On the road trip of life, be the driver, not the passenger.
—Frankie
He’d been well and truly manipulated. He didn’t know whether to punch something, laugh or admire her.
She was so much tougher than she looked.
And now he was going to the ball, which was the last thing he wanted to do with his time. He’d been desperate enough to agree to anything.
His writing, which had flowed smoothly while Eva had been staying in his apartment, had stopped the moment she’d left. It was like slamming the brakes on a car.
As someone who had never required anything other than a pen and a blank sheet of paper in order to write, it exasperated him, but after struggling and wasting an entire day that he could ill afford to waste, he’d bowed to necessity.
He paced the length of his apartment, keeping his eyes averted from the snowy expanse of Central Park.
They’d agreed that he would take her to the ball, but hadn’t agreed how long he had to stay. He’d stay ten minutes and leave. And he’d send a car to bring her home when she was done.
Having found a satisfactory solution, he returned to his work.
It was hours later when he heard the tentative knock on the door.
“Lucas?” Her voice came from outside the door and he stood up suddenly, guilty that he hadn’t at least been there to welcome her when she arrived.
He opened the door to his study, his mind still in the fictional world he’d created.
She was standing there smiling at him, holding a tray.
He looked at the sweet curve of her mouth.
He was sorely tempted to haul her inside and do what he’d wanted to do that night she’d shown up wearing the peach silk pajamas, but that would lead to more complications than he was ready to handle. He knew enough about her to know they didn’t occupy the same fairy-tale land.
“Please tell me that isn’t herbal tea.”
“You said that my presence inspired your writing, and since we don’t know exactly which part of what I did cured your writer’s block, I thought we’d better keep doing the same thing. Last time you drank my herbal tea.”
“Last time I tipped your herbal tea down the toilet.”
“Oh.” There was the faintest hint of reproach in her voice. “You’re not that careful with people’s feelings, are you?”
“You didn’t know I tipped it down the toilet.”
“Until now.”
He gave a half smile. “Honesty seemed the only way to break the flow of herbal tea that’s likely to come in my direction otherwise.”
“Another way would be to drink it.”
He leaned against the door. “So is this how it’s going to be? If you’re staying here you’re going to make my life hell?”
“Not hell—healthy. The word you’re looking for is healthy.” She pushed the tray into his hands. “You drink too much caffeine and alcohol.”
“Do I have any other sins you plan to reform while you’re here? What about my work ethic?”
“There’s nothing wrong with hard work. I admire your dedication.”
Her answer surprised him. He was used to being lectured on working too hard. “How about meat? Aren’t you going to lecture me on my red meat intake?”
“I’m not feeding you red meat. Dinner tonight is my special vegetarian risotto.”
“I’m starting to regret the impulse that drove me to invite you here.”
“You’re going to love it. And you didn’t invite, you demanded. And you already paid up front so you can’t back out now.”
“You’re telling me I’ve lost all leverage.”
“That’s right. I’m in charge.” She smiled. “Enjoy your herbal tea.”
* * *
Trying to block out the image of smoldering eyes and that sexy-as-hell body, Eva set to work the next day in the place that was most natural for her. The kitchen.
She’d already planned to add two new festive recipes to her blog, and Lucas would be the beneficiary because he’d get to eat the spoils.
She cooked all afternoon, recorded a new YouTube video, skillfully edited the result and posted it online. Not once in all that time did Lucas emerge.
Occasionally she glanced up the sweep of stairs, but his office door remained firmly closed, which confused her a little. It seemed that needing her for inspiration didn’t require him to lay eyes on her.
Darkness fell, cloaking the silvery-white of the park in moonlit shadows. Still there was no sign of him and the silence stretched her nerves to the breaking point.
Eventually she took the stairs that led to the upper floor, knocked on his office door and paused, listening.
There was no sound.
She was about to walk away, when the door opened.
Lucas stood there. “Yes?”
He was the type of guy who could carry off a tux or jeans with equal confidence. Today it was jeans and he filled them well, the denim skimming the powerful muscles of his thighs. His shirt was open at the neck revealing a hint of dark chest chair.
A ripple of sensation skittered over her skin. “Hi.”
He looked preoccupied. “Did you need something?”
