CHAPTER EIGHT
Griffin
What was I thinking, asking her to stay over?
I don’t spend the night with women. I take them to a hotel, have some fun and then leave. I don’t want strings attached, and I don’t want to deal with awkward morning-after stuff. For example, I don’t know if anyone I’ve ever slept with is a coffee drinker. Because I don’t stick around that long. And I don’t bring anyone to my penthouse. It’s my retreat, the only space where I don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations of who I’m supposed to be. Why would I let her breach those battlements?
Sure, she’s pretty. I like blondes. I saved her, and I feel sort of responsible for marching her out there to bear witness against Simpson in the club. I don’t like bad shit going down in my clubs, and I don’t like my employees—even contracted catering ones—being abused. I’m no saint, but I’m a better man than that, so I feel bad for her. She’s had a rough couple of years and no way should she be stuck getting groped by assholes like Simpson when she’s just trying to make rent.
I guess I feel protective of her. Maybe that’s it.
Although it still doesn’t explain why I brought her to my place and wanted her to stay over. That’s not like me at all. I didn’t even have a whole glass of wine at dinner before all hell broke loose. So I wasn’t drunk.
I was cold sober when I followed this girl out to the alley. It makes no sense. I had closed the deal for the club. I had what I came for—so I had every reason to call it a night. Instead, I lost my mind.
Insanity is the only explanation. At least, it’s the only one I’m willing to admit. Because when I raise up on my elbow and see her lying there beside me, it feels good, so right like I knew she belonged there next to me in bed, like she should have always been there, and I’ve finally set things right. I have the most bizarre sense that the reason I never brought anyone else home with me is because she’s the only one who should be here in my bed. As if I was subconsciously trying not to profane her place in my life by bringing some other woman here even before I knew Kate. Which is not even her name. I am obsessing over a sleeping stranger in my bed, thinking for all the world that I hope she never leaves. That I hope she returns to this room, this bed, again and again.
She stirs, wrinkles her brow as she sleeps. I brush her tumbled hair back from her face, smooth the creases of her worried forehead. I want to make her dreams better. I want to make everything better for her. I have such a profound sense of that—of some powerful urge to fix everything, to make her safe and whole and happy.
Her eyelashes flutter, and I jerk my hand away. Oh crap, I woke her up! I think. I make a shushing sound, hoping it will lull her back to sleep. I do not want her waking up to think I’m some creeper who stares at girls while they sleep. It’s just her—I can’t get enough of looking at her. She takes a big breath. I’m afraid for a second that she is going to scream or something. She lets it out, yawns, rolls over on her other side and goes back to sleep. I relax. It’s fine. She didn’t catch me staring at her.
It’s early. I work with my trainer six days a week, but today I’m a little sore. My back, my right shoulder. I can’t help but grin. She gave me quite a workout. I wince and look back at her. If I’m a little sore, she’s probably going to be really uncomfortable. I go take a quick shower. I wrap a towel around my waist and head back into the bedroom.
She’s awake so I smile at her. It’s a dorky grin, the kind I would’ve given a pretty girl when I was about fifteen. I’m aware that I’m smiling at her like a complete idiot.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Hi,” she says, her cheeks turning pink.
Something about her blushing after everything we’ve done together hits me like a blow to the chest. I’m reeling from some rush of warm fuzziness toward her. It’s appalling really. One cute damsel in distress and I’m about to turn into a cliché.
“I’ll just take off,” she says, looking around for her clothes.
“Please,” I say, sweeping my arm grandly toward the en suite bathroom, “have a bath. There’s no rush.”
She seems to be looking around for something to cover herself up with. I find the black robe and pass it to her. Gratefully, she puts it on, wrapping it tightly around herself. It doesn’t matter. I can still see every curve of her body from memory. She whisks into the bathroom and shuts the door. I’d really like to be in there with her. I hear the taps turn on in the big Jacuzzi tub.
I put on a pair of jeans then knock on the door, “Mind if I come in?”
“Uh, sure,” she says a little shakily.
