Chapter Twenty-Three
“And on her lips there played a smile as holy, meek, and faint as lights in some cathedral aisle.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Quadroon Girl
While Isadora waited for her rescuer to return, she admired the titles filling the wall. Her memory travelled from the other side of the street like a sketchy etching she couldn’t quite envision.
She probably hit her head harder than she realized.
He returned a moment later, carrying three glasses, one containing ice, the other her chardonnay, and something dark for himself. Sitting beside her, he opened a linen napkin and filled it with ice, folding it carefully.
She watched his hands, noting the various scars and how efficiently he went about concocting a knotted pouch of ice. Maybe he was a doctor.
“Here we go.” He gently turned her chin, pressing the cool napkin to her lips. She winced and he grimaced. “Sorry.”
She didn’t know why she let him touch her, but nothing inside of her wanted him to stop. Blinking, she watched as he carefully inspected the damage.
His face was close enough to see the shadow of hair darkening his jaw, tiny little follicles of soft brown. There was a knick on the bridge of his nose, and a healed over slice close to his right eye. Her gaze drifted away when his assessing stare collided with hers.
Her lip only stung slightly, but her chin was starting to throb along her jaw. She really smacked into him, yet he didn’t appear wounded at all.
“Rough night?” His voice was so temperate, coaxing like an old friend, yet was almost positive she’d never met him before in her life.
He had the calming effect of an empath. “It wasn’t the best.”
“Money, love, or respect?”
Such an odd question made her chuckle, but she supposed those were the three things most issues stemmed from. “Love.”
He nodded in understanding. “Who is he?”
In all her years, she’d never uttered a word about him to anyone. So many moments of happiness and heartache bottled up inside. Perhaps she was in shock.
“He was the love of my life.”
The words fell out of her mouth quietly, a great unburdening that held more weight than any other admission she’d ever pronounced. God, it felt good to say it out loud.
“Were you his?”
Her gaze lowered. “I thought I was, but... He’s with someone else now.”
“Sometimes,” he said slowly, still pressing the ice to her lip as his gaze studied the damage. “We think everything we feel is all that can be felt. But people can love more than one person. It might feel like your heart’s breaking, but maybe it’s just making room for other things. Growing pains, if you will.”
She blinked at him. “Did you just make that up?”
“Yeah. But I believe it.”
“It’s lovely.”
It was a comforting theory. Perhaps Sawyer’s relationship with this new woman didn’t have anything to do with his feelings for her. Maybe they were two separate emotions, two parallel lines running a similar course, never meant to cross. But she still hurt.
He smiled. “I think this is good for a while. It stopped bleeding.” He lowered the napkin and reached for his glass. “Did you ever read Dr. Seuss?”
What a strange question. “Of course.”
“Well, remember the Grinch, how his heart grew? I think that’s more accurate than people realize. Our hearts can love so many things, so many people. It’s naïve to think the first time we fall in love will be the most epic love of our life. It seems a waste of life to only love one person that deeply and never give your heart to anyone else. Stingy.”
She agreed with him, but still found herself the one exception to the rule.
She’d never love anyone but Sawyer and he’d done irreparable damage to her heart. “Unless people are so careless by the time they’re through, the heart’s spoiled for anyone else.”
His smile twisted with understanding. “Growing pains. Don’t underestimate the heart’s resilience. Time heals.”
“Do you honestly believe that? I’ve loved him for most of my life. I don’t think my heart knows how to stop loving him.”
He hesitated, but then said, “I lost my mom when I was just a kid. I know that’s different, but she was the only person I ever loved at that point. Losing her felt like taking off a warm coat I’d worn all my life. I’d reach for it and it wouldn’t be there. I assumed the pain would never ebb. It was a hollowness I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I tried.”
“I know that feeling.” She’d first experienced it after losing her own mother. Losing Sawyer was somehow worse, because he was gone, but still there.
“A lot of people know some form of heartache,” he said. “But over time, the pain eases and you realize your heart still beats. So long as it’s beating, it can love again. I promise. It might be a person or a story or a work of art that steals your affection, but eventually something other than sadness will take your breath away.”