Her mind blanked.
Confronted by sexy male, she couldn’t remember why she’d knocked on his door.
She stared into his eyes and felt her knees go weak and her tummy flip.
“I wondered if you were hungry.” She glanced over his shoulder and was ridiculously pleased to see a screen covered in type. “You’re writing again? It’s working, having me here?”
He blinked and finally focused on her. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”
“So having me clattering downstairs is inspiration enough. I mean, you’re not like an artist who needs his subject sitting in the chair to be able to create? I’m your muse, but you don’t need me in the room doing anything muse-like.” She thought she saw amusement light his eyes.
“The conversation we had when you brought my tea was enough.”
“You refused to drink it, I threatened you. How was that inspirational?”
“I decided that my character would drink herbal tea, and be vegetarian.”
“She’s vegetarian like me?” Eva was delighted. “And kind to animals?”
He gave her a long speculative look. “She’s kind to animals.”
“Good. Frankie said you didn’t write books with likeable characters, but this book is obviously different. Maybe I should read one of yours after all. Is there one you’d recommend?” She strolled past him into his study, scanning the rows and rows of books and thinking how Frankie would drool if she could see this room. There was never any hardship in choosing a gift for Frankie. All she ever wanted was books and it seemed Lucas was the same.
Close up, she could see that one wall was dedicated to his own work, both English language and foreign editions.
“If you’re looking for a happy-ever-after, you won’t find it on those shelves.”
She paused and admired a photograph on the wall. A log cabin framed by snowy pine trees, nestling in a forest by a lake. “That’s idyllic. Where is it?”
“Snow Crystal, Vermont.”
“That’s where you told people you were on your writing retreat? It looks blissful.” She took a closer look, studying the snowy peaks behind the forest. She could imagine it would be the perfect place for someone who wanted to get away from it all. “Romantic. I might have to put it on my bucket list.” She turned and saw something flicker in his eyes. Something that made her heart rate surge into overdrive. Sexual awareness uncurled inside her, sliding through her limbs and turning her bones to liquid.
Could he see the effect he had on her? She hoped not, but she knew she wasn’t good at hiding either her thoughts or her feelings.
She was here to offer inspiration, and to cook. She was supposed to salivate over the food, not the client.
“I’ve been going there for decades. It’s a family-owned resort. Do you ski?”
“I’ve never tried it, but I love snow—” She broke off, aware that she’d been tactless. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because—” She licked her lips. “I know you don’t like snow.”
His face was expressionless. “You’ve been reading about how my wife died.”
Oh, crap.
“Yes. Not because I’m nosy, but because I was afraid of saying something that might make you feel bad. I didn’t want to do that. I know how much you loved her.”
There had been surprisingly few photos of them together online, but the ones she’d found had shown them almost glued together, bodies touching as if they couldn’t bear to be separated, so close and wrapped up in each other that it had almost hurt to look at them.
Looking at the photos, she’d understood why he hated this time of year. It had robbed him of the love of his life and there was no doubt in her mind that Lucas Blade had loved his wife. Truly loved her. Loved her so much that carrying on without her was almost unbearably hard.
Despite the obvious pain he was feeling now, Eva dearly wanted to love, and be loved, that deeply.
“We haven’t discussed the terms of our contract.” His voice was cool and formal. “I’ll be working most of the time, but I hope you’ll treat the apartment as your own.”
“If I did that, you’d throw me out within a day. I’m horribly untidy, remember?” She smiled, desperately hoping to see at least a glimmer of a smile in return, but the mention of his wife had sent him back behind the wall of protection he’d erected between himself and the world. “I’ll try to remember I’m a guest, and not drop things where I stand.”
“I’ve watched you in the kitchen. You’re meticulous and organized.”
“I’m at my best in the kitchen. The rest of my life runs away from me sometimes. It’s one of my major flaws, along with talking too much and being terrible in the mornings.”
“You’re not a morning person?”
Eva shook her head. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried cold showers, leaving my alarm clock on the other side of the room— pretty much everything. Nothing works. I don’t wake properly until around ten. I try never to use knives before then.” She pulled a face. “This is terrible. I’m telling you all the worst things about myself. It’s Flaw Friday.” Finally she saw a glimmer of a smile.
