he’d get it first thing Monday morning. He’d had the weekend to absorb it and hopefully a cooler head would prevail. I typed it and re-typed it maybe twenty times before hitting send.

-Email Sunday 10:00 a.m.-

Sender: mgvalentine- Valentine Designs

Recipient: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

Dear Daniel,

I think we should to talk. Please contact me at the office or on my mobile at your earliest convenience.

Kind regards,

Gabrielle Valentine

I’d included my work and cell phone numbers after the signature. The phone was silent and the inbox stayed empty.

Wednesday afternoon, I met up with August and Ian at our local park with Tristan for a little soccer game with Tristan’s buddy, Chen. Chen was a little guy with a neat bowl cut and the cutest high-pitched voice. Fortunately, he got along well with Tristan at school. Chen’s mom was somewhat aloof and a single parent as well, so she allowed him to come out with us for some male bonding.

After a rousing game between Team Godzilla (Ian and Chen) vs. Team Superman (August and Tristan) that I refereed because Ian took it way too seriously, the adults had a seat on the bench and watched the little bundles of energy kick and chase errant balls around the field.

“Still no word?” August asked cautiously as he wiped his sweaty forehead with a towel. Although he was an excellent athlete and in stellar shape, he wasn’t one for excessive physical exertion.

“Nothing,” I replied as I handed Ian his water bottle and tried to lift his sweaty arm from around me to no avail. “How are things at the office? Has he said anything?” I couldn’t hide my curiosity. August looked out onto the field.

“No.” Then he admitted, “He’s actually been on a bit of a tirade all week.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, and he shook his head to himself, seemingly distressed.

“Let’s just say he’s been less than pleasant,” he remarked politely and I scoffed, as if it that weren’t the norm. He turned to me with serious eyes that said ‘more than usual’.

Oh no. “How so?”

“Moody. Micromanaging. It’s a miracle I got off in time for this,” he said, gesturing to the field. “Midnight conference calls, cut backs on vacation time, working weekends—he even had corporate send out an email banning things he deemed counterproductive.”

I squinted and studied August’s expressionless face for a moment. “Such as?” I asked slowly.

“Such as snack machines, personal photos…office décor,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. August’s office had practically been a shrine to Tristan’s art.

“Yeah, he’s a sneaky bastard, all right,” Ian, offered as he slumped back into the bench, twirling the ends of my hair. August chuckled, but it didn’t seem genuine.

“He’s really pissed,” I stated the obvious, watching Tristan try to pry the soccer ball from underneath little Chen who had collapsed on top of it, curling around it like a roly-poly.

“I can see where he’s coming from though,” Ian added, and I looked up at him incredulously.

“Why are you taking his side on this? I thought you didn’t like him?”

“I’m not. And I don’t,” he confirmed with a smirk. “But I get where he’s coming from,” he finished with a shrug.

“And where, exactly, is that?” I quizzed, curious to hear the wisdom of a man who once tried to convince me banana Laffy Taffy had medicinal healing qualities.

“Bree, you’re too nice. You don’t understand. Somehow, you’ve managed to do what a lot of girls who have bedded Baird would have killed for. He’s sneaky, but the girls we went to school with wrote the book on it. The only reason all those girls left the guys they were supposedly in love with to sleep with Baird was because they thought it was worth the risk,” he said suggestively.

“What risk?” I asked. Why would you risk love for sex?

“They thought they might be the one to lock him down, get a slice of a dynasty,” he explained. “I’ve had my share of it, too, but not like the guys with big family names, and definitely not like Baird. These girls would show up a few months later whining about ‘I’m late’ or ‘I thought we had something special.’ Blah, blah, blah.”

“That’s really mean,” I pointed out, frowning, and Ian furrowed his brow, pouting a little.

“They’re the mean ones. It was a game to hitch wagon to the biggest swingin’ dick. It’s not like they actually gave a shit about us,” he added matter-of-factly, squeezing a stream of water from the bottle into his mouth and swallowing. “All those girls had an end game,” he started again. “They’re not all different here, either. My personal favorite is ‘Don’t worry about the condom, I’m on the pill.’ When a girl says that, I double bag it. Or run! You know what I’m saying?” he finished comically and held his fist out for a bump from August who frowned down at it.

“Ian, I wish you hadn’t dated so many exotic dancers. I don’t think it’s been good for you.” August looked at him concernedly.

“Right,” Ian cleared his throat. “Well, my point is having a kid is a big deal, but Daniel Baird having a kid? That’s a HUGE deal.”

“Huh,” I said thoughtfully.

“Like a major fucking deal,” he continued, wide eyed staring out at the field.

“Right,” I agreed, and shifted my eyes downward as he turned his face up to the sky.

“Like a Fresh Kills Landfill-sized deal. The kind of deal you can see from outer space,” Ian added wistfully.

“I think we comprehend the size of the deal, Ian,” August chastised, but Ian’s mind was already elsewhere.

“Just a massive, gaping, enormous…” he started while spreading his hands out.

“I got it, Ian,” I snapped, interrupting his contemplation, and August finally chuckled in earnest.

The things Ian said to me that day stuck with me the next few days. I’d assumed that what I’d written was the final word on my impression of Daniel, but because of Ian, another version of events became possible. I did find him at the grandest hotel in the city. Piano training is not inexpensive, and I seemed curious about where the cash for the cab came from, too.

Maybe I gave him the impression that I was on some type of contraceptive because Ian’s point was an excellent one. There’s no way Daniel Baird with a clear mind would have had risked impregnating me. He didn’t like kids, he didn’t want kids, and he was not joyous when he’d figured out we’d had one together. Maybe I learned the Pauper was actually a Prince and thought myself lucky to have found him in his moment of weakness so I could have my chance at hitching my wagon.

I didn’t know what idea I liked least, being a druggie, a whore, or a gold digger, but they were all very real possibilities.

I decided on one last attempt at contact and decided on a more personal appeal. Although it was against August’s advice to be informal, there was no matter more personal than this. I exhaled as I pressed ‘Send’, hoping I wasn’t being too pushy, but I figured two emails in the lifetime of an almost five-year-old boy wasn’t asking too much.

-Friday 9:00 a.m.-

Sender: mgvalentine - Valentine Designs

Recipient: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

Dear Daniel,

I hope your week is going well. I’m not sure what to say, but I’d just like to hear from you if that’s possible.

Sincerely,

Gabrielle

-Friday- Reply Email-

Sender: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

Recipient: mgvalentine - Valentine designs

Dear Ms. Valentine,

Mr. Baird has requested the sender discontinue contact.

From the desk of:

Daniel H. Baird, Chief Executive Officer

BarclayBaird Corporation

My heart broke as I frantically read the reply email over and over, realizing he wanted nothing to do with us at all. My phone buzzed again a few minutes later, and I opened the new email in my inbox to find the final nail in the coffin.

Sender: D. Baird- BarclayBaird Corp.

Recipient: mgvalentine - Valentine Designs

This is best.

~o~

By Saturday, I was riddled with guilt. I had allowed myself to move on from whatever it was that got me pregnant and disturbed, but it seemed these actions now haunted my son’s opportunity at having two parents. Tristan was paying for my sins in the form of whatever retribution Daniel was serving by ignoring us completely. No matter how I sliced it, it was my fault.

Even if Daniel was motivated by selfish reasons for denying Tristan, I was the one who got pregnant by him. Instead, it should have been some nice man who could have loved his son and wanted a relationship with him. I’m not sure if he meant best for him, best for me, or best for Tristan, but I had a pretty good guess of whose interests he was protecting.

I kept reminding myself that we were fine before him and we would be fine long after. It was over before it started.

Saturday night Jill offered to take us out to dinner to try to lift our spirits. Tristan was still shaken by meeting Daniel because he remained at my side at all times, hovering around me like a little guardian. It would have been terribly cute if it weren’t for such an unfortunate reason. August came with us, so it was just us four. We went to Tristan’s favorite restaurant, Del Posto, for his favorite treat.

“Ms. King, your table is ready,” said the maître de, and we followed him through the trail between tables until we arrived at a square table in the center of the room. Jill stared at it incredulously—I already knew what the problem was.

“Javier, dear, I think you’ve made a mistake. My table is the booth in the corner,” she informed him and turned to point out the leather-backed booth that looked out on the floor. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

August and I followed her gaze to the table we usually sat, but it was filled. Of all the restaurants in all the world…Daniel Baird was sitting at the table filled with men all in suits. Under the dim lamplight, I could see his angular features clearly and the polished navy suit he wore with a white shirt. It looked like he was furious as he stabbed his finger forcefully down on the table and narrowed his eyes in a menacing way at the petrified group.

“This table is fine, Jill,” I claimed tiredly, as I exhaled and pulled out a chair for Tristan.

“We can go somewhere else,” August encouraged as he took my arm and looked at me sympathetically, but Jill spoke for me.

“The heck we are. We are staying. Right. Here. He can take his bangers-loving British behind somewhere else if he doesn’t like it,” she insisted as she flipped her long hair and sat down.

Tristan squeezed my hand and looked up at me with his “Oh, she’s in trou-ble” face because Jill cursed but I just smiled back. I’d let this one slide.

“Javier, go ahead and put in an order for the calamari appetizer. Tell Mario I expect it to be on the house for the inconvenience,” she ordered as she perused the menu.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied before hurrying off.

“Bree, we really can go somewhere else,” August said as he leaned in closer and his eyes darted to Tristan.

“Why would we go?” Tristan asked, oblivious as he tried to angle a breadstick as long as a ruler into his mouth but kept poking his cheek. “This is my favor-wit.”

“We’re not going anywhere, honey,” Jill cooed lovingly, and Tristan smiled back with his eyes alight. I was really going to have to put a stop to this little crush.

We chatted for a few minutes as they brought out our drinks, but the appetizer was taking a little long; Tristan was growing impatient.

“Excuse me,” Jill said as she snapped her fingers in the air at our passing waiter. He looked nervous as he approached the table. “Where is my appetizer? It’s been almost fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, which one did you get, ma’am?” he asked confusedly, and Jill was visibly irritated.

“Are you new? The cal-a-mar-i. Javier put the order in, and this delay is unacceptable.” He looked like he was going to pee himself.

“Uh, Ms. King? The thing is, we’re sold out of that for the night,” he said quickly and flinched.

Jill was livid. “That piece of information would have been helpful when I placed the order, but now it’s just incompetence. Get Mario out of the kitchen,” she ordered.

August and I exchanged wary looks. We knew this wouldn’t end well. Chef Mario came to the table with his ebony hair in a ponytail, glistening of kitchen sweat, in his white chef’s coat. He apologized, and after some mild flirting on Jill’s part—and some shameless ogling on his—he offered to cover the tab in penance.

“Anything for you, my Jill,” Chef Mario replied affectionately, and to my absolute surprise, my little son’s mouth was tighter than a guitar string, and he was narrowing his eyes at the three-hundred-pound chef. This was all bad. Mario walked back in to the kitchen, and Tristan seemed to relax a bit.

“Sorry, honey, no calamari tonight,” she said defeatedly, and Tristan looked a little sad. “What about the fried mushrooms or the…” Jill cut herself off and I watched her eyes follow a server hoisting up a black serving tray with a plate of what looked like calamari. We both watched the tray travel across the room until he set the tray down on a prop and began unloading food on Daniel Baird’s table. My eyes widened and flashed over to Jill.

“That rotten, dirt-licking…” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“Jill? Jill, let’s just enjoy the night. It’s nothing,” August soothed, and I saw him tense to restrain her if need be. Jill’s line of vision was unbroken as she spoke.

“Tristan, I think you’ll have your calamari tonight after all,” she said quietly and Tristan smiled.

“Really?”

“Really,” she replied. She shrugged off her coat and adjusted her cleavage to sit impossibly high in her sleeveless top.

“Jill, please sit back down,” I ordered as she stood and wound the waistband of her fitted skirt a few times until it was tube top width. She fluffed her wavy strawberry blonde hair and in a matter of seconds she went from a stunningly gorgeous woman to a dangerously sexy one.

“I’ll be back,” she said flippantly and then leaned over to Tristan. “A kiss for luck” she asked, pointing to her cheek and he smiled and obliged. I tried to snatch her wrist, but she anticipated it and smirked back at me over her shoulder as she sauntered her perfect, model physique over to the Baird table.

“This is bad,” I murmured, thinking now would be a good time to hide under the tablecloth.

“I know. But you can’t look away, can you?” August commented as his gaze stayed with mine, following her slinking form. They didn’t call her Jill ‘The Body’ King for nothing.

We couldn’t hear the interaction from where we were seated across the restaurant, but we watched as she stopped at the edge of the round table with one long leg extended out and a hand on her hip. Daniel was still in the middle of his intense discussion when the men looked up, pleasantly surprised with the intrusion—except Daniel. He eyed her contemptuously as she started speaking with her hands, and then leaned over the table exposing cleavage. From the back we could see her skirt was only an inch or so short from revealing her thong to the rest of the room. I saw her turn her head and point a manicured finger back to our table, and I spun my head quickly before Daniel’s eyes made their way to mine.

“What is he doing?” I murmured to August, and watched Tristan happily distracted with another breadstick.

“They call it ‘glaring”,’” August replied casually as he took a drink of water.

I chanced another look and saw Jill reach across the length of the table and lift the appetizer plate that sat directly in front of Daniel before sauntering back to us with a smile, and I darted my eyes away again when I saw Daniel’s gaze heading towards me.

I fleetingly wondered if he preferred Gruyère to cheddar, too. When I heard the cadence of heels approach, I looked up to see Jill standing triumphant with a plate in her hands.

“Thanks, fellas,” she called across the room and waved. The men returned the gesture and became distracted, exchanging looks of arousal and whispers, but Daniel stared at her with a face of stone. He said something pithy to his group, restoring order. Jill smiled broadly and gave him the finger, then set plate down in front of Tristan. Quickly, his eyes grew alight as he wolfed down marinara-dunked calamari.

“What did you say to them?” I asked, as Jill reached over and happily pinched Tristan’s marinara-covered cheek.

“I just told them that I had a special little guest with me tonight who came especially for that dish. They very generously offered it to me. Wasn’t that sweet of them?” she asked, syrupy sweet to Tristan, who grinned and nodded.

“All of them?” I asked skeptically.

“Well, all but that one fellow,” she stated contemplatively and tapped her chin, really enjoying her little victory. “But once I pointed out who my little guest was, he didn’t say one little thing. Not one word.” She shook her head looking mystified, and then a satisfied smile crossed her lips.

Jill was riding high. Fifteen minutes later Mario himself came rushing out of the kitchen with a steaming hot plate of calamari and looked to be apologizing profusely to Daniel as he wiped his sweaty forehead with a dish towel. Our waiter explained it was shuttled over from a sister restaurant because Mr. Baird was a special guest. That took the wind out of her sails.

The rest of dinner went and we ate quietly. Upon leaving, Jill stopped and posed for some pictures with tourists, and I let my eyes wander to Daniel’s table.

Maybe he realized I was looking, but I saw him slowly raise his gaze to meet mine. His green eyes were cold and expressionless. It was only a second, but I thought to myself how much easier it would be to be more upset with him if he were an ugly man. It’s unfortunate how something so wonderful looking on the outside could be so disappointing on the inside. It was like false advertising from God. His little joke. I would have settled for a terribly ugly man who was a plumber if it meant he’d play with Tristan at the park on weekends and teach him what life was about. Then I watched his brow rise as he looked downward. I looked down, too, and saw Tristan clinging to my leg and giving Daniel the sharp look he’d given the chef earlier that night. I patted his hair and he looked up at me. Then August put his arm around me, and we left without looking back once.

~o~

I lay in bed that night alone in the dark, with my palms resting on my forehead as I took controlled breaths and fought the stinging feeling in my eyes.

Chapter 12 - Black Bloom Blossoms

By the next day, I had come to terms with our situation and put it behind me. I’d gotten good at that over the years. I considered my restless night the final mourning for the father Tristan would never have. Although I’d spent years unhindered about his biological father, I am inherently somewhat of a dreamer and in the back of my mind I’d held out some tiny ray of hope that he would be the kind of man worthy of calling himself a father to my son. The mystery was dead. So was the chance at a happy ending. The happy ending neither Violet nor I got as a child. No white knights, good white witches, or fairy godmothers. This was the curse of the Valentines.

Everyone came over early for Sunday dinner. Ian was eager to see Jill, and Violet had been out of town. It was nice to all be together again. I didn’t go in to detail, but word was out amongst them, that Daniel had waived his opportunity. Mainly because Jill had broadcasted our night at Del Posto. August, Tristan, and Ian were assembling a puzzle on the dining table while the girls hung out in the kitchen.

“What a prick,” Violet said, as she disorganized the spice rack. “You need more turmeric, by the way.”

“I can think of much more colorful things to call him than prick,” Jill sneered.

“Like Lord Daniel of Jerk-ville,” Violet announced, and they giggled.

“What about Sham-iel Baird,” Jill added inventively, and they snickered again.

Humor was their therapy, and I didn’t bother stopping it. The rejection stung us all, because the one thing we would have never anticipated was that there was someone on Earth who wouldn’t want to be a part of Tristan’s life. We were so used to us all jostling to get his time; it seemed unfathomable that someone would deny him. And we took all of our individual successes and failures as a whole, as a family, like it should be. I began unloading the produce to prep for dinner when August came into the kitchen.

“Bree, do you have the number to that cabin we stayed at when we went camping last year?” he asked, with a furrowed brow, and I smirked when I saw him wearing the thick black-framed grandpa readers he wore for doing puzzles sliding down his chiseled nose.

“I think I have it saved in my phone. Why?”

“Tristan said he wanted to go camping for his birthday, so I thought I’d check availability,” he replied. “They book up quickly. Where’s your phone?”

“In my purse on the coffee table,” I answered as I went back to chopping some corn right off the cob. Violet shook her head and tsked while she watched him walk off.

“How can someone that hot be so Mr. Rogers?” she mused.

“He’s just conservative. And happens to like sweater vests,” Jill defended. August strolled back in looking down at my phone with an intense expression.

“Did you find it?” I asked as I darted my eyes up to his.

“No,” he replied, stunned, and looked up at me while extending the phone out. “You have an email.”

I squinted my eyes at him and laid down the knife before wiping my hands on my waist apron and reaching for my phone.

-Email Sunday 3:45 p.m.-

Sender: D. Baird

Recipient: mgvalentine-Valentine designs

Dinner at eight. We need to talk.

Daniel

It included a Fifth Avenue address.

“He wants to talk,” I said quietly as I reread the email.

“Not a chance. Hell no,” Jill said as she stabbed my paring knife into a cutting board.

“Keep it down,” I shushed her.

“No! No, no, no. He missed the boat. This ship has sailed.”

“I’ll decide that, Jill,” I answered firmly. I leveled my eyes with hers and she stomped her foot.

“No way, Bree!” she insisted and looked to Violet and August for back up. August looked back and forth from her to me before he spoke.

“If he is willing to be reasonable, it could be productive,” he explained calmly.

“Maybe he just needed some time to think about it…” Violet trailed off lamely, and we all looked at her. I was expecting her to be with Jill on this.

“You cannot be serious right now,” Jill persisted, putting her hand on her hip. “Remember? Lord Sham-iel?”

“But if he’s seen the error of his ways, maybe she should give him a chance. Maybe he reconsidered,” Vi replied, glancing down at her clasped hands. When she looked up, I gave her a reassuring smile and she returned it.

“Oh, okay. I see,” Jill started sarcastically. “This makes sense now. Of course you three would think this is a good idea. You could fill the Potomac with all of your abandonment issues.”

“Jill,” August, snapped sternly. Jill was taken aback. “I think we’ve heard enough from you.” It was a low blow; August and his father were in a bad place, but in the time they were bickering I’d made my decision.

“I’m going to go and talk to him. He didn’t sign up for this, and maybe he just had a case of too much, too soon. I can’t let my personal feelings about him negatively affect Tristan’s well-being,” I explained resolutely.

“But why, Bree? He’s an ass!” Jill complained, smelling defeat.

“Jill, think about it,” Violet started. “He’s actually taking this much better than any of us did. Even Bree had a more intense reaction to finding out she was pregnant than he has about finding out he had a four-year-old person in the world.”

August beamed at Violet. “If he has a chance to have a real father, and Daniel is prepared to step forward, we have no right to deny it,” August added.

“This is bullshit,” Jill mumbled and crossed her arms. We ignored her. It was the only thing to do when she got like this.

“Where and when does he want to meet you?” August asked, turning to me.

“Oh, tonight. He said he wants to talk over dinner. Some place on Fifth Avenue,” I relayed as I scrolled through the message on my phone, and when I looked back up August’s features scribbled with concern.

“That’s the house he owns in the city,” he said and darted his eyes to Jill and Violet, and I knew what he was getting at. August didn’t think it was a good idea to meet Daniel at his house. “Did you want me to come along?” he ventured, his brows raising.

I pursed my lips as I scrolled through re-reading the message, when I found a second one in the inbox.

-Email Sunday 3:46 p.m.-

Sender: D. Baird

Recipient: mgvalentine- Valentine Designs

Come alone.

I closed the email. “No, this is between him and me. I think it will be fine,” I said quietly, and the protestors dispersed.

While Ian and August played a board game with Tristan, the girls went to my closet and pulled out a black power suit. Jill said I needed a look that appeared ‘about business’, so we compromised with a Violet pick: a fitted white button up and slim jeans. After cleaning up dinner and saying goodbye to Ian and Jill—Vi was staying behind to help babysit—August signaled to speak with me privately.

“You know I won’t tell you what to do or how to handle this but, on your peace mission, try to get some answers tonight.”

I nodded.

~o~

I arrived two minutes early. I guffawed when we pulled up to the residence on the address. I didn’t even want to speculate the cost. It was an architectural marvel in limestone with a direct view of the park. I took a few deep breaths and went over the high points I’d discussed with August before I climbed the stone stairs.

I knocked gingerly on the massive mahogany door at the front of the townhouse and held my breath as it slowly creaked open. A butler of some sort straight out of The Great Gatsby eyed me suspiciously like I was here to sell him shrimp from a suitcase.

“Mr. Baird is expecting me,” I explained, but as I did, I heard the rapid footfalls of expensive Italian shoes on the marble floor approaching. From down a hall behind the grand iron stairway, Daniel strode quickly towards us with a hard look on his face.

“Let her in,” he ordered, his eyes narrowed at me. He turned and said over his shoulder, “Follow me.”

I gave a nervous smile to the butler, quickly stepped in the home, and hurriedly followed Daniel’s descending figure through the house. It was palatial and grand with a strong English influence. Gold-framed oil paintings and sconces; the furnishings were rich but not dark. It was a spectacular home. I kept my eyes on everything else but the back of the angry form that walked with determination a few feet in front of me. I saw a chandelier hanging in a lit room as we approached the end of the hall.

“We’re dining in here,” he said when he stopped momentarily and turned to face me. His green eyes were cold and distant as he strode to the head of the long mahogany table and pointed to the other end. “Sit.”

The table had to have been fifteen feet long, surrounded by empty dining chairs. I turned and obeyed by taking a seat at the entirely opposite end in front of the only other place setting. I scooted my chair in and saw Daniel at the other end glaring at me intensely with his mouth in a tight line. I’m guessing his seating selection was more symbolic than I’d realized. The very air around him was adversarial, and the only sound was the metronome ticks of the grandfather clock creating an eerie echo as the sound reverberated in the empty space. It became the Russian roulette of all staring contests until the butler entered and finally interrupted by clearing his throat.

“We’ll be having the cabernet,” Daniel said dryly, and the butler poured his glass from the bottle of red in his right hand while holding the white wine in his left. I was surprised because Daniel had told me he didn’t drink. When he came to my glass I put my hand over it indicating I’d pass, but as the butler pulled his arm back, Daniel snapped, “Pour it.”

I smiled reassuringly at the butler as he poured, but when I saw his face he looked angry now, too.

“Take her coat,” he added. I hesitated but when I saw Daniel cock one brow at me, daring me to contradict, I decided on the path of least resistance and shrugged off my coat, and I felt uneasy as he watched me twist free of the sleeves. Once I handed away the coat, I straightened in my chair to my most professional posture and looked at him expectantly, hoping to have a civil conversation. Daniel just took a drink from his goblet and stared me down. I cleared my throat.

“So, you’re ready to talk?” I encouraged, he narrowed his eyes and he set his glass down hard on the wooden surface.

“I changed my mind,” he replied coolly, and furrowed my brow, worried what exactly he’d changed his mind about, but his eyes darted to my glass.

“Drink,” he commanded. I really didn’t want to pick up that glass because I knew it would give away my shaking hand. His eyes were boring in to me and I did as I was told, hoping my acquiescence would calm him. I noted that the butler set Daniel’s plate down before mine, which was contrary to etiquette, but I thought it best to keep that to myself. The plate of food smelled delicious but I had zero appetite. The thick pungent tension in the air was now scented with the lovely aroma of rosemary and filet, but like a spritz of perfume on a skunk, it concealed nothing. When the butler finished, he stood patiently in the corner with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Out,” Daniel said without lifting his eyes from mine, and the butler scuttled away.

I sat silently watching Daniel take another sip and begin his meal. He looked as magnificent as ever when I saw him in the foyer dressed in crisp black slacks with a black button up, a few buttons undone exposing his collar, and coordinating black belt with silver buckle. And now I watched him as he rolled up the sleeves over his strong forearms and began cutting his steak. He kept his eyes on his plate, and eating seemed to have distracted him from his anger, but maybe he just found a new outlet for it. I watched him slice and chew efficiently; intermittently taking sips of wine, and it seemed unfair to the rest of us that someone could look that attractive when in the midst of a rage. His jaw flexed with each bite, his forearm muscles rippled as he sliced. I suddenly reached for my wine and took a big gulp. I couldn’t let him distract me from what I came to do. There was someone more important at stake here than both of us. I wouldn’t let him draw this out any longer or leave us in limbo. It was now or never.

“I’m not asking for any sort of financial support,” I started bravely and calmly. “We just need to know what kind of contact you’re interested in.” His silverware stilled in his hands and he didn’t look up from his plate, but after a few seconds he continued eating as if I hadn’t spoken at all. A few more uncomfortable minutes passed and my knee began to shake.

“I understand it’s all very new for you, and I want you to take as much time as you need,” I said in a sincere and understanding tone. He kept his eyes on his plate and reached for his wine. After a long pull from the glass, he cut his steak with renewed vigor.

“But,” I started and cleared my throat. “But I need you to be sure. I can’t introduce you as his father only to have you disappear from his life. We can’t risk that,” I finished sternly, finally getting it off my chest. He hunched over and bowed his head over the plate, setting both his elbows on the table wide apart, and released his silverware from his hands. The weighty metal clattered loudly on the table, echoing through the hollow room and I jumped in my seat. With his head still bowed, he picked up his steak with his long fingers and lifted it to his mouth, ripping off a chunk of meat and chewing. My nerves were completely frayed, and that must have been why I found the action completely erotic as the juice ran down his chin.

“And I’ve arranged for a paternity test. We’ll take care of that,” I added, my eyes still glued to his down-turned head and flexing jaw. “I want you to be sure…that…he’s yours.”

He took one more rip of the meat and dropped the savaged chunk onto his plate carelessly. Without looking up at me, he waved me over. I swallowed thickly and stood from my chair, slowly crossing the room making my way to him. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to sit or if he was dismissing me, so I just stared at his immobile hunched form.

He suddenly pushed himself back from the table, sliding back in his chair. He lifted his napkin from his thigh and tossed it on the table roughly.

“Sit,” he said, still looking down.

I pulled out the chair next to him and began lowering myself, when he reached over and hooked an arm around my waist, pulling me between his legs. I gasped at the sudden movement and my heart started pounding. He let his eyes travel up my body slowly and when they met with mine, I saw they were completely on fire, all the facets blazing with heat.

He jerked me down onto his thigh and hissed, “I said sit.”

This proximity was bad for my health and doing crazy things to my body. I timidly searched his face trying to understand what was going on in his head, but when he gripped my thigh and slid me further up his, I got a good idea of what he was thinking. He wasn’t lying about his ‘stick’, and I couldn’t stop my body’s own chemical response. My heart was fluttering in my chest as his eyes studied mine, but his face was still stone, giving nothing away.

My body shifted with his from where I perched on his muscular thigh as he reached for his wine and brought it to his lips for a long pull. I watched his Adam’s apple bob and tried not to think about how wonderful he smelled. Then he brought the glass to my lips and nodded his chin up minutely.

“Drink,” he said, and I tilted my head back as he poured the drink in to my mouth, and he watched me swallow. I felt a little braver so I spoke.

“If you want to walk away now and wash your hands of this, you still can,” I quietly said the words I dreaded, but I was giving him his final out. “There’s still time. I won’t hate you,” I added. If he walked out now with no damage done, I couldn’t blame him.

He narrowed his eyes and I could see he was breathing harder, as was I, and then he reached his free arm out to his plate and swirled a finger in the béarnaise sauce. He slowly brought his finger to barely touch my lips and I panted a little.

“Does it look like I want to wash my hands of this?” he asked in a rich smooth voice, and then involuntarily I slid the tip of my tongue out to his finger and he sunk it in between my lips. The pull was back. Whatever it is that makes my body aware when he’s around, and the loss when he’s gone, was back. The taste of him, the smell of him, and the feel of him was making me dizzy. He withdrew his finger slowly, his arm around me tightened, his hand started creeping under my shirt up to the smooth skin of my back.

“As for your other questions,” he said as he looked down in his lap and watched his own hand begin rubbing my thigh. “I was out of time a long time ago. And you probably will hate me.”

His hand was running circuits on my thigh and I thought I was melting. He lifted his eyes up to meet mine evenly because for once, while sitting on his lap, we were equal.

“I know he’s mine,” he said in an emotionless tone, but then he ran his hand all the way to my inner thigh lightly stroking my center, causing me to quake. “And you should be, too,” he smoldered when he looked at me and then gently pressed his warm soft lips on mine. Without thinking, I responded, my lips moving in slow deep synchronicity with his, like they needed no introduction at all. He pulled me against his chest and held me against him firmly. Our lips stayed molded as I angled my mouth, deepening the kiss, and his tongue found mine. Our heavy breaths were fogging our cheeks as we breathed harder and harder, refusing to break. I let my hand slide up his forearm and up to his muscular shoulders and then around his neck, pulling him closer, my fingers slipping into his hair, and his hand pushed the fabric of my shirt up until he reached the back of my bra and started to unsnap it. I tensed momentarily and he began softening the tempo of the kiss and spoke against my lips.

“You can do this, Gabrielle,” he whispered in a husky voice. “See how easy it is?” and then he pulled me tighter right on to his hardness, and in an instant I was unbuttoning his shirt and running my hands up and down the smooth hard muscles of his chest. Maybe it was the wine and spirits, or maybe I was possessed by a spirit, but my body was speaking a language with his I’d never learned.

Fluently.

He lifted me off his lap until I stood between his legs, and I almost resisted, wanting the kiss back, until I saw his hands go to the button of my jeans. I stepped out of my shoes and he slid the jeans down my legs. I began to step out of them, too, but he grabbed the back of my knee and gently bent my leg for me, pulling the fabric off my ankle, and then he did the other. He put both hands on the back of my knees and slowly stroked his way up the sides of my thighs and under the thin black satin bands of my panties that clung to my hips. He leaned forward and softly kissed my thigh right under the slip of fabric as his big warm palm slid up the inside of my thigh directly to the pooling heat of my center, and I trembled as he stroked it lightly with one finger.

“And this should be mine,” he said resentfully, and he looked up at me with fire and determination in his eyes. In a flash, he stood to full height, lifting me off the ground with him as he crashed his lips in to mine. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he pressed me against the wall, kissing, panting, and starving.

I felt his hand reach between us, quickly undoing his belt and pushing his pants lower. And then I felt his throbbing hardness unleashed against my coming warmth. He pressed me against the wall harder, and I felt every inch. He broke the kiss and pressed against me again.

“I’m going to fuck you until you remember me, Gabrielle,” he whispered harshly into my hair as he hiked me up higher and reached between us to slide my panties out of the way for him to enter. He was right there at the slippery edge, hard and smooth. And without warning he shoved inside me and groaned loudly. I gasped and clawed at his back, I felt like I was drowning, I couldn’t breathe, and the heat of him inside me was incredible. I felt filled to the brim, painfully so, and then he slid out slowly, agonizingly.

“I’m going to fuck you until you forget everyone else,” he hissed, and slammed into me, my shoulder and back thudding against the wall, and he kept his hard firm body pinning me to it. I writhed against him, my hips squirming as I adjusted to his size. I felt delirious and high. He slid his hand between us and rubbed my slippery center with his thumb and I was a goner.

“You know why you’re so undone for me, Gabrielle?” he asked as he bent his head and leaned his lips against my ear, tickling with his breath. He swirled his thumb around and around and my head fell back as I whimpered helplessly. He removed his hand and gripped my bottom tightly with both hands as he kissed the tip of my nose and readied himself.

“Because I am the one who taught you this,” he growled and thrust powerfully in to me, so hard, and I thought I’d split in two or blackout. He began devouring my neck aggressively, mouth and teeth, licks and sucks, and rocking in to me, against my center, pressing his hard length impossibly deeper, shoving me closer to him as he gripped me in the palms of his hands, and I started to unravel. It was like a wave crashing over me made of everything good in the universe, sucking me in, taking me under, and then it surged, breaking the surface and exploding in bursts, my skin tingling everywhere, and my arms were wrapped too tightly around his neck because I needed a life preserver so I wouldn’t disappear. He was relentless and I finally felt him pulse inside me before letting his hard body collapse vertically and press completely against me, sandwiching me between the rock and the hard place. I didn’t even care. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. He leaned his forehead onto the wall behind me as mine rested on his shoulder, still trying to find air. We stayed like that for a while, but the trembling trill in my blood wouldn’t calm.

I felt him stir and I hoped he didn’t put me down because my legs were still rubber. His head turned until his lips were above my ear.

“You’re not leaving until I show you,” he snarled and I gasped when I felt him getting hard inside me again and then he spun us, carrying me the few feet before laying me on the dining table like I was a piece of fine china, just so he could smash it.

And for the next few hours, he did.

Show me.

Everything.

~o~

He finally started to drift off to sleep and I tried to lift myself off of his chest, but his arm was ridiculously heavy. Or maybe I had not a drop of energy. I let my head fall back on him; my ear nestled against the warm skin over his beating heart and just listened for a while. A few minutes passed and I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to call home. I wriggled from under his arm and slipped out of bed, tiptoeing around his dark bedroom to find something to cover up with and saw his shirt lying on the floor next to his side so I bent over and grabbed it, sliding it on. As I started to do the buttons, his hand whipped out and grabbed my wrist, drawing me close until my knees hit the edge of the bed.

He wordlessly unpropped himself off his elbow, laying back on the white pillow, and pulled me until I had one knee bent on the mattress and was leaning over him, my long dark hair curtaining us in. His hair was disheveled attractively, and he had a few scratch marks on his chest and I smiled. Silently, he reached up and began buttoning the buttons of his shirt over me, only pausing once to stroke my breast with his fingers, inspiring a shiver, and when he was done he ran his hand up the muscle of my thigh and under the tail of the shirt. I gave him a questioning look but he just removed his hand and rolled over in the bed stretching his broad back and tucking his long arms under the pillows.

I shook my head and smiled as I tiptoed through his home, trying to find the dining room where I’d left my purse. I followed the gingerbread trail of clothes, picking them up as I went, which lead me there easily. I began digging through my purse for the phone. And then I froze when I heard clicking heels.

“What are you doing here?” Kate said, surprised. I turned around and saw her standing in the entry to the dining room in a powder blue blouse, slim black slacks and perfectly coifed vanilla blonde bob. I was able to observe all of these details, including the small birthmark on her right thumb, because I couldn’t speak. I was literally speechless. As was she. And the metronome ticks of the clocks were suddenly as loud as a church bell.

I saw movement in the corner of my eye, and it was Daniel standing in only black drawstring pants, his muscular chest, rippling abs and pecs, complete with zebra pattern scratch marks courtesy of moi.

“What is she doing here, Daniel?” Kate asked, desperate to hear that I came to drop off some flowers he’d for bought her and that’s all. Daniel looked totally relaxed beside a small tinge of annoyance that rippled his upper lip. He stared indifferently at her and blinked once before turning.

“I have a son,” he said mildly, walking over to the tray of fruit that was supposed to be dessert. The cart the tray rested on was shoved against the wall with a broken wheel from when he bent me over it and most of the grapes were crushed to wine by my shoulder blades when he flipped me, hitching one knee on his hip and drew the other ankle up to his ear. My handprints in his sweat marred and smudged the creamy wall behind.

He casually rolled a grape between his lips as if he didn’t just drop a bomb in an already atomic conversation.

“What does that mean? What do you mean you have a son? Why is she here, Daniel?” Kate’s voice was unsteady, as were my knees.

“I don’t think it needs repeating, Kate,” he warned, lowering his brows. I had already started tiptoeing towards the door with my clothes and the messenger bag I’d slung across my chest.

“You stay,” I heard Daniel order, and I turned to see he was staring at me as I pulled on my jeans.

“What? What do you mean she stays!” Kate pleaded, blinking rapidly, and took a step towards him. “What are you saying?”

“I mean she stays,” he repeated, raising an eyebrow over cold green eyes. I needed to get out of here.

“Daniel, I really should be going,” I said quickly and headed down the hall I hoped led to the door. I heard Kate say something vaguely, but the ringing in my ears drowned out everything else. I knew long before I heard him I wouldn’t get out of there unscathed. While I was fidgeting with the five hundred locks on the door, I felt his broad chest press against me.

I sighed and dropped my forehead onto the wood door with a thud, closing my eyes.

“I should go,” I whispered.

“You should stay,” he said firmly, and I lobbed my head back and forth against the door in what was meant to be a shake.

“No. No, I need to go. He needs me,” I said quietly, lifting my head and gripping the knob with resolve. After several seconds, I felt him step away from my back and I turned the knob. As I stepped through the doorway, I chanced a peek back at Daniel, who stood stoically with his arms by his sides in big fists, his beautiful body still taught from exertion, and a flash of betrayal raced through his eyes.

I closed the door.

And then I let my back fall against it on the other side and exhaled deeply into the chilly night air.

For the second time in my life, I’d given Daniel Baird my virginity.

And I still had no idea why.

Chapter 13 - Dawn of the Orchid

He turned me around and laid his palm at the nape of my neck and began slowly running his smooth hand down my spine. My body understood, my hair swung over my shoulder, a few stray locks clinging to the sweat slicked skin of my back. His hand slid lower until his palm rested on the small of my back. He rubbed swirling circles on the smooth skin there and lightly pressed down in the center and I arched in response. I lifted onto my tiptoes and gripped the edge of the cart with one hand, the other pressed flat against the wall, anticipating.

“Tell me you want me, Gabrielle,” he asked thickly.

“I want you.”

“Then have me,” he said.

The cart shook in my grip.

~o~

Twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years of order and control. Discipline, responsibility; planned out and risk free. Except for the months I can’t remember, this describes my life. As a child, my stuffed animal was in order by species, by twelve I had perfected cleaning the house alone. My closet was organized by color, always, and a forensic accountant couldn’t find a flaw in any numbers I touched. Dean’s list in college, Honor Roll for every semester of school I’d ever attended. But there was no honor here. Or control.

As I leaned my head against the glass, I swirled lazy squiggles in the fog of my exhale. But I stopped before I could breathe out and erase them again like I had in the car with Ian only a week ago. I was marked—my second chance at doing it the right way was gone. There was no “cleaning the slate” again.

I was in a vulnerable position, no doubt. Did I see Daniel’s acceptance of my son as the lost acceptance I’d longed for from my own mother? I didn’t think of myself weak enough to fall prey to those insecurities anymore. That girl was gone, or so I thought. I could rationalize it was Daniel’s magnetism combined with a record of abstinence flooding my senses all at once, avalanching better judgment.

Was I really going to call home to buy my more time in bed with Daniel while my trusting family waited for me to return home? Away from my own child? And with an engaged man? Although his feelings about Kate were surely not as sincere as they should be, how could I possibly do that to another woman? I was Nadia now.

All these things confused and worried me, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I may not have any recollection of intimacy, but my body certainly did. He led, but I was not far behind. He may have been an animal, but I was no less savage.

I took every cue instinctively. Subconsciously, I knew sex. When the doctor explained what happened to my memory, he told me I should expect to retain any learned abilities that occurred during the lost episode. When I asked what that meant he replied, “If you learned to speak Italian in that time. You may speak it again fluently.” Apparently, I’d taken up another sort of instrument entirely. And that was terrifying.

On the ride home, I had the cab stop at the drug store to refresh my makeup, buy a mending kit, and sew on the kit buttons to replace those missing from my blouse. When I got off the elevator on my floor, I did one final check of my wardrobe and smoothed out my shirt before I made my way to my front door.

“Welcome back!” Violet chirped as she swung the door open, and I entered only glimpsing for eye contact. “That took a while. Tristan’s been sleeping fine.”

I nodded, entering the door. I looked around my home that was lit with love, warm with family and the aroma of trust, and everything was in its rightful place again. The bubble was safe.

“How did it go?” August asked gently, and his blue eyes twinkled in the soft light.

“Good,” I replied, but my mind was still reeling a little.

“What did he say?” Violet poised anxiously. I tried to organize my thoughts.

“Well, he acknowledged Tristan as his son,” I started, and tried to keep my hands from wringing the napkin in front of me. August and Violet both smiled a smile of relief at each other. I smiled back, relieved that I’d managed to get some news out of this night.

“And?” she probed.

“I told him I didn’t want support. He understood that part,” I added, completely winging it. “He didn’t request the DNA test, but he understands it’s on the table, and we may revisit the issue later. And we are still discussing visitation and how much he wants to participate in his life.”

“What kind is he interested in?” August asked curiously.

“Limited,” I answered, remembering his parting look.

“What else?” Violet asked excitedly. “You guys must have talked a lot. You’ve been gone a while.”

“We covered the basics.” I looked down and tried to piece this in a way that wasn’t a total lie. “But Kate, his fiancée, showed up—we sort of got sidetracked.”

“Oh,” August said introspectively and I looked up at him, wondering if he read through the piecemeal lie. I yawned involuntarily.

“I’ll give you more details tomorrow, but it’s been a long day,” I added as I stood and scooted out my chair. “I’m heading to bed.”

“We’ll talk more tomorrow, then,” August said warmly as he came over and hugged me, kissing my forehead. “You did well, Bree. It takes a lot to stand up to a man like Daniel.”

I felt a physical pang of guilt. August was such a good man, and he thought I was as good as him. And until tonight, I thought I was, too.

“I know,” I said with a nod and tried not to think about how little standing up was involved. I walked August out and stood at the door holding it open for Violet who was flitting around the living room.

“It’s been a long night, Violet,” I called to her with a sigh and rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand. She didn’t respond, and I looked up to see her looking back at me with a smirk.

“I can tell. So, you were all about business, huh?”

She’d lost me for a second, and then I tiredly replied, “Yes,” remembering Jill’s motto as she dressed me in the power suit I’d changed out of.

“That’s funny. It looks an awful lot like someone gave you the business.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” I closed the door and headed to my bedroom. I sat on my bed and began removing my earrings when she followed me in.

“Those buttons were mother of pearl when you left. And those my dear, are not mother of pearl,” she observed coyly, eyeing my shirt.

Looking down, I swore. Leave it to the fashion police.

I looked up at Violet and we just stared at each other for a moment. She looked shocked, then she blinked once.

“You slept together!” she announced, sounding both amazed and excited.

“I know,” I said guiltily, still perplexed.

“How did that happen?” she asked.

“I’m not really sure,” I answered honestly. “It was weird.”

“It was weird, eh?” she pried and wagged her eyebrows.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to,” I replied lamely. “I can’t believe I did it.” Violet abruptly stopped and looked seriously at me.

“Look, Bree, don’t start this,” she said. “You had sex. Big deal.”

“It is a big deal, Violet. A very big deal,” I added guiltily, thinking of the surprise guest who arrived.

“You can beat yourself up if you want, but I’m happy for you. Delighted, actually. It is sad and strange that you have gone all these years without having sex. Well, except for that time…” she corrected herself apologetically. “But this is good, Bree. It means you’re not broken.”

“What do you mean?” She caught my attention.

“I mean you push sex and romance away completely. You hide from it. You’ve completely turned yourself off to the experience. You are more confident now, but you won’t date, you won’t hook up, and you cringe at the idea. But now you’re set free. Now that you know what you’ve been missing, there’s no going back,” she said, and it sounded like she was campaigning for her own lifestyle more than mine, but she had a point. After I had Tristan, I actually became worried some wires got crossed. I was a neutral party—like an amoeba—combined with zero libido. Nothing like I was tonight.

“But it’s Daniel Baird,” I reminded her.

“Big deal,” she said nonchalantly. Then her eyes went as wide as saucers. “So. How was it?”

I smiled a little because my mind couldn’t help but wander back.

“He’s good,” I admitted, shaking my head to myself in awe.

“Details!” she said as she bounced on the edge of my bed. I pursed my lips and stared at her for a moment. I remembered the nights in our teens when she would come home and tell me about her experiences. It seemed odd to have the shoe on the other foot. And now she looked so excited; it was practically contagious.

“Do men usually go for long stretches like that?” I furrowed my brow with a guilty frown. “Is that the norm? We never stopped.”

“What do you mean you never stopped?” she pried. I wasn’t sure how to phrase it.

“I mean, I think I just had three hours of tantric sex with Daniel Baird,” I replied stupefied and Violet fell off the bed onto the ground with a thud.

“Are you okay?” I asked concernedly as I quickly reached down to help her up. She threw one arm on the bed, and her head popped up on the mattress with her shoulder length pale hair flipped to one side haphazardly, feathered indigo streaks cascading like an ocean wave.

“Are you okay?” she asked incredulously wide eyed.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her but really wanting a hot bath for my all over soreness.

“He went for three hours, consecutively?” she asked in a daze.

“Give or take,” I answered embarrassedly.

“It’s magic,” she said dreamily as she stared at my headboard.

“I’m sorry?”

“His stick. It’s magic,” she grinned, waving around an invisible wand in her hand.

“Okay, enough sharing for the night,” I said as I flopped down onto my pillows.

“Oh, Bree, relax,” she chided as she took the hair dryer to the bathroom. “Wait, didn’t you say that lady Kate from the photographs was there? Please tell me you three didn’t.”

“No,” I defended quickly, and the buoyancy Violet generated suddenly left my body. “But she showed up.”

“You were caught with him?”

“Yes. And it was the most horrible thing, Violet.” She looked reluctantly sympathetic when I spoke. “I think it broke her heart.

“You know what? He’s a jerk for putting you in that position,” she asserted sternly, but then her face relaxed. “But he’s not a jerk for putting you in all those other positions.” She winked and giggled.

I finally kicked her out. I was grateful for Violet because although she took almost nothing seriously, that’s exactly what I needed.

I checked on Tristan who was deep in slumber and brushed his hair to the side before kissing his forehead. I took a steaming hot bath, but I never did quite feel clean. When I got in bed, I kept drawing on the image of a crushed Kate. I did it intentionally to fight off the sated and satisfied smile that my lips traitorously threatened to form at the memories of the pleasure that was all wrong.

~o~

I got Tristan up early so we could have breakfast at a little diner around the corner from his school. A special treat. He chewed his scrambled eggs, and we both giggled as I wiped lemon muffin crumbs from his face and we blew bubbles in our milk. I felt like myself again.

Hours later, Claire and I were heavy into the Monday morning drill trying to get things wrapped up before my meeting uptown when we heard the front door bell lightly ding.

“For me?” Claire gasped, her head rising above the high counter and dramatically clasping her hand to her chest. She had been a performing arts major—I didn’t even look up.

“Are you Miss Valentine?” I heard in a thick New York accent.

“I’m Ms. Valentine,” I answered automatically, setting my financial calculator down. When I looked up, I saw a short tanned man in a khaki uniform holding a giant orchid plant. Not just any orchid, I’d never seen so many blooms on a single plant. It was exquisite.

“Orchids. My favorite.” Claire reached across the counter and the deliveryman’s eyes shifted to mine for consent.

“I’ll take that,” I said as I reached across the counter, setting it down gently.

Claire pouted. “August is so sweet. If you don’t marry that man, I’m leaving Ari and stealing him away,” she lamented, flopping down in her seat. “The last gift I got was a Joy Division CD and an antique Russian protractor.”

“August is a sweet one,” I said. I peeled the unmarked card open and read.

I owe you these.

That was it all it said. Signed with an ink bled dash at the bottom that made me pity the pen. It was a ‘D’ for Daniel. I suddenly felt my face get hot and not in the flattered way. This was a reward for my performance. Was this my treat for sitting when he said sit? Did I roll over well enough for him?

I took a deep breath because the reality was, I had.

He couldn’t muster a more sincere message, like, “Sorry for getting you caught in the middle of my elitist love triangle”? At best I felt like a favored bottle of wine from his cellar. Shouldn’t he be sending the woman whose beating heart was ripped out before me an arrangement of flowers? Perhaps he sent Kate some, too, covering all his bases.

He hasn’t sent Tristan one gesture since this whole thing started, not that I demanded that, but this proved his priorities were beyond convoluted. He didn’t even sign his name. No paper trail back to his brandy-haired mistake. Apparently I was good enough to be his mistress, but not the mother of his child. Well maybe he wasn’t good enough to be the father of mine. Regardless of what happened last night, I was not his plaything.

And, yes, this was a manipulation. He invited me to his home, asked me to come alone, to drink wine, to sit on his lap, and I fell for it. If I did turn in to a sex-possessed beast, it was only at his provocation. He had no intention of being a father to Tristan and used my vulnerability to ensnare me for the only thing he’s wanted from the beginning; sex with me.

I looked at the beautiful plant in a glass-blown pot and took a moment to appreciate what could have otherwise been a meaningful gesture from one person to another. Keeping them was more humiliation than I could bear.

“Throw it away,” I instructed Claire. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.” I swung the door open then murmured, “He should have sent Legos.”

~o~

Hours later, I broke from my distributor rep meeting and checked my phone for messages. Violet had flooded my inbox.

V: How’s your glum level today, Bree?

V: I’m happy to take one for the team and go next.

V: Don’t be stingy, Bree, you owe me.

V: I loaned you my Reeboks in the third grade, remember?

V: They were fresh, and you got scuff marks on them.

V: Just tell him it’s the Valentine Family relay race, and it’s your turn to pass the baton.

V: His baton.

V: I’ll show him where to pass it.

V: That’s the spot.

V: Stop ignoring me, Bree. Cheer up.

Violet’s sense of humor was not helping today. I knew I’d regret my admission because she was going to have a field day with this. The taste had already become sour in my mouth. I went to the next message. The next was Ian.

I: Breezy-Breezy, fo feezy, fi fi, no sneezey, Breezy!

I: Jilly-Jilly, fo filly, fee fi fo filly, snugglin’ gettin so sill-y, Jilly!

I laughed. Ian must in a very good mood because the only time he types us little rhymes is when he’s sitting in meetings and he’s too excited to pay attention. And then I braced myself before opening August’s.

A: Hi, Bree. Checking in to see if you had some time to talk a little more since last night. Call me.

This was a bad spot. I didn’t have any more information than what I’d already told him. I wondered if it was too late to try to convince him that Daniel and I played video games on his console for a few hours and didn’t get to talk. As I concocted preposterous alibis in my head, my phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered.

“What are you doing Saturday? I got those tickets you wanted to The Kiggles for you, if you’re still interested,” Jill said politely, but her voice held strain.

“You did? That’s great! Thank you, Jill.” Tristan is going to be so excited.

“It only took a little bribery, but hey, what are godmothers for?” she added deviously.

“Felonies, apparently.” I snickered.

“Speaking of felonies, how did it go with Daniel AssMuncher last night?”

“It went fine,” I replied innocently.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” She sounded anything but, and I sighed. I knew her bitterness was rooted in what she was now calling “Calamari-gate”. Since retiring from modeling, Jill founded King Agencies, the premier agency for talent in the city. On top of that, she was a King; an American family whose last name carried some weight. That night at Del Posto one Baird trumped two Kings, and she was none too pleased.

“So what’s his first planned outing with our little angel? Is he going to take him to a stallion auction and hit up a strip club under the Holland Tunnel?” Ian must have dished on Daniel’s reputation.

“Nothing’s been determined yet,” I found myself replying calmly.

“Well, I’ve made a great deal of determinations. Like: Daniel is an uppity prick who I wouldn’t put out if he ignited inside a dynamite factory.”

“I’m in the middle of something here, Jill. I’ll have to call you back later.”I quickly hung up. Part of me wanted to revel in Jill’s anathemas, however satisfying, but I caught myself. If Tristan came to me twenty years from now and asked why he never got to know his father, and I explained it boiled down to an irresponsible night of sex and a wounded ego, would he forgive me? Would I?

I saw myself becoming that parent who coaches their child into hating the other parent. I didn’t like that forecast. I drew a line in the sand and picked a side. Sometimes being noble just plain sucked.

Before I could second guess myself, I was calling BarclayBaird’s corporate office, asking for Daniel.

“One moment. I’ll transfer you now,” a woman’s quizzical voice said. I took a seat outside the conference room, tapping my toe off beat to elevator music. Then the music ended. Considering the gift of flowers, I’d assumed he’d be mildly congenial. This was not the case.

“Ms. Valentine,” he answered tersely.

I cleared my throat and harnessed some power. “I still have some questions. We didn’t get to hammer out the details last night.”

“I believe we hammered out quite a few things,” he replied detached. “More than once, if you recall.”

I squeezed my eyes tight. “I meant Tristan.”

“It is done now.” The line filled with quiet resistance. “What would you like from me, Ms. Valentine?” he said finally. I took a breath.

“I was thinking start slow. He has a karate tournament next week. It would be a good opening. There will be lots of people, and it would give you the opportunity to get to know the…situation,” I replied, knowing this would only work if we stayed in public places, because just hearing the tone in his voice over the phone was overwhelming. If he took the chance to observe Tristan, he could make an informed decision.

“Send details,” he finally replied.

“I’ll do that,” I said with a small smile, encouraged.

“May I ask you something?” he said, capturing my silence, perhaps encouraged by it. “My CFO is joining me. Is there anything you’d like me to tell him?” I swallowed. I thought I heard August’s voice in the background. “When you arrived home, did you tell him how you screamed for me?”

“I didn’t scream,” I defended.

“You did. Every second.” Goosebumps pricked on my skin.

“I need to go,” I said, no more than a whisper.

“Do you miss me yet, Ms. Valentine?” It sounded like his lips were right on the phone. The sound of voices in the background grew. “To be continued,” he said. The line went dead.

I let my head fall back on the chair and closed my eyes.

A few hours later, after a distributor meeting I hadn’t absorbed one iota of, I headed to drop off orders at the office before picking up Tristan. Back at the showroom again, I was looking forward to sharing the good news with him about the Kiggles tickets. That show had been sold out for weeks—Jill must have pulled some strings.

“Guess who stopped by for a visit!” Claire said excitedly. I stopped. Her cat-framed glasses perched high on her small arched nose, her naturally red cheeks were practically crimson. A known side effect of her watching Japanime—or coming in contact with a very attractive man. The computer screen was blank.

“You’re kidding.” I said. “Daniel Baird. Claire, what did he want?” I threw my purse on the counter and stopped short of vaulting over it to perch on the counter beside her.

“He asked for you and I said you weren’t here. That’s not the best part,” she said excitedly. “He had some sort of package for you! I think he wants you.” She looked up at me like I had just turned into the Pope.

“Did he leave it?”

“No,” she said, carrying the o. “I told him you’d be back. I’m sure he’ll stop back by. I think you’ve got him a little jealous, too. He asked about the flowers out on the curb. I told him they were from your main squeeze but that you trashed them.” I covered my face with my hands. “You should have seen the look on his face!”

“Oh, no.” I peeked through my fingers out onto the sidewalk facing the bustling street where the plant laid rolled over on its side up against a pile of trash bags. I still didn’t want the flowers, but I didn’t mean to slight him. To his face, anyhow.

“Oh yes! You have the upper hand now, sister. Playing hard to get is a good thing for a guy like him,” she said approvingly. “Look, do you mind if I close up early?”

“That’s fine,” I huffed as I plopped down in a chair.

“Cool. I’ve got to get in a little quality me time in a cold shower before Ari gets home,” she said as she shoved things in her purse.

“Claire! At least make something up! Whatever happened to “I forgot to put out the trash” or “I need to feed my cat”?”

“Well, I do need to feed my cat,” she replied with a wink. “After Mr. SexyBritishGuy’s visit, I need the relief.”

“Why are we so weak?” I mumbled.

“Bree, it’s not weakness. It’s indulgence. That guy is the type you risk it all for, for the night.”

She got me there. I had. Twice.

Chapter 14 - Garden of Good vs. Evil

~o~

“How could you think I wouldn’t have you again, Gabrielle?” he rasped out hoarsely as his sweat-slicked body covered mine where we lay on the rug. My arms were hooked under his, and I dug my nails deep into his strong shoulders.

“You are for me. You’re mine. You always were,” he told me in a rough voice between grunts, and my body shook underneath him, my back chaffing the rug. I saw him reach down for me, and I tilted my face up to his.

~o~

I rolled over in the sheets and groaned because two weeks later, I was still dreaming of Daniel.

I hadn’t spoken with or seen Daniel since our phone exchange. August said he’d flown overseas for meetings and that Daniel was assailed with his company’s transition. We hardly saw August these days.

I sent Daniel an email with the information for Tristan’s karate event, but there was no reply and he was a no-show. He was a busy man, but I had a suspicion I was being ignored.

I didn’t like the idea that Tristan might have been getting in schoolyard fights because of my irresponsibility to begin with. What’s worse was now that I had found the man who fathered him, I was bumbling it up with my own lack of self-control.

I had thought about the fact that the intercourse we had was unprotected. I’d been prescribed a pill I take every three months to regulate my cycle. It’s also a contraceptive. But Daniel didn’t know that. Given the stories from his past all I could ask was—why? Considering our current circumstances, could he really be that reckless?

The days rolled by and I resisted the urge to contact him, aside from a small envelope I’d placed in the mail on impulse. The ball was in his court now—but our lives went on.

It was Saturday; the end of another long week, and the girls came over for a late breakfast before we made plans for the day.

“You didn’t tell me how The Kiggles went, kiddo,” Violet addressed Tristan as she dashed hot sauce on her eggs.

“It was okay,” he replied, shrugging. Jill lowered the newspaper in her hands with a frown. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that although we went, Tristan had decided The Kiggles were for little kids, not big boys who were almost five.

“Just okay?” she asked, and his eyes widened a little; he knew she’d gifted the tickets.

“I was just joking, Jill. It was really cool,” he back-pedaled; then waited worriedly for her to smile before he returned it. She went back to The Post.

“There’s something suspect about those Kiggles if you ask me,” Violet leered.

“No one asked you,” I interjected, but she went on.

“Jill, remember Drag Queen Puppet Bingo? That’s all I’m saying,” she giggled and set down the hot sauce.

“What’s a drag queen puppet bingo?” Tristan quizzed. Violet was suddenly very busy poking yellow eggs running with blood orange sauce.

“Just an ordinary game of bingo, love,” I replied..

“Well, well, well,” Jill said slowly as she lowered her paper with a flourish. “Look who made page six,” she smirked, handing me the paper. Violet practically leaped across the table and into my lap to see.

“Is it my press photos from last night?” she chirped but quieted as we both saw what Jill meant.

Under a photo of the back of a tall, blond, bobbed woman and a shorter, sandy-haired man with a black cloth napkin obscuring his face ran the blurb:

Recent UK transplant, socialite Kate Hearst, was spotted diamond ring fingered and bloody red handed out on the town with a mystery man last night after leaving an intimate dinner at Bon Appetite Supper club.

“They looked very cozy,” observed one diner. “Canoodling and whispering in each other’s ears. I almost told them to get a room!”

Oh, the tangled webs we weave, Ms. Hearst.

This is one gossip columnist who wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the pricey Fifth Avenue residence of BarclayBaird CEO, Daniel Baird when he hears about this. Although very private, it is well known in silver spoon circles on this side of the pond that Kate has been his lady for some time now and although no official announcement has been made, when his mother was asked last month, Lady Sophie Baird did not deny that the six carat stunner Kate’s been sporting of late is a sign that Ms. Hearst is soon joining the Baird clan.

“She’s a lovely young lady,” was her only statement on the matter.

To be a fly on those Chantilly and chinoiserie walls. Yowzers!

“That broad’s smarter than she looks,” Jill quipped smugly. She snatched the paper back. “I don’t care if there’s a leprechaun hiding under that napkin, it’s got to be a step up from BastardBaird Assss…cot wearers,” Jill corrected herself last minute, realizing her inappropriate language in this company.

“Hm, I wonder what happened,” Violet puzzled as she resumed sitting. She grinned at me.

“She probably tried to dislodge that stick that’s been lodged up his assscot neck tie,” Jill scowled at her near miss as I eyed her disapprovingly. “I think we all know they get these stories wrong anyway. The ‘diner’ they interviewed was probably a tourist they paid off with a half-eaten Rueben sandwich.”

They laughed. I lowered my eyes as I stirred my spoon in my hot tea. It was bad enough I slept with him, considering my neutral opinion of him was already shifting into wariness. Now I had the collapse of a relationship on my head. I could see my legacy now etched out on my epitaph.

Gabrielle Valentine, the skin flute concerto, taught by the best: Daniel Baird, the pied piper of sex. Mother, harlot, home wrecker; oh, and she made nice furniture, too.

~o~

I spent the rest of breakfast distracting myself, prepping for the important meeting I had tonight. After cleaning up, the girls, Tristan, and I decided to head out for a stress-free Saturday. The aquarium first, then Ian met us back at my house where Violet decided we should sing karaoke on Tristan’s little machine. Vi was totally in character as an out-of-control one-hit wonder as it became time for me to venture forth on my mission.

“You’re wearing that?” Violet gasped as she eyed my outfit. I was wearing tailored black shirtdress, cinched by a black belt.

“It’s in season and you gave it to me. What’s wrong with it?” I asked as I tugged at the hemline—it was a little shorter than I was entirely comfortable in. Jill laid down the mike to eye me with disapproval as well.

“You’re going to X, Bree, not a parent conference,” Vi remarked, exasperated. “Why don’t you put on one of those bright-colored tank dresses I gave you?”

“Vi, I’m not prowling for gentleman callers, I’m going to see Zack. This is perfectly fine,” I replied frankly. I grabbed my small black clutch and adjusted my diamond stud earrings. I snickered watching Ian lose a game of thumb war to Tristan over who got to sing next.

“At least go put on heels. No sister of mine can be seen wearing ballet flats to X. People will think I’ve lost my touch,” Violet huffed, folding her arms on her chest lithely.

“Agree. Try again,” Jill added. She strode over, spinning me back into my room.

I changed into strappy danger shoes and returned, met with approval.

“Much better,” Violet said passionately. Jill nodded grinningly as she took a seat on the sofa next to Ian and Tristan.

“You look pretty, Mom,” Tristan complimented with an awe-filled smile as he ran over to me. I smoothed his hair. That compliment made it worth the painful shoe change.

“Tell Zack I said sorry I couldn’t make it, but I’ll see him Monday,” Ian said straight faced, covertly shift his eyes to Jill in message. I laughed when he wagged his eyebrows. Ian and Zack have had the bromance of the ages going on since the day they met. But not much could top Jill for him.

“Bye, my love, give Mommy a kiss,” I appealed to Tristan as I leaned down, lending him a cheek, and he complied.

“Can I come see Uncle Zack, too?” he asked hopefully.

“No, I need to go alone, it’s for adults. I’ll be home soon,” I replied reassuringly as I smoothed out his cowlick.

“Tell him I said remember to take his boots off first!” Violet chimed with a smirk as I stood up and headed for the door. I shook my head trying to shake the image of Zack and Violet being intimate.

As I opened the door to leave, Tristan ran up and hugged me again. “What was that for?” I inquired delightedly.

“I don’t know,” he replied simply with a little shrug. I smiled wider and he returned it. “Bye, Mom.”

My face fell a little as I stared in to his green eyes and the smile I recognized from someone else now, too. With a kiss on his forehead, I headed on my way.

In all this change, there was one person who had been left out. Zack was my oldest friend, and we used to be as close as brother and sister. After my mother disappeared, Mitch was left with an infant girl and not a clue where to go from there. Zack’s granddad, Cal, was Mitch’s boss, mentor, and oldest friend. His wife, Dina, volunteered to help, just as she’d stepped up to raise her grandson.

From the stories I’d been told, Mitch would get up in the middle night when my diaper got dirty and drive to their house down the street to have it changed. Dina watched me while my dad was on shift at odd hours as foreman at the Mill, and I spent my formative years running around their house, chasing Zack, who was two years older and considered me a total pest.

When I found Violet and she took me under her Gucci-print wing, Zack reconsidered my status as an annoyance, deeming me cool by association. He also developed a huge crush on Vi and as adolescent nonsense goes, I developed a huge crush on him. Violet paid no attention, until ninth grade when other girls began noticing him. One night, that year, she snuck out of my window and returned a few hours later, minus her virginity.

It blew my thirteen-year-old mind that they’d had sex at fifteen, or sex at all, but it stung because Violet knew he was my crush. She apologized, saying losing her virginity was a strategic move in her plan to be a fashion designer; she only picked Zack because she wanted someone as inexperienced as she was and wouldn’t deride her performance. Violet was true to her word, never dating Zack afterwards. Any romantic feelings I’d had towards Zack, however, died the night he slept with my sister.

Time went on, and a year later Dina passed away from lymphoma. She was the closest thing to a Mom I’d had, and I took the hit as hard as he did. We consoled each other and cried together; that’s when Zack decided I was the girl for him. It seemed like he began to view me as a living extension of his lost grandmother, and a replacement for his then unrequited love, Violet.

Zack pursued me relentlessly after that, even turning down a baseball scholarship to stay behind while I finished high school. He’d take me out and talk about our future while I just frowned and wondered where he’d gotten all these ideas. The attention was flattering, but I knew in my heart I was always runner up to the girl he wanted first. I couldn’t settle for that. A life as a slightly less desirable fill-in.

When I was awarded a scholarship and moved to the city to follow Violet, Zack was crushed and angry. We had a huge fight before I left, and we hardly spoke on my rare visits home. Though he’d call occasionally late at night with a sad voice and tell me how he found a house I might like or about a job I might want.

Zack wanted me to come home and marry him and live a happy quiet life. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it at times. It seemed like the easy answer; become a CPA, move home with Zack, and watch him mow the lawn from my kitchen window. Simple. Then I got pregnant.

Violet and I didn’t tell anyone about it, including my father, because her plan was to terminate and try to get things back to normal. Then Jill snuck me out of Violet’s apartment in the middle of the night and took me to her brother, August. I was in no condition to protest, and my mind was almost on mute during those final months, but I remember him begging me to carry the child to term because he wanted to adopt it.

I asked him why he would want the child of a nobody school girl and whatever riff-raff man who’d had sex with me while I was living on the street. August said the baby deserved a chance, and he may never get another opportunity to have a child. That’s when he told me he was gay. At the time he was secretly in a long-term relationship with a man named Olivier, who gave him an ultimatum; but August chose us. He chose me and the baby we didn’t know. He paid our bills and catered to me as I shuffled lifelessly around; broken, ruined, and disgusted with myself.

I ended up having an early emergency C-section, and I was out for a few days due to a bad reaction to the anesthesia, but when I woke up, there was August proudly cradling his new son. He asked me if I wanted to hold him as a goodbye. Reluctantly, I said yes. When I held him, he smiled at me. I never let my son go again.

Violet argued, saying I was keeping the baby over a case of gas, but I pleaded and she slowly paid August back for the expenses and delivery—and August unwound the adoption. It didn’t take her long to understand.

The worst part was I was so in a bubble with my new little baby, I never apologized to August for disrupting his life and keeping the baby I said I’d never want. Still, he became my biggest supporter and helped me get on my feet so I could do this on my own.

Deciding to keep Tristan was the easy part—then I had to tell everyone else.

My father and Zack drove up as soon as we told them. My dad furiously said I could have stayed in Virginia if my ambition had been to become a teen mom. But, he fell for his grandson as I had. Zack mourned on the sofa for days while I nursed my newborn. Then he proposed, insisting I move back home with him and he’d raise Tristan as his own—but I knew it wasn’t right. I didn’t love him in that way, not in the way he deserved. So instead, he moved to New York and started bartending. He wanted to open his own bar, and finally, last year, August helped him get loans. And for the rest, we all chipped in as investors.

I got out of the cab and headed for the bright lights of Zack’s club Exodus, or X, as “the scene” people called it, to have a conversation that was almost five years in the making. The club was packed, as was to be expected on a Saturday night, and I wove my way through the swaying bodies trying to block out some of the loud music coming from the DJ booth.

I spotted Zack in his corner booth surrounded by a few scantily clad girls, and I smiled as I approached his table. He was wearing black jeans and a black vest, showing off his muscular arms and chest, with a chain dangling from his pocket. He looked like a total badass, and when he saw me he smiled hugely but then caught himself.

“Excuse me ladies,” he said suavely as he scooted the women on his left out of the booth and rose to welcome me.

“Hello, Zackary,” I greeted amusedly as I looked up into his deep, warm brown eyes, and they twinkled a little as his lip tugged in the corner.

“Gabrielle, I’m so glad you could join me. You look delicious tonight,” he crooned huskily, leaning down to kiss my cheek lingeringly.

“And you as well, Zackary,” I replied, fighting my grin at his cheesiness.

“Ladies, we’ll need some privacy,” he said with a wink to the few women still sitting in his booth. They all gave me the stink eye as they slid out and strutted away.

“Have a seat,” he offered, and it looked like he was fighting a smile of his own as he laid a hand on my lower back, ushering me in the booth. Zack slid in after me and then drew closed the velvet privacy curtain of the booth, grinning into the crowd before it closed completely.

“Can’t we meet at a coffee shop like normal people?” I asked as I took in the Moroccan lantern that hung over the polished dark walnut table I’d designed. He said this was the only time and place we could meet when I’d called.

“Ah, you know how it is, Bree. I’m in this place twenty-four seven these days. I think it owns me rather than the other way around,” Zack complained exhaustedly, but I could see the excitement and pride in his face when he nudged the curtain open for a glance.