When I open the door, she’s sitting on the edge of the tub, still wearing the black silk robe. The front of it gaps as she leans over to test the water temperature. One long leg is completely visible to the midthigh. I can’t think. I know I meant to say something sophisticated to put her at ease, something to make her comfortable with this.
“Hey,” I say.
I can’t help cringing. I used to have a terrible crush on my piano teacher, Cybil. I’m convinced the reason I never amounted to much as a concert pianist was the excessive amount of time I spent fantasizing about her when I should have been practicing. I feel the exact same way right now. Like the woman in the robe perched on the edge of my Jacuzzi tub may be my undoing. I can’t focus.
“Did you need something? Were you going to brush your teeth?” she says.
“Is that a hint?” I ask, heading for the sink to get my toothbrush.
I don’t want to brush my teeth in front of her, but there’s nothing for it now. I get out the toothpaste, and I stare at her in the mirror as I brush. I’m an idiot, is what I’m thinking.
“Do you have plans for today?” I ask her.
“I have to go to the Laundromat,” she says, “I do that on Sundays. And I do some cleaning. God, that sounds fascinating, right?”
“You have a plan. Nothing wrong with that,” I say, unsure where to go from here. Do I offer to spend the day with her? Do I even want to? Or am I just hoping to get her to come back here tonight and sleep with me again?
She smiles a little self-consciously, turns off the water, and I’m hooked. I definitely want to spend the day with her.
“Would you like to, I don’t know, go to a museum? With me, I mean.”
“What?” She looks at me funny.
“Or—whatever people do on Sundays. When they’re not at the office or the gym, which is what I do on Sundays generally.”
“I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t know what people do. I just do chores and maybe watch TV. I wouldn’t know how to date anyone, much less someone like you. Somebody who goes to, like, Italy for dinner.”
“I don’t go to Italy for dinner unless I’m already in Italy,” I say to reassure her. There’s no reason to tell her I’ve flown to Milan for the evening before, or that I’ve borrowed a yacht to take a woman out to look at the stars. I try another angle, “Is there something you’d like to do?”
“I don’t really think about that. It seems silly to you probably. I don’t go around thinking of all the stuff I’m not doing. When I was in college, I used to go out with my friends, have margaritas at someplace that didn’t card students, go act like idiots at some house party…I wouldn’t want to do that now. I was a different person. I had everything and didn’t even know it.”
She’s drooping now, her hand still on the tap. I go to her and touch her arm. She leans in to me, her head on my chest. I put an arm around her and hold her. I feel her arms go around my waist. She tips her face up to look at me. Her dark eyes are incredibly sad. I couldn’t see her eyes last night when she talked about losing her family, and maybe in the dark it was easier for her to tell me things. Now she’s letting me see how she feels and what she’s lost. I bend down and kiss her lips softly. I want to be a man of decency and not grope her, despite the fact that I’m not wearing a shirt, she’s not wearing much of anything, and there’s a Jacuzzi of hot water right there.
“You’re sweet,” she says.
I take a step back, “I’m a great many things, but sweetness is not something I’ve been accused of,” I say.
“My sweet boy,” my mother used to call me. I rub my forehead. I haven’t been sweet in a long time. I’ve been ruthless. I’ve been reckless. I’ve been extremely successful. I haven’t been much damn good, though. Now, I wish I were better. I wish I were something more. For this girl who won’t tell me her name.
“You are, though. A lot of guys would have taken advantage of a girl in my situation last night.”
“Are you forgetting the part where I fucked you in an alley?” I question.
I hate those words the second they leave my mouth. I see them register on her face like I’ve hit her. I take another step back. It’s too intense right now. Regret is sharp in my gut. I want to go to her and say I’m sorry, but I don’t want her to think I’m that guy, the sweet guy who rescues her. Because I’m bound to disappoint her.
“It wasn’t like that,” she says. Her voice sounds strangled.