“Those are the worst things about you? That you drop your clothes where you stand and hate mornings?”
“Thank you for making it sound like nothing, but believe me it drives my friends insane. We all used to work for the same company before we lost our jobs, and I would have been late every day if they hadn’t dragged me onto the subway in the mornings. There were days when I didn’t even remember the journey.”
“I didn’t know you’d lost your job.”
“We all worked for a company called Star Events. They lost a big piece of business and we were the casualties.” Eva remembered the horrible, churning panic of that day. “As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. We decided that we could do what we did for Star for ourselves. That happens in life sometimes, doesn’t it? Something terrible happens and you think it’s the worst thing ever and then it turns out to be the best.” Realizing how her words could be interpreted she closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. And you don’t have to tiptoe around me, Eva.”
“It’s another of my flaws,” she muttered, “my lack of filter between my brain and my mouth. I do have some good qualities, but you must know that or you wouldn’t have put me in your book. What are your worst flaws? Apart from the fact that you drink too much and like to lock yourself away on your own.”
“I consider both those elements to be lifestyle choices rather than flaws.” He seemed to relax again. “I’d say my flaws were that I’m single-minded. When I want something, I go after it and not much gets in my way.”
“I don’t see that as a flaw.” She flopped onto his sofa without waiting for an invitation. “I wish I was more focused. I’m very good when it comes to work and cooking, but the rest of my life is a haphazard mess. I have very good intentions, but most of them don’t happen.”
“Like what?”
“Exercise. Paige and Frankie both run, but they run in the mornings when I’m still in a coma. Besides, I can barely walk, let alone run. I always promise myself I’ll go later when I’m properly awake, but then of course I’m busy and the day happens and I come home exhausted and I’m in a coma again. So mostly I just collapse on the bed with Netflix.”
“The upstairs room has been converted into a gym. You’re welcome to use it while you’re here. I’m usually in there at five thirty, but there’s plenty of room for both of us and I have several cardio machines and plenty of free weights.”
“Five thirty? That remark tells me you have a lot to learn about me. The heaviest thing I can lift in the morning is my eyelashes so we won’t be competing for the weights.” But now she knew what was at the top of the curl of stairs. The one part of his apartment that she hadn’t seen. A gym. Not for Lucas Blade the sweaty cram of a public gym, or the bitter cold of a run on the New York streets. “No need to ask if you’re a morning person.”
“I don’t sleep much. I’ve always had a haphazard work pattern. Routine office hours don’t work for me. Writing that way doesn’t work for me. I’m better writing fast.”
“That’s good, given the time you have left to write this particular book. Can it be done?” It sounded like an impossible goal to her.
His mouth slanted into a smile of self-mockery. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
“How can I help? I don’t want to knock on your door and disturb you in the middle of a sentence, but neither do I want you to discover that your muscles have atrophied because you haven’t moved from the chair for days.”
“You can help,” he said, “by not insisting I go to this ball.”
“I’ll agree to anything except that.” She walked to the door. “Get back to work. I’m going to use your gym.”
The gym turned out to be a prime room in the apartment, with glass on three sides opening onto a roof terrace.
She could imagine sitting there in the summer months, staring out across the expanse of Central Park with the buildings of midtown framing the park.
Maybe if she had access to somewhere like this, she’d even feel like working out regularly, although she was unlikely to be tempted at five thirty in the morning.
Shuddering at the thought, she pulled her hair into a ponytail and stepped onto the elliptical.
Switching on her favorite playlist, she worked up a sweat, took a shower and then went downstairs to prepare dinner.
They were having risotto, and perfect risotto required one hundred percent attention.
While she gradually added stock and stirred, she thought about his book.
She was desperate to read a snippet, to see what he’d done to the character that was based on her.
He joined her halfway through her preparations and sat at the counter, watching. “That looks labor-intensive.”
“I find it calming. Other people might choose to use a relaxation app, but I make risotto.” She adjusted the heat and went back to stirring. “What do you do to relax?”
“I used to write to relax, but that was before I was published.”
“I guess it must be different when it becomes your job.”
“Risotto is your job.”
“True.” She added a little more liquid. “But I chose to make this. So how do you choose to relax now?”