I smiled. “Do women really fall for this?” I reached over and fidgeted with the multiple silver chains around his neck.

“Yes, I’m peacocking and this, Bree, is plumage,” he replied seriously and then his lip quirked up because he knew how ridiculous that sounded.

“Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game.” He smiled, swatting my hand from the chains. I pursed my lips—Zack was definitely spending too much time with Ian.

“You promised me no more tattoos,” I remarked, noticing a new inky phoenix on his forearm, wings extended in rebirth and flight. He had quite the collection. “I liked your natural look just fine,” I said, channeling Dina.

“I know you did,” he admitted with a sheepish grin and then it fell. “You just didn’t like it enough,” he added with a slight edge. I smiled weakly, not wanting to dredge up more than I had to tonight.

“You haven’t been around in a while,” I transitioned. “Everyone misses you.”

“What are you talking about, Bree? I see Ian three days a week at the gym, and you and Violet just mauled me outside the playground two weeks ago!” he said, lightening the mood in classic Zack style.

“You know who I mean,” I replied. His eyes softened a little.

“I know. Tell the little guy I miss him,” he admitted and looked down at his folded hands on the tabletop. “What did you want to talk about? I know you didn’t come all the way uptown just to guilt trip me.”

“No, that’s not why I came,” I said, staring at his entwined fingers and the championship ring from our high school’s baseball team he still wore.

“What’s up Bree?” he asked concernedly as he leaned forward across the round table. “Spill.”

I took a deep breath and stared at the red and black velvet damask wallpaper Violet had selected.

“I found Tristan’s biological father,” I said finally, turning back to Zack.

His mouth fell a little bit open. He stared at me with widened eyes for a few beats before he sat back deeply in his seat, letting his square shoulders slump. He didn’t speak for a while as he gazed at the inner lining of the velvet, and I watched the spice-colored glass lantern twirl a little on its chain, sending prisms of coriander light on his proud cinnamon features.

“I guess it was inevitable,” he commented as he took a deep breath and ran his hand on his scalp. I nodded as I looked into his eyes, which were a little glassy. “Coulda’ been us, Bree,” he exhaled with remorse and bitterness. “It could have been good. Really good.”

“I know,” I replied as I stared hard into the eyes of the only man I’d ever come close to loving. Strong eyes. Reliable eyes.

“I tried, you know I did,” Zack continued, frustrated, in an unsteady voice, as his eyes began to well. “So fuckin’ hard,” he finished, hanging his head and his voice cracked.

“I know,” I whispered as I watched him swallow hard and stare at the lining again. When his wet eyes met mine again, he gave me a thin smile and shook his head with his brows pinched together.

“It’s just…why’d he have to be so damn blonde?” he added with a forced chuckle, and I laughed a little, too.

“Hey, now, that’s my son you’re talking about,” I chided, feigning offense, thankful for Zack’s levity.

“Yeah, your son,” he replied soberly with a deep exhale. “So, who’s the lucky guy?” he asked bitterly, and I had to look away.

“Just some guy,” I answered, because it in that moment it didn’t matter who the guy was, he could never be equal to Zack. There was no way to answer that without hurting him more. He nodded.

I reached into my purse and pulled out a little blue envelope. “I brought this for you,” I smiled as I slid the little blue envelope across the table.

He flipped it over in his hands a few times before pulling out the card inside and reading it silently. Then he chuckled.

“That’s really fuckin’ cute, Bree,” he commented as he grinned up at me, and I smiled back proudly. “Fuckin’ adorable, actually.”

“Thank you. I got some new hole punches that cut out those little dinosaur shapes and the ribbon was a bargain,” I said excitedly as I reached across and pointed at my homemade handiwork. “So you’ll be there?” I asked sincerely, meeting his gaze.

“Sure, Bree,” he replied, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes; he wasn’t coming.

I felt the urge to get out of there and grabbed my purse. “I’d better be going,” I announced as I began to slide out of the seat.

‘You want me to walk you out?” he offered as he stood up and pulled back the curtain.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “You look like you’ve got your hands full anyway,” I jested, tilting my head towards the pack of tigresses headed his way.

He looked down at me and smiled again sheepishly. We both knew this wasn’t really him.

“Love you, Bree,” he spoke sincerely, wrapping me in a tight hug, lifting me off the ground.

“Careful,” I exclaimed. I could feel my skirt riding up.

“Bye, Bree,” he said as he let me down. I kissed his cheek lightly before I turned and navigated through the dark, noisy club. I could feel his eyes on me as I made my way out.

The air outside was nice and calm against the vibrancy of the club, so I decided to walk for a while. Too many heavy things were looming, and time alone to think was a rare commodity.

I’d rounded another corner, lost in thought when I heard shuffling footsteps in the distance behind, and the sound of a lighter flicking. I loved walking in the city, it was special at night and I never got the chance, but this wasn’t my usual neighborhood. I stepped to the curb, deciding it was time to get a cab and head home. As I craned my head both ways, I heard the sound of running.

Chapter 15 - A Streetcar Named Desire

Three street kids approached, running, two male one female. As soon as I turned to see them and step out of the way, they were at me. One snatched my purse strap right off my shoulder, and I pulled it back. I tugged, frantically, foolishly, and then let go. I stumbled forward, catching myself narrowly on a light post. I was looking down at my broken heel when I saw headlights and heard the sound of brakes halting right off the curb beside me.

“Get in,” I heard the English accent brusquely command and turned to see Daniel leaning across the back seat of a black limo, pushing the door open.

Stunned, my eyes darted to the sound of the teens running, and then to Daniel, his brows lowered over livid eyes. I looked around and saw a homeless man sitting ahead with a pit bull on the unfamiliar dark street, suddenly horribly shaken. I removed my shoes and dashed towards the car.

I slid in, reaching to pull the door, but he deftly leaned across, the fabric of his blazer swishing against my chest and held the door firmly. I gave him a confused look, really wanting to get the heck out of there, but he arched an impatient brow and I dropped my hand, and he swiftly snapped the door closed in on me. He leaned back to the opposite side of the black bench leather seat and hit a button, the intercom to the driver on the other side of a glass partition.

“Ms. Valentine’s,” he directed curtly. As the car pulled away, Daniel sank deeply into the leather of the seat and towards me, his broad shoulder brushing mine and his legs stationed wide apart. I sat pin straight, still on edge, crossing my legs at the ankles to keep them from shaking. He distracted himself with the phone in his hands, poised, scrolling through emails indifferently, but the tension radiating off him was dense.

“Thanks,” I murmured with a furrowed brow, finally processing I was grateful for the ride considering I was now moneyless, but suspicious as to what he was doing alone on a side street, uptown on a Saturday night. He looked a little tired but as handsome as ever in a black suit and shirt with the collar undone.

“You’ve always had a taste for danger, haven’t you?” he grudged, with an edge.

“Some things can’t be predicted,” I countered warily, adjusting in my seat, moving further away from his warm body. I gazed out the dark window.

“That may be true as well,” he conceded, I frowned further. We rode in silence for a while, bumping along the city streets while I calmed some.

“Can I ask you something?” I said finally, turning to his profile illuminated by the soft blue light of the phone, just in time to watch his eyes dart from my exposed thigh back to the screen.

“You may,” he replied, “although I may or may not answer.”

I huffed lightly, thinking about how to ask something that had been percolating in the back of my mind since the night he’d implied I might want revenge against him. At the rate we were going, I didn’t know if I’d get another opportunity to ask.

“When we met, did we do anything…illegal together?” I probed cautiously, needing to unblemish my conscience.

“Yes,” he replied, and I watched his jaw line tighten, brows pinching together.

“I figured as much,” I said quietly, disappointed in the weak girl I was then. I stared outside the limo at passing cars.

“Does that bother you?” I snapped to face him, hearing the taunt in his tone, to find his green eyes locking me in. “That you’re not incorruptible?”

“Of course,” I defended, incredulous, and then turned contemplative. “I forgive myself for the past, but I know how to move on. There’s nothing worth staying bitter over.” I’d decided that long ago.

“I’m jealous of that trait,” he said in a low voice, and his eyes seemed entirely unfocused on the phone’s screen. Whatever they were, these thoughts weren’t happily recalled tonight.

I swallowed. “You’ve…given up all your vices now?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of the drug use.

“I’ve never had a vice,” he corrected me. Then he pursed his lips, before he turned, taking me in, with a tug playing in the corner of his lip. “Well…maybe one.”

“Right.” Sex. Equal parts annoyed and uncomfortable, I turned away. “You missed the karate tournament,” I said, switching subjects. I felt him tense next to me, back on his device. “And you haven’t responded to the birthday invitation. It’s kind of a big one. He’s turning five,” I explained, referring to the blue invitation I’d put in the mail to him days ago. “You’re welcome to come.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, turning his face to me as he stared hard into my eyes. His face was too close, so I shifted away again, but his body seemed to follow.

“It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s the right thing to do,” I replied sharply and leaned away again because he smelled too nice, something natural, of man and strength and body.

“I thought you were trying to convince me?” he said, but his eyes were softer now, searching.

“It would be nice, yes,” I admitted quietly. He nodded and looked down at his phone as if I’d answered wrong.

“I don’t expect you to be father of the year, but you could at least attempt some sort of effort,” I said.

He pocketed his phone. “I was never meant to be a father,” Daniel announced.

I bristled. “Well, you are one, so play the hand you’ve been dealt. I didn’t get pregnant by myself, and these consequences and responsibilities belong to us both. I’m not saying that for my sake.” I drilled my gaze into his, feeling my nostrils flare, ready for resistance, but his hardened features became peaceful.

“Or maybe I can only have them with you?” he questioned, as if in wonder, and as much as I resented him, the statement was a warm bath, soaking into my bones; stunning me. After a moment, his eyes fell to my lips. I felt a rush of adrenaline in all its forms. Everywhere. Then his eyes flicked to mine—I couldn’t think. “I think you should let me find out,” he said, eyes meeting mine, and his tongue slid along his bottom lip and glistened in the dim gold interior light in the most captivating way. He slowly leaned towards me, and his eyes were burning with something I didn’t recognize as he let his gaze drop to my lips. He paused right before meeting my lips, my breathing heavy on his cheek, and his eyes darted briefly up to mine for consent.

My lips parted slightly. I closed my eyes. He kissed me softly once and then again with lingering. I returned it, liking the warmth and moisture and the way his soft bottom lip fit between my full ones. We kissed more deeply for a while but finally he broke away slowly and gazed into my eyes.

“May I?” he asked quietly and his molten green eyes were filled with intent yearning as they flicked down to the waiting hand at the edge of my collar. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I couldn’t break eye contact as I nodded minutely.

The back of his hand stroked the exposed skin a few times, and he held my gaze as I felt him unbutton my buttons, I felt every one, down to my ribs. My breathing hitched as he slowly slid his warm hand inside the fabric.

My chest was rising and falling heavily now, and I know he felt my heart pound slow and hard as he pulled down the stretchy sheer fabric of my bra cup and I felt the cool hair hit my breast, hardening my nipple. His fingers danced lightly, inspiring a shiver and he pulled the collar down over my shoulder, until my neckline and breast were completely exposed to him. He slid his hand slowly down from the skin of my bare shoulder and began circling my nipple with the tip of one finger, teasing and tickling as light as a feather.

“Look how lovely you are.” It sounded like poetry. His hungry eyes dropped from mine, down to admire himself touching me, encouraging me to follow his lead.

I kept my eyes on him because I knew watching him pleasure me in that way would send me over, his touch already too much.

“May I?” he asked as his eyes flicked back up to mine, on fire with want—dangerously so. The air seemed lethargic, not urgent, like an elixir and each breath was a drink. My chin moved slightly without my permission, and I saw the corner of his mouth lift fractionally, in satisfaction, before lowering himself down to my breast.

His hot mouth began gently sucking and licking as his large hand slowly kneaded, while my hands gripped the edge of the seat, keeping my eyes fixed on the roof instead of on the beautiful man at my chest. He slowed and twirled his tongue, the contrast between the cool ventilated air and his mouth driving me wild inside, and then he affectionately licked me one last time.

“It’s only us, Gabrielle. No one else can see,” he assured in a smooth, deep voice, his breath fanning the moisture his lips left on my skin, and I felt like there was no one else in the world but him and me in the back of a black limo on a nameless street on a city night.

I couldn’t resist anymore, or didn’t want to, and I combed my fingers into his thick hair, pulling him in to me and a long moan of pleasure escaped me as he went back to his work. I felt his other hand on my knee and he rubbed it in signal, but I was already wet as my legs parted for him and he slowly slid his hand upwards.

His now ravenous mouth kissed and sucked its way higher, to my collarbone, then my neck. His hand slid under my hair and pulled me closer to him, my head rolling back granting him better access, his broad chest pressed against me. I felt his fingers graze me below gently, like a whisper, and my thighs spread further. He began rubbing me along with the tempo of his mouth at my neck, and I was moaning as my eyes fluttered closed and I let myself feel it completely.

I felt his finger hook the fabric before plunging it inside me and then another as he slowly pumped his long fingers in and out, and his thumb found me. I was moaning and breathing hard and the throbbing increased as I started to feel the rush and I pressed myself into his hand.

Suddenly, he removed his hand and my thighs squeezed, wanting it back, but his slick finger trailed across my thigh and he leaned completely over me as both his hands went to the sides of my panties, and I lifted off the seat as he slid them down my legs and off and let his hand stroke its way back up slowly. I looked at him, desperate for the release he denied me.

“May I kiss you, Gabrielle?” he asked smoothly, and to my ears it sounded like song. I gasped as his thumb strummed me like a master at his instrument and my breathing hitched because I realized what he was asking.

“Yes,” I gasped, panting as his fingers slid up and down against me and his eyes glinted with lust. He quickly removed his jacket and lowered himself to his knees on the carpeted floor in front of me and nudged his hips into my knees, spreading them wide to make room for himself between them.

He kissed his way slowly down my chest, sharply sliding me forward; opening my dress, then slipped a finger inside me again, quickly joined by another. My heart was fluttering as he got lower, and I felt his silky hair brush the inside of my thigh just before he reached his destination, feather light, and my whole body shuddered from the rush, his skilled tongue slowly teased me in circles.

His fingers pumped faster as his tongue began to swirl, and he lifted one leg over his shoulder and slid me closer to him as his talented tongue delved deeper. I combed my hands in his hair, pulling him right into my center, and he moaned with pleasure as he held me firmly against him while I writhed. I was still quaking from the aftershocks as he gently lifted my leg, setting it back down, and I felt his finger under my chin but I was still flying.

“You taste so good,” he said, and in one swift movement, he sat, yanking me on top of him in a straddle. He looked up at me through his dark lashes and he began teasing me with his fingers, and I’d thought I’d orgasm again on the spot. His other hand unfastened his pants, setting himself free. It was beautiful sight. “Now show me how good you are, Gabrielle,” he said in a husky tone with his eyes smoldering. I leaned down and licked his bottom lip because I liked the way it glistened and the way I tasted on him, in word and in flavor. His mouth curled a little in the corner as he pushed me down, onto him, around him, and we both groaned while he ground me down and slid me back up to the edge. The heat and size of him was jarring and comforting all at once as he shoved me back down.

I took over automatically and began rocking against him while his hands dug into my thighs. He leaned back in his seat watching me work, and his eyes were on fire as I felt his hand slip up my spine to my neck. Suddenly he jerked me against him, and I gasped as he put his lips to my ears.

“You’re so good now, aren’t you?” he taunted roughly, and at the sound of his voice I whimpered and ground against him again, but he just gripped my bottom tighter and shoved me harder down on him. “But you’ll have to do better than that for me.”

Without thought, I leaned my body back at an angle with his big hand on the small of my back, guiding me, and stretched my body out for him, raising my hands to press against the roof of the limo.

He grasped me with both hands then and moved me once and I instinctively followed his lead, pressing down on him hard, using the resistance and riding him with every inch of his length. The pace got more desperate, harder and harder, and I was making noise like a drowning woman, panting, gasping, as he filled me and took me, and he thrust up to meet me and then I was right at the edge again.

He groaned loudly and then slammed me down, dragging me against his chest, and then thrust up again, hitting the spot that caused me to burst. My body snaked against his hard chest in impatience, and I whimpered as I felt his lips at my ear in a hoarse growl. “Only I can do this, do you understand? Only me.”

Then he showed me what he meant. I heard his hard breath in my ear as he rocked me faster and faster, his hands gripped me tightly, and I clenched around him as I rode out wave after wave of euphoria with his body in mine. I felt weightless, suspended, my skin sparking all over. He leaned his head back and groaned as I felt him pulsing inside me, and I couldn’t stop until finally I collapsed on his chest and his arms encircled me.

We stayed like that for a few moments, calming our breathing as the air seemed to thin.

The electricity unplugged as the small static snaps silenced, and his body in mine began to seem foreign. Reality rejoined me, and I gingerly laid my hands on his chest to push myself off, his hands tightened. Our eyes met, but he relinquished his grip and when his body slid out of mine, it felt like mine took a deep breath.

He was still breathing heavily when he opened his eyes, wearing the same glazed over, vacant stare that I was sure my eyes reflected.

I rolled onto the seat, pushing myself into the far corner and began to button my dress and refasten my belt as I saw him reach for his jacket coat and slide it back on after he adjusted his pants and buttoned and tucked in his shirt. Back in order, like it was just nothing.

I felt every pothole and heard every hum of the city as the silence grew strained, caught in some vapid vacuum as my mind raced in loops of what the hell just happened like a skipping disc that wouldn’t stop. The cab of the limo was stagnant with the collateral damage left behind by the crashing of an uncontrollable wave.

I watched life roll past outside the window in streaks of bright lights because I didn’t like how I felt and this wasn’t who I was. This was empty. This was sex without love. This was sex without like. This was only lust. I knew; it felt good, but this wasn’t me. I wouldn’t let it be me. I felt brainwashed around him, disoriented, a stranger in my body, and it scared me.

I chanced a glance over at Daniel and couldn’t even be upset with him because his brows were knitted together and seemed to be just as deep in thought as I was. I wondered who he was thinking of. I felt the car coming to a halt, and when it did, I wordlessly opened the door, stepping one barefoot out onto the pavement and steadied myself.

“Take as much time as you need,” I said. “For Tristan. I want you to know that the door is always open. But I can’t do this anymore. This…whatever this is, it ends.”

I’d only gone a few steps when I heard the power window behind me. “Gabrielle.”

I turned. His eyes were hard. “You forgot these.” I closed the gap in two steps and snatched the forgotten panties off his fingers. The window rolled back up, and the car pulled away.

Chapter 16 - The Celestial Harvest

Jill peered down at the frosted mound. “What kind of cake is that?”

“It’s a race car from that movie,” I answered, arranging sugar eyes on the “windshield”.

“Dukes of Hazard?” Ian asked, leaning in above me.

“Cars,” I corrected. “It’s a movie about cars.” I angled my head to check to the proportions.

“Huh. Okay, I see it,” Vi said, then circled a finger over the front end. “Is this a post-collision effect happening here?”

“Violet, don’t you need to go snag a goodie bag for some boy-toy of yours?” Jill interjected.

“Oh, come on,” she said, leaning back. “They’re not that immature and neither am I.” She’d slid the elastic bands up her arms and adjusted two cone party hats on her shoulders. Coupled with her blue-streaked hair and galactic print dress, she looked like a rainbow doll gone metal. Ian chuckled.

“Good grief,” Jill rolled her eyes. “Ian, help me with these drinks.”

“You got it,” he said, grabbing two lemonade pitchers, eyes fixed pointedly on Jill’s back view as she exited.

“Huh. I thought Ian was a boob man,” Vi chuckled, popping a grape in her mouth.

“I’m a woman man, half-pint,” he called cheerfully over his shoulder. “If you got it, I like it. If you let me touch it, I like it even more.” We could hear an irrepressible grin in his voice.

Vi giggled. “What a putz.”

I squeezed more frosting on the headlight of the cake. It was a little droopy up front, but nothing more icing couldn’t fix. I felt Violet’s eyes on me as she spoke.

“Are you upset?” she asked carefully, perching on the counter. I stood back, eying my race car, piping bag in the air like a detective with his piece pointed securely to the sky. I was done. The car looked good. She was still staring at me. I exhaled a deep breath.

“What?” I said, eyes shifting to her.

Her lips quirked up in a wry look, revealing what I would call her “slim girl dimple”. Violet had full hips and chest, with a tiny flat waist but her neck shoulders and arms were more slender than her derrière implied. Too much definition in her bone structure for a full nail-peg dimple. That took baby fat. It was more like a deep crease. She deepened the look with a brow raised.

“I can’t be, really. Like I said, it’s been his choice all along,” I answered, attempting neutrality. I laid down my “piece” and began poking candles in the blue fondant frosting.

She was the only one who’d I’d confided in about inviting Daniel. What was the point? I’d received no reply, no RSVP. The email reminder invitation I’d sent him the day prior showed as unopened. We’d had no contact. He wasn’t coming. I stopped short of bitterly thinking he owed me, considering that meant my end had been paid for in full in a car ride.

My feelings were so mixed up they were hardly discernible in the emotional batter, but looking at the sloping front end of my pastry Mustang, I was commiserate. I wasn’t entirely sure who I was feeling that on behalf of anymore. He’d been just as absent from my sleep; it was a small favor.

I pressed the last candle in a little too vigorously.

“It is pretty crappy, though,” she empathized, studying the party horn in her hands as it twisted between manicured fingers. She always did them differently. They were black and gold French manicure this time—real gold leaf and all.

“It’s not important,” I bolstered—for both of us. “Today is a happy day and I’d rather not brood.” But I realized that’s exactly what I’d been doing. It would have to wait.

“That’s right. Because brooding is for who?” she said, her impish smile spreading.

“Teens in black eyeliner and James Dean?”

She chuckled. “No. It’s for losers.”

“That was my next guess.” I searched for a grin and came up short. Instead I reached for the cake and paused a moment, looking down over it. She patted my shoulder, letting her hand linger there.

I smiled a synthetic smile, and she did the same as we lit the candles and headed for the small group of excited children waiting in the dining room. Then there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” I said, passing Violet the cake.

I licked the blue icing off my thumb before opening the door. The man standing on the other side surprised me, in all black, cradling a brightly wrapped box under one arm, and a giant gift bag spouting rainbow tissue paper in the other. We took each other in.

“Don’t look so happy to see me,” Zack said.

“I’m always happy to see you, Zack,” I assured, a welcoming smile dawning on my face, realizing I was very happy indeed. “Always.” I gripped him in a hug. The gift bag he held crunched, then thudded landing on the ground, and an arm encircled my waist.

“You sure are turning into a hugger, Bree,” he observed. He smelled of city wind and motorcycle leather.

“Turning over a new leaf,” I joked. I was sure he wasn’t coming. We hadn’t spoken since my visit, and I had counted him out completely. I hadn’t been looking forward to explaining that to Tristan.

More seriously, he said, “Ya happy, Bree?’

“Sure,” I said, releasing him. “Come on in.”

Tristan dropped what he was doing upon seeing Uncle Zack and came over to show his friends the tattoos, which drew many ooh’s and ahh’s. Even Chen’s mom, Annie, the only parent who volunteered to stay, seemed impressed by the exhibition.

I lit the candles and we all cheerfully sang “Happy Birthday” before having cake and opening presents. Tristan and a few of his guests were ogling his new mini telescope courtesy of August when there was a knock. Probably an early pick-up, I began to lift from my seat, but August smiled, directing me, “Relax. I’ll get it.”

“Mr. Baird,” August said, sounding surprised. My head spun in equal surprise.

Daniel gave August an appraising once over. “I’m here by request of Ms. Valentine.”

“Yes, of course,” he inclined. “Come in.”

Daniel took one long step past August—who threw me a bewildered look—and into my small apartment. He was in a leather jacket, blue jeans covering his long legs. The casualness of his attire seemed half of what had startled August. It’s started me too, when he wore the same to take me away. Still it didn’t negate an ounce of Daniel’s presence of authority as he entered. He surveyed the room with vague indifference, lingering on no one but assessing. I could see Zack’s mind struggling to place the late arrival then Jill leaned in for a whisper. Understanding clicked when he visibly bristled and his eyes tightened.

All of a sudden, the room seemed very, very small. As though all the air was escaping a balloon with an almost audible leak. Deflating. I hadn’t considered this beforehand, but it seemed like too much male for my little condo. Too many alphas. Daniel saw me and looked down at my hands. The blue frosting dye staining my cuticles. August approached his side.

“Daniel, please come in. Let’s get you some cake,” August said warmly.

I felt a tug at my sleeve, it was a little girl named Maddie, wearing a frown to accompany the lemonade stain soaking her dress. I got her cleaned up and dressed in a fresh aquarium shirt with soccer shorts. I was swept up tending to the birthday boy and his guests, stealing occasional glances towards Daniel. Kid problems were easy. Adult problems, not so much.

Daniel was engaged in conversation with August, and Ian joined in. I silently thanked them. Zack and Jill, normally civil adversaries, had suddenly found common ground as they spoke in whispers beside the television console. Violet flitted around working on her love/fear with small children as she mimed funny impressions, then squeaking as they got too near her designer dress with sticky cake fingers. It was only then I noticed I wasn’t the only one stealing glances; I caught Tristan taking Daniel in curiously above the heads of his buddies. He must have remembered him from their encounters prior, and at least the dirty look from Del Posto was gone. These were definitely uncharted waters.

The kids decided to take the new toys and play with Herman, Tristan’s lizard, and when Ian, Annie, and Vi joined us at the lizard tank in his bedroom, I was able to break away. I found Daniel sitting on the sofa alone distracted with his phone. On his lap were a set of keys, which he pocketed. Even in the mundane act, the man was photo worthy. He could grace any cover just as he was, and it would sell. He tucked the phone away, too, leaning back into the seat. I took the seat beside him. Many awkward seconds ensued, and I chastised myself mentally. He was leaning back, his leather against the leather of the sofa. I glanced at him, at his profile, catching a glimpse the center peak of his lip where it sloped at the cupid’s bow, under his sculpted masculine nose. I’d seen him in all forms of undress, shouldn’t I be able to break the ice with him? No words came easy. Our ice felt as fragile as winter’s first spidery freeze on an endless lake, no land in sight ahead. The nerves took over.

“So, what do you think?” I asked tentatively, lacing my fingers together on my lap. It came out loaded. I suddenly felt cheesy, like a salesman who’d just asked ‘now that you’ve had a test drive, are you ready to sign?’

“It seems enjoyable,” he answered carefully, and I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the party or if he’d just called Tristan an ‘it’.

“Yeah, it’s not so bad,” I replied, really unsure where the heck we were going with this. I shook my head and looked up with a watery smile. He turned to me and took a moment to study my face, then turned away.

“August informed me you made the cake,” he commented after a moment, his voice deep and clear.

“I did,” I said, re-lacing my fingers.

“It’s lovely,” he complimented politely, and I followed his line of vision towards the mutilated remains of the pastry that was formerly in the shape of a race car. I chuckled because at no stage was my bakery effort ‘lovely’, and he seemed to relax beside me.

“I didn’t bring a gift.”

“That’s okay.”

“I can write a check if you’d like,” he offered.

I chuckled. “That’s probably not a good idea. He’d just shred it and use it as bedding for Herman,” I mused. He cocked a brow above a curious green eye.

“His lizard,” I expanded. “He loves that reptile.”

“I can make it out to you, then,” he reoffered.

“That’s okay,” I said mildly. “This is enough.” After a pause, I noticed a pinch in his forehead seemed to smooth away. I wondered if it was suspicion. And then I wondered if he’d been testing me.

I stared at the blank television screen.

“I mean that, you know,” I said honestly. I turned to him again and although his gaze was focused on me completely, I had no idea what was going through his mind just then. His hand reached upward and I stayed totally still as his thumb brushed across my lip in a gentle stroke. I opened my mouth to object, because that door was closed, it had to be, but he seemed to understand before the words formed and dropped his hand.

“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Zack snapped, suddenly standing on the other side of the coffee table, chest heaving. “Don’t you look at her like that.”

Daniel didn’t move from his relaxed position on the sofa, but I sensed the leather accommodate more weight, as if the tension strung him heavier. He assessed Zack.

“What business is it of yours?” he asked, civilly.

“She’s my business,” Zack rebutted, pointing a long possessive finger to me. “In fact, I’d like to show you how much of this mess you left behind is my business right now. Outside.”

“Zack, calm down,” I said nervously. His eyes went back to Daniel, who was undaunted.

“I should kill you, you know that?” he hissed furiously, but I saw the pain behind his eyes. “You scumbag. She was mine and you had to take her. You took advantage of her.”

Daniel’s tone raised hairs on my neck. “You shouldn’t speak of things of which you know nothing,” Daniel said in the chilling tone and rose to his feet. I followed suit after unsuccessfully trying to keep him down by pulling his forearm. Zack stepped forward, breathing hard, and we were drawing a crowd.

“Shut your mouth! I don’t care who you think you are, you pompous prick. You took advantage of her. You preyed on the weakest thing you could find,” he erupted. “She was just a girl! She was fresh off the turnip truck who didn’t know shit about predators like you. She didn’t know shit about the world! And you used her up!” he spat. I winced, partly offended, partly saddened by the truth in it.

“She was no girl,” Daniel said, simply, but taking his time, letting his words sink in. “Perhaps if you’d realized that, you would have gotten there first.” His lip twitched up, ever so slightly. Zack nostrils flared, along with my eyes.

“Shut your mouth right now! Bree wouldn’t go near a guy like you in a million years. I know what you did. Did you get her drunk first? Did you drug her?” he accused. “Did you rape her, you prick?”

August and I both gasped. “Zack,” Jill said slowly.

Daniel’s eyes only flickered at the insult then drilled down into Zack. “Do not mistake it, she was willing,” he said, slowly, savoringly. “She begged for me. And when I was done, she wanted nothing else.”

My mouth fell open. Time stood still for a moment.

Zack looked horrified then something wild took over his eyes. A muscle twitched involuntarily in the corner of Daniel’s mouth; a smile.

“Motherfucker,” Zack snapped, cocking back a balled fist filled with fury and rage. Zack had the poise of a prized fighter, but there too much baggage in that fist, and too much warning. There was a quick movement from Daniel, so fast it was a blur, followed by a gruesome cracking sound. Then Zack crumpled to the floor.

“No!” I gasped, leaping over the table. Jill and August rushed over as well.

“Zack, oh Zack,” I pleaded as I cradled his head. He groaned as he reached up limply and wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. I turned back. Daniel flexed his hand, just barely.

“He needs ice,” I said quickly to Jillian. She swiftly returned with the icepack we kept in the freezer. I laid it against his face, covering both his lip and cheek.

“Cheap shot,” Zack mumbled, his eyes fluttering open at my voice.

“You’re welcome to try again,” Daniel said.

“What is wrong with you?” Jill burst out. Daniel had snapped out of whatever self-satisfied trance he was in as he looked from Zack’s bleeding face to my wounded one. Anger flashed in his eyes. He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut once, and turned his back to the scene.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he said.

“I think that’s a tooth,” Jill observed. August crouched beside me and laid a hand on my shoulder. I nodded and we switched places. He cradled Zack and began a more thorough assessment.

I found Daniel sitting on the sofa. He was bent over, his head held by his hands. I sat down beside him, reeling from the exchange.

“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know he was going to do that. I didn’t invite you here for confrontation. That wasn’t…” I stopped and shook my head to clear it. Daniel would be the scapegoat in this fiasco, but it was Zack’s hot temper that instigated.

“This was a mistake,” he intoned solemnly, and I had no reply. It was then I noticed Tristan gingerly crossing the living room.

Peachy. Ian shrugged innocently from where he filled the widening crack of the bedroom door where Tristan had escaped. Violet peeked behind Ian’s wide torso, her eyes saucered before she ducked back in the room. Ian put on a smile and said something over his shoulder before closing the door and heading to Jill.

Tristan took one last timid step towards us. “What happened, Mommy?” he asked worriedly. His curious eyes shifted to Uncle Zack, who moaned on the floor under August’s care. When Daniel heard that small voice, his whole body tensed beside me. His hands moved away from his face, but his elbows remained rested on his wide knees. His head stayed down.

I focused on Tristan. “Honey, it was an accident. Please go back in with Aunt Violet and your friends,” I pleaded gently.

Tristan turned from me, addressing Daniel’s bowed head. “Did you hurt him?” he asked. Daniel seemed to brace before slowly looking up to meet the small boy’s eyes.

He studied Tristan’s face for a moment and intoned sincerely, “I apologize for the disruption. I’ll go.” He tensed to get up. Instead, a look of frustration struck him before he looked down at his spread hands, palms wide, and let them fall useless between his knees. Cautiously, Tristan reached out to him. He laid his small hand on the shoulder of Daniel’s leather jacket. He petted it tenderly.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to leave my birthday,” he empathized. “I forgive you.”

Daniel looked up. He gazed at my son, blinking once. Tristan smiled genuinely, watching him back, and patted the leather on Daniel’s shoulder again.

August interrupted the moment. “I think it may be best if Mr. Baird leaves for now, Tristan.” We looked up. He cleared his throat. “Zack needs to see a doctor, and these children will be picked up soon. I think it may be best, for now, if he left.”

“Me, too,” Jill said tartly.

“Me, three,” Zack muttered from the floor.

Ian only folded his arms and stood beside Jill.

Whatever moment had happened between my son and Daniel quickly passed. Daniel narrowed his eyes and rose from the sofa. Tristan stepped back. Daniel towered overhead taking in the impromptu posse now with new vision, as if he’d forgotten them. I was grateful when he swiftly stepped around my coffee table and headed for the door. I hurried behind to see him out—and lock the door.

He stopped to grab the doorknob and I bumped into his back. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I said more clearly into his eyes and wrung my hands. I hadn’t intended it to be an ambush.

He looked at my hands, “Don’t be,” he replied roughly.

We stayed silent when he reached up and cupped my chin in his hand, stroking my bottom lip.

“He’s touching her!” Zack shouted, snapping my attention to him and a room filled with a healthy amount of animosity. Jill was giving a maximum shit-stare, and Zack looked ready to puke or shoot. Tristan, mild boy, slowly laid down the ice pack he’d been holding against Zack’s cheek. Daniel’s gaze finally broke away from me, his face was something to behold; fury, rage, and fire, not without beauty.

“Save your self-righteousness,” he snapped, treating them to a glare of his own. “Where were you that night she was lost and alone? Left in the company of a stranger?” He shot the words back at them, his eyes brewing withering condemnation; he glowered evenly among my avengers. I felt helpless as they shrunk beneath it. Daniel’s gaze finally landed on Tristan, it hardened with resolve. “It’s time you told him who his father is,” he intoned. Tristan’s eyes became round as tea saucers, he looked up, awed. Daniel blazed boldly, but in taking in Tristan’s expression, something wavered.

He reached for the door and then he was gone.

When I tried to go back to aiding Zack, he rebuked.

“Get me out of here.” He clicked his teeth angrily then blinked from pain.

“Excuse me?” I said.

He squinted angrily. “That’s the fuckin’ guy? Really?” I bit my lip.

August wrapped an arm around Zack and hoisted him off the ground. August steadied him as he walked past me without sparing a glance, squeezing his side from his fall onto Tristan’s new toy helicopter.

“When he bails on you, don’t call.”

The rest of the children went home, followed by my friends. Annie was last to leave and asked about the ruckus. I apologized for the disruption, but she waved it off, and something about her quietness made me think she’d seen some things in her time. I then spent the following hour trying to get my oldest and most faithful friend’s blood out of my rug.

Tristan had gone straight in for a nap after his guests went home, but when he woke up that evening for dinner, we sat on his bed for a talk. Like all things, he made it easy.

“So my dad is Daniel,” he said. Maybe only the fourth time.

“He is, darling.”

He scrunched his face. “Does he like the museum?”

“I’m not sure. You can ask him, though.”

“When do I see him?”

“I’m not sure, honey.”

“Does this mean you will get married?”

I picked at a loose strand in the comforter. “No. It’s not really like that.”

He watched me. “Okay. I have friends whose mommies aren’t married to their daddies.”

I nodded.

“I have friends whose mommies are married to mommies.” He tilted his head. “Are you going to marry Jill?”

I laughed. “No, dear, I most certainly will not be marrying Jillian.” He looked relieved, but I thought that was only because it left her available.

“Honey,” I said seriously, “I may never marry anyone.”

“That’s okay,” he said quietly. “But Daniel is still my dad, right?”

“Yes,” I said. My son’s gaze held such pure and unadulterated amazement that I lent him a small smile, in apology or reassurance, I couldn’t say. The smile was returned, and as torn as I was, somehow it was worth it.

Then curiously he asked, “Was Uncle Zack picking on you today?”

“No. Why?” I puzzled.

“I pushed the boy at school. ‘Member?” he replied guiltily. I nodded, taking his hand.

“Why did you do that, honey?” I probed.

“I used to think August was my dad because I’m like him,” Tristan said. He shook his head. “But, I’m like my dad.”

That earned him a shrewd puzzling look, but it was past bedtime.

I was restless that night. I tossed and turned. Aside from the melee, Daniel hadn’t RSVP’d in any way. He spent most of the party after he did arrive looking bored or borderline disinterested. I thought a lot about the look he’d given. That look when he exited made me think he was second guessing announcing that he was Tristan’s birth father. If he’d merely made that impulse announcement as a power play over my wary friends, I could never forgive him, even from a distance. But if he broke Tristan’s heart, I would let Zack fulfill his wish for payback. Finally checking those two plans off my preparedness list, I slept.

By mid-morning the next day I was sitting behind the counter working hard on a new distribution offer, yawning through my third sugary soda. Ian had called with the update; Zack was fine and had scored a date with the on-duty physician’s assistant. Never one to miss an opportunity. I opened a fourth can of caffeine-laden soda. I had to put my focus where it counted—my family and my work. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but the deal I was working on could be big for us.

I began going through my Monday morning emails until I got to one that stopped me in my tracks.

I want to see him.

D. Baird

I closed it and opened it again. I hit refresh. It was still there.

I replied to Daniel and had moved on to reading work emails when I heard the click of heels. Violet approached upset about the DJ for her runway show cancelling. He decided she was too mainstream. “I offered to increase the fee, but what’s a guy who wears superhero helmets so principled about?’ she complained. “I’ll figure it out. Wait a sec, why do you look so spacey?”

“I; we, have been asked to Daniel’s tonight,” I corrected. “He wants to spend time with Tristan.”

Her mouth formed a little o. “Whoa.”

I paused. “Good whoa? Bad whoa?”

“Whoa, whoa.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I said yes.”

I expected condescension—or outright protest. But finally she leaned on the counter, tapping her fingers on the marble.

Appraising me, she asked, “So, what are you going to wear?’

Chapter 17 - Reap What’s Sown

We exchanged a round of emails and came up with a time. At five o’clock exactly we were standing on the stone stoop of Daniel’s Central Park townhouse mansion.

Tristan was holding my hand on the stoop and the other held his wheeled backpack, carefully packed. He’d toiled over that. Not Candy Land, too baby, yes to Jenga because they could talk while they played, he’d explained. He even insisted on wearing solid color underpants instead of the cartoon ones; he wanted to be a big boy. I decided on a sensible outfit of a thin long sleeve white T-shirt and slim blue jeans with my khaki trench coat. I figured that was suitable and tried not to over think it. I contemplated calling August, just out of nerves, but it was my call. That’s what August would have told me.

Standing in front of the three-story townhouse with his head tilted all the way back to glimpse the rooftop trellis railing, Tristan looked like a child in miniscule proportion. When I picked him up from school and asked him if he’d like to go see Daniel, it was clear the answer was yes.

“Which floor is his?” he puzzled, voice strained by his craned neck.

“All of them.” I smiled. His mouth formed a little o.

Properly impressed, I smoothed my ponytail and clanged the knocker. I normally would have rapped knuckles, but I thought he’d enjoy that. I was right. Moments later, it opened. It was Jeeves again. His droll expression unmistakable. He must have been doing dishes because, oddly, he had yellow kitchen gloves up to his elbows.

“Ms. Valentine,” he said politely, widening the door. This was quite the turnaround, manner wise. I thanked him and ushered Tristan inside.

Past the entry, the sconces were lit despite dusk’s bruised light still streaming in, yet with the new light it was somehow harsher than last time. I found myself glancing towards the dining room. I had a visual flashback of sweat-covered bodies and sinful moans—then promptly shoved all memories of ‘last time’ into a bucket and down a bottomless well. I was sure the dessert trolley had needed replacing, but this was not the time to reminisce.

My footfalls rung hollow against the marble floors, and ‘Jeeves’, as I’d thus anointed him, took the coat my son was shrugging out of. I didn’t think anything of it when he didn’t offer me the same courtesy. He gestured to us with an impatient noise as Tristan took his time taking everything in, and when we followed he delivered us to a sitting room. Daniel was there, sitting in a high back chair, stone faced, and gazing intently into an unlit hearth. He looked to me, and his eyes stayed there as he rose, in dark slacks and dress shirt, black with thin gray stripes down to angular silver cufflinks. I found myself holding my breath.

The first few buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing a peek of his solid chest. His hair was less orderly, too, not a bad look with the five o’clock shadow shading his dimpled chin. When his eyes travelled back up to my face, they had the same look they’d had that night in the limo. He paused, letting me see it, then spoke.

“Ms. Valentine,” he addressed, I was taken aback by his formality. But it was what I needed, a cool dash of water on the sparking ember.

“Hello, Daniel. You remember Tristan.” I smiled, aiming for friendly, lightly squeezing my son’s hand. Tristan let go to step forward, pulling his backpack behind him.

“Of course,” Daniel remarked, as he looked down at our guest. Hiking a pant leg, he crouched down, extending a strong hand. “Hello, young man.”

“Call me Tristan,” he smiled wryly, shaking Daniel’s hand with vigor. Daniel looked a touch rueful, his eye crinkling in the corner.

“You have a really big house,” Tristan commented, looking around.

“Thank you,” Daniel replied, shameless. I rolled my eyes.

“Why is it so empty though?” Tristan probed, glancing around. The house itself has loads of character. Original trim work and mantle, I guessed. Fine expensive furniture, but aside from a stocked bookcase, every surface either spotlessly clear or a prop for impersonal art. It was lacking personal touches—like those cluttering our home. Immaculate…like a mausoleum.

Daniel blinked without taking his attention off Tristan. “It has been like this a long time,” he replied.

There was a note in his voice. Tristan noticed, too. “I can draw some pictures for you,” he offered charitably. Then looked at Daniel’s wrist, complimenting, “I like your watch.”

Daniel arched a brow quizzically and eyed the polished steel, seemingly checking for changes since he put it on in the morning. “It is rather sparkly,” he decided.

Tristan nodded. “I like the leather one better, but the Bentley is my favor-wit.”

I cleared my throat awkwardly. He ignored me. “You know timepieces?” he inquired interestedly.

“Yeah. Mostly Bwietlings. That’s what the pilots wear,” Tristan explained. “I don’t like Rolex too much.” He shrugged precociously.

“An interesting hobby,” Daniel said, appraising Tristan like the cleverest pup in the litter.

“Yes, quite the curious interest for a toddler.”

My head snapped up seeking the person who’d spoken. I heard a book slam closed. Kate Hearst stood from the high back chair that had its back faced to us, sauntering forward.

“I’m not a toddler,” Tristan corrected, brows furrowed, looking up. “I’m five.”

Kate stared down. “My mistake,’ she said quietly. Her throat seemed to have caught as her hand went to the sea pearls nesting in her collar. Finally she said, “Hello, I’m Kate.”

Tristan muffled, “Nice to meet you,” grudgingly, unhappy about being embarrassed by her comment. No hand extended either.

She smiled warmly, “So what is this watch fetish about?” she pursued, reminding me of her cruelty parading around baby Nathan to be humiliated.

“My…August teaches me about them. He’s got a lot.”

“A lot of jewelry? Or money.”

“Kate,” Daniel warned, sliding his eyes to her.

“No, watches,” Tristan replied, like duh. Daniel’s lip twitched up.

I interjected. “August, our friend, is an avid watch collector. Tristan is curious.” I smiled proudly. Truthfully, if people knew the vast extent of August’s watch and shoe collections, his heterosexual image would undoubtedly be questioned.

Daniel looked put out about August’s name being touted in his home but not half as put out as I was about Kate’s cameo. “Were you just leaving?” I asked interestedly but politely.

Her face pinched together unpleasantly then relaxed, even softening, as she cozied nearer Daniel. “On the contrary, Daniel asked me to share in this experience with him. Such a blessing.” She was nailing the June Cleaver act, completed by a fitted lavender blouse and skinny beige slacks. I frowned.

Daniel shot her a look. “I thought it wise to have a female present,” he said, and paused, casting a hesitant glance downward. “In the event of an accident.”

All three—Daniel, Jeeves, and Kate—looked down at Tristan’s roller case like it was already filled with soil and poo. Jeeves tugged at his gloves and Tristan tensed beside me. Kate hid a grimace at the prospect but looked ready to face any number of unspeakable horrors for her cause.

“This was a bad idea.” I announced, wheeling around with my son in tow. We made it to the hall. “What?” I said sharply as Daniel hooked my arm, spinning me.

“It was a precautionary measure,” he said, glancing down uncertainly at Tristan. “Nothing more.”

With my cub at my side, I was feeling more than a little defensive. “He’s five, Daniel. Not two. And he’s a boy, not a hamster. Whether or not there’s more to it than that is not my concern. You’re entitled to your private life just as much as I’m entitled to mine.” At this last caveat, his jaw clenched. I’d only added it as a manner of speech, so as not to say ‘You can sleep with half the island, while I watch Steel Magnolias on my couch with August and a bucket of cheese snacks every Saturday night for the rest of life’, but it just didn’t have the same ring to it.

But he’d intuited something. He tightened his grip, drawing me nearer, searching my eyes.

“I will get rid of her. I didn’t know you would stay.”

I hadn’t discussed it when I got the invite but looking at that peek of perfect tan chest right at eye level, there was no way she was just the sitter. She was disposable. Maybe we all were to him. Peripherally, Kate came into view, making her way towards us. Her expression unguarded and wounded, meeting me in the same hallway she’d discovered me before. I felt memories of this house and this proximity being towed from the well—and a squeeze of my hand from a much smaller one.

I wanted to say forget it. Be petty, pack up my son and run. But that’s not what this was about. If Daniel married her, this would be his stepmother. There was simply nothing to be done for it. And if I turned the table now, I’d look like the bad guy in the eyes of my son.

I had to make a decision.

I knelt down to the boy beside me.

“Honey, would you still like to stay?” I asked my son. His head bobbed up and down enthusiastically. ‘Don’t mess up, Mom’, that’s what that look said. No pressure.

I didn’t look up as the entourage joined us. “I’ll be back in exactly two hours,” I promised him, wiping the butterscotch fringe from his forehead. “Do you have your watch? Good.” I took a marker out of my bag and permanently marked a round dot on the seven through the plastic screen of his Swatch. “When the little hand is all the way here, I’ll be back,” I said, shooting a glance at Kate.

He huffed. “I can tell time, Mom.” He couldn’t, not always, he just didn’t want to be the little boy. My little boy. This was going to hurt. I stood, plowing ahead before I lost nerve.

“All his things are in his bag. He’ll show you. He has cheese for his sandwich, and bread, he only likes certain types. Just toast it for him. And he drinks whole milk, not soy, or nut milk, or skim. There’s spare everything, he should be covered. He has some movies that are okay for him to watch if he wants—call me for so much as an ant bite,” I paused, adding confidently. “This should be the easiest two hours of your life.” Tristan could take care of himself—and both these hangers-on’s— without ruffling a hair. I knelt again and gave him a big hug, my lips buried in his hair.

“You have your sprayer, right?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Keep it on you. Just in case,” I said sweetly.

“Mom, I don’t need my mace!” he flushed.

I pulled back, tucking his hair back. “Let’s not be hasty, love,” I smiled tightly, darting my vision towards Kate, who stood close to Daniel. My eyes shifted between them, reading her body language. He was treating her with his ordinary distance but no hostility. They’d clearly reconciled. I felt my cheeks grow warm.

“Okay,” Tristan acquiesced—then he looked up at Daniel. “I need to use the bathroom.” Daniel gave a delegating glare to Kate. The expression on her face was comical as she and Jeeves led him away, taking his bag.

Daniel was watching me, trying to solve some inner riddle, and I realized my expression must be somewhat forlorn.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” I reminded him and turned to leave before I lost strength. By the time I reached the door, I knew what was coming.

“Look at me, Gabrielle,” he ordered.

“What?” I snapped as I turned around, unable to disobey.

My eyes had sprung a leak. He looked taken aback by it.

“You must know that is the only reason she’s here,” he pressed, speaking forcefully in a hushed tone, not for privacy’s sake. “I didn’t know you would stay. I didn’t think you would wish to.”

He was really close. I could smell him.

I sighed. “Daniel, I had no intention of staying. Really. It’s just tough leaving him,” I met his eyes to make him believe it. He was being vulnerable because he pitied me. “That’s all.”

He iced over and descended down the hall. Two hours, I reminded myself and left.

I had wanted to stay, I told myself, but only for Tristan. I took a cleansing breath and crossed the street to the park to wait.

~o~

“Mom, can you make me a sandwich?” Tristan asked as we got home, plopping his bag on the floor.

“Didn’t you eat already?” I asked concernedly, joining him where he sat at the table with his crayons. “I sent your grilled cheese stuff.”

“I had one already,” he said bashfully. “But I want one of yours.”

If fireworks could combust in one’s heart, it was the fourth of July in my chest. I whipped up the gooiest toastiest grilled cheese in history and joyfully watched him munch away.

God, I didn’t want to pry but, “How was it?” I asked. He frowned confusedly at the plate. “Not the sandwich.” At seven o clock exactly I’d found him fully packed up, sitting at the foot of the staircase playing jacks—alone save for the butler.

“Oh. It was okay,’ he shrugged. “Daniel seems pweety cool.” The more tired or nervous he became, the more his r became w.

“Is that what he asked you to call him?” I ventured gingerly. He shrugged again. This was the man who’d said he was never meant to be a father, I reminded myself. Not equipped for Dad yet, but that was okay.

“And how was Kate?” I probed, wetting my finger and picking up buttery crumbs from his plate, the picture of nonchalance.

“She was nice,” he answered briefly—then blushed down at his drawing, the same way he did for strawberry blonde Jill. Blondes. My kid was in to blondes. Game match for the hussy. Oh wait, she was the fiancée, I mentally corrected—the hussy was me.

“So what did you do?” I continued. Okay, I was digging.

He yawned. “I dunno. We played some games. Daniel watched but then his head hurt so he went upstairs. Kate played some more,” he trailed off. “Mostly it was just Jeeves and me. He’s not that gweat at Jacks.”

“Jeeves?” I repeated, alarmed—I must have slipped. I retraced my verbal steps and don’t know when I did.

“Daniel’s house manager with the funny nose,” he explained while wiggling the aforementioned feature. That would most certainly be the butler. Daniel Baird had a weak chinned, tails wearing butler, named Jeeves.

Chapter 18 - Uncharted Terrain

The following day at school Tristan proudly announced to classmates he had a dad. His name was Daniel, and he was tall. He didn’t say much more than that, almost like he was keeping it for himself. Ari caught me up on this when he called that evening, querying if this was a real or imaginary revelation. It was real, I informed him.

Incredibly, I got a message a week later. And the next, and so on. He wanted to spend time with Tristan. He wanted to know him. Though it was only a few hours on weekday afternoons, it was unexpected. I knew things were broiling at BarclayBaird between information from August and Ian, and what I read in the papers. I guess I should have been impressed he was making time in the midst all that for Tristan.

When I asked Tristan about his visits, he was cheerfully vague. Or maybe those were all the details his five-year-old mind found significant, and it was only my own adult curiosity being unsatisfied.

“We watched a movie,” he said, as I welcomed him home after his third visit to Daniel’s. Jeeves had escorted him home in the limo. Daniel’s limo. Tristan was so excited it was impossible to say no, but the truth is traffic was murder so I allowed it.

“That sounds fun. Which one?”

“The Lion King.”

“Did he enjoy that?” I smiled. One of his favorites. One of our favorites, actually. Tristan always snuggled during conflict scenes.

He considered the question thoughtfully. “He liked it. Except at the end he said he didn’t understand why Mufasa didn’t kill Scar in the beginning of the movie. He said it would save everyone the trouble.” My mouth fell open. “I think he’s right,” Tristan added. “Do you know why he didn’t kill Scar, mom?”

“Because that’s not the way you solve problems, honey,” I replied. He looked perplexed. “Mufasa gave his brother his chance. His was kind. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But Scar killed him,” he said, his head tilting to the other side.

He’d saved the hard questions for me, and it was difficult to argue that logic in hindsight.

“It, it just, it would have been wrong.” He didn’t look satisfied.

“Just at the house?” I continued. “Was anyone there?”

“Kate came over,” he said shyly.

Of course.

“That’s nice,” I said. “How is she?”

When Tristan didn’t answer immediately, I saw he was watching me open garbanzo beans for this week’s hummus. I turned the hand crank on my can opener more gingerly. “She’s okay,” he said. “She’s getting me a suit.”

“A suit?”

“We’re going out to dinner next Friday. To get my calamari.” He blushed. A public outing…I needed a moment to process. He hadn’t consulted me on that.

“And you need a suit for that?” I understood the outing, but it was only Del Posto, I assumed.

He fiddled with the fish stick on his plate, rolling it in sauce. “Daniel said I should have a suit.”

I turned to face him, placing a hand on a hip. “You have one, honey. It’s right in your closet.”

“I know.” I watched him closely as he withheld. He always told me everything. I felt a stir of jealousy.

“Well,” I said, wiping my hands on the kitchen towel hanging off the oven handle, then balling it up on the counter. “I suppose the one we have is getting a bit tight. A new suit wouldn’t hurt.”

He grinned, wide and sincere. I smirked. “Since when do you like wearing suits so much?” I teased, refolding my kitchen towel and hanging it back on the handle.

When I looked back he was playing with his food once more, hiding a hot pink blush on his cream apple cheeks. I sighed. Damned blondes.

The next day at work, I was shuffling through orders. Vi walked up.

“Why the long face?” she asked. I looked up. She was wearing a modern magenta get-up that was cut like a trapezoid.

I guffawed. “Mr. Finley would be proud.” He’d been our high-school Algebra teacher.

“It’s a social commentary the algorithm of life,” she explained, haughtily. “At least you’re smiling.” She grinned.

“I’m busy.”

“You need to get laid.”

‘Excuse me?”

“That’s right. I said it.” She smiled.

“Been there, done that.”

“It’s not a tattoo, Bree. You don’t get it done once and cross it of your bucket list. It’s a continual thing. You know, as in the human race?” she quipped back.

“Not for me,” I said, tossing down the stack. “I got my tramp stamp. I’m good.” She laughed. I didn’t want to discuss it.

“This is about Daniel,” she responded. “I know, don’t bother denying it. Tristan is growing up, Gabrielle. You have to face it. Daniel’s boinking what’s-her-face but don’t stop living before you ever get started.”

I sighed, sitting back in my chair.

“See? I know that look. That’s the ‘Dear God, Violet is making sense right now, what the heck is wrong with me’ look.” I scowled at her cheerfulness. “Listen. Seriously. You’ll always have Tristan, and he’s got a new person who’s only one fiftieth, no, one one-hundredth of his life, but he’s having fun. He’s happy. And Daniel…is less looming than before. But still hot,” she said, and I was losing her. “Still totally hot. But my point is, you need to get a life of your own now, too.”

“Did you just tell me to get a life?”

She bobbed her head. “Yes, ma’am.”

I peered at her. “It’s weird when you put on a Virginian accent whilst dressed like a spaceship.”

She laughed and began moving my soda can like a robot. “Gabrielle. Take me to your leader,” she chanted, and I was laughing as the door dinged. It was our bike messenger. He entered the showroom wearing a dark green garment bag hooked into the back of his bike jacket. From the front it looked like he was wearing an over-starched cape.

“Hi, Jeremy,” Vi purred and revealed a brow angled suggestively towards me.

“Don’t try it,” I muttered as I tried looking busy.

“Jeremy, you’re single, right?” Vi probed.

He looked put on the spot. Probably because he was. Jeremy was our usual bike messenger, but we kept it professional. His confusion cleared and he replied, “I’m not seeing anybody, if that’s what you mean.”

“Interesting,” she said coyly. I flashed her a look, and she straightened to leave. “I’ll have to find a girl to set you up with some time.” She gave me a sly grin that Jeremy couldn’t have seen and wiggled her fingers as she walked off.

“Don’t mind her,” I said. “What do you have for me?”

“Just this, milady,” I blushed. He unhooked the garment bag and spread it on the counter. Jeremy was all-American—sandy blonde with dark hazel eyes. Slightly round face and a body like, well, a cyclist. Looks wise, he could be Lance Armstrong’s boyish younger brother.

“Thank you,” I said, pausing for a moment seeing the sender of the bag: Daniel Baird.

“No prob.” Jeremy smiled. “I want to let you know I won’t be running this route for much longer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” He had been the only messenger we had used since we started and was popular with our neighborhood. He was fast, and in New York City that made you an asset.

“It’s a good thing,” he grinned, continuing, “I’ve been doing this to pay the bills, but I moved here really for my comedy and improv. I have to throw myself into it, no safety net. Plus an opportunity just came along for a side project I’ve been working on. It put a little money in my pocket.”

“Congratulations. That sounds exciting.” I smiled.

“Thanks. I’ll help choose my replacement. This route meant a lot to me.”

“That’s sweet,” I replied, unzipping the emerald green hanging bag.

“I’m not sure how to ask this, but seeing as this may be my last chance, would you like to go out sometime?”

It was my turn to look put on the spot. He chuckled. “No pressure. I’ve been wanting to ask for over a year now. With me leaving and with Violet’s question just now, it seems like kismet.” He smiled wide.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, truthfully.

“I didn’t mean to catch you off guard. You’re probably seeing someone,” Jeremy hedged.

I only had to pull back a corner of the bag to see. “Actually, I’m not,” I stated, feeling suddenly lonely.

His eyes crinkled with his grin. “There’s a new play opening Off-Broadway tonight I’m going with some friends. Afterwards we’ll probably go score some dogs down at Lupe’s on 52nd. You want to join?”

I thought about Violet’s words as I zipped up Tristan’s new suit and laid it over my desk. He would look great tonight at Del Posto.

“Sure,” I said. He asked that we exchange numbers then he left. Just I and Tristan’s new suit remained. I got back to work.

That night I went home and got my little guy ready for his night out. It was a genuine step for Daniel to take Tristan out in public. One I was unsure about but Tristan was excited to make. Del Posto was a familiar place. That put me more at ease. It would be like other nights at our favorite Italian restaurant—except for me not there.

I’d told the girls about my plans. They insisted on stopping by before their own plans for the night. Plus, Jill and Vi loved seeing Tristan dressed up. Jill was eager for me but was not happy about Tristan’s plans for the evening.

“He’s an entitled wanker,” she said, biting into a strawberry before plopping it in her champagne glass. She told me when she arrived “bubbles” were her new drink. I didn’t mind—champagne was my favorite. She swirled her flute. The liquid fizzed around the fat red berry, and she sipped.

“Honestly, who in this town isn’t?” Vi replied, perching on the counter to pour her own glass.

“Touché,” Jill remarked. “But Daniel Baird wins remarkable performance in the category.”

“Let’s get him an Oscar,” Vi snickered.

“A Snobscar.”

Vi laughed thoroughly. “Cheers. You too, Bree.” She set down her glass and poured Moet into the third glass of my set of four flutes. “Here. Let’s toast.”

I hesitated but took the glass. Vi was grinning wide and peeked back and forth between Jill and me mischievously before extending her glass.

She began,

“Here’s to those we love

And those who love us

And if those we love don’t love us

Screw them, and here’s to us.”

I grinned. Jill laughed. “Cheers to that.” We clinked glasses, and the doorbell startled me before I could get down a sip. A bit of yummy champagne sloshed onto my chin. I dabbed it with the back of my hand and went to answer.

“Hello,” I greeted Daniel’s driver, Desmond, or Des as he asked to be called. Not the same one from the night in the limo, thankfully. Desmond had explained he was a personal hire by Daniel, after meeting him in his Marine cammies at an event. Daniel always waited downstairs in the car. “Tristan’s ready. Just give me one sec.”

Tristan dashed out of his room looking adorable in three-fourths of his suit. The girls stood beside me, taking him in. Beaming like three proud moms seeing their child dressed for prom. He set down his Stegosaurus onto a pile of clutter on the dining table, shrugging into his suit jacket.

“You are so handsome!” Jill said. Her cheeks were pink from the champagne. That garnered a big grin. He did look adorable in his new suit. It wasn’t department store, but it wasn’t Armani either. I could live with it.

“Well, hello there, Mr. Cutie Patootie!” Vi pinched his cheek. He was beaming and dusted off his shoulder after Jill stood. I moved in to bundle him in a big hug. He gave me a big squeeze back.

I decided as usual the least painful route was to rip off the bandage quickly. “Have fun,” I instructed him. “Des will bring you up after dinner.”

“All right,” he said, apprehensively. “Mommy, you could come with us. If you want to.”

He radiated sweetness. “Honey, thank you. I’m okay. You enjoy your dinner.”

“Your momma will be fine,” Vi chimed happily. “She’s got a date tonight.”

Tristan looked startled. “You do?”

“It’s not a date,” I said. “I’m going to see a play with a friend. Don’t worry; it’s not The Lion King. We’re saving that to do together,” I assured him. He was satisfied and looked up at Des. Desmond smiled warmly.

“Looking very sharp, my man,” he said and reached out for a low five. Tristan returned it. “I’ll get him back to you safe, Ms. Valentine. Best driver in NYC.”

Desmond always said that. He had told me without braggadocio on our second meeting he used to drive tanks. He was a hit with Tristan. Tristan made it to the door and turned around.

“Momma?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Don’t forget your mace on your date,” he said seriously.

The girls barked laughter. “I won’t,” I promised. He smiled widely with an edge of awareness, the smile that hadn’t come from my half of the gene pool, and I stopped grinning.

Forty minutes later, Jill and Vi departed for their evening plans, and I was on my way to the theater. Violet had brought over a few outfits, and I chose slim black jeans and an off-the-shoulder cream top with a black trench. Neither of them had that as a first choice—they said I looked a bit serious. I reminded them it was group outing, not a date. Fact was I had no comfort with date attire, only dressing the part with August, and then the opposite extreme of being covered in sawdust in my work. I opted for not-sawdust.

When my taxi pulled up, Jeremy was waiting for me in front of the small theatre with his friends. He was wearing faded jeans and a band T-shirt under a well-worn jacket.

“You look nice,” he said, taking me in. I thanked him.

“Too nice to be out with me. People are going to think I’m your mailman or something.” he grinned cheerfully, but I could sense an edge of nervousness. It was endearing.

“You are her mailman,” one laughed chestily, extending a hand to greet me. “I’m Regal. This is Marcy,” he said, signaling to a pretty wide-eyed woman in a headband. She smiled.

Jeremy continued the introductions, “That’s Steph, JJ and Finn,” he said indicating a trio in line at Will Call. They were all about my age, dressed downtown hip. I greeted them all with a wave.

As Jeremy ushered me into the theater door, I noticed a familiar face in the Will Call line. It was the man who’d been photographed on a date with Kate in The Post. Moving on from Kate, I guessed, since she was back in Daniel’s graces. Good for him. Maybe I could root for myself tonight, too.

We took our seats and the lights dimmed down to a dated hotel bedroom with a veranda. The set, it turned out, where the entire play took place. It was a bawdy comedy about a vacation Ernest Hemingway took with his wife and his mistress to Spain. Some parts were funny. More weren’t. I sensed Jeremy shifting beside me during the moments when laughter didn’t come. At one point Regal, to my right, covered his face with hands and peeked out between his fingers.

It was during the scene when the bellboy delivering food walked in and was invited to stay. It was a small theater, and not quite Off-Broadway. Technically off-off-Broadway, with about two hundred or so metal folding chairs arranged in a semi-circular stage. Like a venue for an improv troupe. I checked the time on my phone, hiding the luminescent glow of the screen deep in my bag.

V: How’s it going?

G: Not bad. It’s a play about a threesome.

V: Ohh, what’s the name of it? ;)

G: Hold on, let find my playbill. It’s called Heming-Which-Way

V: Ha-ha. Yikes.

I checked the runtime on the playbill.

G: Almost over. How’s the party? Is Jill having fun?

V: It’s amazing. The editor of Chic is here. I’m trying to get some face time. Jill is freaking. Her ex is here.

G: Nathan??!

V: Yes.

I buried my phone in my bag, contemplating contacting Ian. That would be a mistake I knew. Jill was a big girl. She could handle herself, without a doubt. But this situation was more than a woman should handle alone. I pictured Violet mingling, being the life of the party, oblivious to what Jill experienced with Nathan. Not much later the play ended, and we were filing out of the playhouse.

“Should I ask what you thought?” Jeremy asked in a nervous joke, opening the theater door.

His friends took a bathroom break before we met outside. I grimaced. “Well. It’s a process. His next play could be a hit.”

“Stick with it, right?” He raised thick blonde eyebrows, disappointedly. He seemed especially dejected. “We plan on walking to Lupe’s. I don’t want to ask you to walk though. You look way too. I don’t know.”

I squinted my eyes at him with a smile. “Go on,”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head, grinning. “You can ride piggy-back if you want. Seriously. I’d feel better if you did. I feel like I should be your horse more than your date.”

The word date clicked in my head. Maybe it was the rocky start, the bad show, but maybe I simply wasn’t ready to go any further. “I’m going to skip if that’s okay.”

“Okay,” he grinned. “I’m going to save my ego by assuming you’re heading home to save me a trip to the chiropractor.”

“I’m sorry. I do have to go, though. My babysitter is expecting me,” I cliff-noted.

“Any chance of a mulligan?” he called to me as I stood on the curbside flagging a lit taxi I’d spotted.

“Pop in the store sometime,” I offered, climbing in the car. I felt bad letting him down. I’d have a soda with him at the counter and find a better way to tell him no thanks. I plopped my purse on the ripped vinyl seat and pulled my phone out of my purse. I saw four missed calls from Jill and one text from Violet.

V: SOS!! Jill has lost it!!!

Redialing Jill, it went right to voicemail. I told the driver to loop the block and dialed August. He was at home in his PJs.

“You go. You’re three blocks away. I’m much closer to your house. I’ll go meet Tristan,” he said hurriedly.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No. Thank you,” he replied and hung up.

I gave the driver the hotel name where they were. By the time I arrived, the action had simmered into a sidewalk spectacle. A large group of fabulously dressed A-listers sipping drinks, some with cigarettes, watched Nathan drunkenly slosh in the giant multi-tiered fountain in the courtyard of a chic hotel. Jill had pinched the key to his new Lamborghini Gallardo from the valet box and chucked the electronic key into the fountain. All this after a confrontation between them inside. His dark wet clothes clung to him like over-sized sealskin as he kicked the water and howled curses. He saw me standing with the spectator who’d recounted the story to me and marched over.

“Where is she?!” Nathan said, slicking back his wet hair.

“She who?” I asked innocently.

“Nice. You tell your friend karma is a bitch,” he spat, shaking his hair like a wet dog. Nadia emerged from the crowd to his side just as Violet appeared at mine.

“Karma is a sacred concept, Nathan. I wouldn’t invoke it that way,” Violet chided cheerfully, with a security guard at her back. I’d texted her to meet me there when I’d arrived.

“Tramps,” he said angrily and headed back into the hotel together with Nadia. The security guard followed and blocked him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Vi said. As her driver pulled up in a black SUV, Nathan and security were still confronting each other. She rolled down the window and waved to the onlookers as we sped away.

When we arrived home, I encountered Des in the elevator. Tristan had just arrived. August gave me a curious look as I entered the apartment. I gave a minuscule shake of my head and set about putting Tristan to bed. I didn’t ask as many questions as I wanted about his big night out, but as I tucked him in he was deliriously happy. Cloud nine, you could say. He said the chef brought out the calamari himself, with a radish garnish sculpted in a flower. He did love Del Posto. I hung his suit up carefully and silently closed the door to his bedroom.

I cleared a spot at the dining table and we sat. August and I were like hotline workers, calling, contacting, looking for Jill. Ian was concerned and hadn’t heard from her. We called her assistant and anyone we could think of, without wanting to set off alarms. Violet called before bedtime to say she had reached out to a few friends and heard nothing. August went home an hour before midnight.

When the house was quiet and I was alone, I sat back down at the table surveying the heaping scrapbook project spread across the dining table. August and I shared a few mugs of hot chocolate and I was wide awake. I refreshed my cocoa and returned, troubled for Jill. I used that sleeplessness to finish a project spewed across my dining table. Photos I’d intended to compile into a scrapbook commemorating his fifth birthday were everywhere. I was in a meditative state of clipping and glue-sticking before long.

August asked about Tristan’s night. I gave him a brief synopsis. He absorbed in August-like manner, not commenting. He hadn’t, I noted, inquired about my date. It wasn’t just the bombed play. A few times Marcy and Regal had stopped to kiss. I sensed Jeremy’s desire to make some type of move. I found myself intrigued by Regal and Marcy but hoping Jeremy didn’t act. They were a sweet couple. Jeremy was a decent guy. But the connection didn’t sync. Maybe everything I’d ever heard in the stories about chemistry was wrong. Of course the one person I did feel some spark with was all wrong. Daniel had someone, and we were so fundamentally different. I found myself questioning a lot about these things. When I reached his party pictures, I was startled from my thoughts by a knock at the door. I checked my phone and saw no notice of an arrival from Jill but felt relief and anticipation she’d found her way here. I went to the door. A quick glance through the peephole indicated differently.

I swung the door open. “Hi. What’s wrong?” I said to him, a little breathless.

Daniel stood in the doorway in jeans with no belt, a plain black T-shirt and a long wool coat with an upturned collar, framing the angles of his face. He looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. In fact, he looked like he’d jogged all the way here. He took me in with a pinch in his brow and a determined look glinting in his eye.

“Tell me everything,” he said, as if he didn’t know how to get it all out.

It was want but a new kind. One that seemed foreign even to him. “Tristan,” I said.

“Yes.”

I felt something warm bloom in my chest. “Come in.”

I offered him a cup of cocoa but he declined. He moved inside and took a seat at the table.

“Tea, if you have it,” he said. I made a cup and set it down before him. He didn’t drink. I saw him taking in the photos stacks and supplies scattered around us.