I want the hell out of this bathroom, so I leave. I go sit on my bed and check my email. I hear the slosh of water in the tub as she gets in. I won’t let myself imagine her that way, naked and wet in the bath. She doesn’t turn on the jets in the tub. I want to show her how to work the control panel so she can use the bubble feature, but I know she doesn’t want me back in there after the way I acted. If I was acting like a stupid fifteen-year-old when I walked in there, I was a bratty six-year-old by the time I was done.
She takes a short bath and comes out in the robe and hunts for her clothes. I don’t make a move to help her. She won’t look at me, and it’s no wonder. When she’s dressed, or sort of dressed in her pants and the ripped shirt, which she’s holding shut, I get up and go to her. I’m about to say something. I don’t know what I’ll say, but I know I can’t leave things the way they are.
“It wasn’t like that,” she says, lifting her chin.
I stare at her. I can’t believe she’s standing up to me, that she’s so sure after how I acted. She’s magnificent. I want to kiss her for calling me out on my bullshit.
“It wasn’t anything ugly like you made it sound. I was there. I asked you. I think I said please,” she says. Her chin is jutting out defiantly. It’s pretty damn adorable.
“Do you expect me to believe that isn’t the dirtiest thing you’ve ever done?” I raise an eyebrow at her.
“You mean sex in a public place? Yeah, I guess it is. But just because I don’t have some wild past doesn’t make what we did cheap and meaningless,” she says stubbornly.
I have no idea why I’m trying to win this argument when I agree with her. It feels like my whole life is at stake. I don’t want her putting me on a pedestal, believing that I’m Prince Charming. It’s so hard to resist her right now. Speaking of hard, of course I am. How could I not be? She’s practically defending my honor to me, brave and stubborn and holding my robe over her arm. I’m reasonably certain that I will never be able to wear that robe again. I consider having it framed in a shadowbox and hung on the wall as a monument. Then that idea makes me grin. She takes the grin as an insult like I’m laughing at her. Shit.
“You think this is funny?” she says.
“No. I don’t find it amusing. In fact, I thought of something else entirely, something absurd, and—”
“Oh, am I boring you?” she says sarcastically. I’ve really hurt her feelings, I think.
“No, you’re not. You just need to calm down. You can wear one of my shirts.”
I go to my closet and return with a blue button-down. I offer it to her. She looks at me like I’m trying to hand her a dead albatross.
“The buttons work on this one. Take it,” I say gruffly.
She takes it, turns her back to me and drops her black shirt, puts on my blue one. I can see the shrug of her thin shoulders as she pulls on my shirt. I want to put my hands on her back, to feel the movement of muscle and bone as she gets dressed. I want to run my fingers underneath her bra strap, to see the flicker of arousal kindle in her eyes. She has the shirt mostly buttoned when she turns around. The sleeves are so long that the open cuffs cover her hands completely. I go to her and start turning up a sleeve. She looks offended. I finish cuffing the right sleeve and then do the left one. I like rolling her cuffs back for her. I like seeing her in my shirt. I like it way too much.
I lean down and kiss her forehead and whisper, “I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t.”
Her arms go around my waist, and I pull her to my chest and hold her. It’s a relief to have her in my arms. My eyes drop shut tightly. I hadn’t realized that the itchy, tight feeling in my chest was from being at odds with her. I didn’t know until it loosened, until her cheek on my chest soothed it away.
“Let me buy you breakfast. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“I think I’ll just go get the bus,” she says, “Truth is, I’m kind of tired. Last night was a lot. For all kinds of reasons.”
“Then I’ll drive you home.”
“You don’t know where I live,” she says.
“You’ll tell me, and then I’ll drive you there.”
“No. I don’t want to tell you where I live or what my name is. Because last night was complete. Let’s leave it in the past. I’m glad. I mean, I appreciate you saying you didn’t mean that because it made me—sad. This is going to sound so corny, like something off The Bachelor, but I feel a connection with you. And when you said that, I thought I had it all wrong. That maybe you weren’t who I thought you were.”
“Stay,” I say. I don’t argue with her about who I am, or how she’s idealized me. I go straight for what I want. “Stay,” I say again.
