Haven was entirely distracted by the report from yet another inspection of the club sitting in front of her. The hustle and bustle of a small Brooklyn café was practically nonexistent. Nothing more than a hum in the back of her mind.
“Are you looking at it?” Dale asked.
“Finally,” Haven said. “Yes.”
She’d printed off the report Dale faxed over from the investor’s inspector just before leaving the club after a weekly meeting with the employees. He had offered to come over and go through the report with Haven, but her empty stomach wasn’t having it.
Now, with a coffee and bagel in front of her, she felt a little more human and up to looking through the report.
The final report—or it was supposed to be. This was the last inspection that the investor wanted before the deal on the club could go through.
This was what she had been waiting for.
“So, what exactly am I looking at, then?” Haven said.
The official documents seemed like a lot of nonsense and legalese. Nothing that she cared to wade through to find the keywords she needed to say everything was good to go. That’s what Dale was working for, anyway. He wanted his commission. He could earn it, too.
“Basically,” Dale said, “the inspector gave the green light on everything. The investor is good to go whenever he is ready to sign the check, so to speak.”
Haven blinked.
Yeah, that’s what she wanted to hear. And yet, it was still a little surreal when the words finally reached her ears. All this time, and just like that, the wait was over. She didn’t really know what to do about it, or how to feel.
“Oh,” Haven said.
The realtor chuckled on the other end of the line. “You don’t sound happy.”
Haven rubbed at her forehead, and shook her head even knowing that the man couldn’t see it over the phone. “No, I am. It’s just … been a while since we started this process, I guess. Maybe I expected them to drag it on for another few months.”
“Well, the check isn’t signed yet.”
She heard the joke in the man’s tone, but she didn’t find it very funny, all things considered. Nonetheless, she let it slide.
“How long is it going to take to get the paperwork drawn up, signed, and finalized?” Haven asked.
“At most, a week or two. Probably closer to two.”
Two weeks.
That was all.
“I can do two more weeks,” Haven said.
Her house still hadn’t sold yet—a couple of low offers that made her roll her eyes before, sure. She was starting to think that maybe she should take a lower offer just to get the house off her hands, too.
That would make things simpler …
“Okay, well, I will get on the phone with the—”
“Haven?”
Dale’s voice cut off entirely in Haven’s ear even though she knew he was still speaking because she suddenly found herself staring up at someone she didn’t expect to see. Well, at least not in some random tiny Brooklyn café.
Andino’s father.
Again.
What kind of shitty luck did she have to keep randomly running into this man? At least with Andino, she was the one who went to him. With his father, it seemed like the world was just having a good fucking laugh at her expense.
“Giovanni, hi,” Haven said.
The man smiled warmly.
On the phone, Dale’s voice filtered back through Haven’s shock. “Are you still there?”
Shit.
She gave Giovanni an apologetic shrug of her shoulder, and pointed at the phone before mouthing, just give me a second. “Yeah, Dale, I’m still here. I have to go—something came up.” Or someone, rather. “Give me a call when you need my signature.”
“Will do, Haven. Have a great day.”
“You, too.”
Haven shut the phone off, and tucked it into her purse at her side. By the time she gave her attention to Andino’s father again, the man was staring at the paperwork from the inspector and the investor with a dip in his brow, and a curious smile.
Haven cleared her throat, and Gio glanced at her. “Do you come here often?”
“A couple of times a week. They have my wife’s favorite Danishes.”
“Ah. I just needed something to eat fast, and this was the closest place.”
“It’s a good choice,” Gio replied, still smiling kindly. “They have great food.”
“Good to know.” Haven closed the folder, which again drew in Gio’s gaze, and then proceeded to pack the stuff into her oversized purse. “Also, for future reference, because it seems like we keep running into each other … but you don’t have to say hello to me just to be polite. I know you probably wish you didn’t have to see me at all, so—”
“Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong about that,” Gio interrupted her with a soft laugh, “but I suppose, all things considered, you can’t be expected to know anything different. Right?”
Haven blinked, and looked up at the man. “I beg your pardon?”
Giovanni shrugged his shoulders beneath the well-tailored black blazer he wore. Just like his son, the man was broad-shouldered, tall, and classically handsome. He also gave off an air that screamed bad news, old money, and a lifetime worth of secrets he probably wasn’t willing to share.