“I’m working on his scrapbook for his birthday,” I said, answering the unasked. “I make one every year.”

He made a noise of understanding, scanning the photos.

“So. Where would you like to start?” I asked kindly.

“The beginning.”

“The beginning it is.” I went to my small coat closet with bi-fold doors at the end of the dining table. I unfolded a compact step ladder that hung on a hook in the back and carefully pulled down four photo albums and two shoe boxes of loose photos. I returned to the table with the collection. He was distractedly flipping through the book I’d been working on.

“That’s him at the zoo,” I recalled smilingly at a cute photo of Tristan in a lion’s mane knitted hat from this spring.

Daniel didn’t speak much. He’d said he wanted to start at the beginning but as it were, we went backwards. In reverse from his five year old album. He seemed to absorb and soak in every photo, and the stories I told along with them.

Hiking, swimming, bug collecting. Funny photos with sud beards in the bath, vacations we’d taken. Holidays, birthday parties, and every kind of moment between. I kept tons more photos on my laptop, but there was something special about the printed photos in their albums. Mile-markers. Mementos. I told him as much.

“My dad did his best to keep albums. They’re one of my favorite things,” I said.

“How is he?” Daniel asked, surprising me. “Your father.”

“He passed away when Tristan was two,” I answered.

His hand stopped on a photo page. He looked up at me. “My condolences,” he said, genuinely sad for me. His hair fell loosely in a bourbon wave across his forehead.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Please,” he said, turning the page.

“What do you think of Tristan?” I stumbled over my next few words. “Not him, himself. But Tristan. His name.”

He looked at me carefully, one brow gently inquiring. The green of his eyes reflecting something tender. “It’s good,” he said, meaningfully.

The warm thing spread. I talked to ignore it. “I always liked the name. You know, Tristan and Isolde?” He gestured a nod, not breaking his stare on me.

“So I chose,” I said, picking at the edge of a photo, separating the glossy from paper backing. “I just picked it because I liked it. I think it suits him.”

“It does,” he said quietly, giving me his attention.

I let out a nervous laugh. “I would have guessed when you were the type to want a junior. Daniel the second. You know what I mean. That was before you said, you know, you didn’t want kids.”

“The third. It would be. And I would never want that,” he replied easily, his tone a bit cooler.

We went back to looking at photos. Finally we were on the last book—technically, the first. Starting as we had, on the final page. White-haired, chubby, and full of giggles. And as we got several pages in, I shifted in my seat. Our pictures now were beautiful and happy, but our pictures then were sparser—and bleaker. Tristan grew smaller and smaller as we went. Finally, too small to light up the images, just a wrapped bundle. I always looked young but seeing those photos made me wince. There were few photos of Tristan under six months old. One was of me of me in a hospital bed, holding him. Daniel ran his fingers over the picture and stared at it a long time.

“It was a mistake to not be there,” he said finally.

“I did okay on my own. Besides, you said you didn’t know.”

He looked up at me from the page like he’d found something he was missing. I reached my hand out to him and his slid his underneath it. His look lingered a little long and I felt it, that electric energy running from him to me. His hand wound up, cuffing my wrist, and he pulled me to him. He jerked his chair from the table and pulled me onto him, straddling him. And he was there. Under me, all the way.

Stop-stop-stop a voice in the back of my head said.

Go-go-go screamed my body.

He pressed his lips on mine, quickly deepening the kiss. I broke away breathing heavy as he kissed down my neck and shoulders, tugging the cream top down to reach my chest. He lifted me up and pushed me against the wall, my legs wrapping around him.

“This is what you want,” he said, pushing. “Isn’t it? Tell me, ‘don’t stop,’” he ordered.

“Stop,” I said. And he set me down. I could barely talk. I wanted him so bad I could taste it. Physically. “We can’t. I’m sorry.”

He channeled his frustration onto his coat, stopping short of yanking it on, and asked, “May I borrow these?” The photo albums.

“Yes. You may.” I said smoothing back my hair and trying to slow my heart rate. How did we go from pacifiers and teddy bears to me wanting to be fucked against my dining room wall? He audibly flipping the books closed and thoughtfully flipped to the last page he hadn’t seen of the infant book before stacking it on the others. It was Tristan’s commemorative birth certificate the hospital gave me as a memento. The corners had clip-art rubber ducks.

He stared down hard. Then stabbed a finger down on a line of the document and read aloud, “Tristan August Valentine.”

I’d forgotten about that. Not forgotten but it hadn’t occurred to me before. “Yes, for August.”

“I’ve seen,” he replied, flipping the fourth album closed.

There was a knock at the door and Daniel looked up from the page to me. I had no idea who it was, well maybe one, but I didn’t like being stared down by him.

“Excuse me,” I said, sliding out of his way. Daniel let the albums collapse on the table with a thud. He flipped back his long coat and resumed his seat at the table.

Through the peephole, there was Jill. She was holding onto the door casing, appearing to be dry heaving. I hurriedly opened the door for her. She entered sloppily, shrugging off her own coat, tossing it, revealing a corset top and skirt.

“I hate him,” she said, walking unevenly in her heels. She’d been crying and drinking. “I hate him, and I think. I think I want him run over with an orange mid-sized sedan.” She kicked off her shoe clutching the edge of the counter. “With a professional magician driving it. An illusionist. He would hate that. Imagine the obituary.” She kicked off the other shoe and spun around to me.

“I have his key,” she smiled, pulling the Lamborghini key from her cleavage.

Daniel made an irritated impersonation of someone clearing their throat.

“The heck,” Jill said, squinting at Daniel.

“Popping in for a nightcap?” he said, poised in his chair, legs spread wide, jeans tight on his thighs. He picked up his cold tea, sipping.

“Ew,” Jill slurred. “You? What are you doing here? Bree, what time is it?”

“It’s late,” I said. “We were visiting. Talking about Tristan.”

She swung her head from me to Daniel. Taking him in from head to toe, she had an epiphany. “You want to screw her, don’t you?”

“Jill, you are drunk.” She turned back to Daniel and smirked.

She continued in a nanny-nanny-boo-boo taunt. “You want to screw her.”

“Yes,” he stated casually, setting the cup and saucer down.

She leaned a hand on the counter. Her mouth wasn’t closing all the way. She gave him a glare. “Never going to happen,” she decided and stumbled the step or two to me. “Not with this one,” she said glassy aqua-eyed, punctuating each word, dropping her pointer fingertip on the tip of my nose. I was surprised by her coordination.

She spun back around, “Me on the other hand,” she teased, letting her hair fall around her. “Mr. ‘She-wanted-more’. If you weren’t the cocky dickhead that you are,” she said, running her finger down her corset. Then she laughed at her own joke. “Nah.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders and began pushing her out of the room. She didn’t really resist. I shoved her into my bedroom.

“Take a shower,” I snapped. “And go to bed.”

She glared at me and slammed the door.

I heard Tristan’s door click open behind me. I spun around. Daniel sat up in his chair as Tristan trudged out into the bright light coming from the kitchen.

“Mom?” he said. He started shuffling to the table. I headed towards him.

He looked at Daniel, rubbing his eyes with the back of his fist, he called, “Dad?”

Daniel spoke. “I am here,” he said. “Back to bed, young man.”

Tristan didn’t say anything else, didn’t look for me. He shuffled back to his room and closed the door. Daniel watched him go.

Daniel stood up to leave, sweeping the collection of photo albums under one arm, when my phone began to buzz. He deftly reached across the length of the table and flipped it, eyed the touchscreen while hitting END, flipped it back over with a clatter and continued on his way.

“Dad?” I repeated, flustered. “I didn’t think you were comfortable with that.”

“The boy prefers it,” Daniel said flippantly, making for the door. I opened and held it. A lot of conflicting things happening inside me. He was standing closely. I looked into his eyes.

“Tristan,” I corrected. “Look. I know this is all new,” I said, straightening my shirt. “He mentions Kate is there sometimes.”

“She is,” he said.

I let out a breath, “Dad is fine. That’s one thing.” There was a clang from bathroom. It sounded like Jill had fallen out of the shower.

“You were saying.” He ignored the disruption.

Thinking of Kate, and him, and my dining wall, and him, I had many thoughts. I took the high road. “Daniel,” I started. “Far be it from me to speculate, but I make a rule not to introduce anyone into his life that I don’t plan on keeping around.”

“Is that so?” His tone was one of accusation.

My back went taut. “Yes.” I met his searching gaze.

“She wears my ring, does she not?” His posture was superior, yet his eyes flashed bitter.

I felt punched in the gut; but I guess I could take a punch. “That’s wonderful for you both,” I countered. “Why don’t you take that to heart from here on?”

“I take what I want, wherever I want to take it,” he said, stepping forward. I stayed put. He was dangerous, but I didn’t need a Taser—more like a chastity belt. He pressed against me.

“That’s your problem,” I informed him, breathing heavily. My eyes moved from his eyes to his throat where I saw his pulse throbbing with rushing blood. He dropped the albums at our feet as his hand slid down and found mine. He entwined our fingers. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“People complain about men like me going after what we want,” he said, just above a throaty whisper. I felt the fine bristles lining his jaw cling to my hair as he rolled his chin across the crown of my head to the opposite side. I felt his breath caress my ear as he spoke.

“They blame men like me for leaving nothing worth having behind me” he continued, conversational except for the weight in his tone. He linked his other hand with mine. “Sometimes things don’t want to be left behind.” He pulled our entwined hands up together, above our heads, and pinned them against the wall. My heart was tripping on itself and my breathing was lazy. “Things,” he said suggestively, letting one arm come down while the other held both of my wrists. “Things want to be taken.” He pressed his knee between my legs. The electricity was coursing through me. He ran his free hand over my top and thumbed my breast. “Things yearn to be had.” His hand slid down my torso and onto my waist. My wrists were beginning to go numb but I didn’t care. His hand slid around my hip to my backside. He grabbed my ass hard and I made a noise. His voice was thick like molasses and rasped like a straw on gravel. “Don’t blame us for taking what’s already ours.” My leg hitched up around him as he pressed down. I curved against him heatedly and got a sense of satisfaction hearing him groan.

I kissed my way up his neck, enjoying it. It wasn’t an effort. Then I nibbled his earlobe. I let myself stall only a few seconds more before finally I whispered, “Go home, Daniel.”

“What was that noise?” Jill grumbled, as I climbed into bed a little later, my hair dripping cool water onto my pillow. She was wearing an old eye mask of mine and pulled it down tighter with a lazy hand.

“Scoot over. All the way,” I ordered. “It was nothing,” I muttered and stared at the ceiling in the dark until dawn. Knowing Daniel was wrong when he spoke, not about the taking. But that there were any such other men as him.

Chapter 19 - The Unforgivable Deceiver

I was back on the grind that week. Daniel hadn’t messaged me to visit Tristan, which was perfectly fine in my book. Maybe we all needed a moment.

After working all day on a commissioned piece in the back workroom, I decided to take a break; or rather, the defunct spindle on my father’s vintage wood-turning lathe decided it for me. I sent Claire to the back-room to sweep and to avoid her peppering me with questions about my “baby daddy” as she was wont to do. With a school function that afternoon, I skipped ahead and changed out of my tattered jeans and smock and caught up on office work. So instead of working on the rapidly approaching due piece, I was in my showroom at the computer, searching for a discontinued replacement part, sipping my soda through a straw when a new bike messenger pulled up on his urban steed, a ten speed, locking the well-ridden white Cannondale to the street rack with a U-lock. Wisely erring on the side of caution, he removed the front wheel as well. The door dinged, and his rubber soles squeaked across my floors, the way only a brand new pair of sneakers can. The replacement messenger. Jeremy had ghosted me for the soda date.

“Good afternoon,” a dermatologically afflicted young fellow with a bolt of bleached hair greeted. A far cry from Jeremy but that was fine with me. I knew our next meeting would be the awkward type. “I have a delivery for Mary Gabrielle Valentine. Are you her?”

“That depends. Are you with Publishers Clearing House?” I made light as I scrolled through the online second-hand market for the pricey replacement lathe I needed.

“No, ma’am,” he replied, readjusting his logoed visor. “Just a messenger.”

I took my attention from the screen and sipped my drink. “Maybe next time. What do you have for me?” He held a large plain manila envelope and rustled through his crisp bag for a clipboard to sign for receipt. He clicked a pen and passed it to me, but I had my own. Finally, he passed the parcel.

He seemed hesitant to leave, I noticed, as I peeled open the lip. It struck me odd as he’d come across as one of the more business-like bike messengers I’d met. “Are you related to Violet Valentine?” he said timidly, and peripherally saw him gazing at the scantily clad mannequin visible in the adjacent shop.

“I am,” I replied absently—scanning the front letter, not understanding.

“My girlfriend…she really digs her,” he continued. “Do you think I could get a picture with her? Could you ask? I’d go ask myself but—would it be weird for me to, like, go in there?”

He may have said more, but everything was drowned out by the growing sound of a glass harp, a wet finger rubbing around the rim of a filled goblet scaling to a drum-piercing pitch, filling my head. Abruptly, my ears popped and the world refocused, but the lens was different. I looked up and surveyed him.

“That’s funny,” I noted tonelessly to the innocuous messenger. “You don’t look like a harbinger of doom.” He looked at me confused, and something in my expression made the prospect of shopping for laser-cut mini-skirts comparably less intimidating; he skittered into the other shop, the wheel hiked protectively high on his shoulder. I picked up my phone.

“August.”

“Hi, Bree.”

“I need the name of the best attorney in the city.” I kept it together.

“Why?” puzzled August.

“Because I’m going to murder him,” I answered detachedly. “He wants him, August. Daniel wants to take Tristan,” I croaked.

I thought the line had died.

“Stay calm, I’ll just, Jesus, Gabrielle, I’ll take care of this, don’t worry,” he paused, clicking computer keys. Then, reading the situation more clearly, he addressed the more eminent threat. “Bree, I’m coming over right now. I’m leaving a meeting near the stock exchange. Please sit tight.”

I was already out the door.

I ended the call, shoving my phone in my purse, and flagged down the first cabbie that passed. Luckily, he stopped. I gave him the address and asked him to hurry. A few blocks from the gleaming beacon of August’s building, lane closures had created a strangling bottleneck, and we were at a dead stop. I willed it to move, but my body seemed to will itself instead, throwing a bill at the driver and jumping out into traffic. Ignoring everything else, I gathered my skirt and ran.

In the elevator, it felt strange passing August’s floor, but then Mr. Fitch’s office had always been on the top, one above. But when I got off the elevator, there was a modern reception area with a curving counter replacing the old cherry desk, acting as gatekeeper.

“I need to speak with Daniel,” I said urgently, the petite brunette assessed me from head to windblown toe.

“Mr. Baird isn’t available right now,” she corrected and went back to her work.

“Is he in?” I quizzed impatiently, my eyes darting down the long corridor and spotting frosted double glass doors; crisply labeled.

“No,” she challenged, pestered. But I felt it—he was here—and charged towards the doors at the end of the hall. The receptionist was shouting threats as I burst through the doors seeing Daniel sitting behind his desk in a dark suit. He looked up, surprised.

“What the hell is this about?!” I fired as slammed the custody request down on his mahogany desk. His face smoothed out into a neutral expression as he got up and circled the desk to my side where he casually perched on the edge, hiking a pant leg up. I heard footfalls approaching rapidly and saw heavy security arrive from the corner of my eye.

“Do you want us to take her, Mr. Baird?” a bearded guard asked uncertainly from the doorway, baton in hand.

I was breathing heavily and Daniel never broke eye contact with me when he said, “Close the door.”

When I heard it click closed, I started again.

“What is this about, Daniel?” I demanded, stabbing a finger into the paperwork. His eyes narrowed, and his demeanor shifted into hostility.

“This is about the merry band of revelers you surround yourself with corrupting that boy,” he asserted in a confident voice, his green eyes blazing.

“Corrupting? What the hell are you talking about?” I shouted desperately.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he hissed and stormed to the other side of his desk, opening a drawer and slamming his own file of papers down on the desk.

“You brought this on yourself.”

I grabbed the accordion file frantically and started pulling things out, trying to find the cause for the downfall of my life. He bowed his head as he watched me sort through files. No, not just files. There were photos, photos I’d taken, photos from the press, surveillance type photos; and files, no, records, on all of my friends.

Pictures of Violet, newspapers clippings and articles about her past promiscuous freewheeling ways. Her drunk at a nightclub sitting on a man’s lap, smiling for the camera as he pulled down her top, tongue extended. Her at parties, on dance floors sandwiched between men, drinks spilling in her hand. Her first fashion show as a student at Parson’s; an avant-garde show, sending models down the catwalk naked and dusted in coal, Violet wore the same. A political statement about our dependence on oil, but these were backstage photos with the naked coal covered models posed like languorous cats—pawing her, looking like an orgy in dirt. A sepia candid of Violet—legs crossed in some sort of private room looking in deep conversation with a man, Thurgood Badue, on a dark leather sofa. It could have been a Dylan cover but for the girl doing pre-lined appetizer portions of coke off of the glass table; and a small mound of white powder next to Vi’s knee. And then a picture I took of her and a three-year-old Tristan in my kitchen after we baked a cake and she puts dots of white flour on the tips of their noses.

Pictures of Jill, her modeling days, topless bikini shots she’d done for Italian men’s magazines. Photos accompanying editorials naming her an ice queen, a gold-digger, quoting employees who’d quit because of her unbearable perfectionism. The lawsuit from one claiming she’d thrown a crystal paperweight at her, a false claim filed in vengeful retaliation after Jill fired her for stealing. A picture Nate must have taken of her lying on his boat out at sea, provocatively pouring champagne down her naked body. The articles from the night Jill found out about Nate and Nadia. Nadia approached Jill at a bar telling her she was sleeping with Nate, he was in love with her and said that he’d never loved Jill, then Nadia took a sip of her vodka and shared with Jill she was in her second trimester. Jill had slapped her and thrown the drink in her face for it. And photos from before I met her, a teenage Jill making out with another girl and groping each other while looking at the camera, probably something posted online she thought would never show up again. Rehab records for an eating disorder I’d never heard about. And a picture of her holding a crying infant Tristan.

Ian, his arrest, the mug shots of a bloodied Nate and a smiling Ian. Photos of him out with different women, one of him bending a girl over a bar and flipping her skirt, him at some type of college party, taking body shots off of women. Ian with hazy bloodshot eyes blowing smoke rings from a joint with his baseball cap turned backwards. Fuzzy grainy stills from what looked like an amateur video of a young Ian having sex with two girls. Records from his Harvard rugby team; a suspension for injuring someone badly after inciting an in-game fight. And recent personal photos of us at the park, him doing his Godzilla impression because it always makes Tristan laugh. But all it showed was me tossed over his shoulder laughing while he supported my weight with his hand on my rear skirting the edge of my shorts. The accident looked like an intimate moment. And another from the same day of Ian doing push-ups in the grass with me and Tristan stacked on top of him laughing.

August, old candids of a young man holding hands with a man, another with their arms around each other, the others man’s head resting on his shoulder while August looked down at him; pictures of him holding hands with my son, looking down at him fondly. Pictures of August and me at his company parties, embracing each other, others of all three of us at parks, zoos, one of me sitting on a bench resting my head on his shoulder and him kissing my forehead.

Even Zack. Photos of him always with his arm around me, us snuggled on a couch right after I’d given birth, the two of us sitting together while I held the infant Tristan looking like skinny kids babysitting, recent pictures of him looking tough partying with girls at X. Me and him at the grand opening, him dipping me, me laughing—and him looking at me as though he really truly loved me. I’d never even noticed that before.

Me, separate pictures of me hugging or kissing cheeks with all parties mentioned. Me at a few cocktail grand openings for all of their separate businesses in nice dresses because I was there to support them. Me on my date with Jeremy. Hugging Zack in X. Photos of me with Tristan as an infant, me in a ponytail and Target clothes looking more like his big sister than his mother, various pics of me in similar frumpy childlike attire with infant Tristan in a carrier across my chest; like a little girl with a doll stuffed in a backwards backpack. Press shots from the runway show Violet held to benefit teen moms and she used real women models, like me. She begged me and because of the cause, I walked the catwalk in her design—a skimpy crochet bathing suit and high heels—smiling into the crowd. It didn’t show the smile’s recipient—Tristan—sitting in Jill’s lap in the front row. I looked young, carefree, and irresponsible.

Worst of all, the adoption papers I’d signed over to August. Accompanied by statements from me saying ‘I don’t want it’ and ‘just get it out of me’ from the agency representative that facilitated the process.

Tristan’s medical records, the extensive regular testing I had done on him because I had no idea what kind of man had fathered him; AIDS, HIV, Hepatitis, Syphilis, everything. I never stopped testing because I was afraid. The time he was in the ER with a twisted ankle after tripping, now stamped boldly with the words ‘Investigation’. Photos of him, I’d taken when we went camping upstate. We’d rescued a trapped baby bird from a hole. He was crying because the bird had died, and I remember the camera had gone off and captured the image of a weepy, dirty boy alone in the woods. His school records of his fight the first day, the other boy saying it was unprovoked. And his emergency contact sheet.

Mother: Mary Gabrielle Valentine

Godfather: Charles August King

Godmother: Jillian Lenore King

Aunt: Marie-Violet Sadorowicz Valentine

Uncle: Zackary Amir Meeks

Family friend: Ian Angus Foley

In that order.

Like toppling dominos…

This was what it felt like to be buried alive, so I clawed at the dirt.

“Where the hell did you get this shit?” I hissed as my hand trembled with rage. I slowly raised my narrowed eyes to meet his; his jaw tightened but he didn’t speak.

“Where the HELL do you get off trying to take my son from me based on this horseshit!” I shouted as I slammed it down on his desk.

“It is my duty to protect him from these animals you’ve surrounded him with!” he roared, lunging himself in front of me.

“These people are his family! They were there for us when you went trotting off into the sunset after screwing me and disappearing!” I shouted as I got in his face.

He shook his head and walked around to the other side of his desk.

“You were different then,” he said solemnly.

“Maybe I was. But I’m better now. And if you think for one second I’m not going to take you on, you’re crazy,” I threatened, my shoulders trembling.

He turned slowly to face me, his eyes cold and distant.

“You know how this ends, Gabrielle,” he said evenly, as his eyes coldly communicated the truth and my heart dropped to the floor. He was deadly serious…and he was right. I could fight and fight, but with his power and his family behind him, my chances were shot. He could buy me and sell me ten times over. And he was prepared to do it.

“What is wrong with you? What has fucked your head so hard that you think MY son is better off without me?” I asked, pleadingly.

“I am looking out for the boy’s best interests,” he replied firmly. “You’re trolloping around with these deviants. These men, your unstable sister, and the King whore who shares your bed,” he said with disgust.

“You’re craz—wait. You interrogated my son?!” I halted in disbelief, understanding the plurality of the accusation.

“I found out what was necessary,” he hissed and jealousy flashed in his eyes.

“This is about me, isn’t it?” I asked incredulously. “This is because I don’t want you.”

His anger seemed to be coming to a boil, but I had nothing left to lose. He was taking it all away.

“You give yourself so freely to all these men—and women apparently—” he started.

“What! I have never—”

“Am I wrong?” he interrupted, his voice booming. “You care less for me than you do any of them and it wasn’t so difficult get you in bed,” he accused callously. My jaw dropped.

“You seduced me!” I defended.

“You didn’t complain,” he leered and raised a brow, and my mouth fell open as my heart and dignity were ripped to shreds.

“You’re inhuman,” I whispered in a daze, broken. He looked down at the papers on his desk and resumed what he was doing before I arrived.

“Have your attorney send a signed copy of the papers to mine. You will be allowed as much visitation as you like, but he is not to be around any of the other parties. The judge is a friend and willing to expedite the process. I will arrange for him to be collected this afternoon,” he said formally, like he’d placed his lunch order at the Ritz.

“Are you out of your mind? You think I’m just going to let you walk off with him?” I contested in disbelief, and he raised his eyes to meet mine.

“You would agree it’s best we kept this out of the courts,” he said blankly and darted his eyes to the accordion file in my hands that suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. Everything was crumbling. Everything I’d worked towards, my entire life he was crushing, and the room was spinning. Everyone I loved. And he was taking away the center of my universe as easily as a piece of candy.

And he could.

“Please don’t do this,” I begged as the tears fell freely. “Please.”

“You have left me no choices,” he said quietly as his papers stilled in hands.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” I insisted weakly, and his eyes slowly rose to mine. And without second thought, I began removing my clothes.

“Don’t,” he ordered firmly, but his eyes were hungry as my dress dropped to the floor and I unfastened my shoes. He looked like an addict who had sworn off a drug but was now faced with the hit he’d been desperately craving, so I used it. I could do this for my son. I’d die for him. He watched as I dropped my bra and slid my panties off until I stood completely naked as silent tears fell. I had nothing left.

I could see the burning conflict in his eyes as he rose and slowly made his way to me. He stood over me, and it seemed almost against his will as his hand rose to stroke my collarbone and brush my hair back behind my shoulders. I stood as still as my shaking body would allow as he traced his fingers lightly all over my body. His hands seemed to be less steady than usual as well.

“I can’t say no,” he confessed as he focused on my lips and his eyes were hooded with the need to succumb to the craving. I swallowed hard and sucked in a breath.

“Then don’t,” I said in a trembling voice, and his hand went under my chin angling it up to him, and I closed my eyes as I felt his lips press against mine. He kissed me softly on the lips, running his hands up and down my waist, and then he kissed his way down my chin to my neck before he wrapped his arms around me, lifting me and sitting me on his desk.

The kisses were soft at first, but they became increasingly desperate. Moist open mouth kisses with tender bites down my chest. He laid his big warm palm under my throat and pressed me backwards until I fell back on my elbows, and then he gripped my waist in both hands and slid me to the edge of the desk as he made his way down my stomach. His hands started rubbing the outside of my thighs in slow deep circuits until he cupped the backs on my knees and spread my legs wider for him. My body reacted. And I hated him.

He placed open-mouthed kisses on my hip bone on his way lower, and then he found me; fingers and mouth. My eyes snapped open as I gasped and I stared at the ceiling as his intensity increased, faster and faster, licking, sucking, circling while his fingers curled and pressure began to build, the reaction as out of my control as my life. My knees trembled as I peaked and he groaned with pleasure. And I hated him.

“You’re so good,” he whispered reverently, as he slid his fingers out and affectionately grazed my sex with the tips.

I heard him unbuckling his belt and the sound of clothing hit the floor before his hands slid up my shoulders and he lifted me into a sitting position at the end of the desk. He pulled me against his chest, pressing my breasts against him as he caressed my back and kissed my shoulders. He raised my arms around his neck, and they tightened on their own accord. And I hated him.

“Gabrielle,” he exhaled hoarsely as he slowly pushed in to me, gripping me tight.

We both groaned as he rocked once and began to slide back out and then he thrust harder. His hand pulled me close, running between my shoulder blades, down my spine and then leaned me back, gaining access to my breasts. His hot mouth on my nipple, nipping and sucking, and then he thrust again and I let out a high-pitched whimper as he slammed in to the spot that made me burst with response. And I hated him.

He cursed as his hand trailed down, and his thumb began to encourage me as he pumped slowly in and slowly out with maddening friction, then he pushed in deeply and slid back out to the edge.

“Not yet,” he said in a rough voice as his head bowed down watching himself unravel, his hands now pinned down on either side of my head as I lay flat on his desk, his palms splayed out wide, supporting his weight, trapping me in, his muscles tight with restraint as he took his time. My ears conspired with my body, saying they liked the sound of his voice and the words on his lips and my body arched off the flat surface. I had to turn my head, closing my eyes rejecting the sight of the tendons in his wrist, because my eyes were lying when they whispered to my ears they liked the sight of his body over me in the daylight, and my fingers reached out and threaded his scalp, grabbing a handful of hair, and I pulled hard because I wanted him to hurt. I watched his flat hands curl into a claw against the wood in response, and he plunged back in and pressed down, using his body weight, and rocked in to me again and again. I felt myself tightening around him—the tremors had started—and he picked up the pace. I was over the edge and he moaned, and I moaned—and I hated him.

He pulled me up to him until I sat and then he thrust in hard, both of us soaking wet and pulled my face to his, cupping my cheeks in his hands until we were almost nose to nose. I opened my eyes. He green eyes were blazing and thrilled, but when he saw me his brows knit together as his eyes searched mine.

“Christ,” he murmured as he stared into my dead eyes. Dead because I was sated by him and I hated him for it. His eyes flicked down to where we were still joined below, and his face fell but his eyes were still enthralled and torn.

“I can’t stop,” he confessed like the junkie he was now that the hunger had slacked enough for him to be functioning and see that I was broken. But he couldn’t stop if he wanted to. I already knew that. He’d held back his own release so he could draw it out. He wanted his hit to last, but he hadn’t really flown yet.

My eyes fluttered closed, and he kissed both my lids and planted small kisses all over my face before he cradled my head to his shoulder. To my eternal self-loathing, I wrapped my legs around him. Why did I want this? He thrust his craving in to me again and again, and I felt him pulse inside as he came hard. A groan from deep in his chest rumbled against my own chest as he pressed me tighter. He rested his turned chin on my head and caressed my hair as held me against him and rocked me as silent tears fell on his shoulder.

“Nothing feels like this,” he whispered to the air, his face was turned towards wall of glass panes that towered above the glistening city, the place that either made or broke you. The place he looked down on from his chrome tower every day and took as he wished. I didn’t know if he meant the rush of the high or the emptiness of the crash, but the latter was the only thing I knew.

“I hate you,” I confessed in a muted and broken voice. And then I sucked in my quivering lip and bit, because he was the only one strung out by this anymore. I felt him become rigid for a moment and his soothing actions stilled; then he exhaled.

“It was only a matter of time,” he said soberly and began to lift me to a standing a position.

I watched as he hoisted his pants up to hang loosely around his hips and pick my clothes up off the floor. There was pity in his eyes as he took his time fastening my bra and sliding my arms through the sleeves of my wrap dress and tying it around me. He crouched down in front of me and tapped the back of my knee twice quickly, telling me to raise my leg; and I wobbled. He grabbed my shaking hand and rested it on his sturdy shoulder.

“Hold on,” he said as he lifted my instep and slid the leg of my panties around my right ankle and then he did the same with the other.

He let his hand move slowly, dragging the scrap of fabric up both sides of my legs to cover me, pulling the fabric of my dress along with it, and then he bowed his head, resting his cheek against my abdomen under my breasts, and his arms circled my waist as he pulled me closer and inhaled deeply.

And then I realized he had no intention of letting me keep my son.

“You’re still going to take him from me, aren’t you?” I verbalized the dawning realization that took place in my head as I stared at his back wall lined with accolades, photos with diplomats, captains of industry, politicians, and degrees from Ivy League schools.

He was taking his time because he was kicking the habit for good. He wordlessly unwrapped his arms and stood, buckling his belt and sliding on his dark gray button up.

“You cared for me, once,” he recollected in a distant voice as he slid on his jacket and straightened himself out. He looked up at me with resolute eyes. “But now he does,” he explained as his eyes narrowed into the predatory look I’d seen before—and my heart clenched. Tristan was his. Tristan cared for him, so he was keeping him. It made him worthy of his distorted protection. I wanted to tell him I wished I’d never met him, but that would be an insult to my son. But I wished I’d never found him again.

“He only loves you because he’s doesn’t know better,” I replied coldly. I knew it was a cruel thing to say, but I feared it was the only truth. And if he took him, he’d ruin him, too.

“Maybe that goes for all of us. I’m acutely aware of the rules, Ms. Valentine,” he said sharply, and anger and loss flickered in the eyes behind the stony face. “Go,” he commanded and went back to the papers on his desk as if he wasn’t the blackest soul I’d ever known.

Chapter 20 - The Fall upon Us

I wandered the streets not wanting to go home. A wall had fallen and left me an ocean of rubble inside. My bubble, my world, had burst. As I walked, the city became ugly, caving in on me, car horns heralding collapse, as blank faces and sad masks stampeded past. Skyscrapers poked the sky, invading it. Behind the towers a dimming sun hid, with nowhere else to go.

I understand, I thought. I’m a casualty of this place, too.

By the time I arrived, everyone was there. Anxious hearing my key in the lock, but upon my entry the atmosphere changed to match my mood; drained. It was hard to be faced with consoling looks already. Tristan was napping; I finally left his room both unwilling and unable to draw it out anymore.

“Daniel is taking Tristan.” What else could be said? August, who sat beside me, took the weight of the crushed custody papers from my hand and quietly replaced it with his own as he cleared his throat and began reading aloud. His steady hand maintained a presence in mine. I didn’t pull away.

I’d had the wherewithal to collect the documents, along with the bag I’d flung on the floor upon entry—a humbling procedure given my exit. I called August and said we should organize a meeting then he raced to school for Tristan. I didn’t want to risk being usurped by Daniel, possession being nine-tenths of the law. That was my hope, anyway, as August neared the end of legalese. August added a layman’s term summary at the end. Everyone seemed to sink a little deeper in their seats, processing. Even Ian, though he occasionally muttered a curse.

It got tenser when Jill rose from her seat and calmly, too calmly, made her way to the kitchen. The wake-like atmosphere held until we heard a crash; something breaking. We all flinched at the two sharp crashes that followed. Jill re-entered the room like a bull pacing the gate. Bravely, Vi spoke.

“I don’t understand—what happened?” she said. “It’s been going so good, why is he trying to mess things up?” August gave her a pitying side glance. Vi seemed upset he started a fight but was in denial about what it meant. She picked at her cuticles, unsure.

Jill flicked her hand. “He’s an asshole, that’s what happened.”

“The claim said the reason was ‘an unfit environment,’” Violet went on. “It makes no sense. He can’t prove any of this.”

I didn’t speak.

“Can he?” Vi asked, disbelieving.

“He believes so,” I said. “He did an investigation.”

“So what?” Jill snapped but was overlooked by her brother.

August turned to me, eagle-eyed and businesslike. “What’s the alternative?” Of course he knew there was one.

“He said if I kept it out of court, he would give me shared custody…maybe joint,” I said, then came back down to Earth. “But it would be entirely under his terms.”

“What are his terms?” August asked.

“Tristan wouldn’t be able to interact with any of you. Not anyone except me.” I looked down.

“Is he insane?” Jill shot.

“We’ll kick his ass, Bree. He won’t win.” Vi said fervently.

“Thank you.” I couldn’t tell if she was humoring me.

“We’re serious, Bree! Whatever we need to do, whatever we need…” Vi broke down, and though no one had comfort to spare her and she wept alone, in that moment I envied her. She did everything freely—she felt so much.

August broke the desperate silence. “We’ve got ample time to prepare. I’ve already contacted a few of the best attorneys. Now we just have to see who can take the case.”

That got my attention. “What do you mean can?”

I felt his hand in mine go a little clammy. “Once an attorney has been considered in a case like this, he can’t represent the opposing party. Daniel’s team has taken the precautionary measure of pre-interviewing a few attorneys on the case.”

I asked but already knew. “He’s interviewed all the good ones. The best attorneys in the city, hasn’t he?”

August considered his reply. “I’m still working it. I’ve found a few,” he said, “One in particular.”

He’d found one. One top named attorney. I wondered how Daniel had been so sloppy. Ian cut in my revelry.

“A preemptive strike. That’s the guy I knew,” Ian said, almost humored. His eyes connected with mine, and in one of those strange moments Ian saw straight to the heart of it. “There’s more,” he said, eyes narrowing. “What aren’t you tellin’ us, Bree?”

“His investigation…was thorough. It included all of you. Us,” I explained. “He knows everything from your newspaper subscriptions to classes you flunked. There are details much dirtier than that, though.”

“Like what?” Vi asked. I looked at her squarely.

“Like your entire life on hidden video.” I didn’t bother looking around and I didn’t have to. “So this decision is all yours as much as mine. He offered me a deal to keep it out of court, but if I go it’s winner take all. I don’t know what my chances are. He’s prepared to take me down and take you all down with me.”

“Let him try,” Jill hissed, which was met with nods of agreement.

“We can fight the smears, but, there are truths there, too. Some you do not want out there.” I looked around, and if someone had something to say, they clearly didn’t want to say it then.

“What’s your plan, little mama?” Ian asked. I looked around the room and saw beyond a shadow of doubt, and not for the first time, they were with me. Maybe then I probably could have cried, but pain gave way to resolve.

I sucked in a long breathe. “I’m going to give him the fight of his life.”

It was simple. I was down, not out—not for Tristan. And not for them.

“We’re with you,” Ian said, with a solidarity that brooked no argument.

Our sullen meeting disbanded, one by one, shortly thereafter. Everyone left but August. When we were alone, I confided in him.

“August, it’s a matter of time until they discover I was sick. When they do, I’m done.” Even I could hear the anxiety bubbling at the surface.

My anxiety was contrasted when he replied, “They can’t find that out, Gabrielle.”

I shook my head. “You don’t get it, August. You weren’t there. He can find anything, get anything,” I pressed. Surely, he knew who was against us.

“He can’t get those,” he said with shy mischief then grew serious. “Bree, the place they took you was a private hospital and—because no one was sure—you were treated as a victim of a crime. You were assigned a patient number instead of your name. Absolute discretion was used, and after you made the choice to keep Tristan, I had the records sealed. Completely. As a gift,” he finished, near bashful. He’d tried to erase it so I could have a fresh start with my child. Which one of us the gift was intended for, Tristan or I, I didn’t care.

“But Daniel knew I was going to give him to you,” I said, remembering something. “He knew I didn’t want him, at first.” My words came out chapped.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault, Bree. I scan legal documents onto my computer. I only keep digital records. I deleted the adoption agreement and your statement of consent long ago, but it would still be available on my hard drive.” He sighed, troubled. “My laptop is synced to my office computer, which technical support took from me last week. Updates, they said.”

“You were hacked.” If I’d held doubt about August’s comprehension of the magnitude of our opponent, the nod he gave me then erased them all.

I woke up the next morning doting over every detail of making Tristan’s breakfast and packing his lunch. He was seated comfortably in front of a plate of scrambled eggs big enough to feed an army when Violet showed up in her bathrobe.

“What has he done?” Violet said, swollen eyed, standing at my door clutching the day’s paper.

It was a small article. Just a fraction of a page. It shouldn’t have been anything, and wouldn’t have had not been on the inside of the first page of the largest circulated paper in the country.

BarclayBaird CEO, Daniel Baird, files frantic Custody Claim for illegitimate son.

The first sentence of article contained ‘most eligible bachelor’ ‘suspicious’ and ‘liaison’. I felt ill. The article virtually emanated Vegas glitter for all its salaciousness. The worst line was this:

The recently discovered child was fathered during a casual sexual encounter on the NYC streets with 25-year-old Sweetwater, Va. native, Gabrielle Valentine.

I checked my messages on the way in to work that morning. Seventeen new voicemails. The internet had picked it up as well. Twenty-two people had forwarded the article in my inbox. The firestorm had begun.

Two days later, we were in Harlem.

“I think this is our man,” said August.

“You sound confident,” I replied. He smiled and pressed the flat of his palm into an oak door, holding it open. We entered a waiting area, small even by NY standards, and approached what looked like a drive-thru window.

“We’re here to see Mr. Harper,” August explained.

The cocoa-skinned woman looked up through horn-rimmed frames. “Sign in,” she said, and flipped around a clipboard. Without pretense, he did.

“Are we in the right place?” I whispered.

A homeless man sat, sifting through a candy dish like a gold miner. August just smiled. “Justine, could you direct me to the gentleman’s room?” He was polite through the glass partition, waffled with security wire.

She peered up. “Round the corner. At the check cashers. Unless you’re a plumber, too,” she sassed familiarly but not especially fondly. “And it’s Ms. Justine, Mr. Wall Street. All those manners, I know you recognize an elder when you see one.” Her lip puckered, but her eyes were friendlier now.

August was amused. “Thank you, Miss Justine. Bree,” he addressed me. “I’ll be right back. We’re a little early, anyhow. Mr. Harper said three.”

“Better leave that watch with me, Wall Street,” Justine suggested, hand shoved through the half-round speak-through. He unfastened the vintage roadster and placed it in the artistically manicured hand. She admired it appreciatively. “Didn’t know you had it in you, boy,” she quipped humorously, but her glance was intelligent. “Tell your to girlfriend have a seat. Mr. Harper’s running late.” She spoke her employers name like an insult.

August exited and I took a seat in a chair beside the vanilla plug in. Distractedly, I shuffled through reading material, but after finding a Highlights from the past decade, I settled on a crime prevention pamphlet. Across from me, mere feet away, a soft snore came from the ragged older man, dozing upright with his hand buried in foil-wrapped treasure.

He startled when a delivery man pushed through the door, arms piled with leaking brown take-out bags.

“About time,” Justine snapped, rolling open a garage door style barrier, the smell of take-out strong.

“Hold your horses, woman. I almost killed myself on the way up. Someone left wrappers all over the wet stoop—again.”

The old man grinned, unencumbered by dental shortcomings. He rasped, “Hey now, Soulman.”

“Benny, you are not eating until you clean up that mess,” Justine snapped, then complained, “Plumbing’s out. Place is falling apart. That never happened when old Mr. Harper was here.” The delivery man looked pestered. “Give it here, Sol,” she addressed him. “Did you get extra wasabi? You’re always forgetting the wasabi. Messing up my kung fu chicken,” He shoved two boxes through the hole, one at a time, then handed one to the homeless man, who tucked it football style and shuffled out with the waiting room tissues.

“It’s Kung Pao—and it’s chili sauce, not wasabi. Not like you need any with that hot ol’ temper. Sitting here playing online poker all day.”

“Mind your own work,” She harrumphed, slamming her gate down. He seemed like he’d wanted the last word but relented. As he turned away from her, he noticed me. I looked down at the pamphlet.

“I know you,” he spoke in acknowledgement. “From the paper. Valentine, right?”

My mouth froze in an awkward o before I could say yes. Knew me? They all thought they did since the news broke. Today’s paper pictured me and all my closest friends in an even less flattering light. The content revolved around the finance magnate’s illegitimate son with an ambitious girl from the sticks. The pièce de résistance being a quote from Morris Werp. He alleged firsthand knowledge I was a professional companion for Wall Streeters.

The delivery man was lingering. “You’ve got some serious troubles,” he added conversationally, taking the seat beside me. I set aside stewing about Morris. The delivery man picked up the copyI’d been avoiding, flipping it to page six.

“Many people do.” I shrugged, glancing away from the photo display of myself and my friends. He raised his eyebrows, surprised by my nonchalance.

“Mr. Daniel Baird,” he read aloud then turned to me. “That’s a powerful man.”

I looked down. “Yes.”

He folded the paper on his lap. “I don’t believe everything I read. But, even a broken clock is right twice a day. What are you after?” he probed further.

“My son,” I bristled, meeting his eyes. His eyes were sharp. Noninvasive, unlike his conversation skills, but astute. Maybe it was the job of every male to take up arms against females portrayed as scheming on their sperm and 401(k). If so, I wasn’t about to become victim of bro-coding.

He eased back, finally. “Then you can’t lose,” he supplied.

“I don’t plan on it.”

He patted my knee. “You’ll get the help you need here.”

August returned from the bathroom just then. He smiled warmly at me, then at the delivery man. “Something smells good in here! Hello, Solomon.”

The delivery man stood and extended his right palm out to me, too confidently to refuse. He pulled me up and shook my hand. “Allow me introduce myself,” he explained. “I’m Solomon K. Harper. Your attorney.”

Solomon K. Harper was full of surprises. August previously informed me that, at thirty, the man had plenty of courtroom time—and, so far, a perfect winning record. While in conversation, I’d noticed a collection of impressive accolades and degrees. After lingering on the framed half-page Times write up naming him brightest in his field last year, I had just one question.

“Why aren’t you working for Daniel?”

He didn’t mind my bluntness, regarding me with the coolness of a practiced litigator. “I didn’t like his answers.”

“You’ve met?” I asked, puzzled how he escaped Daniel’s web.

“I met him.” Justine, who, it turned out, was Sol’s mother, announced. “He came here, sucking up all the air in my waiting room. Fine looking man, though. Good looking man,” she tsked.

“That’s enough commentary, woman,” Sol quelled lovingly.

She peered up from her notes, clapping down her pen. “Just because your ornery Father called me ‘woman’ doesn’t mean you’ve got the right,” she said sternly, but I didn’t think she minded. He’d revealed this was his father’s practice before he died, and Sol had inherited the office and all its employees. His mother, a South Georgia native, had been the legal secretary for forty years.

Sol turned back to us. “His team contacted me. The fiancée. Nice lady, very convincing. It’s rare, but he’s not the first to put half the city on retainer to black out opposition, so I said I needed to meet him in person. He came here, like you. But I like my winning streak. I only win when I’m right.”

Looking at cappuccino skin and warm chocolate eyes, I got a really good feeling.

“Did he meet a Chinese delivery boy?” I asked finally.

“No,” he replied, entertained. “Pizza man.” Then he grew serious and got right to work.

On the second floor of a converted two-story walk up, deep in ungentrified Harlem, we’d definitely found our man.

Chapter 21 - Arks and Vices

Full custody. Temporarily. Full custody.

There was no appearance and no hearing. It was an emergency order placed by the State of New York. Daily, the situation grew direr.

August was in a tailspin at BarclayBaird. Watching him suffer, I wondered why he didn’t quit, but that was August. Jill was still angry. I gave her space. And Ian was giving everyone space. I’d seen a photo in the social pages of him at a Harvard mixer, the kind he used to dodge; a black and white image of him in a conservative suit sitting with a few local businessmen. A woman with short dark hair sat closely beside him. I called Jill that day. She never returned my call.

Solomon said Daniel had already procured his own DNA tests without telling me, confirming what we knew. Not the swab kind as August and I had done. Which meant at one of Tristan’s innocent visits with Daniel he’d extracted his hair, or worse blood, and concealed it. I had invited in a monster. I told Claire as much on Wednesday before my third scheduled visit.

I threw my smock in the laundry basket and came out to the showroom from my studio.

“You have six messages,” she announced. “I stacked them here. A few weekly magazines and papers. One big one from Good Day New York.”

“Bigger isn’t better in this situation.”

“Yeah. Well maybe start with that one and work your way down. The one on the bottom is from Gary Chartreux from The Manly Man Show on cable.” I gave a sour look. “I know. I almost hung up on them. I can’t stand that guy.”

“Thank you for putting up with this. You make a good firewall.”

“I don’t mind. It’s kind of cool actually” Claire said spiritedly. “You’re famous.”

“Notorious. Big difference,” I corrected her innocent remark. My infamy fell somewhere between the campaign aide busted sending sexy messages to a senator and the unnamed girl being humiliated by a rock star on a sex tape.

She shrugged. “Still, kind of neat,” Claire replied.

“Claire,” I said, looking at her pointedly. “I have visitation with Tristan right now. You remember him, I think? So while I’m getting my monitored visitation with the child I’ve raised, nursed, named, nurtured, and loved with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns who is now in the full guardianship of a father he’s known for less than a few months, you lock up the showroom and make sure nothing else gets stolen from me when I’m not looking. Capisce?”

Claire stared up, regretfully wide-eyed, through her black frames. “Got it, boss.” She glanced at the paper on the desk, and sighed. “Would you like to cancel all our subscriptions?”

I leaned on my hip, peering at the black and white print. “No. I need to know what lies they’re spreading. But after I read it, you know where it belongs.” I tossed it in the trash in demonstration then changed my shoes and headed in a cab to my destination.

I told Tristan when I first had to bring him to Daniel’s with his suitcase packed that mommy and daddy were working out a plan for sleepovers. In the meantime, he was staying with Daniel to spend some special catch-up time. It wasn’t a lie as I had every intention of getting him back, full tilt. That strength stayed with the entirety of each visit.

I was waiting on the front stoop of Daniel’s house to enter. Jeeves opened the door with Tristan beside him. I gasped.

“Hi, mom,” Tristan said confusedly.

“Hi, honey,” I said. “Give me a hug.”

We played at the park with Jeeves attending. I told him I was beginning a remodel on the apartment for us, so he couldn’t come home yet. I described wallpaper I hadn’t selected and a bed I hadn’t built. The whole time, in a total misdirection of anger, fuming about the haircut he now sported that was an exact replica of Daniel’s. His boyish mop of honeyed hair was gone.

When I got to my apartment, Violet was waiting for me at the door.

“I brought you a decaf vanilla latte and a cookie,” she said enticingly, wagging the bag as she followed me through the entry, closing the door behind her. I grabbed the bag with the cookie. “How is he? How did the visit go?” she asked, slowly sitting at the dining table.

“He looks good. I mean, fine. It’s just not right, Violet.” What are the chances I could get fake passports made and make a run for it with him?”

“I know someone who does false documents, but I’m pretty sure…” she trailed off and took a sip of latte from the brown paper cup.

“He’d find us. He would freaking find us anywhere. How did this happen? Why did it have to be him who was the dad? Why did we have to find him?”

“You got me,” she said, dumbfounded. Then lowered her eyelids in thought. “Look, remember when you moved here and you were so determined to be a CPA? You studied like a maniac. Your life was mapped out.”

“Yes. And?”

“Then, you had Tristan,” she said with a trepidatious shrug, sipping the latte. “It didn’t work out how you thought then. It turned out fine. So, maybe this is what’s supposed to happen.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Not that he’s taken away,” she revised her stance. “But maybe that this is some journey in life you are meant to walk. Like when they make people walk hot coals at those seminars.”

I folded my arms and she took another sip, eyeing me nervously over the rim. I unfolded my arms and strutted into the kitchen, opening the utility drawer. I pulled out my hammer.

“Geez! Relax, I only meant it would turn out fine!” she said, staring at me holding up my hammer menacingly. “I’m trying to be positive. I know it sucks. He sucks, okay?!”

“Violet, when I went to visit Tristan today, do you know what he said?” She shook her head, clutching the cup. “He said he loved Daniel. He said he knew what was going on, that Daniel and I were fighting over him. The kids at school tease him. He said the same as you, it would be okay. But Daniel cut his hair. And he was dressed…he was dressed like a little man. He put him in a collared shirt and khakis. My little Tristan sitting there beside me in the park, dressed like a copy machine salesman, telling me it would be okay. He loved us both, and it would work out.”

“I’m really sorry, Bree,” Violet said, water spilling from her eyes.

I clutched the wooden handle tightly. “Then, time was up and I had to take him back. I walked him back to that fucking mansion and I had to leave him there. I don’t know if he doesn’t have enough toys or too many. I don’t know if Daniel bought half of Toy Town or if he’s in there trapping beetles with the butler for entertainment. How is he going to raise him? Who is he going to turn him into?”

“Even if he doesn’t get to see us, he still has you. No court would take him away from you completely. As much as that would hurt, I can live with that, for your sake. What are doing?!” she shrieked as I swung the hammer at my kitchen cabinet door. I reached back in the drawer and pulled out a small dust mask I’d brought home from the shop.

“I told Tristan I was remodeling. Before he told me he knew what was going on, I told him he couldn’t sleep over here because I was remodeling and it was a mess. Rather than tell him he can’t come home because I’m not allowed to have him.” I snapped the mask on. “I am following through. And by the time it’s remodeled he will be back, living in his own house.” I banged the hammer again.

“I’ve heard of stress therapy, but those are perfectly good cabinets. Ugly, but fine,” she said. I swung again, and she covered her ears as I made contact. She rushed over to me, and I paused mid-air so I wouldn’t hurt her if she was attempting to grab the handle. Instead, she went in the drawer and came out with a black permanent marker.

She etched a name, big, on the cabinet in fat black lines and stood back appraising. “There. Should I do Kate next?”

I banged the head of the hammer on where she’d scribbled Daniel and smiled. “More of those. His attorneys name is Alec Kord. Throw some of those on there, too,” I said behind my mask.

She grinned and got to work. Violet played music and moved a safe distance away to my dining table, propped up on her elbows, while I banged away on my boring white cabinet doors. My arm cramped, but I didn’t quit until I’d taken down one side of door fronts in my wide-lane galley kitchen, sensibly hammering away just like the hosts of home renovation shows. I got why they demolished good cabinets now.

After she was gone, I cleaned obsessively. At bedtime, I was too pumped up on adrenaline and recklessness. I pulled on my warm jacket over my sweater and jeans and went for a walk to the park.

On a bench in the moonlight, Daniel was sitting. I knew it was him from fifty yards away. I contemplated leaving before he noticed me, but adrenaline combined with fresh anger is a funny thing. I rushed over and kicked the bench hard.

“Get up,” I ordered. It was the first time I’d seen his face since our first hearing, where he sat, refusing to face me. Daniel looked up—surprised. “Get up, damn you!” I fought, anger broiling at his stupid guileless face. “This is my bench!” I yelled, unhinged. “You can’t have it!”

He slowly stood up. Without protest, he left.

I didn’t calm down until after his seat went cold.

On Sunday night, everyone cancelled on dinner, even Vi. I ate pork chops on the countertop alone. After dark I went for another long walk. It was a three-mile city walk in the dark. Only someone out of their mind would do it, with a sprained toe no less. To my surprise, Daniel was there again. When he looked up, I met his guarded gaze in show-down but didn’t move an inch. Inside my shoe, my big toe throbbed in its splint, and I decided it wasn’t worth it. Shooting him a heat-seeking missile of a glare I turned my back to him and returned home.

I avoided that spot until my toe felt better, but it didn’t change anything. Another Sunday passed with everyone too busy or too cowardly to deal with me and my growing pervasive hostile temperament and face the absence of Tristan. So for the third time in less than a fortnight, I found Daniel sitting in my spot. In my head it was my spot because I wanted it.

In the pitch black, I held my ground. He pretended to not notice, not angrily, more like a bigger dog feigning submission to a Chihuahua that didn’t know how small it was. I marked my territory by sitting, and he kept up his ruse.

“What are even you doing here?” I snapped. I tightened my jacket and crossed my legs from the chill.

Long moments passed, and I decided #147 on the list of things I hated about him was his silence.

Enough time had elapsed to compile two more things. I shot, “What’s the point?”

Warily, he peered. I shoved to the edge of my seat, frustration coming fast and thick. “You’ve got him. He’s right in there,” I said, jabbing a finger towards his house. “He’s in there sleeping, and you’re out here. Just give him back! You don’t even appreciate him. If he were with me, I’d be cherishing this time. I’d be watching him sleep! You don’t even care.”

He was calm. “It’s not that simple.”

“It was before you showed up.”

“I have rights, Gabrielle.”

“Why? Because you forgot to wrap it up? I raised him! He’s my son!”

“The boy is mine, too.”

“Do you hear yourself? The Boy! Like he’s The Car or The Jet. You don’t own him! You can’t own a person!”

Daniel exhaled while perfectly still. It was long and strained, like a volatile can of helium depressurizing. Finally he moved, his chin bowing minutely.

“This is painful,” he said in spite of himself.

“Good. I hope you choke on it.” I needlessly readjusted my scarf. “Who in the hell gives a five-year-old a thirty-thousand-dollar watch!”

“It was no trouble,” he said simply, referring to the Breitling Tristan was wearing at our visit this week. It’d had links removed to bring it down to the size of his small wrist.

“You don’t give a child anything they want! You have no clue what you’re doing!”

“I will learn,” he replied confidently, like a man with a new hobby confident on a lifetime to master it.

I stared at him in profile, giving my order. “Give him back, Daniel.”

“We can’t go back, Gabrielle.”

I added #158 to the list, the fact that sometimes, privately, or perhaps in honesty, he sounded a little more American.

Then, I addressed #1.

“Fuck your pride.”

“This has nothing to with pride,” he replied patiently.

It annoyed me. “I’m not ignorant. You and your family are trying to make him into a little Baird. Grooming him for what? So he ends up like you?” I scoffed; it was a cruel sound.

“I will try to prevent that,” he promised.

“Geez, you don’t even like yourself! How can you—”

“Enough, Gabrielle,” he instructed tightly.

I prodded the nerve. “How can you take responsibility for something so pure, knowing you’re just going to screw—”

“I said, ENOUGH!” thundered Daniel, eyes blazing.

I froze. My heart was already beating out a chant because of the exchange—it nearly leaped from my chest. I quieted, trying to make it look like my own idea. I wasn’t a pacifist, but I was a survivalist. A few dozen yards away, I observed a vagrant resume shuffling trash and I was glad for the witness. As it were, when Daniel’s tensed frame finally tilted away from me, I let my gaze wander aimless and palmed the mace in my pocket.

“Why aren’t you leaving?” I said finally, more quietly.

“Tonight is my birthday.”

I pressed my lips together, before saying, “You should go spend it with someone who cares.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

His reply was flippant enough but had invoked #158 on the list.

I got up and left.

~o~

The next day we had a meeting at Solomon’s. When he asked if I’d had any contact with Daniel, I answered no.

“Good,” my attorney replied. “It’s important to maintain that.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” August assured him. My stomach squirmed.

“Gabrielle,” Solomon started as his mother refreshed his coffee, “is there anything else you can tell me today about your relationship with Mr. Baird that could be helpful?”

“You could admit that he’s a predator,” Zack sniffed from the corner.

“Hush, dork,” Violet said.

“Grow up,” Jill silenced. “Both of you.”

They were stir-crazy. The group was here, by order, reviewing being called to the stand. It made an average size office small. Ian was making the best of it perched precariously on the rolled arm of Jill’s chair. She leaned away.

Solomon raised questioning brows meant for me at Zack’s outburst. I shook my head.

“If we’re done, perhaps we’ll get out of your hair,” August suggested.

Solomon nodded. “You may go. I need a few words with Gabrielle and we’ll be done today.”

We’d been here going on two hours, and I could see their relief. They got up, stretching, and made to leave. All but August.

“Everyone except Ms. Valentine, please,” Solomon added pleasantly.

“Certainly,” he said, August rose reluctantly. Solomon stood, too.

“You’ve been a great help today,” Solomon complimented and smiled. I’d come to know it as a rare but sincere gesture. August’s face warmed, and after a slight nod he departed.

Solomon sat. “Ms. Valentine, are you lying to me?’

The directness was startling. It took a moment to realize he was addressing Zack’s accusation.

“No.”

He assessed me. “I’m satisfied with that,” he said finally, pulling a file from his drawer. “I don’t know what the whiskey is going on here, but your son’s father is proving to be additionally challenging.”

“How so?”

“You really don’t know him at all, do you?” He gazed perplexedly at me. I looked down at my clasped hands. “We got our investigation of Daniel back. Right now we are facing a man who runs a Fortune 500 and was so moved while earning his MBA in China, he set up a clean water fund and established an astoundingly generous scholarship program for his alma mater. He is so clean its squeaks,” he said, sounding troubled. “Huge cancer research donations in Ireland, he’s in a stable long-term relationship—he speaks four languages and has connections worldwide. Bree, we need to step away from defense and be able to counter. Any information you come up with is valuable, understood? Even, say, an admission that contradicts what you’ve told me. I’m not here to judge. I’m here to help.” He studied me.

“Understood,” I said, seeing he still wasn’t sold on Zack’s outburst being false. “I shared everything, Solomon. I don’t know about our time together in the distant past, but I’ve been honest.”

“I appreciate that, Ms. Valentine. It will only help,” he folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “But since you qualified it, is there anything about your not-so-distance past with your son’s father I should know?”

It was inevitable, I sighed inwardly. I proceeded to disclose to him my sexual encounters with Daniel.

Fifteen minutes later, I checked my messages on my way out. August wrote everyone was having a bite at the Jamaican restaurant on the corner so I met them there. Violet was absent. She’d been in a hurry to get back to work. That was too bad. Zack offered me the end cap of their booth, but I pulled up a chair. A Reggae song melodically haunted through the hallway-width eatery.

“You took long enough. I could have used your vote to pick healthier fare,” Jill complained, her mood sour as she tossed fried plantains off the basket onto a napkin.

“I like it,” Ian said, looking around, popping his last plantain in his mouth. “This place is the real McCoy.”

“Humph.” Jill impatiently blotted oil from her tasty fried concoction on the napkin. “Are you going to order or are you here to add ambiance, Bree?”

“I have something I need to tell you. I had sex with Daniel.”

“We know,” Ian laughed. He was the only one.

“More than the once. Since Tristan.”

“Oh.” He understood now.

“You did what,” Jill said slowly.

“How many times?” Zach asked, aghast.

I looked at them both. “It happened.” I said, praying that was explanation enough. After disclosing everything to Solomon, he cemented there was no way it wouldn’t come out during the trial from Daniel’s side. I resolved myself to come clean the same day, but resolve doesn’t shield you.

Jill’s face flushed hotly, only made more intense by her strawberry blond hair. “Hurricanes happens. Getting a zit happens. Having sex with someone as repugnant to humanity as Daniel Baird doesn’t happen,” Jill said, balling her napkin and tossing her food back on her plate. She jerked up from her seat.

“Jill, it just happened. Zach,” I said, stopping them. Ian paused from getting up, blocking her in for me. Zach was outside the booth already.

“I’m not staying for this,” he sneered as he left. “I can’t even look at her.”

“You’re not as innocent as you seem, are you, Miss Priss? Or as smart,” Jill said, half leaning over the table poised to storm out behind Zack. “Do you have any idea what I am going through right now because of you? Do you care?”

“I care,” I said. “We wouldn’t be fighting if I didn’t.”

“That’s great,” she snapped. “Still, not a single damn tear from you. I’m D-listed all over the city. My family is pissed off at me. I am humiliated by people I don’t even know wherever I go for crap that is no one’s business.” She wiped an angry tear away.

“I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to be treated that way.”

“Screw them,” she snapped tearfully flicking her hand at the world. “You caused this. It didn’t help, did it, or we wouldn’t be here? Don’t play dumb, I freaking warned you who he was. Can you honestly say we wouldn’t be suffering if you hadn’t been one of his sluts? Oh, you think you were the only one? The only other woman?” she asked, reading me with incredulousness. “He probably has five girls on his roster right now. He’s the same as Nathan. You were out of your weight class, Miss Priss.”

“I don’t care about him or his roster. I don’t have any feeling for Daniel now but hate,” I said with conviction. “I am only trying, with every bone in my body, to get Tristan back home.”

Jill straightened up her stance as much as she could, still trapped in the booth. “Hate is what you’re feeling now, but that’s not what you were feeling when you were fucking him, was it?” she asked, with pity and disappointment. “You poor thing.”

Ian let her out.

~o~

I stopped by the office for some invoices. My plan being to work into the night and eat the box of cookies I had stashed in the freezer, alone. When I arrived home, Violet waited outside my door with a well-built stranger. She held her handled black portfolio in one hand, her leg was bent at the knee, flirtatiously close to his. She was chatting to him, her short hair pulled up in a spiky ponytail, while she tugged at the pieces that had come out around her face.

“Oh, Bree,” she said, letting go of the hairs, introducing the man. “This is Hunt.”

“Hi there,” he said in greeting, looking at me directly with deep set dark molasses eyes. His accent was thickly Southern as he addressed me. “I’d like a word with you if you don’t mind.”

The expectation of his tone tipped me off. “I’m busy and I have no comment. How did you get up to my apartment?” I said, seething at Vi.

“He’s not a reporter, Bree, he’s been on a two-year surfing expedition living off the land,” Violet explained, wistfully. He gave a crooked smile her way.

“I was waitin’ in the lobby when your friend was kind enough to strike up conversation and let me up,” he said politely. “I believe you and I share a mutual friend you’re in some legal trouble with. So I figured I’d board a flight from mi casa in Nicaragua for a private little pow-wow.” He rested back on his heels with a half-smile intended to be friendly.

I turned to Vi who looked enthusiastic to hear all about the pow-wow with this stranger later. I guessed my cookies would have to wait. I jiggled my key in the door lock and held it open, letting in the folksy cowboy surfer dude. I folded my hand closed at the seam of my palm, twice, signaling goodbye to Violet. She bit her thumb yearningly as I shut the door.

I dropped my keys and bag on the countertop not bothering to take off my coat. He took a seat at the dining table, so I joined him. In the improved light from the hallway halogens, I took him in quickly. His bare, tanned knees peeking from rips in the jeans were lackadaisically spread apart, but his flip-flopped feet, nearly frozen in this weather, were leaning on one another in a tee-pee. A strange combo with the dangling cuffs and half unsnapped western shirt. His unkempt ponytail was smoothed down at the crown, curly at the sun-damaged ends, just long enough to be tied back. He had the features of a history book Roman, though. A dirt-blond Roman with wide sideburns.

“What’s your deal?” I asked curiously.

“What’s your deal?” He returned the question, chilled and relaxed.

“You said you were a friend of Daniel’s. So what are you doing here,” I said, impatient.

“Checkin’ things out,” he replied. I tapped my fingers on the table and he added, “I may be able to help.”

“How?”

“First, I’m going need to have you answer a question.”

“Okay, ask.”

“The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” he recited casually.

Was this a riddle? Was he kidding? “The Beatles, obviously.”

He raised one thick eyebrow that was a darker tawny than the hair at his hairline. “Best song?”

I arched an eyebrow back. “Don’t Let Me Down” if I had to choose a Beatles song. But I wouldn’t choose any Beatles song.”

He peered at me, full brows almost meeting in the center. “What would you choose?”

“Solo Paul McCartney. Or Wings,” I answered.

“You’re her all right.” He grinned, but again his lips only curved to one side. I accepted then it was how the muscle moved; his permanent smile.

“You should have been a lawyer,” I said caustically, thinking of Solomon. “No more riddles, why are you here?”

“Caught wind of news from the big city. I came to see the girl that’s driven Danny out of his nut,” he annunciated, with the time-is-no-object drawl of the Deep South. “Some years back Danny left my place to go out and off himself. He came back. Damndest thing. Going on about a girl with the face of an angel, and questionable taste in classic rock and roll.”

“Are those his words, or yours?” He grinned again. I peered at him. “You’re trusting that’s me based on some very old and vague intel.”

“Mm,” he responded, scanning me. “I have trekked the continents and know as fact every individual in the first world has a bellybutton and an answer to that question. No one in their right pajamas even tables Wings. An opinion that bad doesn’t change. I know it’s you. Danny may have been knocking down more than one pin at that time, on his way out, I have no idea. I had to check in the event you are not that girl and merely an unlucky member of the lucky swimmer club.”

“If I am that girl, I can tell you the two aren’t mutually exclusive. What else did he say?”

“Mm,” he said again, more casually. “Not much. He took off that evening with a fire under him. He said he was going to meet up with you . He took some dope with him and some cash. I didn’t see him for months until he was in need of my special kind of help again.”

“Are you a drug dealer?”

“I am, on occasion, a facilitator of Earthly desire. I try not to define that. I like being the vessel better. So that’s what I’m focusing my energy on nowadays. I did ask about that gal once, after he got out of that jam in Reykjavik. He told me she was gone, yet,” he said, analyzing the front and back of his hand with his fingers spread wide, “here you are.”

“Did he say anything else about meeting me?”

“Not a peep,” he said. “In these years I have recalled that early morning he came crawling back to my NYC abode. He puked for hours and shook like a branch in a twister. Eventually I had to call in another compadre to reverse his misfire. It was clearly a misfire. I have to tell you for a while there I was concerned the thing was going to happen right there on my floor. I am happy to help a friend, but showing back up on my door in that state was frankly impolite. Don’t feel distress for it; he’d agree,” he assured me. When he felt confident in me again, he continued. “We got him on my mattress and I went about my day. Imagine my surprise when he came out of that room asking for a glass of water and to borrow my very favorite jacket. There’s a line to friendship, you see?” The memory offended him. “Anyhow, I obliged. I say that humbly. They say look for the helpers in this world, that’s who I am. Danny hasn’t exactly taken advantage, but he cut it right on the line more than once.”

He paused expecting my commiseration. If he hadn’t, I believe he would have talked us into the next day. I was more taken with how well he seemed to know Daniel.

“How do you know each other again?” I asked.

“We were at Harvard together. Major in molecular biology and chemical engineering. Minor in sorority house T & A.”

“Makes perfect sense,” I said, mind blown.

“You don’t learn the right things in those places. Life exists on the crux of extinction. You gotta set your feet in the quicksand,” he said in a practical sermon. “That’s where the fun’s at. But where was I? That’s right, our man lived. You know. There was more going on I shoulda paid attention to at that time. For posterity. Stories have integrity. For instance, he shaved that evening. He shaved. That resonated,” he recalled. “So I asked him, whattaya doing a thing like that for? That’s when he spoke about a girl who liked Wings,” he said, taking me in like he wanted an explanation. None came. “He asked to borrow more money, more dope, and off he went. That resonated, too.” He finished significantly.

“Are you willing to testify to any of this?” I asked him, absorbing his look. “You said you were here to help.”

“I didn’t say who,” he replied.

“If you’re here for him, you should leave now. I’ll give you a head start.”

“Mm. There it is, the softer side,” he replied, gazing. I waved it off.

“So whose side are you on?”

“I don’t pick sides. I try not to cultivate those types of attachments,” he said plainly. “You should work on managing your expectations. I can see that’s a thing with you.” I didn’t know how to take the last part.

“Thanks, kemosabe. Let me ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know what happened to me?” I watched for a reaction. It was a stab in the dark. I didn’t know if he could answer that; as drug dealer, euthanasia expert, or possibly an oracle. Asking him questions was like tossing a pennies in a bottomless well. There was no satisfying plunk at the end. I sat, not breaking his eye contact, thinking maybe tossing in that whopper would force something useful to levitate out. I couldn’t read yet if he was Daniel’s friend, sworn enemy, or just being nosy. I was almost sure he wasn’t scamming me, and I imagined he would board a plane from Timbuktu to see for himself if the rain in Spain, in fact, fell mainly in the plain. However, neither of those gave me reason to trust him.

He was plain-spoken. “I don’t know what happened to you, girl. I have an idea, though,” he said, his espresso eyes expressing their most defined emotion yet—sympathy. I nodded respectfully, and the look cleared. Importantly, he asked, “Why Wings?”

I blinked. “Because Linda.”

“Mm,” he contemplated that. “So you’re saying the real proposition is Yoko or Linda.” I saw a glimpse more of the scientist as he said, “Gracias.”

That’s not what I’d said, but I accepted the gratitude. “If you have a change of heart and would like to help me, I can you put in touch with my attorney.”

“Hearts beat, darlin’, they don’t change. Don’t forget it. I think I’d like to catch up to that lion-hearted Jewess priestess. Your friend’s unit number, if you don’t mind.”

I told him. I didn’t bother correcting that we were sisters. “Good luck,” I said in parting.

He looked back over his wing-tipped collar. “You keep it.”

