Picking up random women on the side of the street wasn’t a habit of mine, but so what? Lately, the usual hadn’t been working; no one knew that more than me. Besides, Natalie had a way about her—an aura, almost—that made her interesting. Plus, a little chivalry never hurt anyone, and I was out of practice.
Truth told, I liked having Natalie in my car more than I expected I would.
In fact, I was still thinking about her a few days later while I tried to finish out a quick round of eighteen holes on the golf course.
“So, I’m thinking. I have a new IPO I’d like you to invest in.” Aaron Shields, my closest friend on Palm Beach, took a swing at the ball with his club, and it sailed through the air. He winced as it landed on the edge of the green. “Damn, this is not my day.” He turned back to me. “Kinetic Strategy Fund is doing well. Actually, better than I expected.”
“That’s great.”
“And I wanted to talk with you about doubling down. We should buy some more shares. It’s outperforming, and had a 12 percent return last month.”
“Great.”
“So, you’re in for more?”
“That’s fine.”
“We’re talking about an investment of about 350 grand, or so. I think there’s a decent chance of gains like what we’ve been seeing—I might even double your money.”
“Whatever you say.”
Aaron braced himself against his golf club. “You sure?”
“Yep.”
He gave me a meaningful look. “You know what, buddy? You’ve been a lot quieter than normal. Something bothering you?”
I pulled a golf ball from the pocket of my pants and walked up to the tee. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m good.”
“Bullshit. This is our second round on the links at Everglades in a week, and you’re not enjoying it. Everglades, for Christ sakes. It’s the best, most exclusive course in Palm Beach County.” Aaron put a hand on his hip. “So, tell me what’s up.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Everything’s complicated when it comes to you.”
Aaron had known me for fifteen years. For the last five, he’d managed the investment portfolio that contained the remains of my trust fund and the few million I’d made after college in a short stint as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. I considered him my best friend, and he was one of the few who ever saw the real me. I also owed him a lot, and he never let me forget it.
“You might be a Rothschild,” he often said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a shield.”
Aaron had a certain way with words. And men. He also loved Palm Beach more than I did. “All the women here look like Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous,” he’d told me once. “It’s a gay man’s heaven.” Aaron made his way from New York to South Florida as often as he could during the winter, and he spent most of his evenings escorting the town’s aging ladies to charity balls and fundraising dinners. Even at forty-two, he still looked decent in a tuxedo.
“The other day, I met someone,” I said as I watched the golf ball I’d just hit soar across the golf course. Another wide shot. At this rate, I’d be lucky to make par. “A woman.”
“Hold on.” Aaron held up a hand. “You never talk about the women you meet, or the ones you sleep with. Ever.”
“Nope. But I like this one. And, I didn’t sleep with her.” I decided to leave out the fact that I hadn’t stopped thinking about this woman since I’d watched her disappear into Rocco’s Tacos. “She almost ran into my car. That’s how we met.”
“The McLaren?”
I nodded.
“Oh, god, she didn’t scratch it, did she?” Aaron’s mouth lifted into a half-smile that highlighted the crow’s feet around his eyes. “That would be a shame.”
“No, she didn’t damage it. She was…cute. Natalie…something. She’d been at the women’s march downtown.”
“The women’s march? For god sakes, when is this protesting going to stop?” Aaron shuddered. “It’s such an ugly look for people. I can’t even go on Instagram anymore. People are protesting there, of all places. Every other post is this or that—”
“They have legitimate beefs.”
“But it’s so boring. If they keep this up, they’re going to have to protest the whole world.”
“Says the guy who marched in New York the day they overturned same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court.”
“You know I support gay rights. Transgender rights. Women’s rights. All of it. I’m just saying…” Aaron spread his hands. “Protesting works, but at some point, you have to live your life.”
“Speaking of living…we have a hole to finish.” I set off toward the golf cart, and Aaron followed me. Before I got into the driver’s seat, I said over my shoulder, “Oh, and by the way, she works out at Yoga Ohm. Maybe even teaches there. She had their logo on her shirt.”
I’d noticed other things about her, too, like the way her black ankle pants showed off her curves, the small flecks of green in her blue eyes, and the spray of moles that danced across her upper chest, inviting me to look closer.
But I didn’t need to share that with Aaron.
“You’re really interested in her, aren’t you?” My friend eyed me. “Perhaps this one is different?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “What if she is?”
“How old is she?” Aaron asked.
“Twenty-five? Twenty-three? I can’t tell ages.”