It was almost funny how alike he and his son were in those ways.
“I mean,” Giovanni said, sliding into the chair across the table from Haven without even being invited, “that I think it’s a shame we haven’t really been able to have an actual conversation. Knowing some of the things I do about you, that seems like it’s my loss.”
His loss.
His loss to not speak to her.
“Uh,” Haven said, still unsure.
Giovanni flashed her a wide smile. “I always thought … well, knowing my son and how he is, the woman who eventually came into his life and took it over would have to be something amazing. Mind you, all the men in our family have managed to find a wife that fits him just the way she needs to. They’re all amazing in their own ways. But my son? He went out and found someone I never expected, but I still can’t find it in myself to be surprised.”
“Why?”
She didn’t want to ask the question, really, but it still managed to slip out. Damn her curiosity straight to hell and back. It only served to get her hurt.
“Because Andino is not average, and he does not come from average men,” Gio said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “He is not the exception; he is exceptional. You see, I always thought my son was more like his uncle—the one you met at the club with me, Dante. A stickler for the rules; always toeing the line; never questioning his place or the demands put on him. Certainly nothing like me.”
Gio laughed in that way again—dark, and deep. “Not like me, Haven, who broke every rule I could, and caused the most trouble for my family. Not like me who went after a woman I was not allowed to have, and nearly got myself and her killed for it in the process. No, he wasn’t like me at all. He was smarter than me, and better than me. It was for the best, anyway. Someone decided when he was just sixteen that he was going to be a king-in-waiting, but they didn’t want to tell him, then. He didn’t need to know then. Either way, he was going to do great things while I had only done the bare minimum. He was destined to be someone I could never be. I only managed to keep myself alive. That was a feat in itself, believe me.”
Haven didn’t know what to say.
Gio wasn’t looking for a reply, apparently.
He shrugged, and reached for the menu that had been placed on the table. Looking it over, he said, “It turns out, my son is a hell of a lot more like me than I thought. I’m not sure whether to be surprised, or terrified for what might happen because of it, but here we are.”
“You do know that I don’t understand a lot of what you’re telling me, right?”
The man grinned slyly. “In time, you will. I expect so, anyway.”
Haven frowned. “I think you’re confused about some things, then.”
“How so?”
Giovanni met her gaze, and despite the warning she found there, she didn’t look away.
“Andino and I …” Haven struggled to come up with the right thing to say that wasn’t too personal. “We’re not together. That was a choice he made, and one I’m trying to deal with now even if he does confuse the hell out of me constantly. That’s not important, though. We’re not a thing, and we’re not going to be. Ever.”
“Not together?”
“No.”
“You two seem to end up in the same spaces for people who are … not together.”
Haven let out a bitter laugh.
What else could she do?
“How do you even know that?” Haven asked.
Giovanni kept an innocent expression as he replied, “Because I look out for my son even when he thinks I am prying and spying. He deserves—and needs—only the absolute best people surrounding him. Those who will give him absolute loyalty and nothing less in this life. Even when it’s someone like his father looking for information. Anyway,” he said with a wave of his hand, “when I was dealing with something else for him, I learned you were still around. I guess we just haven’t run into one another again since the last time I found you coming out of his house, huh? But we both know you’ve been back there.”
Haven’s cheeks pinked. “Yeah. Let’s not and say we did.”
“Mmm.” The man only smiled in that sneaky way of his. “You don’t even know why you keep going back to him, do you?”
“Not the slightest clue.”
Giovanni nodded. “I didn’t think so.”
“He keeps drawing me back, I guess.”
“I bet.” Gio stood from the table, then, and fixed his jacket. “By the way, how is your mom?”
Haven glanced down at the folder in front of her. “Still sick.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll pray for her—I don’t think God cares much to hear from me anymore, but who the hell knows?”
Haven smiled a little. “Thanks.”
“Is that why Andino is buying your club? You didn’t get a better offer, and he was willing?”
Her head snapped up and her gaze narrowed. “I’m sorry?”
Gio’s expression blanked as his gaze drifted from the folder sticking out of her bag to Haven’s confused face. “The inspection report in that folder—I saw the company name. Your club is still for sale, isn’t it? That’s what I assumed it was for.”