It was as if he knew exactly what to say, exactly what she needed to hear. She wanted to give him some personal detail back so he’d keep talking to her.
“I lost my mother when I was a teenager.”
“It’s a tough thing, but we’ve managed this far, haven’t we?” He gave her a grin like a soldier might share with a veteran who fought the same war, but never shared a word, their similar experiences enough of a bond to overshadow uncrossed paths.
She smiled. “You have an interesting way of putting things.”
He sat back and studied her. She couldn’t imagine how disheveled she must look.
“Do you want to talk about him? Maybe it’ll help. I’m a good listener.”
Her mouth opened, about to spill her most intimate secrets, but she caught herself and snapped her lips shut. What was she doing?
“I don’t know you.”
“And I don’t know you. Maybe not knowing each other will make it easier to talk. I was planning to spend my night in an opera house with five hundred strangers. What’s the difference between that and chatting with just one?”
A lot. “Intimacy.”
“Does intimacy bother you?”
Her face heated. “I don’t discuss my personal life with anyone. I never have.”
“That’s a good quality, but it can get exhausting bottling so much inside.” He laughed to himself. “I think you and I might have a few things in common.”
He didn’t seem like a cautious person by the way he was speaking to her. She wasn’t exactly sure how to read him.
“You don’t act shy.”
“ Private is a better word. People see what’s on the surface and assume they have a person figured out.” He glanced at the shelves behind him. “Books are always judged by their covers, so I’ve mastered showing people only what I want them to see, letting them assume they know what’s on the inside. When their egos are satisfied they lose interest.”
“So you spend your life performing for others?”
“No, I don’t concern myself with others on most accounts, but I know how to keep them away. Give them what they expect and they think they have you all figured out. Most people have incredibly short attention spans.”
Her stare narrowed on him, wondering if he was performing now. “I don’t judge books by their covers.”
He tilted his head, giving her a skeptical smirk. “No?”
She shook her head. “Book covers bore me. I’m colorblind, so I have no choice but to go by what’s inside.”
“No kidding? You can’t see any color?”
“Blue. Everything else is sort of flat and dull. Shades blend together.”
He twisted and searched the shelves, pulling a book down and placing it on the table. “What do you see?”
It was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz— one of her favorites . “A lion. I can make out the pictures and words, but it’s all sort of … yellow, I guess.”
His mouth twitched as if he were hiding a pained grin.
“It’s not yellow, is it?”
Offering a regretful smile, he said, “No. It’s green. His mane’s red. I guess you’re not a fan of the movie.”
She laughed, perfectly aware of the moment The Wizard of Oz switched from black and white to color, but not used to people so candidly questioning her about what qualified as a disability. “Actually, it was one of my favorites growing up.”
“Really?”
She nodded and sipped her wine, careful not to bump her lip. “I used to watch it over and over again, thinking one of those times my eyes would see what Dorothy saw. Eventually I gave up.”
His brow pinched. “I wish I could show it to you.”
She smiled, thinking about how many times she wished she could see what everyone else saw. It was worse when she was young. Now, she just accepted it. Holding out hope only led to disappointment.
She’d read an article about some special glasses being designed for people like her, but she doubted they worked as well as the creators intended. It was better to accept what was rather than hold out for some unrealistic fantasy that would never compare to the real thing.
“Emerald used to be my favorite color,” she told him. “I have no idea what it looks like, but I knew if there was an Emerald City it had to be beautiful.”
“It is.”
Something shifted, leaving her feeling too exposed. Her gaze drifted to the table. “So, you were saying you’re an introvert.”
“I like my privacy and try not to concern myself with other people’s opinions whenever possible.”
“You must love dressing in something as generic as a tux.”
He chuckled and flashed a grin. “It does keep things on an even playing field. It’s amazing how differently people treat a person when they swap out a designer suit for tattered blue jeans.”
“Do you do that, dress down to mess with people?”