Sweetheart. Possible Unabomber. Violet was going to love him.

Chapter 22 - The Spotless Blind

“Let me fix your hair,” Violet offered. She began smoothing down wind-blown strands of my hair. “There. We look like winners.” She smiled. Her hands went to her pantsuit, as she brushed away invisible lint. If seeing Vi in a pantsuit wasn’t enough to alarm the world, I don’t know what would be. A few paparazzi snapped photos. Solomon looked at his watch.

“They’ll be here,” I said.

Violet, Solomon, and I stood on the steps of the courthouse waiting for the others. I fidgeted with my bracelet, hoping everyone showed. They did, almost at once. Jill was last. Looking like Grace Kelly in a French twist and pearls. They showed, thank goodness, for Tristan’s sake. As we stood assembled on the steps of the courthouse, Solomon giving last-minute advice, two limos pulled up with motorcycle police for escorts. Daniel and his family. They emerged looking serious and uniform. It was my first time seeing them in person. Lady Sophie Baird and his dad, Sir Hawk Baird, exited first. Her hair was in a more perfect twist than Jill’s. Silky ebony hair with two elegant swoops of white on each temple in a lavender suit. Hawk was…eye-grabbing. A longer face than Daniel with a square, cleft chin. His eyebrows were dark and full, but his thick head of hair was all mostly silver, combed straight back until it gave a small flip out behind his ears and at the neck. The way he walked was uncommonly vital for a man his age. I saw in him Daniel’s assured gait as he greeted the posh arrivals from the other limo, and they milled together like guests at a diamond jubilee.

I glanced back at my crew, for the first time thinking us motley, but it was by only comparison. Finally, came Daniel. He looked strong but tired. Let that work in my favor, I hoped. He wore a perfect black suit, under a long wool black coat as the weather had turned chilly. Kate came next, followed by private security. Daniel didn’t linger. He began to take the stairs and they all followed. I rushed my crew inside.

The case got underway quickly. After introductions, his attorney, Alec Kord, began the proceedings. Alec Kord had handled the mayor’s high-profile case years ago. He’d had a child on the side. The mayor had won. They covered Daniel’s bio first. Daniel’s answers sounded like a get-to-know article from Fortune magazine. But we got quickly to what I was anticipating most.

“When did you first meet Ms. Valentine?” Alec Kord asked his client.

“New Year’s Day, five years past.” Daniel replied, his eyebrows shifting as he adjusted in the stand.

“Where did you first meet?”

“At a hotel,” he replied, settled in. “We made arrangements to meet the next night.”

“How long after that first brief meeting did you have sex?”

“That next night.”

“So, you met a willing girl and took her for a romp at a hotel suite?”

“No. She refused procuring a room.”

“Why?”

“It was too expensive for her.”

Jill leaned in my ear. “They just implied you’re a cheap hooker.”

I didn’t glance back at her as Alec asked, “Where did the intercourse take place?”

Daniel blinked. “It was in an abandoned building.”

“Did you keep in touch?” Alec asked, and I shushed her.

“We didn’t exchange contacts. Or full names.”

“No phone numbers, emails, exchanged.” he said, gesturing. “She didn’t ask you to find her on some type of social media.”

“We didn’t exchange any of those,” Daniel replied.

“When did you see her again?” His heels clicked as he paced.

“Fall of this year.”

“Wasn’t it a work-related event? Lots of other professional men. Posing as someone’s date?”

“Hooker,” Jill whispered behind us. August shut her up. Daniel’s jaw got tight.

“She is in a relationship with my employee. She attended as his date,” Daniel replied, which made me sound a bit less like an escort but irritated him more.

Alec gave a compassionate look. “Did she approach you and let you know you had a child?”

“No.”

“Isn’t true, in fact, that she didn’t remember you at all, and to this day, still has no recollection of you?”

“Yes.”

“But she’s had sex with you since.”

“Yes.”

“In fact, she offered you a sexual relationship in exchange for full custody, is that correct?’

“Yes.”

“And you refused.”

“Not initially. We had intercourse in my office.”

Alec nodded. “Your honor, we have statements from a security guard and Mr. Baird’s secretary corroborating this,” he stated. “But Mr. Baird, you’re here now, so you obviously declined on the solicitation of sexual favors Ms. Valentine offered.”

“I did,” he said solemnly. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“Mr. Baird, some would like to paint you as a man lacking discretion. Why didn’t you use protection that first night with Ms. Valentine?”

Daniel’s eyes shifted. “In the moment, it was not important.”

“Well, we’ve all been there,” he said smugly. A few men listening wore smirks. “And she didn’t protest?”

“She consented,” he said and paused. “In truth, it was she who insisted we continue without protection.” Daniel said, and it felt like he’d physically turned a knife in me. I felt more than one set of eyes on me from the bench behind.

“Mr. Baird, although I can see ample reason why a certain type of female…” Alec looked at me pointedly, “would willing engage in unprotected sex with a man such as yourself, but why would you have unprotected sex with this woman? A stranger? If you believe the papers, you’ve got a lot to lose by sowing wild oats, so to speak. Can you explain why you would do such a thing?”

Daniel began, “When I was nine, we had a stable. I rode horses often and there was an accident—it rendered me unable to produce offspring.” Daniel peered at Solomon when he finished. Then turned back to his attorney. “Also, I was named in a paternity claim when I was fifteen. It was mediated privately. I was cleared when tests concluded I was not the genetic contributor. It validated the previous medical conclusion.” My eyes widened. Daniel thought we knew that. He was just getting in front of it, in case. I looked at Solomon but he looked blind about it. Black holes, indeed.

“And you’ve been tested again,” Alec continued, sounding moved. “Since the revelation of this paternity—confirming this diagnosis. Yet, I have here a DNA test—several of them in fact—and according to science you are without doubt the father of the child in question,” he paused for emphasis. “How do you explain this, then?”

“A miracle,” said Daniel with certainty. The man who believed only in himself. He’d obviously been practicing this with his attorney because his act was almost convincing.

“A miracle,” the attorney repeats. “So you see, judge, this child is most likely the only child Mr. Baird will ever produce. That is why he is so exceptionally devoted to the child’s welfare and well-being. He was denied the first five years of the boy’s life, and now that he’s found him, he cannot sit idly by with a clear conscience, watching the debauchery, the deviancy, and the irresponsibility the boy has been exposed to while concealed from him in Ms. Valentine’s care.”

Several character testimonies took the stand after Daniel that day and over the next few days. Some of them with very impressive resumes. A Lord someone, a former Harvard dean. A woman named Teresa who said she was a chef. They needed a woman, I guessed. She looked at me with a question in her eyes as she testified. Then Kate, handily in pocket. All with praise. The best thing that happened was the appointed psychologist who, practically shaking in his seat, testified custody should be shared. He saw no reason why I should be denied it. Brave thing. In any other case, he would have said primary, but this wasn’t any other case. Hawk looked like he was planning mortgage and college denial letters for the man’s next nine generations. Ari and Claire both gave excellent testimonies, too. Tristan was a happy, smart kid— a boy who was loved and cared for.

As Daniel was excused from the stand, August leaned close to my ear from behind, asking, “How are you?”

“August,” I said, lost, watching Daniel stride to his seat, sit down beside Kate, and receive a pat on the back from his father, who caught my eyes. Pale and sharp, he grinned. Shivering, I said, “I have no idea how I made a baby with that man.”

Chapter 23 - Apples for Alligators

Solomon and Miss Justine made a house call the night before my big day on the stand. It was Sunday, so I made a dinner of pasta with chicken in a cream sauce and blackberry cobbler for dessert. I ate little, but it was nice to have people around my table. It was Sunday, after all.

The only person I had left was Vi. I watched her as she teetered on the kitchen step stool and reached for my hiding spot above the fridge.

“I need a drink. A real one,” she declared. It had been a very long evening of questions and drills. She climbed down with a bottle in each hand. She jiggled the bottle that held vodka. We both needed to decompress but in different ways. I drew my hair back and wound my hair band around it. I needed air.

“I’m going out for a walk.”

“Do you want some company?” she asked forlornly.

“I’m good alone.” She didn’t protest. I gathered up a coat and pulled on tattered work sneakers.

The cold air hit me as I exited my lobby. It was bitter out, but I couldn’t be bothered by temperatures. I let my feet carry me. I finally stopped and sat. I’m not sure how much time passed, thinking of nothing and everything.

Unrelatedly chilled and numb, I didn’t notice footsteps until they were upon me. Taking my attention from the distant blackened sky. I looked up from the bench.

August approached me, looking contrastingly warm in a tan cowl-neck sweater over a blue and white small checked shirt, navy pants, and a wool coat and scarf. He stopped before me, uncertain of his welcome. Lazily, I observed the two tortoise toggle buttons at the V of the sweater glint faintly from where they nestled in cable-knit. Snappy dresser, this one was.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said.

“How’d you know?” I asked, giving him a wan smile, but I supposed it was no mystery this spot was just a few hundred yards shy of where Tristan slept. Likely the closest I could get without breaking some sort of custody law. It crossed my mind I should feel self-conscious for being caught here on a number of fronts, and I mentally sighed at my growing aversion towards societal norms.

“A guess,” he decided and sat. I scooted a bit and noticed him observing my exposed leg. I was wearing athletic shorts under my mid-length coat, paired with the beaten shoes.

“You’re cold,” he said. “Take this.” If he’d asked, I’d have refused, but he knew that. He removed his heavy wool blazer, draping me, leaving his arm casually rested on my shoulder. Settled in together, I spoke.

“They’re going to destroy me tomorrow.”

August didn’t deny it, which I appreciated. Finally the hand that had been meditatively rubbing heat into my shoulder through the coat paused and he asked, “I saw the articles,” he admitted. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” I non-answered.

I watched dust motes swirl in the air, glowing in the haze of the lamp. They reminded me of fireflies in moonlight near the creek I grew up beside. After a while I began lazily sweeping my feet, legs crossed at the ankles, letting my soles lightly scrape the pavement, and there was something comforting in the act. Like Violet and I used to do on the porch swing, and that’s what it felt it like; it was that kind of night. If it was only a mirage, the calm before the great storm, I was willing to take it. Finally, August broke the silence.

“Gabrielle?”

“Hm?”

“We could get married,” he said, and I looked at him. I was going to make light and tease that he was taking the ‘beard’ arrangement a little too literally, but when I looked at him, I stayed silent.

Quietly, he continued. “I could love you,” he said, but it wasn’t an offer. “As a man loves a woman. In every way.” I searched blue eyes; honest and deep, becoming more lidded as they closed in until I couldn’t see them anymore.

“August…” I spoke as he broke away, in prayer and appeal. Slowly, like the kiss, he watched me, waiting. I begged the silence to speak and say whatever it was I couldn’t, to say anything at all. Because I couldn’t say. I couldn’t speak.

His arm lifted from my shoulder and he stood, glancing out at the park, gathering himself. I looked down. He turned back to me on the park bench that now felt like a single square metal desk in a very large and empty space. I watched him helplessly.

“Can I see you home, Gabrielle?” he asked, bravely smiling, golden head haloed in the lamplight. He extended his hand, palm open in acceptance this time. His eyes held no ultimatum, willing to see me safely home, his hand in mine; his heart back in his pocket. My own had finally stopped pounding.

Being his partner in public hadn’t been an orchestrated deception, it was an organic evolution, sensing a need and filling it instinctively—as he’d done for me; father figure to my son, and sometimes to me. I had a slight rush of vertigo when I realized, studying him now under the sodium light, I had no such paternal thought.

Often, we communicated without speech—we were connected. It should have been a natural thing, taking his hand, his kiss, coalescing into a new arrangement. A warm familiar key—that hand—that’d lead me to a place where I’d erected shelter, now revealing a path unknowingly conjured in the halls of contentment. Not altering, just adding—expanding. Still, I answered the only way I could.

“Thank you, August,” I said, swallowing a lump. “But I’ll find my way.”

When he was gone I somehow didn’t feel alone, but I spent the next hour with my face buried in my sweater anyway.

Then, someone new arrived. Daniel must have come through a trail in the woods behind me. A shadow cast across me. The shadow assumed the seat beside me. I knew it was him without looking up. Finally, I sat back in my seat, expelling a lungful of air. It came out a vaporous cloud. I knew it was very late now. I swiped my cheeks, tugging the collar up around my face, and spoke when my voice would hold.

“What is it with you and this park?” I asked, aggravated, pushing back an imaginary hair. The air bit on my cheeks where the tears had stained, leaving my face patchy and pink. I was trying for intimidating, instead of exposed.

“I could ask you the same,” he countered. I looked at him then. His profile. His sight was fixed on the distance. He wore his heavy long black wool coat with its collar upturned over black silk pajama bottoms I recognized. Scrolled gold monograms adorned his black house loafers. DBH. Kate was right; what lie hidden beneath the shiny apple was darkest.

My eyes narrowed back to his face. “I know something about you, you know. I have proof. I wrote it down. I know you were on drugs. I know you were trying to kill yourself,” I seethed. “I could expose you.”

“Do what you must,” he advised simply, as if I’d threatened to show the judge a heinous middle school photo from a phase he’d since moved past. He kept his eyes trained out to the opening of field. Completely impenetrable. Taking swings made me feel like an emotional jack-in-the-box—out of control and a little bit crazy.

My brows pinched together. “Why. Why were you here? Why were you trying to…end yourself?” I probed, not knowing why I asked or why I’d bothered being delicate about it.

“A person died,” he replied. “It was my fault.”

That gave me pause.

“Who?” I asked, the pinch in my brow deepening.

“My mother.”

I blanked. I slid forward on the bench and tilted my body towards him, suddenly more concerned about someone else’s gravity more than my own.

“Daniel,” I denied slowly, “your mother was in court on Friday.”

“Her name was Fiona,” he shared importantly. My mouth snapped shut. When I didn’t speak he continued.

“She had hair like yours,” he said, glancing at me, at my pulled back hair. “Not the color but the same.” His expression became more at peace than before. More at peace than I’d seen maybe ever. He looked as though he had resolved something he’d thought for some time and had been waiting to say.

Yes, he sounded sincere. More than that…rule #158.

He was telling the truth.

Whatever he was saying, this was real to him.

“Tell me.”

“We used to play together. She was just thirteen years my elder. Her father was the horseman. She was the housekeeper and my nanny. My parents, the ones you see, were often away, so Fiona spent a great deal of time with me. She dressed me, prepared meals, she tended to me,” he paused like he was searching for an expression. “She raised me.”

“She loved you,” I said point blank, knowing what it meant to raise a child.

“Yes,” he said sadly. “She loved me.”

“What happened?”

“As I grew, I pushed away from her. My schoolmates came over one day. They shamed me for our closeness. She was the help.”

“That did it,” I concluded.

“No. I threw them out. I made them walk miles home.” Something close to a mischievous smile crossed his face briefly. It faded. “But it stuck with me. The next week, I came downstairs in the middle night searching for her. I’d woken and didn’t find her in her quarters. I’d remembered we hadn’t tied up the horses properly. I went to her then. I found her in the kitchen. With my father.” The way he’d finished the last statement made it plain they weren’t making eggs.

“You didn’t know.”

“No. She looked happy. She was happy. She loved my father, though that’s not how it started,” he looked down. At thirteen, I’d imagined not. I shivered thinking about it. Hawk taking advantage of such a young girl. A child.

Finally, I said, “And she loved you, too.”

He gave a half turn of his lip, a small smile. “She had found peace but in secret. Her child, her lover. But I didn’t know any of this. I only knew Sophie as my mother. Sophie and I were never close. After that night, I blamed Fiona for that. For a few things. I treated her very poorly afterwards.”

“Did your father love her, too?” I asked, optimistically, hoping to inject some happiness into the tale.

“No,” he condemned. “She was a thing to him. Like all things. A tool. Sophie granted him the entirety of the kingdom but not the heir. He told me later he’d simply gone into the barn one day while Fiona worked and seized her. I doubted that her father protested because I don’t believe he was better. Colum was an abusive man. Known to discipline the animals more than was necessary. My father said there was no harm in the deed since he wasn’t the first. He said he’d spared her from worse.”

“Dear God,” I whispered.

“Her life was hell. I know that now. Her affection for my father grew under his misuse of her, but in the beginning she could have run away. She was still young, still beautiful. Not yet tied to him, emotionally. She stayed for me. Then, when she’d finally come to a contentedplace in her life, in our home, raising me, I ripped it apart.”

“Daniel, nothing you could have done could have been worse than—” He turned to me brow raised, his features were still, shadowed, and sharp. Cutting me off completely. I waited for him to continue.

“My father told me the same as my friends had,” he continued. “She’s nothing. Why care for her? And I began to believe she was the reason Sophie was a stranger to me. I was not kind to her, Gabrielle,” he said, that dangerous edge returned to him.

Warily, I asked, “How are you responsible for her death?”

“I shunned her. I disgraced her. Our house was the only home she’d ever known. The small happiness she’d created there, I shattered. I came home from boarding school when I was fifteen with mates. When I arrived, I could see she wanted to rush and welcome me home. I could see she’d missed me. I was fond of her still, but I resented her now, too. The show of affection from the housekeeper would have been…inappropriate regardless. She was not equal in the eyes of the world. I instructed her to get back to her chores and called her a whore.

“Later that night, I woke from a noise. I came downstairs and my father was with her again, in his office this time. This time was different. She was rejecting him. Then, she saw me.” He paused. “She’d tried to make me good, to do what was right. I could have helped her. I was stronger than him by then, but she didn’t make a sound. She only looked at me,” he broke off. “If she had screamed, I would have intervened. She had to have known that, but perhaps she was afraid for me,” he said sounding despondent. He looked out in the distance. “Because that’s what I saw in her eyes: Fear. So much fear. She was crying. And there was blood. I left her there with him.”

I could hardly speak. “Did Hawk kill her?” I croaked.

Not without bitterness, he replied, “In his own way, yes. The way he kills everything.”

What he’d said weighed heavily on me for the pain of what he’d been through. But in an immediate sense….

“Knowing everything you do, through all this, you would allow my son,” I corrected myself, diplomatically. It needed to be personal. “Our son to be near him? How is that protecting him from anything?”

“Tristan will be safe with me,” he said certainly “I have made mistakes, Gabrielle. I know what it is to have loved and lost. For the last time,” he vowed. Then he turned and met my eyes, intoning dangerously, “No one will ever harm him, Gabrielle. On my life. I would kill for him.” It was no empty threat.

But I wasn’t impressed.

“That makes two of us,” I assured him, a flame kindling upwards inside my chest. When I reached a few feet from the bench, I stopped.

“You think we had something,” I paused letting the words fill the air. “That night. But maybe, you were just out of your mind. I was definitely out of mine, and there is just one good thing that came from it. And you do not deserve one good thing. See you tomorrow, Daniel,” I said in departure. I flagged a cab when I was a few blocks away and jogged to its door. It was time to go home.

Chapter 24 - Swimming in the Rocks

I was nearly inside the courthouse. I heard a strange whistle, like a bird call.

“Hey gal,” he said as I walked towards the pillar he leaned against. “‘Member me?”

“Yes, I do, Hunt. My sister does, too. She’s wondering why you didn’t wake her up.”

“Get focused,” he said, seriously. “You need to win this thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever you got, fire away. You got me? Win, any cost.” He wore a generic heavy brown coat, the kind sold from a bin at a big box store. The mill men wore them by the dozens. It was over the same outfit I’d met him in.

“Yeah. I thought you said you could help,” I said, irritated.

“The help you need is a lightning bolt,” he said. “I could kill him, that’d help. But I don’t particularly want to. Or I could kill his daddy and help you both.” He looked over my head, as though considering the latter option. He knew about Daniel’s father, Hawk. Maybe the same thing I knew.

“You know Daniel really well, don’t you?” I asked. Hunt nodded, and I snapped, “Then you can’t be any type of good person and you’re just bringing me bad luck. Beat it.” His eyes narrowed. I walked away.

In we went, and we got right to it.

“Mr. August King. You have spent a great deal of time with this child. What is your motivation with Mrs. Valentine and her son?” Alec Kord asked August.

This was the end of the line. I sighed from my seat, rubbing my sweaty palms on my crossed knee. I thought my nerves wouldn’t get the best of me until my name was called. Seeing August up there on the stand was making me prematurely quake.

“She is a very good of friend of mine,” August said. “We met when she was pregnant and have grown closer over time.”

“Close indeed. Have you two been in a monogamous relationship all this time?”

“No. I wouldn’t put it in those terms. We are family. When we met, we were instantly family.” He smiled.

“But not husband and wife,” Alec asked. “Why is that? You are listed as the emergency contact on every form, have taken them on many nice vacations, you are even co-signer on Ms. Valentine’s very nice luxury apartment.”

“I want to help her in any way I can. Tristan has been like a son to me. I wanted to be sure they were cared for as she was establishing herself in the city. Which she has done and is no need of financial help from anyone,” he emphasized, making eye contact at Daniel’s table. I refused to follow his line of vision and kept my eyes fixed on him. He continued, “As for marriage, I asked her just last night and she turned me down,” he announced proudly.

There was a disruption in the back of the courtroom. I glanced back to see a woman shrouded in sunglasses and scarf who’d been sitting in the back row leave through the courtroom doors. I swiveled my head back to August. As I did there was a snap sound and I heard Kate gasp. It looked like Daniel had snapped an ink pen, some ink spurting on Kate. The attorney approached his desk at the same time and picked up a thin stack of photographs and returned to August on the stand.

“You asked her to marry you? Interesting timing, Mr. King,” Daniel’s attorney, Alec Kord paced. “Mr. King, do you know a man named Marcus Faircloth? What about Olivier Garcia?”

August swallowed. “I know the individuals.”

The attorney smirked. Then he handed August the photographs. “I’m glad you didn’t deny it. We know you know them. Mr. August, both men have given us statements that they’ve had sex with you. Mr. Garcia states he carried on a sexual relationship with you during your so-called friendship with Ms. Valentine. Everyone else who knows you claims your relationship with Ms. Valentine has been the picture of the happy family. So, are you a gay man who is a fraud, or a bi-sexual man who is cheater?”

August didn’t answer as he flipped slowly thought the photos in his hands, as if they were the pins to a grenade. His back was hunched over them as he shifted the rectangular squares idly in front of him.

“Mr. King, at this stage, if I asked you what your interest was in a young single mother with a son who had no other predominate protective male, or female, figures in their lives, would you be answering as the liar or the cheater? Because we have established you are one of the two.”

August looked up and swallowed thickly.

Without an answer, the attorney continued. “Mr. Olivier was quite a bit younger than you. Would you state that’s the type of male you prefer? Young?”

“Objection!” Solomon shouted. He was angry, as was I.

“He is like a son to me.” August repeated, his mouth cringing disgustedly.

“Do you mean the young boy in question, Mr. Baird’s son? But he’s not your son. Not by law or blood.”

“I have cared for them both. I love them both as if they are my partner and my child. That is why I have cared for them. Miss Valentine and I don’t have any secrets from each other. There is nothing here she’s unaware of, if your wish was to blindside her.” August said in calm defense.

The attorney smiled gleefully. “Your honor please put on case record that the witness has stated Miss Valentine is in open knowledge of the duplicity of Mr. King’s lifestyle and sexual conduct outside their relationship. I submit this, the statements from his male lovers, coupled with documents stating the child has been tested for sexually transmitted diseases sporadically throughout his childhood.”

Solomon was contesting something but I spaced out. Daniel wasn’t going for a win. He was going for total decimation of our image.

Solomon was still making an argument when August stood up, slapping down the photos. “You are making a disgusting and libelous inference, Mr. Kord. I suggest at this point you and anyone you represent whom authorized this line of questioning be prepared to hear from my attorney. And, to the Baird family, please, from the bottom of my heart, accept this as my notice. I quit.” August tugged on the bottom flaps of his suit jacket and stepped down from the stand calmly.

With incredible character he carried himself back to the seat behind me. I reached my hand to his and squeezed it.

“Next we call Mary Gabrielle Valentine,” Alec Kord said from his table.

“I’m so sorry, August.” I said, hesitating. I stood and looked at him.

“Be brave,” he pleaded, eyes brimming with emotion and childlike fear. Tarred and feathered, he had lost hope. My heart hammered. I took a deep breath and mounted the stand.

“Ms. Valentine, do you believe yourself to be a responsible person?”

“People have often told me, yes.”

“Then answer, how is it you came to be pregnant?”

“The same way as everyone else,” I answered, gritting my teeth.

“Ms. Valentine, why have you allowed your young, impressionable child to be so closely surrounded by this group of self-titled family? . You have created a father figure out of a man you appear to be in an alternative lifestyle relationship with.”

“I have never been with him how you are implying. Or any of them for that matter.”

He laughed. “Ms. Valentine, you are aware you swore an oath.”

I snapped, “I’m telling the truth.”

He tucked his hands behind his back. “Do you then deny fornicating with Mr. Baird the night after meeting?”

“No—I don’t know,” I slipped.

“You either do or you don’t.”

“I don’t remember.” I said more firmly. Solomon and I rehearsed this, I reminded myself, closing my eyes. Play it through implication as a commonplace co-ed one-night stand, a forgettable one, nothing more.

“And the only reason you are acknowledging him as a sexual partner during conception is because you have a child to show for it?”

“Yes.”

“Then one could conclude that you potentially have had dozens of partners in the days of conception that didn’t result in pregnancies, because you only acknowledge the one you bore a child for.”

“I am not a whore!” I defended, because that was the truth. I was not what they were painting me to be. My pride was getting the best of me. It didn’t escape the attorney’s notice this wasn’t an answer.

The judge called order and my attorney objected. “Having a private life does not constitute losing parental rights. If his questions aren’t paramount to the health and safety of the child, they are immaterial and, frankly, prejudicial.”

“We’re not judging the defendants lifestyle, per se,” the attorney rebutted, “but these are material facts pertaining to the atmosphere the child is being raised in.”

The attorney looked at me sharply, and I swallowed. There was something in the sand and he had caught a scent. He was like a vulture cautiously circling before me; unsure if he was onto a strike or a trap.

“Has Mrs. King ever spent the night in your bed?” He threw me off.

I gave him the easy point. “Yes, slept.”

He grinned, and dug in. “Ms. Valentine, do you currently, or have you ever used or abused drugs or alcohol?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.” Brows lowered, he snapped his mouth closed, and the gears began grinding so hard now, I could almost hear it.

He was thoughtful. “Ms. Valentine, do you experience blackouts?” he fished. “I take that back, strike the question.”

The attorney halted and strode back to his table. A young woman who looked to be an intern extended some documents, which he waved away, instead seeking something that seemed to have been cast aside. He skimmed it and headed back to me with deliberate steps.

“In the child’s medical records,” he began slowly. “It shows that he was tested for a HIV, AIDS every six months, starting at birth. By your request.” He peered at me, disgusted and intrigued all at once, then took the paper back to his desk, laying it down neatly, and returning, with the look of a man one word short of solving Sunday’s crossword.

“Ms. Valentine, I am only going to ask you this once. Understand that I am here to get the truth for the welfare of the child. Understand also that perjury is an absolute crime, and you have sworn yourself to honesty; to truth. Now, I ask—why is it that you deny knowledge of Mr. Daniel Baird as your sexual partner during conception, when it is scientific fact, and why is it, you cannot, and did not—just minutes ago—categorically repudiate the possibility of having had hundreds of sexual partners or a personal experience with substance abuse?”

I was cornered. It was a broad enough question that I couldn’t avoid. My attorney was worriedly fuming because—I knew—he couldn’t object; and I was trapped. I remember seeing the faces of certain faces in the courtroom; most of all, I remember thinking, I’m sorry.

“Because,” I said sighing heavily. “I have a condition that has given me a loss of time in my life. The doctor called it psychogenic amnesia.”

The opposing attorney’s desk quietly erupted. It took a few moments for the room to collectively regain itself. Most didn’t know what it meant, not realizing the can had merely been opened—the meaty worms hadn’t crawled out yet. They simply liked the new twist. I felt defeat and despair radiating from my side of the room, and I found I couldn’t look. But the sour heat of it created a fire in my belly, and for once, I was glad for it; I welcomed it. I looked to the source of this tumult to feed it, people were leaning into him and conferring around him, but Daniel’s eyes were trained on me; and a malevolence I’d never known filled me.

The attorney approached for redress, and only then did my gaze snap away, but there was new vigor in the lawyer’s step. He had something; he knew. Unfortunately, he struck gold on the first try.

“Ms. Valentine, do you now, or have you ever had a diagnosis of a mental break—”

“Objection.”

“Your honor, it think it is very clear, there is something suspect about Ms. Valentine’s answers thus far. I promise you I am well within my jurisdiction to pursue this line of questioning.

The judge pursed his lips. “Proceed”

“Ms. Valentine. Do you now or have you ever been treated for any other type of psychological condition.” he asked, and although I knew it was coming, a volcano of hate erupted in me.

I seethed. “The answer is yes, I have. In fact eight months of my life are a blank, deleted. And you have no idea how that feels. But I am perfectly fine now and that has nothing to do with how I care for my son!” I finished breathing heavily, and I knew I didn’t look perfectly fine.

Both sides exploded, but they were quickly silenced.

“Ms. Valentine, your mental competence is imperative to the—”

“Me! Do you have any idea who you’re representing?” I jabbed an accusing finger towards Daniel’s table, who I expected to be reveling in the chaos, but looked, for lack of a better word, totally confused.

“She’s being hostile, your honor,” his lawyer complained then raised his voice a notch. “Ms. Valentine, have you ever—” Before he could finish he was cut off. By Daniel.

“Let her speak,” he thundered. I saw both Kate and his father speaking protests, but he silenced them with a hand like a steel wall. They were all here to witness my humiliation, and although I couldn’t process Daniel’s actions, I knew he was the source of this pain.

“You. I know it was you,” I hissed, and for the first time, he seemed to truly understand me, absorbing what I was saying then addressed the room. “They found me in the park,” I started. “I was…filthy…erratic…and pregnant. I was squatting somewhere and living on the streets. They called it a psychotic break. My sister—the social deviant, you said—was the one who tracked me down and took me to a hospital. Jill—the reckless whore—protected me; stopped me from an abortion, and August…the best human being I’ve ever known,” I said meeting his eyes, but they seemed blurry, and mine were too. “The one you insinuated capable of the most unspeakable acts….August saved our lives. So, no, I can’t give you straight answers, because I don’t have them. I don’t know if I’ve ever done drugs, but I do know that I’ve never done any before or since. And I don’t know for certain how many people I had sex with while on the streets, but I do know that I never had sex with anyone else before the episode…or since.”

The room was bursting again, but the attorney spoke over it. “Ms. Valentine, we already have sworn testimony that you’ve recently had a casual sexual relationship with Mr. Baird himself,” he interrupted, with a look that said Nice try.

“Yes,” I said finding Daniel in the room. “No one else but him. I’ll never regret anything more.”

The attorney was determined. “Ms. Valentine, you cannot expect us to believe that, and I think you’re dodging around the real issue. Are you currently on any psychiatric medica—” Alec Kord began floundering to reign in, but I’d felt Daniel watching with full attention, and finally, not wanting to be weak in this moment, I met his eyes. But he looked different, and something was changing inside—it looked like it was breaking.

“Leave her be,” he ordered, blinking away from me. His command carried through the room, silencing everyone. His attorney stuttered and stopped.

“Son,” Hawk ordered, leaning forward, with a threatening look.

Kate grabbed his arm. “Daniel,” she said—it was a plea. He seemed to take them in slow motion, but Daniel didn’t look present, and when he finally came back to himself, Kate flinched away. He rose to a stand.

“Your honor,” Daniel addressed, squaring his shoulders, pinning his hands down on the table. “I formally withdraw my request for full custody of the child.” The room exploded, but he kept going. “Or any legal custody at all. Additionally, I henceforth wave all manner of claim regarding custody and visitation,” he finished. My world tilted. The judge struggled for order. He pounded his gavel.

“Mr. Baird, if you’re trying to get out of child support—” the judge warned.

“I am not,” Daniel clarified. “I will pay whatever amount the court and Ms. Valentine desire.”

Everyone was giving Daniel the same look I’d gotten from Violet when I told her I’d found Tristan’s dad; like he’d gone skydiving sans chute. The judge frowned and gave him a look, man to man. “Mr. Baird, do you fully understand the legal implications of what you are saying?”

“Yes. I apologize to the court for the misunderstanding,” he said, looking impossibly tired. “But there has been a grave mistake. I have no rights here.” He looked at me as he spoke the words, and I gasped at what I saw. Violet had jumped from her seat. She was clapping. Ian wrapped Jill in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground. She was crying. August leaned over the pony wall from the gallery whispering fervently with Solomon. At the council desk, Solomon nodded, and August leaned back in his seat. He raised his face to the ceiling, eyes shut. And then there was a broad shouldered figure in a black suit making for the partition. The fabric was like liquid. People were calling to him. Some angry. He was leaving, and without thinking I climbed down from the stand and rushed through the courtroom, down to the aisle, catching his blazer sleeve.

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t understand why, but I knew I had my son back.

“Don’t,” he said harshly, the sternness in his green eyes waned when looking down at my hand on his sleeve. “I’ve ruined you,” he said; a simple statement of fact. I let go and didn’t watch him leave.

Part Two

Chapter 25 - The Bairds and the Bees

It was over. As quickly as it began, it was over. I took Tristan home that day. I’d met him on the steps of Daniel’s townhouse standing beside Jeeves and lifted him in my arms, with no intention of ever letting go again. He cried happy tears on my behalf. When we got to our apartment he said he liked the new open shelves in our kitchen, and his new bed. His reunion with his lizard Herman was just as great. Herman flicked out his trim-ribbon tongue as Tristan nuzzled him. I swore it was a kiss.

I was happy again. For my friends and me, it was a time of shaky reconciliation. For our relationships and our lives. August was officially unemployed. He had to live through some scandalous blurbs in the paper as well. But he came to visit that Sunday for dinner anyway. So did almost everyone. Jill was the only holdout, but I intended to fix that. Although there were moments of residual tension, it was dealt with. We’d stood on the pyre together, bound, and we came out together; bonded. A week after the mistrial, we went out for brunch.

“Waffles. Pancakes. Bacon,” Violet said, leaning down, pinching Tristan’s cheeks. “Get whatever you want.”

“Go on. Before long you’ll be counting calories like the rest of us. Enjoy that metabolism,” Justine encouraged, petting his head.

He looked at me wide-eyed, for permission. I smiled and gave him a nod. Solomon and August exchanged a humored smile. We’d already eaten. Vi was encouraging him to order a to-go for later.

“Bro. You can’t pass that up. Get some of that bananas froster’s toast,” Ian suggested, goofing the words. Zach was there, too, and brought along Annie and Chen. “You too, Chen-man.” They huddled over menus, devising a high-calorie take-away plan. The waitress brought the check and waited as I insisted on paying over other offers. She paused, slapping down the ticket.

“No charge for baby boy’s stack,” she announced, like The Godfather gifting a Benz. Her name tag read Cardis—a young girl Zack’s complexion with a strong Bronx accent. “And look you don’ know me but we just want to tell you nice work. Me an’ my friends knew awl along you was gonna come out on top. That guy deserved to get bagged.” She grinned then rushed to her other tables. Solomon and August turned to me. We exchanged impressed looks as I pulled my attention to my wallet.

“Gotta say, I agree,” Zack said, having overheard, while preening around the breakfast diner like a king.

Justine peered up from where Tristan and Chen buried their noses in the menu. “Pride comes before the fall, young man. Nothing costs nothing,” she said lowly to Zack. “Remember that.”

I thought about Daniel sometimes.

“Kick the ball!” Chen shouted. I kicked the rolling ball back on the frozen turf of Madison Park where bundled Tristan and Chen played winter kickball with Zack and Ian.

I tucked my gloved hands in my coat pockets and brushed my heel against the ground, bristling up some frost. The world was mostly okay for everyone except Tristan. I wasn’t one to carry grudges, but I could get past this. Daniel dragged us through the dirt, and when I thought about what my little family had been through, it did something strange to my spine; made it lock into a jagged steel column. I was brought back from thoughts again as Tristan barreled into me. He was smiling and giggling. He looked up and frowned.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I drew down his hat more snugly, and he ran back to play.

A week before, I was in the work studio. Claire buzzed me out when lunch arrived. I popped open the clear plastic container and ripped the fork from its plastic.

“Do you want me to have Ari drop off Tristan after school?” Claire offered, knowing we were buried in deadlines. I took the scarf off my head and shook out my hair. It was itching.

“That would be great. Tell him thanks,” I smiled, shaking out sawdust. I had five original prototype designs that needed to be on a crate the next day. She gave me a thumbs-up and went to the large corkboard across from my desk and began pinning up freshly torn out pages. She had turned my board into a motivational collage and Baird burn book. A picture of a striped cat saying Keep on Meowing made me chuckle.

“If you think that’s hilarious wait till you see these,” she said pinning up pages with typeface. I joined her, holding my lunch under my chin as I shoveled in a fork load. I scanned a few. More of the same. The press showed no mercy. Only one new storyline.

“The Stud’s a Dud! Former Baird-to-be Bares All,” I read aloud.

Claire grinned, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “That’s a good one.”

While on a weekend spa getaway, Kate Hearst spilled the sauce to an eagle-eared pedicurist. “She said he used to be able to have sex multiple times a day. A real stallion in the sack,” Gianna Giacomo of Long Island told our investigative reporter. “She said his sex drive had gone completely dead after their partying college years. He duped her. They hadn’t, you know, in years. The baby mama can have him, she laughed. Get used to celebacy!” Gianna also disclosed Kate had already found a new lover and was more than elated to be moving on.”

I glanced at the publication name and rolled my eyes. “Good grief. I haven’t seen this rag since back in Sweetwater. Zack’s granny used to buy it.”

“It was towards the back, too. I’m running out of new things to pin,” she said, sighing. “Fun while it lasted. You know, I hate to say it, but I am glad for that lady, Kate. Live, child. Imagine going through all that with a super-hot guy who ends up having the libido of a grandpa.”

I chewed my food slowly, pushing it from one cheek to the other. “Probably a fake story, Claire.” It had to be. Daniel being abstinent couldn’t be possible. Could it? My cell phone buzzed and I answered it. “Hey, Ari. Yes. Okay, I’ll come over now. Don’t worry about it. Thanks.” As I grabbed my bag, I looked up at Claire. “Just take it all down. Please.” Helplessly, I left work behind.

I thought about Daniel a lot.

Tristan had attached to him deeply. Any artwork he brought home was Daniel in his back garden I hadn’t seen before, or Jeeves riding a T-Rex with a spatula in hand. We were having some issues at school as well. Tristan did not accept that Daniel was gone. I didn’t want to scare him by telling the truth—I couldn’t conjure Daniel if I wanted to. He’d disappeared. Days after the case, it was published in a financial paper that he’d gone on hiatus from his company. The gossip items in the burn book indicating as the waitress had—he’d been bagged, the doing of his own father. I’d sent Solomon the balance of his legal fees. He returned it. It was no small amount and he said it had been settled on my behalf. I could guess by whom, and he confirmed it. Christmas morning was a tough one. Tristan searched under the tree for something from a name that wasn’t there.

Tristan and Chen ran towards me, across the frosted grass, their winter hats in hands. One boy with floppy hair the color of a Werther’s Original and a slightly smaller one with an onyx buzz, flying on land without a care. Chen would be his Violet, I hoped. He’d need a friend like that with all we faced. I pushed the thought away and I opened my arms wide for the joy.

On New Year’s Day I ran into Violet in the lobby. I wanted to spend my birthday with only Tristan so we’d bundled up for the snow and had Del Posto. Vi had big plans—dressed to the nines, accompanied by Hunt. He visited infrequently, appearing at Violet’s door unannounced. He’d stay with her a night or weekend. Violet complained, but I got the feeling the spontaneity kept her hooked.

“Where are you two headed?” I asked, not knowing he’d arrived.

Violet looked up at Hunt, then sympathetically at me. “We’re headed to a party at a gallery. It took me a while to convince this one to go out.” Hunt looked at me neutrally, his thick tawny brows resting over deep set eyes. Violet was dazzling in a shimmery high neck dress, a clear vinyl coat, and pointy heels with metallic studs on them. She’d stuck a few flowers in her pulled back hair. Hunt was dressed in nearly the same ensemble he’d worn when we met, with the addition of sturdy boots and an old thick Army green coat.

“At least you’re dressed for the weather,” I said, charitably critiquing the disparity in their wardrobes.

“I got my coat, back,” he said abstractly, as if it was the highlight of his outfit. It had one nearly detached gold star on the right pocket. Violet would be highly irritated with any other man for wearing it. Perhaps there was more between them than spontaneity.

I smiled to her about my joke, but she only looked uncomfortable. “We’ll see you later Bree. Happy birthday, again. And happy new year.” Hunt frowned, but Vi pulled him forward.

Something popped into my head. Something I had to ask her. I held Tristan’s hand beside mine. I turned around, watching her legs swish under the skirt. “That was my coat, wasn’t it?” I called out to her, my voice echoing in the hall. “I was wearing it when you found me. When I was on the streets.”

Violet stopped, bringing Hunt to a halt. She turned her head over her shoulder and answered, “Yes.”

With their hands still joined together, Hunt turned back to me as well, his mouth a straight line. “The center of the Earth is hot, darlin’” he said, in indecipherable forecast. Violet shrugged, and he tugged her hand to go. I went home and after putting Tristan to bed, read my journal entry from the night I’d met Daniel. Then I ripped it out and burned it in the sink.

I met with Jill the next day for lunch. I dressed my best, my most Jill-like in a fitted long sleeve knit dress and thick black tights with knee boots. I got a manicure, too. I wanted my friend back. I arrived early, but she was already seated at the table. She opted for small talk and launched right in to catching me up on her social calendar but somehow we landed on Zack. She wasn’t going to purr and curl up on my chair arm without scratching. She and Zack had formed a Sith-like alliance during the weeks of the case, talking almost daily. After commenting she always knew he was a bit weak under the bad-assery, she wasn’t surprised he’d “come crawling back to his old-steady so soon.”

“He’s dating Chen’s mom, Annie. Besides, he’s practically my brother. He used to call it the ‘friend-zone’, but we have a great relationship in that zone. Why, did he say differently to you?”

“If he had, I wouldn’t break his confidence, Bree,” she said chastely, holding their bond right over my head, in case I’d missed. “I’m not that kind of friend. But no, he didn’t.”

“You should tell me if he has. You’re making me feel like you think I’m leading him on.” I lifted one eyebrow.

She quirked her lip up. “Like I said, I wouldn’t break his confidence, so know what I’m saying is observation, Bree. Zack isn’t in love with you. I mean, he is, but he isn’t. He falls in love with every woman he dates for three months. Then, they break up because he’s a controlling baby. He shows up at your house to lick his wounds with the gang, makes you feel bad about being a mother, then takes off on his little motorbike.” I was quiet. I realized I had to let Jill get out her scratches—for everyone. She sat back in her cafe chair, drawing a long silky lock of rose gold hair behind her shoulder. “I told you. You’re not as smart as you think.”

“So to recap, you’re still angry with me and Zack’s still using me as a stand-in love interest. What else, I have webbed feet?” I kidded, halfheartedly.

She met my gaze, her aqua eyes leveling with me. “He loves you. He loves his idea of you. That’s who he wants you to be. How you were back when Violet introduced us.”

“How did you see me back then?”

“Square. Submissive. The store Piggly-Wiggly comes to mind,” she teased. I gave her a dry look and she continued. “Smart. Sweet. Pretty.”

My eyes connected with the Jill I knew, the one with a heart, and she smiled. I reached my hand across the table. She grabbed it; she didn’t hate me. A piece fell back in place.

“You’ve never given me a real compliment before.” I laughed, dabbing an eye.

“Is that necessary? You had confirmed rakes suing you because you won’t sleep with them.”

“One confirmed rake.” She had her theories.

“One more than the rest of us have had,” she quipped then took my hands in hers. “But you won. We won. Whatever you said up there when you took him apart was perfection. People told me how he looked. Like someone crashed his jet into a kinder-care. I wish I’d been there to see it,” she said, squeezing my hand before sitting back. “The word is out. Baird is done. He’ll be eating truffled caviar off Brazilian model asses for life in that fucking jet, don’t get me wrong, but Kate is gone. Hanging on to some other British guy about three rungs down from Daddy Bairdbucks. His dad is pissed, too. Took off back to England right after the trial. Then, his mom, and this stays between you and me, do not publicize you know this, my sources are only good as long as I don’t play the telephone game with this juice, his mom is filing for divorce. Not “Honey I want to retire with the pool boy to Ibiza, so you take the lake house” divorced. She is getting armed. Making calls, reaching out to Earls, Counts, and all the other teacup holders. Houses and lordly titles, I mean, how do they even begin to split that up? Then, BarclayBaird. The whole fucking company is based on them. And she owns the larger percent! Whatever unholy union they have going on. I mean Christ on a cracker watching those two walk in the courtroom gave me the willies. I grew up privileged—our country club doesn’t let women inside after 5:00 p.m. without a coif and pearls. But those two—wow. His dad’s eyes are like that final flush of a clean potty before the blue tab runs out completely. Get some color contacts, you’re freaking out the kiddies.”

“How do you know all this?”

“One of my old modeling friends is sleeping with whatever their speaker of the house guy is called over there. His wife is Baird’s mom’s cousin. She called me after the trial, and we’ve been in touch since. After the trial, notice? I was kryptonite until I won against that fucker. Everyone was waiting to see where the cards fell. Revenge is sweet, dear Bree. Oh so sweet. August will make out like a bandit with the company falling apart. He’ll do well in the sell-off. Great options with that last promotion. I can’t warn him though because he keeps secrets like a second grader.”

“I won’t say anything.” She twisted her lips and arched a brow. I widened my eyes. “I promise.”

She took her napkin of the plate, finally laying it her lap, then with the same hand took a sip of her goblet filled with water and sliced lemon. Then set it down.

“He’s dating Solomon now. He won’t admit, the big weirdo. Everyone knows since the case, anyway. I wish he would just come out of the fucking closet already. It’s not his fault. I know that. It’s my dad’s. Our dad’s, which just feels strange to say. They haven’t talked in years. Meanwhile I’m in the middle. But thank God, August makes me look good by comparison. Not like that, not because he’s gay, but because he managed to tick off my father more than I ever could.”

“Isn’t that the reason they don’t talk? Because your dad kind of condemned it.”

She puckered her lips and twisted them a hint. “They don’t talk because my dad is gay, Bree. Our dad is also gay, also living very contentedly in a blue and white chintz closet of WASPiness. Our mother holds the door for him. August and I heard it all through high school, it was the kind of smack kids heard their parents say at home with no flies on the wall. Then at the next fundraiser they’d kiss my parents on both cheeks and talk about how they were all looking forward to the regatta.”

“I had no idea there was that much drama attached to it.”

“Coming from you I take that as a compliment, dear Bree. August knew he was gay by high school. So he figured, I’m gay why don’t I be brave and then dad will be brave and we’ll all go to the pride parade after our Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving? He decided to do it Thanksgiving, mind you, when everyone would be there to clap them both into the open. He was expecting tears, surprise, then hugs and I-love-you-no-matter-whats. He thought, in his heart, seriously, he thought this is what our dad was waiting for. A moment. An ally to stand with him in all his glory and be out.”

I cupped a hand over my eyes. I knew August. My goodness, that’s exactly what he would have done.

“He outed them both. My dad froze with his arm around my mom. My grandfather, who really is the last King patriarch, lost it. We watched our parents deny it perfectly. Granddaddy was satisfied. August was sent to a therapist, then summer camp in the desert. August hasn’t even said the word ‘gay’ since that day.” She glazed over my troubled look, coaching me.

“Tons of people are hiding in plain sight for tons of different reasons. Look at Ian. I swear he would have asked me out two years ago if I was from Poughkeepsie with double Ds or if I had a Yale MBA. He didn’t have a type in between. I flatter myself and think it’s because I’m so beautiful he was intimidated, but that’s a farce. My reputation was too scandalous for the intellectual nerds, and I was too upper crust for his family back home. I am neither of those things. But what do you know? Turns out I’m the perfect girl.”

She smiled showing me her mouth full of tall white teeth then slowly held out her left hand, which had been resting on her lap since she’d arrived. It was a beautiful stone surrounded by tiny stones glinting on her ring finger.

I gasped, and looked up at her. “Don’t hug me. And don’t squeal. I don’t want to make a scene.”

“Ice for the ice queen,” I said, happy for them both. “It’s okay. I get it. Besides you’ve slept in my bed. I’ve had my share of physical contact.”

“Yes, apparently we were screwing all that time. Can you believe that?”

“No. I can’t. Let’s not go there. I don’t even know how he got all those ridiculous lies.”

“Oh. I do. It was that witch Kate.”

“What?”

“Remember that guy she was photographed with in the paper? His name is Cezar Salazar. The most expensive private investigator in the country. He’s from D.C., naturally. He was CIA then was fired on suspicion of selling state secrets. Kate hired him and brought him here on her tab. After the case, an ex from a million years ago who owns the Palace hotel called and said he was glad you beat Daniel, go America, blah blah, and that his house manager told him that Daniel’s girlfriend was cheating anyway with some guy living in their penthouse since at least a month before the trial. Except Cezar was her spy not her boyfriend. She was jealous of you and Tristan so she hired a P.I. to dig up trash. Daniel gobble it up, of course. My phone was a switchboard for rubberneckers at the time, so I told him call me back with hard evidence. He did and had Cezar’s name and background and everything. It is amazing how people gravitate to roast their marshmallows on their neighbor’s burning house. They even bring extra marshmallows for you.”

“Sounds like you’re enjoying the s’mores,” I commented, choking down Kate’s treachery and inwardly impressed at the accuracy of Jill’s statement.

“I am and they’re delicious. I haven’t gained an inch of remorse, either. My image will come back. It’s already on its way. But Baird? There was no solution for that. It could have dragged on forever, him being in our lives. He may be gone already. There hasn’t been one sighting of him in the city since. We’re free and he’s vanished, the life-sucker. That bastard has finally fallen back into the abyss that incubated him.”

My face fell a little. “Don’t say that.” I chastised softly, thinking of Fiona. “The incubated part.”

“Confusion,” she replied, waving her hand. “That’s all you have to say after I bring you rare gifts of gossip and myrrh? You are…defending him?”

“No. I just. I don’t know. Keep talking,” I shook my head and shut my eyes briefly. “How are things going at the agency?”

She flipped her hair and withdrew her hand, sitting back in her seat. She straightened her posture. “Well, I have lots of spare time since he practically put me in semi-retirement. Ian and I are flying to Boston then to St Barth’s for a week right after lunch, it’s so slow. I’m booking about half my talent at half the rate I used to get. So things are peachy. Now tell me how in frozen snowman balls are you not at least dropping one swear word about that bastard?” she asked.

“Because he is an…asshole, and other things. He will also always be Tristan’s father. Tristan lived with him. He is obsessed with him. He thinks he is the coolest most awesome person on the planet. No matter how I explain it, he thinks Daniel doesn’t want to see him. It’s tearing him up.”

The mention of Tristan softened her a bit. “Oy.”

“Yes. It’s an oy. It’s not like I can dance around my house celebrating,” I said, glancing at the waiter bent at the table next to us. I leaned in and she mirrored me. “And also because he didn’t lose exactly, Jill. He gave me the win. And I saw him a few times at the park. The things he said, he’s not.…he’s not a one-dimensional Bad Man with a six-shooter. He’s just human, like us.”

Her mouth twisted with disgust as she leaned away from the privacy of our huddle. She raised her hand, clamping her fingers together as if pinching closed an invisible mouth. “I’m going to shut you down right there. First, I don’t want to hear anything that’s going to upset me today. Like you even considering he’s not one hundred percent horrible. Second, you are still subconsciously thinking about his dick, aren’t you? Six-shooter? He screwed your brain loose. Don’t be a fool. A win is a win. This city knows that. I know that. Why don’t you?”

“Because Tristan didn’t win,” I explained, still leaning forward. I took a sip of my own water and set it down. “In my eyes, I guess I see the whole thing as a tragedy.”

She rejoined our huddle to say, “Isn’t that what we knew all along?” giving me a knowing look. She sat back. “Bree, people love you right now. You turned this thing around. Only the truly misogynistic doubt you still. Embrace being on the right side of the headline.”

“I’d rather not be a headline at all,” I replied.

She pouted her lips, her eyes fleetingly commiserative. “Not everyone is made for the glam life. Before I forget, that envelope is yours. The test we did came in a while back. I opened it already. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Thanks,” I said, sardonically, smiling. She’d indicated a crinkled white envelope that lay between us on the table when I arrived.

“You’re welcome,” she grinned. “But you were right. Sorry for sending it behind your back. That DNA place turned out to be quackery. It linked him with some Spanish nutcase from the Antarctic or wherever. Three thousand dollars down the drain.”

She picked up her menu with both hands. Chewing on her words, I followed suit. “Now, look happy,” she said, already cheesing into her menu, as two tables to my right I heard the snaps of a photographer.

“Is this planned?”

“Why do you ask these things?” she said, angling her ring finger to capture the light. At least she wanted to be seen with me again, I reasoned. We ordered and got more water with lemon. As they brought out my club sandwich, I got a call from Ari at the school. I took it quietly at the table.

“Is he doing it again? We almost made it ten days,” I sighed. Tristan had taken to sitting in a corner not speaking when he got upset. Five or ten minutes would be fine, but he refused to move until I picked him at the end of the school day. “I can come by after I finish lunch,” I said feeling frustrated and parentally impotent.

“It’s not that,” Ari said. “He’s being transported to the ER.”

My heart nearly stopped. Ari filled me in quickly. I left Jill at lunch and told her to go and not miss her flight with Ian. When I arrived at the children’s hospital Tristan was tucked in a room with a hospital nurse and a woman I knew as Candy, the school nurse. I rushed to him and thanked her for riding with him, which she brusquely accepted. Candy was a tough cookie.

“I didn’t know I was allergic!” Tristan announced, excited for the discovery. “I’m allergic to bees, mom. Did you know that? But you’re not allergic. Is my dad?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered vaguely. “We’ll have to avoid them from now on.”

“It’s the sting he’s allergic to. It is a minor allergy,” said the nurse in periwinkle scrubs who sounded more New Jersey than New York. Her nurse badge read ‘Flo’. “Still, don’t take it lightly. Allergies change. We’ll give you training on how to use an epinephrine pen. You’ll need to keep one on you at all times. Your son in good health, but we can’t release him until we do that and the doctor makes his rounds back to sign him out.”

“I can’t spend the night?” Tristan asked.

“No, dear. You’re as good as new. No need for you to stay here in this boring hospital,” she jested. Candy stayed with me for the lesson with Flo. It went smoothly and they both left, while Tristan and I remained, me sitting on his bedside. I was assuring him it wouldn’t be long before we could leave when he interrupted.

“I don’t want to leave,” he broke in. He looked frustrated from me to the clock and back again. Tears welling in his eyes, but his chin stiffened to hold them back.

“What’s wrong?” I soothed him.

“I told Ari to call dad,” he admitted. “I told him to when I left for the hospital. I know he did, because I asked him. Why isn’t he here? I could have been really sick! Why wouldn’t he come see me in a hospital?”

“Honey,” I said sadly, “he isn’t around right now. He’s probably out of the city.” I paused. “Things may go back to the way used to be. Back to how they were before we found him.”

It was difficult to mislead him—there was no “may” about it. The look in his eyes shredded me. He proceeded to say some things that salted those shreds. He didn’t want to ever go back to the way things were. After he got it all out and the tears had stopped, Flo stopped back in with another lollipop.

“I can get you a meal sent up if you’re hungry.” Flo offered. Her hair was tight in a bun, streaked with brown and gray. “We’re busy. No point starving you both while you’re here.”

“If you would point me to the vending machines and stay with Tristan for a minute, I’ll be back in a jiffy with some snacks,” I offered. He nodded vigorously. After some direction, I went down the hall as Flo instructed. Somewhere after the third left turn I was lost. I stopped an orderly and got new directions, which turned me around completely. I found the bank of vending machines by accident after having decided to give up and head back to the room. Ordering pizza would have been quicker. I managed to find my way back to Tristan’s hall with relative ease thanks to his room number, my messenger bag stuffed with snacks. As I walked towards it I spotted a man standing outside his hospital door, flipping through the chart.

“Hunter?” I asked, approaching him. His Army coat and tethered hair giving him away from a distance. I rarely saw him without that coat on now.

“Hola,” he greeted casually. He finished reading the chart and settled it back in the clear plastic bin attached to the wall with a clink. “I heard there was trouble for your little fella.”

“Yes,” I said, running my free hand through my hair, glancing in the room. “He’s allergic to bees, but he’s okay now. That was awfully kind of you to come by. Violet is around somewhere, I presume?”

“Got it from his daddy, I’ll bet. All that fine breedin’ leads to genetic quirks,” he said, slightly smug, as if the jab was wasted without Daniel here to hear it. “A real liability, that daddy of his, mm?”

“You said it not me,” I agreed. “Where’s Violet?”

He pulled something out of his coat. A small teddy bear holding a heart. “She’s not here. Give this to the kid from his daddy, will ya?” he drawled. “Don’t have to say who it’s from. He just wanted him to have it. He knows you don’t want him here, so he sucked me into running it over. He also knows I have superior knowledge of medicine, and he wanted me to check your doctor’s scribbles. You know in Cuba they woulda had y’all doctored up and outta here. They’d taken the kid’s tonsils in less time.”

“Daniel sent him a bear?” I said, reaching out for the small stuffed animal and holding it in my hands.

“He’s original like that. Timing worked out fine. It got me outta a frilly party with your nymphomaniac sister. Don’t tell her you saw me. And if you see me walking bow-legged now, you know why.” I scrunched my nose up and looked up from the bear.

“I can never tell when you’re being serious or just taking the piss.” Hunt actually was ever-so-slightly bow-legged. I tried remembering if he’d always been like that.

“Now, a Virginia girl slick-talking me like a redcoat after I deliver her an adorable elegant teddy bear. Look at that bear. Bronze metal bear. Take care of that thing. Don’t get it wet.”

“It’s great. Thank you for bringing it by. I won’t say anything to Violet either, in exchange for a favor.”

“If it’s about epinephrine that’s not a favor. I can get it. Half the mark-up and you don’t have wait till next year for Dr. Lollygag to get back with a script.”

“Not drugs. And that’s not how you make a deal. You know what, never mind,” I held up a hand, gesturing stop. “Just answer the question.”

“You’re the one dilly dallying askin’,” he replied.

“Where is he? Tell me where Daniel is.”

He smiled crookedly. “No one goes off the radar like Danny,” he said relishingly. “He’s in New York. You’ll find him at that dump he bought,” Hunt said plainly. Before turning to go, he halted. “I’d say take care, but your penchant for precarious situations renders the platitude benign, even as a social toss away. Try not to stick any butter knives in sockets. Or do. Figure out what your aim is first.”

“A pleasure as always, Hunt.” He was expecting me to turn away first, but I waited and instead he did. I watched his descent towards the elevators.

I walked quickly in the opposite direction, heading for a view of the street level from the windows. All buildings in the city have a pretty entrance and a less pretty one. I turned down the windowed hall that ran against the radiology center. I stopped midway and caught sight of a dolly unloading a food service truck disappear beneath me many floors down. The back way in. I checked my watch, glancing up in time to see Hunt’s ponytailed head emerge. He walked towards a slick black SUV with a chrome grille, idling in the emergency lane. Hunt got in.

I went back to the room and Flo left. Tristan took the bear from me on sight. Excited and intent, he rolled it over in his hands and opened up the bottom. It was Velcro at the seam, with a hidden pocket. He withdrew a gleaming watch and snuggled the bear.

“Dad said jewelry insurance is a racket,” Tristan said mischievously. “This was my bear in my room. See, mom? I knew he didn’t forget me!” He beamed up at me with his eyes shining, resetting the Breitling watch Daniel had on the first day we went to his house.

Chapter 26 - The Confederate/Hunter McBride

Hunter

I kicked my boot against the black carpet floor board until a chunk of caked New York City pavement chum flaked off. I updated my driver and rested my sole on top of the dirt.

“Your boy is fine. I saw your gal. Gave her the bear.” It was better he hadn’t gone up himself, after all. She woulda hit the fire alarm on Danny on sight, seemed to me. “She’s got about the strongest cognitive fortitude I’ve encountered.”

“I sent you because I haven’t been concerned about you, Hunter. Should I be? That almost sounds like interest.”

“Pass,” I replied. “You are on your period when it comes to that gal. So in that entirely hypothetical scenario, the outcomes become you hackin’ off something I’d miss, or she puts her voodoo spell on me, too, and we end up with synchronized cycles. Not fuckin’ with either of those outcomes today, brother.”

“It feels like a spell,” Danny commented.

“In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“The denominations at stake are greater,” Danny said seriously.

That much was true. I’d just come in from a morning surf when I got a ping for an article from The New York Times about Danny in a custody battle, of all things. I had a list of contacts on alerts through hacker software. People I needed to keep abreast of their comings and goings. Say Pedro in Guadalajara was popped running something across the border, well that’s the type of thing I like to be aware of before a cooperating Pedro calls from an ATF bugged burner asking illicit questions. I didn’t play in that sandbox anymore, but you can’t be too careful. People indebted to me are on the list also.

A kid, I thought to myself after finishing the article, leaning back in my chair. Danny was looking fancy in the photo attached. That didn’t surprise me. I’d seen the direction Danny had taken since he’d sprung himself from the private facility in Iceland four years ago.

When Danny had gone off the radar nearly two years before that, he’d shown up in my basement getaway in NYC in an inner fire of torment and with a plan. I didn’t believe Danny realized he didn’t one hundred percent want to go through with it, but that was natural. Decision made, nothing could break it. Danny was incapable of reconsideration. Maybe all this tug and pull was a productive thing. A forced reconsideration of a foregone conclusion that he’d expended a mighty mound of force.

“Don’t see the point in dullin’ my last good razor,” I’d spoken down at the blueprint unfurled on my coffee table.

“I’m going out. I met an angel last night,” Danny had said. I didn’t look up.

“What do you mean? The tunnel of light, little white kind?” I asked, mildly curious to hear a near-death experience.

“No, not that kind. The kind that feels like you’re where you belong,” he corrected. “Like home.”

A home for his peter, I’d thought to myself. It never lost notability that Danny could get laid under insurmountable circumstances. Even being Danny, the man was in rough shape, however. He’d gone off the radar for a while, flying himself around in a single prop plane with false papers. He arrived at my abode about two weeks prior and had been shedding pieces of himself off him ever since. It was to punish his father. Hawk had done a shady thing. Said his daddy had killed a woman. His mother. It was a nasty kind of deed. He killed a helpless individual with preordained social power, a construct I neither recognize nor valued. Who could condone that brand of cowardice? Danny’s retribution was to crash the Baird family for good and all. Ownership interest of the massive family company had just inherited straight to Danny through his grandfather Baird. Granddaddy skipped right over his daddy. Probably knew he’d raised a scrote. Daniel intended to smash that company to bits, too. I’d miss him but held him in some esteem for arriving at that decision. Creating that moment of irreversible action was an incredible move. Ultimate and final. The pureness of a merited deconstruction. Opportunities like this don’t come around often. I would miss him.

He looked like Daniel Baird, still. I glanced at him. Danny maybe after sweating in a desert yurt on ketamine guarded by a feral cat herd for a few weeks. The shower and anti-seizure booster Ahmed shuttled here quickly got him standing upright but he must not be lucid yet, I diagnosed, thumping a round squat can of burgundy tobacco. “Okay, there, Danny. You sure you want to go out again so soon? You look like roadkill,” I said, tucking a dip in my lip.

“I witnessed beauty, Hunter. We don’t understand what that meant. Now I do, of all nights,” he said.

“Mm,” I replied. “Was she the one who took all the extra dope you left with? You know it probably would have worked if you’d taken that first. You obviously didn’t.”

“I did. And, no. She cursed me for having it.”

She may actually be real, I considered for the first time. “Sounds like a 5th Avenue posh.”

“She could pass as one. But not. She’s not a raging hillbilly, like your lot, but maybe something. I don’t know and don’t care. It’s a moving puzzle. She preferred bloody Wings over the Beatles.”

I drew my spit cup up to my mouth. Spitting, I set it back down. “That’s fucked up.”

“Not more so than you and I.”

“Is this some new phase of self-loathing? I’m not taking that trip.”

“Nor am I.” He walked over to a drawer and pulled out a banded wad of cash, peeling off the top layers. Then strode to the recliner chair opposite mine where my grandfather’s Army coat lay draped across. Danny pulled it on in a quick jerk.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I said sitting forward.

“I need to borrow your coat.” Danny explained. “It’s freezing and since I don’t plan on dying tonight, and there’s no other apparel in this stabbin’ cabin, I’d like to borrow this.”

There were clothes hanging in the small closet, but I only ever needed one coat. That’s possible with the practice of never leaving it behind or loaning out. “No,” I said, shaking my head. Danny’s eyebrow lifted and he went back to the desk. He clicked a pen and pulled out the document sitting on top in the long drawer, center of the desk. He made a few quick marks with the pen.

“All right,” I agreed. “For another half a percent of Barclay you have until three am.”

“Curious. Where were you going to you leave the rest?”

“A portfolio of distributions. Primarily a Cancer Research Center in Ireland,” Danny replied.

“Remarkable,” I recalled uttering in dry response, but it didn’t sit right with me now.

“Fortunate, you receive your portion whether I live or die. Don’t spend it all in one place,” Danny said in parting. “Get some roach traps with it. And a new razor.” Danny suggested, rubbing the plane of his jaw line with the backside of his hand. “Keep your gun close tonight,” he added off-handedly.

“Expecting trouble?” I asked, spitting out a long stream of tobacco spit into my raised cup.

“I didn’t mess up your formula last night, Hunter. It was divided. Half the black widow went into my veins but half went into my father’s first.”

I hadn’t let it show, but my heart rate increased. “You can’t half try to kill a man, Danny. You should have waited until there was more.”

“You said the single batch was enough to effectively euthanize an elephant. You’d seen it yourself, correct? He was leaving—it couldn’t have been coincidence he had a conference in the city on the same night as my own plans. It was meant to be. I did take quite a bit of your stock variety from your stash and used double your instruction first on us both.”

I shook my head at the blueprints. “That dope was to get your heart rate right, first. You don’t tweak recipes and expect them to work. Choking him woulda been a better decision. You survived it and he may have, too. Which means, first, he knows you’re in this city. And second, a pissed off father of yours is about to turn it upside down like my granny searching for a cigarette light in her pocketbook.”

“As I said. Keep protection close, Hunter. I don’t believe his security has my associates marked as shoot to kill. However, it is Hawk.”

“If I was you, I’d get in that puddle-jumper of yours and fly the fuck outta dodge.”

“I will. Tomorrow. Tonight I have an engagement to keep.”

“You’re gonna risk Hawk catching up to you who is surely in the most murderous kind of mood to meet with a gal, let’s be honest, you met on a night your judgement was shot. This is a macabre way to do it, because I estimate you are setting foot out that door to play footsie with a parricidal reaping.”

“A commitment is a commitment. If I die, so be it. The only way he can contest my will is if he proves suicide. Any other and he is out. I’ll be at the park,” Danny said sounding restored as he crossed the threshold, touched the white scarf he’d stuffed in the coat pocket. “Besides, Hawk is likely dead. He had nothing to fight it for.”

Danny never made it back. Last time I saw my jacket, before I found it hanging in a spare bedroom Violet used for a closet. Months later I invested in the software program I’d purchased through a hacker friend. That’s how I found Danny. He’d been locked away in isolation at a sleek “voluntary” facility outside Reykjavik, Iceland. Someone made a mistake and wrote a script there in his real name. The alert appeared and disappeared from the system so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. But I don’t imagine things. Ahmed, hacked their admittance system with a great deal of trial. When I saw a patient listed as Paolo McCartney, I booked my passage. I infiltrated by spending all night at the closest bar outside the facility. With some extensive persuasion and bribery of the head guard, I was able to gain access an’ see him. The head guard seemed open to it straight off, he musta liked Danny, or pitied him. More likely, he hated Hawk.

“Where’s my coat?” was the first thing I said to him when he walked in the room, escorted by two guards, two more at the door.

“It’s gone,” he replied. “I’d ask how you managed this, but you’ve long explained how useful all your diverse forms of currency are.”

“When you have a fleet of oil tankers at your limited disposal and the cojones to move anything under the sun, the world is your oyster.” In this instance all it had taken was an old fashioned five hundred k wire transfer. A bagatelle compared to the ownership he’d assigned me but, I’d put it on his tab.

“Bloody oysters. If I never see seafood again, I’ll be too happy. They eat pickled fish as a breakfast food. Shameful cuisine.”

“Like that time in Amsterdam for spring break. What was that place called that sold that bony fish sandwich on the water?”

“Are you referring to the place beside the brothel or the brothel?”

The humor felt heavy. I tapped my knee. “Who even knows anymore? We’re so damn young still. Feels like a million years ago.”

“That is true.” He said leaning his elbows wide on the table, combing together his fingers.

“What’s your plan to get out of this place?”

“Write a nicely penned letter to the queen requesting her intervention in the unlawful detention of an eighth cousin by one of her highly regarded royal subjects. Either that, or give in to the urge to kill everyone here.”

“I’m guessing a letter like that wouldn’t get that far. What does he want?”

“To break me.”

“So break.”

“I’ve discovered, quiet annoyingly, that I don’t.”

“So bend and make it look like a snap.”

“I’ve told myself that same thing on several occasions. Usually when I’m reading and these two gentlemen you see behind me are playing ping pong too loudly in the parlor room I occupy around-the-clock with them and the night shift boys, I fantasize about shoving those paddle sticks down their gullets. I fantasize too much in here, I think.”

“Freedom is a power thing. Denial of it must be much worse.”

“I need you to go to the park for me, Hunter. You need to find your coat.”

“Danny,” I dropped my tone, “you got way bigger—”

“Go to the fucking park, Hunter. If you can tell me it’s there, I will bend. But you don’t know what he asks of me. It won’t be freedom on the other side of these walls. There is no such future for me anymore. I’m as trapped here as I will be out there. Tell your coat I’ll figure something out and I will get back there eventually. Because when I get out of here, it will be on my own accord. My own terms, whatever they believe.”

“Not the kind of speech you want fallin’ on so many ears. I secured entry, not privacy.”

“I’m asking you to check,” He flipped over his palm on the table and I saw written on it an address, already aware of my warning. When he saw my glance, he closed his palm.