“I work out. I find that relaxing. And martial arts. There’s a place I go close to here.”
“Fighting is relaxing?”
“It’s not really fighting.” He selected a bottle of wine and opened it. “It’s discipline, both mental and physical.”
“I’ve never been big on violence. That’s probably why I hate horror movies.” She tested the rice to see if it was cooked while he poured wine into two glasses.
He handed her one. “When did you last go to a horror movie?”
“It was a long time ago. My date thought it would be a great way to get me to snuggle close to him. He hadn’t reckoned on the fact I might scream.” She turned off the heat and took a sip of wine. “Mmm, delicious. So you work out, you do martial arts—what else do you do to relax?”
“I walk the streets of New York, people-watching. You really screamed?”
“I made more noise than the heroine who was getting her throat cut. The woman in the row behind me started screaming too because I scared her so much.”
He laughed. “I wish I’d been there.”
“Trust me, you don’t. If I ever find myself unemployed again, I might try to get a job as a scream artist, if such a thing exists. I have a scream that could make Hitchcock shudder.”
“I want to hear your scream.”
“I save my best screams for genuine moments of terror. If you don’t use screams judiciously, people pay less attention. They’ll be thinking, ‘oh, Eva is screaming again,’ rather than ‘quick, something’s wrong with Eva.’”
“When did you last scream?”
“Last week when I discovered a very big spider in the bathtub. This is ready.” She spooned creamy risotto into two bowls, added a few shaves of fresh parmesan and placed a bowl in front of him. “Enjoy. If you’re going back to work after this, I might go for a walk. Given that you didn’t poke your head around the door once all afternoon, I presume my absence won’t impact on your creative flow.”
He paused, fork in hand. “You can’t walk alone this late.”
“This is New York City. It’s almost impossible to find yourself alone, and it isn’t that late. I don’t plan to go into the depths of Central Park. Just wander along Fifth Avenue.”
“The stores will be closed.”
“That’s the safest time.” She forked up some rice. “When they’re open, I’m dangerous.”
“Shopaholic?”
“Not really. More that my taste exceeds my bank account.”
“Speaking of taste, this is delicious.” He ate and then accepted an offer of second helpings. “Do you have a favorite store?”
“Tiffany’s.” She didn’t even need to think about it. “I like looking at the people who are looking in their window. And sometimes you see a man proposing and the woman’s face lights up and it’s pretty perfect. Real-life romance.”
They’d finished eating and he stood up.
“Let’s go.”
“Together? Now?” She stared at him. “I have to clear up.”
“Leave it.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who is addicted to retail therapy, and you have a book to write.”
“I need a break. And I like hearing you talk.”
“Most people want me to talk less.”
“You have some interesting observations on the world.”
She tried not to be flattered. It was probably more of his research. “So your character is going to take a trip to Tiffany’s? Does she fall in love and get married?”
He opened his mouth and then gave a smile. “I haven’t worked out the precise details of her journey yet.”
“Well, I can tell you that a trip to Tiffany’s would be the perfect ending to any woman’s journey.”
* * *
They wrapped up warmly and strolled along Fifth Avenue, their breath clouding the freezing air. The snow had stopped and the snowplows were finally winning the battle. Snow and ice glazed the sidewalks and lay piled in mounds and New York was enveloped in an almost ethereal calm.
The windows of Tiffany & Co. were decorated for the holidays. A cobweb of glowing lights framed the windows and the sparkle of decorations blended with the dazzle of diamonds.
Lucas watched as Eva huddled deeper into her coat and gazed at the tray of jewelry closest to the window.
Then she glanced at a woman who was doing the same thing at a different window.
After a moment the woman walked away and Eva gazed after her.
“That’s sad.”
“She was doing the same thing you’re doing. What’s sad about it?”
“She was upset. You couldn’t see that? My guess is that the love of her life broke up with her.”
“Maybe she broke up with him.”
She shook her head. “Then she wouldn’t have been staring wistfully in the window of the most romantic jewelry store in the world. She’d imagined herself coming here with him and choosing a ring.”
Dragging his gaze from Eva’s mouth, Lucas turned his head and watched the woman disappear into the darkness. “And yet you still believe in true love.”