“Not that. The other thing—the Andino thing. What did you mean by him buying my club?”
“The company on the inspection report.”
“What about it?”
Gio’s brow lifted. “That’s the shell company my son uses to invest in different businesses. His lawyers handle the buying, selling, and other paperwork. He just deals in the cash.”
Haven blinked.
What. The. Fuck.
“Andino’s company,” Haven murmured.
“That’s what I said.”
Yes, it was.
Jesus fucking Christ.
How could he?
How dare Andino?
• • •
Where are you right now?
The text seemed innocent on the surface. Nothing to suggest Haven was raging mad, and out for blood. She had carefully measured each word she sent to Andino so that he didn’t think something was up. She didn’t want him to know something was up yet.
His response had been almost automatic with, At my restaurant in Manhattan. Busy today. Want me to call you later?
Haven hadn’t even bothered to reply back to that question. No, she didn’t want him to call her back. After today, she didn’t ever want to see his fucking face again.
She had figured out long ago that Andino could be a little manipulative when he wanted to be. That if a situation called for it, and he knew it would work out to his favor, he had no issues with playing very dirty to get what he wanted.
Haven never thought he would try that shit with her. Well, not to this goddamn extreme. Not to the point where even knowing her mother was sick, and that she greatly wanted to get out of New York for her mom, and to put distance between him and her … he still stepped in her way behind the scenes to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere.
She never thought he would do this to her.
How was that love?
Maybe an unhealthy love. An obsessive, crazy, and nonsensical love. One meant to covet, hurt, and destroy. One that Haven didn’t want at all.
She didn’t want love if it meant that.
Usually, Haven would take a cab when she was traveling through the city. That, or the subway. It was faster, and easier. The thing was—she hadn’t even cared to wait long enough for the cab to get to her place after her meeting with Giovanni sent her flying home in a rage. She’d grabbed her keys, and took her car out of the garage for the first time in months.
Worst purchase of her life, really.
She never even needed a car in the city.
Today, though, the car was coming in handy for once. Except she was forced to sit in gridlocked upper Manhattan traffic while the warm May sun beat down on her windshield. The second she got a chance to pull off the road—she was only a couple of blocks away from Andino’s restaurant now—she did just that. Even knowing she was likely going to have her car towed, she parked it right where she stopped.
Fuck it.
They could keep the goddamn car.
Haven didn’t care.
She stepped onto the sidewalk, and blended into the crowd of people going in all different directions. She barely even saw their faces. It was all a blur as each one of her steps took her that much closer to a man she wanted to hurt like he had hurt her.
Time and time again.
He just hurt her.
The two blocks it took Haven to get to Andino’s business passed before she even fully realized it had happened. She was lost to her own anger and thoughts. She couldn’t even think about anything else.
Haven never once considered that this might be a bad idea. She didn’t even bother to consider that she should at least offer Andino the decency and respect of confronting him somewhere less public, and unattached to his name.
She didn’t think about any of that.
Why should she?
He’d never once thought about her. Not her heart, or that the things he did might hurt her more than he could ever truly understand. He never cared about those things—apparently—so why should she give a fuck about him now?
She didn’t.
Not at all.
Haven climbed the steps of the familiar restaurant, and flung the front door open. She didn’t bother to spare a glance at the changes since the last time she had been there, if there even was any to mention. The girl at podium smiled brightly—she was a new face, clearly, as she didn’t recognize Haven at all—but Haven walked right past her without as much as a hello.
“Excuse me, Miss! If you have a reserva—”
Haven flipped a hand over her shoulder in reply, but said nothing otherwise. She wasn’t here to eat, and she didn’t give a shit about reservations. She didn’t even care about asking where Andino was, for that matter.
She’d figure it out on her own.
Besides, he could only be in one of two places. As he usually was whenever he was in the restaurant. Either in his office, or the private dining section. She didn’t think the man had ever even done a job in the restaurant that was a part of owning the fucking place. Certainly not cooking, or serving a table. Maybe some paperwork, and coming out to shake a hand or two.
That was it.
Haven figured—only because Andino said he was busy—that he was probably in his office. That’s where she headed first, but she had to pass the private dining section of the restaurant in order to slip through the kitchen to get to the back office.