Aaron laughed. “Oh, that’s rich. A millennial feminist, if there is such a thing. If you start dating her, your father is going to love that.”
My father had been married four times, and his latest wife was thirty-two. He was seventy-five, and the years of steak, martinis, and little exercise had begun to affect his health.
I narrowed my eyes at the sound of his name. “Don’t bring him up.”
“You know what I think about it—I’ve told you a thousand times. You’re wealthy now, but you could be a billionaire. Billionaire. All you must do is settle down permanently and take over your father’s company. Simple.”
I laughed. We both knew my father’s definition of settling down included marrying a woman with the right last name and the right family tree.
“What? People have done far more for far less.”
“I know—”
“Do you?” Aaron cocked his head. “You’ve been down here for almost two years, nursing a broken heart and avoiding your birthright. Honestly, man, you can’t keep obsessing over the same woman. This self-imposed exile of yours is getting pretty stale.”
“I’m not obsessing over Faye.”
Aaron let out a rueful laugh. “You are. It’s more than just grief.” His eyes softened. “We all loved her, and we miss her. But don’t you think—”
“You know I took all of that”—I waved a hand— “all of that mess pretty hard.”
“I know you did. Anyone would.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and pulled me close. “But you’re turning thirty-five in a month, my friend, and you have to face that. It’s happening, whether you want it to or not.”
It was. I knew that full well.
“Listen, everyone knows that your dad wants to stop running the business and retire in Greenwich. And he wants you to be at the helm of the company.” Aaron released my shoulder, walked over to the golf cart, retrieved his water bottle, and crossed back to the other side of the green. He nodded. “With a woman from a certain kind of family.”
“Still can’t believe he made me sign that ridiculous contract.”
“Neither can I, but he did. You know how obsessed he is about you carrying on the family name. He’s always wanted to build a dynasty, and he wants it done before he’s too old to enjoy it.” Aaron eyed me. “Maybe this… Natalie…is worth considering? Anybody is, at this point.”
He didn’t need to remind me. I had thirty days left to find someone who my father would accept.
“Dad wants me to marry a New York blueblood. Not a yoga teacher from South Florida.”
“You could always make up a backstory about her. Make her a long-lost aristocrat from Europe.” Aaron sipped some water. “But that’s also the loophole. He didn’t specify the type of woman you had to marry when you signed that paperwork.”
I bristled at the word “paperwork.” I’d been just twenty-five when I agreed to his terms, and fresh out of Harvard Business School with an MBA in my hand. I’d wanted so badly to please my father, and at the time, his conditions hadn’t seemed so bad. But that was almost ten years ago. And long before Faye.
“Like I said.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I’m pretty sure that Natalie is barely legal.”
Aaron cocked his head. “You’re still young. Don’t they say thirty-five is the new twenty?”
“No one has ever said that.” I laughed. “Besides, I’m not thirty-five yet.”
“Okay. Thirty-four is the new twenty.”
“I also never said she liked me.”
“You’re Lucas Rothschild.” He shook his water bottle at me. “She will. They always do.”
Aaron’s words—or possibly the violent way he brandished that bottle at me—jolted me back to thinking about my agreement with my dad. Aaron’s present chatter faded and became replaced by his earlier words…
You’re turning thirty-five in a month, my friend, and you must face that.
But that’s also the loophole. He didn’t specify the type of woman you had to marry when you signed that paperwork.
I blinked. Blinked again and again, propping the driver behind my neck and across my shoulders. I rolled the cool metal up and down my neck. Relief flooded my gut as the ideas started to flow.
My mind worked at mega speeds, crafting the solution to all my problems, right there on hole number sixteen.
Aaron finally shut up and shot me an odd look. He grabbed my arm and drew me back, so a group of boisterous men could play through. At that point, I didn’t care. I was grinning so big, my face hurt.
“Yes, that’s it,” I mumbled under my breath, and then I tossed my golf club up in the air. Golfers ducked, and Aaron cussed like a sailor, but I laughed. Giddy, I was so damn giddy it wasn’t even funny.
Yeah, that was the moment I must have gone completely crazy.
I hadn’t done the lotus pose or toppling tree in forever. A few months after Faye died, and at the bottom of my pit of grief, I dated a yoga enthusiast named Margaret who grew up in Brooklyn and claimed to be best friends with one of JD Salinger’s distant relatives. The sex had been fantastic, but that was about it. Margaret had always called yoga the “key to a healthier you,” and she cajoled me for weeks until I finally agreed to try a class with her one afternoon. Once I started, she didn’t let me stop, and for about six months, I contorted and twisted my body into every pose she wanted, hoping that would make up for our lack of chemistry outside the bedroom.