She’d never been in public wearing anything less than a well put together ensemble, coordinated down to the stockings on her feet. All of her life she’d depended heavily on boutique saleswomen and her sister to make sure she didn’t clash or look like a fashion emergency.
“I dress down for myself. Ambiguity’s nice, but if I need to accomplish something and a suit carries more influence, I’ll put on a suit.” He shrugged, his relaxed posture a total contradiction to his pressed attire. “If I want to escape responsibility for a while, an old sweater and jeans does the trick.”
“Which is the real you, the suit or the sweater?”
“The sweater.”
For some reason she was glad he’d said that. She’d met enough tuxedos in her lifetime, but she’d never really spent time with the sweater sort.
She glanced over his shoulder. “Did you read any of these books?”
“I’ve read all of them. Sometimes I leave novels here for the next person. That one there…” He pointed. “That was mine.”
She slid the book from the shelf. “ Lord of the Flies .” Her hand brushed over the tattered cover, pausing over a butterfly.
“Can you see it?”
She nodded. “It’s blue. I read this a long time ago. I forget it now.”
“Take it with you.”
She glanced at him, guilty before even committing the crime. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? It’s mine.”
“But you donated it. Taking it now would be like stealing.”
“Do you want me to ask permission? I’m sure they’d let me pay them for it.”
“No, that’s all right.” She could buy her own copy if she felt like reading it again. She slid it back onto the shelf and sipped her wine.
They sat silently for a moment and his attention drifted toward the entrance of the bar. “Do you hear that?”
She turned her ear in the same direction. “Hear what?”
“The music coming from the opera house. When I was younger I’d sit outside and listen to the shows. I think I’ve heard everything from Madama Butterfly to Otello , sitting right on those steps.”
Two of her favorite operas, but she couldn’t imagine only hearing them. There was something magical about witnessing the performers come to life on the stage and transcend time, creating a world out of nothing more than props, ambiance, and their own talent. Why would anyone want to miss seeing that?
She took a moment to appraise her company, feeling like something was a little off about him. His tuxedo looked like Oxford, but it was difficult to tell in the dim light. He didn’t wear any jewelry and his cufflinks were plain.
There really wasn’t anything extravagant about him, aside from his tux, which in all truth could have been rented. However, he’d been inside the opera house when they met, which meant he’d somehow earned his way onto that guest list.
“Have you ever watched an opera?”
The side of his mouth lifted into a half grin. “No, but I have a vivid imagination.”
“You were on the guest list tonight, right?”
He laughed. “Do you think I swindled my way inside?”
Maybe. He hadn’t been seated at the start of the evening. Perhaps he snuck in when those monitoring the doors were preoccupied. Realizing how foolish that sounded, even in her own head, she blushed.
“I was invited,” he assured, smiling. “I’ve invested a lot of my time with the people of St. Christopher’s. It’s important to me that it remains open.”
So he was a philanthropist. “I’ve never seen you there. I volunteer whenever I can.” She wondered if he knew Sawyer, if he was on the board with him.
Recalling Sawyer sent a punch to her heart, still painfully tender. Her hand started to shake and, as she reached for her glass, chardonnay sloshed over the rim onto the lap of her gown.
“Dear lord, I’m a train wreck tonight.”
She reached for the napkin, forgetting it was filled with ice, and sent melted chips pelting across the table. Shutting her eyes, she pinched her nose and drew in an exasperated breath.
“Hey,” he whispered softly. “It’s just water and wine.”
Exhaling slowly, she swallowed and gave him an apologetic look. “I’m not usually like this. I’m typically the calm one, the steady, put together one.”
“Everyone loses their balance once in a while.”
She studied him for a long moment, wondering who he was and where he’d come from. She wanted to ask his name, but only if she could avoid giving hers. She didn’t need the label of Patras interfering with the authenticity of their conversation. “Are you always this patient with people?”
“I’ve been known to have an off day.”
She liked the way he defined things. “That’s what this is for me, an off day.”