She almost stumbled in her steps when she caught sight of Andino in the private section. Apparently, dining with two other men dressed in dark suits. One she recognized as Andino’s uncle, Lucian. The other man, she didn’t know at all. All she could see of Andino was the expanse of his broad shoulders, and the back of his head.
That wasn’t what made her stop.
Or stumble.
No, it was the fact that his arm was so carelessly tossed around the back of a chair where a woman sat next to his side. Close to his side, actually. Very fucking close.
She couldn’t see much of the woman given her back was turned to the doorway. Just the woman’s long, wavy dark hair, and the low cut back of the dress she wore. The delicate line of her shoulders, and then her profile when she turned to smile at something Andino said.
A soft smile.
It could mean anything. It could mean nothing.
And yet, Haven didn’t think that was the case at all. Maybe it was the way Andino smiled, and nodded back to the woman. Like he was comfortable sitting there like that, and didn’t mind having the woman so close to him. Or it could have been the way he fixed a stray strand of her hair with a chuckle, and then the woman dropped her gaze with a pink tint coloring her cheeks.
Too close.
Too fucking personal.
Too much for her.
Haven blinked.
That rage she had been feeling ever since she left the café blinked out for a fast moment. What was left in its wake was a sharp, stinging pain that sliced through her body with devastating intent.
A pain like no other.
God.
She thought he had broke her heart before, but that was not the case. This was far worse. So much worse, really.
It was like she forgot how to breathe all of the sudden. The floor tilted under her, and the room became entirely too hot. Nothing felt right, and everything was horribly wrong. It was an awful way to feel.
She hated him for making her feel like this.
Haven wasn’t sure what gained the attention of the people inside the private section. It could have been the noise that escaped her suddenly raw throat. A mixture of pain, and disbelief at the sight in front of her. Or it might have been one of the two men sitting on the opposite side of the table with full view of the doorway, and her standing directly inside of it.
Either way, they noticed her.
Andino turned to glance at her first, then the woman.
Haven was too busy looking at him to give a single fuck about her. She should tell the woman good luck—warn her that she was going to need all the luck she could get where Andino was concerned. The man didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.
That much was clear.
She didn’t bother.
Useless, wasted words.
What was the point?
“Haven?” Andino said, confusion thickening his tone. He was quick to stand from his seat, and move toward her in the doorway. “What are you—”
He was too close.
Already.
Even being ten feet away with another second or two before he could reach her, she felt like he was too goddamn close to her. She didn’t even want to be close enough to share his air, or see his face.
None of it.
Look at what he’d done to her.
Look at what he did.
“Don’t,” Haven snapped out in a rasp, holding one hand up to stop him from coming any closer. “I don’t want you near me, Andino.”
The hard set of his jaw flexed, and something flashed in his eyes. Confusion and pain, she thought, but it was hard to tell. He was good liar—said so himself. Nothing he did or said could be trusted. Not anymore. Haven learned that lesson and learned it well. Even if it was the last thing she wanted to know.
Andino’s gaze darkened, and he took one more step closer to her. “Why are you—”
Haven glanced at the woman, and then back to him. If his shifting feet were any indication, Andino didn’t miss the way her stare moved. Uncomfortable was not a good look on this man, but fuck him, because he deserved it.
And that woman?
Fuck her, too.
Except, she wasn’t even the reason why Haven was there. She was just a second realization—a byproduct of Haven coming here, and nothing more. She was the confirmation that Haven needed to know this was the end.
“My club—Sandstone Investments. Ring any bells?”
Andino stiffened, and his face blanked. “Haven, I—”
“Oh, don’t try for an excuse. Don’t lie. You stepped in with the offer under the guise of your company in order to keep me in New York, and with you. That’s what you did. I don’t need you to fucking lie about it, Andino. I have had enough of your lies to last me an eternity. Thanks.”
“Would you give me a minute, please?”
“No, I’m good,” Haven replied. “We’re done. You and me, it’s over. Don’t ever come near me again, Andino. Leave me the fuck alone.”
She had so much more she wanted to say. There was a hell of a lot more she could have said. She could have made a far bigger scene, and let all that anger and pain out in words that would cut him to the ground.
This felt better.
This felt final.
Haven let it be done, and before Andino could respond, she had already turned her back to him and walked away.
It has to be done.