“I’m not checking shit, ya dumbass.” He resisted a smile.

“Yankee cunt.”

“Too far, the Yankee bit.”

“I’m on a string. Don’t fail, Hunter. It will be there. I’m certain.” He abruptly spit on his palm and wiped the flat of it across his chest, making the ink disappear.

“Take care of yourself in here, brother.”

“You as well. Don’t fail, Hunter.”

“What’s the name? That place, again, in Amsterdam.”

His eyes darted to a round glass security eye in the ceiling. He held up the back of hands, intersecting his thumbs, extending his fingers, then scooting back in his chair and departing with the guards through the automatic doors he’d entered. His only and final command.

“So I’m looking for a showgirl named Wings,” I muttered as I saw myself out.

I went to the address I’d locked in memory from Danny’s hand. It was a busted up old building off the park, sealed with a new plywood door. You couldn’t even get up the stairs as they were crumbling and taped off at street level. I left the stairs and made a line into the park from its rubbly stoop, thinking the address was a starting point meant to be X. Good thinkin’ from Danny considering the size of Central Park. It was summer and the park was at its busiest. I set a scope of a three-hundred-yard range in either direction from the entry point and began combing the park for Wings. Face after face, I saw and didn’t have a clue what to search for or how I’d know when I found it. I was looking for a woman alone, and not to be shallow but I was fairly confident she needed to be a nine, minimum, to get him off his crock this way. Other than that she could have been black, white, Latina, anything, and aged anywhere between the universal young bucks’ sweet spot of nineteen and thirty-two. With no luck I decided to try again on a different day of the week, different time. Get the laws of probability on my side. It may have been a fool’s errand but he hadn’t sent a fool to do it, so I tried to take it as seriously as I could. It kept me from thinking about what Hawk had done to Danny, caged ‘im like a possum. He got him, all right. You never try to half kill a man, I reminded myself.

It was a series of negatives. I sat beside more single women in Central Park and struck up conversation, than an ant hill had ants. I got some numbers from it, too, but as far as the mission, I was coming up with the inside of a donut. The Beatles had a lot of fans in NYC. One night after bar drinkin’ and womanizing with amigos, I asked the cab to make a pit stop outside the address when I realized it was on the route to my evening companion’s abode. I stared up at the house from the front stairs. All the windows were boarded and it had the tell-tale signs of being a frequent issue for squatting. Squatter’s rights in NYC were a thing. You could park your piss jar in someone’s attic without them knowing and if you could getta’ trained mouse to deliver you some mail up there for a while, why, you had yourself a place. City signs warning prosecution were stapled to the plywood. In the dark, the neon signs against the geometrically spaced black recesses standing in for windowpanes glared like the structure was a many-eyed it, with an entryway like a gaping mouth, tongue extending downward.

“Wait here. I’m going around back.” I told my lady friend. She nodded.

It was a freestanding townhouse, but the sides between it and the neighbors were unlit and cramped. In my property search of the address, I’d learned it was tied up in a family dispute and had been for many years. A problematic eyesore for the neighbors, too. I shuffled through the space between homes sideways, avoiding an eclectic accumulation of trash fresh and old. Finally I reached the back and walked out into the cleaner air. There was a garden area the moon shone into perimeter lined by two layers of tattered fence. The first was splitting white wood, and the second, taller one, chain link; with a wall of brick buildings pressing against the rear fence line from block to block. The borders were overgrown, but the center was bald of growth and grass with a depressed wrought iron garden set rusting in the center. It was a bust.

Part of the back of the building I’d come around protruded into the space. The only part not made of stone. Coulda been a solarium in its day as it was mostly windows held together with wood. I cupped my hands and peeked in the slanting structure’s window to see inside. The moon lent little light; even then you could see a little pallet laid out in the middle of the floor. I went to the door and yanked around at it, but it was locked from the inside. I withdrew my hunting knife from my back pocket and extended its blade. Carefully I probed for the trigger in the mechanism in the doorknob lock and it sprung with ease. At the same time, something camouflaged in darkness barreled out from almost the wall itself and ran straight for me. I leaped back on my heels and landed outside the doorway. It ran right past me and sliced my shirt with a sharp little knife fully extended in gross irresponsible handling of an open blade. It shot around the way I’d come into the alley. I gave chase, flicking closed my knife, and caught up with them close to the outlet on the sidewalk. I bear hugged them from behind, wrapping my arms around their upper chest and lifted them off the ground, before forcing them back down onto their feet. No kicking and wailing, they just locked up elbows out. As I was getting ready to apply a downward slam to the trespasser, they managed an efficient back heel kick to my groin and I doubled over, nearly dropping them. My knife fell. They kicked out twice very quickly putting it about seven feet away from us, somewhere under the garbage. I’d assumed it was a smaller fella from size and speed in chase. But when they turned around wielding the knife, it confirmed what the full breast area through the raggedy wrapped blanket, and what felt like layers of clothes—in the midst of a summer heat wave—had signaled.

“Stay back,” she said darting the knife. It was not a defensive posture, it was an offensive one.

“Easy,” I cooed out. I was coughing uncontrollably and holding my groin. She got me good. “I ain’t bringing you trouble.”

She stood there breathing hard ready to strike out. This one had been living street life some time. Fingernails tell you a lot. She had a beanie cap pulled down around her little pale face. It looked like her head was shaved under the cap because there wasn’t a lick of hair. Her eyes were lined black by thick lashes, and ungroomed brows with big eyes caught the moon. She was on me like I was a raider who’d come to ransack her village. I moved slow; so she could see me while I let go of my hurtin’ family jewels. She sprang her weight behind her knife, my avoidance reflex was quick, one could say ninja-like, but she got me on the wrist. I was simultaneously preparing a counter-lunge and disarm, but her ragged poncho blanket had opened up as she sliced me. The moon highlighted a curve in her belly in a sickle shape, revealing a tight pod attached to a skinny little figure. Game changer, right there.

My brows knit together but I remained prepared for engagement. “Whatever put you out here, you should go back home. Somebody’s probably missing you,” I said, using a negotiator technique to deescalate her threat perception of me. Her expression and continued aggression informed me that message had no resonance. I appealed elsewhere. “You need to be in a ladies’ shelter or that baby ain’t going to make it.”

She looked like I struck her. “No fucking small talk,” she snapped and whipped her knife at me again, coming up short. I stood stock still as she pranced on the tips of her toes and readied to slash again. I kept my hands up high showing her no intent. Her face may have been fifteen in street years as drugs and men hadn’t ravaged it yet, but her voice was mature, throatier with a little grit. Her reaction time was good. She’d survive for a while longer. The real ravage would come. Her eyes were locked on me, big and pretty and throwing off silver. This one wouldn’t be left alone for long. She’d squeeze out that litter, and a pimp would have her out in a week if she didn’t have one already. To each their own, I said to myself, unilaterally not a practitioner of intervention.

“I’m just looking ‘round at the house. I got a date out there on the curb, waiting for me. If you look around the corner you’ll see her. How about you go your way, and I’ll go mine?” I said.

She began taking small steps backwards, the grungy sneakers on her feet crunching cautiously on trash with familiarity. Then she darted off into the street. I ran out to the sidewalk and watched her run straight into traffic, almost hit by a car before she bolted down the sidewalk and into the park.

Not possible, I thought.

Felicity was leaning up against the cab, long brown legs bent beckoningly, gleaming under the streetlamp. A tight dress she probably wore only Friday nights and pretty makeup fitting for a Columbia law student looking for a night of fun with a rolling stone that gathered no moss, like myself. She raised herself off the car and made her way towards me on five-inch heels.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Runaway,” I commented, shaking my head. “I’m startin’ to hate this city.”

I took a look at the cut on my wrist, and my face screwed up with irritation. Long, but not deep. Not being pedantic about it, it needed a Tetanus shot. She was looking at it, too. “St. Louis was a much nicer place,” she commented.

I put my hand on her lower back and escorted her back to the cab. I acknowledge it got me off that women felt like they were crossing the ditch to play with me. Financial submissive role-play, a thought-shrinker in a lecture hall would probably incorrectly label it. I was no longer in the mood.

I swung the cab door wide. “You ever been to Belize?” I suggested, looking down the long street of car headlights. Looked like Christmas lights laid down in a model city to me. That was right. But that idea came on of a cleared off billiard table in the rank basement, of somebody with too much time on their hands. Tonight was fuckin’ with the scale. Felicity was already inside the cab. I was still holding the door when I looked down. Her eyelids lowered, confused but titillated, and a red lip quirked up. That look still got me off too, I guess. Good thing Danny wasn’t around to be superior about it. We took that cab right to the airport.

We came back, tan and salty, and I knew my next step was reporting to Reykjavik. I booked a return overnight connection in Amsterdam, for old times. I instructed myself to stop by the address on the way to the airport. I kicked around trash and retrieved my hunting knife. There was an old woman there, sitting upright in that pallet on the floor. She waved to me peeking through the window then threw her shit at me like a monkey at the zoo. I left wishing someone would level that house and put in a Steak’n’Shake. The world could use more Steak’n’Shakes. Maybe the fella in the rank house heard my request.

Danny looked the same when he came through the automatic doors. Long white scrub beneath short sleeve dust blue ones. His forearms looked like he’d joined an arm-wrestling league since he’d been on his mission and dropped down a stone or two. He met me at the table and sat.

“I’m stoppin’ by Holland on the way back. Gonna go see if Carla is still working in that hash shop. If memories recall, you took a good likin’ to her.” Other fish in the sea, Danny.

“Memories expire.” He paused. “Perhaps this trip you’ll get a replay of that wonderful night walk we took along the water afterwards,” he continued, sounding extra Prince Charles. Wonderful walk, my ass. We were jumped in a robbery attempt by a local gang that hit college kids flashing currency around town. Danny couldn’t embrace carrying small bills; but we weren’t kids. Me and Danny held our own. They were on the ground, four of them, and we were able walk way. It gave us a second wind, and we stayed out till 6:00 a.m. His eyes weren’t matching up with his tone.

“The weather is nice outside, my guards have told me,” he commented. “Too nice for a coat.”

“I wouldn’t have one even if it weren’t. Thanks to you. And your tab is running up. They asked for more money this time.” All the guards were different this time. The big Aryan buck-toothed one who had stifled a friendly smile when Danny insulted the ping pong, notably.

“There is no sum that will get me out. This will be the last time,” he said, and I thought he meant he’d made a deal, but the corner of his eye shifted, confirming. Coming back a second time was a bad idea. He continued like someone had flipped a minute glass. “Spend. Efficiently. Outsource the search.”

I followed his lead. “What is it you had me looking for? A goody two shoes carrying Witness pamphlets or a bombshell in her underwear?”

“A woman waiting for me,” he said tightly. “Medium height. Long dark hair. Olive fair skin with hazel eyes. Hazel, amber, and gray. Studying in the city to be a CPA. Smart. Graceful, kind. Sexy. Have our Sikh friend search,” he instructed me. Damn, he was being sloppy. He needed to get out of here.

“No one like that, Danny. No one like that anywhere,” I assured him. My mind ran involuntarily. An image flashed from the sort; of an accountant Suzanne I met on a blanket in the grass, reading. Blue eyes. Eyes, I narrowed. One surfaced. Pregnant. Impossible. Just science. He’d explained after I asked why he showed up on my pasture as a freshman using his dipstick irresponsibly, he’d fell into a pile of pussy with a lot of rumor. If it wasn’t his—impossible. Angelique but she worked on Broadway and was coffee toned. One Micah. She never heard of him. We hooked up. Sorta ended. It was becoming a challenge to not show him what I really thought about it all. A quarter second had passed.

“That’s not possible,” he refuted. He didn’t believe that though.

“Incorrect, amigo. We’re a heap of animals. We hump, we lift our leg to piss, and we keep it moving. There weren’t any angels sitting with a box chocolates holding a balloon with your name on it. That dump house was overrun with…immense and ordinary despair. Look. Give him what he wants whatever it is and spring yourself outta the mousetrap.”

“She moved on, then.”

“You’re up next.”

“I’m not ready to sign my life away just yet.”

“What life would that be? Couple’a months ago you didn’t even want it.”

“I’m here, still. Don’t count me out, Hunter. Don’t ever count me out.” This time when he flipped his palm over, something slid down and a pair of brass knuckles appeared out of his sleeve. He slid a finger in one at time making no disturbance to the guards behind him.

Mm. “Have you considered you lost your mind that night you went out to kick the bucket?”

“Everyday. And other theories, on worse days. It’s possible we’re not truly here right now.”

“You’re preachin’ to the minister, brother.”

“The place in Amsterdam. Luven’s.”

“Luven’s,” I repeated. “That was it. Why’d we keep going back to that place to eat?”

“Because I was fucking the waitresses.”

“Mm. I knew that.” The sliding doors opened and in entered two more guards. “Here come the Dutch.”

Last chance. “Hers?”

“Stay present, Hunter,” he said low, balling his fist in his lap.

The two guards left their posts at the door and headed towards me. Danny’s guards stood on either side of his chair and grabbed the top of his arms. I guess Hawk wanted him to watch me gettin’ my ass beat. Money just doesn’t buy hospitality these days. In the end, it was six against two. They dumped me out at the airport with my bag they’d collected from my hotel, and the last image I had of Danny was the best I’d seen of him in a while. Team Captain, cage-rattler, honorary McBride, and all-around one credibly bad mofo. He was pounding a man’s face into the designer wood floor right up until they quit twirlin’ their batons to the body and zapped him in the temple.

I found out Hawk’s security team had found him early the next morning after he left in my coat, before he made it back to my place. Danny was only a block away when they got him.

I imagined Danny 2.0 had showed back up at that gal’s life like a returning dignitary swooping down for his intended. He probably put her on a pedestal first, then in a glass case, then tried stuffing her his glove box. For all this time she’d been a mirage for the man, an idealistic pursuit, not to mention spank bank material. She didn’t go for that. In fact I’d seldom met a woman in Danny’s acquaintance less shepherded by him than this gal, and never one in his sights able to run as hard as she. I found that partly thrilling. Statistically possible but still a whimsy. Daniel was finding zero thrill in the chase. He never had. He only knew quick take-downs. Prolonged enjoyment. When she got too far, he simply kicked her pedestal from under her. She kept getting bigger, quicker, though. I didn’t look at my wrist, but I thought about the faded cut line. He really botched it up with that. No matter how he approached her, he’d failed.

Since Hawk got him, he had too many sous chefs in his kitchen. In fact, I had laid back in the cut after reunited with Danny. I went there after visiting that gal and her sister. Danny was knotted and ‘botted. I didn’t trust him. He was still a beast, but you could practically see all the strings dug into him and around him. He had as much security as he’d had in Reykjavik, just in better outfits. And I could guess whose suggestion that was. And Kate. Hot, smart, and hiding. A talisman of humility to the upper echelon, offering a philanthropic slant from a close-but-no-dice neglected upper-middle. She’d walk a pile of refugee bodies to achieve the next caste, though, without a glance down. For all the torment Danny had rained down on his gal, it had done one thing time hadn’t. It had returned Danny to himself and severed him from Hawk, once and for all. It had cut him in other ways, too.

“If you’re already on to doing something dumb, execute. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do,” he said.

“So you miscalculated. You know, in the storybooks spells go wrong when they bumble up the brew. You’ve already reengaged whatever this is. Hawk’s confiscating your company because you gave up the win. He’s got your granddaddy’s shares you signed off to get out, froze your euro accounts, and damn near took back your name. You ain’t got a drop left to lose. Don’t stop now. By all means. More newt brains.”

“I cracked every newt skull within reach, and without. Those are issues. I can think my way around them, out of them, possibly, but the underlying problem still exists.”

“Get her a pony, then.”

“You’ll have a morning chat show in no time with such advice.”

“Fuck, that’s a good point. How about don’t ask me so I don’t have to embarrass myself talking about it.”

“The day you don’t have an analysis at the ready is the day Dubai snows falcon’s shit. I’m touched by your concern, but I have fucked the situation so magnificently it’s unrecognizable to me. Just as I am to her. It’s done. He is back where he belongs,” he said, way out past any buoys. Self-aware, he began again. “My misery must be more diverting than your explorations elsewhere. You wouldn’t be returning if it weren’t.”

“The city is back to being a mad hatter’s dinner show. I like it. I like her sister, too. She beds like there is a camera rolling, though. I did a sweep of her room to be sure she’s not running cameras.”

“That’s paranoia. She’s harmless.”

“No, she’s a gymnast with a fetish for extras. Maybe to the first thing, not to the second.”

“I’ve known you to remain tuned into a woman in spite of more. The Aussie pop singer who called you by cowboy daddy. That club dancer in Quebec who tattooed you in your sleep.”

“Every girl since who’s seen my buttock asks who Ming is. Can’t bring myself to part with it. I don’t remember much else, besides she had phenomenal breasts. A-1. Variety spices up the days.”

“Kindly avoid exacerbating things while you’re busy getting shagged. I’m sure their camp could do without any additional complications.”

“I don’t see that on the horizon. She loves the bone, but she’s got her feelings in check. We’re only passing time, her bouncing around on me like a bunny on acid.”

“That’s fitting. A high-fashion bunny and the Beverly Hick.”

“What can I say? I’m irresistible,” I replied. “So what about your gal there? Must’a been some reunion, while it lasted. Not sure what I was picturing, seein’ as you don’t say much.”

I was wrong the night in that alley. That didn’t sit right, either. Not since he’d seen the picture in the news alert. Danny in the bigger frame lookin’ like the fella he never wanted to be and then a woman, in black and white. Error, I knew. I’d closed the browser window and booked passage to the city he’d written off. I met her there at her place, letting go of Danny’s failings to get her down on paper, waylaying his failure for his part, too, meeting eyes big and pretty, and throwin’ off silver. A picture of a kid that looked like Danny hanging on the wall.

I continued eloquently conversation-like. “She’s fit. How was the sex?”

Daniel kept his eyes out over the steering wheel. He gassed, gunning it through a weave of traffic. On the other side of it, settled back. I stared, knowing if you stare at someone long enough, you’ll get a reaction and, eventually, what you want out of ‘em. Danny had clearly gone frosty. He used to be a lot more fun.

“Mm. Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore,’” I recited. Mmm. “She was in the house when you sent me lookin’.”

“Come again?”

“It was after dark, she was there. I think she was sleeping on a little cot in the back. She looked real different. Anyone that saw her would have assumed she was….She didn’t look anything like now. And I’m guessing she didn’t look much like that when you met her. I saw the baby in her belly and I’ll tell you today, plain, I was sure it wasn’t your girl,” I said, telling the story I had determined upon reacquainting with Danny would go with me in a wood box to the Texas hardpan. Against Danny’s stubbornness, it had me reconsider my way in the matter. Like how sometimes women think a heap of makeup is a good idea, then they meet one with too much makeup and see how it really looks, on someone else…so they go home and wash their face.

“Does she recognize you?” he asked impatiently.

“No.”

“You were wrong,” he said, three words that, regardless of tone, were a biting indictment. He swallowed thickly. “I think I know, but tell me anyway.”

“She cut me. So I pinned her up. Well, then, her little blanket fell open, she wasn’t in my jacket, so I backed off. I told her to go get help, for the child’s sake. That I did say. Look I did what you asked.” Danny looked unwell.

“Hunter, I love you like a brother. You’re one of two people alive I can say that to. You should get out.”

I raised my eyebrows and turned to him as the car stopped. His knuckles on the gear shift were locked but weren’t getting white, and that was bad. His grip on the steering wheel wasn’t, either. He was gathering, like he did out on the playing field in the rare times he got himself yellow carded the hell out. He was missing the joy. It was filled with another thing that ran much deeper. This is why you stick to sandbars, I reminded myself. “I can’t be sorry for gettin’ it false. That’s not on me.”

“It won’t occur to you that you were in a position to help, anyway,” he said. “She was with child, which so happens to be mine,” he intoned, ready to whistle.

“Mm, I didn’t stick a bill in her teeth, like you think you woulda. That sounds awful mighty. You’re not far enough from my worldview to judge it. I maintain a code and I can live with that. You tried to steal that gal’s baby. She was the one living on Skid Row, defendin’ it, with nothing but a pocket knife. Now, you had a hard few years, I grant you, but you’ve been ridin’ high since. You made your deal. You left it history. And you’re living off the gains. If you can’t move on, fine, do what needs to be done. Sweep her off her feet. Fight for her. But that’s not what you did. We don’t make someone else pay the price for us comin’ up short, manipulating our expense to nothing,” I said, talkin’ sense to him. I didn’t care if he was mad. “Used to ask the world to heel. Nothing wrong with a man wanting that. Now, you force it to kneel. The Danny I knew wouldn’t have shared a room with that.”

“Fuck, you talk.” He glared. “If I look like someone still in denial, you’ve lost touch. Dodging responsibility on your little island. I have changed world economies. I could’ve woken you to a nightmare while I cut your American dollars in half, while you fish, and fuck, spending fortune on whims. If something gets on its knees for you, you take off the belt. I don’t need cute dating advice, either. It cost me billions, and I have only one dread since she spoke down from where I tied her and that is she returns to see what I’ve done,” he said. “Try that on in your analysis box. Now get out of the fucking car.”

“Can’t believe I delivered a stuffed bear for you.” I swung the door shut. Go on, then, ya hardheaded dumbass. I looked back when I heard him growl from the window.

“She wasn’t some girl, Hunter.” His face contorted in pain and rage. “She is my fucking wife!”

My mouth fell full open. I stepped back to the truck but his head snapped forward and he peeled off before I reached the doorhandle.

I didn’t plan to impart that much insight into the matter nor did I know where he’d put all that energy summoned, all that truth, but it needed doing. I was tired of looking at a checked-out shut-in anyway. Again. And it looked like he had a bigger problem than anyone’d realized.

His fuckin wife!

Way to shit the bed. Stay present, brother.

Chapter 27 - Nothing that Fragile

Gabrielle

The next day after dropping off Tristan at school, I took a cab from West Village to Manhattan.

I walked up familiar stone stairs, my foot landing determinedly each time, and knocked. I was expecting Jeeves, but Daniel opened the door. Or rather, he cracked it, and I stepped in. He took me in standing on the doorstep as though I was a ghost and then beyond me, finally relenting, he turned leaving me in the open doorway. I had expected resistance, so I quickly let myself in and closed the door. As I followed him, I took in my surroundings. It was dark. All the curtains were drawn in the front rooms. No lights were on. Some of the lithographs that had lined the hall were gone, the dark sitting room was missing several integral pieces, like a couch. Redecorating, I reasoned, but I was secretly thinking Kate must have cleaned the place out in her departure. The craftsman in me was slightly bitter. The Remington, done in solid bronze, of the scales of justice was missing from the foyer; but then—alarmingly—I spotted it. As I passed the cavernous dining room, it was crashed through the center of the dining table like a shipwreck, sideways in a nest of splinters. I kept my eyes on the triangular back of the black shirt ahead.

At the rear of the mansion, past an updated kitchen, was a study I’d never been to before. It was a small room, trimmed in dark-stained oak and a beamed-slanted ceiling with a multiple triptychs of mutton windows overlooking a small garden—the one from Tristan’s drawings. The room was an addition, I realized, but an old one, looking more as though the house had been added to it. The room seemed intact as Daniel made himself a drink at a small bar and occupied the only other seat in the room besides the desk chair, a large comfortable-looking leather arm chair. He crossed one slacked ankle over a knee and took a sip of the drink. I noticed he was missing socks. I felt unsettled, like I was in a fun house or an alternate universe. Daniel was here, polished as ever, but it was all slightly off-kilter. His face was hollow, his eyes dim, and the space around us as I walked through struck me as a staged atmosphere, thick with an air of distortion, a house holding secrets, and they were barely contained, much like the owner. As I studied him, I knew my face held clinical alarm, so I cleared myself. My shoulder rolled like a prize fighter, trying to expel the bad mojo. He didn’t seem to paying me any attention, though.

“We haven’t seen you in a while,” I stated. “Tristan asks about you still. He’d like to see you.”

Finally, faintly curious, he asked, “Why would you allow that?”

“Because you’re his dad,” I explained, trying to sound neutral.

He caught a piece of ice in his jaw and worked at it, less in arrogance than in delay. “And you think he would benefit from my company?” he asked, mastering the tone I was after.

“No. But I think you could benefit from his,” I replied a little tartly. Being in this room with him made my skin itch with the need to flee, but I fought it. He was quiet. Prepared to dig in, I made my position known by leaning against the edge of the desk. Underneath me the top of the heavy wood desk groaned and slid a few inches, dovetail joints had snapped clean, completely unfixed to its body. Then I knew the sparkly fragments I’d seen sporadically throughout the house—just beyond reach of a broom—were not some new kind of chunky party glitter. Broken glass, snapped furniture—the house was a soundstage concealing a natural disaster.

He had the grace to look down into his tumbler but seemed otherwise disinterested.

“Why did you do this?” I asked, righting myself.

He replied simply, “Do what?”

I’d had it. I said, “Everything. Everything that you’ve done.” He smiled, and I knew he wasn’t going to answer.

“Gabrielle, Gabrielle,” he stared at me not breaking contact and chanted my name. Despite his tone, his eyes held no ridicule.

“I am a good mom,” I defended, jutting my chin. He rested the tumbler on the leather arm of the chair, a pregnant bead of condensation rolling down the crystal, a wet ring pooling on worn caramel.

“I know,” he said with frustrating softness—reminding me I had nothing to prove.

“Then why did you do this to us? Why did you try to take him?” I pressed with force.

He sighed, reanimating himself. “Because he loved me,” he revealed flatly. “The albums you gave me. That was the night he said those words to me. You offered much, but he offered me more. I meant to keep it.”

“All for yourself.” I mashed my teeth together. So it wasn’t ultimately misplaced concern for Tristan’s welfare, or making up for lost time, or even to gain romantic leverage over me, an idea I’d entertained in darker moments. Of all the possible things he could have said, this seemed the worst. “That is the most selfish motive I’ve ever heard.”

He was unruffled, disagreeing tiredly. “No, it came at great cost to me.”

“Oh, a great cost to you? Well don’t do me any favors,” I retorted.

“It would have been worth it, so sleep well tonight knowing I haven’t.”

“I do, despite all you tried to rob from me. And how do you sleep at night? How do you live with all that you’ve inflicted on us?” He met my eye, but there was nothing there, and I could see he was just barely doing that. His jaw gently rocked on its axis before looking away; into the garden. Sleepless most definitely, haunted more aptly. Sedately, I asked, “Then why did you give him back?”

He seemed to shift more deeply into the seat. “It would have been a pyrrhic victory,” he answered incompletely, his attention drawn to the drink in his hand.

Did you think he would stop caring for you if you took him from me?” I asked, in shock. If he’d won Tristan, the damage he’d done to the people Tristan loved would have eventually created a wedge. Tristan didn’t understand now, but he was young…and in time, there would be questions. I could hardly conceal my disbelief. Yes, he had nearly burned down everyone my son held dear—but he didn’t get it. Much to my chagrin and despite all reason, Tristan’s love for him was limitless.

His lip tinged with annoyance. “Are you here to remind me of what is no longer mine?” he accused flatly. “A wasted trip.”

“You have plenty,” I reminded, irritably.

His head snapped up. “I’ve lost all,” he leveled, ending the debate. Until then, his heart hadn’t been in anything he said. His voice lacked energy, cool fire of seduction and manipulation; the steady inferno I’d seen in both wrath and lust, the burner was simply off. He looked wearied, like a man who’d traveled a long road only to reach a destination no longer worth the journey. I refused to feel sorry about it.

“You haven’t lost him,” I said, confined to honesty.

“Not yet.” He answered, looking into his glass as if it were a crystal ball.

“Daniel, I can’t believe I’m standing here trying to convince you to crawl out of whatever funk you’re in and come see your child. I can’t believe I’m here at all. I should be tying a block to your leg and pushing you into the river. I should be having a cold beer at your wake. So please don’t make me second guess this any more than I already do.”

He raised a brow doubtfully, repeating dryly, “Beer?”, as if this fact alone negated my entire statement. But he was right; I disliked beer. I knew I’d never told him that.

“Who are you?” I asked, incredulously. Although I didn’t conceal the truth of the question behind my penetrating gaze, and he seemed to be nearing pushing to an edge; the burner flickered—then died.

Ice clinked as he drained the last of the scotch from his tumbler. He brought down the glass, remarking dryly, “I thought you could answer that.”

I made a smug noise, crossing my arms. I replied, “You don’t want to know how I’d answer that.”

“All truths, I’m sure,” he quipped, and although his demeanor was confident and sure, as he reached for the snifter and refilled the glass, I caught a glimpse of his expression in profile, and it held none of the arrogance of his posture.

“You can’t run me off, you know,” I said. “I think you know by now I’ll do anything for him. And I think you know I’m willing to fight. If he could have ridden his bike down here, he would have. He’d be camped out on your pavement in his sleeping bag waiting for some sign from you. So understand—I’m here on his mission, not my own; which means I’m not giving up.”

“All right.”

“All right,” I repeated doubtfully. “That’s it?”

“Are you withdrawing the request?” he lifted an eyebrow in challenge, but I refused to be baited.

“There is no request. This is off the record and at my leisure. I can plan something for next week. We’ll be at the shop Saturday morning, but after that we’re free. Let’s say five. Should we meet here, or is there somewhere else you had in mind?”

“We,” he quoted. I looked up from my phone’s calendar—he was still as a stone.

Matching his stillness, I replied, “Yes.” Then it sunk in. “You couldn’t possibly think I’d leave him alone with you?” I didn’t think he’d kidnap him, exactly, but I wasn’t taking chances either—and looking around the least child-friendly residence in NY, my mommy intuition clamored.

“Yes. Of course not,” he replied softly, not affronted at all.

I pursed my lips. “I’m allowing his request to see you, but this will be on my terms. That means no one else. Especially not your dad. So you either agree to monitored visits or none at all.”

“Are you punishing me with your company?”

“My supervision,” I corrected.

“I don’t deserve such punishment.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I look forward to it, then.”

Despite meeting my objective, I left with the same feeling I always had after being with Daniel regardless of the outcome—like somehow I had lost.

Chapter 28 - A Friendly Match/Hunter Interlude

We were sitting on the bench waiting. Daniel was running behind. He’d resurfaced this week. Even the papers took note. There were details of a meeting with another firm, and an offer for a position, speculatively in the finance section. The new firm’s stock went up a little bit the day the article was published. Money and character were never one in the same, I sighed. The sun was beginning to set and Tristan was tired from lizard hunting, so he nestled against me and began telling me a story about his favorite animated lion movie. I bent my head to listen, half-tuned out. I’d told everyone what we were doing and blocked all objections. This wasn’t about them. I wanted this feeling of anguished deprivation Tristan suffered to be over more than anything else. It was a hollow feeling I saw inside him. Where I had planted something meant to stay in his heart by welcoming Daniel to our lives—in that sweet new grass was a hole. Larger than the one he’d saved for the unknown entity who would be his dad, because now he knew what he was missing. Absence was missing; awareness was loss. This wasn’t nourishment though, making governed peace with my son’s father. Personally I couldn’t have felt less fulfilled. Something very wooden about it deep down.

“Is he coming, Mom?” he asked with a yawn, after the tale had petered out. The things mothers do, I thought, as I brushed back his hair. It had grown back out to the way it was before.

“Yes, love. He’ll be here,” I reassured, still contemplating misgivings. I rubbed his arm. He was tired and in minutes he’d dozed into a nap.

“Wake up,” I whispered and he stirred.

I’d spotted a tall figure passing under the lights heading towards us. Tristan looked up at me and smiled excitedly, then whipped his head towards the coming form of Daniel. Tristan was practically vibrating with energy and nervousness. He whipped his head back to me for consent, his eyes begging to go meet his dad. I nodded him onward. Hesitantly he slid off the bench and I smiled, but not to my eyes.

Daniel walked briskly, appearing distracted in thought, and finally when his eyes found us, he slowed. I was concerned and could feel Tristan was too, when just a few feet away he stopped, arms at his sides his chest rising and falling, eyes seemingly disbelieving. All at once Tristan stepped towards him. Daniel folded to his knees. Then Tristan flung himself into Daniel’s chest, and Daniel wrapped him in a tight embrace. There was dew on the leaves, I’d seen, both dark and bright.

I was already off my seat, both surprised and moved by the scene. Tristan wasn’t ‘the boy’ to him. I took a few steps and smoothed Tristan’s hair as his head rested on his father’s shoulder and a strong arm coiled me into the embrace. I tensed and pulled back, but Daniel wasn’t letting go. He just held us both and whispered painfully, assuredly.

“A thousand times….” That’s what I thought I heard him saying. “…a thousand times….”

~o~

“Who is with them?” Daniel asked. He approached my apartment door from the kitchen, his ear a few inches from the door. He’d just returned Tristan home from soccer drills at the park just in time for his afternoon date with Chen. Annie had got them both tickets to the planetarium for a show. Zack was going too, but he’d meet them there. He wanted nothing to do with Daniel.

We’d had many successful visits with Daniel. He was calmer. More intentional. He treated his time with Tristan as a privilege. Tristan was happier than ever, and that made me happy for him. I never took an eye off Daniel. Even though he’d begun doing everything right—showing up to karate performances, calling occasionally at bedtime to say goodnight even when he was out of the country, bringing home small trinkets for Tristan from far-off countries—it was grossly too little too late in my eyes and the eyes of my friends. Most of them that is. Violet was quick to forget, especially since the controversy increased her sales numbers. Also, she understood.

And there was the real surprise: August.

After our reengagement, Daniel reached out to him. I’m not sure how that conversation went, but Daniel apologized. August said he explained he had been given false information. August remained reluctant, but since then Daniel has been diligently assisting August’ new endeavor, a private hedge fund, delivering to him a massive silent investor that green-lighted the whole thing. Most of Daniel’s traveling was for his own ambitions, though. I wasn’t sure what Daniel had planned for his next step, seeing as he’d severed from the corporation he’d been raised in.

Jill’s whispers were right. Hawk Baird resigned from public office, returning to the position of CEO. So much for public service. Jill still swore the divorce was real, although not one line of it has managed to make any of the news.

Daniel lingered now, at my door, because as he’d arrived moments ago with Tristan, I’d been in the middle of making a tea for Annie when my sink cabinet began to pour water onto the floor. In a high-rise this is a huge no-no. Annie let them in, and Daniel took over in the kitchen while I kissed a late running Tristan good-bye. Daniel didn’t fix it, but he did get the water turned off. The bottom cabinets smelled like mildew. It’d been leaking for some time. Between that and my not-so-elegant open fronts, it looked like I did need to remodel.

What had his attention at the moment was the sound of Hunter’s and Violet’s raised voices all the way from Violet’s apartment. We could hear them, muffled, down the hall and through my door. That meant they were being extremely loud.

“No one was with them when I saw them earlier,” I said and sat at my table. “It’s just them. What’s wrong?”

Daniel looked perplexed. “Hunter is yelling.”

“Violet’s holding her own,” I assured him. She was conservatively seventy-five percent of the exchange. “They’ll work it out. They’re a young couple; that’s what couples do.”

“Make sure you tell Hunter that when you see him.” Daniel commented bemusedly, moving away from the door as the commotion ceased. “I’ve only witnessed him argue like this with his sisters.”

“That’s a funny image,” I said, tapping the stacks I’d spent the day on, evening up the edges. “We assumed he was an only child. He’s so private.”

“Only boy. He doesn’t return home often. His sisters try to lead him by the ear. I went home with him over holiday on occasion. Southern belles can be…passionate,” he finished, after I looked up to watch him find the right word. I pursed my lips and went back about my organizing, and he sat down across from me. “In trying to get their siblings to settle down. They are all married,” he added.

I peeked up. His face was relaxed, purportedly observing me work. “Some men aren’t the settle down type.”

“Or some women. Violet enjoys her freedom.”

I replied simply. “She’s allowed the same liberation at Hunter.” And you, I nearly added. I didn’t because as of recent, that didn’t seem accurate.

“What are these?” he asked, nonplussed, changing the subject.

“Coupons,” I said sharply.

“You’re cutting them.”

“That’s how you use them. It’s called clipping.”

“Why would you do that?” he inquired. “You have finances. Your business is doing well, and I saw that you inherited from your father, after his passing. And your mother.”

“Life insurance, and not much. Remind me again how you know that?” I said innocently, snapping my scissors closed twice. “I like coupons. And I enjoy clipping them. Call it force of habit.”

“Freud may have a different name for it,” Daniel observed.

“Freud was a man. He has the theories of one. I’m not convinced he had any real understanding of the innermost workings of an average woman,” I soldiered on, being only slightly snooty about it.

“What about an exceptional woman?” he probed.

“Those either,” I quipped.

“You said yourself women aren’t exempt from human nature. And natural desires.”

“Sure. That’s normal, I guess,” I said, glancing at him over my scissors. He was quietly studious. “But, he’s still a man. Women are more complicated than his understanding of us. I mean, we make humans. I could study my houseplant for fifty years and figure out it needs water every day. I wouldn’t be experiencing what it was like to be a thirsty houseplant. Speaking of which, would you mind looking for a plant food coupon in that housewares stack? The topiaries outside my showroom are brown.”

“I’ll buy you a compost farm.” He was only partly kidding, curling his lip at the stack.

I gave him a chiding look, and he reached for the stack, sliding it closer. When he was done, he looked up with an eyebrow raised and flipped over the top sheet. I nodded and got back to the page in my hand.

I fought back a smile, clipping away. “It must be hard for you to be on your best behavior.”

“No, this is an experience I’m glad to have,” he remarked, holding up a coupon for printer ink.

We heard a slamming door and Daniel lifted an eyebrow. We both got up to investigate. Hunt was walking down the hall rapidly, with his ever-so-slightly bow-legged gait. He had on faded jeans hanging off his hips and an old green shirt beneath his coat. Looked like he’d been spending a lot time in the sun. His skin was nearly as bronze as his roots, with sun-bleached ends. But the jacket looked stiff.

“Trouble in paradise?” Daniel smirked.

“Does this look like paradise? You see some hula dancers?” He extended his arm, scowling. He beat the arm of his coat a few times. “She sent it to a dry cleaner. You believe that?”

“How do you usually wash it?” I interjected trepidatiously. It was odd seeing Hunt worked up. “You do wash it, right?”

“With palm leaves in a wade pool, I believe,” Daniel supplied.

Hunt gave him a flat look. Violet trotted our way, hips swinging, in a short lime tank dress and gladiator sandals. Her icicle dyed hair was down, flipped outwards. Reaching us, she crossed her arms, posing with one leg out.

“Baby,” she called Hunt. It wasn’t a term of endearment.

“Woman.” His wasn’t either.

She rolled her eyes. “Hunt, I didn’t understand it was special, okay? Sorry. You don’t tell me stuff, though, so it’s not my fault,” Vi insisted, haughtily.

“Woman, now why would I tell you anything when you clearly can’t keep a lid on,” he said perturbed. “I’m going down to a coin laundry. See if I can get out this starch. I look like Gumby,” he muttered to no one particular, walking off to the elevator.

Daniel watched him and I turned to Violet. She shifted hips. “Baby,” she reiterated. Daniel’s lip curled upward.

“Oh. He really is,” I added helpfully. “He’s got big sisters.”

“See, this is what I’m telling him! He won’t even share his sign, when it’s obviously Leo. How was I supposed to know he only washes it in his mom’s detergent? How do you even get him?” she asked wide eyed, turning to Daniel.

“I can’t claim to, but give him time,” Daniel replied confidently, folding his arms. “I myself am only in his good graces since that coat found its way back.” She nodded. “A piece of advice?” he added before running his eyes over her, brow arched. Then he told her the name of what I guessed was the only passable detergent brand. It was the same one I used.

“Have it around only,” Daniel instructed. “He does his own washing.”

Vi looked at him appreciatively, then shied back realizing who she was conversing with. She switched her hips sharply all the way back to her apartment.

I gave a shrug to Daniel before walking back inside. He came, too, closing the door. I went to my sorting and he sat, watching. I would have showed him out, but I didn’t mind the company. Before long, something in the delicate way he was observing me caught my attention. I looked up and he looked away at my hands, licking his lips.

“You really haven’t?” he asked, using that tone I heard rarely these days, but it still gave me goosebumps. “Our subject from before.” It switched back. Business tone. Our eyes met and he raised a brow while handling a stack dedicated to breakfast foods. I over-couponed and usually ended up giving half to Annie. I watched his fingers slide and flip over the top one in preoccupation.

“What? That?” I waved off.

“I could help you,” he offered, helpfully.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Have you found someone?” he asked. We saw each other often but never alone. Never personal. I didn’t ask him anything, because I didn’t want him to think I cared or that he’d earned my individual concern. This felt incredibly and suddenly beyond that.

“No. Why? Are you fishing for more evidence? Building a new case against me?” I countered.

He gave me a look that said I’m going to ignore that. He pressed on. “You enjoy it. You also happen to be very good at it. So why aren’t you?”

“None of your business,” I said hotly to the most persistent person I’d ever met. “Worry about yourself. Why aren’t you?”

“Do you really want to know my answer?” he challenged, his eyes daring me. That shut me up. I made myself busy with the scissors. “I think, maybe, our reasons are not so dissimilar,” he said slowly, giving me that look that made me want to slink out of my body and seek somewhere more private.

“Daniel, nothing about us is similar.” Like a kitten and a crocodile, I thought.

“We could help each other,” he persisted, handling his next words with careful emphasis. “I only mention it because the horse has already been ridden, so to speak,” he paused, and something throbbed. “Ridden hard and put up wet, isn’t that the expression?”

“That’s the one.”

“An intriguing saying. My point being, there is no un-riding it,” he said suggestively. “The horse. It’s wasteful. And perhaps…you would enjoy a ride.”

“If you say the word ‘horse’ or ‘ride’ again, I’m going to throw you out.”

“As you wish,” he acknowledged seriously. His eyes gleamed. “And how do you feel about ‘hard’ and ‘wet’?”

I pushed myself back in my chair.

He shook his head in self admonishment. “Apologies. I don’t want to disturb you, truly, as much as I’d like to fuck you on this table. It just seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

I started breathing again. “What’s your deal with tables?”

“Convenience,” he replied, experienced.

I shifted uneasily in my seat but found myself engaged. “Traditionally, in America, the neighborly thing to do is to loan a cup of sugar or, you know, help with the plumbing,” I said.

“That is precisely what I am proposing. Plumbing for sugar.”

“Funny.”

“I don’t want to be your neighbor, Gabrielle,” his eyes glittered, and he stood. I did the same. He came to, slowly, and his lips dipped down to mine, and I tipped my face to meet him.

His hand reached for my waist settling on my hip. When he broke away, we stared; the air filled with expectancy, and I waited with a pounding heart for whatever came next. Resting back on my heels, my hand lost its grip on his shoulder, sliding down the artful length of his arm, and when the tips of my fingernails brushed his curled hand in passive enticement, he resisted completely. He became rigidly still and the moment of inebriation passed. I drew my hands away, confused, letting them fall at my sides. He looked down like he wished he could do the same. He answered the silent question with, “I need to know this is what you want,” he pressed deliberately, everything about him firmness and strength; except his eyes. “I need to know…I did not force it.”

I stepped back to understand, placing space between our bodies. The ball had never been in my court before. It was always him taking me to the brink, leaving me pardoned. I hung my participation around the neck of his magnetism, but he wasn’t allowing the alibi of complicity this time. It was my choice.

I reached for his hand, and he allowed it. I looked back into his eyes, letting my fingers feel the rough parts, and the hidden soft ones, too, finally entwining my fingers with his.

Already half buzzed, I led him into the bedroom.

When we finished, he dressed and left. I picked up the room and used window cleaner to remove all the marks our bodies left on the glass wall overlooking the city. My streaked palm prints and his, stamped over them, our signatures. The agreement struck. Friends with benefits. A friend I couldn’t acknowledge in public or be seen with. A friend I should rebuke; except he was right that day in his office. Nothing felt like this.

Chapter 29 - Tail, Tale, Tell

I was in a field. In my dreams. As I walked around, the blades of grass caressed my legs. I felt it whisper against my shins. I kept walking.

“That’s a pterodactyl,” I corrected.

“No, it’s not, Mom,” Tristan objected.

“He’s right, Bree.”

I gave Ari a playfully withering look. He grinned.

“All right, lunch time everybody,” Ari announced, snapping his fingers in the air musically, and the kids clustered around. It was museum day, and I was a parent chaperone, the other having been a no-show. Single file, they held hands and trailed after Ari like a dandelion knot necklace, me at the end. When we got to the cafe area, they lined up. I pulled away to text my second-string pick for chaperone.

G: You’re missing the dinosaurs.

D. Baird: Wrong. The dinosaurs are here.

I snickered.

G: Can you make it?

D. Baird: No. I want to see you. Tonight.

G: Maybe.

D. Baird: Understood.

“Plan C,” I muttered. I texted August and invited him to come instead.

Ari and I were making due as the only two chaperones. He was visibly frustrated by the low parent turnout. I slipped the phone back in my bag and walked with the kids, bringing a chocolate bar from my purse. It was tricky in the afternoons, with Tristan at home and Vi and Ian both sharing my elevator. Discretion was paramount. But Daniel didn’t seem to mind—not that I’d given him a choice.

We left the big species exhibit for a snack break. When the tables were in sight ahead, I felt a hand clap around my wrist, drawing me into an alcove. My cry of alarm was muffled.

“You taste like chocolate,” said Daniel, giving me back my mouth.

I caught my breath. “You made it,” a grin spreading wide. He pressed a firm kiss on my lip.

“Am I your hero?” he asked sardonically, trying to unbutton my shirt.

“Wrong damsel. I don’t need any rescuing,” I breathed, as my head lazily tilted back on its own. I started rebuttoning from the top.

He pulled back. “You must be in shock. You are lying to yourself.”

“You can’t start fires just to play hero when you put them out.”

“So I’m an arsonist,” he smiled, kissing my lips. “I didn’t bring a hose.”

I thought he might be wrong. He regained a few buttons, and I pulled the shirt together tightly, “You’re terrible.”

“Flattery won’t save you.” Giving up on buttons he rested an elbow on the wall above my head, his jacket veiling us. Eyes downcast, he pulled the shirt over his destination, resting the bunched fabric on top of my breasts as he hooked a finger sharply to reveal what he sought. Then I yanked the top back down.

He relented marginally when I pushed him back, ducking my head under his arm, and craning my neck out. In the distance, out in the light of the museum exhibit, I found the group of kids huddled around the colorful tyrannosaur display, listening raptly. His head was bent over me, hands flat on the wall beside my head.

I straightened myself, adding seriously, “You should come say hi.”

“I will,” he replied, not quite insulted, then the warmth returned tenfold. He grasped my bottom, lifting me on my toes, a thigh hooked around him. “First I must put out this fire,” he blazed.

I felt dizzy. “I thought you didn’t bring a hose?” I managed to rasp.

“No,” he said lightly, kissing my nose—and hiked me up firmly, done with games. He whispered, “Just a sword,” and pressed against the wall hard, his fingers sliding under and digging in.

I opened my mouth to object, but as he one-handedly unsheathed himself, all that came was an empty mannered protest, “We can’t do this here.” I’d done my part. I panted.

Instantly, his hand flicked, followed by the sound of ripping silk, eliminating all barriers “You’re too late,” he plunged inside me and covered my mouth with his—dragging us deeper into shadows.

We came out shortly after, grateful he’d been conscientious of time. As we walked out, he reached out and ran his hand down my hair, smoothing a looped strand and sweeping it behind my ear. He was walking slowly beside me, looking down, as I walked a little drunkenly. Wobbly, I brushed into him and straightened, and he smiled. I blushed and turned to face forward.

“Gabrielle,” August said, wide eyed.

“Hi,” I said, sobered.

“Daniel.” August nodded to my hallway companion. A look I’d seen in the Hamptons flashed in Daniel’s eyes. He willed it down quickly as I gave him a quelling look of my own.

“I texted you, August, because Daniel said he couldn’t make it.” I made the mistake of glancing to my side. A wounded look flashed across Daniel’s face. “Thanks for coming.”

“It’s close by the new offices,” August said pleasantly.

“Dad!” Tristan belted, echoing through the soaring ceilings. Ari saw me, irritated I’d disappeared. Tristan’s feet flew over. He barreled into his father. Daniel rested a hand on his shoulder as he landed into him, prepared for his speed. He was still looking at August, non-threateningly now.

“Three is better than two.” Daniel’s lip curled in natural charm. “August, how are the Kingdom Corp. filings coming? You recall I have a friend at the SEC. I can contact him if you are in need of help….” He’d begun walking, and August, sparing a glance for me, joined him in conversation. Tristan’s shoulder tucked under Daniel’s spread hand.

I walked to Ari and got back to my duty, Ari too relieved to have his helper back, plus some, to complain. I didn’t say goodbye as Daniel left before we boarded the children on a bus at the end. August and I waved as it pulled off. I was giggling at Tristan and Chen, blowing monkey faces on the glass from the back seat.

August turned, serious. “Be careful, Gabrielle.”

“Come again?” I replied. August had never given me an order. I’d never even heard that tone.

“Tristan loves Daniel, and vice versa. A father willing to play an active and positive role in his child’s life shouldn’t be shut out. I have a better picture of him, as a person. I can forgive him for his ignorance, because he owned up to it. But you…” he said. “Be careful.”

His eyes held no mysteries. “It’s just an arrangement.”

“I doubt it’s an arrangement to him,” he said, turning his body to me. His leather penny loafer landing on the pavement. A city bus cruised past, blowing noxious fumes our way.

“Well it is to me,” I said firmly, pushing back wind-whipped hair. “He’s here because I allow it. The minute I don’t, he’s out. I won’t be pushed around by him or anyone else.” Daniel had more than once insisted on contributing financially to Tristan’s upbringing until the last time I snapped. He quit bringing it up. My lines, all of them, were as absolute as death and taxes. They had to be.

August eyed me and nodded. “That probably drives him crazy,” he said. “You’re stronger now, having been through what we have,” he said, saddened by it but proud.

“The silver lining,” I replied, lightly sarcastic, as I smiled.

He sighed and smiled. We walked, stepping at the same time in slow company. “I do wish you could find someone else to do this with,” August laid out his case forthright. Vi knew, too. She saw him in the elevator. She said he was silent but grinned secretively as he got off on the ground floor, and she knew. August kept his hands to his sides, which meant he was somewhat tense. “Have you considered matchmaking? Solomon had success in the past.”

I let my eyes wander the bustling street ahead, people weaving in and out from each other. “I don’t want to date.”

“Perhaps I used the wrong word,” he said, peeking towards me. I turned to him. “Tougher is what you are.”

“Maybe that was necessary,” I replied.

“Be careful of that, too.”

“The city finally got me, huh?” I replied, rhetorically.

“It’s not that severe, I think. Whatever you choose, don’t lose yourself? Okay?” he said sincerely, trying to sound light. “You do have options.”

I walked faster ahead and leaned on a red newspaper vending box, facing back to August. He caught up to me slowly. “August, I want to talk to you about the night at the park.” I met his eyes but blinked away. Not as tough as that.

“What would you like to ask me, Gabrielle?” He was peaceful. His wide blue eyes awaited, pecan micro-fringe curling above and below.

“I don’t understand,” I pinched my brow, watching cars whiz by.

“Neither do I,” he said perplexed. “I am gay because people I have fallen in love with have been male. I have to be gay because of that. Except I’m not, I guess, am I?”

A graphite Toyota narrowly missed being rear-ended. I watched as the lane unclogged, the graphite car guzzled past in a hail of honking. August addressed my avoidance.

“I didn’t decide whom I’ve loved,” August began. “I haven’t made any choices about it, not since I was six years old. I didn’t choose the class jerk Miller, who made fun of my speech impediment. Marcus or Olivier or Cam. Or you.”

“So it was real?” I asked, turning to him.

He inhaled a regular breath. “All I can say is I know what I felt that night sitting beside you,” he replied. “That night I felt what I feel with Solomon every day.”

I smiled. “So you are gay.” I poked him. “Go on, say it. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

His cheekbones turned pink. He grinned. “I’m gay, Gabrielle.”

“I have a gay best friend,” I contemplated.

He shuddered. “My aversion to the label was promoted by the clichés. I haven’t worked my entire life to be summed up in a comment about something as unextraordinary as a fine point on who I have loved.”

“But you did work for it, August,” I replied. He looked like he was contemplating his eulogy and how many times “gay” would overshadow something he felt he’d worked much harder for. He considered my words. “You fall in love a lot.” I scratched my heel along the ground.

“Life hazard.”

We walked. I watched the pedestrians ahead, not seeing them. “What does it feel like?”

I felt him turn to me thoughtfully. “It feels like flying,” he explained.

I made a noise of acknowledgment. At a glance to my side, August was at thirty-thousand feet.

“I didn’t understand all these years how you escaped it. Falling in love,” he said. “I know what you have been through.”

“It takes work to fall in love. Maybe you stress-loved me. We already had a love for each other. Respect and a foundation,” I puzzled. Answering him, I continued. “I thought I was waiting for someone to love me first. I could see what it looked like first hand,” I said. “Then it would click.” I shrugged lightly.

August looked over at me. There was something he wanted to say but instead he replied, “I think when it happens, for you, you’re going to go first. I think you’ll have to.”

My brow pinched again, our shoes clicking against pavement. Zack had loved me. So had August. Maybe people were like candy bars, real but different brands. Maybe we had internalized checklists instead of written ones like Violet—and we would know when we tasted it, what we’d been after. Zack’s brand was comprised of conditions. August’s brand was unconditional loyalty. I knew upon taste we weren’t the perfect ones for each other. Impossible to say with certainty whether what I was doing with Daniel was ruining my palate or improving it. I had reduced it, in my mind, to the physical act of chewing.

I made light. “Maybe they’ll have someone nice waiting for me at the nursing home,” I replied airily and grinned. I’d be too old to chew then.

“At the risk of sounding like your gay best friend, I suggest trying dating.” His tone was forced lightness, and when I turned to him I could see it was more than advice. He wanted me to start exercising my other options, maybe as soon as we departed.

“I will.”

He sighed. After a moment he said, “Gabrielle. Please don’t let me ever refer to myself that way.”

I held out my pinkie and reluctantly, already tiring, August King, Wharton MBA, established financial big shot, joined me in a pinky promise.

~o~

On a Monday, I received a text.

D. Baird: In our time zone. Brunch?

G: Sure. My place at ten.

I only added the “sure” to sound less voracious. It had been almost a week. The longest since we began. I had a ton of work, but there was no way Daniel could’ve come there. We had a close call when he came in to order a new dining table. Things escalated. Claire almost walked in, so the apartment would do. I shuttled home and showered. I put on a black bra and panty set and decided it wasn’t the most desperate thing I could do to answer the door in my robe. Less to take off, more time efficient for us both, I reasoned. I really did have a lot of work to get back to.

It was a good choice. It didn’t stay on long after Daniel surged in the door. Done, we collapsed on my bed, my breathing heavier than his. I rolled over to look at the ceiling, catching my breath. He seemed especially vital today. He also had a golden tone to his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

“How was your trip?” I asked, as I tugged the sheet up over my breasts.

“Successful,” Daniel asserted. “I have the company back.”

“That’s amazing. How did you manage that?” I asked, both stumped and curious. August expressed Daniel’s situation post-departure was not ideal. August didn’t see a way for him back in and had heard no word of him accepting outside offers received or shopping himself to firms. I couldn’t even picture the latter.

“Sophie. She wants out,” he replied in a definite tone. “I have found a fair way to compensate her. With the Barclay majority shares combined with my allied investors, Hawk remains only a speed bump.”

“That you plan on accelerating over,” I supplied gently. He glanced at me, dangerously, but said nothing else on the subject. I’d been that speed bump. I pushed the thought away. We were in bed. This was Switzerland—our treaty was effective here.

“Sophie…” he confided, to the ceiling. “It was a good talk.”

“Daniel.” I bit my lip and rolled over, tucking the sheets under my chin with my hands.

“Gabrielle?”

“Tell me more about your mother. Fiona,” I asked carefully, squinting over towards the curve of his neck, the sun soaking his hair, igniting highlights of toffee. Before knowing, Sophie made perfect sense. Beautiful older woman, regal, distinguished. However, seeing Sophie Baird in court the day after he’d told me made me wonder how anyone bought it from the start. We believe what we are told, I guess. He looked at me strangely then seemed to relax.

“What would you like to know?” he responded.

“Anything,” I said and nudged slightly closer.

He bent one arm and pushed it beneath the pillow his head lay on. “She was a wonderful cook. Very patient. She was also an excellent rider. Any horse, no matter how wild, she could break. Her father cowed them, but she won them over. My childhood hope was to be as good as her one day. Then I grew other interests.”

“Daniel,” I said, swallowing thickly, “Tell me how she died.”

I observed his chest rise and fall. “She died in a terrible place. Sick and despaired.”

“How did she get there?”

“That was my fault,” he said bluntly. “When I shut her out, it became too much. The other staff told stories….I was away at boarding school, and when I did come home, I ignored it and her. I knew something was wrong. She became gaunt. I reasoned she was getting older. Her hair became thin…she was pulling it out. The other help told me they’d find her…” he broke off.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It can’t be helped.”

“You’re allowed to feel, you know,” I said supportively.

He answered shrewdly, “I’ve paid the price for that.”

My lips pressed together. “So how did she…?”

“A few years passed after that night I found her and my father. I returned home on a break and she was gone. She was as much a part of the house as the stone. I knew something was wrong immediately. My father told me she had fallen ill and was being treated at the finest facility. Cancer, he’d said. I forced myself not to think about it. It weighed on me. It seemed wrong somehow. The other house staff wouldn’t look me in the eye. When my father was home, they scattered like mice.

“I thought it was over. By then I’d given up thoughts of Sophie and I becoming close like I was with Fiona. I came here to the states for university and left it all behind me. I was my own man. I had power and people obeyed. I aspired to be superior to my father. I found myself doing the things he did, only better. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy myself.” It was an apology and a justification.

“After my graduation at Harvard, I went back to Europe before I was set to start my MBA. In a pub in London I ran into Lloyd, our cook’s son. A drunk by then. He began cursing about my family. He said everyone knows the Baird’s are despised. He said ominously everyone knew we’d murdered her.”

“What did you do?”

“I hit him. He didn’t say much afterwards.” I bet not, I thought. “His accusation stuck with me. So, I returned home. Lloyd had been a troubled lad. But his mother Teresa was not one for rumors. They both adored Fiona. She was the one who’d held them all together and made things tolerable. She would plan Christmas for our employee’s children. More than once I witnessed her sneak baskets of food to the outlying cottages on the estate, occupied by families who were in our employ.” I was listening raptly, taken by this description. It must be some estate. He continued. “He never clarified the ‘her’, but I assumed. He wouldn’t have dared behave that way for anyone else. As boys, we would watch her. They all fancied her. And I was no exception,” he admitted, sounding ashamed and perplexed.

“You didn’t know she was your mother.”

“No, I didn’t. And understand, our property is isolated. In a place filled with people who seemed beaten and gray, she was bright. It made me protective of her. If I caught anyone watching her too closely, I’d bring them trouble. She was the one who cared for me. Lloyd said something about her once I didn’t like, so I dragged him out to the stalls and ordered him to ride a stallion we’d acquired for studding. He was a winning bloodline, but he had suffered an injury and become a maniac. He’d thrown off his last two attempted riders. Myself being one of them. My father said he was a bargain, but even Colum was afraid. Lloyd pissed himself when I sent him for a saddle, and luckily Fiona intervened. I could have killed him. Lloyd was so anxious to be saved, he told her everything. Including what he’d said to invoked me.”

“What had he said?” I asked, prepared for a blush.

“He was with another boy hanging on the fence, watching her work with the dogs. He told us he’d watched a stud mount a mare the day before. Teresa had smacked him and threatened if he were caught spying on husband and wife doing that, he’d be off to jail. He said if that’s what people do in a marriage, he planned to make Fiona his wife.

“He was ten and I was seven, and she was much older, but I understood. I wasn’t in romantic love with her, but the affection was strong. What if she wanted to marry him too? It occurred to me once she found a husband she’d leave to start her own family, have her own children. I wasn’t trying to kill Lloyd, exactly, but it was the only solution my child mind could come up with at the time.”

“What did she do when she heard all this?”

“She sent him home to his cottage. Then sent me inside ahead of her. She was never afraid to hand down discipline to me. I was surprised she hadn’t on the spot. I was still angry, but all I thought about the long walk in was how worried she’d looked. She came in later but remained distant. She usually ran my bath, but she left my clothes on the bed and said from now on, I ran my own bath. She seemed nervous and wouldn’t look me in the eye. Now I know why.”

“She thought you had…feelings for her.”

“Looking back, I understand the difficult position my confusion placed her in. At the time it felt like rejection. Days went by, and she withdrew more and more. As if slowly weaning me off of our bond. I tried ordering her to attend to me and failed. She began sending Teresa to fill in her roles. Lloyd was smug, and it enraged me. I thought I was losing her. I was sure she was going to leave our cold house for a life of her own. A family of her own.”

“That must have been very scary,” Internally, I shuddered thinking how Tristan would feel if he thought I was going to abandon him.

“It was my greatest fear at the time. When authority didn’t work, I broke down. I pleaded with her to go back to how things were. She pulled me off of her and told me to stop this. She had tears in her eyes. She said one day I would run our house and I needed to act like it. One day I would meet a nice a lady and get married and have children. I would fill this house and make it happy,” he stated, as though reciting a fortune inside an almond cookie.

“What did you do?”

“It only made me more certain she was leaving. So I said the first thing I could think of. I threatened I’d make my father make her marry me. Then she would have to stay with me forever.”

My face fell. “Oh Daniel,” I said, reaching out to him in an entirely inadequate gesture of consoling someone who’s wound was so deep and old it didn’t seem to sting as much as it should have anymore.

“I knew nothing of what I was saying but that she would have to stay forever. That’s all I wanted.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I can’t imagine how she felt.”

“Nor can I. Appalled probably. And trapped,” he said, glancing towards me. “She began crying in earnest then and when I went to comfort her, she pushed me away. She demanded I go to my room and not come out until my father returned home. He arrived the next day. I told him most of what had transpired. He didn’t mind I’d tried to injure Lloyd. He called Fiona to the room and told her she’s never to deny me anything. Ever. It’s etched in my mind what he said to me then. In front of her, he said, ‘She is a commoner and a whore. They have their uses, but you will never marry the likes of her.’ She ran from the room in tears. He smiled before going after her,” he recalled, stiffening.

“How could she care anything about him after that? I thought you said she loved him?”

“She did. In some corrupt way, she had fallen in love with her captor, because that’s what my father was. Her captor. He gave her enough to hope and toyed with her. She wanted his acceptance more than anything,” he said, pityingly, and paused. “It wasn’t long after that day when I found them together in the kitchen. They both looked…pleased. I don’t think either of them looked that way in my company. She wasn’t here for me, I thought, she was here for him. It changed my world,” he said, turning his eyes to me again, briefly.

“We remained close but a crack had formed. There were patches, at times, but it widened. I was becoming aware of my social divide with others the more I spent time in the outside world. By the time I was in what you’d call high school, what began as a hairline crack in my relationship with Fiona had become an unbridgeable divide. I was becoming a man set to outpace my father in every respect, which he loved and disdained. I’d broken an old record of his at his alma mater when I came home that summer. They held a banquet celebrating. He didn’t come, but was quick to humiliate my peer’s fathers with my accomplishments. His smile grew twisted when he’d ask Sophie, ‘Aren’t you proud of your son?’ She spent a great deal of her time at our apartment in London, shopping, lunching with old girlfriends, seeing shows, and I never understood.”

“I can’t imagine.” I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head.

“She had means to escape,” he explained numbly. “I was beyond caring. I had outgrown him and that place. It was Fiona who received the worst. As our relationship deteriorated, so had theirs. As insidious as he is, he can only get away with so much in the eye of the public. He saved the worst for her. That summer he beat her repeatedly, I later found out from Theresa. And he raped her. That’s what he was doing when I walked away that night.”

I was quiet for a while. “Did she ever get out of there?” I hoped for her.

“Yes. When I left that pub and returned to our estate, I demanded the truth, and Teresa told me everything. My mother wasn’t whisked away for the last few years for treatment. She was secluded with Colom in his cottage.” I bit down on my lip.

“I brought Lloyd back from London to Teresa. He’d sobered enough to come with me. She was lying in a filthy bed, frail. We took her, but she didn’t want it. She looked at me like she looked at my father in the kitchen the night he harmed her. Still, I forced my will. She is traumatized, I reasoned. Lloyd drove us to our small plane on an airstrip outside the property and I flew her to Ireland. I called Ahmed and he located a treatment facility there where I took her. She passed within the week.”

“At least her last days were with someone who loved her and that she loved.”

“She said almost a dozen times she should have prevented everything. But it didn’t end so sweetly. I was ready then to confront Hawk. He lied about her treatment. Then she confessed she didn’t want any. She insisted. I respected her wish and came every day to the sight of a woman dying for nothing. I read to her. I tried to feed her. Sitting across from her bed, I looked out the window and reflected to her. Remember the time I put Lloyd on that horse? Of course she did. I could have taken you away then, I said half-heartedly, we can’t blame ourselves. I had disconnected from her but it all came back. She was the true person in my life.

“She didn’t speak, but that wasn’t rare. I realized escaping with her wasn’t charity or empathy. It was an act of love. I let myself feel it again, like I had when I was small. I loved her like my mother. I kissed her head and said as much. I left in grief, but it lit a hope. That I would change. She died that night and left behind a letter. I could tell it was written long before, folded and refolded many times. She couldn’t face me to tell me I was her son.”

I searched for a bright spot, replying, “At least you have the letter.”

“She was not in her right mind when she wrote it.”

“Oh.”

“I knew she loved me. But she had been through too much. The letter reflected that. How she came to be pregnant. How she was sorry she hadn’t stopped me from becoming Hawk, as though it were already done in her eyes.” I rested my hand on his shoulder.

“So I left, not angry. Not loved, but not unloved. I left with no one in the world able to say it,” he said simply. “Part of what took her will to go on was her love to me. It had become a weight to her. I left robbed of that lightness, that release, shown that I wasn’t worthy of the most unconditional love.”

I wanted to comfort him. But I could tell that’s not what he wanted.

I lay quietly in the silence of my bedroom with Daniel. His mind seemed elsewhere, his eyes focused on the ceiling. The story hung in the air, stirring it. Tragedy, juxtaposed against my crisp white room with white sheets, stories above a busy city in motion. Boats full of people cruising the river below. Many miles away from the beautiful estate in which he’d grown up that was a house of horror. Her life and the pain it must certainly have caused Daniel had scabbed over thickly. Looking at him I wondered if most of the regret I caught in his reflection wasn’t for his inability to feel closer to that particular hurt anymore.

“Daniel.”

My hand squeezed. “I want you to tell me.”

His head turned on the pillow. The light refracting in his green eyes like beautiful stones. He read me and turned, pulling his arm from under my pillow and stretching it beneath his. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Tell me.” I repeated each word more carefully.

His body tensed, but as he spoke, it relaxed. “We met that night, and something miraculous happened,” he spoke, uninflected.

“We had a child.”

“No,” said Daniel. He reached his free arm across his chest over to mine. “More,” he said, cupping my breast, letting his hand slide until it rested meaningfully over my heart. He didn’t break eye contact.

“I fell in love,” I said, what I’d felt he’d implied many times. It seemed no more real than if he’d told me I was a unicorn. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so I asked, “And you?”

“You are my raison d’être.”

I swallowed at the declaration—and the tense.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I asked, putting it on him. “When we first met, why didn’t you run up to me and tell me? Why didn’t you just ask me on a date?”

“For what purpose?” he defended simply. “You share your body with me eagerly, yet it’s meant nothing. And now that I’ve told you, has anything changed? Do you feel any differently?” I felt Daniel scrutinizing me, but he only found what he’d expected. “Save your pity.” He removed his arm from beneath him, sliding it smoothly back under my pillow. “I know she is dead now.”

I didn’t disagree. He was staring at the ceiling again with a tight set in his jaw. I thought back to my conversation on the street with August.

I stared at him as I spoke. “I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

“No,” he refused.

“What?” I replied.

“No,” he said, resolved, before continuing in a quieter tone. “Maybe she’s gone, but maybe no. There is the chance…that after all this time, she’s been waiting for me, too.”

“Daniel….” How could I explain that love wasn’t on the cards, and probably never had been?

“No.” He shut his eyes. “I must try.”

“It doesn’t seem…reasonable,” I said—healthy, I meant.

“Reason has nothing to do with it. It’s true what your nightclub friend said before the fight. You would not have given me a chance, but that night, you did. You didn’t know who I was, and that was the greatest gift.”

“Status is an advantage, but honestly for you, I don’t think it’d be a challenge without it,” I said, taking in his face, his neck, the scent of his skin. I didn’t need to look lower to prove the point further.

“I mean to say, if you had known me, as I was then, you would not have opened yourself,” he stated patiently. Plenty of women would be with him, wealthy or not. But he was right. If I’d have met him back then, I would tuck tail and run. I had no misconceptions about the girl I was, but still, he was telling me the impossible. I did know one thing for sure; he believed it. He believed it body and soul.

Daniel moved under the sheets, coiling towards me smoothly, until his body hovered above mine, “My answer is no,” he finalized, his eyes locking with mine.

He waited for me to show some sign of agreement. I drew the sheet from under the crook of his arm, squeezing my eyes closed. “This is wrong,” I said.

I could see the gears of his mind shifting. He peered down. “Is that truly how you feel?” he demanded softly. He was giving me a window. More like a peephole, but it sounded like, maybe, if I was adamant enough, if I got up and stormed out right now…he might let me go and never bother me again.

To my immense shame, I didn’t say no. He was beautiful. It felt like nothing else, being with him, engulfed in him. Physically. But I knew what being in love was, I’d seen it, and it wasn’t here, it wasn’t in me. I didn’t understand it. And part of me hated him. Not little hate, a deep cutting gash of burning steel. Hideous and strong. I felt my forehead flash hotly thinking of it and pushed it away, like I had to each time he walked in a room and I focused on extracting for myself only his good. But I couldn’t get out of this bed. I didn’t want to give this up. I felt the lines begin to blur.

I moved to comfort him, to run my hand down the gradual slopes of his arm, but he drew back, raising his body higher. The look in his eye frightened me.