“Oh God, Griffin, you have no idea how hard it is to say no to you,” she groans, backing up. She folds my robe and hands it to me.
“It can’t be that difficult, since you’re refusing,” I say. I sound petulant, like I’ve been denied a treat.
“I have to. I can’t get mixed up with you. Not any more than I already have. You saved me in a lot of ways last night, but I can’t date you. I can’t spend the day with you or another night or anything like that. I’ll wind up hurt,” she says.
I’m pretty certain she’s right about that. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want her to stay.
“Let me drive you,” I say.
“I’ll let you drive me to a general area. You can drop me off at the Starbucks near where I live.”
“I’ll take that deal, since I don’t think I’ll get a better one,” I say.
“You’re right. You won’t.”
I’m driving with her beside me. She keeps petting the leather seat and making an appreciative humming sound. I’m guessing she’s never been in a Porsche before.
“What do you do?” she said.
“I own nightclubs.”
“Oh. How did you start that? I mean, did you just inherit it?”
“My mom only died last year. My dad was never in the picture. So, no. I didn’t inherit a business. I mean, I had a trust fund from my mom’s family. I used that for tuition and to bankroll a few pop ups.”
“Like the books? Where the picture’s in 3-D and it unfolds at you?” she says.
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“Pop-up clubs. When I was a sophomore in college, I talked some people in to letting me use their barbecue joint for a nightclub after hours for two weeks. They had a liquor license and all I had to do was guarantee them $3,000. They made that in half the bar tab the first week alone. A friend of mine DJ’d it. The campy location sold a lot of people on it—word of mouth had us turning people away. I took the profit from that and did another pop up the next month at an auto body shop. I did that for two years and had enough to buy my first club.”
“Wait, a barbecue joint? What made you think of that?” she says, acting all impressed just like I meant her to do.
“Rich kids are bored. They’ll spend money for novelty. For something different to talk about and someplace new to go. That’s why it was so important to do limited engagements at first. Get different DJs. Different themes, the cheesier the better.”
“I wanted to work in fashion,” she says, “Now I get excited when Dominic lets me use the glass chalk on the specials board. Because it’s the closest thing I have to artistic expression.”
“Do you plan to go back, get your degree?”
“That’s why I started moonlighting with Epicurean Advantage. It was a good opportunity to save some money. It didn’t work out too well,” she says with a smirk.
“Was last night the first job you did for them?” I say. She nods.
“First and last. I don’t think they’ll keep me on after I caused a scene and ran out.”
“If you’ll recall, I caused the scene. I shouldn’t have dragged you out there to confront them both.”
“You did what you thought was right,” she says, and sighs.
“Yes. But I wasn’t right,” I admit, “I made it worse for you. I could have beaten his ass and dealt with them both while you went home.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she says, reaching over and putting her hand on my arm, “It sucked at the time. I thought you were an insensitive tool, but if you’d handled Simpson and his brother, I wouldn’t have met you. You would have been nothing but that hot guy I saw when I worked a private party one time.”
“Oh, I’m that hot guy, am I?” I say, trying to sound like I’m joking when I’m pathetically thrilled by the compliment.
“Yes. You are. I almost dumped food on you because I was staring at you. I have never seen anyone in real life as good-looking as you are. Since you’ve seen yourself in the mirror, this can’t be a surprise.”
“I’m not often told that I’m supernaturally handsome,” I tease, trying to hide how incredible it feels to know she thinks that about me.
“I’d tell you that every day,” she says. I think she sounds wistful.
“Have you decided what you want for breakfast? Since, regrettably, you can’t survive on just my good looks.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it,” she says.
“No, I want to treat you. What’s your absolute favorite breakfast food? Le Chat does a gorgeous Eggs Benedict with fresh hollandaise. The French toast at Aubrey’s is done with a loganberry syrup from Vermont…” I trail off.
“Well, you know what I’d really like? That I haven’t had in forever? A sausage burrito.” She’s beaming. I have no idea where to find such a thing, but I suddenly want to get her one because she looks so excited.