“Maybe it’s not. Maybe this is just an ordinary day and all the others were off. This might be the real you you’ve been hiding behind a shield of elegance and propriety. People hide all the time, but sometimes, no matter how much armor we wear, a few bullets get through.”
“A shield like a tux?”
“Maybe ball gowns are your sweaters,” he teased.
Her gaze went to the pristine white tie at his throat where stubble had started to grow. She glanced at her gown and thought about how much effort she put into her appearance tonight. All she wanted was to look unbroken on the outside, so much so that no one would notice how shattered she was inside.
She certainly used clothing to boost her shaky courage, but tonight that wasn’t enough. Maybe it stopped being enough a long time ago.
If this wasn’t her, then who was she? Was any of this real? Was she the heiress in a ball gown attending affairs, hiding in the shadow of her impressive brother? Or was she her own person?
“I don’t know who the real me is.”
“Well,” he said softly. “I think she’s probably kind. Gentle with other people’s hearts. Pretty. She’s read the classics, which tells me she has a romantic soul. And she’s fragile, but too focused on where she’s heading to consider herself breakable. How am I doing so far?”
She blinked at him, unsure how a perfect stranger could assess her with such detail in such a short time. But he gave her too much credit. “You forgot to say transparent.”
“No, I didn’t. People probably think they know you from what they see on the outside, but I bet there’s a lot more going on under the surface.”
His fingers brushed her discarded glove resting on the table. Her chest tightened as he touched the smudges of makeup, blood, and tears. So exposed, yet she didn’t move a muscle to hide away the evidence.
“Some people wear tuxedos while others wear silk gowns,” he whispered. “It’s all about illusions. And you, m’lady, have it down to an art form, I think.”
“I’m not that complicated,” she rasped, finding it difficult to draw in a full breath. The wine was getting to her. Her skin felt flushed and warm.
He flashed his teeth in a confident grin. “I think you’re one of those people who knows exactly what others anticipate from you and excel at meeting their expectations. Keep the cover simple, hide the story inside. Which is probably why tonight, when something clearly upset you, your first instinct was to hide. Protect the illusion at all costs for the sake of others.”
“I wasn’t hiding. I wanted to leave.”
His eyes watched her and her skin prickled, that strange sense of exposure taking hold again.
He was right. She ran off to hide, not from the man who hurt her, but from those who wouldn’t understand her response, the people who always expected her to be the unshakable one.
“It gets exhausting,” he confessed. “I did it for a while, at the start of my career, but then I realized even business can get too personal and I didn’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not anymore.”
“I’ve done that.”
She thought of Tyrian and how badly she wanted to be the girl perfectly satisfied with a charming, emotionally available, well-mannered guy. But she couldn’t. Without passion, there was no point.
Her lashes lowered, the shameful truth whispering past her lips. “It can feel like layers of your soul’s scraping away, like you’re trying so hard to please others that you’re losing yourself in the process.”
“Was it a job?”
“A guy. A long time ago. Not the one from tonight.”
“How long did it last?”
“About three months. You?”
“Mine was a job and it barely lasted a year.”
“At least you weren’t pretending in order to find love.”
He laughed. “That’s not necessarily true. I thought success would make her love me, but her heart belonged to someone else. In the end, when I saw the way she looked at him, I realized, for all my affection, I never looked at her that way.”
“You let her go?”
He shrugged. “There are varying levels of love and my feelings for her made a mockery of the word. Sometimes we love what’s comfortable, what’s familiar, and when it’s gone we panic. I didn’t have to let her go. She was never mine.”
“You’re quite the philosopher. Interesting, too. I imagine that helps with your success.” She wasn’t sure what he did for a living, but knowing he was on the guest list proved he was a successful man.
“Thank you. Occasionally I try.”
He was definitely charming, not because of the way he spoke, but how he spoke. He might even be a bit of a romantic. “If you had to choose between love or money which would you pick?”
“Love, all the way,” he answered quickly. “I respect money and everything it can do. It’s a necessary evil. But even the richest man is limited in terms of love.”