“Why not? I can believe in true love without thinking that all relationships are perfect.”
He leaned against the wall, sheltering her from the vicious bite of the wind. “Where did you grow up?”
“Puffin Island, Maine. It’s a small island the size of a postage stamp—”
“—off the coast of Penobscot Bay. I know it. So you’re a small-town girl in a big city.”
“I suppose, although I left the small town behind a long time ago.”
He didn’t agree. She had that trusting view of humanity that came from living in a small-town community where people relied on each other.
His heroine would have the same quality, he decided. She’d arrived in the big city full of hope and then all her illusions had been shattered.
“Do you still have family on Puffin Island?” It was only because he was watching her reactions closely that he saw her breathing change.
“I don’t have family at all. Since Grams died, it’s just me.” She turned and gave him a bright smile. “Shall we walk?”
“You miss her a lot.”
“She raised me. She was a mother and a grandmother rolled into one. Let’s talk about something else or I’ll start sobbing again and it was embarrassing enough the first time.”
A few moments before he’d been desperate to get back to the apartment and write, but now all he wanted was to find out more about her. It was something he’d been born with, this desire to always know more, to look deeper, but he knew that in her case there was something more personal driving him.
“What happened to your parents?”
“I never knew my dad. My mom was eighteen and about to start college when she got pregnant. I guess he thought I’d ruined his life. He wanted her to have an abortion and when she wouldn’t he went off to college, and Mom stayed at home with Grams and Gramps. She died when I was born, from some rare complication during delivery. Grams took early retirement so she could stay home with me.”
Lucas rarely thought about his own childhood. He’d been raised in the supportive cobweb of close family that included parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. His memories were of large gatherings, always noisy because his family was nothing if not opinionated, and of time spent with his brother, of scraped knees, secret hideouts and arguments. There had been nothing there to inspire the darker fiction he wrote. Nothing as lean and spare as the family life she was describing.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Her voice was level. “I never knew my mom and I couldn’t have had a happier childhood. My grandmother always said I was the one who saved them. She and Gramps had lost their only child, but they didn’t have time to fall apart because I was in neonatal intensive care with issues of my own. They virtually lived at the hospital with me and after about six weeks they brought me home. Grams said I was their most precious gift.” She stopped and gazed into a store window, as if she hadn’t just revealed something deeply personal.
It was a huge revelation, and it left him stunned. Because she was so refreshingly open, he’d assumed he knew everything there was to know about her. She was someone who shared everything, and yet she hadn’t shared this. “I had no idea you lost your mom so young.”
“It was hard on Grams.”
“And on you.”
This new information changed his view of her. It was as if he’d been standing in a shadowy room and someone had suddenly thrown open the shutters and let in the light. He understood now why her grandmother had been everything to her and why she was struggling so deeply with the loss. It explained the seam of vulnerability that he’d sensed within her, and why this time of year, with its emphasis on family and togetherness hurt so much.
“It didn’t feel hard to me. In my fairy-tale world, Planet Eva as my friends call it—” she flashed him a brief smile “—family isn’t so much about the individual people as what they represent. Family is about love, isn’t it? And security. And that doesn’t have to come from a mother. It can be a father, or an aunt, or in my case, a grandmother. What a child needs is to grow up with the knowledge that they’re loved and accepted for who they are. They need someone who will be there for them no matter what, who they can depend on absolutely so that they know that no matter how many times they screw up, or how many other people have walked away, their family is always there. My grandmother was that person for me. In every way that mattered she was my mother. She loved me unconditionally.”
And she’d lost that.
He remembered his grandmother’s words.
Maybe your listening skills need work.
He felt a tug of guilt. His grandmother had been right— he hadn’t listened properly to Eva. He’d seen the happy smile and he, who prided himself on always looking deeper, hadn’t looked deeper. He hadn’t seen how lonely she was.
He found himself wanting to say something reassuring, but what could he say? That the love she was searching for came with a price?
“Look at that. It’s like a mermaid dress.” There was a note of wonder in her voice and he followed her gaze and saw a long evening dress in graduating shades of blue and turquoise, shot with tiny strands of silver.
“You believe in mermaids?”