“You do not know what it is to be nothing in the presence of the one who means all,” he confided, reflecting utter torment, offering me himself anyway. Knowing what I couldn’t give yet willing to let me use him. “It’s a torture I can’t be without.”

“Sometimes, when we are together she’s here,” Daniel said, his hand cupping my neck, sliding upward, feeling his thumb run along my throat. His fingers combed my hair and drew it out, splaying it onto the pillow, admiringly, then arranging it—like a doll. My mouth fell open but I stayed perfectly still. “She is perfect,” he whispered, I rested my hand lightly on his concave cheek to stir him. Without distraction, he grabbed my wrist and laid it back down, covering it until it stilled.

My gaze shifted all over, searching his face, begging for contact he was refusing to see. When he found the lone freckle next to my ear as if remembering an old friend, he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I watched his tormented gaze sweetly trace the line of my cupid’s bow, searching my lips, my brow, my cheek; recalling and memorizing, in memoriam, refusing to meet the one place that betrayed the lie. My eyes.

“Daniel,” I choked, my heart breaking for him.

He revealed my body to the sunlight as he moved lower, taking the sheets down with him and dropping kisses like dew. “This is the body I love,” he mourned adoringly, watching hands run more fervently across peaks and valleys. He kissed the plain of my stomach, he kissed me all over, with increasing intensity and a passion that devoured.

“Let me have this,” his voice husked desperately between kisses, but this time he was the broken one. “Let me worship you,” he said, like a man capable of doing just that, at the altar of an idol that was fallen in a great war no one could recall. My fingers twisted in his hair and I shut my eyes.

In a bed up high in streaming sunlight from a cloudless sky, glittering off the Hudson, we were my illuminated forms under the cover of white sheets; and beneath them, two ghosts.

~o~

I woke up laying on his chest. I’d heard the low noise—a quiet rustle. Daniel running a hand through his hair. How did I know that sound so well? We’d been in bed for a while and I must have fallen asleep. He looked like he hadn’t. I reached for my phone on the side table to check the time, accidentally picking up Daniel’s. I quickly set it down after seeing the time, and exhaled, letting the flash of heat in my forehead cool. We had an hour left, before I picked up Tristan, in our Switzerland. It wasn’t a lawless place, but possession was still nine-tenths. I rolled back, pushing away his personal text message from Kate, kissing his chest, my hand stretching lower instinctively.

“Perhaps I was just in the right place at the right time. After all this,” he said, sharing what was on his mind, stopping my hand. “You shouldn’t touch.”

“When we met, you weren’t naive. You were waiting,” he said to me. “When I looked into you, I knew what I held. Maybe I just needed to have you. I plucked you gently from the lovely ground and you bloomed in my hand. I thought that made my hand special because I brought you no sun. You were an orchid at midnight, bloomed by moonlight. Every person since you have shown your bloom has fallen for you irreparably and stayed.”

He laid my hand on my chest. “Intention means letting something go. That is the bargain. What we are taught.” His words were pretty and he was angry.

He recollected, no longer looking in my eyes. “We found new earth that night. Not yours, not mine. New soil filled with the minutes of the night and the potential of every hour until end, and longer. We have not found that place again.”

My body lifted half an inch under the tense muscles in his chest. He looked at me, his eyes glinting disclosure without apology. He spoke slowly. “I used great refrain upon rediscovering you. You were even more beautiful, and stronger. Happy. But maybe not? Covered by vines and I only saw thorns. August, the texts. My only plan at courtship was to fuck you into choosing me. A plan I could execute. Then the file arrived, pushing me far past suspicion. For you, I regret what happened next. But you should know I’d waited, with patience and difficulty, permission to do what I did.” I shut my eyes. “I reach for what covered you, protecting you, choking them, Gabrielle, and I rip. I’m not why you thrive. I see the day I’d torn almost everything out of the ground when you were made to testify. You have given me a pass yet, still, I am here. I wrap my hands around a vulnerable stem that doesn’t bend to me, of singular purpose. Still on my aim. I come always to you.”

“This is my choice,” I said firmly, hearing my own words back in my ears as reassurance.

“I can be very quiet, Gabrielle,” he warned, doing just that.

“I don’t feel like…” I abandoned defense, squeezing a pillow under me.

“I rip, still.”

He began to move from my bed. It felt like the last time. “Then stop,” I begged reaching to him and missing, the tears finally falling. “Just be here!”

“I am in the garden. I am no gardener,” Daniel said in a low tone, unable to pretend anymore. “Don’t give me time. You’re only granting me time to discover new directions.”

I sucked in my lip. “What does that make you, then?”

He turned and looked at me. His green eyes shutting me out. “Something terrible,” he relented. “Tristan will be transported back and forth, as you permit. You won’t see me again.”

I rolled over to face the sun, curling the sheets to me as he moved to the opposite side giving me his back.

“It is time,” he spoke with certainty and resign. “You saw me differently once. Now, you see me as I am. I want you, still, to find the man you saw. I have only been in wait to be seen by you again. Ripping in occupation. And in pleasure. Taking and taking down. Just as you found me. But there is only one thing I want. Only one focus to my violence.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to believe him, because more than what he was telling me, I didn’t want it to end. He looked at me with pity. “You forgive, still. Would you like to know what I was thinking while you were asleep?” he asked, his brow rising in challenge. “I was thinking I could lock the doors and hide you here, making you come into eternity, never to be seen by the world again. By no one, Gabrielle. I do not know how much longer I can pull softly.” My body grew rigid then, taking him through lowered eyes. He was making an admission of absolute truth. A side of him that had no respect for treaty and no obedience to anything outside his range. Dormant rage for a woman he liked but not enough to forget I was holding hostage the one he loved. A man madly in love, tapping into a side that made him hate himself. It was slipping out. A side of him that looked like his father. And another side beneath it, like the one I’d seen in court. One that was only healed when he was with our son.

But what did he expect? We were both losing this time.

“And now you know. There is no need to desire you look longer,” he explained solemnly, less weighted. “Stay where you are. And grow.”

Chapter 30 - The Unforgivable Deceiver II

I arrived at Daniel’s mansion to drop Tristan off at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday.

We communicated only by messages, true to Daniel’s word, Jeeves being our physical go-between. He was a nice guy. He cared a lot about Daniel and Tristan, I’d discovered by observing his unwavering loyalty. There were no more security men around him since the Baird’s plus Kate had fled, just Jeeves and Des, his trusted driver. I knew he spent time with Hunter but I never saw Hunt here, and Tristan only knew him from his Aunt Vi. The only man she’d ever introduced to Tristan. Hunt shared a unique quality with Daniel—to appear only when they wanted.

It had been a few weeks since we ended our secret affair. Last weekend, Daniel arranged a pick-up game with August, Ian, himself, Tristan, and a few of Tristan’s friends. Ian convinced Zack to come. Zack played on the opposite team with Chen, of course. He agreed in the hopes of getting some vengeance on the field and showing Daniel a thing or two, I thought. I watched Zack stretch like he was prepping for the Ironman. Solomon, Violet, and Annie sat on a blanket near the pathway, captivated. The guys were doing warm-up when we arrived, and Tristan bolted onto the grass, the final player. I greeted the blanket observers but didn’t sit. Daniel caught my eye for a moment. His hair glinting in the sunlight, catching a tan on his chest, shoulders, lower thighs, and calves. He saw me and returned to his game.

“You’re not going to sit?” Violet asked, wearing big black frame sunglasses.

“No. Work to do.”

“You just missed it. Daniel had an entire conversation with Annie in Mandarin,” Vi shook her head. Annie grinned, smooth lipped under her aviator sunglasses. Her hair was in a ponytail accentuating the circular onyx hairline against her latte completion.

“His Mandarin is brilliant. I didn’t know he studied in China,” Annie replied from where she sat with her hands relaxed on her knees.

“He got his MBA there,” I said, recalling his file from Solomon. “Xiao University, I think.”

“Yes. That surprised me. The tuition is unaffordable but it is not academically difficult to get in to,” Annie said in her keen quiet way. “It almost closed at one stage.”

August added, “He was a Gexa Scholar. It’s selective. One-on-one education with real-world industry successes. It’s not about grades. It’s about who you know. But I have heard rumors in some circles that it’s a golden parachute school,” he said, inadvertently preening pedigree. “Very expensive place for burnt out children of the one percent.”

“There are other theories, too.” Annie muttered, clearing her throat. The game ball rolled up to her feet. Daniel and Zack were both in pursuit from far away. Zack giving it his all, and he arrived first. It looked as though Daniel slowed down intentionally.

“Babe, you watching this?” Zack said excitedly. Annie grinned and nodded, and he reached for a low five. She returned it. On the field, Tristan was huffing. Daniel walked back to him and bent down. He whispered something in his ear that made him grin. Not the light sweet grin he gives me when the cheese sandwich is just right.

Daniel was smart, I wanted to tell them. Smarter than anyone realized, in fact. He could have gone anywhere he wanted. After what he’d been through, they shouldn’t blame him for burning out and crashing here one night in this same park because of his vile, heinous father, an unfairly taken mother, going to an easier school than the crush of Harvard to pick up the pieces. I didn’t say any of these things. Why would I give a speech of defense to what was already his assembling fan club?

A glanced once more at the field and Daniel was in a shirt, like he’d been from the start. My night dreams were becoming day ones. On the way out of the park, I noticed the new benches. Every bench, in fact; all of them. I approached one closest where a homeless woman sat. Her skin was kidney bean colored from sun and a rag was wrapped on her head. I squinted at the tiny gold plaque over her shoulder from a few feet away. It was screwed into the top.

‘Donated by BarclayBaird’

The woman threw, not tossed, crumbs, hitting my shoes, and birds swooped down suddenly. I shooed them while she grinned a mouthful of shattered teeth and I rushed away home.

~o~

A few weekends later, Daniel had asked if Tristan could spend a day instead of a few hours today. I agreed. I asked Jeeves to see Daniel when we arrived, this time. Jeeves went down the spiral stairs opening that was tucked under the grand staircase with Tristan. Daniel emerged moments later from the lit opening wearing only swim trunks. I shut my eyes and reopened them. He was still there, shirtless, chest glistening. I forcibly prevented myself from exhibiting my lust. Daniel met me at the door and agreed to chat with me, privately. He flipped the shirt off his shoulder, lifting his arms into the sleeves, and shoving the white V-neck over his head and down his chest. I could watch that a hundred times and not get bored. He closed the front door behind us and followed me onto his stoop. I sat on the middle stair. Daniel sat too, stretching out his legs and bare feet, leaning back on an elbow.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I began.

“I’m here.” he said, attentively, running his hand through wet hair, pulling back the lock that had fallen on his forehead.

I rested my elbows on my knees. “I think I’m in a funk. I don’t know why I feel like this, maybe it’s the start of something?” I turned his gaze from me to the stairs. “Or maybe it just needs a quick fix. I thought you were the right person to talk to about it.”

He turned back to me. “What you’re feeling right now is rejection. And perhaps some withdrawal. It’s not heartbreak,” he explained patiently, his green eyes softening.

“I still feel crappy.”

“It will pass,” he promised.

“I still want you.” There was slickness from water on the plane above cheekbones, on his chin. The skin above his lip, still wet.

It curved, his real smile being revealed, but his eyes begged for mercy. “It’s not very thoughtful to tease me in this condition, Gabrielle.”

“Maybe one time. For the road?”

He appeared to take in a breath and release it. He looked away to the park and back to me. He held me there. “You make me light and heavy, all at once, calling to me as you are now. I wish I had better control than to admit that.”

I sighed and had to look away. “So, what do you two plan to do today?”

“I’m taking him to my hangar,” Daniel replied, flexing his foot slowly. “He wants to sit in the jet.”

“Ah, not a trip to the farmers market for apples.” I wrapped my arms around my knees.

“He is fascinated by aviation. It could be his calling.”

“You don’t want him to grow up and take your job holding up the world?”

“He can choose what he wants. But he will do it right.”

“You’re a good father.”

“I learn quickly,” he agreed, intended as a compliment.

“You teach quickly, as well.” The trouble with recreational chewing was the oral fixation it creates. Daniel had the same hunger I did, except he had better control.

He looked at me and stood. I did the same. “Perhaps we both need to clip some of your saving certificates,” he said slowly.

“Coupons,” I replied. “Have fun on the jet.”

“We will,” he said as I began departing.

I turned back on the bottom stair when he spoke again. “I’m not sending you out into any danger, am I? I know what it’s like to be in your shoes, after all,” he said.

“No. I’m okay.” I gave a grin. “Bring Tristan home when you’re back. We have an early morning. Today I’ve got work, and Violet and Hunt are coming over. I’ve got big plans to watch them bicker and flirt.” I sniggered.

“I still care for you, Gabrielle.”

I laid my hand on the stone railing. “I know,” I replied, then hurried away, skipping the last stair.

I went to the showroom and straight to the back, to my workroom.

I did some grocery shopping on the way home and frowned at my messy kitchen. I set my grocery bags on the kitchen floor and restocked the refrigerator and itty bitty pantry. The sliding drawers were the only cabinets functioning during the remodeling. My cabinet guy, a colleague of mine, said he would be taking them tomorrow, so I began emptying them. Right on top in my junk drawer was the envelope Jill had given me the day Tristan got stung.

I leaned against the cabinet frame and cut the tip of my finger as I slid up the stiff unsealed bubble envelope. I sucked it and blew on the cut. I withdrew the underwhelming two pages it contained and read. Page one was a general courtesy letter from the service, thanking the customer for the order including an order number. It listed the name of the service without any contact info. Jill had some interesting connections.

Schkalpen Center Int.

Patient: 94132

McCartney, Paolo

My eyes darted to the small double frame picture in the top corner. One half was a photo of a man, the other was an image of the numbers 94132 tattooed on indistinguishable skin, but I guessed buttock. The pages were nothing but a long list medications. Front, and back. I searched some from my phone, entering the milligrams. I returned the pages back in the envelope with a final glance at Paolo McCartney. His jaw was huge and wide, with blotched red full cheeks on paper white skin. His head was smaller at the top accentuated by a severe buzz cut of his light hair. One eye was blackened with a cut in the brow. His face was familiar and it clicked that he looked like Nathan and Nadia’s unfortunate baby. Maybe Jill sent in some of Nathan’s DNA by accident, this could be Nate Jr’s dad to a t, I thought dryly. Except this man looked as plagued as his medications indicated. It was a scam, but I could have done without the downer. I plopped the envelope down with the pile going out and worked through the rest. I left unboxed everything I needed for tonight’s dinner with Violet and Hunter, which I was suddenly very much looking forward to.

~o~

“Don’t open that,” I instructed Hunt and Vi. “It’s sealed shut for safety.”

“Live a little,” Hunt replied, Violet resting a hand on his bent back as he assessed the mechanics of my lock. He got it open, and then removed the one by one crossbar I’d cut to hold the track in place.

I roasted a chicken and Violet made an old dessert Zack’s grandma, Dina, had taught us. In scores of dinners over the years Vi had only made it twice. After he cleared away the chocolate pie plates, Hunt got straight to washing dishes. Vi and I exchanged thumbs-ups. As the sun lowered, they decided we should make use of my neglected balcony. Hunt carried out three chairs and a small side table. We brought our drinks and they put on some music. Violet DJ’d at first but Hunt took over after a few songs, putting on a mix of old country and rock. The vertigo wore off soon. When a Beatles song came on I noticed him peer at me, and I made a point not to tap my foot or hum.

They were a cute couple. Violet was steering clear of labeling it. Ian told us he went to Harvard with Hunt, too. When he realized Vi didn’t know anything else, he roared laughter and clammed up. Jill in typical fashion couldn’t be bothered about Vi’s weekend romance companion. I suggested light internet stalking but she said it needed to come from him. I got it. With a flakiness that outmatched hers, they had undeniable chemistry.

Hunt shared stories of his travels, which were always fascinating. Violet sat on his lap trying to canoodle in the middle of a story about a real life geisha girl he’d encountered in Japan, but she fell asleep. We sat in the peaceable quiet listening to music and looking out over the river.

“My legs are fuckin’ asleep. If I stand up with these noodle knees, she’s gonna go flying over the railing,” Hunt announced after a while.

“I told you. It’s dangerous out here,” I countered. I uncrossed my legs, stretching them, and recrossed them. I had a sip of my tea as well.

“You’re in an empty room,” Hunt said, wisdom emerging from his mystic well. “There’s nothin’ to fix in an empty in a room. You need to get to a messed up one.”

“You may have missed it on the way out here, but my house is trashed.”

“I didn’t miss it. He asked me for my help when I first came back here,” Hunt said. “He thought that fella August was the only thing standing between you and him.”

I blinked to hide my eyes widening.

“Bet you’re glad you let me in for that chat now, aren’t ya darlin’?” He smiled. I frowned, looking away. “Something’s wrong,” he said plainly. “Not just the amnesia. And not Danny.”

“I know,” I admitted, surprised it was Hunter who wanted to open it but relieved to get some of it off me. I thought about Daniel on the stoop today. And about a couple fighting outside my showroom. And about all the catastrophe since we’d entered each other’s lives. “Was he different then? Back when I first met him?” I wondered. “What did he want from life? What was he looking for?”

Hunter responded. “Not different in any way that made him an easier target of affections. He wasn’t looking for nothin’ and wanted most of what he has. He accepted he needed a wife eventually. Candidates were plenty, and those types of marriages aren’t inflexible. A fella like him shouldn’ta been engaged this young though. Kate. That was rushed. The only thing I can say he didn’t envision is the kid, and you. And that ugly house of his.”

“His house is stunning. It belongs in Architectural Digest.”

“Looks like a mini-version of his daddy’s house.” Hunt informed me. “He hates that house.”

Why would Daniel have chosen it, I pondered. A home similar to his house of horrors back in England. That meant something. Maybe he wasn’t so far away from that place, inside. Or maybe there was another reason. I sighed. “I think, it’s too late. Our hearts. We’re too far apart.”

“When you say ‘hearts’ two things come to mind—my nieces’ puffy stickers and pristine surgical steel. Listen to me. Energy cannot be destroyed. So ask yourself where has that energy gone?”

“My work. My son,” I guessed.

“You’re not talkin’ energy; that’s atoms,” Hunt dismissed.

“Move on,” Violet muffled into the collar of his shirt. When her face appeared it was creased with the lines of his shirt across one half. She rubbed her eyes with a silver foil fingernail.

“The bad stuff is over,” she said, dropping her hand. “The good stuff too, maybe. You have to get out there in the world. It’s time.”

Hunt looked out into the Hudson peacefully in his own thought. “Why’d you give him a second chance? It wasn’t because you were in puffy hearts with him; you’re not. It’s not because of your son either. That was the prompt but it didn’t decide. You did.”

I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his well, but I replied, “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Confounding.”

Vi slapped his chest, weakly. “Hey.”

“I make my own choices,” I defended lightly, feeling the coolness of the tea through the glass in my hands. “I hear good advice and bad, but the choice was mine. When you accept that in advance you can get through almost anything and be at peace about it.”

“Mm.” Hunt’s eyebrows sloped towards the center.

“She’s always been like this,” Vi addressed, smirking. “Mitch didn’t want another responsibility. He was the best guy, but it was Bree. She didn’t just stick her neck out, she pushed. We went along with it and she was just a kid,” she said. Then looked at me. “I wasn’t the best to her back then.”

“You were my best friend,” I told her. She smiled. “And I’m not pushy. You’re the pushy one.”

“Not bossy like me or Jill. You’re erosive. You wear us down.” She sniggered.

“Yes, not like Violet,” I said to Hunt. “That’s a pushy little siren, you have there.”

“Why thank you,” she said.

Hunt lifted a brow, interested. “No success steering this one from the shark pool.”

“Not a chance. You should have seen her burst into this city. By the time I joined her she ran the lower East side, and her new bestie was a supermodel.”

“Virginia gals,” he said, staring at me.

“No one ever guesses we’re from there, you know,” Vi replied, frowning.

He patted Violet’s thigh. “All the women back home look like you two? Maybe I’ll go get a few more.”

“Har har,” Violet said and relaxed against him. “Only if you tell me where you’re from in Texas so I can go truffle hunting, too.”

He grinned. We sat quietly for a while longer, Hunt looking longingly over the balcony rail with Vi’s head on his shoulder. “Love the water. I’d spout gills if I could,” Hunt said, breaking the quiet.

I raised my head from the chair back and opened my eyes to the view. The sun had fully set and the river flowed.

Hunt recounted. “I was on a rig out somewhere on the Indian Ocean. The captain told the crew to keep going. ‘Keep on drilling,’ he said. Later on when they salvaged the drill I got to see it for myself, burned up. It’s hot down there, beneath all the water in the ocean. Ain’t that something, I thought. Most civilizations I’ve encountered had that figured out, except they didn’t have drills. You go down, down, down. A burning lake, burning river, sometimes there’s a goofy lookin’ boogeyman in a canoe floating in it. It’s always fire. There is a great big burning ball of gas stuck in the sky, but they all figured the hottest place was beneath ‘em. I’ve heard my body weight in theories from the erudite, but how do you think they came to know the center of the world is on fire?” he asked turning to me.

Seeing his expression, I hedged, “Maybe you should ask someone else.”

“I will. When I see ‘em.” He waited for my answer.

“Maybe the dirt felt hot?”

“Mm,” he chuckled.

“Why don’t you ask me stuff like that?” Violet complained, playing with the button on his western shirt.

“Research. That one is the only thing I’ve been wrong about.” I made a humored sound. A scandalized petri dish.

Violet clipped back. “You weren’t wrong about me, at first? You didn’t think I was a vapid, yet stunning fashion industry girl?”

“I came right up to your door and took off all your pretty little clothes, didn’t I?” he said. Vi smiled wide.

“I believe I did most of the undressing. Now just admit it. You do own a tuxedo, don’t you?” Her lip curved into a smile, unveiling her slim-girl dimple. Hunt rolled his eyes. “What about just the bowtie? Cummerbund? Please don’t let it be a cummerbund.”

They went on teasing a few minutes more. I went to my phone on its charger beside my bed and had a text from Daniel saying he and Tristan were in route. I sat and took deep breath. It was time to get messy. And pushy. When I returned, Vi and Hunt were gone. The chairs and table back in place. Their flirtation reaching a fever pitch, I guessed. I resealed the patio door and waited for Daniel, leaning against my cabinet frames.

Daniel knocked on the door before long, carrying Tristan in one arm, deep asleep. I watched Daniel carry him into the bedroom and lay Tristan down. We emerged from his room, closing the door behind.

I’d spent that day alone at my studio. When I went outside to take the trash, there was a Portuguese couple arguing. They were arguing over a colorful map as she typed words into her phone, struggling to translate the English. I don’t know Portuguese, but I knew they were tourists looking for a place and he was set in his mind. He laid out their route. She was trying to convince him to go back, or restart, or perhaps ask. I watched them bicker for a while, leaning against a meter. He ended up folding the map and following her. Inside my showroom, I sat on my work stool in thought for a while. I’d signaled wordlessly for Daniel to follow into my demolition zone kitchen. I looked up now at Daniel.

“I have something I want to say to you,” I started, avoiding his eyes at first. “I’ve been thinking so much. We haven’t been in sync since the day we met, but still there is something there. I tried picturing my life today, what I want out of it and the future, but I can’t. I can only think about you, and what we do have, and what that might mean. I don’t have the answers on this, and you said it’s not heartbreak, but I don’t know if that’s true. I know I can’t imagine my life without you in it now,” I paused, bracing myself. “Daniel, I have something I want to tell you.”

“Don’t say it,” he commanded, stepping forward. I froze, three words trapped by his angry eyes pinning them back.

He rushed forward. “Do not lie to me. Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he cut me off, coming flush. His hands grabbed my face, scorching me. “I have seen these eyes overflowing with what you were about to say. Enough to drown a man. You would betray that, just to get your rocks off?” His nostrils flared with each breath.

“I am sorry,” I told him, the wrong three words. I felt myself get weepy.

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he repeated fiercely, coming back to himself, stepping backwards. “I should not react.”

My eyes darted around the kitchen. “I’m so sorry.” For lying. But it hadn’t felt like a lie. Not completely. I wanted him, yes. But I also wanted to be the girl he gave the world-bending look for on the stairs today. Not the look he gave me, the one I saw withheld—because I wasn’t that girl. I didn’t even have the potential to be. I wanted him to fold up his map. I wanted to point to the place I thought we could get if I said it out loud. Even in the bullshit he’d beset us in. Even though I would be mocked for walking with him. If I told him where I wanted to go. I would even take following him to this place, until we found it together, but he wasn’t interested in being my lead anymore. I wanted to disappear. Please, let me disappear. He only stared down harder. I closed my eyes hoping he would be gone when they opened.

“Go to your closet,” he ordered softly. I looked up. My heart stopped batting around like a frantic birdling. His eyes were crestfallen, as he licked his lips. I followed instruction and went there silently.

He closed the door to the closet, shutting out any light. “Take off your pants. Put your hands there,” he instructed me. I turned around, placing my hands on the shelf. I could hear him unfastening. “Bend.”

“What do I—” I began excitedly.

“Don’t speak.” Several moments passed. I felt him press the entry, but he didn’t move to enter. My head fell forward then up at the rack of clothes, blinking uselessly in the dark. Maybe he wanted me to start. I pressed back, hard.

When we were done, his hands lingered gripping my hips, stalling me from withdrawal and I bit my lip. The only sound was my breath. “Say something,” I pleaded, panting. It was too dark to see him and I didn’t try.

“I love you,” he said, like the words might release him. They did his body. He reassembled himself and light broke into the closet, onto the orderly lines of my hanging clothes. He paused as he filled the light. “Lock the door when I’m gone.”

I dressed, still dazed and high from the sex. My hands uneven from the waves. Thinking of what I’d just done. Rock bottom, it turned out, isn’t a place to land. It’s not there to break falls. It is a place you survive. A place you dwell when the damaged thing inside you accepts those rocks over the clouds. In the absence of the clouds—without the faith to fly—rock bottom was a place that welcomed a battered heart that didn’t know how to ask for a home. Introspectively, I knew I wasn’t unfamiliar in this place and that if I’d had the ability to pour my heart out sooner, it wouldn’t have been a golden flow of poetry brimming with sonnets. It would have looked like this; hard and heavy and marbled in gray.

But I did what I always do, what I’ve always done. I did what is probably the secret to life most people search for; I kept going.

~o~

We were having breakfast the following Saturday morning. Violet and Hunter showed up seeking orange juice. I let them in.

“Are you my uncle?” Tristan asked Hunt.

“Sure, kid. You gonna share some of those Fruity Pebbles?” he asked, sitting down eyeing his cereal bowl. Violet and I looked at each other. She looked near choking.

I made them some coffee and orange juice since they both took a seat at the table and offered them toast. They were wearing matching silk robes in bold abstract prints. They were both Vi’s size, so Hunt wasn’t leaving much to the imagination.

“Sit like a lady,” she reminded him quietly, and he grunted. “Can you bring me the paper, Bree? It’s on the counter. I should have a good blurb on page six,” she asked. I delivered it and sat with my tea.

“How is Daniel?” I was looking at Hunt.

“Tall. Ornery. Spitting silver,” Hunt said.

“I mean, how is he? I read about his father,” I continued, “I read he isn’t doing well.”

“The paper has better things to write,” Hunt said mildly. It had been in the news earlier that week. Hawk suffered a mysterious ‘medical emergency’ during a flight and was recovering ‘quietly at his estate’. I’d seen the Baird’s ability to control news, so I knew the condition was much worse than indicated. Hunt wasn’t giving anything away. “He had it comin’, darlin’. Don’t think of it.” His eyes were taking me in.

“Dad doesn’t like his dad,” Tristan said. “He wouldn’t let me talk to him. He told me his dad was like Mufasa.” He frowned and spooned some cereal.

“Sometimes we care about people we shouldn’t,” I explained.

“Too deep for 7:00 a.m., Bree. Where have you been all week?” Violet asked. “You haven’t called or replied. Claire told me you’ve been hiding in your workroom locked away.” Her white blonde hair with the blue streak was pushed back in a headband.

“I have a big commission coming due,” I said. “Have you heard from Jill?” I sipped my tea.

“I’m working on our bridesmaid dresses, but she’s struggling. King Agencies still isn’t doing great. I can only do so much to help,” Vi said sadly, flipping pages. She finally found it. She giggled as she read and turned it around to share. “I didn’t make it, but look who did!”

“Nathan? My gosh. Is that really him?” I asked, taking in the photo. Garter belt. Nice.

“The story says he cheated on Nadia, so she sold these photos to the highest bidder,” she said and tsked. “I warned him not to invoke karma.”

She began folding the page and I took it from her. “Daniel.” In the bottom corner was a photo of him at dinner with a woman. She had brown hair cut asymmetrically with tight shiny tan skin. “Who is this?” I asked to no one.

“That’s Charlotte Diaz. That’s the editor of Chic fashion magazine,” Violet said. She’d come to stand behind my chair. “What is he doing with the editor of Chic? Are they eating?”

“It says it was a lunch date,” I said, scanning the picture. She was a few years older than him. And very beautiful. I could feel Vi’s eyes reading the article from over my shoulder.

“It says they’re doing more than that,” she said, and both our eyes darted to Tristan. I’d read it.

“What’s that?” Hunt interrupted. He was staring at me. “That. What’s wrong with you?” he asked sternly. Tristan’s head swiveled from us confused.

“Nothing,” I furrowed my brow. I folded the paper and Vi moved back.

“That wasn’t nothing,” he said. “Liar.”

“Hunter!” exclaimed Vi.

I looked up at both of them. “I think my sticker doesn’t know how to puff right, but I think it’s getting puffy,” I admitted. “I think it’s maybe been that way, but it’s just not all the way right.”

“Well the surface you’ve picked isn’t so friendly to stickers,” Vi defended me, reluctant, crossing her arms. Hunt sat still.

“I didn’t pick,” I said. “I’m not picking. It stuck on its own.”

“Mom?” Tristan asked.

I looked up, lifting my brows. “Yes, honey.”

“Can I have some stickers?” he asked, eyes sparking like sliced lime.

Hunt laid a hand on his head. “Kid, you’ll get plenty in due time,” he said, sounding like it was a fate worse than death.

“Mommy always has one for you, Tristan. It’s perfect,” I said. He came to my seat and sat my lap.

They left, and Hunt had that pity thing in his eyes. He shouldn’t feel sorry for me. Of all the nights and days of my life I didn’t remember, I wished last weekend, in my closet with Daniel, would join them in the void. I stayed in my workshop because my hands needed to stay busy. Not calling Daniel or staring at my phone imagining phone calls. Not thinking of him. Not thinking of what an awful person I had become. I was especially dreading dropping Tristan off tonight. Not that I minded that he was going to spend the night again. Daniel had sent me an email this week. It was short but polite. The only email I’d personally replied to this week—I said yes.

After breakfast we walked to karate. Then I took a cab to Harlem for a quick trip. As soon as I left Solomon’s office to visit with Justine, it started pouring rain. I ran inside the first store I could find to wait out the downpour. I heard another squeaking customer come in the bodega as I perused the snacks, looking for something to purchase in exchange for shelter. The shoes squeaked nearer and the chip rack revolved, I glanced up.

“Hello, stranger,” Jeremy walked around the rack in greeting, giving me a drenched hug. His blonde hair was wild like he’d shaken his hair out.

“I didn’t think you recognized me,” I said, awkwardly returning the hug. When we initially made eye contact over the rack of chips, he had a defensive look. Maybe I’d startled him.

“That’s silly,” Jeremy replied through a grin. “Who could forget you?”

“Well, it was good seeing you, Jeremy.” I set down my chocolate, ducking to leave. There were still cabs out.

“Wait.” He laid a soft hand on my elbow. “It’s kinda something, us running into each other like this. What brings you to this side of town?”

“Picking up a gift from a friend.” Justine had come back from a cruise. She’d brought back a toy for Tristan, so I jetted to get it while he was at his lesson. ‘No grandkids to spoil of my own yet,’ she’d complained. I pulled out the toy from the bag, a mouse in a sailor hat, then dropped it back in. “Is this your neighborhood?”

“Nah, I’m pounding the pavement today. I was at an audition next door.” He brightened.

“That’s right,” I said, thinking this was unlikely street for an audition. “How’s the career change?”

“Good.” His thick blonde eyebrows sloped down over dusk blue eyes, raising high in the center causing ribbons of creases in his forehead, looking vulnerable. “You know, it’s a big risk throwing yourself into your passion, but the rewards will come.”

“Good things come to those who wait.” I offered the platitude unconvincingly.

Jeremy smiled straight white teeth that revealed some of his upper gums, and his eyebrows rose. “My friends and I are going out to see a band play tonight. You remember Regal and Marcy? You should come meet up. It’s out in Bushwick. Here. Let me give you the address,” he offered, looking down to the phone in my bag expectantly.

It was the first time in a long time since someone had approached me, without wanting to discuss Daniel or my friends, absent of chatty opinions or insinuation. He was behaving like he’d missed all the coverage completely. I felt like the old me.

“Sure,” I decided after a moment. I handed him my phone. He typed it in and handed it back looking happily energized.

“I’m glad we ran into each other, Bree. Text me. I’ll meet you outside. I’ve got an extra ticket for you,” he said, grinning and headed to the checkout with his chips. I waved. My phone buzzing inside my purse.

“Hey, hooker,” Jill said and paused. “Time to nix that nickname.”

“Time to nix it,” I agreed. I paced the candy aisle. “I saw you got an early birthday gift in the paper today.”

She snorted. “Don’t you love when everything starts going your way?”

“You sound happy for more than just the article,” I commented. She sounded weightless.

“The venue is booked, I found the perfect dress, and King Agencies is about to reboot. Vi and I are meeting with Chic about a feature on her and me. We’re being included in their Ten Women of the Moment. Nathan is far in my rear view,” she expressed.

I paused in the aisle, toeing the linoleum. “You deserve it, Jill. You’ve worked hard.”

“I saw Daniel, too. I love Charlotte Diaz. She is a killer. But I can’t see those two….”

“Me either.” I swallowed. “He still talks to Kate, Jill.”

Jill was shocked. “Kate the Worst? Wicked Witch of Manhattan!”

“I looked at his phone once, accidentally. I didn’t look hard.” I saw his face on my pillow. “She messaged him. It was quote or a poem of some kind.”

“Just when you think a man has changed, they go back to their old ways. I was this close to giving him my blessing. I still have my mini dart board with his face on it. I’d be happy to put it back up.”

“That’s okay,” I mumbled. I knew from Ian she wasn’t anywhere near giving her blessing anyhow.

“Fight fire with fire. You should put on a hot dress and let Vi and I take you somewhere you normally refuse to go. Give him a taste of the rear view,” she asserted.

I glanced towards the door. “I do have a date tonight.”

“That’s the spirit,” I could hear her smile. “What does he do?”

“He’s a struggling performer, and he used to be my bike messenger.”

“Hysterical,” she replied sarcastically. “I guess Burger Clown was busy.”

“I wasn’t making a joke. I went out with him once before to that play, remember?”

“Oh, well…the important thing is to take the first step. Remember your advice to Vi about schmucks good on paper and dating the barista, instead? If he’s a great guy, cute, treats you well, honestly, that’s all that matters. That’s all I want for you, Bree.”

“Thank you, Jill,” I glanced at the door again. “I just need to get out. Tristan is spending the night with Daniel tonight. I don’t want to be home, alone.”

“My little Tristan,” she sighed. “That kid can do no wrong.”

I smiled. “I’m glad you called. We were talking about you at breakfast this morning.”

“You were on my mind. I had the most random terrible dream last night about the meathead from that memory file,” she said.

“You lost me,” I replied.

“The guy from the memory chip. The envelope I gave you,” she said.

“Paolo McCartney, you mean? There was a memory chip?”

“Yes. That was the file,” she said. “I was glad to get it out of my office, to be honest. My business has picked up since then. A little. I think it was putting off something icky.”

“What was on it? What did it say?”

“The guy is a nut, probably. He lived in population isolation. He did something horrible to deserve being there.”

“So it is a nuthouse,” I said. “What was on it, Jill?”

“Bad stuff, Bree. I don’t want to give you nightmares, too. You were in the dream, though.”

“What was your dream?”

“The guy was standing in a room naked, which should have been the worst part. He was standing there in the room with people in doctor outfits, and security outfits. They brought in another guy who looked like just like him, like an identical twin, except he was in a military outfit, not naked. Then everyone stood back and waited. The doctor lady poked the one in the military outfit with something and he started shaking. Then he ran at the naked one. They were fighting like maniacs, and everyone just stood there watching.”

“Yikes. That’s a terrifying dream.”

“Good thing Ian spent the night. I woke up completely freaked out. You know I don’t even watch those kung fu movies Ian likes. Reading it was one thing, picturing it was another.”

“Reading it?”

“The file said that happened. Well, the file was mainly disciplinary actions against staff members for this stuff with his patient number as the victim. I guess my imagination ran with it. Maybe that’s why they gave him the electroshock.”

“That’s awful.”

“At least they got caught for it, right?” We both paused. She sighed. “It’s not like it happened to a saint. He’s a bad guy to end up in a place like that, Bree. Don’t get carried away,” Jill rationalized, but she seemed as disturbed by it as I.

“You said I was in it?” I asked.

“You were in a room. A cell. There was a big moon on the wall in red and the naked guy was sitting on his bed staring at it. The doctor lady came in with her stick and began removing her clothes. She made the guy have sex with her. You were standing at the door.” A chill ran through me. The rectangular florescent light in the bodega flickered above, rain still pattering down outside.

“That is…frightening,” I said finally and glanced back at the light, which gained full use again. “For a girl who claims NYC, you got scammed and spooked.”

“Happens to the best of us,” she said. Jill paused. “Look at you. I wasn’t even going to tell about that dream thinking you’d get sensitive and bake some cookies for the guy.”

“I lived in a bubble, didn’t I?”

She was quiet a moment. I could hear the rain trickle slowing outdoors. “I think you finally get it. Good luck tonight, Bree. And in general. I want you to be as happy as….”

“Everyone,” I said, rolling over the labels to candy bars uniformly. “As happy as everyone else. I want that, too, Jill.”

When I got home I shuffled through my pristine new cabinet doors. I could have made them myself but I didn’t see the point. The woodworking community was small and my cabinet-making friends needed work, too. I’d put everything back by hand and didn’t recall seeing the envelope. I went through it all again, unsure why I wanted to see it for myself but inwardly motivated. After the second sweep, I gave up.

I packed Tristan’s overnight bag. On impulse, I packed enough for two Gruyère sandwiches. When we arrived, I gave him a big hug and a kiss before Jeeves took him inside, closing the grand wooden door. Daniel was going to take him up for a flight. Not today, but soon. They were going to the tarmac at 6:00 a.m. for a safety lesson. Staring at the swirling grain of the door, I felt watched. I turned and virtually ran down the stairs in my low heels. I took a cab from there to meet Jeremy. I’d picked out my own outfit of jeans, a white tank, and a gray leather jacket. Jeremy was waiting outside as promised.

When I came up to him, he stepped away from his group of friends and gave me another quick awkward hug. He didn’t seem half as intimidated as last time. I’d found someone to be around, finally, on my own footing. If I hadn’t gone out that New Year’s Eve, I would have probably dated someone just like Jeremy, I thought as he grinned and waved me to follow. We walked into the bar with his group of friends, who were my age, but the usual gap I felt around my peers felt especially wide in a bar. I tried to blend in by touching my hair frequently and smiling for no reason. It was working for me.

“I like your jacket,” Jeremy said, blue eyes twinkling. “Vegan leather?”

“Yes,” I replied. It was real. The bar was too loud for lengthy replies.

“Drink?” He held up a hand and gestured, jiggling a cup. I nodded. “Drinks!” he shouted over the bar. When the bartender came over they shared a creative handshake and a quick laugh. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. Marcy was grinning wide and looking eager to chat.

“Pretty hair,” Marcy remarked, leaning in so I could hear.

“Thank you,” I said, and touched my hair, returning the lean-in.

She just smiled and stared at me swaying a little with the music and mouthing along to some parts of the song. The band was good.

“Have you known Jeremy long?” I quizzed Marcy.

“No,” she just smiled.

“Cool.” I replied, tapping one foot to the band.

“How do you know Jeremy again?” she asked, as a girl with a Mohawk and a guy in a bowtie holding hands bumped into her.

“Delivery route,” I replied. “He brought me all my packages.”

“I bet he did!” she exclaimed giggling and held her cup out for a cheers. I suspected she and Regal hadn’t gone to bed once before midnight in their adult lives. I embraced it.

“Sorry. No drink,” I said, showing empty hands.

“Drinks!” Jeremy returned from the bar with a bounty. Three in each hand, pinching the rims in a good show of technique.

“Yea!” Marcy’s boyfriend Regal called out, grabbing two from his left.

“This one is yours,” he said, handing me a hard plastic clear cup with a reddish drink inside and an elaborate multi-fruit garnish.

“What is it?” I asked, twirling the swizzle stick. I hadn’t given him my drink order, but he hadn’t asked either.

“House special. It’s called Best Bet,” he smiled, already bopping along with the beat.

“Looks crazy,” I said.

“It’s loco,” he said and made a silly face. “I’m having beer. You want it instead?”

“No, thanks.” Beer was champagne’s sour, homely cousin. I wouldn’t drink it if I were trapped on a deserted island with a frosty six-pack. I kept that opinion to myself and twirled my garnish some more then took a sniff and recoiled. Rum. I shook my head. “You first,” I said and smiled.

“Beer before liquor never been sicker,” he recited and took a few chugs. “Ahh.”

I was still holding out my fancy drink. He took it. “You’re going to hurt my pride,” he said, feigning injury. “And here I thought I could guess everyone’s cocktail preferences.”

“Is that your super power?” I said, watching him take a big gulp.

“Tasty,” he judged, grinning. “No. Like all greats, I discovered my superpowers later in life. Since I quit my day job, specifically. My gift is the ability to sleep ‘til noon.” He licked his top lip and passed me back my cup. “And not just on weekends,” he joked.

“That sounds like a burden of power.”

“Any circumstance. Different time zone, construction outside, crying baby neighbor. No challenge for Napman.”

“Color me impressed,” I replied, breaking a smile.

“You should be,” he said, watching as I sipped my drink and brought it back down. “See? It’s like we kissed already.”

“You’re funny.” I grinned. Maybe with some work, he was destined for his dreams.

“You thought I was a snooze?”

“No,” I chuckled. “You’re just funnier than I remembered.”

“You should get to know me, Gabrielle. For real this time,” he said sweetly. “I’d like to get to know you.” He smiled and silly danced beside me, then said, “Dance time.” The band had resumed from their break, and the song was good. I let him lead me onto the floor by the wrist. Everyone seemed carefree. We danced a while and took a break in a large round booth off the dance floor with his other friends. I sipped down the melted ice in my drink and set it down. Marcy and another girl named Jess joined in, and the three of us danced for a while like I had years ago with Jill and Vi. A few songs later, we went back to the booth.

“You okay?” Jess checked casually, brown curly hair tumbling around her round made-up face. I wasn’t sure if she was with their group or a new acquaintance.

“I’m a lightweight,” I explained, feeling a stronger buzz than expected. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had liquor. I observed Jeremy. His eyes clear and focused as they caught mine. He pulled out a joint from his T-shirt pocket.

Jess’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s your cure. Right there,” she said, pointing to Jeremy’s hand. “Make sure they save some for me.” She glided back out to the dance floor.

Jeremy lit the end of the tightly wrapped white paper and passed it to Regal. Then Marcy took a puff and it came back to Jeremy, the music bumping loudly. “It’s prescription for my knee,” Jeremy said to me over the ruckus after seeing me watch. He let out a thin stream of smoke. “Much better than pain pills.”

I nodded, and he said concernedly, “What’s going on with you, Bree? I’ve read some crazy stuff since we last went out.”

“Personal problems. Ordinary ‘oops, my child’s father is a billionaire’ stuff,” I deflected and picked my nail, imagining Daniel. He laughed. It was a sweet laugh. Perfect for a sitcom, I thought.

“Is that why you’re here?” he asked, ashing gently on a coaster. “With me? I knew all along I wasn’t your type. I’m not afraid to chase a dream, though. Then the more I saw, I was like…maybe I was wrong. Maybe she’s exactly my type.” He tilted his head looking into my eyes.

“Thank you,” I blushed.

“Look,” he said, grinning. “You look like you need a puff. How about a shotgun?” I arched a brow. “Here, I’ll show you,” he said sliding around the booth to me. “Come on, you won’t feel a thing. Weed just chills you out. I was nervous about going out with you. Beforehand I had too many beers,” he smiled sheepishly. “It’s nothing. Weed just sobers you up a bit.”

“Sure,” I said, forgetting my mom and what my father would have said. And Daniel, up in a jet between clouds with Tristan. I forgot Tristan, too. The single lights from the stage glowed in triplicate.

He got close, and I moved my lips near. He blew and I breathed. I sucked down the air that smelled of burnings from when someone back home who didn’t know what they were doing burned firewood from a diseased tree. I coughed. Jeremy waited for me to reach my lips to his for a kiss. I sat back in my chair, blinking slowly. Through the shudder, he grinned.

I don’t know how much time elapsed.

I was trapped in a video game. The theme to an old video game was playing in my head, and I couldn’t turn it off. Not as low background music either. The room was loud, inside my head was louder. Someone was asking me a question and I was answering with words that weren’t connected to my train of thought, and I was shouting. The room spun. I had to go. An arm wrapped around my waist and there was rustling in my hair, against my ear. Jeremy was saying something to me. His face was an inch from mine. His breath smelled of smoke and beer. My senses were dulled because it wasn’t as strong an odor as I knew it had been.

“I have to go,” I broke through the fog in my head. He winced and I knew it was because I shouted.

I pushed his arm off me and walked to the door, clumsily ordering a car service from my phone. If I waited and tried hailing a cab, I was sure I’d fall in the street. My request went through. Two minutes away it said. I was singing ‘two minutes’ so I couldn’t lose the thought and get lost in the cloud.

“Stay!” Jeremy said. I looked at him, and away. We were outside the bar. I was leaning on a brick wall I knew was very chilly. I took off my jacket.

“Two minutes,” I said. He chuckled and leaned forward into me. He kissed me and I kissed him back. Almost falling into him. I didn’t want to kiss him. I didn’t not want to kiss him, but I did not give my body that order. I didn’t think “do kiss him” or, “don’t kiss him”. It was just doing things. The kiss broke off when I stumbled back onto the bricks.

“Stay with me tonight!” he said, smiling. Looking silly and fun and cute. Not right. I swayed. What was I supposed to be doing? Yoshi ran by and held up two fingers.

“Two fingers!” I shout-panted.

“Gosh, you move fast. Be gentle with me,” he said mock-effeminately, falling in for another kiss. I slammed my eyes tight and pursed my lips. I may have left a bruise on his lips from that kiss. I kissed him squarely and literally pushed his face off mine with my lips. I felt like a champion at it. He stumbled back a bit and caught himself on a parking meter, barking laughter.

I looked around up and down the sidewalk of people milling around, waiting to get in the bar. Catching rides and taking each other home. Slowly, I managed to bring my phone back up to my face, very close. I dropped the hand that was holding the phone.

“Find me the Subaru, Yoshi,” I ordered to Jeremy, who was doing a sway dance movement and snapping his fingers incessantly. Maybe those were his two minutes. Mine were up.

“What?” Jeremy shouted.

I saw the Subaru. Christ, I have no idea how I spotted it. God sends miracles, the thought broke through the smoke. I made the sign of the cross. A lazy one. I told Jeremy bye but it came out as “bubblegum”. I laughed. The sound was awful.

After several tries, I opened the door and fell into the car sideways. My heart banged in my ears, I knew something was urgent but, what could it be? It didn’t have a name. I tried using my foot to pull the handle to close the car door. I needed to use the very tip of my toe to reach. En pointe, like Madame used to tell me. She named me—Madame. Or was it Violet. I wasn’t worried. Yoshi would get me home. I tried for a few more seconds, at least, I remember. My last memory was Jeremy carrying my coat, walking towards the car, smiling. Urgent words unfound.

Chapter 31 - The Peril of the Aral

I woke up in my bed. My eyes blinked open to sunlight.

“What. The. Fuck.”

I sat up in bed. I had last night’s clothes on. I looked around the room and saw my boots neatly put away in my closet. I pressed my hands into the mattress to launch myself out of the bed and noticed the sheets rumpled and comforter pulled back on the other side.

“Who’s here?” I called out. I reached in the top drawer of my nightstand for my Taser, unlocking the safety.

Violet appeared quickly around the corner, carrying a glass of juice.

“Hey you. I thought you’d sleep all day,” she said.

“Tristan?”

“Still with Daniel.”

I nodded and sat back down on my side of the bed, bringing my suddenly heavy legs up to rest. I noticed I’d slept in my rings and watch and began pulling them off and setting them on the side table.

“How did I get here?’ I asked.

“A car service.”

“Was anyone with me?” I asked.

“You mean Jeremy?” she arched and eyebrow.

“Yes,” I said, clinking the last ring.

“No,” she answered. She took me in, rumpled and grumpy, and tsked. “Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do.” Then she sipped some juice.

“You guys told me to get out there, and boy did I.”

“Don’t sass, Hunt and I carried you into the lobby and up the elevator at 1:00 a.m.,” she said concernedly. “You were drooling.”

Before I could respond, I felt sick to my stomach and rushed to the bathroom. I cleaned myself up and returned to my indentation in the bed.

Vi sighed. “I got a call last night from your driver. He said he picked you up outside a bar with a man, but you were out cold, and the man told him to go to his address.”

“Oh my gosh.”

“Yeah. Sweet Jeremy, right? The driver knew something was up, so he pulled over in front of a police station and demanded to have your phone. Jeremy wouldn’t hand it over. The driver said ‘She is paying for ride, she is my customer. Not you,’” she mimicked in an Arabic accent. She snickered. “He kept repeating it.”

I couldn’t believe my luck. “God sends miracles,” I said. I cradled my head in my hands and began to bawl.

“It’s okay,” Vi said. She rubbed my ankle.

“It’s not okay, Violet,” I said through hiccupping sobs.

“It’s not okay,” she repeated, still massaging. “But you’re okay. You’re okay, Gabrielle.”

I showered. Vi said she wanted to hang out for a while. She was waiting for me when I emerged from the bedroom. I’d dressed in a tank top and ratty work jeans as I towel dried my hair.

“I made you a coffee with milk.” She concernedly scooted a steaming cup towards me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” I said. My head fogginess lingered, which made me edgy. Coffee wouldn’t be good.

She pursed her lips together. “It’s happened to me, you know.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was the first night going out with Jill in the city. She socked the guy and carried me out by herself, wearing thigh-high boots,” she said, chuckling.

I smiled limply. “Love that Jill.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“That’s Tristan.” I pulled the towel from my head, hearing a faint voice from the hall. I didn’t wait for her reply. I walked into the hall and a yard down was Tristan playing on the floor with a model plane, making plane sounds. Over him Daniel stood arms at his sides, fists balled—listening to Hunter. Tristan heard the door and ran to me. I kneeled down and hugged him.

Making myself press him back, I asked, “How was your sleepover?”

“So good. Dad put a movie screen on the new rooftop. We watched a movie up there! I ate all the butter popcorn in his whole pantry.”

“That sounds wonderful, honey.” I ruffled his hair.

“He’ll do again, I bet, if I ask him. You can watch a mommy movie,” he said, as Daniel joined us, Hunt trailing him.

“Girls like all kinds of movies,” Daniel said to Tristan. His tone was even, and it dispelled some of the tightness in my chest. I raised up, feeling more assured, but was met with fierce green eyes.

Tristan smiled up at Daniel and hugged his waist. “Do you want to help me change Herman’s water, Dad? Mom won’t mind.”

“Another time,” Daniel intoned. “Let’s walk you in. He’s likely expecting you.”

I glanced up at him for a read but there was none but frostiness. I entered, with them on my heels. Tristan sped to his room. Violet slid off the counter to lean against it. Hunter closed the door and leaned against the wall beside, bending his knee and resting a heel against it, with arms crossed.

Daniel took me in from head to toe. “What happened?” he demanded.

“Hunter, what in the biscuit!” Violet exclaimed.

“You got your side an’ I got mine,” he drawled.

“Remember that tonight,” she replied, one dimple indenting.

“It wasn’t for you to tell, Hunter,” I said quietly.

He set down his flip flop and took a step towards Daniel, stacking behind him, complete opposites in appearance but unified.

“I didn’t talk about your night. I shared mine,” he expounded, relinking his arms. “Violet was preppin’ to tie me up with a sash blessed by a Hare Krishna she probably met at O’Hare, when we had to get the elevator to haul her sister up, limper than a knocked out snapper with her T-shirt stuck in her bra. Stickin’ like things I know. I do not read tea leaves or jump to conclusions. I don’t gossip. But when we got a call from your driver, it became my night, too.”

Daniel’s eyes were practically glowing. Hunter rested his hands to his sides, turning to Violet. “You had to go baitin’ me.”

A stunned Violet mouthed back, did you call us ‘we’?

Daniel walked into the living room and touched his hand to the back of his neck. He turned around, legs spread apart. “I’d like to speak with Gabrielle alone,” he said, eyes set on me.

“She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want,” Violet stood straight, puffing her chest.

“He asked. Give us a minute,” I said, hardness shelling the quavering.

“Come on, Violet.” Hunter swung open the door. She looked at me reassuringly and patted my shoulder on her way out. I locked it behind them and took a seat. He paced slowly, giving wide berth to my chair and sat opposite. He slid forward a bit from his usual perfect posture, setting his feet apart.

“What happened to you?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” I said calmly. “We went out. We had drinks. Something was in mine.”

Intensely, he watched. “Go on.”

“I got home fine. Nothing happened.”

He didn’t say anything. Uncomfortable in his scrutiny, I added, “It happens all the time. I wasn’t being careful enough.”

“You disappoint me.”

I resisted the lump in my throat, the water behind my eyes. “Because I went out with someone else? Because I just want to be a normal woman? Because this doesn’t feel right. It’s not healthy. You only want to rip me apart, remember?” I grasped, throwing it back.

His eyes shut and he tipped his head back a moment, his mouth a tight line. He tipped back to me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he did, asking dully, “Are you covering for him? Or for you?” He watched my lips like the words were a nuclear code.

“I’m not covering anything.”

“No one could blame you,” he said softly.

“Who said anything about blame?” I boxed, striving for evenness. “It happened, and I’m a dummy, but I’m fine.” His nostrils flared a touch. He planted his elbow on the table. Then he rested his thumb and forefinger against his temple, mock supporting his head.

“I don’t care what happened,” he punctuated, his jaw tight. “I don’t care. What you’ve chosen to do is your own design,” he said coldly. Without giving it away, I gulped back the horrible sob digging its way from my clavicle.

“Now. What you’re now going to tell me is,” he annunciated. “Exactly what happened.”

“I told you,” I interrupted.

He continued like he didn’t hear me. “Everything that happened that you didn’t choose.”

Bury it, said an internal voice. You can handle this, it promised. It was the dominating thought, but there were others. They said, tell him everything. How terrified you were under the fog. Tell him I was his and allow him to make me feel safe for a night. For longer. Use this, and him. Something inside me knew whatever I was experiencing could not be fixed from the outside, even by him. And this is not how I wanted him to see me. I hid it all. I made myself sigh purely for the desperately needed intake of air.

“We went out,” I began slowly, something inside me grinding out words. I listened to my voice like it was not mine. “Someone, I’m not positive who, at some point, drugged my drink. I got myself out of there and I’m all right. It may have happened on the dance floor. He drank it too,” I said inwardly confused, but I looked up determined as a tear swelled and descended from my eye. We pretended it didn’t happen even as it soaked into my jeans.

“You disappoint me,” he intoned again, long thumb and forefinger pressing harder into his head, restraining as many emotions as I was.

He rose. I could feel him closer to me now. I kept my eyes trained on his empty seat.

“Hunter will bring you a cup to capture your next urination,” he informed me. “I see you already showered.”

“I just wanted to get clean.” I said, addressing the chair. Humiliated.

“You have washed away answers,” he continued, growing harsher. “Do you have such faith in this man you trust blindly? Since he shared your drink, was he in your condition?” He paused to no reply. “Has the possibility arisen in your mind that his tolerance is because you aren’t the first?”

I swallowed hard and blinked. It hadn’t. I blamed the difference on our weights. I didn’t answer as the shame deepened. His hand extended so close.

“You are clean, Gabrielle,” he said, fervently. I shut my eyes. “These walls I cannot scale.” he continued with some difficulty. “Your garden walls. I know I built them. I have promised us both not to try anymore,” he persisted. I opened my eyes, looking up at him. “But I feel you through them.

“Perhaps there is hardly anything left on the other side of mine,” he said searching me. “But I will be eternally in your service. I will take care of this.”

I thought he might stroke my lip, but he didn’t. He left. I gave myself an additional fleeting second to stare at the space where he’d stood and then locked my door. I went to Tristan.

Chapter 32— A First Spring

The following day, my delivery guys from Queens were finally available. They picked the table and myself up from the showroom. Jeeves answered Daniel’s door wearing a ruffled apron over a band T-shirt and his usual iron-creased black pants, holding a whisk. There was symphonic music piping through the speaker system in the house.

“Pardon my appearance, Miss Valentine. It slipped my mind we’d arranged this,” he said, looking stricken. The house smelled of sweet baking. He rushed in tight steps for the volume control beside the light switch, turning it down.

“When the cat is away, the mice can play,” I replied, grinning. Jeeves was my buddy now. I hadn’t dressed up for the event myself. I was wearing my usual for a work day; splattered ripped jeans and an oversized checkered men’s shirt over a white holey shirt, with a scarf tied over my hair.

“How highly unacceptable of me, Miss. Valentine,” he fretted, back arched.

“No. It’s good to see you with your hair down,” I assured him and lead in my men. We coned off out front for the truck so we had to work fast. We moved the enormous and heavy wool Persian rug a bit to be sure it was perfectly centered under the light fixture. Once this table was placed, there would be no adjusting. It took eight professionals in weight belts to lift it from my back workroom. Jeeves lingered in the wide wood-cased dining room, eyebrow arched, observing the movers. I measured the front door opening and sent the guys to get started. I walked back towards the dining room as they came down the ramp.

“I’m not a decorator, Jeeves, but I maybe suggest a new light fixture. I don’t think this one will work anymore.” It was a huge early twentieth century crystal and brass chandelier. Exceptionally ornate.

“It is a dislikable fixture, if I may be so bold as to say. Mrs. Hearst did so often in her short stay. Mr. Baird, however, is dedicated to preserving the originality of the home.” Jeeves rested his hands in the crooks of his elbows, crossing his arms, critically eyeing the chandelier.

I glanced into the opposite archway at the modern art. And the new Rothko prints—I hoped they were prints—replacing the old lithographs in the hallway. “Never a rhyme, always a reason,” I recited forlornly then tapped Jeeves to make space. I directed my men through the doorway very carefully, and we gently set the base then the table atop the rug. The guys then brought in the new chairs.

“Absolutely stunning, Miss Valentine,” Jeeves applauded. We were standing back and admiring. It looked perfect. Timeless. Although a change was in the cards, the chandelier looked fresher than it had over the old regency reproduction dining table. I sighed.

“Daniel’s tables don’t have a long a shelf life, it seems, with the wear and tear,” I began, feeling sentimental to Jeeves. “You think you can keep an eye on this one for me?”

Jeeves looked at me. “They don’t receive as much wear and tear as one thinks,” he eluded. My brow furrowed in question. He cleared his throat and frowned, which was his normal expression. “I shall polish it with my very reputation, Miss Valentine. I have served many fine residences, and this is an exquisite piece. Very unifying to the décor.”

I thanked him. He headed to the kitchen. My guys went out to the truck to load up the packing while I straightened the fringe on the rug and wiped the table with a rag from my back pocket.

“Hello,” said a familiar smooth velvet voice. I spun, startled. Daniel was standing in the archway. He looked dapper in a dark navy suit. His hair was combed perfectly, combined with a clean shave. The man of a house like this to his core. I tucked my rag into my pocket.

“I came to oversee the installation. I arranged it with Jeeves, like you asked,” I pressed onto the rubbery heels of my work sneakers. “I thought you were gone until next week.”

He took a step into the room. “I returned early. An engagement came up tomorrow night.”

“I see,” I said, clasping my hands together. My hands were soaked in stain, but then I let them fall. It didn’t matter. “Your table is here. I hope you like the finished product.”

He set down a leather laptop satchel and came fully into the dining room. He’d come back without telling us, for Friday night plans. I took small steps around him and leaned against the frame of the entry, crossing my ankles.

“Is it what you expected?” I asked, watching him take it in as he reached the head of the table. His seat.

“No. It’s not at all what I expected,” he said, stone faced.

Too bad, no returns, I thought to myself. I sighed lightly. “When I thought of you, I thought of the traditional look, first. But that didn’t seem entirely accurate. The edge is called a live edge. But I smoothed it. So it’s not raw. That’s not good for sitting. The base is metal. Metal was more fitting. I’m sorry if you weren’t expecting that. I did go with the stain you approved.” I’d only tinted the sealant with it. It didn’t look funky or provincial, like I’d made for some clients. It was polished, smooth, but the natural edge gave it some grace. The grain took the stain differently, gradient darker towards the center by very few shades. Not overly pronounced, but it drew you closer. It looked expensive—which it was.

“What is the wood?” he asked, lifting a brow and raising his eyes away from the table and towards me.

“It’s walnut.”

“I didn’t realize they grew so large.”

“They can be very big,” I supplied. “This one was enormous. It was the only one in source for the dimensions you needed. And quality. It was my father’s.”

“Your father’s,” he repeated.

I nodded. “He kept rare finds, occasionally. This was curing for him to build a bed and dressers for Tristan. I keep his pieces in my wood storage, back in Virginia.”

“You didn’t want to save this for that purpose?”

“He wants a race car bed,” I smiled, just the lips. “Besides, cutting this piece any more than this would have honestly been a crime. My father would’ve agreed. He kept postponing the project. I know that was why. But the reality he and I faced is not many people can house a slab of wood this size.”

I watched him looking down at the table. “I hope you enjoy it,” I said before I turned and slipped out the door.

That black walnut had been the centerpiece of Sweetwater’s park. It went on decline. My father offered to take it down for free—but it took heaps of men and equipment to laboriously take down, preserving the usable heart of the trunk. My dad knew he could make something incredible, sell it to someone wealthy, but he saved it. When Daniel placed the order, it seemed meant for him. Jeeves would keep an eye on it. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing in the open dining room window, curtains blowing, to peek at Daniel still looking at it. Deciding something. No returns—I bounded down the stairs.

“Gabrielle,” Daniel called. I spun backwards from the bottom, startled again. “Are you available tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Do you mean Tristan?” I asked.

“No,” he said, pinching together his brows. “Forgive me, if I didn’t make that clear. I would like to take you out.”

I sucked in a short breath. “Don’t you have plans?”

His brow lowered. “Perhaps you should come along for that, as well.”

I looked out onto the street, the people passing on the sidewalk in front of me. Not seeing them, just concentrating. “Can I think about it?”

“Yes,” he said, his jaw flexing, but his eyes were soft. “Of course. Will you wait here a moment?”

“Sure.” I waited, touching my hand to the stone railing.

He returned and took the stairs, ascending to me holding a large envelope. My blood pressure involuntarily increased, unfortunately. He got to my stair and stepped down the final one.

“For Tristan’s album,” he said returning to formality, extending the envelope.

I flipped open the lid and withdrew the matte images developed onto photo paper. There was Tristan sitting in the pilot seat in head gear, holding the wheel. Another one of him in the back garden, holding a lizard. The final one was Tristan and Daniel in beach chairs side by side, taken at night with blankets on their laps. Tristan was holding his blanket as he stretched over to Daniel, popcorn spilling on ground, one arm wrapped around his father’s neck, grinning so hard his eyes squinted closed. He had his cheek pressed against Daniel’s, who sat straight and didn’t show any teeth but the smile was there. On his lips and his eyes, so much.

I looked up to say thanks as I placed them back inside.

“Am I late, again?” he asked, closer. Searching me.

“I don’t know,” I said, stepping down. “Actually.” I halted. “I have my answer. Yes. I’ll go. Nothing to lose, right?”

Daniel pressed his lips together. “I will pick you up at seven,” he paused. “Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” I smiled.

I got ready by myself. Vi arrived to babysit an hour early. Hunt hadn’t come to town, and she was too disappointed to go out. Justine came over, too. She showed up with a cloth bag filled with toys. She collected things at her house for her future grandchildren, now seeing that in sight—banking on August convincing Solomon one day down the road. She said Solomon’s field had jaded him on families.

I stood in the mirror putting in my earrings, little silver ones from a teal box. Violet unapproved but my favorite. It was getting warm out, so I went to my closet and chose a white silk tank top with a sapphire blue pleated skirt. It had a little twirl in it, which I liked, and stopped just above the knee. I blew out my hair until it shone and combed my hand through the crown, letting it fall voluminously. I didn’t do much makeup, the high points being mascara and soft gloss. I rubbed my lips together and leaned away from the bathroom mirror, releasing them in a full pout. My nose was straight and small, not tiny, but right on my face. My cheeks were neither full round nor runway sculpted. A heart shaped face, which was the fault of a chin too distinct to be oval and a feminine definition in the bone of my cheek. A ran my finger along my dark eyebrow, following the curve my brow threadist shaped for me. I didn’t apply blush. I was flushed already, like I’d had one potent drink. I rubbed scented lotion into my hands, the stain gone after a soak, and rubbed some lotion onto my exposed collarbone with the tips of my fingers. My hand stopped when I heard a knock at the door. I bent down and slipped on neutral heels that were comfortable enough and still brought out my calves. A little taller now, I looked into my eyes in the mirror.

“I’m ready,” I said.

Des held the door of the limo open, and I stepped out. We’d driven about twenty minutes in evening traffic. Daniel exited first, taking my hand gently, guiding me out, and our eyes connected. He let go once I was on the sidewalk. The first physical contact he’d made.

“You never struck me as a bar guy,” I said, smiling shyly. Our destination was an inconspicuous tavern establishment tucked in a row of ubiquitous random establishments. Bagels, pizza, and jewelry stores. It had a glossy kelly green sign above in Gaelic style print that read “Naneet’s.”

His lip curled upward as he pulled open the bar’s door. “This one is an exception.”

We entered the bar, a newer place replicating an old-school Irish pub. Forest green walls and oak paneling and floors, with a sleeker marble bar top that didn’t quite fit. There were banners I recognized as soccer clubs logos on many walls, as well as framed sports photos. Intimate and quiet. We sat on oak swivel stools, and the two bartenders greeted Daniel, both sporting turbans and full beards. The older short man’s beard was white, and the younger man’s beard was espresso.

“Daniel, my friend,” the older man said, enthusiastically. The other man laid back. “Welcome back.”

“You changed it back,” Daniel said, a touch rueful. “Last time I was here it had become a designer lounge.”

“Ahmed, the genius, convinced his old parents to get with the times. They’ll come running, he told us. We were busy, oh yes, but it had no spirit. But now, just look around! We kept some of his choices. New floors. New bar,” he knocked on the cinnamon granite that ran along a bar that consumed most of a wall. “My heart is returned to the hills of Kerry. Besides, who can keep up with these cosmopolitan drinks? Naneet and I are not bartenders,” he said, in a thick un-Irish accent leaning against his bar. He grinned, then looked at the other man and elbowed him. He stood a half-head taller. Nothing in his features was harsh, per se, yet there was something intimidating about him. His fitted burgundy shirt was pushed up at the sleeves. He uncrossed his arms, looking at me.

“Ahmed, where are your manners?” the older man prompted. “Your friend is here, and he’s brought a date.”

“Ahmed. Nice to meet you, Gabrielle,” he said in tenor, revealing almost only a slight accent. “This is my father, Rushni. Everyone calls him Mr. Singh and dance. If you come another time, you’ll see why.”

Daniel looked humored. Mr. Singh threw his arms in the air. “I am going on a date, too. My son has set me up on a date with my own wife and banished me from my bar. The computer genius. You’ll see if he can pull a pint as me and Naneet. You let me know, good Daniel. And you, also, Gabrielle.” I smiled tightly, uncomfortable that he recognized me from no doubt from our situation. Except Mr. Singh looked nothing but open and genuine towards me and I relaxed. He shook hands with Daniel across the bar and left, leaving his son behind. Ahmed seemed to relax some, too.

“Is he in the black here?” Daniel queried.

“He runs red more months than not. He should retire or leave it to my sister. They love this place, though,” Ahmed said, not sounding concerned about the money. “Can I get you two something to drink?” he asked. Clearly not a bartender. I glanced around the dimly lit bar and saw two other sets of patrons. They seemed like regulars—in both sets the men wore turbans as well. He pushed up his sleeves more over stocky arms. Built similar to Ian, smaller though.

“We are fine, Ahmed. Water will do.” Daniel replied. Ahmed looked relieved. He nodded and went down the bar seeking glasses. He quickly returned setting down two glasses.

“I’m closing. My sister opens up tomorrow. Take your time,” he said, coded. Daniel’s lip curved up.

“Oh, I will.” Daniel extended his water glass, and Ahmed’s eyes smiled. He lifted up a petite ruby tinted glass from behind the counter it looked like he’d been drinking from. “Sláinte.”

Daniel replied in kind.

Ahmed turned to me, deep brown eyes set in cider skin engaging me. “I heard your son plays soccer. Daniel and Hunter say he possesses good footwork. We should get the children together to play. My daughter is four and her brother is three.”

I grinned. “He would enjoy that.”

“We will arrange it. Although I have reservations introducing my daughter to Daniel’s son, he’s assured me he is much more like you.” Ahmed smiled slightly. It looked like perhaps beneath the beard were dimples. I returned it. Daniel looked humored again. Ahmed nodded to us both and turned back, taking his ruby glass in hand to the far end of the bar. He picked up a book laid down open on its pages, and flipped it over to read, crossing his legs at the ankles and leaning against the back side of the bar.

Daniel said, peering at me. “I debated bringing you, but, I could not alter my plans. If we are to move forward, I should not conceal.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, adding amiably, “Mr. Singh seems nice.”

He looked at me curiously. “Not Ahmed, though.”

“Him, too. In a different way,” I said gingerly.

“He is a good friend. Perhaps too cautious,” he said, reading me. “He has not gotten to know you.”

I glanced down at him again just in time to see his eyes dart from me and realized that was what it was. He was being protective of Daniel. I looked back to him. “You and your friends are so different,” I said. “You, Hunter, Ahmed.”