Another view they had in common. Yet, here they were, dressed like royalty, in the back corner of a bar covered in books.
Maybe they were just hypocrites. It was a lot easier to say money didn’t matter when you had plenty in the bank.
“Can I get you another glass of wine?”
She glanced at her cup, surprised to see it empty. “If you don’t mind staying a while longer.”
“Are you kidding? This is way more entertaining than the night I expected.” He stood and took their glasses to the bar.
She should text Toni and let her know where she went, but the overwhelming thought of having to explain herself kept her away from her phone. Maybe just a little longer. She felt safe here, like she could hide and catch her breath before facing reality again.
Two glasses of wine turned to three and eventually she lost count. The longer they talked the more comfortable she became around him. He was witty and sweet and charming in an unobtrusive way. There was something about him that soothed her, made her want to learn everything about him and trade secrets, even if they never saw each other again.
People dressed in gowns and tuxedos filtered into the bar, reminding her of where they were and how long they’d been missing. She reached in her purse to check the time on her phone, shocked to see it was almost midnight.
There were a few missed calls and texts from Toni asking where she was. Guilt slithered through her pleasant mood and she reluctantly accepted that she couldn’t hide forever. She should get back.
“Thank you for helping me tonight.”
“Please don’t thank me. I feel terrible I knocked you over.”
She shrugged, sort of glad they bumped into each other. “Accidents happen.”
His hand brushed hers and her stomach tightened, as she stared at his fingertip grazing her knuckles. A whoosh of butterflies exploded in her stomach and her gaze jumped to his face. He gave a shy smile and she understood their chemistry wasn’t one-sided.
“I had a great time getting to know you,” he said softly, his gaze holding hers.
Feeling winded though she’d been sitting for some time, she whispered, “Me too. It was sweet of you to bring me here and…” She gestured to the damp napkin. “The ice.”
“My pleasure.” His hand slowly pulled away.
She fidgeted, unsure how to say goodnight and thank you without seeming awkward. “People are probably wondering where I am.”
“Him?”
Her smile fell. “No, he doesn’t even know I’m here. My family, though … I just left without telling them.” She gestured to her phone. “My sister texted me about a hundred times.”
“Ah. If you want to stay and talk a while longer I could take you home. You could let her know you’re safe.”
Her lips parted, a curious feeling twisting inside of her. “I should probably go home with her. I insisted she come with me tonight.”
“Does she live with you?”
“No, but she’s spending the night.”
“Then you should probably let her know where you are,” he said, gesturing to her phone.
Reaching for it, her hands trembled, her mind protesting that she wanted to stay. She texted Toni letting her know she was at the bar across the street.
Her phone buzzed back and she slipped it inside her clutch. “She’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Can I see you again?”
Fear and nervous excitement took hold. She wanted to see him again, but she was so afraid she was leading herself towards another letdown. He wasn’t like the other men she knew, yet she couldn’t put her finger on what made him so different.
Her phone vibrated again. “Excuse me.”
She pulled it out and read the text from her sister saying they were crossing the street now. Feeling suddenly rushed after such relaxed conversation, she collected her gloves and stood. He stood as well, a pulse of energy beating between them.
She wasn’t ready to say goodnight. Turning, she saw her siblings working their way through the late night rush at the bar. “I had a really nice time tonight.”
He smiled, his anxiousness seeming to shadow hers. “Me too…” He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know your name.”
She laughed as well. How strange to share so much with someone, but never share their names. “It’s Isadora.”
Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out a plain white business card with a phone number. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Isadora. I’m—”
Evelyn’s voice cut through the air. “ Parker? ”
Isadora turned as her sister-in-law stared up at her companion and Lucian scowled.
Toni took inventory of everyone’s expression, seeing their brother’s clear dislike for the person Isadora had spent the evening with, and a slow silent ooooh shaped her sister’s mouth.
They knew each other? How?
Evelyn laughed, her expression the absolute opposite of her husband’s. “Holy. Shit.”