She lifted her hand like a stop sign. “This is not your cue to say something sarcastic or cynical. And I think the person who gets to wear that dress would definitely believe in mermaids.” She pulled out her phone, took a picture and then sent a quick email.
“You’re sending it to your fairy godmother?”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I’m sharing it with Paige because I know she’d appreciate it.”
“If you love it, you could come back when they’re open and buy it.”
“Are you kidding? I couldn’t afford a dress like that in a million years. And even if I could, where would I wear it? I think I’d be a bit overdressed wearing it to watch Netflix while eating grilled cheese sandwiches. But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream.”
He looked at the dress again. It was a deceptively simple sheath of fabric, but the strands of silver shimmered under the lights. “You could wear it to the ball you’re making me attend.”
“I already have a dress.” She said it without enthusiasm and he searched her face for clues.
“But?”
“But nothing. It’s a great dress. I got it on sale in Bloomingdale’s a couple of years ago when I had a black-tie event to attend.” She looked away from the window. “I’ve had enough dress envy for one night. And you should go back. You have a book to finish.”
“I’ll go back when you go back.”
“I’m happy to be left. I walk around New York on my own all the time.”
“Maybe, but right now you’re with me and I don’t want you to walk on your own.”
“So underneath that cynical exterior, you’re a gentleman.”
“It’s because of my cynical exterior that I don’t want you to walk on your own. And now you’ll probably accuse me of being sexist.”
“I don’t think it’s sexist. I think it’s good manners. My grandmother would have liked you.” Her hair flowed from under the wool hat she wore, honey and buttermilk, with strands of gold catching the light. He wanted to catch it in his hands and feel the texture slip through his fingers.
“So will you come back with me?”
“If that’s what it will take to get you writing.” She turned and immediately slipped on a patch of ice.
He caught her easily, steadying her before she could hit the ground.
“Careful.”
Her hand was locked in the front of his coat and he could smell the scent of her hair. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to kiss a woman, but he wanted to kiss Eva. He wanted to kiss her until neither of them could breathe properly, until he didn’t know what day it was and could no longer remember why he’d stayed away from women for so long.
She was the one who pulled away first. “Are you really not looking forward to the ball?”
“About as much as I look forward to completing my tax return.”
“That’s sad. It’s going to be full of wonderful, interesting people.”
“What’s sad is you believing you can find love in a place like that.”
“We’re not all lucky enough to meet the love of our life in kindergarten.”
He knew she was talking about Sallyanne.
He thought about that first day of school, when Sallyanne had stolen his apple. She’d charged him a ransom to get it back.
He’d been six years old.
“You really want to go that badly?”
“Yes.” She was emphatic. “I promised myself that this Christmas I’d get out. I want to dance until my feet hurt. And meet people. Cinderella wouldn’t have met the prince if she’d stayed in the kitchen.”
He sidestepped a patch of ice, tightening his grip on her. “He tracked her down across the land. That makes him a seriously disturbed stalker. With a foot fetish.”
She laughed. “Only you could put that interpretation on it. Go ahead and laugh, but I really want to meet someone and I’m not going to come across anyone trapped indoors. That ball will be full of people like me, having fun, hoping they might get lucky.”
“It will be full of strangers. You won’t know anyone.”
“I’ll know you.” Her gaze grazed his and then she looked away quickly, as if she’d put her hand in a flame that was going to burn her. “Everyone is a stranger the first time you meet them.”
“Take some advice from someone who knows more about human nature than you do—be careful how much you reveal.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not stupid and I’ve lived in New York City for a decade.”
“Your honesty scares me. It’s going to get you into trouble.”
She gave him an impish grin. “I’m planning on it. I’ve written my letter to Santa, confessing that I intend to be a really, really bad girl this Christmas.”
“You’re not safe to be let out. Let’s cancel.” They were talking, teasing, both of them ignoring the undercurrent of tension.
“No. And when it comes to flirting and relationships, you’re as out of practice as I am, so I’d be pretty stupid to take advice from you.” She patted his arm. “Relax.”
He couldn’t relax when she was standing this close to him. “You’re not serious about being a bad girl?”
“Oh, I’m serious about that part. But I promise I’ll be careful.”
“Because you’ll filter what you say?”
“No, because I’ll use my condom.”