“They are capable men who know real field play. And women,” he answered. “Neither to the overly romanticized extent as did others. They aren’t any less driven in their interests, though.” He was being very honest. I could see those things creating a foundation of commonality between them.

His eyes seemed distant. He added, “They were times of excess. We were young men.”

“You’re still a young man.”

“True. Ahmed tells me his mother said I have been given many human lives inside just one.”

“You don’t believe in that.”

He made a shrugging gesture with one shoulder. “Hunter believes I’m only detritus and, if anything, cursed.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt that,” I said, warily humored.

He continued, “From your question about our bonds, Hunter and I share a certain similarity in our backgrounds. That has helped.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Hunter’s family. The McBride Brothers. I’m sure you’ve heard the name. They supply over a quarter of the petrol worldwide, last time I checked the stock. Which was around two thirty.” He took a glance at the clock above the bar, unconsciously.

“Hunter is a McBride. Cheese on toast.” My head shook. His lips curled, wryly.

“He’s also very cheap. He likely has a deep and sincere ideology about it, but I believe if he had a past life, it would have been as a Depression era Hooverville grandmother.”

I laughed. His lip curved.

“Why does he make me feel like I’m in a Hitchcock movie?”

“If he’d made a spaghetti western?” Daniel remarked, amused again. “He’s a nihilist.”

“Is he a nihilist?” I questioned, looking towards Ahmed. I caught him peering again. He looked down at his book. There was something about him that reminded me of Hunt. I could only describe it as their energy.

“Ahmed is a Sikh. But yes. He is as well.” I shook my head, loosening the contradiction. I had a distributor who was Sikh, so I knew a little. Daniel was nonplussed.

“In this world, anyone can be as they choose,” he explained.

“It’s not hypocritical?”

“Who made those rules? Who owns them? Only the one who practices defines them. Ahmed practices, therefore is.”

Partly kidding, part wary, I said, “You sound like you may be in their club.”

He made a slight noise, indicating his objection. Speaking slowly he said, “Religion. By definition, I had one. I only wish she’d arrived with a book.”

His lip curved but it hadn’t been a joke. I felt my cheeks grow warm, and he turned serious.

“You have hidden your heart from me,” he began. “I have punished us both in many ways trying to recover it, what I feel belongs to me. That was made only for me. And mine only for you. I have put a small piece of myself away and adjusted to an incarnation without it. What is left of me has fallen for you, as you are. In spite of you having no piece of you except but your body for me. A new form of punishment?” He was making light, but his eyes sought me.

“That’s not the case,” I said softly, spinning my stool. Until my legs were between his knees. “You are the most important person in the world to me.”

“Besides our son,” he said, covering my knee with his warm hand.

“Yes,” I said, my lips curving. Daniel’s eyes looked brighter in the dark green bar. “That’s the first time you called him our son.”

“For what it is worth,” he said and looked down at his hand on my knee. He raised his eyes back to mine. “I would choose to have him with you in a thousand lifetimes.”

His thumb was gentle as it brushed my skin. I blushed, glancing down. “You’ve come so far since the beginning, since the limo,” I told him.

His lip curved upwards. “I can make a limousine appear now if you’d like. We can be quick. Or slow.”

“Not right now,” I said simply, and his lips straightened as he gazed at me. “I’m enjoying sitting here, if that’s okay.”

“The evening is yours,” he said, gazing still. He moved his hand to rest on his own knee.

“Thank you for helping August. And Jill.”

“No thanks required.”

“They deserved it,” I affirmed. “You didn’t have to do it though.”

His lip tugged upwards. “It was self-serving. Retaking this life, in case it is my final.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said, and though we’d touched a hundred ways, when I laid my hand on his, and he flipped it over and laced his fingers in, it gave me tingles. I glanced down at our hands, and up to him under my eyelashes, and continued, “Not totally, anyway. For what it’s worth, what you said earlier…I think I would choose you the same.”

He pulled me towards him, not roughly. It was welcome. A moment passed, with him staring at my lips as I wet them. He took my face in his hands and pulled me closer, and our lips crashed onto each like waves. I angled my head and he pulled me off my stool and onto his lap. His tongue moved in harmony with mine, and my hand snaked around his neck pulling him to me until we were seamless. We heard a wolf whistle in the background. It seemed like miles away. Daniel’s arm wrapped around my waist lifted me onto the bar, his body moved fluidly as he rose and pressed his hips between my legs. I wrapped them around him, and finally he broke the kiss. Breathing was staggered on both our parts. He pressed a few more kisses onto my lips to a smattering of hand clapping. When I pulled his face down to me, for a lingering kiss, him leaning me backwards, a loud bell rang out in heated repetition. My fingers were fanned out on the plane of his cheek, his forehead resting on mine. I smiled from the adrenaline and euphoria.

Daniel opened his eyes and moved back an inch, taking me in. He smiled all the way to his eyes.

“What’s that ringing? Are you running a boxing ring?” Daniel said aloud.

“It escalated as swiftly as one,” Ahmed projected in response, humored, from the end of bar. “If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d say it looked like you weren’t going to make it to round two.”

“You’d lose your money,” Daniel said, low toned looking back at me. I grinned.

“How can you be confused why I want to see you naked all the time?” I asked, innocently.

“In order to get you off this bar, some things need to go back to sleep. That won’t happen while you’re talking this way.” He arched an eyebrow, his lip turned up in the corner.

“I just mean that I find you handsome.”

“You say that sounding like a schoolmarm, and yet the problem has grown.”

“Did many teachers call you handsome?” I asked, teasing.

“Some,” he said simply. “My first encounter was with a teacher was year ten,” he said then moved back before lifting me and setting me down. We both resumed our seats to a final cat-call from Ahmed, but I angled my knees inside and touched the muscles in his thigh.

“You’re being serious.”

“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was a boys boarding school. I wasn’t going to turn it down.”

“You know that’s not right, right?” I asked, proceeding with caution.

He smiled and stroked my hair. “You are gentle, still. It was not appropriate, but I remind you it was an all-boys boarding school. I was only new at that stage because there no girls around for me get my hands on. Besides, we discovered the all-girls school nearby not long after. But this is all old history.”

I decided I had to pick my battles, so I let this one go.

“Maybe men and women aren’t so different,” I said.

He took me in. “After all I have disclosed tonight, this is the first to shock you,” he mused, but something caught his attention behind me. “I hope that sentiment holds,” he said, suddenly serious, nodding sharply to Ahmed. He looked down at me. He weighed something a final time, and said, “Our errand has come. Follow me.”

I followed him around the bar, through a low hallway into a back room. I froze when I saw what was in the room. Sweat instantly sprang to my forehead.

“Don’t kill him,” I said. “Jeremy,” I breathed.

Chapter 33 - Levies and Tolls

Daniel looked at me, strangely. Then lead me further into the back room. Jeremy was bound to a chipping wooden chair in the middle. Hunt came into view, standing behind Jeremy, holding him by the hair. I could tell immediately it was him even with the shiny chromed tape on his eyes. Shelving lined with liquor bottles ran along the long wall, and beneath the shelves was a metal tub sink. An exit door with an elbow spring at the top interrupted the row. It was mostly a typical older bar back room. Except for the hostage. Jeremy’s shoulders jerked, trying to release his arms, which appeared tied behind his back. He scooted the chair inadvertently into Hunt.

Hunt sighed, annoyed, and grabbed a handful of hair saying flatly, “Quit gripin’, sunshine.”

“This is him, correct?” Daniel said in business mode. He strode to them.

“Who’s a rookie here?” Hunt lowered his eyes.

“I am speaking to her,” Daniel corrected him, lowering his as well. Hunt shrugged. I wasn’t sure what to say. Daniel looked positively dangerous. The minute we came into the room his energy changed. My heart was racing and felt near a panic. Yet I nodded and stepped in further, just a baby step.

“Don’t take my kidney. I’m an alcoholic. It’s a disease. Take pity,” Jeremy appealed passionately.

Daniel raised an eyebrow at Hunt. “Had a little fun with him on the way over. When he realized it wasn’t a drug deal.”

“And he gave you no trouble?” Daniel said deep toned, but his mouth quirked up.

“Who? Sunshine? I think not,” Hunt enunciated. “Sunshine here couldn’t knock the skin off a puddin’.”

Daniel smirked again as his long fingers gripped the edge of the duct tape. He ripped it in three jerks. Pausing placidly between each one as Jeremy cried out. Upon recognizing us, Jeremy’s eyes bulged from red skin on his otherwise drawn face.

“You thought you were here because you are valuable?” Daniel said chillingly.

Jeremy was surprised to spot me—but looked near self-urination seeing Daniel. His eyes were shifting from each of our faces wildly. I searched his face for something redeeming but found only panic. Milliseconds passed, and Jeremy settled on me, a shadow beyond the light of a solo hanging bulb.

He rolled his lips in and out to wet them, and angled his face to look more sincere. “Bree, I meant to call you. I don’t know happened to me that night. I blacked out. Did that happen to you, too?” My stomach flipped, seeing his face.

“You’re a horrible actor,” I told him dispassionately. His audition smile faded. His blond eyebrows that lifted innocently in the center came down. From where he stood, I could feel Daniel’s pride and excitement. He picked up a small box resting in a pile of others on the freestanding shelf behind him.

“Show me his throat,” Daniel instructed. Hunt gripped Jeremy’s hair, yanking his head back, doing so cheerfully. Daniel struck a small cluster of matches from the box and reached down to Jeremy. He held the flared fire under his chin and watched Jeremy’s face peacefully as the small torch began to burn skin. Jeremy shrieked.

Daniel reached for a bottle on the shelf behind. “It burns, doesn’t it?” he said, monotone and soft. Daniel unscrewed the cap and wrapped his hand around Jeremy’s neck, his palm constricting it. He untwisted the bottle with his thumb and doused Jeremy in putrid clear liquor.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy pleaded, releasing some spit. Daniel dropped the empty bottle with a startling clatter. He grabbed a folding chair off the wall and landed it a foot in front of Jeremy and sat.

“You like to play games,” Daniel explained, staring into Jeremy. “So I want to play a game with you. I’m sure you know the game Truth or Dare. You look like a lad who was just playing it in his parents’ basement.”

“Dude, why are you doing this over her?” Jeremy complained in a squeak.

“That sounds like a dare,” Daniel said striking a match and leaning forward. “Careful. If you move it, you will set yourself on fire.” Hunt held him but he didn’t need to. Jeremy froze. Daniel tucked the wooden stick into Jeremy’s ear, and Jeremy froze. But he yipped until it burned out in his ear canal. Panting, he slumped down.

“Ask the truth question. What do I care?”

“What did you use?” Daniel interrogated.

“I didn’t taint her drink. It was in the joint. She smoked it on her own.”

Daniel and Hunt shared a look. Hunt looked at me, “You may not want to take any drug tests for a while, darlin’.” Daniel tilted his head almost imperceptibly back towards me.

“I didn’t know. I barely remember but…the drink…was already working,” I said, shakenly answering Daniel’s unspoken question.

Daniel nodded his chin. “She had Rohypnol in her system. He’s lying about the drink, regardless,” Daniel said, striking a match.

“I didn’t drop it in!” he pleaded. Daniel waited. “Technically, the bartender did.” Jeremy slumped.

“For the bartender,” Daniel said, striking a new match. He flicked it, hitting Jeremy’s eye sharply, but it went out. Jeremy wailed and when he was done, he looked at us with one eye, the left stayed shut tight.

“Not so pretty anymore, pretty boy,” Hunt drawled. ”Still got that soft throat, though.” Jeremy squirmed.

“Maybe I should leave you here with your hunter?” Daniel taunted Jeremy, arching a brow.

He shook his chair. “This is fucking illegal. Let me go!”

“I wonder what laws he’s referencing,” Hunt said dryly.

“The ones he broke,” Daniel answered casually. “I may watch this one for a while. Don’t give me a reason to visit you again.”

“You’re letting me go?”

“You have a guardian angel tonight,” Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Cross me in no way, or your disappearance will be so complete your family will believe they made you up.”

The threat hit home. “This is bullshit,” Jeremy protested in a whine. “All this over her. What are you doing with her? You’re supposed to be enemies!”

“He loves her, puddin’ pulse,” Hunt answered. “If you’re alluding to him TKO’ing her in gossips, you can imagine what he does with the people he don’t like.”

Daniel rose and took Hunt’s place at the back of the chair Jeremy was tied to. He dragged Jeremy roughly, one handed, by gripping the chair back. Daniel kicked open the exit door and the chair with Jeremy tied tightly hopped the threshold by Daniel’s force. Daniel abandoned the chair beside the dumpster. His black SUV was parked behind it.

“The court of judge zip tie is now in session,” Hunt was reverend-like, half smiling. “Go on, plead your case, sunshine. You’ll be free to go when he dismisses you. The law works for everyone.” I looked around the length of the secluded alleyway realizing that would be a very long time. I crossed my arms, becoming at peace with the punishment.

Even still, Jeremy was staring at me with his one good, breathing heavily. If he could have broken out of the ties he likely would have charged me. “You bitch. You cunt,” Jeremy said, his whole face reddening. “That was my fucking play.”

My lips separated and a chill shot through me. I hugged myself more tightly. “You tried to date rape me because I didn’t like your play?”

Daniel’s eyes flashed. He closed the path back to Jeremy. He drew his foot back in a swift powerful move and swiped, cracking into Jeremy’s ankles and snapping the legs of the chair at a turn in the halfway point. Jeremy fell forward and teetered on the broken front legs of the chair. He scrambling at a tilt, trying to gain use of his own legs to prevent falling completely forward. They didn’t look like they were working right. “My legs,” he choked out in sob.

Daniel strode behind and set his heel on the back the chair. I covered my ears. He kicked forward. I shrieked at the gruesomeness of the sound. Daniel stared down then crouched beside him, yanking his head up by the hair then letting it fall.

He spoke chillingly. “I will rip every piece from those weak bones until they are clean and deliver your tiny parts to the rats. If you repeat this in any way, you attract my attention long enough only for me to leave nothing of you to bury or burn. I’d burn you now, but I am on a first date and she’s done up so nicely I don’t want her beautiful hair to smell of coward’s smoke. Whistle for understanding.”

“Daniel,” I croaked. He shook his head harshly and rose to stand. He drew back a foot aimed for the folded lump of plasma known as Jeremy.

“No!” came out instantly. I lowered my hands. Daniel looked at me from within the shadows of the alleyway. “Don’t do this,” I said. My hands now lowered from my ears, I slowly raised them in front of me. “Please, Daniel.”

I felt like I was waking him from a trance. His eyes lashed with violence. His cheeks cut with the dim light from the moon. And maybe for the first time, since I’d seen him walking quickly down that corridor in the Hamptons, I understood him.

“Leave him, Daniel. Please. I need you,” I implored.

He looked down at the collapsed form, with his hands tied behind like poultry legs bound for the oven. The slow movement of labored breath still rising and falling from Jeremy. Daniel glared down.

“The contract first. Whistle for your life.”

“You don’t half kill a man, Danny.” Whatever it meant, the words fell dutifully heavy on them both. Hunt looked wise beyond his years. The next few moments were tense with stillness.

There was a whistle.

Daniel looked up from Jeremy. “That is no Hawk,” he intoned to Hunter. Daniel strode away, putting his back to the scene, taking my hand in his as he passed. Hunt stayed still, lingering on Jeremy.

Daniel’s physical presence was still coiled, but his eyes were not. He rested his hands on my shoulders. “You are all right. You understand.”

I nodded quickly. “Yes. I’m okay.”

Something released in him, and Daniel reached down for my hand. Hunt walked in and found something interesting to look at elsewhere. Our fingers entwined, Daniel’s and mine, and I laid my other hand on top of ours.

“Helluva date night, Hoss,” Hunt commented, stepping closer.

“I appreciate your assistance,” Daniel said. “And your discretion.”

“Happy to bird dog this one. We even now?” Daniel connected to him and nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked up at Daniel.

Hunt answered. “Ahmed will cut him out by morning. If he hasn’t come to and gotten free.”

I swallowed thickly. “What if he doesn’t come to?”

“Ahmed can handle that as well,” Daniel intoned. Hunt nodded, agreeing.

“But he didn’t actually…he didn’t get to assault me.”

Daniel’s brow raised. “Have you reported him?”

“No.”

“His record was clean. You can see how that means nothing,” he intoned. “Violet has inquired. She informed Hunter today he has several rumors attached to him. Stories unluckier than yours.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll do it tomorrow.” I said firmly. Swallowing hard at the flash that maybe I shouldn’t have intervened.

Daniel walked me to the door then returned to have a word with Ahmed. The bar had cleared out, and Ahmed waved to me as we left. The limo waited outside idling. I leaned against Daniel as we rode away. We stopped finally, and he got out street side and walked around to open my door. It wasn’t a restaurant. We’d arrived at Daniel’s house.

I paused in the foyer. I didn’t want to feel hesitant, but I couldn’t stop myself. He closed the distance between us slowly and reached out for my hand.

“It is only dinner,” he said, his eyes firm and kind. I accepted his hand again.

I followed him past the stairway, down the long hall. We got to the end, his office in the far right wing. The small cherry wood office. He led me to a door that opened to the outside and through the garden out back. The one Tristan drew. Tall hedges framed it uniformly. Against the back, thick flowering ivy grew against the wall from plant beds where other blooms grew. Up against the back there were roses, not the too delicate type. Not heady English roses but deep almost red roses that if they weren’t in bloom you would mistake the plant for simple bushes. Flat broad dust green leaves made a canvas for hot cherry flowers. The garden was lush and thriving. In the corner was a bench, identical to the old ones in the park, with a good vantage point.

“It’s so nice out here. You’ve managed to keep it all through winter.”

“Heating and mists. The gardener has done it all. It goes dormant through the coldest times but comes back quickly. Let us keep going.”

We continued to the back corner of the garden until we stood in a plant bed facing the ivy wall. Up close it was several inches taller than even Daniel. He reached his hand between the foliage and turned something. A large panel of ivy began to move outward as he pulled, and I stepped to the right to make room for it. The panel of ivy on hinges swung wide, revealing a steel door. He gripped the handle and opened the door. Daniel took a step towards the entry and turned to be sure I was coming. Warm light came through the opening into the garden, which was nicely lit in a cooler tone against the night. I touched the leaves of the six-inch-thick ivy grown against steel wire panel. It was real and full, diligently groomed to conceal the doorway he was inviting me through.

“Where does this lead?” I asked, looking up at the peeling paint of the wall.

“You have to come with me to see,” Daniel replied, slightly in dare.

He helped me over the ivy and into the opening.

We entered and he left the door ajar, perhaps for my comfort. What was behind the door was amazing. An old factory building. There were two floors, and you could see the edges of the second floor where they cut off in the center, the framing exposed in flat Xs. The opening in the second floor allowed you a view of the building’s ceiling, which was a grid of skylights. We had a complete view of the night sky. The concrete floor had been sanded and stained in a smooth terracotta, but the walls were a faded wash of paint over brick, natural brick exposed in some places. The secret sky-view of the building wasn’t the amazing part, though.

In the center hung string lights, they were draped all around what looked like hundreds, if not thousands, of white orchids cascading from the second floor down to the first. A curtain of delicate white. Creamy potted ones were layered in varying heights all around the space on stands. A chandelier suspended from the ceiling, all the way down, where it hung above a table set with china over a Persian rug. There were two chairs at the small round clothed table that held candles, and a white grand piano in the corner of the opening.

“I promised you dinner,” Daniel said, breaking me from my delight. “Will you dine with me tonight, Gabrielle?”

“I would like that,” I said. He extended an elbow, and I linked my arm with his. As we neared the table, Jeeves appeared from behind the curtain of blossoms. Full tailed tux with white gloves.

“Good evening Ms. Valentine. I welcome you to Chateau Baird. The gentleman has a full evening in store. May I seat you?” he asked, resting a hand on the back of a chair and smiling closed lipped with his upper chin sucked in proudly.

“That’s fine, Jeeves. We are ready for the first course,” Daniel instructed.

“As you wish, sir. You’ll find the salad course already served at your seats. Bon appétit.” He bowed before heading the way we came.

Daniel pulled out my chair. “Please,” he said. I took my seat and laid my napkin in my lap as he pushed me in. He took his seat on the other side of the medium round table and did the same.

“This must have taken a while to do,” I said.

“I’ve had years to plan,” he intoned. “I was only waiting for you.”

My cheeks flushed. “The things you say to me. You make me speechless.”

“I struggle with words, at times, as well,” he said, leaning forward to take a drink of his water. His eyes maintaining mine over the glass.

“I believe everything you have said to me. I have never questioned you, somehow. But if I meant so much to you, I have to know why you didn’t stay,” I asked, feeling my throat clench.

He set down his glass and seemed to be grappling with his reply. I was torn between wanting to know and never wanting to know. Being jilted by him and hearing it would be experiencing it. I knew what it was like to be hurt by him. I didn’t crave fresh pain.

“I couldn’t,” he said finally.

“You couldn’t. We met and fell madly—madly—in love. How could you not come back?”

Daniel’s jaw was set but his eyes were soft. “It is a long story for another time.”

“Daniel,” I began. “You make me feel special, and wanted, and I have felt those things towards you too. This room. I see you caring for me. In small ways, and bigger ones, like tonight. But you have to trust me.”

He looked perplexed and upset with himself. “I could tell you it was Hawk, which is not untrue. I could tell you Hunter made a mistake. But the fact is, I gave up.”

“But that means you tried.”

“Very hard,” he confessed, but his tone revealed embarrassment at his failure.

“Why do you feel shame in that?”

“You are not the broken one, Gabrielle. You can’t remember your life, because you have not compromised.”

“I feel safe with you,” I said with certainty. “That is my trust. I won’t take it from you unless you earn its loss. But I won’t hold against you what you say in an effort to return it, even if it should give me cause not to trust. I need you to feel safe with me, too.”

“I do. I hear you are very good with a knife, should I ever require a wing woman.” He lifted a brow, humored.

“I don’t know about that,” I said wondering what story Vi could have told Hunter. “I’m not bad with a table saw, though.”

“I’d like to see that one day,” he said sincerely.

“Will you ever tell me?”

“Just know,” he said, setting down his water glass silently. “That I gave in. I compromised. I regret if that hurts you or makes you dislike me. But I can’t pretend it’s not what I deserved from this.”

When I didn’t reply, he considered the question more seriously, leaning forward on his elbows, folding his long fingers together. “Replaying this is like waking up from a dream and closing my eyes to return to sleep so I can dream it differently. Better this time, or worse, to try out whatever works to see the ending I want realized. Going back is not real. I am over that, almost completely, for the first time. I was able to block you, too, realize. How could I go on each day otherwise? How could I lay with another woman?” He looked appalled with himself, and for the first time, he looked away.

“You really shouldn’t be this hard on yourself,” I comforted him.

“You were destitute. You raised our child alone,” he said.

I pursed my lips. “I wasn’t alone.”

“I will never be able to repay what August and your sister did for you both.”

“And Jill and Ian, occasionally Zack,” I added.

He nodded his chin and sat back in his chair, watching me as he asked, “Do you know Jill and I have met?”

“No. Before all this?”

“Yes, Hunter and I both. She was at a party in Montmartre. She came on to us.”

“Individually?” I hedged. He inclined his head. “She must not remember.”

“I knew you trusted her,” lowering one brow. “I don’t doubt that she coached you negatively.”

“I wouldn’t say coached.”

“My suspicion seems proven,” he accepted, then moved on to what he wanted to say. He leaned forward again. “Things became out of my control. Everything I learned about you and them was cause for my concern. My energy shifted from being consumed by you to loathing them and loving our son. I wouldn’t have accepted Hawk’s consultation if I hadn’t become convinced I was intrinsically right. When I met Tristan, I knew immediately Hawk couldn’t learn of him. So I pushed you both away to protect you. But I couldn’t let you go. As you refused me, I wanted to hear people tell me I was right. You were poisoned by them and not yourself anymore. So I listened to those telling me what I wanted to hear. As it turns out, what I thought of you was more true of me.”

“They were bad people who appeared like okay ones,” I agreed. “Mine are great people made to look terrible.”

He nodded, sadly. “For that and all additional harm I’ve brought at your door, I am sorry.”

I looked into his eyes and knew this was our ultimate roadblock. I dug deep knowing I had to mean it if I were to say these words to Daniel. “I…forgive you,” I said, letting hate go like the string to a kite. He watched me and his expression became peaceful. I got up from my chair and went to him, wrapping my arms around his neck, laying my cheek on his hair. He hooked an arm around my waist and squeezed.

We heard Jeeves’ heels on the floors as he came to the table side, as well as the squeak of the cart. I lifted my head and Daniel released me.

“Chef has prepared for you your second course, if you are ready.” Daniel glanced at me, as I resumed my seat then nodded his chin to Jeeves.

“Fresh caught and fried calamari.” He unveiled a silver tray he set on the table.

“He inherited so much of you,” I said, smiling to myself. Jeeves rolled away with the cart.

“Good taste in food, yes. But I believe we share that quality. His music taste can only be from you,” he said straight-faced. I looked at him shocked, and his face broke into a breathtaking smile. The next course was a hand-rolled pappardelle pasta with lobster and chorizo that was absolutely out of this world. Crème brûlée for dessert.

A pianist came out after dinner and we stood. He bowed to Daniel with his full tux and thick glasses and took his seat at the bench. He began playing tinkling soft music that floated into the hanging garden. The lights twinkled along with each note.

Daniel stood and reached down for my hand. “May I have the first dance?”

“Yes,” I answered, buzzed just by being with him. Daniel led in a soft rhythm along with the tune. Holding onto my hand and my waist like I was made of eggshells.

“You say that you trust, yet you resist,” Daniel said, his head bent over mine, words breathed into my hair.

“It’s not you.”

“You need time,” he said, and I could feel him holding me ever the more fragilely.

“No,” I said, looking up at him. “I’m ready.”

He leaned his head down to kiss me, and our lips met. Our bodies touched as he pulled me closer and I felt his desire below. He loosened his grip on my waist when I felt him, allowing room for a gap between us, but I didn’t take it. I deepened the kiss and he took it further.

“I want us to make love,” I whispered onto his lips, breaking away.

He looked down at me, taken. Then he smiled and kissed me again.

“I’m happy you said something rational,” he said rueful. “I was going to tell the pianist to leave so we could make use of his instrument. A bed is a better idea.”

“Is it, though?” I replied.

“Petrov,” Daniel announced, as I stared into his green eyes. “Thank you. That is enough for tonight.”

The pianist closed the keys and made his way to the door. I smiled up at Daniel.

“Tell the house no disturbances,” Daniel added the afterthought, eyeing me hungrily. The door shut with a groan and click.

“What do you want me to take off first?” I asked, letting go of him and stepping backwards towards the piano.

“The top. Then the bra. The skirt. The rest,” he said, standing very still.

I stopped, removing my underwear first. I dangled them and he watched them fall.

“Rule breaker,” he said and took a small step forward.

He followed me at a slow pace as I removed the rest and posed in front of the piano.

“Now you,” I said. He lifted off his shirt, his body flexing as he moved. His hands went to his belt line expediently, then he closed the gap between us.

“Do you want to know how I got by without you?” he said, his hand adjusting himself. “There wasn’t a shower that went by where I didn’t picture you like this. I’ve pictured you all ways.”

“I see you there, too,” I said, as he planted his hands on either side of me, on the piano. I reached out my hand to him and slid it inside his peaked boxers. He made deep noise of relief as our skin made contact.

“What I wouldn’t do to watch you,” he whispered.

I slid my hand from his length and up his muscled chest, over his hard abdomen and pecs, then curled my hand around up around his neck and gave him a light kiss on the cheek on tip toes. Then I hiked myself upon the piano resting my hands just inside his. I crossed my legs, and he opened his eyes. He lifted my leg under the knee then stretched it over his shoulder, resting my ankle behind his ear kissing the inside of it once, then I pointed my foot out and pressed him back.

I spun and laid down, crossing my legs. He ran his hand down my chest to my naval my own hand beat him to my center. I parted my legs.

He leaned my head back, I could feel the weight of my hair cascading off the edge of the piano.

“If there ever was a sight to make blind men see,” he said.

I kept going slowly, my back arched when I was close. He leaned down with his hands poised beside me on the piano’s edge and tilted his head to kiss me. His hands snaked down to mine and pulled it up.

“Will you sit up for me now, Gabrielle,” he breathed. I obliged, and he spun me around to the edge to sit.

“You gorgeous creature,” he said, looking into my eyes. I aided in relieving him from his fabric while his hand went to my breast.

“I love you, Daniel,” I told him.

“I love you, Bree Valentine,” he replied and we kissed. He squeezed me tightly onto him, and we were a perfect fit. We went slowly, and he led. When we were done, we slow danced to no music. I didn’t put my shoes on when we dressed. As I walked carefully not letting the heels of my bare feet touch the floor, he scooped me up and carried me back into the house and to his bedroom.

“You should call your sister,” he said, kissing me as he laid me down. I wrapped my leg around his waist. “It will be a long night.”

The next morning Daniel found me downstairs in the garden. I sat on the garden bench with my knees drawn to me, one of his white dress shirt covered my underthings. He approached me and brushed back my hair behind my ear and gave me a kiss, then stroked my lower lip.

“Good morning,” I smiled. “You just missed Tristan on the phone. Vi and Hunt are bringing him over after breakfast. Hunt’s cooking.” I said amusedly, picturing him in an apron.

“Excellent,” he said taking a seat beside me, still only in silk pajama pants. They hiked up over his fantastic derriere and ran flat in the front across the plain of abdomen, divoting twice where his muscle cut near his hip bone. Sitting down only accentuated his fitness.

“I was thinking. There are a lot of flowers in there. There are places that could use them. Hospitals. And retirement homes. I could make a call.”

“Jeeves will collect them and take them wherever you decide.”

“You don’t want eyes discovering your secret cave.”

He smirked. “Some secrets are necessary.”

“Even from me?”

“No.” He rose from the bench, extending me his hand. “Come see,” he said, and led me in.

“Incredible,” I said taking in the room. It was magical at night, but in the day it was alive.

“First, let me show you.” I followed him around the vines center area where the ceiling was only one level. “I keep my vehicles here,” he said as several automobiles became visible. A black shiny Mercedes G-Class with chrome trim; the one I’d seen pick up Hunt. A silver Ferrari. And a McLaren.

“Why do you need secret vehicles?” I asked after I’d walked around inspecting them. I stood in front of him and looked up from the G-Class.

“I had this house from long ago. It was purchased in Ahmed’s name. When I became CEO of a global operation, it made sense for me to own property here, so I transferred it back. At that time, I purchased this back building in a shell corporation title. It was prepared in case I found you. A one in seven million chance, Hunter said. I did. With the unexpected bonus of Tristan. I can’t boast it as a personal feat. It was pure accident.”

“There’s no such thing,” I replied. “What is it you need to run away from so hard?”

He didn’t say.

“That night you showed up at my door. You weren’t trying to get me to run away. You wanted us both to run,” I recalled to him, fitting it together. “To where?”

“To anywhere, Gabrielle,” he replied.

“From whom?”

“You’re missing the objective,” he said. “With whom.”

He leaned against the car and pulled me close. “I am free now. I can create success anywhere. Bring you anywhere, with our son. I have alliances separate from my origin but even if that changes, I have outgrown them all. We have no masters.”

“I don’t know what horrible things you’ve been through with Hawk as a father, some but not all, I suspect. But I’m very sorry for them.” I stroked his hair, and a tear fell from my eye. Desired man. Untended boy. Feared from the moment he could spell his last name. Respected and admired from the moment he emerged from the lake of boyhood. His guide, an abhorred figure with a compass blazing South. He knew the right road, and electively sacrificed a part of himself every time he took wrong one as long as he believed the destination was right. How many more wrong paths can a man take before he becomes unrecoverable? Before he becomes the road he travels.

“Do you see me, Bree Valentine?” Daniel asked.

“I do.” He pulled me against him.

“I would have looked for you until I was an old man and wanted you even in a walker. But…I believe you came just in time.”

“I’m not saving you, Daniel,” I said voiced so clearly it was nearly distilled but feeling a wet streak make a path down my cheek. He drew me back, keeping his hands wrapped above my elbows.

“You are here. You are with me. I clipped your leaves and your wings and you soared higher, away. But you came back. Not because of my enforcement. You came back to me and shared your grace because of your highest beauty. And with that, I am saved in you without you ever lifting a feather.”

“I am not her,” I said seriously.

“I am not him,” he replied simply. “I am much worse.”

“You are good, Daniel.”

“Perhaps Naneet would say you have many lives, too. In the protest that falls from your lips, I find myself in your eyes. Bathed and nearly drowned. Bree Valentine, in them I am a convert.” I looked down, feeling my cheeks grow warm.

“I know when I am being deceived,” he continued. “I have seen a thousand and one expressions in the eyes of women. I am not deceived. If I’d only happened in your shop, a stranger, if last night had been our first meeting, it would have happened. In any lifetime. You are for me. Do you still protest?”

“Yes,” I replied, relaxing myself and falling into him. “You forgot to say that you are for me, too.”

“Come here,” he said. We kissed and I began to turn around to face the car, but he wouldn’t let me. He carried me to the tailgate of his Mercedes truck and we made love. Tender and powerful, he never let me shut my eyes.

He was refastening his shirt over me while I played with the drawstring of his black silk pants. “Can we look at them one last time?” I asked.

“Please. They are for you,” he said, satisfied with the number of buttons, and stood back, extending a hand towards me. I took his warm hand and followed him as he drew back the hanging curtain of orchids and came to the center. The sunlight came in slanted through the skylights making the area look like a natural stage.

“So much work,” I said handling the hanging vines, letting go of his hand. The orchids had been woven in other types of leafy greenery, but the flowers seemed innumerable. The white was crisp and soft and the green popped. “I’ll call around today. I have a few ideas who can use them.” I was saying taking a guess at the potted ones, there may have been sixty, varying sizes and heights. I found the one I would keep. I looked up to see Daniel seating himself upon the piano bench and lift up the key cover. He tested the keys, and then arranged his fingers and laid them down on the keys in earnest, hitting a chord. He restarted, twice, when the playing came back to him quickly. I didn’t interrupt. I joined him and leaned against the piano side, watching his expert fingers move across the keys.

“Is that Listz?” I asked. He nodded his chin and glanced up. I grinned. He wove it into a different, even faster pace, and I closed my eyes taking in every note. Then it changed again and I thought I recognized but couldn’t say for sure the composer. It grew deeper, rhythmically, even dark, then settled somewhere in the middle stirringly. I listened intently as it seemed to be winding down, then it changed again. Not a new song, a new ending. It got lighter, invoking rapture and joy. Slow then fast then slow, then twinkled like a constellation at its end. The music had ended for several seconds, one light note hug in the air, and I felt his eyes on me. When I opened my eyes, a small smile played on my lips but his intense stare startled me.

“What?” I said.

“Do you feel all right?” he asked, his brows furrowing together and his mouth a line drawn in concern.

“Fine. Maybe a little flustered from last night,” I replied. I did feel a headache coming on. It had been a late night though. “I could use an herbal tea.” As I finished the words I felt something wet drip onto my lip. Post nasal drip maybe allergy from the flowers. He watched me intensely wipe it away and looked down at my hand reflexively to see the blood. He stood up. I raised my hands to protest but my head began to swim. “I’m going to go back in for breakfast. My blood sugar must be low.”

He moved towards me as I spun around to get to the back door, back to the garden. My hand went to my head as the piercing pain grew sharper. I was glad Daniel stayed close. I felt his strength as I folded over, and the world went absent of any color at all. Pain seared my head, as something revealed itself. An image. I screamed, more and more, silently. All I could think of was hurt and chaos, but a soft light warmed my nerves. Maybe I was dead? But no, though it glowed beckoning my soul from its case, this wasn’t a tunnel.

It was a memory. Of Daniel and I. Five years ago.

Chapter 34 - Remember, Remember, the First after December

It was the night I’d written about in my manic journal, News Years Day at night, when I’d gone searching for him. The night when we fell in love, and madness. He’d waited for me inside the woods. And followed me out to the street…

“Lead the way,” he said, extending his hand out. “I’ll follow.”

My fingers fidgeted, concealed inside coat pockets. In the back of my mind, pain surged. And I knew I wasn’t really here…I was remembering. It was me and Daniel. He was there; he’d made it back to the park. And despite the alarm of recognizing all of this, the scene played on. “Where would you like to go?” I asked, a shy Virginia girl all over again.

“Anywhere you want,” he said.

I frowned, thinking, while he stared down at me with all the time in the world in his posture. “Well, what would you like to do?” I asked.

“Whatever you want,” he replied. My eyes shifted from him, a quick head to toe, and then to the city. I was thankful he’d made it through the night and come back to meet me as I’d made him promise but had no plans beyond that. When he saw me enter the clearing, he came to me. Silently, I put away my deep relief and turned the way I’d come. He followed me to the sidewalk where we stood.

I began walking and he joined me, slightly apprehensive, at my side.

“The scarf looks good on you,” I complimented politely. He lifted an edge of wool from where it hung around his neck, glancing down.

“I’m rather fond of it now,” he remarked.

“It’s a good one,” I agreed.

“Did you want it back?” he offered.

I shook my head. “No, a deal is a deal. Thank you for the cab, though.”

“It was my honor,” he said sincerely, making an unexpected gesture—a minute bow of his head, his hand lightly covering his heart—a decidedly regal act. We continued walking, stumped in silence, soggy sandy sediments crunching on pavement under our weight, miniatures mattresses on microscopic peas.

He angled his face to me and we walked, beginning conversationally. “So you like chouquettes?”

“Yeah,” I answered, relieved for the small talk. “I had them in France everywhere, but they’re hard to find here,” I lamented.

“Do you like to travel?” he quizzed.

“I love it,” I admitted. “I love seeing new things,”

“Did you go to Paris?”

“Yes,” I said, immediately smiling. “It was amazing,” I added with a note of whimsy. “Have you been?”

His chin dipped in a nod. “Yes, I’ve been.”

“I guess it is just a train ride away.”

“Pardon?”

“You know, the tunnel?” I explained dumbly.

It took a moment to click. “Oh, yes. I usually get there differently,” he said casually. “I mean, I got there differently,” he amended.

“The ferry can be fun, too,” I added, seeing my assumptive error. “I go to school with some kids who did that and boarded at hostels. It’s probably more fun to see it that way, right?’

“Right,” he said with a stiff nod. Way to stay out of landmines, Bree. He probably thought I was a snob. I was quiet, mentally chastising myself. We mashed more peas.

“May I ask why you were alone last night?” he inquired.

“I was out with some friends. We got separated.”

“Why didn’t you call someone to help you?”

“Well,” I answered, pondering the question. “There really wasn’t anyone to call other than them, and they didn’t answer—my sister and her girlfriend, I mean. They’re pretty popular, and they met some guys to hook up with. So I was on my own. It happens.”

He thought for a moment then looked down at me. “You’re not like them,” he concluded.

I didn’t look up. “Not really,” I confessed. No, I suppose I wasn’t like them at all. Boys didn’t fall to my feet, I wasn’t on any lists at the trendy nightclubs, and I didn’t fit in exclusive inner circles—all things I’d come to terms with—but the reminder was deflating.

“These sound like terrible friends,” he stated observationally.

“They’re not bad,” I defended simply. “They just have their own lives.”

“I don’t think I’d like them,” he added.

“I didn’t ask you to, but why?” I asked, turning to face him full on.

“You deserve better,” he stated simply.

“It’s no big deal,” I shrugged, tucking my hands in my coat pockets.

“And your parents?” he asked, pursuing his original line of questions.

“Oh, my father doesn’t live here. I’m from…out of town,” I answered, not wanting to reveal too much. “He still lives in our hometown with his new girlfriend.”

“He shouldn’t have let you so far away from him.”

“Why?” I puzzled.

“Because it’s dangerous here and you should have a man to watch over you. He should be here to take of you.”

“That’s very old-fashioned of you, but I can take of myself just fine, thanks,” I replied. He’d said it like someone should take my father out back on the porch for a talking to.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said with sincerity. “I just think it’s wise.”

“It’s okay,” I relinquished, perhaps realizing I was a touch testy. If I was, it was my own insecurity talking, and I decided I’d try to cut that out and picked up the exchange. “In my house it was more the other way around, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the house, the chores,” I expanded. “Someone had to do the cooking and cleaning or we all would have wasted away years ago. I’m actually glad he got a girlfriend. I couldn’t have left home if there wasn’t someone there to take care of him.”

“Where is your mother?’

“She died.”

“Mine, too.” he replied and from his tone I thought it may have been recent.

I looked up. “I’m sorry,” I told him. A shadow crossed his face as he glanced down in polite acknowledgement and acceptance, mutual understanding passing between us like a current. We memorialized the moment in silence. I thought he might be thinking of her, and his expression made me glad, for once, that I had nothing to remember.

Finally, he spoke. “Do you not have your own life?”

Growing accustomed to his forthrightness, I asked easily, “What do you mean?”

“You said your friends have their own lives as if you’re not part of it,” he explained.

“That’s true,” I conceded.

He hedged curiously, “Does that not defeat the purpose of friendship?”

“I don’t really think of it that way.”

“How do you think of it?”

“I guess I’m a bit of a loner,” I phrased carefully. It sounded a lot better than third wheel or wallflower.

“What about your boyfriends? I’m sure you have many.”

“No, I don’t have one.”

“I don’t think I can believe that,” he pressed gently, giving me a discerning look. That skepticism made me feel good somehow.

“Well, there’s this boy back home who likes me a lot,” I admitted, feeling bold. “He actually wants me to move back so we can get married,” I explained, thinking of the one and only actual love interest in my life, perhaps confessing too much, in fact. I felt a little guilty boasting about Zach’s intentions with me, but for whatever reason, I did not want to sound like chopped liver.

“That I believe.” His brow arched. “Why haven’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Is he good?”

“Yes, he’s really great actually, and he knows me better than anyone. And of course, everyone back home loves the idea of us being together. I know we would be happy,” I stopped short of a ‘but’, feeling myself opening up too much and mentally struggling with the image of Zach and me together. It was an image I grappled with often.

“You seem hesitant,” he observed.

Compelled to honesty, I admitted, “It’s just that I don’t really love him. At least, not in the way you should love someone who’s going to your husband,” saying aloud the thing that had always troubled me about the image of a future with Zach.

As if it were a revelation, he extracted, “You want to marry for love.”

I looked up, brows furrowed. “Why else would you get married?”

He agreed flippantly, “Of course, why else?” Refocusing, he asked, “So what about your boyfriends here?”

He was peering down at me with a penetrating open curiosity, awaiting my answer—so I came up with one. “Well, I was just dating this one guy,” I admitted, feeling bold. “He was a drummer in a band in Greenwich, and we dated for a while but it was just for kicks. Nothing serious.”

“Is that your type?” He sounded surprised—and intrigued.

“What?”

“Musicians?” asked the pianist.

“Maybe,” I answered, feeling my cheeks get warm. I flipped the channel. “So now it’s my turn to ask the questions.”

“Anything.”

“What brings you to New York?”

“I like the architecture,” he replied conversationally.

That was unexpected. “Really?”

“Yes,” he said, stopping to prove his point. “That building is Renaissance and that one is French Revival,” he gestured, sounding professorial. “This one is a classic modern design. That’s more my taste. Aside from the filth, it really is a beautiful city,” he finished with his hands joined behind his back, giving the street a reproving look. He was the most uppity street person I’d ever met, not that I’d known many.

Entertained by the irony, I joined his panel, admitting, “I don’t like that one very much,” about the flat fronted modern three-story.

“Do you know architecture?” he asked, turning to me, as though an authority on the subject.

I smiled but met his eyes. “No. But I know what I like.”

I must have surprised him. His eye sparked before he turned, indulging me, “Which of these do you like?” Despite his tone, his expression revealed unsuccessfully suppressed amusement. I was amused too, so I played along.

“I like that one,” I chose, after short deliberation.

“It’s in shambles,” he said, staring at the dilapidated building.

“But look at the carving up top and the balusters. It’s really beautiful.”

“It’s condemned.” He blinked. But I didn’t care.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said simply. “It’s got good bones. It’s worth saving.” I scanned the street line once more. It really was the most special one on the block.

He made no reply. So there we stood—two strangers staring at a relic of a mansion, me envisioning power washing the limestone, and him staring as though if he did it long enough, a better looking house would appear. It was kind of nice.

“Is that how you feel about me?” he asked, breaking the silence. I looked up and met a searching gaze, the seriousness of his face cutting a fierce profile in the night.

“No,” I replied honestly, searching back. “I think I feel differently now.”

“How?” he asked and I pondered the question.

Much of the pity had fallen away, despite his poor circumstances, which he presently seemed unbothered about. Not at like the person I’d met last night—or ever. Confidence radiated from him, but he remained cautious with me in a way. He listened as though the answers meant something. He replied as though his own opinions were common knowledge or universal truths. It was a quality that made me think if he’d been dealt a greater hand in life, he would have been a leader. People would follow this young man, I thought. But beyond those observations, I found myself intrigued with an intangible quality I couldn’t name.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. He looked down, content, but snapped back.

“Will you tell me your name?” he queried, as if just occurred to him to wonder. His politely formal way that made me think of lances and round tables—holding back too much intensity.

Hmm. “No, I don’t think I will.” I spun walking away.

He caught up in few strides. “Why?”

“Because,” I said. “What if you’re a stalker or something?”

He quipped under his breath, “You’re smart for that.” The amusement in his lip betraying the seriousness of his tone.

I fought a smile and walked quickly ahead, resisting a skip. “I’m smart for lots of things,” I assured him. “And besides if I do get a stalker, I hope I can at least be a challenge.”

He lifted a brow. “You are very sure of yourself,” he observed.

“So are you,” I replied, narrowing my gaze.

“Let’s make a deal,” he proposed. “I’ll tell mine if you tell me yours,”

“Okay, you first.” I suddenly wanted to know.

“Daniel,” he said.

“Daniel what?” I asked, assuming the name swap included whole names.

“Daniel Smith.”

Noticing a subtle stillness in his eyes. I stopped, peering up. “I think you’re lying.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he dismissed. “You have to tell me yours now.” He looked so intent.

On a whim, I said, “Guess,” bounding ahead, enjoying my game.

He followed. “Helena,” he guessed.

“No.”

“Athena.”

“Umm, no,” I said, confused as to why he was assigning me such names.

“I’m running out of names, mystery woman,” he said; and patience, I thought.

“One more,” I said, not wanting to end yet.

“Alexandra,” he decided finally.

I stopped, looking up. “It’s Gabrielle,” I said, deciding on the spot to skip the shortened moniker of “Bree”, perhaps wanting to be on par with his guesses tonight.

“Of course you are,” he said, and smiled becomingly. “That’s quite a namesake. I see what has invoked such confidence.”

“What?”

“Your parents saw you as a force from birth.”

I grinned, cheekily. “Is that where you got your confidence? Your parents?”

“My name was inherited. But I have no family,” he replied slowly.

How sad. “I’m sorry.”

He turned serious. “Don’t be.”

“Daniel?” I said, looking up to see him. He met my eyes, and our strides halted in unison.

“Yes, Gabrielle?”

“Do you have a home?” I asked.

“No,” he replied and glanced down the street we’d judged the houses. “But I may have found one.”

“I’m glad to hear that. But will you promise me something?” I pressed, picturing him squatting in a teardown and feeling unwell.

“Anything,” he said, returning to my eyes.

“If you’re just saying that because you’re too proud and you really need somewhere safe to stay, I want you to tell me before the night is over,” I told him, brows furrowed. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I left you again like last night. I would let you crash with me for a while until you get on your feet. It’s a tiny dorm, but my roommate is visiting family for another week. My bed is just a twin but I could sneak you in, you can have it. And I could take hers, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” I said, mentally preparing myself for that conversation with my moody assigned roomy.

“You’re too good,” he replied, tranquilly. “Will you promise me something in return?”

“It depends,” I hedged.

“Will you promise me that you will never again offer a strange man your bed?” His expression was earnest.

“I don’t go around offering strange men to move in with me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I defended, narrowly avoiding a pout. “You’re definitely the first, and honestly, I can’t even believe I’m doing it.”

He glanced down. “That’s good to hear. Just make sure I’m the last.”

“Has anyone ever told you, you’re awfully bossy?” I remarked, sharing his frankness.

His lip shifted wryly. I walked on, with him in pursuit. “So Gabrielle what?” he quizzed.

“Gabrielle. Just Gabrielle.”

“Like Madonna?”

“Yes,” I said—not wanting to be a Valentine tonight. “Like Madonna.”

“Are you a singer?”

“Maybe,” I answered.

He paused, requesting, “Sing something for me.”

I looked back him, standing on the sidewalk. “I’m not in the mood,” I declined airily and walked ahead, fighting a smile.

He caught up to me, and I felt him approach me from behind,—his voice coming from right over my shoulder.

“You know,” he said, slowly. The change in his voice made me stop dead in my tracks. “I could make you sing for me if I really wanted to.”

I turned to interpret the tone and was met with an amused expression and a very intense gaze. But the expression soon gave way, morphing into something much more compelling—and troubling. An unmistakable look—capable and mischievous. Like a fox with a private table at the henhouse who regularly indulged on all five courses—on the house.

“I bet you could,” I conceded wonderingly, taking in perfect white teeth, high cheekbones, and realizing he was dangerous in a way I hadn’t imagined before.

We walked more and discussed the city, and music. He asked about something I’d said the night before, which opened a stimulating debate. We didn’t agree on our tastes completely but our disagreement was amicable. Enjoyably, even.

“This city is unique to any other,” Daniel said. “You become a part of it within minutes. Other places take time. So you see, you’re of here already.”

“For now,” I agreed. “I’m passing through. Once I get my degree, I’d like to move somewhere slower. Not home, but somewhere.”

“Where do you have in mind?”

I sucked in a breath and frowned, catching myself. “Maybe Chicago,” I answered, swallowing the Garden State, letting it shrink back where it came.

He nodded but I could tell he noticed my concealment of something and it…hurt him.

“I haven’t given it much thought,” I said. “Where did you have in mind to plant your roots, stateside?”

“I think I like here, now,” he replied.

“Not so dirty anymore?” I asked him, looking into his eyes.

“No, very clean,” he replied, looking directly back into mine. I started to feel a little tingle as we stood staring at each other, unabashed when we should have been. The tiny dust motes swirled in the air around his face where they were illuminated beneath the lamp we’d stopped beneath. Suddenly, he reached for my gloved hand and pulled it up, then rubbed it between his, not too slowly.

“You seemed cold,” he said gently. It was the hand that began to tingle. I withdrew it and fidgeted before resting it at my side.

“A little,” I stuttered. “Hungrier, maybe.”

“I have a friend who runs an establishment near here. Would you like to go?” he asked. We turned and walked, him leading now.

“What kind of food is it?” I asked, filling my head back up with thoughts I could process.

“Eclectic. It’s a bar.” he replied. And off we set.

We approached a thin wedge of an entry that blended in with the façade of the rest of the block. There was a tattered vinyl banner acting as the marquee with the words Now Open. Neon lights in the window boasting what was on tap, and an open sign hanging in the porthole window of a weather-stripped door.

“After you,” he said, magnificently.

The floor was sunken by a step, and the ceilings were low. The ceiling was cork office tiles painted black. Claustrophobia tugged me, but Daniel stood tall as if there were no roof all and I breathed easier. Framed photos of boxers, wrestlers, and other vintage sports figures were on the forest green walls. A simple bar ran lengthwise down one side. There were a smattering of round tables and a petite quarter circle stage in the back corner, lit with a tangle of the colored string lights available for dimes the day after a big holiday. After my eyes adjusted, the place became cozy and whimsical like the inside of an old man’s keepsake chest.

The bartender in a plaid shirt and fleece athletic vest and a burnt red turban on his head eyed us. He’d worn a mean mug, which concerned me until he recognized Daniel and waved us in. We made our way to the nearest barstools. A trio of men with beards chatted in a foreign tongue a few stools away. The bartender met us with a bearded smile.

“How are you, Mr. Singh?” Daniel said warmly.

“Slow,” he replied rapidly. “Customers are fatigued from New Year’s Eve parties and choosing to stay in. Naneet will be freaking out. One slow night and the sky has fallen. I told her we have to give it another year. Then she will see. I see you have brought a friend.” His eyes ran me up and down, and he stood a little taller, pushing his shoulder back and his stout chest out. He was about my height standing and a few decades older. Stern features and a jolly disposition credited the nutmeg-toned bartender.

“I have,” Daniel said. “Mr. Singh, this is Gabrielle. Gabrielle, like Madonna, the singer.”

“Like Madonna? Do you sing? My wife plays sitar. She wants an accompaniment. She thinks traditional sounds will awaken our Irish bar.” he said, affectionately skeptical.

“Very well,” Daniel replied. “She has been singing to me all night,” he said straight faced, and my eyebrows rose. It was the tone. Mr. Singh’s raised as well, then he grinned and inclined his head. “Be sure to inform your wife she is in search of a gig.” Daniel’s accent applied to his statement made me giggle. Daniel’s lips curved to a smile.

“I will, I will,” the older man said obediently, then his eyes crinkled. “You and Ahmed. If you played something other than wom—than futball. We would form a quartet. What can I get for you, good Daniel?” he finished, overly professional.

We ordered something to drink, and he pointed us to the chalkboard behind the bar for his menu. He set our waters down on the bar as well as two foaming beers.

“This is a new brand we are carrying. A gift from myself and Naneet. Whatever you like is our treat, good Daniel.”

“Thank you, but no, Mr. Singh,” Daniel replied.

“I’m okay,” I said in polite refusal, scooting the glass back.

“I cannot give it away,” he said, frustrated. “I will leave it. If it gets warm, the stray cats will drink it.”

He strutted down the bar to his other customers, who appeared to be personal friends, and then into the back, leaving us to ourselves. I drank some water and Daniel did, too.

“Is it difficult?” I asked gingerly. He looked puzzled. “Not drinking?”

He inhaled a breath sharply and exhaled. “I don’t enjoy loss of control. Usually,” he said, looking at me. “Last night, it wasn’t a loss of self-control.”

“I didn’t mean to bring it up,” I said, glancing down at my lap.

“I have drank, socially, but it does nothing for me.”

“What does it for you?” I asked. He looked at me and his became lidded, his tongue rolled onto his lip, but he maintained eye contact.

“Sport,” he replied.

“Okay,” I said hollowly, frozen on my stool.

“So. What does it for you?” he asked, his expression becoming softer.

I shook my head to clear it and watched him casually lift his water glass, his hand wrapping around it, and lift it high. He drank most of the glass then set it down without a sound.

“I like organizing things. I like math. Very ordinary,” I said.

“I enjoy math,” he said, but it sounded like filler.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Not once,” he said. “I’m suddenly struggling not to turn into myself tonight.”

“Why would you do that? You seem natural.” The most comfortable with his own physical presence I’d ever seen, but I began to worry.

“I don’t want to mishandle this,” he said looking into my eyes, shining. “There is a difference I feel now. Between going after what I want and getting it, or even not getting it. And wanting above these things to give what someone else wants to them.”

“I don’t think I’m sure what I want,” I said, mesmerized.

“It’s still early,” he replied, not moving. “Don’t do that, please, it only makes it worse.” he said, teasing me, but his eyes were begging an appeal.

“Do what?” I frowned. I’d successfully kept my mouth from falling open when he’d said it’s still early. Not quite a poker face, but it should have sufficed.

He studied me for a moment. “Will you come look in the mirror?” he asked, gesturing his head towards the mirror hanging behind the bar. “Come closer,” he said. And I saw him look straight ahead, into his own reflection.

“Sure,” I said apprehensively and leaned towards him. Slowly I came into view beneath his reflection. My skin was bright, almost pearly. My cheeks were flushed pink like I’d worn rouge. But I hadn’t worn makeup. My hand went to my cheek.

“I don’t know why I’m blushing right now,” I said.

“You’ve looked like this since we met. I refer to the other thing,” he explained.

“What?” In our reflection he looked down at me. The way he looked at me there made my breathing hitch. My eyes widened a little. I saw us both there. We looked like a young couple out for the night. What he emitted at me in our image was not hurried. Or insecure, like I felt half the time. It was open. It presided. His eyelids flicked up, and our eyes connected in the reflection. I had to glance away.

“You haven’t seen yet,” he said. He folded his hand indicating for me to come back. I’d moved back to my crowded view. I came close again, feeling his chest not far from shoulder. I waited.

He moved close until his lips were above my ear, “Gabrielle,” he started. I glanced down because my face flushed further. And it looked like my lips wanted to smile. I looked back up and my lips parted. His head was angled down and so close to mine. He stayed focused on my profile, lids lowered, as he moved back and righted himself in his seat. My eyes stayed trained on him.

“Your perfume,” he said, “is like a garden.” His eyes flicked up into the mirror. I had to blink away the fire I saw in his. And refocus. He stayed still letting it burn me. “There,” he said. My eyes slid to my reflection.

I flinched away, abandoning the experiment. The next breath I took in got trapped in my chest and turned into some type of gas that made my head go light and my blood rush—and other things. I exhaled and turned in my stool for a drink of water.

“Let’s try it,” I ordered impulsively, sliding the glasses of beer towards us both, the thick froth as slim a bar coaster now.

“Cheers,” he said, indulging me, and clinked his glass with mine. He took a taste. I took a large gulp. I shivered as it went it down and held back a choke sound.

I set down the glass with a thud and said, sliding it away, “Yep. Still don’t like beer.”

He laughed, as my face pinched up comically, still suffering the rancid flavor. “Excuse me a moment.” I turned away and, very ladylike, extended my tongue and took a wipe of it with my cocktail napkin. Peripherally, he noticed what I was doing and turned to stare up at the menu. I folded the napkin neatly and drank water quickly.

“That was rude,” I apologized, self-conscious. As I angled my stool back towards him, he returned his gaze to me. “I don’t like beer. At all. I think I temporarily forgot that.”

“It was no inconvenience on my part,” he said evenly. “What do you drink?”

Should I admit now I rarely went to parties? Or on dates? No. I traced circles and was forthcoming. “I like a few things I’ve tried. My favorite thing ever is champagne.”

His head angled and he peered at me. “Do you?”

“I don’t have it often,” I explained, back-stepping. “I’m not rich or anything.” My finger began drawing a tiny circle.

“Do you always have such expensive taste?”

“Some things set their own price,” I explained, and I shook my head. “Just a few things. I could buy a cheap bottle, but that could ruin my taste for it altogether. I’m fine going without. It’ll be there when the big stuff comes. Weddings, birthdays, that kind of thing. When I graduate college, we’ll splurge on the good stuff. I’ll have it again.”

“Is money tight for you,” he asked. I hesitated, involuntarily taking in his outfit and he added, plain-spoken, “It is for me, too, currently.”

“We do all right,” I shrugged. “My dad has job security, but it’s blue collar work. I have a full scholarship. My sister is, well, she’s a superstar. My dad always says ‘You make your own life in this world, kids. Make it your oyster, or make it your nail.’ So, that’s what we’re doing.”

“You feel not the same level as your sister.”

“I don’t share her big vision. I’m a worker bee. Like father, like daughter. But I see what I want. I’m trying to be a CPA for its practicality, I think. I can take almost any amount, and it can stretch. You know how it is.” I finished, asking, “What about you?”

He sat back on his stool, his feet had been resting on the lower rung, bowing out his knees. He put a balled fist onto one. “My mother was a nanny and housekeeper, at a very nice house. My father raised me to manage things. I could have learned more from her if I’d adjusted my view.” For a telling moment a flash of regret shot through and passed. He reached for my water and I nodded, welcoming him to it. He sipped.

“Maybe I could invite you?” I offered, spinning the coaster slowly. “My graduation. We could have a real champagne toast together.” I mustered a reassuring smile as he set my glass down.

He glanced at me and took a big drink of water, his cheeks convexing and concaving back in as he swallowed. He set the glass down. I waited, anxious he was stalling. That was years from now.

“I think,” he began, “I think there isn’t much I can think of that would make me miss it.”

“It’s way down the road. I won’t hold you to it,” I disinvested shyly. He arched a brow towards me.

“Can we make a new deal?” he asked. I nodded. “I promise when I come to your graduation, I will bring the champagne.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said firmly refusing.

“If you promise to toast with me on a grand day of my own.” Whatever he was thinking of made him seem optimistic. I was happy to see he had hope now.

“Done,” I said, smiling foolishly. I pushed away the coaster and turned my seat towards him gingerly, my knees fitting between his without contact, and extended my hand.

“There are others ways to seal it,” he inclined.

He looked like he wanted to kiss me terribly bad, but he didn’t. I was far too inexperienced to make the first move. But one thing was certain: the room had grown too small for us.

“I’m not very hungry anymore. Would you mind if we walked?” I asked suddenly.

“The night is yours,” he said. He lifted my coat from the stool back as we rose and held it open for me. I slid my arms in, hurriedly, down turning my face to hide the crimson on my cheeks, and swept my hair from beneath the collar. My hair swished as I turned to look up at him. His jaw was a line from an artist’s pencil, one commissioned to draw something strong. They curved up ever-so-slightly to the bone of his cheeks, his skin smoothed to the eyes, slightly shadowed under an even brow and eyes like deep green stone. Not the features of a pure blooded nobles fabled to have softened or gone round over generation’s toll. He wasn’t that. He was the son of someone strong, someone who worked, and someone, frankly, beautiful.

His lips separated then closed. His eyes searching my face as well. “I don’t wish to be forward, but there is just one small thing I would like to try if you permit,” he said slowly, eyes asking. I nodded.

His hand reached up and stopped just before my lip. I could feel the warmth of his palm on a flattened hand a millimeter away from my check, his fingers stopping short of combing completely into my hair or touching me at all, except his thumb. His thumb finally rested itself on my lower lip and smoothed across in a warm gentle brush. Rough velvet on silk. A jolt sprinted through my body, like a golden white sprite carrying a lit flare. She ran everywhere.

“There,” he said. I didn’t turn away, even though I knew what look he meant now. I knew my eyes were almond slivered, my black eyelashes fanning up to my lids. My brow muscle became lazier too in the center but higher at the peak, the muscles in my lips relaxed, making my pout fuller with blood rushing into them to a darker pink. My eyes glistening, lids concealing the dark rim around the light interior so they shined like spilled treasure. I looked more like Constantine’s Theodora than myself.

“A placebo only, but what is it that quakes through thee and me? Is it more than want?” he asked, gazing into my eyes, as if he had his answer but was desperate for mine. The little white sprite took off again on another lap, resting when she’d traveled every vessel, back where she’d began deep under my breast.

“Are you leaving? We closed the kitchen for the night, but Naneet has a surprise for you.” Mr. Singh gestured towards the small stage hung with string lights. A woman a little taller than Mr. Singh was stepping on stage carrying an instrument. “She wants you to hear her play,” Mr. Singh said, addressing me. “Maybe you will consider a duo?”

“We are flattered,” Daniel said when I didn’t speak. I was busy watching the delicate woman in a low bun and chartreuse sari sit with folded legs on a pillow and tune her instrument. Also I was concocting how to get out of singing. I almost didn’t notice when Daniel laid his palm on my lower back, ushering me. His forearm was brushing against my back as we stepped closer. My spirit sprite took another torched leap around my central nervous system. Daniel pulled out a chair and I sat. He stood beside me and rested his hand on the back of my chair. I peeked back at his hand and looked up. He’d caught me. I blushed at being caught, but he gave me a warm look—and then he winked. I shifted my attention to the stage along with him, expelling a girlish sigh.

Naneet began to play. It was wonderful. I’d never heard anything quite like it. She plucked the strings versedly. It was like being transported, like the history of a people coming out of a song. We listened enraptured. She finally looked up and grinned neat teeth as the tune changed. It became a cover of a modern song, a pop ballad. The three men at the bar began to clap, and Mr. Singh came forward shaking his hips in time. The men began to clap in earnest then. Mr. Singh danced for us while his wife smiled and played.

“Do you know this song? You should sing!” he said to me, as he danced beside Daniel, who appeared entertained.

“Not the words, I’m afraid,” I apologized and ventured my eyes up to Daniel who’s lip twitched, amused.

“Then you will dance with me,” Mr. Singh informed me, clapping and dancing close. Before I could refuse, he took both my hands and pulled me the few feet to right before the stage. Without recourse, I followed his lead as best as could. His dance style was like the venue—a medley. He spun me once or twice and knew every word. She switched to another song and we kept dancing. To avoid tripping over myself, I wouldn’t look at Daniel. So I danced. Just simple moves, fun and silly ones to go along with the lively partner. Like a dance party with Vi before she’d go out for the night. Naneet ended with a big flourish, and we turned to bow and applaud. She stood and bowed and shook my hands inside hers, reaching down from her stage, which became a glowing display case for the tiny talented goddess. She spoke but I didn’t understand the language. I bowed again, but she said something I understood then. She said Daniel. I turned and looked back at him and grinned, just an automatic reflex. She stroked my hair and released my hands. I nodded.

My grin fell away and I turned and walked back to Daniel. I kept my eyes focused on the gold star stitched to his jacket pocket. When my nose nearly touched it, I worked up a smile and looked up.

He threaded his hand in my hair, rustling under my ear, his warm hand on my cheek. I leaned into it responsively. His other arm snaked around my back and settled on the lower part. I closed my eyes and tilted my face up to his as he glided my back closer to him. Our lips met. Just an innocent kiss. I let some of my weight fall into the hand that supported my back and he pulled me closer still. Just an innocent kiss, but my spirit sprite, in her hazed white electricity, she did her thing. She lit a bonfire.

Daniel broke away the kiss. I opened my eyes slowly and found him looking into mine. And he didn’t say a word. We just stared. I wondered, staring into those sparkling deep green eyes, near taken by round pupils, and so focused on me, I wondered. Then we heard a bell ringing.

There was a bell ringing behind the bar. Someone was excited for Daniel. He said something. I may have said something, too. Goodbyes and thanks. Hollow echoes of recordings I knew from years of manners I fell back on.

He took my hand and led me to the door. He asked me to wait there. I didn’t respond but stayed. He went back and I saw him pull something out of his jacket and give it to Mr. Singh. It made Mr. Singh very happy. He returned, and I know Daniel is made of matter, but really he felt like wind. He gusted up and paused to take my hand again and carried me away out into the night. We traveled hand in hand, but soon, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. And then I felt sure we were matter again. I began to feel my footfalls and the pavement under me. The weight of his arm over me. And we walked.

Eventually, we came around a corner where there were a few street vendors out late. People were filing out of a bar, bundled up and having conversations. Daniel removed his arm from my shoulder when we were standing in front of a food truck. He placed an order and handed the cook a folded bill.

“How do you take Italian?” he turned to me. An attractive group of girls stood nearby. They were watching him, under the Edison strand lights of the food truck as I stood on the sidewalk.

“Third favorite,” I said, the corner of my mouth curving up.

“You don’t mean the men, I hope,” he replied. I was appreciative for the humor.

“Haven’t tried one,” I smiled.

The cook handed Daniel the to-go box inside a bag.

Daniel stepped closer to me and ran his hand through my hair. He glanced over my head at me as he did. “A man swoons with pride treating the figure of his dreams her third favorite food from a take away box.” He’d spoken quietly, with humored curve in his lips but insecurity in his eyes.

“What if it was with her first favorite person?” I said just as quiet.

“Better.” He looked down, taking my chin in his forefinger and thumb. “Would you dine with me, Gabrielle?”

I nodded. He took my hand, and as we walked I turned to see what he had been looking at. A man stood with his friends, watching me as we left. He smiled friendly when our eyes connected. I turned back. Daniel led me not very far until we were standing in front of somewhere familiar. There was a thin alley sealed with a gate between the modern house and the old one in rough shape we’d seen before. He set down the bag and lifted the gate off the ground with his shoulder and reached through the other hand to the latch. After some effort with the latch, he set down the gate and swung it open, taking the bag with him.

“Wait on the steps,” he instructed, disappearing into the alley.

I was perched on a stair when I heard the door to the house begin to click. It cracked open slightly. I looked around, watching a few cars whirl past. When it looked clear I leaped up and the door drew open, closing it right behind me.

It was pitch black once the door shut. I called Daniel’s name but he didn’t respond. Suddenly, a light flicked on over the stairwell. The sconces were lit up a grand cherry wood stairway. Oiled but, dusty too. Daniel came from around a corner and I smiled.

He went to the stairs and unscrewed all but one bulb, leaving enough light to see.

“The windows are boarded and the door is solid,” he said. “I don’t suspect anyone could detect the light, but better safe than sorry.”

“Is this a good idea?”

“Will you come with me?” he asked in answer to my reluctance, extending his hand. I accepted it.

I followed him up a flight of stairs and another, flicking on and off switches as we went, adjusting the bulbs. At the top of the third floor there was a rooftop access. He unhooked the lock and pressed with his shoulder until it gave. He opened it wide, revealing a constellation show in the sky. He reached down for my hand and guided me up until we reached the middle of the roof. There was a high spot in the center that was dry, and he led me there by my hand and held it while I sat. He dropped the bag filled with take out between us. I crisscrossed my legs, and he lowered himself down opposite me, propped up on an elbow, stretching his long legs out languorously, crossing his top ankle over the other to rest.

I opened the bag, releasing a delicious scent and awakening an appetite that had gone dormant. I flipped open the box and pressed the lid down so it would stay, but it stubbornly curled back up. I fiddled with it, and his hand covered mine. He ripped off the lid and tossed it aside.

He plucked a ring of crispy food piled beside the calzone and swiped it through a red sauce, popping it into his mouth. I picked up the calzone with both hands.

“I’ve never seen baby onion rings served with a street calzone before,” I observed before biting into the hot dough, filled with melty gooey sweet mozzarella. “Mm.”

He was watching me and admiring the night sky, as he reached for another ring.

“It’s calamari. But I’ve never seen it served from a food truck outside a closing bar,” he quipped, popping in another piece. “Very good calamari, on top.”

I took a few more bites of the calzone and set it down, dusting the light flour from my hands, and reached for a piece. I dipped it as he did, and chewed.

“Mmm.” I nodded my head after I swallowed. “That’s very good.”

“Your first time?” he asked lazily.

“Yes. That could get addictive.” I reached for another.

His lip curved, pleased. “I am glad it was with me.”

I stopped chewing, and blushed. “Me too,” I said after swallowing the tasty piece. We ate slowly, and I noticed him gazing behind me into the view of the park. After a while he spoke.

