CHAPTER SEVEN
MELANIE
When I was a kid, I used to have this thing about pretending I was different famous people. After a third-grade living history project, I stayed fixated on Clara Barton, American nursing pioneer. For about a month I wore a floor-length dress in a nod to nineteenth century fashion and carried around a fanny pack filled with Band-Aids, antiseptic, and surgical scissors, even though I was just wandering the Tucson suburbs. Lucy used to get annoyed, muttering to her friends about “weird Mel,” but my parents indulged me. Although now that I was remembering things, I realized I never did receive the requested amputation kit that Christmas.
It must have been that brief infatuation with Ms. Barton that sparked the nursing bug. Unfortunately my medical career was cut short when I failed to pass college biology. Instead I changed directions and switched my major to business. Still, now and then I couldn’t help but wonder if I missed my calling when an emergency unfolded right in front of me, even if the sight of real blood did make me feel a little queasy.
Despite the fact that Dominic had ordered me not to clean up the mess on the floor, I did anyway. I swept up the glass, carefully salvaged the large print of the Manhattan skyline, and located a mop to clean up a few smears of blood. While I worked I thought about the shock of that fall. A feeling almost like tenderness had welled inside of me for him. I had just wanted to help. But something I’d already guessed about Dominic Esposito became even more apparent today. He didn’t want my help. He didn’t want anyone’s help.
“‘Stay here,’” I grumbled, mopping with vigor as I mimicked Dominic’s tone. “‘Stay here’ so I can play the macho man and bleed heroically all over shit while plowing through downtown Phoenix with one hand.”
After listening to myself complain awhile, I looked around guiltily, as if I might have been overheard in the empty restaurant. Luckily only the mop was in earshot, and it probably wasn’t even listening. Once I was satisfied with the condition of the floor, I carried the mop to the sink and rinsed it out. I shouldn’t have been so bothered by the fact that my offer of help had been refused. Sitting around at the hospital and waiting for my cranky boss to get his hand stitched up wasn’t the happiest way to kill a few hours anyway.
I noticed a few more drops of blood in the hallway past the kitchen and sighed, pulling the mop back into action. When I reached the door to the men’s room, my pulse quickened and I paused in my maid duties, staring at the closed door and thinking about things that were better off left alone.
I hadn’t meant to collide with Dominic. I hadn’t even realized I’d been leaning against the door, waiting for him to emerge. Frankly, tumbling into the arms of my bleeding employer wasn’t one of my finer moments. When his hand shot out toward my chest to prevent me from falling, I knew he wasn’t making a grab for the goods. But the goods are what he got. That wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that accidental erotic touch was the most action I’d seen since . . . since . . .
My god, how long has it been?
I set the mop against the wall and thought back. An uptight financial advisor named Kyle Kapinski came to mind. We hadn’t lasted long, maybe two months. Whenever we screwed around, he left his black trouser socks on. One of our last dates had been a Labor Day party at his friend’s house where there was a lot of arguing about climate change, and someone suffered an asthma attack. Since we were in the middle of another hot September, the math was easy to do.
“A year,” I complained to the mop. “A year with no sex.”
A Year with No Sex might sound like the title of a quirky indie film, but in reality it was a sad and lonely truth, one punctuated only with daydreams and lots (and lots) of batteries. It sounded even worse when spoken out loud in an empty restaurant with only a limp mop for company.
With a sigh I turned my thoughts away from sex and back to work. Work was a much less frustrating way to pass the time. Work didn’t have broad shoulders, strong hands, and dark, penetrating eyes that left me secretly quivering in places that had been neglected for far too long.
By early afternoon I’d long since retreated to the office and made some headway sorting through boxes and filing cabinets.
Eventually my stomach rumbled with hunger. However, Dominic hadn’t left me a key, and I didn’t want to leave the place wide open while I took off to get some lunch. Luckily an online search uncovered a local sandwich shop that delivered. Twenty minutes later a knock on the door announced a skinny young man with my sandwich.