It didn’t.
When I finally ended it with her, she’d said a version of the same thing that almost all the women in my life ended up saying: “You’re lost. No one can fix you; you have to fix yourself.”
I hadn’t stepped foot in a yoga studio since.
Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t try it again, and I’d been meaning to add something to my usual six-mile runs and spinning classes. What harm could a little downward dog do?
After golf and lunch with Aaron at Taboo on Worth Avenue, I drove back to my beach house and found an ancient blue workout mat stuffed behind some tennis rackets and a broken golf club in the utility closet of the garage. I changed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, switched the McLaren for my less flashy, more sensible BMW sedan, and set out for Yoga Ohm. A quick Google search on my phone showed me the address, phone number, and class schedule on the business Facebook page. If I hurried, I could make the three forty-five “Intro to Hot Yoga” class.
And why the hell not? At the very least, I had a blind shot at finding out more about Natalie Johnson and her pink, knitted hat. Not a horrible way to spend an afternoon.
Yoga Ohm sat in the center of a strip mall on the ragged edge of Belvedere Road in the southern part of West Palm Beach. A few galleries and a coffee shop rounded out the converted space, which appeared to be the best thing about this neighborhood. I shuddered, parked my car in the back part of the lot, grabbed my mat, and headed toward the door.
“What are you doing here?” Natalie spoke before I did, right as I pushed through the entrance, and about a nanosecond after I recognized her behind the reception desk.
“Hoping to take a class.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? Here?”
“Decided it was time to brush up on my skills.” I glanced around the small lobby, which had a few benches, some studio-branded apparel on a few racks, a table full of brochures about classes, and a large bulletin board with advertisements about yoga trips and certifications. I had to admire the clean simplicity of the whole place, and the fact that she had enough business savvy to make it her own. “Is this your place?”
“It’s my aunt’s. I just work here.”
“Nice. Cool place. She should be proud of herself.”
“She is.”
Natalie had her eyebrow raised, and a smile pulled at her lips. “I’ve been working here about eighteen months. I’m the assistant manager.” She leaned against the reception desk. “So how did you find us?”
“It was on your shirt the other day. The one you had on in the car.”
“Oh.” She looked down at herself; she wore a similar colored top, only this time it had the studio name in faded letters and accented with what appeared to be a tie-dyed sports bra. “It was?”
“Front and center. Good advertising.” I crossed a little farther into the crisp lobby. “And I’ve been wondering. How much are classes?”
“It depends. We sell them in blocks of ten, or as a monthly unlimited membership. But your first class is free.”
I placed my mat on the nearest bench. “Looks like I’m here for my first one, then.”
She glanced in the direction of what I guessed to be the main practice room. “Well, you’ll have to wait. You’re late.”
“What? It’s only three forty-two. Class hasn’t started yet.”
She nodded. “But we have a strict policy here. Students need to be in place and ready to go when the class begins. There’s too much paperwork to fill out, and I need to register you in our system. We won’t be able to do that in time, and I can’t have you disturbing the other students.”
“Oh, I see.” I didn’t hide the disappointment in my voice.
“I can register you here, though, and you’re welcome to come back. You can even sign up in advance.”
“Perfect. In fact, I’ll take a block of ten classes.”
She cocked her head. “You don’t even know if you’ll like our technique.”
“I’m sure it will be excellent.” I strode to the desk and took my wallet from the back pocket of my sweatpants. “What do you need from me?”
“Just a credit card.”
She took my American Express and handed me a clipboard with a few forms to fill out while she ran the card for a ten-class pass. I didn’t bother to ask how much it cost me; I didn’t care. I just took a seat on the far bench and went to work answering the questions.
I’d finished the first page when a short, barefoot woman walked into the lobby from the practice room. “Steve has the class all warmed up, and wow, that room is toasty,” she said as she adjusted her ponytail. “I’m glad we decided to add hot yoga. Isn’t it great that we have a full class? What did I tell you?”
“That we shouldn’t worry.” Natalie’s attention darted my way for a half second, and that caused the woman to turn around.
“Oh!” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t realize we had company.”
“Don’t mind me. I’m just filling out forms.” I placed the clipboard back on the reception desk. “In fact, I’m done.”
The woman didn’t take her eyes off me. She resembled Natalie quite a bit, though her face had more unnatural points and looser skin. She also wore an expression that I’d seen plenty of times before.
Raw attraction. Desire. Blatant interest.