“Is there a particular restaurant that serves—”
“McDonald’s. You can get them in the drive thru.”
I’m dumbfounded. Given a choice between the Le Chat eggs and the french toast, she picks a drive-through burrito in wax paper. It’s unbelievable. Does she think that’s all she’s worth? Or is she seriously this thrilled about the idea of a greasy takeaway burrito? I look over at her in disbelief. She’s grinning expectantly, waiting to see if her wish will be granted. I’m such a pushover for this girl it’s unreal. I’m about to take my Porsche on its inaugural trip to a fast food drive up window. I would laugh at the absurdity of this situation except she looks so damn endearing and happy. So I ask her exactly what she wants. I order her two burritos, a hash brown, a large orange juice. She looks just that way you’d picture someone who’s won a sports car or the jackpot on a slot machine. I can tell she’s trying to restrain herself but she’s practically bouncing in her seat.
“You can eat in the car,” I say, knowing what she’s thinking.
She doesn’t say a word, just digs into the bag and starts scarfing a greasy looking burrito. She breaks off a piece of hash brown and offers it to me. I don’t want it, but I take it anyway and eat it because she gave it to me probably. It’s as salty and oily as I expect, but it also doesn’t disgust me the way I thought it would. Maybe because if she offered me a damned live frog I’d consider eating it. I nearly choke laughing at that thought. I have to take a drink of her orange juice to stop coughing. She laughs at me, and I don’t even mind.
I drive around the city, making a lazy circuit and listening to her talk. She tells me about her little brother, about her professor in college that sometimes lapsed into a fake French accent during lectures, about how she likes to stand in the grocery store to read magazines. “I read them all,” she brags, “Vanity Fair, Cosmo, all the good ones. I don’t read all the articles, but I check out all the clothes and read my horoscope. They’re basically all the same, the horoscopes, but it’s fun to read them anyway. Just in case I skip it one time and that was the time that something horrible was going to happen, and I could’ve been warned.”
“Superstitious,” I scold a little indulgently.
“Yeah,” she says, finishing off her second burrito, “God, I ate too much. But it was so good. Thank you.”
“Is that the way to your heart? Fast food?”
“Maybe,” she says, “why would you ask?”
“I’m keeping my options open,” I say. “I still want your name. Your number. Something.”
“You’ve got more than something. You’ve got the best night of my whole life, so my name shouldn’t matter very much compared to that.”
“Kate,” I say, “I’m serious. I want to know who you are.”
“You know who I am. I was a student and a sister and a daughter, and all that ended with a car wreck. I’m a waitress. I’m trying to get by. And one night I got in some trouble. This guy rescued me. He doesn’t want me to think he’s a hero. I don’t think you’re perfect, Griffin. I know better… but you’re still my hero.”
It makes my chest burn when she says that. My throat feels tight. I have to stop driving. I find a place to parallel park. I manage to loosen my white-knuckle grip on the wheel after a minute and look at her. She is looking at me with these trusting, open dark eyes.
She is in my arms now and we’re kissing. Whether it’s because I want her so much or because of what she just said, I couldn’t decide. My hands are in her hair. I don’t know if I can let her go. That’s how bad it is. I kiss her cheek and top of her head. I am undone by her.
Maybe she’s right.
Maybe I’m better off not knowing her name.
Because that would make it too easy for me to come back for more.
I might never stop.
I drive her as far as she’ll let me. I give her my business card, in case she ever wants to get in touch. My personal number isn’t on there. But she’d never use it anyway. I know as I hand it to her that there’s no reason. She may keep it as a memento for a while, tucked in the corner of her mirror. She’ll never dial the number, never ask to meet me for coffee. I think of that card for a second, slid into the frame of the bathroom mirror, mute as she puts on lipstick to meet another man. I shut my eyes to that. There’s no point.
She has me drop her off outside a convenience store. Makes me promise not to follow her, not to watch her walk away. I want to break my promise, but if I did that, I wouldn’t be anything close to the man she thinks I am. So I let her go. I drive away.