As I chewed thoughtfully, I looked over my notes. Gio had asked me to start drafting a marketing plan for the grand opening. In this new downtown location, the brothers were looking to appeal to a more diverse crowd than the college kids who typically frequented Espo 1. I was in the middle of jotting down some ideas the old-fashioned way, using pen and paper, when Dominic returned.
He didn’t call out “Hey, Melanie” or give any verbal sign of his arrival. But I heard the door open, and I recognized the heavy thud of his work boots. After waiting a few seconds to see if he’d bother to acknowledge me, I gave up and went to him.
“You’re still here,” Dominic said when he saw me. He seemed slightly surprised.
I nodded. “Yes. I work here.” I pointed to the bandage on his hand. “I see you got all patched up.”
He looked down at the bandage and scowled. “Yeah. Seventeen goddamn stitches.” He let out an exasperated hiss of air. “That’ll make it tough to do heavy lifting for the next week or two.”
“Oh. Then I guess you’ll just have to bite the bullet and trust someone else to do the work.” The words carried more of a sarcastic sting than I’d intended.
Dominic didn’t argue with me, though. He looked around and scratched at his beard. It wasn’t a true beard. It looked more like negligent shaving habits than anything else. Unfortunately it also made him look even more gorgeous than usual.
“Told you not to clean up,” he finally said. “This wasn’t your mess.”
I shrugged. “I wanted to help. Isn’t that what you pay me for?”
He looked at me, and then a slow smile crawled across his face. “Look, I’m not very good at saying thank you.”
“Really?” I drawled. “I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”
“Thank you, Melanie,” he said without a hint of mockery. “Really, I appreciate it.”
I lowered my head. I had to. I could feel myself blushing under his gaze. “You’re welcome.” I gestured to the counter. “I set the print over there. The frame was broken in three places, so I ditched it. But the picture itself seems okay. Just a few scratches on the upper right edge.”
Dominic walked over and took a look. He placed his uninjured hand on the black-and-white city scene. “I’ll get a new frame for it,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically hushed.
I went to his side and considered the picture. “It’s a really nice view. But it is kind of startling to see the twin towers.”
“Picked it up in a thrift store years ago,” he explained. His arm accidentally brushed against mine. “Copyright in the corner says it’s from 1985.”
I stared at him for a moment. He seemed pensive, perhaps almost sad. “I guess it reminds you of home.”
He continued to stare down at the picture. “Something like that.”
“Gio says you guys don’t go back to visit.”
He raised his head and gazed toward the kitchen, a faraway look in his eyes. “No, we don’t.”
“How come?”
He stared down at me, and for a second I thought I was being too nosy, that he wouldn’t answer.
“Too busy, I guess,” he finally said. “And I have to admit there hasn’t been anything there for us in a long time. Once we lost the restaurant and the family split . . . let’s just say that there’s some bitter memories mixed in there. So no, I don’t go back. Maybe someday I will, maybe not.”
As I listened to him talk, I touched the edge of the print. I liked this thoughtful version of Dominic. His tone was even different, no longer clipped and sardonic, but quiet and reflective. I wanted him to keep talking, but he silently took a step back.
I tried to keep the conversation going. “I’ve always planned on seeing that city,” I said. “My mom’s family was from Brooklyn originally, although there’s nobody left there now. Her parents moved everyone to Tucson when she was about twelve, but when I was a kid, she always used to talk about Saturday trips to Manhattan. The museums, the people, the excitement of a thousand different sights and sounds in one afternoon.”
Dominic bent down and picked up the hammer he’d dropped earlier. I wasn’t sure he was listening to me.
“Well,” he said in an offhand tone, “maybe you and your mom can take a trip there someday, see New York together.”
The familiar ache filled me. I should’ve been used to the feeling of loss and emptiness that always threatened to hit at odd moments when I talked about my parents. But I wasn’t. I didn’t think I ever would be.
“Afraid not,” I told him, hearing the huskiness in my own voice. “They’re dead. Both my parents. My dad was a motorcycle hobbyist, and my mom loved nothing more than to ride with him. It happened quick. Drunk driver.”