“Are you a new student?” she finally asked before she strolled over to my bench. “I haven’t seen you here before.”
Both women were pretty in their own way, but only one of them held my interest for more than a second. And that woman was behind the reception desk.
“New to this studio,” I said evenly. “But not new to yoga.”
“How long have you practiced?”
I glanced at Natalie, who seemed to be on the verge of laughing. “Two…ye—months. That’s right. Two months.”
“And you’re familiar with hot yoga?”
“Y—yes.”
“Well, we are happy to have you.” She extended her hand and I shook it. “Just realized I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Helen Mills.”
“Pleased to meet you, Helen. I’m Luke Rothschild.”
She stopped shaking my hand, but still held it. “Luke Rothschild? Of course.”
I could almost guess the new thoughts swirling in her head. She’d heard my last name somewhere. She recognized it. And she probably thought that meant something, even though I knew it certainly didn’t. People always seemed to think the name Rothschild meant more than it did.
“I’m happy to join your studio.” I released Helen’s hand and turned my attention back to Natalie. “And I’d love to learn more about how you think I can improve my form.”
“Oh, I’m sure she has plenty of ideas,” Helen purred.
“It’s too bad I can’t take the class today,” I said.
Helen frowned. “Did you want—
“He came in too late for Steve’s class,” Natalie said. “He wasn’t aware of our policies.”
“Oh.” Helen tilted her head to one side then slid her attention to the large clock hanging on the wall above the reception desk. “Well, he just began the warmup. I think we can make room for one more.”
“Perfect,” I said.
Helen motioned for me to follow her, and we walked to a long row of mats, yoga blocks, towels, and straps. “Do you need any of the following supplies? We have them for rental.”
“Just a towel.” I took the top one from a fluffy pile.
“Natalie,” Helen called over my shoulder. “Add ten dollars to his account.”
“Roger that,” she said.
Helen smiled at me again and motioned to what looked like the locker room entrance. “Our facilities are open to all customers. If you can hurry and get changed—”
“It will only take me a moment.”
I disappeared into the men’s changing room, barely pausing to notice the cozy room itself, which featured long rows of wooden lockers, two benches, a sauna, and a few bathroom stalls. I threw my shoes, shirt, wallet, keys, and cell phone in a locker, then punched in a code and reemerged with my mat and towel in one hand.
“I’m ready,” I said to both Helen and Natalie, who stood a few steps away from the door. I glanced down at my gym shorts. “I take it this is fine?”
Natalie’s gaze floated down my chest, which was exactly what I wanted. I worked hard to maintain my physique, and I knew I had a better body than most men. My pecs had definition, and my flat stomach showed off ab muscles I’d homed in the gym and on long runs on Palm Beach’s Lake Trail. She must have liked what she saw—her eyes widened, and she cleared her throat.
“Thank you for letting me join the class,” I said.
“Anytime.” Helen motioned behind me. “Enter right through that door.”
I pivoted and walked to the door, then felt someone following behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and found Natalie, who’d grabbed the nearest mat from a group of clean ones drying on a rack.
“Since you’re a new student, I’m going to make sure you don’t hurt yourself,” she said. “Hot yoga can be incredibly dangerous.”
I laughed at her obviously made-up excuse and opened the classroom door. Inside, about twenty students lined up in front of Steve who stood in the front of the room on a mat. He gave Natalie and me a glance as we padded to the back and found two open slots near the emergency exit of the studio. I placed my mat on the floor and proceeded to mimic half-moon pose, which the other students had transitioned into as we arrived in the class. Natalie followed my lead.
“There we go,” Steve said in a monotone voice that came out just over the spa-like music that added to the atmosphere of the darkened room. “Find your focus, and make sure to keep breathing. Take time to really be aware of your surroundings.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Natalie whispered to me as we moved from half-moon into eagle.
“Not really,” I mumbled. “But I like it that way.”
“Thank you for sharing your practice with me, class,” Steve said almost an hour later as he wrapped up the session. From the front of the room, he bowed his head once then padded out of it. Within a few seconds, the students got up from their yoga mats and began to exit the space.
Luke and I, on the other hand, did not get up from our mats.
“Are you okay?” I found it hard to bite back my smile. I knew his answer before he said it.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled. He lay on his back, staring at the drywall on the ceiling. Deep breaths heaved in and out of his chest.
“You’re not fine. Don’t lie to me.” I sat up. “I’ve never seen anyone struggle so much with boat pose. I thought you were going to fall over on your face.”