“Tell me your secrets, Gabrielle,” Daniel said.

“My secrets?” I contemplated, slowly setting down a calamari I selected.

“Yes. I want to know the things about you that no one else knows. That you would never tell anyone else.”

“I don’t really have any,” I said honestly.

“Everyone does,” he remarked patiently.

“Well,” I said thoughtfully. “We once took the keys to my dad’s truck for a joy ride,”

“Go on.” His lip curled up, but his eyes were smiling.

“But we couldn’t drive a stick, and ended up stuck in the wrong gear on our gravel drive. We had to push it back,” I admitted, smiling at the memory.

His lips joined his eyes in a smile. “Then it doesn’t count. You’ll have to think of something else,” he insisted, lifting another ring to his lips.

I folded my hands in my lap and looked up at the sky, than back down. “Well. I’ve never told anyone else this but…orchids are my favorite flower”

“Why is that secret?’ he asked, interestedly.

“Orchids are like,” I paused, rubbing my thumb against my other thumbnail in my lap. “Exotic. And provocative. So, I always just tell people I like wildflowers. There were fields of them everywhere.” Imagine if I’d told my father I’d really wanted an arrangement of orchids for my sixteenth birthday. In our tan, green house filled with second-hand things. The arrangement bright and glamorous would have sat on a table not valued more than the spray. It would have been selfish even to admit it. I loved the wildflowers I found on the table that morning just that same. But Daniel sought honesty. I wanted to give it to him.

“Do you not think yourself those things?” he inquired.

“Sometimes,” I replied. Tonight, with you, I thought. He looked away.

“I like orchids too, I suppose,” he admitted, reaching for a calamari, covering it in marinara. They do remind me of something quite dear to me.”

He ate and his eyes connected with mine. “What’s that?”

“Well,” he hesitated, slowly chewing, and I sat as his gaze raked over me. “The center of a woman.”

My face warmed by degrees, and I hoped it didn’t show bright crimson. I looked down. He studied my reaction and my face, I could feel, and when my cheeks cooled, I looked back up. He tightened his shoulders a bit from where he reclined, stretched.

“I apologize,” he said, straightening a smile. “I shouldn’t speak that way in the company of a lady. It’s just that I’m so seldom in the private company of one.”

“Aren’t you from England?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t there lots of ladies in England? They all seem so proper.”

“An accent doesn’t make a lady. Or a gentleman,” he replied, disapproving, then refocused. “What else?”

“Well, I don’t really want to do the major I’m going to school for.”

“Why are you, then?”

“I don’t know. I sometimes feel like I’m doing what everyone expects because I showed promise at it. As though I didn’t really choose,” I admitted a trouble I persistently shut down.

“I understand. If you could do anything, what would you do?”

I took a cleansing inhale and leaned back on my palms glancing up at the Big Dipper, before re-meeting his gaze. “I actually like sculpture. And I’m good at wood work,” I confessed, then sat forward, leaning over my folded legs. “My dad has a work shed, and he’s let me learn since I was small. That’s where I would go to be alone. But…I’ve never showed anyone my stuff. I’m not sure what the point would be.”

“Will you show me?” he asked, hopeful.

“I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. Wanting to say politely tell him no. This one was hard. A snag in a perfect tapestry of exchange. If my wood-working was terrible, let it exist unseen, pestering no one, like a cracked crock pot heaped in the trash beside a broken commode. My wood-working projects couldn’t be singled out in that Appalachian scene.

“Gabrielle.” I met his eyes. “I can assure you, anything made with those hands must be very beautiful,” he said convincingly.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling less weighted.

“So why don’t you pursue it?” he asked.

I stroked my own thumbnail meditatively. “You can’t really make any money at it, and I’m not even sure how to turn it into an actual job,”

“Money isn’t everything,” he supplied.

“I agree. But I have a full ride in accounting. I’m learning how to make my life an oyster and not a nail. Wouldn’t it be wise to maximize my temporary luck into a foundation? When the music stops,” I paused. “We all need somewhere to sit, don’t we?”

“Go to your father’s shed. Build a seat.”

I smiled, enjoying his nature above the subject. “I can’t sit on my day dreams.”

“Can’t you?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine.

I looked down at my lap, generally warm. From the bonfire. I straightened my expression, and glanced up. “Did you go to school?”

“I left,” he said simply but looked away.

“It’s never too late to go back,” I encouraged, sounding like a GED ad.

“I have no interest,” he replied mildly.

“I guess you don’t need degrees with hidden talent like yours,” He looked at me curiously. “The piano.”

“Oh, yes,” he acknowledged, casual. “It’s a good hobby.”

“Do you play much? The way you play is…salient.”

“My mother and I learned together. I am not artistic about it. It is.” He let the thought go, like a balloon.

“Cathartic,” I supplied.

He continued. “She would break from work in the middle of the day and play one song. A happy one.”

My brow pinched minutely. “In the nice house?”

He tipped his chin briefly in a nod. I kept my eyes on him, softly, wanting more than anything to learn him. With some nerves, I said, “So, tell me your secrets.”

“You don’t want to know mine.” I kept my eyes on him, but he craned his neck forward, the muscles in his neck stretching, as he looked out into the city. At the lights and building and glass ahead.

“I do,” I pressed softly, knowing it was more than a career choice.

“I don’t think you’ll think so well of me if I tell you. Not that I assume you think so well of me now.”

“I think…well of you,” I said. I scooted the food tray aside and inched a bit closer to him.

“Do you?” he asked, eyes trained on me.

I nodded, folding my hands in my lap again. My thumbnail was positively buffed. It shone back up at me.

“You’ll be afraid of me and I don’t want that, although that may be a selfish wish.”

“I don’t think I will,” I tried reassuring him without saying too much, and glanced up, under my lashes.

His expression was calm. He shook his head slowly and met my eye again. “When you look at me, you make me feel like I could tell you anything,”

“That’s because you can trust me, Daniel,” I affirmed.

“I’ve never trusted anyone, Gabrielle,” he said, the words coming from the bottom of his well of existence. My stomach twisted a bit in empathy.

“I’m sorry that you haven’t had someone to trust. But whatever it is,” I said. “I promise you I’d never tell a soul.”

“I believe you. I killed someone,” he said into my eyes.

“Did you mean to?” I begged.

“No,” he said, blinking once. “It was my mother. I could have saved her, and I didn’t.”

“Do you feel guilty for it?” I checked, sorting through my own process of grief at the confession.

“Very much so,” he admitted.

“Then, I’m sure she wouldn’t be mad at you if she knew it was an accident and that you were sorry,” I reasoned, hearing my voice slightly higher.

“You’re too kind, Gabrielle. But she doesn’t forgive me and neither do I,” he said with finality but accepting my consolation, looking back out into the city ahead. Then he bowed his head.

I took a few breaths and switched thumbs. “Daniel, you can’t carry around all this guilt. You can’t live your life like that.” I stopped. He looked up at me with so much pain in his eyes—and I knew that pain ruled him. That’s why he was trying to end it last night instead of living with it. However she died, it was killing him, from the inside out. He looked unlike the man I’d spent the evening getting to know and every bit the player I’d met the night before. It was hard to remember they were one in the same in most moments. But I shouldn’t have forgotten. I searched his eyes and my shoulders sagged, emotionally exhausted from the trek inside them. He looked away, and I stared at his cheek, heartbroken.

“I forgive you,” I said. He met my eyes.

His brow lowered but his eyes lightened. “Why?” he asked.

“Because you deserve that. Everyone deserves a second chance,” I said passionately.

“You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

“I think I feel the same way about you,” I admitted.

“You shouldn’t,” he advised.

“I do.” Simply nothing to be done for it. It was true.

“That sounds nice.” He grew still. “Will you hold out your hand?” he asked, keeping his eyes on mine. I obliged uncertainly but wanting him to see I still trusted him. My hand was even. He picked up the last piece of cold calamari and bounced it in his palm, and then deciding, slid it on my finger.

I froze. “Why did you do that?”

“Because it’s what I want,” he said. I looked down at my finger. He paused, looking into my eyes. “Do you think you could ever want that from me?”

“I do,” I said, closing my hand.

“May I kiss you, Gabrielle?” he asked, his eyes swimming. It was the most magical four words I’d ever heard.

In the present, all I could do was nod. Warmth bursting from every internal cell. His hand reached under my chin and pulled me down where we met almost in the middle. His lips felt sweet and firm. We changed angles once, deepening the kiss, and then broke away slowly.

“I want to be a French Canadian school teacher,” I whispered, the words resounding off his lips an inch away.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, pulling away to see my eyes. I opened mine.

“Um, sorry, sometimes when I get overwhelmed, I blurt things out,” I said, sitting back.

“Like the chouquettes.” He looked mildly humored, to my relief.

“Yes, like that,” I said, sitting back, slouching a bit.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Gabrielle. You say things with immense authenticity. It’s admirable.”

“Admirable,” I repeated.

“I also happen to find it very charming. So what does it mean?”

“I just had this image of you with a nice woman who probably teaches kindergarten, and you move to the suburbs with two point five kids,” I broke off. “And that she was good to you and helped you. You guys even adopted a stray and wore matching denim shirts. It sounds really silly now,”

“I don’t think it’s silly that you wished for my happiness,” he said. “I did the same for you.”

“You did?” I blushed.

“Yes.”

“What did you imagine?”

“I imagined you’d marry well, an Ivy League man. Probably a Wall Street tycoon and lived in a penthouse near the park. A man who gave you everything you could want. Stability, fine things, expensive vacations, a child….”

“I feel terrible now because I pictured you in New Jersey.”

“It’s fine.”

“Well…I could be happy in New Jersey. Or anywhere…” I trailed.

“And children?”

“Well, I always thought I’d love to be a mom one day.”

“I can’t give you those,” he admitted slowly, not unproudly.

“That’s okay.” I accepted.

I’d partly imagined little birds flying down with a pennant written “this guy” and an arrow pointing downward when the one walked into my life, harboring no timeline on the when. Surely not now. There’s no right way to describe it. My senses lighting up like a Tokyo New Year, parts of me stoking a warm kindle steadily in his company; no, there were no birds. There was knowledge, however, like it was born in me. Like the air I’d depended on to exist and shared long-standing mutual trust with was the thing telling me, this one is yours. Why would you even deny it? I felt the air ruffle me as I looked into Daniel’s eyes.

He smiled at me, just lips. “I fear I’ve made you up,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, blushing.

“I keep thinking I must have died last night and this isn’t real. That I turned your memory into the most perfect thing I’ve ever known, and that I’m imagining that you want me, too.”

“I’m not perfect.”

“You don’t see yourself from my view.”

“But I am real, and I do…want you.”

“Well, if you are real, then I know you’ll run screaming when I tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“I think I’m in love with you, Gabrielle.” My breathing hitched.

“I’m not running anywhere. And…I think I feel the same way,”

He pulled me to him and rolled on his back. I rested my head on his chest, my body curled against his, and we rested under the navy sky. I sneaked my hand beneath his coat and onto his heart. He placed his hand on top. We looked up at the stars and eventually I bent my knee to slide my leg into his thigh, increasing our coziness. His hand gripped me, stopping me just as I began curling onto him. When I looked down, I saw why.

“Sorry,” I muttered, rearranging myself more chastely. He placed his finger under my chin and drew me into a kiss. The kiss grew hot, and he didn’t stop my thigh from sliding onto his. I grew intimidated and slid it back down after a little mental computation, but the kiss got hotter still. We broke away.

“I am in the eye of something,” he said looking into me. “You are something revealed to me, but I am not a gentleman. If we continue, if you don’t bring me back, I will fuck you like a madman. And I will want you to fuck me, just as madly. I am grappling with that image, you can see my cock is not. Too much?” he asked.

“It might be.” His lip tugged in the corners, and then his lips parted in a wicked smile. I giggled at having made my own self blush.

“Wicked, wicked,” he chanted, searching my features. “Are you sure a boyfriend isn’t going to come around the corner and get knocked flat?”

“I’m sure,” I said, readjusting my cheek on my hand, which lay on his chest, smiling with kiss-swollen lips. “What about you? No girlfriend? No wife?”

“She would take one look at you and understand. If there were one. I’m not a polygamist.”

I furrowed my brow playfully. “We’re not actually, you know. I mean, officially.”

He looked down at me hard, and his brow furrowed too. “Follow me,” he said and helped me up. He wrapped the blanket around me and guided me down the flights of stairs. I glanced up at the stars on our way, feeling as high as them. We emerged from the alley, covering our noses with our collars and crossed the street into the park. We walked for a while until we reached the first bench. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket. Woodsmen like my dad carried similar.

“Always handy. You should have one. For utility or safety,” he said, taking in my wary face as he unflicked it. “Behold, it serves a penultimate use.”

He loosened the bolts in the foot of the bench. I glanced around. There were people walking a few hundred yards away in each direction. I looked back down, but Daniel had risen and was tipping over the bench. He tipped the blade into the wooden slat, making an etching sound. I deputized myself lookout. He flipped the heavy iron bench back over gingerly not to damage it and tightened the screws. I approached and leaned over him, pressing my legs into his back, draping my hands around his neck, and lacing my fingers together below on his collar like a necklace. He stopped what he was doing. I felt his cheek brush my hand, then his hand lifted to his mouth where he gently kissed it. A cool moist press. He kept my hand and spun to a stand, pulling me against him. He lifted me, not kissing, only resting his forehead against mine. He took me easily as he sat, me straddling him. I rested my forehead back on his. We could be doing anything, anywhere, but he was my destination.

“There is a tale from the area my mother descended in Ireland,” he said. “On the day a man chooses his bride, and she accepts. The bridegroom is to carve their names into the side the door to the place which they will reside. The wood is their witness, their officiant, and their guardian. It is a tradition from druid times. Still today, the old families recognize it.”

“I have chosen here because this place never made sense to me. The building are cutting edge or historic and I’ve always appreciated them. The industry. Wondering why they didn’t develop over this green patch for more progress. More life. More industry, and machine. But it’s not the park that can’t survive without the city, it’s the reverse. I came here succumbed to this industrial landscape I described, thinking the best use for this park was a bulldozer. But in the end, it sustains the city. It is the heart. I met you here. When you emerged through those woods, I thought I brought the figment of a brave and terrified angel with my consciousness before it slipped away. If you are the last thing I saw before the final music ended, I was content. But when you left me, I can’t explain it. You defied my will from afar. You brought me back to you tonight. And now washed I am in certainty, in your eyes of honey and silver that flood me with a most willing unforeseen surrender, I was brought back for this.”

“Are we crazy?” I asked because I felt everything he said.

“I hope so,” he replied. “I hope so. That’s what it will take. Our names are here because I can get lost here, with you. But a day will come when I need to go. If we can stay us,” he said. “I know you are strong enough for that. But are you mad enough to trust me, on that day?”

“I would come,” I said.

“I would not take you to danger,” he iterated.

We would be running. “I trust you. What if I’d said no?” I asked absent-mindedly and didn’t like what I saw. “It’s a good thing,” I said, recovering, “that could never be true.” taking his face in my hands timidly. He was sickeningly handsome this close. I tried not to let it fluster me. I wanted to be close. I pressed my face against the side of his, my cheekbone on his. I could feel his dark bent eyelashes brush my cheek as he shut his eyes. His arms, which had been resting on the outside of my thighs, unbuttoned my coat for him to insert his arms, encircle my waist, and slide me closer until I was against him.

I felt him for the first time, beneath me, in the place he would fit. My head rushed. It was the first time I’d had any man beneath me in that spot. I didn’t need personal context to know his was an ambitious venture. He inhaled deeply and I felt movement. His hands slid to my jeans pockets and gripped as he pressed me onto him, hard. He moved a bit for the perfect arrangement though our clothes. He found it. My entire lower body became pudding. His hands ran up my back under my sweater and slipped beneath the band of my bra, then his finger ran back and forth stroking the clasp and satin fabric, and it began to feel like I was sitting on a hammer. He sensed my intimidation as unease.

“It has been a while,” he explained in apology, lowly into my ear, as if I knew what that would mean.

“Me, too,” I responded, vaguely. Nineteen years and counting—a few minutes longer, tops. I lifted up an inch or so using my thigh muscles and readjusted, thrillingly, trying to make it look casual. Necessary. He let out a throaty sound. His hands slid back to my bottom and pressed me into it him harder, but this time he rolled me once, rocking me onto him, and it was my turn to release a sound. He released me and slid his hands onto my thighs, rubbing. Cool fingers were through my jeans, but my body was on fire.

“The night is yours. And so am I. I promise you I have no design on that tonight, but as I’ve expressed, being a gentleman isn’t my strong suit,” he reiterated more strongly, my cheek again resting atop his with pressure now. His eyelashes were against my cheek, which meant they were open. Angled down to where the V in my jeans met the hammer between his, I knew.

In the bravest moment of my life until that point, I steadied my breathing and rolled my forehead onto his, my eye downcast onto lashes. Do it, I thought with a final conviction. I cupped his beautiful unbelievably archival face by the jawline and pulled his lips onto mine. Soft silk on firm velvet. It was like I’d triggered a windstorm right out of the ground. His muscles sprung. He sat up straighter, but he kept my body swept against his and with no effort had me right back in place. His hand clapped expectantly onto the back of my neck, cupping and pulling me deeper in, our lips moving against each other hungrily our tongues in contest to charm the other. His hands where everywhere. At my rounded backside, pressing so hard onto him I would be a bruise, then inside my shirt. He pulled me higher onto him, in a less perfect fit, but he’d moved on to the next course. He flipped my collar up for privacy, and rolled my sweater above round peaks covered in nude satin. I stayed still. His flat palm brushed across both coaxingly, and my nipples responded even more than they had to the cold. He slid his hands up both straps, and they draped enough in spite of my shirt to reveal a great deal more. His hand went to the breast with my nipple fully exposed. He caressed it upwards, catching my nipple between his flat fingers and rolling with the dexterity of a card dealer. He cupped my other breast, massaging, then lowered his mouth to the one he teased. His mouth hit my chest warm and moist, sucking, licking, and teasing. I grabbed onto the rail behind him to steady myself, raising myself using my thigh muscles to get closer; my eyes shut tight. He switched, and I was lava inside. His hand had been pressed into the small of my back released, and he slowly paid homage to my other breast before raising his head. I opened my eyes expecting a new kiss. But he was transfixed. His fingers rimmed the edged of the satin tucked below them as my breasts perched in each curved cup. Then his hands covered them both and smoothed across the round territory to my neck, his fingers curling around the circumference, tightening for the briefest moment.

“You have beautiful breasts,” he breathed out. Instinctually I tugged at the waist of my jacket and blushed. It was an unusual feeling to be bared to someone for their eyes to devour.

His hands moved to my waist and gripped it lightly, but I noticed his elbows extended outwards as he did, restoring the coats opening to original width. Daniel didn’t seem aware he’d done it. “Your skin,” he said, running his hands up the curve of my waist meticulously.

“It’s cold,” I said, pulling the top of the jacket closed. He blinked, and his eyes refocused on me, mostly returned to himself.

“Come here,” he said, drawing me close. The prospect downstairs came back to attention in a big way as he drew me close to warm me.

An out-of-body curiosity slipped. “Have you been with many women?” He pulled me away gently. And began straightening my clothes as they were before.

“Is that important to you?” he asked, trying to maintain a lighter tone.

“No, I’m just curious,” I said innocently.

“I’m not certain,” he said, intelligent. “Most people lose count after a point.”

“What point is that?” He studied my eyes.

“Five or so,” he guessed, blasé. Voiced neutrally, but his eyes watched like waiting for the final Tarot card at his reading. He’d chosen the number, and a non-answer, hoping it was inoffensively close to mine.

I cleared my face. “Yeah. That’s about right,” I smiled. His eyebrow arched down at me.

“Should I ask yours now?” he inquired. Testing me.

“A lady never tells,” I answered, but a flush gave away at least part of it.

His eyes sharpened in a different way. With amusement in his lips and a somewhat serious brow, he slid me along the length of him. I felt dizzy. “When we are done, I want you tell everyone you know. I’ll make you a ball cap. When we cross that line, this body is mine.”

“Sweet talker,” I teased, my heart unbusy. Falling off the edge into an irretrievable void took no effort. Words came easily. And he kissed me, warm and gentle. In possession of more gears than a rocket. Oh, his number was high. I sighed onto his lips and dropped sweeter kisses onto him. Touch came easier. No clumsy obliging fumbled make-out with the drummer; him, permitted to juvenilely fondle my breast until chafed. Not even the one time in my bedroom when I tested the chemistry with Zack. Hadn’t thought of it since. Daniel had opened Pandora’s box. Without a fretful heart, I unfolded in response to his unfiltered adoring desire for me in totality. I opened his jacket and began unbuttoning his white shirt. I was absolutely nervous, in the best way. I dropped kisses, not touching. I felt more confident not seeing his face, judging if I was making an error or being unclever. Mimicking him, I upturned his collar. Seeing him was exciting. He was strong. He’d lifted a very heavy bench with ease. He was tall but lean. Muscular, vascular. I wondered if this was his regular weight. His build could hold more. Bold shouldered. Long torso matching his limbs. Studying his chest, he took an interest in fitness. Six-packs and pecs like those don’t just happen. I bravely ran my finger along the line above his waistband, tight skin with a thin trail down. I flattened my hand and ran it across his pecs in figure eights, exploring. Then up, between his breast plates and higher. I let my fingers splay on his neck. He leaned back slightly angling, his eyelashes shut. I gave a squeeze, letting my modest nails make just the slightest impression. I leaned in and took a steadying breath before planting kisses on his neck.

“When I’m done, I want you to tell everyone you know,” I said, thankful my voice didn’t shake.

I kissed down onto his pecks, sliding my bottom down his wide spread legs. I caressed his nipple with a tongue flick, impressing myself when I felt his hand caress my hair.

“I’ll make you a ball cap….”

I moved down to his pecs. I kissed him everywhere. Getting to know his container. There was no give in his flesh. I kissed further down until I got to midway to the waistband. I tasted along the sensitive skin there above it. It was cool from the night air, and I felt tiny hairs rise.

“Because when we do this,” I said, kissing over to the strain in his jeans. My hand graduated to it. I took a big inhale like a shot of tequila—and encircled his erection through the fabric. I stroked him affectionately a few times. “You are mine.”

He grabbed my wrists and pulled them on either side of his head, sliding me up him. He hooked them behind his neck. I was breathing heavily and so was he. My lips parted.

“We need for the blessing only a kiss,” he said in discipline, his eyes heavy with desire and his jaw set.

The “when” in his declaration had come out sounding eventual—my “when” spoke immediacy. He wasn’t searching my eyes, he was scorching them. I didn’t hide the melt but tried with all my might to reassure him it wouldn’t lead to ash. He was prideful, I knew. He’d been humorous about what he felt was the simplicity of our meal, and our lack of accommodations, and I knew he wanted to be chivalrous. His pride wasn’t allowing him to consider the circumstances of the night amenable to the act. But to me, I was all in. It felt right. The night itself was twining us, and this final gap wouldn’t do. I let arms relax in his grip, motionless but not weak.

“So, what is my new last name?” I asked quietly.

“Whatever we choose,” he said, bringing my arms at my sides, releasing them. His eyes softened. He slid forward, gripping me at the waist and setting me on the ground in front to him. He took my hands as I stood between his legs, his back leaned forward like a cobra.

“Hubris is available,” he said flippantly and bent his head. I ran my fingers into his hair slowly. Thick satin fibers that, even in poor lamplight, emitted a tone of something rich. Many wood stains of my father’s work shed came close. Like mahogany. But the waves the light caught shone back a nearly imperceptible fiery glint. Like dark bourbon.

My voice shook as I spoke because he looked almost angry, “So, I guess,” I paused and rewet my lips. “I guess we’ll both have calls to make in the morning.”

He leaned his head forward into my fingers then covered my wrist in his hand.

“That we will,” he said in agreement. He looked up at me, and our eyes connected. “Not here. Come with me.”

We walked side by side while he was in thought. “Why do you look so magnanimously, luminescently, happy?” he asked, taking me in.

“I won our first argument,” I said, taking his hand.

“You still doubt your ability to bend wills,” he said, relaxing.

“It’s only because you want me to be happy,” I said cheekily.

“Yes,” he replied. “With me.”

“You’ve never tried to make someone happy before.”

“Twice. One received what they wanted for a great deal of time,” he said. “I think the other would be very satisfied had she lived to see this. She would have liked me with you.”

“My dad will like you, too. As long as you can fell a tree. That’s the short list.”

“I haven’t tried, but I’m sure I can,” he replied. “I’m not terrible at winning over fathers.”

“Or mothers. Or sisters. Or bartenders even though you send back their drinks. Or cracked crock pots, minding their business on the curb until you walk by,” I said.

I pictured us at my father’s house, walking out to the shed.

He held back a smile. “Is that a bird?”

I laughed. “I’ll make you dinner in one some time. An uncracked one.” I squeezed his hand and curled my other hand around his bicep, leaning my cheek against his coat.

“Good Lord, don’t,” he replied softly but amused.

In his arms was the secret place where I could be all of me. I didn’t know this man—Daniel. I didn’t know where to mail him a letter, if such a place existed, or how he liked his coffee, if he liked coffee at all—but I knew him on the inside. Places where safeguards existed greeted him and levitated aside, and he walked deeper into me like he’d been born with the map of me projected in him.

It was like walking into destiny.

He pulled me into an alley, and I laughed, but when he dragged me against him, it was serious. A look was exchanged, reminding me he knew all of it. My heart tripping in my chest with the prospect, his lips touched mine, and I poured it in to him. He had to peel me away, pulling my hand from where it’d bravely wandered. My eyes were lidded on the high, I gave him a half smile and another kiss before I returned my hand there and got to my knees. He moaned and I stretched my mouth to make room for him. He pressed my head closer. It was difficult to do. When I finished he was still hard. I kissed him, he pushed into me so hard we moved to the other side of the alley. His hand moved into my jeans, the other through the opening of my coat yanked up my sweater. He kissed me hungrily and worked his hand inside me. The back of my coat being dragged and snagged against the bricks from the aggression of hand and mouth on my breasts. It was heaven.

He pulled his hand out and sucked his finger then returned my hand to him. “If we start this now, I could keep you for days. Right here,” he said, sounding different. And I felt his mouth bend skillfully back to my nipple. I opened my eyes, panting.

I put my hands on either side of his face and tugged him back up to his lips. “I wouldn’t mind,” I said breaking the deep kiss. Then our eyes met with mutual hunger, but he sobered quickly, the high still lingering in his depth but thought weighing heavily on his brow.

I felt his care when he grabbed my face in hands, bringing me back, and he gave an instruction to us both. “Gabrielle. Not here,” he said, adamantly, searching my eyes.

“My dorm,” I suggested, breaking through the radiant mist in my mind.

“No. I have somewhere in mind, however, there is a different option.” He pulled out a package from his pocket. I thought it was a condom, at first. As soon as I recognized it, my hand snatched from his larger one and threw it to the side. Launched it more accurately. It landed in an empty dumpster. He looked at me.

“I bartered it effectively to use the ballroom piano last night. I could have secured a room with that.”

“I’d rather sleep in the dumpster,” I said with finality.

He looked like he actually agreed but was combating an amoral pragmatism. “It would have been a very nice room,” he trailed off, looking at me, eyebrow gently lifted.

“Is this a problem?” I asked seriously.

His shoulders straightened, his eyes assessing me. “No,” he replied simply, his tone lower. “It is only currency. Nasty shite, to boot.”

“Good.”

He relaxed. “Understand that there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to improve this. It should be right.”

“It’s right. Don’t you feel it?”

“Yes,” he said, a mix of emotions behind a stone face. He glanced down the alley both ways and replied, “No more detours. We’re almost there.”

At a bank of rogue street vendors, he went about selecting a blanket amongst the emblazoned faux Fifth Avenue brands. During the transaction I’d adorned myself with the worst of the wares; a psychedelic scarf, a mottled fur coat of questionable origin and big glasses shaped like hearts.

“Is it me?” I asked. He smiled.

Stepping against me, he looked down, pulling the glasses off to see my eyes. “You are yourself already,” he said softly and lifted the scarf to rub the lipstick I’d carefully applied in the mirror of a parked delivery truck. “Much better. Beautiful,” Then kissed me deeply.

“Hey! You better buy that.”

“I’m experiencing a temporary fund shortage,” he stated, oblivious, into the kiss.

“Run,” I whispered, untwining. He grinned into the kiss. Then we ran. When I lagged too far behind, he lifted me like a dancer still in motion and plopped me down ahead.

Hand and hand, we slipped back in the alleys. He looked up, seemingly gauging our direction, and pulled me next to him, unwinding the marred scarf, letting it float and tossing the glasses off my head and into a trash pile.

“I’ll pay him tomorrow,” he said honorably, smoothing my hair, then smiled down at me. It was a sweet thought, anyhow.

After a while, he said, “Here,” angling us for a turn, and I was surprised to discover us cutting back onto the first street we’d walked on, off the park. We cut across the street straight back to the abandoned house. He pulled me into a shadow cast by the limestone stairs, and we kissed. When the coast was clear, he scooped me up, bounding the stairs in twos and pushed the door open with his back, quickly closing it. He kissed me in the foyer then gently set me on my feet, taking my hand. He led me down a hallway in the pitch dark until we were in a room. The sounds of our footfalls echoing back like sonar, indicating its size. He let go of my hand, and I spun, completely alone in space. With a tearing sound, moonlight came through. I watched him go from window to window, bundling newspaper, more soft light coming through. There were at least a dozen windows. More windows than frames. The bundled news of the world tossed into a corner. He laid a blanket on the floor then stood. A shape of a man in moonlight stood. His legs apart, arms at his sides. I moved, finally knowing he was staring.

I crossed the room to where the exterior glass door abutted the windows, and I looked out into the frost garden. Light shone on it. Only the heartiest growth was left wild to overtake the yard. I could feel Daniel’s eyes on my back. My heart thudded. There was something about rooms. We didn’t we belong in them.

Observing me from behind, he said, “They’ll need to fix the gate to keep trouble out. I broke it. I came in that door you’re standing at. Every window in the house is boarded, except these.”

“This is antique cherry. Just like the stairs and the foyer paneling. Even the window frames. If they nail it, they’ll ruin it,” I said running my hand on the wood trim. “The power is on. It’s not as cold as the outside in here. Someone must be keeping it from warp and rot.”

“You are very knowledgeable.”

“Just a small town girl,” I said. “But I guess I’m not alone in thinking this one is a gem.”

He came close to me. “You’re nervous.”

I sucked in a deep breath and looked up from the door sill. He was standing closer. The light caught in his eyes.

“I didn’t think I wanted to do this tonight. But seeing you here,” he confessed. “This close, all that comes to mind is every look you’ve given me. The way your body moves when you walk, when you cross over a puddle. The way it moves when you stand there against glass, perfectly still.” He took a step closer. “How you feel on me.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too.” I admitted, shivering, letting my finger scroll the sill.

He came close until almost touching me. “There are many things I’d like to do with you, in time. Things I should repent just for thinking. You are too fearfully and beautifully built and at the same time, most certainly, and not at all suited for my degenerate thoughts.”

“I am here. And I am with you. Tonight.”

“Always,” he said. “Let me speak plain, so it can be said. I have been at this impasse a thousand times. I have never felt this. I have never desired anyone or anything more. I just need you to know this beforehand.”

“I understand.”

“So you will wait.”

“Daniel.”

“I feel a gun to my head if we do not. If you go out in the world an additional minute without me marking you mine. I know my ilk. You are a time bomb. Days away from being swept off your feet by some cunning cuckold or a nice lad with a golden retriever. But there is something between us.”

“It’s not just anything.”

“Yes. This thing. That is how I know this is not the way. I see rose petals and champagne and many other horribly uninventive things I could possibly do to let you know your worth within me.”

“This place doesn’t change my worth. Or yours,” I asserted. “And besides, I told you. Someone’s taking care of it. It’s not bad at all.”

“You deserve better. I can give you that, but not tonight.”

“Tonight,” I said with need. “This is nice enough.”

“I’ll give you more. I’ll give you anything.”

“All I want is this.” I said, laying my hand over his heart.

“It’s yours.”

“I know.”

“I love you, Gabrielle. I think you’ll be the end of me,” he said, his hands cradling my face. “Will you be my end?”

“I will,” I breathed, looking into his searching eyes. “I do. I love you, too,” I said then, with a shaking hand, drew back my coat over my shoulders. He met my hands with his and pushed off the coat. It fell to the floor. His hand went under my shirt, running along my waist, and up to my breast. He stepped forward pressing me against the wall, and I could feel him. He leaned his lips close to mine. Holding back with great restraint, he said, “There is only one chance to make a good first impression, Gabrielle. And since the setting isn’t in my favor.”

Our lips crashed together in unison. Our mouths fit at every angle. He raised me up and my legs wrapped around his waist, locking in the back. We moved backwards until he took us down on one of his knees then another and rested back on his heels with me on him, still keeping our rivaling mouths engaged. He removed everything on my top, discarding it, our mouths breaking as he whipped off my shirt. He kissed me longer, smoothing his hands along my spine, under my shoulder bones. He pulled me off finally, and raised me to stand by the waist, quickly sliding down my pants, tossing them while he kissed. Then my underthings. And kissed. Hands sliding. Legs rubber. He rocked back and I opened my eyes down at him.

“My God,” he whispered and gripped my thigh.

His pants were open. I had done that. He drew me back down, my thighs on his stronger ones. He brushed my hair back, uncovering my breast. More kisses. And skill. I felt adored. He rolled us over, onto the blanket. My head resting on his folded jacket that smelled of a fragrant dryer sheet. I closed my eyes and inhaled, not wanting to forget it. Mundane as it was. I felt his chest on mine. His knees separated my legs. Lips bent down to mine, his arm supporting his weight. His kiss changed. Like an IV drip of love. He lifted his hips moving himself to the center. I knew what came next.

He pressed himself firmly inside me, hard and smooth. I gasped, taking in a sharp lung full of cool air. A guttural groan rumbled from deep in his chest. My body burned white hot from the inside. Strange flames licked every inch of my skin, generated where our bodies joined below. In this piercing pain, masochism made sense because the pain and pleasure created the most delicious emulsion. I dug my nails into him, gripping, trembling in anticipation of what came next. His hard body became rigid against mine.

“Is this your innocence?” he asked in a hoarse voice, but he knew.

He carefully shifted his weight onto an elbow, the tendons in his shoulders and neck pulled tight. I felt a pang of guilt at my lie of omission, but I hadn’t wanted to scare him away from this. As his eyes searched mine, his hardened features quickly transformed into an expression of tenderness and reverence, and I drowned in it.

I knew already if I ever had been innocent, I didn’t want to be again. Whatever he was guilty of, whatever crime he’d committed, I wanted to be guilty of too. Whatever stake he burned on, I’d burn with him. No burden could pull me away or convince me this was wrong. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to hurt for him, and nothing in my entire life had ever felt truer. I stroked my hand down the hard expanse of his back, coaxing him, begging, urging him on.

“Yes. But, please, stay with me,” I managed in rasped whisper as my spine arched and my body stretched, for him, onto him. God, it hurt but he was so beautiful and the weight of his body on mine felt like the half that was missing all along had now found home. Underneath him I felt whole, and I willed him to continue with every fiber of my being.

His eyes glittered, shaming the beams of moonlight, seeming insignificant and lusterless by comparison. He ran his fingers down my cheek and brushed my lip with his thumb, so I tasted him. No air escaped between us, his exhale was my breath, our chests rising and falling heavily, in time with one another. It was only seconds, but it felt like a lifetime body stretched, for him, onto him. God, it hurt but he was so beautiful and the weight of his body on mine felt like the half that was missing all along had now found home. Underneath him I felt whole and I willed him to continue with every fiber of my being.

He leaned down and gently pressed his forehead to me, and I was certain the beat of his heart was the only thing keeping me alive.

“Could I do worse to confess I have no regret? Not even a little,” he breathed into my hair, sounding as desperate as I felt. I gently sucked the tip of his thumb. Relief washed through me, and I shook my head minutely, shyly, but I understood completely.

I took his smooth cheek in my hand and pulled his face to mine. “Please…” I said with conviction, but my words were lost. I’d lose anything, give anything, and I told him this much with my eyes. His lips formed a mischievous smile when he withdrew from inside me. At the motion I bit down on his thumb, drawing some blood, and my lids closed on their own accord.

“Don’t,” I whimpered, as his velveteen thumb slid across my lip coating it with his coppery flavor. We were blood for blood now. I clawed my fingers into his flesh, attempting to pull him back in to me, worried he’d changed his mind.

“Gabrielle, Gabrielle,” he chanted, and I needed to see him. “There is no going back for either of us now,” he confessed as he locked my gaze.

“Don’t think of the pain,” he prepped me, affectionately, neither of us knowing then the cataclysmic truth of his words. He pushed so deeply inside me, I didn’t think he’d ever find a way out and then all thoughts vanished.

Because in that moment, I…we, were perfect.

He moved, rhythmically, again and again. I’d hinted a good game, but when the time came, I had no bite except for myself. He stopped giving me everything, because I couldn’t hold back my singing moans; which on the whole, for the world, was more than enough. When I could see it was a strain for him, my teeth sank in my lip silencing myself. He observed and stopped holding back, thrusting inside, overflowing me and my body arched stroke after stroke. My eyes fluttered open to see him adoring, all beauty, power, possession, and awe. He was drawing something out of me. Right at the root. I bit down hard. When he knew he had it pressed down, ripping sound from my throat and I gripped his tight cheeks. They stayed tight with my weak hands barely hanging on as he played crushingly smooth, drawing me out into him, and I let my voice go. He was in control, but I was drawing him too. A steady tremble quaked from the bittersweet pain buried deep near my womb while rapturously disassembling—the combination so complete I believed in creation. A pause, but he stayed on, skillfully drawing out the last note.

The feeling rushed me. I quietly blew into a thousand million pieces but not away. I floated with my old pieces in between pieces of him. You couldn’t measure the speed or distance in our experience. It held me together. A perfect cluster of me with him. What clock could count us? What gravity could beg us down? There was none.

We lay together holding each other long after, warm when it should have been cold. He draped me in the jacket, and I draped him in me. It was our universe. Only the bluing light of dawn warning of a sunrise received our attention, cast through wavy glass panes with tiny bubbles inside.

“Come with me,” he said, kissing my head, and rolling to the side. I propped up on an elbow as he stood to get dressed. I smiled and dressed as well. He draped the blanket around his neck to keep his hands free as we climbed two levels in the creaking house. He asked me to stand back as he dislodged the rusted access to the rooftop, pushing up with both hands as he had before, his arms up in a Y. It lifted and climbed the narrow access, and the prop held when he extended the opening to its full potential. Half his body was lost to the outside, but he reached down for me and held my hand, leading me back out onto the rooftop. We sat down in the middle, the high point, side by side, and watched the sun rise through the skyline, breaking through in between building after building. We watched it ascend them all, and we were dashed in its light.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” I said, quietly drifting, though after I replied, I felt a yawn.

“You’re tired,” he half-smiled. “I have some things I need to take care of today. So I can stay.”

Forever, he meant. “Can they wait? We could find breakfast?” I was being selfish. I didn’t want to part for a minute.

“They cannot,” he assured me. “Can we meet tonight?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Let’s meet again at the park. Our bench. May I take you out tonight? To dinner?”

I smiled. “Yes.”

His hand combed into my hair and we kissed. He helped me up and stooped to scoop up the blanket. He began removing his jacket—the Army green one.

“Your coat is wet,” he said. “Take this.”

I shrugged out of mine and assessed the back, all the way down to the hem a huge splash of damp soaking through the thick wool.

“Thank you. It must have happened somewhere inside.”

“Take this, only, please, return it tonight. I would give it to you, but it belongs to a friend. It’s the only thing he prizes.”

“Is it special?”

“An heirloom. His grandfather passed away trying to save his father from a strong current when he fell from their boat. His father was never recovered. He was with them, just a child then, and the rescue boat found only him, soaking wet, wearing just this,” he said, snuggling it around me. “If I don’t return his grandfather’s coat, he will most certainly scalp me with a hook.”

“I will be careful with it,” I promised. I wound the blanket and tucked it under my arm.

“You don’t want that thing, surely,” he jested.

“Yes, I do. It’s my new favorite blanket. Oh, I left something.” My hand dug in and found the cold circle of calamari. I pulled it out closed fisted, and went to put it in my current pocket. He caught my hand and unfolded it, then slid it back onto my finger again as he’d done a few hours before.

“I will replace it,” he swore.

“I know. I just like to save things.”

He smiled, wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me close, and rested his chin in my hair.

“Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” I replied. He kissed my head, and I savored it but yawned involuntarily.

“You should go. Get some sleep,”

“You’re not coming down with me?”

“I need to think for a spell.”

“What about?” I asked concernedly.

“A plan,” he said and stroked my bottom lip. He broke his intensity with a smile teasing the corner of his lip, adding, “New Jersey isn’t cheap, after all.”

I laughed, and he smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have a part-time job. And some money, too, tucked away in a savings account. It was from my mother.”

“You should be investing. You’ll compound more quickly,” he said formally, as he brushed back my hair. “Or, so I’ve been taught.”

“In the nice house,” came from my sleep-deprived mind.

He looked tranquilly at me but didn’t verbalize. I didn’t care to know more. I tried to put as much of my heart as I could conjure into my words without sounding desperate. “Daniel. I can make a place to sit for us. For two.”

“You may put it in the house I buy you,” he allowed, making his position on it clear. “Go and rest. Do you promise to dream only of me?”

I nodded, resting my drowsy head atop his heart.

“This is everything to me,” he said, and I kissed him one more time before another unstoppable yawn, then came off of my tip-toes and walked towards the opening.

“You’re safe going down,” he said confidently watching me from where he stood. “They’re sound, the stairs. They won’t fail. I only wanted to hold your hand.”

“I see,” I said lazily, lowering myself, watching him stare into the distance, the horizon moving against him, washed now in an orange yellow light. I love you, I thought and regretted every day I remembered that final image of him that I didn’t say it.

Maybe he would have been there at the park, the next night, if I had.

There was a woman beside me chasing gray pigeons. She fed them and lured them, then stomped her filthy shoes at them. Fabric concealed her head, bearing only the belief system of unwashed hair. She was coming over to me and stomped my foot when I didn’t move from the bench where I waited….

My phone was ringing in my pocket. I was in my dorm. I kept reshuffling everything on my desk. I swiped it clean all the way to the edge then restacked, reshuffled. I couldn’t get it right. It needed to be like it used to be back when I went to class. My roommate walked in and I jumped. She crinkled her nose and went straight to her bed and put on her headphones….

It was dark. I paced and paced, frantically in the pocket of the woods that I’d last seen with snow. I was so hungry. So thirsty. I paced some more, shoving my hands in and out of my pockets. I ran my hand through my hair, but my hand wouldn’t go all the way through. My phone rang and I answered it. Too rushed, but she wasn’t paying attention. Schools fine, I’m fine, just studying, can’t come out to play. She was satisfied….

I was in the TA’s office. She was saying something. My leg crossed over the other. It shook. Thirty days, she said. Thirty days to turn it around. She crinkled her nose at me just like my roommate. I said thank you then ran down the hall, the cuffs of an Army green jacket past my knuckles as I hugged myself, and threw up in her bathroom sink….

“Can I help you?” he asked and sat down beside me on the bench. It was very, very late, but I had to tell someone. He was there, and I told him. I was waiting for someone who was supposed to come back. I described him and asked him to help me look, if he had time. I couldn’t be everywhere, if I’d heard him wrong. If he too was waiting somewhere else. I showed him my ring. He grinned and leaned towards me, groping me. I clawed at him and kicked him onto the ground and I ran…it should have stopped me, instead I began carrying a knife….

I was in the alley alongside the house we’d made love. It made me nauseous and I threw up again, because of the smell so terribly strong. There was a woman in the back, in our room…the pigeon lady. She grinned at me and unwrapped a tin foil of chips in offering. I was so hungry, I took one….

I skulked down an alley in daylight…every entry for blocks was the same, no Now Open sign…I encountered cat bowls beside trash piles…only one permeated with rancid brown beer…the ajar door from the alley led me through a gutted back room…into a painter with a roller brush in a squat hull room…’Lounge Opening Soon’ in the window…”Get the fuck outta here,” he shouted, violently thrusting the roller at me from his ladder….Back in the alley, I ripped open the trash and found colored light strands…

My eyes winked open to assaulting sun, and I heard my roommates’ voice reverberating through the closed door to our room….”She sleeps all day and goes out every night. She comes back in the morning….It can’t go on….She’s a zombie….It isn’t fair that….” I hugged my jacket around me, cradled my journal, and closed my eyes….

My dad was calling me….I picked up and immediately began to cry… “What’s wrong? Why haven’t you called me? You’re getting to be like Violet, she never calls. That city must be treating you girls well”….”Yes,” I said, “just homesick sometimes….I’m great,” I said… “School is keeping me busy”….

The pigeon lady brought more food for me….She said I was sick….She said I needed to eat. The park isn’t safe for us girls, she warned me. I told her about him….She said she was sick like me too once, the man who’d broken her heart made her sick, she asked me if my loves name was Karl…that was who’d done it to her….I said no…it’s Daniel….

A call from Violet came….I’d ignored too many from her and our dad, so I picked up….I answered too rushed now…big tests, full class load, I lied…some don’t have it made, like she did I shouted….She grew upset and hung up on me….I knew she wouldn’t call again until I apologized….The important thing was that she wouldn’t call anymore….

A figure came around the corner in blue moon night. Pigeon lady began to wheeze and rock, I couldn’t quiet her, and she wouldn’t hide….I dragged her by the shirt with both hands into a corner….We hid and watched… trapped, trapped in here, she wheezed, he looked in, he seen us, we’ll be sick again, she panted, rocking faster, as he began to break in….I covered her mouth with my hand and shushed her, softly….

It was daylight….My phone rang until it died…and there was nowhere to charge it….I threw it in the park trash can. Then my stomach lurched and I covered it in sick. Pigeon lady—Zelda—was at the bench….I’d slept in the brush behind it, on my blanket….She was wearing my jacket….She’d taken it from me, but I didn’t want to hurt her….

I was running down the alley in the dark, pulling the jacket on, stuffing my journal in my waistband, I could hear Zelda shrieking from behind me….I took it from her bag while she slept, but she heard me….She liked to collect things but not this. She couldn’t anymore….I would find my own food….Two men grabbed me as my foot landed on the sidewalk….I’d almost made it to the street….

“Where did you get that?” he asked harshly…strong accent, so familiar to me…so happy to me…there were four other men in suits in the back of the limo with us….”Roll the bloody windows down, get some air in here,” he shouted… that same crinkle I saw in every face….”Answer me, girl, where precisely have you gotten that terrible garment….”He wasn’t like him…so mean…but he knew whose it was, I could see. And his nose was the same….”What do you know about it?” I asked timidly, I had too much to protect….”It belongs to that redneck friend of his,” he hissed under his breath, but I heard. My eyes widened. “Tell us, whom did you steal it from?” I was right, he knew him…my first glimmer….”Do you know him? He’s alive! Please, please, tell him I’m here! It’s urgent….I don’t know how much longer I can wait….Daniel told me to wait and I haven’t stopped waiting. Tell him he needs to come back….””Are you bloody joking!” he threw back his head and laughed….”How disgusting of him. Not on my life. Listen, little scruffy bitch. Who you wait for does not exist. Not for you. Look at me.” He grabbed my face. “Nothing waits for you. Nothing wants you. Did you hesitate to think how many mistakes my—all men—have made, never to look back? Ones much finer than you. I promise. He has moved on. You are not special. You are nothing.” He wasn’t being mean anymore, just honest….I began to sob and he looked so amused…it made me sob harder….”Put her out. No,” he paused. “Let her out in Brooklyn….”Shut up, shut up, he kept saying to me….

They opened the door, one foot was on the sidewalk when he snapped….”Stop. Whose is that?” He looked unused to shock…one of the men grabbed my arm and was hurting me….I’m just a little sick, I said… not much…just a little….I threw up again as if on cue onto his shoes, and he lost his grip and I ran…. I heard them chase but they gave up…and I didn’t….

I was back at the park…walking in the grass, summer pounded away above making my head feel like tinder….Zelda was there but she was angry with me…my feet hurt, they throbbed…even though she was mad she gave me a gyro she was given by a street cart….I devoured it and didn’t notice when the two police officers grabbed me…Zelda smiled broken clay and waved….They asked my name, I told them and took off my jacket…I was burning, sweat rolled into my eye, and they spoke into their radio….”We found her…a missing…the Gabrielle Valentine…she’s not coming to the precinct…she needs a hospital, she’s pregnant.”

“I was waiting for someone,” I said, swallowing spit to wet my crackling throat, pointing to the woman stomping pigeons. Then I looked down at myself in similar dust-toned hues. “He’s not coming anymore.”

Gravity came back then.

I woke up in a hospital room. Not awake, but my eyes could crack. Daniel was there, leaning over me. He had the sun at his back. I glanced around to survey our surroundings. Was it the alley, or could we be at the house? It looked like a room. A small television wired in the corner making no sound. Only a poor overhead light shone down us. My eyes adjusted, and I saw Daniel more clearly. He was streaked with concern but looked healthier, like he’d spent the summer going jogging and doing push-ups, and drinking a lot of water. Wiser, too, as though he’d read a lot of good books—while I was waiting for him.

I screamed.

Then someone else was there, sweet August. Daniel strode away and I kept screaming because he was leaving again, but then I saw him lift up my son, carry him out of the hospital room, burying his butterscotch head into his father’s shoulder. Daniel covered his other ear with a strong hand. My scream collapsed into a cry, and I cried myself to a sleep.

Later, I heard voices rousing me.

One set woke me. Like a bass guitar playing a Dwight Yoakum song. And a lighter one, a triangle playing electro music. My eyes slitted open, and Violet looked down at me. I was angry with her, so angry, and I didn’t know why, so I screamed again. Hunt tried to pull her away, but she was fighting him. Jill appeared on the other side, her arms wrapped around herself, swollen-eyed, she took my hand and I tried to squeeze hers, because I owed her so much and a new cry hit me in a wave as I thought of Tristan.

Time passed. Daniel was there. I didn’t always hear his voice but I knew. Just like when I found him in the resort bar in the Hamptons. My hands twitched for him, openly. At night, his voice was beside me reading to me. In the day I heard his footsteps on the linoleum floor. There were plenty of doctors and nurses in and out too. A few pokes and scans were a small discomfort in contrast.

I became conscious one night hearing a low voice beside me, a serious piano. I felt the indentation to my side. My eyes cracked and couldn’t adjust for a while, for it was dark. Daniel’s elbows were digging into my hospital bed and his head was bent over them. He was reciting a long poem I thought. But to someone not in the room. He finished and unbowed his head, and I saw old water glisten in the duct of his eye. Water from a place he’d hidden and didn’t ever want seen. I’d seen that place. He’d showed it to me once, he took me there along his side, and we looked into it together and in the reflection was me. My eyes began to well, and no sob followed. He looked at me with his eyebrows knit together, and it registered that my eyes were open and that was surprising him. He was there, and I was here I realized. He didn’t know I recognized that place now. I loved him. I’d meant it when I said it to him at dinner. But that had no comparison. I kept searching myself for it like checking for lost keys, but this came from the inside. From underneath the ground. It burrowed its way from the inside out like a great force tearing all the earth up beneath me until it broke free.

He rose off his knees and his hands hovered around me, conflicted to touch. My hand twitched, and he watched a tear blink out, disappearing into my hairline. He collapsed on the bedside heavily and leaned down to wrap me in his embrace, surrounded by a cacophony of beeps from medical machines.

It was daylight. My eyes were open, and I was still receiving my surroundings. But for some reason, I couldn’t wake up. Fear finally hit me. My eyes were shifting, slowly, which was as fast as I could move them. Daniel was asleep on the chair in the corner with Tristan curled against him. I watched Tristan’s hand twitch, and then he stirred, rubbing his eyes. He looked at me and slid down to his feet. I blinked. He walked over to me and climbed on my bed, then he snuggled against me. This was a different love, but as overwhelming, just as engulfing. I didn’t cry because he didn’t need to see that. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him with all I had in my noodled strength.

Daniel approached the bed. His green eyes shone.

“Is it you?” He swallowed after getting out the words, but his jaw stayed tense. “You remember?”

I opened my mouth to speak with a throat too parched to follow through.

He closed his eyes, sucking a breath. “I’m sorry.”

My eyes watered. “Me, too.” I ran my hand on Tristan’s head.

He turned his back to me, so I told him, “Turn around, Daniel.”

I spoke as he faced me. “You were with me, Daniel.” My tears swelled, flooding my eyes. “Every day. I never knew what it was in me that had changed me. How I could go from barely navigating the subway to raising our son. Our son! And my business. My bravery….”

“You’ve always been brave.”

“No,” I disagreed. “It was you. You saw me. You loved me and made me know I could do anything. I forgot everything else but not that. My soul remembered every validation from you. You believed in me. You were the first one who ever did.”

He bowed his head. “And you loved me.” He lifted his eyes. “I told you. You are the first who ever has.”

I nodded. “And the last.”

He tilted his head, understanding my meaning.

“I’m not insulting you. I’m promising.”

He breathed, chest rising and falling, as I stroked our son, nuzzled in my lap. Daniel came to the bed then. His weight pressed it down, and Tristan shifted to the other side, with my help. Daniel’s hand reached for my thigh, his long fingers griping into the sheets, and my flesh, firmly but gently. I took in his face in the weak light from the hospital fixture. In that light, he was breathtaking. The green of eyes were a mirage of my hearts one salvation. Its home, first and final. He leaned in.

“Do you promise me this, Gabrielle?” Daniel asked, but his eyes begged.

“I already have.” I reached my hand up to stroke his cheek and a shudder ran through him.

“I was disloyal to you,” he confessed, shutting his eyes. My fingers brushed across the silken hair just above his ear. Upset as his statement made me, I couldn’t stop touching. Sucking in a breath when I caressed his earlobe, he continued, “I recalled every second, each day, and I waited, Gabrielle. As long as Earthly possible, I held on to you. But I was unfaithful.”

I felt a lump form in my throat as my tears returned. “A man has appetites.” My voice cracked as I swallowed back a choked sob.

He jerked forward, tears welling in his own eyes, and cupped my cheek in his warm hand. “I have no appetite. I have only starved. Nothing has filled me like this,” he said. We both looked down at Tristan, who was snuggled into me, eyes shut, but the bottom lids were wet.

I turned back to Daniel. His hands still cradling my cheek. “Then let’s be full, Daniel.”

He lifted his one hand to stroke my lip, and kissed me. “I don’t deserve you, yet,” he said after he broke off the kiss. “But I will.”

August appeared in the doorway. He cleared his throat and drew our attention. Daniel hands fell. A joyful expression crossed his features. We both smiled.

“Tristan, since you’re up let’s go get some breakfast,” he said. Daniel and I both nodded. It made my head hurt. As Tristan scampered to August I reached up and felt my scalp.

“Did they shave my head?” I croaked.

“We had no choice. It’s just a patch,” Daniel soothed. “They had to surgically remove the aneurism.”

“Aneurism!”

“Stay calm, Gabrielle.” He settled his hands. “You’ll heal faster. You shouldn’t touch it. Medication numbs it but don’t be deceived into thinking you shouldn’t use extreme caution.”

I took my hand away from the awful feeling situation on the right side of my scalp. My hair was braided down around it.

“Your sister braided it down around the area they needed to shave in order to operate. It was the only way to avoid shaving your entire scalp.”

“I’ll thank her. My goodness. I must look like a Star Trek character.”

“You look perfect,” Daniel said firmly. His hands clasped mine. My God! It was him! My Daniel.

Daniel took me in through green eyes fringed with dark lashes, allowing me to stare. Desiring me to. The last time I remembered him I didn’t believe I’d ever see this face in daylight….or at all…

“I remember lying in the hospital pregnant with Tristan.” I sucked in a horrible breath. “I wished you away. I thought you’d left, or died. And if you’d just left, I wished you’d die. Though I couldn’t live with either option. I was never crazy, Daniel. I knew what I was doing every second out on the street. I knew I was throwing away everything I’d worked for, my family, every ambition.” His brow furrowed as he listened. “You were everything. And I’d do it all again if it was the only way back to you.” My eyes widened at my own admission.

He ran his hand through his hair and keeping his eyes down.

“I have embarrassed myself beyond belief, Gabrielle. I never wanted to be this man. You make me reconsider everything when you show me your love. It feels like light. And it when it hasn’t been there I became vastly aware of the contrast.” He raised his gaze to mine. “With every look and word you strip me down into the unmitigated jackass I fight being. You’re the reason I fight to become better. I don’t always win.”

“You got engaged.” My mouth ran dry.

His features hardened. “I never proposed. Sophie gave Kate that ring. Perhaps as consolation for wanting a life with a man who couldn’t and wouldn’t ever love her. Sophie could relate.” “Her first outing with it she implied it was an engagement. I didn’t contradict it because I benefitted from it. Hawk gave me more control of the company after that. I thought you were punishing me when you pretended not to know me. Because I was with her.”

“But you said you waited, too.” I paused. “So you meant you weren’t engaged. You only slept with Kate.”

He sighed and looked deeply into my eyes. “It wasn’t Kate. I never had sex with Kate, Gabrielle. Not since my vow to you.”

I exhaled. The article was true. “But you just said you were unfaithful?” I was so confused. He grew still.

“I will tell you everything,” he struggled, shutting down. “Now isn’t the time. We must be careful. Trauma caused you to forget me. Traumatic stress caused you to remember. You’ve shouldered more than your share. Now is the time for rest.” Without looking away he began the tucking the covers in around me.

I began to nod but it turned into a painful wince. He face crossed with concern.

“They’ll release you now that you’re awake,” he began softly. “Maybe tomorrow. I want you to come home with me. I want to care for of you.” He paused. “In our home.”

I smiled as my eyes welled with tears again. “It’s got good bones. It’s worth saving.” He’d bought the townhouse on the park. The one I’d picked out the night we fell in love.

His eyes grew damp as he reached up to caress my neck. “Could you ever see that potential in me again, angel?”

I sniffled and rubbed my cheek into his advancing hand. “I do.”

Chapter 35 - A Room without Ceilings

“Breakfast on the rooftop?” I said in surprise, looking at a fine French blue and ivory cloth laid out with a basket set atop. Daniel had woken me and led me onto his rooftop.

“The blanket could have other uses, but yes,” he said, leading me over, indicating where I should sit. I put my hands on hips.

“Does that mean you’re finally ready for a roll in the hay?”

“Absolutely not.” He laid a gentle kiss on my lips and took my hand. I was breathless. “Physical exertion could harm you.”

I grinned and arched a brow up at him. “I think your piano playing is more dangerous.” It was tease. He was plenty dangerous in bed. It was almost two weeks since my release and he still tread on eggshells around me. Daniel grimaced. “You’re like Liszt. Your piano playing is what made me follow you that night. Then it triggered an aneurism.” Finally, he smiled.

“When we go to your next follow-up I’ll reassure the surgeon know your humor is intact.” He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles, still cradling my hand gently. He stepped back and nodded his chin. I smiled and sat, folding my legs together like Tristan does in class and sat up straight. He sat across from me, stretching one leg out and bending the other at the knee.

“The sun is already up.” I smiled, facing the soft yellow tone beaming out radiantly. “We missed the sunrise.”

“Another time,” he said gently. “Pass me the basket, Ms. Valentine.”

I inclined my head in curtsy and passed the lidded woven basket to him.

“I have six things for you in here. I’d like you to open them, slowly, so I may watch.”

“If this is six pairs of sexy underwear, you’re in trouble, Mr. Baird,” I said, and he gave me a shrewd quelling look before pulling out the first. He handed me a small wooden box. I glanced up and he raised an eyebrow, encouragingly.

I flipped open the box and inside was a large pearl. Unmounted or fastened to anything, but substantial inside a provincial solid box.

“Where did you find a box made of coconut wood?” I asked, angling it.

“This is what Christmas is like with Tristan, isn’t it?” he commented, humored.

I laughed and refocused on the pearl. “It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen one this size in my whole life.”

“That is from Hunter. It’s his contrition. He doesn’t take being wrong very well, you can see.”

“He must have been very skeptical of me at the start,” I said, rolling the pearl in daylight. “You could really be brothers.”

“He found it in the Indian Ocean where he’s been drilling. A diver found several so big no one had ever seen the like. Now one is yours.”

I closed the box and watched myself set it down on the blanket. “What is he drilling for? Oil? Didn’t they establish there was no oil there?” I said and caught Daniel peering at me amused and surprised.

“He is in on his mission, the same one he’s been on since we met. Hunter has dedicated years of his life drilling a money pit. He’s attempted different locations but has narrowed his best chance to one. One team of scientists and one crew. He is drilling into the center of the Earth. He is obsessed with it, just as his father was, against advice. He’s very close.”

“Astonishing.”

“We’ve been equally eccentric and accepting of those things over the years. But until he gets results he can monetize, I have a responsibility to roast him fully. Second gift, Ms. Valentine.”

I shook the box this time. It was very light. The lid suctioned off the air-tight white box with a small pop. Buried inside tissue was a key.

“That key opens this house. Our home,” he explained slowly. “I came back here once, after I made my deal. To the city. I looked and I left. From London, as I said, I used savings I’d hidden away at the time and had Ahmed buy this house in his name. I couldn’t draw notice to my intentions. I couldn’t fully let go of my hope. I wanted you to know that. Hawk suspected nothing when I moved the company. Until he found out about you here that night. And about Tristan.”

“For all their efforts, here we are,” I said, and he reached over and stroked my leg. “I still can’t believe you bought it and fixed it. Thank you for the key,” I said, clutching it to my chest.

“You haven’t expressed your thoughts on the renovations,” he began interestedly. “I am curious. Since you were so opinionated on architecture, and I made due without a woman’s touch.”

“I should have told you sooner. It looks better than I could have imagined. You did great,” I grinned. His expression didn’t alter, but his eyes were happy.

“Third box,” he nodded his chin. In third box was a gorgeous bracelet set with sapphires. The fourth held keys to a car, a truck rather, identical to his but a different color. I grew flustered at each. I was opening the fifth box and asked, “Why six?”

“For our anniversary’s,” he said, simply, avoiding my eyes. “Don’t stall.”

I pulled open the lid to the square box. It was a beautiful slender platinum-toned vintage ring. A pattern almost like lace ran all the way around it with a sprinkle of tiny diamonds.

“This is gorgeous,” I said raising it from the box. He reached out for my hand and drew me closer. He took the ring and slid it on my finger. I smiled.

“I have waited a long time to do that,” he said, his finger still lingering on mine. I could see every day of wait etched indelibly in his expression. I closed my hand over his fingers and moved onto him, him rolling back. We kissed for a while. I laid my head on his shoulder.

Our blanket presently covered wide rips in the tar strips. Those strips had concealed the spray painted words ‘Our Name Is Baird’. We sat on those words now. Tristan and I came straight home, here, after I was released from the hospital. I awoke in the middle of the night and came up to the roof. Tristan slept soundly while Daniel found me up here in only a sheet, shaking. I screamed, at him, for a long time. For a long time. He fell to the ground and began to rip and rip. He tore up black sheets of tar, until he was done and his hands were raw. He sat back on his heels and looked up at me in the moonlight, as raw and ripped as the tar, at the altar of the message he’d left for me years ago. Our name was Baird. He’d written it after he was able to buy the house, in case I returned looking for him. But I hadn’t made it back to this place. We could only find it together.

He didn’t say a word, but I stopped screaming. I knew then Daniel was Paolo McCartney. The real one, not the false image Hawk had doctored in the files. And the woman he’d been ‘unfaithful’ with had been the female doctor disciplined for patient abuse Jill had read about in that file. The one that gave her nightmares. Daniel did what he had to do to survive but never broke his vow. He suffered unspeakable torture and the hands of Hawk to make his way back to us. I got on my knees, running my hands through the hair I’d touched dozens of times, the hair that hid his patient number. I threw my arms around Daniel’s neck, wrapping us both in my sheet. We sat side by side, him silent, which somehow made me hurt for him more than if he’d shed tears, and me crying, openly, until sunrise. Afterwards, we went back downstairs and woke our sleeping child for breakfast as a family. I got it all out that night. We’d both waited as long as we could. I sighed on his shoulder now and kissed his neck.

“One more,” he said, stirring, bringing the last box to us. I propped myself up on his chest, and fumbled to balance myself and open the lid. Inside a velvet bed was a large round diamond, sparkling like mad in the daylight. Like opening a light show. I looked up.

“Will you marry me, Gabrielle Valentine?” he asked.

“I will.”

~o~

“You look like a picture.” Hunt was looking at me strangely.

“Thanks. I feel like one.” I grinned, opting for sincerity.

His brows knit together. “I’ve got a riddle for you.”

“Now?” I questioned, looking over to him. Violet was waiting inside for us with Tristan. So were August and Solomon.

“Three men go out fishin’. One young, one old, and one elder,” Hunt began. “All three men end up out the boat in a deadly condition. The elder man is a chief who rules a great village. The old man is a captain with a wife and children. The young man is nothing. Really, a boy. Who gets spared? Just one.”

“Let me think about it. The captain goes down with the ship, right? So not him.” I contemplated, stalling. “What was the order they went in?”

“Don’t overthink it. Gut answer.”

I tapped my chin and dropped my hand. “The chief.”

“Mm.”

“But if a chief is out fishing with two younger men, skipping chief business, that means he maybe meant for them to be chief,” I added thoughtfully. “So whoever survives, really, that’s the chief.”

Hunt looked at me, curiously. “Are you looking for a loophole?”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “Seriously, Hunt. Why do you ask me this stuff?”

“Told ya already. You’re the only one that’s proven me wrong.” It was then I recognized a young man, tawny-haired with a bronze tan, hard alert eyes immune to everything. He’d changed since, too. That’s what he’d been wrong about. My lips parted and closed.

“Mm,” he said and looked up the stairs, raising his brows in the center. “You get the pearl? I got one for my momma. And my sisters. I got one for Violet, too. It’s bigger don’t be jealous.”

“Was the pearl set in a ring, by chance?” I said, grinning.

He grinned back. “She ain’t waitin’ for a ring. And I ain’t the type to be givin’ one.” He glanced up.

“Well…” I trailed off, before I protested too much on Violet’s behalf.

“Mm,” he began but seemed at an atypical loss for words as well. “You ready?”

“Yes.” I linked arms with his and he walked me up the steps of the courthouse.

When we got to the top of the stairs, Daniel was waiting for me. He looked beautiful. He had on a fresh white V-neck over jeans. I wore his white dress shirt with rolled sleeves over my jean cut-offs. Daniel contacted a judge friend for a Judicial Waiver so we could marry right then, and he called Hunt and August on the way here from the roof. He linked my arm in his, and together we walked into the building, down the hall to the desk of licenses side by side. It wasn’t a stretch. I didn’t once struggle to widen my gait to match his. I didn’t think about it. We were walking together in the same time. I was keeping up.

At the desk, Daniel turned to me, handing me the pen. I was grinning, beaming even. The good-natured clerk had been conversing with us over the red tape. Tristan twisted in my hand beside me, spinning. But Daniel turned to me and my breath ceased.

His eyes weren’t glistening nor were his lips wet. He looked of stone.

“My life comes down to you,” he said.

It startled the clerk. And August and Solomon. And Violet. Tristan hugged my waist. I put my hands to Daniel’s face and pulled him down for a kiss. When I signed, I smiled again. I dotted the pen to the form and dropped it, looking back up.

As much as the first, no such thing as more.

“I do.”

The End.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my life partner, my husband, for being my land, sea, and air. To my children, who are intelligent and beautiful and take my breath away. Thanks to my family for standing at my side and encouraging me to shine. To my sisters, who are always are there to laugh and listen, and whom I will always be there for in the indescribable way sisters are. To everyone who read any of these pages and told me to keep going. It didn’t cost anything to say but the words became the constant priceless echo that pushed me to the finish line. My thanks to team ninja power for your love of books, culture, and humor. Special thanks to Sarah, Sue, and Dawn, who provided exceptional feedback towards this project. Friendships like yours make the world seem small and at hand, with anything possible! Thanks to my copy editor, Rosemi Mederos, who cleared up snags brilliantly and would be dangerous in any category of Jeopardy! Thanks to Editor Stacie McGlaughlin for providing invaluable edits and advice. And thanks to author Nina Bocci for extending the ladder to a fellow woman author. To friends who shared with me a thought of encouragement. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to type return words of gratitude to you and make our circles complete.

Most of all, I’d like to thank my mother. You wrote for us poetry, sang us old songs, drew pictures, and instilled in us Faith. You pointed at the sky to your girls, and said simply, “It’s yours. Now, go.” We never adopted heroes growing up. That was because you were too great to top. We love you.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Inception

Chapter 1 - Pride before the Fall

Chapter 2 - Secrets Are like Assholes

Chapter 3 - Satellites & Reconciliations

Chapter 4 - A Surreptitious Spark

Chapter 5 - A Glimmer Named Hope

Chapter 6 - Everything Is Illuminated

Chapter 7 - The Inconceivable Conceiver

Chapter 8 - Black Holes & Revelations

Chapter 9 - Trance and Transcendentalism

Chapter 10 - A Flower in the Desert

Chapter 11 - Crossed Pollinations

Chapter 12 - Black Bloom Blossoms

Chapter 13 - Dawn of the Orchid

Chapter 14 - Garden of Good vs. Evil

Chapter 15 - A Streetcar Named Desire

Chapter 16 - The Celestial Harvest

Chapter 17 - Reap What’s Sown

Chapter 18 - Uncharted Terrain

Chapter 19 - The Unforgivable Deceiver

Chapter 20 - The Fall upon Us

Chapter 21 - Arks and Vices

Chapter 22 - The Spotless Blind

Chapter 23 - Apples for Alligators

Chapter 24 - Swimming in the Rocks

Part Two

Chapter 25 - The Bairds and the Bees

Chapter 26 - The Confederate/Hunter McBride

Chapter 27 - Nothing that Fragile

Chapter 28 - A Friendly Match/Hunter Interlude

Chapter 29 - Tail, Tale, Tell

Chapter 30 - The Unforgivable Deceiver II

Chapter 31 - The Peril of the Aral

Chapter 32— A First Spring

Chapter 33 - Levies and Tolls

Chapter 34 - Remember, Remember, the First after December

Chapter 35 - A Room without Ceilings

Acknowledgments