Dominic didn’t answer right away. When I glanced up, though, I saw I had his full attention. His expression was pained, sympathetic. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”
I took a breath to control my emotions and then elaborated. “It was four years ago. Whenever I think about them, I remember how in love they were. When I was a kid, I didn’t think about it much except to get embarrassed by the way they held hands or ate spaghetti off the same plate or danced in the moonlight on the back patio. Kids don’t like to think of their parents in love. I never really understood how special their relationship was until I was older. It’s a rare thing, what they had, a gift. At least, since they went together, one never had to watch the other die. That would have been unbearable for them.” My throat tightened and my voice broke. I bit my lip to stop it from quivering.
“Melanie?” Dominic said my name gently, and even though I bowed my head as my eyes swam with tears, I could feel him beside me. The hand that landed on my shoulder was friendly and kind. It was just basic human contact from one person to another, just a small sign of compassion. My instinct was to lurch toward that sympathy, perhaps bury my face in his strong chest and cry for a little while.
But I didn’t. I took a deep breath, shook his hand off, and deliberately put all that sadness away.
“Would you like to go over the marketing plan now or wait for Gio?” I asked as if we hadn’t just been discussing dead parents. I sniffed once and pushed my hair behind my ears.
Dominic cocked his head, looking at me oddly. “We may as well wait for Gio,” he said slowly. “I’m no good when it comes to things like marketing plans.”
“All right. Well, I think I’ll get back to the grind.” I was halfway to the office when Dominic called me back.
“Here,” he said, tossing me a key. “I wasn’t sure if Gio had given you one already.”
“He hadn’t. Thank you.”
Dominic gestured to the door. “Don’t you want to go take lunch or something? I feel bad that you were stuck here.”
“No need. I had a sandwich delivered.”
He made a face. “Is that why it smells in here?”
I put my hands on my hips. “It’s ham and cheese, wise guy. It hardly smells like anything.”
Dominic snorted. “Just messing with you. Seriously though, if you want to get out of here for a while, or even head home for the day, I have no problem with that. You definitely earned an extended break.”
“I don’t want to get out of here. I’d rather just finish up the marketing plan and then tackle the quarterly payroll tax reports.”
Instead of offering some cursory response, he just stared at me. And stared some more.
“Is that okay?” I finally asked. I really wished he’d stop watching me with such intensity. There was nothing mean or critical in his expression, but when Dominic looked my way, I knew I had all of his attention. The idea made me a little dizzy.
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “Of course it’s okay. After all, like you said a few minutes ago, what do I pay you for?”
“Good,” I said, turning around and hurrying back to my desk so I could be free of his scrutiny. Dominic was one of those men who could make you feel effectively undressed with one sweep of his dark, penetrating eyes. And something told me he knew it.
“Hey, Melanie?” he called.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Just wanted to say thanks again,” he said. “For cleaning up around here and for being the next best thing to an on-call nurse.”
I turned and faced him. “You’re welcome once again. Although I do recognize it was probably a wise life choice for me to abandon the medical field.”
Dominic chuckled. “I don’t know about that. You did think of staunching the wound with toilet paper.”
I laughed lightly in return. Then I crossed my arms and bit my lip. “Look, I’m sorry I got all weepy on you there.”
“No,” Dominic said forcefully. He shook his head and looked at me in that way that made me feel like my insides were burning up. “You should never be sorry for that.”
I swallowed. When I’d walked in here this morning, I was somehow sure that working with Dominic every day would solve my troublesome fascination with him. Now I had no idea what to think.
“I’ll be working in the office,” I blurted and scurried back there before he could respond. I sat down behind the desk and tried to clear my mind by thinking of uncomplicated things like puppy dog memes and potato chip flavors. Nothing worked. The image of Dominic’s face kept swimming through my mind no matter what I tried to replace it with.
One thing was clear to me. Things could get complicated with this man. They could get complicated so easily.