“Well, it is about a hundred ten degrees in here.” He laughed and wiped his hand across his face. “And now you know my dirty secret. Despite what it looks like, I don’t have great core strength.”
“No, you don’t.” I stopped trying to hide my smile, stood from my mat, and held out a hand. “Need some help getting up?”
“I’m good.” He winced and pulled himself off the mat. “I guess it’s obvious that I’m not very talented at this.”
“It’s not where you start that matters, it’s where you end up.” I allowed myself to admire his chest one more time, a chest that, even glistening with sweat, still ranked as one of the top-five hottest chests I had ever seen. His defined pecs rivaled any movie star’s best effort, and the small swirls of chest hair only served to entice me, inviting me to stare further.
God, this guy…
“I’ll have to come back.” He took his yoga mat from the floor and rolled it up. “Because now I’m determined to get what I want.”
“And what’s that?”
He shrugged. “A few things.” He jutted his thumb toward the studio door. “Shall we catch up with the rest of the class? I need a shower.”
I nodded and followed his lead. When we arrived in the lobby, a few of the other students remained, talking in small groups, cleaning their mats, and signing up for future classes. A few of the women glanced at Luke as he entered the room, and more than one gave him approving looks as he tossed his towel into the large hamper near the changing rooms and got a drink of water.
If he noticed, he didn’t let on through his expression or his behavior. Instead, he told me he wanted to get changed, and he reemerged about ten minutes later with his gym bag in one hand, and a t-shirt covering his gorgeous chest. He walked up to me, and my throat went drier than a canyon in Death Valley.
“Well.” I swallowed a few times, willing my saliva to return. “I guess we will see you soon for another class.”
“I hope it’s sooner than that.” He braced his arm on the lip of the reception desk. “I mean…since I’m so bad at this. Maybe I need some private lessons.”
“We offer those,” Helen said from behind the desk.
I whipped my head in her direction and frowned. “We do?”
“Of course.” Helen kept her expression unreadable and her voice flat. “We always want to accommodate our clients in any way that we can.” She looked past me and focused on Luke. “If you would like a private lesson, we’d be happy to schedule one for you.”
“I’ll have to remember that.” Luke rose up from the desk and took out his car keys. “In the meantime, thanks for adding me into the class today. I appreciated the challenge.” He smiled at both of us and walked out the door.
Luke had barely left the studio when Helen turned to me. She had wide eyes and her bottom lip pinched between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. “Are you kidding?”
“About what?”
“That’s Luke Rothschild. Rothschild.”
“So?”
“Don’t you realize who he is?” Aunt Helen slapped her hand on the reception desk and a few pens rolled away from the notebook by the computer keyboard. “He’s like European royalty. Or at least descended from it.”
“So are half the people who vacation on Palm Beach. Tell me something that I don’t know.”
“But the Rothschilds aren’t just royalty. They control everything. Everything. All the banking in Europe, all this land, Wall Street. They’re like the guy behind the guy.”
“Behind the guy, right?”
She didn’t seem to catch my joke. “I can’t believe he came in here. I hope he never does again.”
“What? Why would you say that?”
“Because he’s a Rothschild. They’re shady. All kinds of hidden money and connections to Russian billionaires. And they are rich as hell.”
“But you just offered him a private class.”
She made a throwaway gesture with her left hand. “So?”
“So, plenty. You’re being dramatic and unreasonable.”
“No, I’m not. They’ll do anything to maintain their power, Natalie. Anything. This is the kind of family that isn’t happy unless it’s at its center of power. They spend their entire lives trying to run over the little guy.”
I frowned. “Well, he just bought a ten-class pass, so we’ll be seeing him again.”
Helen took a step backward and looked out at the parking lot like she expected him to come back at any second. “Luke Rothschild. Coming to our studio. This is unbelievable.”
“Maybe.” I lifted a shoulder. “And he really seems perfectly nice.”
“Not to mention well endowed, right? I saw that chest, too.” She cocked her head. “Oh, Natalie, you’re not fooling me.”
“Fooling you about what?”
“I know you well enough to know when you’re interested.”
“He’ll come to a few classes. So what?” I distracted myself by straightening a few wayward brochures lying on top of the reception desk. “He’s probably seasonal anyway, like half the people in town. It won’t be a big deal if we don’t make it one.”
When I braced my hand on the reception desk, though, I gasped.
“What?”
“He left his credit card,” I exclaimed. “He left his Amex Platinum.”
“A platinum card? Who the hell leaves one of those lying around?” she asked, and crossed her arms. “Wait, don’t answer that. A Rothschild, that’s who.”