by Rachel Hauck
“Aren’t they a gorgeous couple?” Shera came around to sit in Zane’s chair. “I hope you’re all right with this. Are you in love with him?”
“No, I’m not. And I’m glad Sabrina came.” Go. She should really go. Let Zane have his night with Sabrina. “It was lovely to meet you.”
“You’re not leaving, are you?” Shera pointed to the clutch in Lexa’s hand. “Stay. The fun is just beginning. Zane hasn’t received his award yet. Or given his speech.”
“I wrote his speech, so I know what he’s going to say. I was at home in my sweats when he came for me. I think I’d like to go back there, get out of these uncomfortable shoes. Good night, Shera. Thank you for your hospitality.”
Just as Lexa made the dais steps, a breathless Zane arrived with the stunning Sabrina.
“Lex, need you to do me a favor,” he said.
“So good to see you.” Sabrina stepped up on the dais and air kissed Lexa’s cheeks. “You would not believe the ordeal I had getting here.” She hooked her hand in Lexa’s and dragged her back to the table, drinking the last of the champagne in Zane’s glass. Not that she knew it was Zane’s. “But I’m here now, ready to celebrate this guy.” She pressed her red full lips on his. “So proud of you, ZB, my bright, shining star.”
“Good to see you, Sabrina. I’ll say good night.”
Once she set her mind on her cozy apartment, comfy sweats, and yes, a pint of ice cream, Lexa almost ached to get to it. She was grateful to be relieved of her duty.
“Wait, Lexa, you haven’t heard about my ordeal. It started when the shoot ran late.” Sabrina patted the upholstered chair next to hers. “We were filming at midnight. I was exhausted.”
She missed her flight. Her phone wasn’t charged so she couldn’t call anyone. (Lexa didn’t ask the obvious question, “Why not borrow someone else’s phone?” and just went with it.) Her second flight routed through Dallas, where a lightning storm grounded them for three hours.
“Zane told me how frantic you were when I didn’t show. I’m so touched.” She batted her eyes at him. “To top it off, the hotel gave away my reservation. Unbelievable.”
Oh, the inhumanity. Sabrina had to sit in the VIP lounge to charge her phone while the manager talked to her assistant.
“Finally, I gave up on my room, dressed in the lounge, and joined the party.” She held Zane’s hand. “I texted you, but you never responded.”
“All that matters is you’re here now.” He kissed her again, then leaned toward Lexa. “I need you to go down to the desk and straighten out Sabrina’s room situation. Her assistant got nowhere. They still don’t have a room for her.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Lex, just do it. She can’t sleep in the hallway.”
“If her assistant couldn’t fix it, what am I supposed to do?”
“She’s a dimwit. I don’t know why I keep her on. Lex, could you? Please?” Sabrina batted her long lashes. The gesture merely strengthened Lexa’s resolve. “Work your magic for me.”
It was one thing to be his stand-in date. It was another to revert back to his assistant after all she went through to fit into her dress, shower and wash her hair, and walk out the door in less than fifteen minutes.
“This Cinderella has no glass slipper, sorry. If there’s no room, she can stay in your guest room, Zane.” She gathered her clutch. “Good night.”
“Lex, wait. She can’t stay at my place. We’re not there yet, if you know what I mean.”
“There are hundreds of hotels in the city. Have her assistant book a room at one of them.”
“Lexa, you know the hotels in the city. Can’t you—”
“Congrats on your award, Zane.”
The elevator doors closed and she punched the down button, getting madder by the moment. She might work for him, but she also had feelings. No one appreciated being thrown aside and then turned into a servant.
She collapsed against the elevator wall, hands clenched around her bag. The nerve of him. Of her.
Come Monday morning, she’d have a few words for him. For now, she steamed.
Dad always said if she didn’t like a situation, then she should change it. She’d spent most of her life trying to fit into other people’s worlds. High school friends’, college roommates’, her husband’s. Zane’s.
If Zane wouldn’t recognize her contribution to the company with a promotion, maybe it was time for her to move on, get the experience she needed elsewhere so she could have the career she wanted.
As she stepped out of the elevator, her heel caught in the door. She stumbled and landed against the wall, then retrieved her shoe and slid her foot underneath the straps.
Aiming for the elegant, glass-door exit, Lexa moved past the doorman to the curb. “Taxi.”
As the yellow cab approached, she stepped into the street, only her heel snagged a crack in the concrete. Her forward motion halted as her foot twisted, tossing her toward the pavement.
Arms flailing, she tried to stop herself on the back of a waiting limo. But it pulled away and she fell, down, down, down, through a wash of headlights, and landed with her right arm extended on the hard, unyielding pavement.
Chapter 10
Jett
He dozed in the chair at the foot of her hospital bed, jerking awake when his head bobbed too far forward.
Adjusting his position, he pillowed his head against his arm and lingered a few feet above a shallow sleep.
“What’s going on?” Lexa’s voice cracked as she stirred, trying to sit up.
“I’m here.” He stretched the kink from his back and moved beside her. Surrounded by white sheets, she appeared pale and ghostly, except for the hideous, creeping black-and-blue bruise on the side of her face. “How are you feeling?”
“Jett? What are you doing here?” She fell back against the pillows. “My head.” She strained to raise her right arm, struggled, pushed herself back up with her left hand. “What’s going on? Where am I?” Panic and confusion delivered her simple question. And she was loaded with pain meds.
He’d witnessed the whole thing. Her exit from the Starlight Room, her argument with Zane, her hurried walk through the lobby. He’d just made the doors when he saw her fall.
“Mount Sinai.”
“Hospital?” Her pale lips quivered. “What happened? What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Ten a.m. You were hit by a car, Lex.”
“I what?”
This time when she tried to sit up, Jett raised the mattress with the remote. “You hit your head on the street. You broke your humerus. Your right arm is strapped to your side in a long arm cast.”
Sitting at a seventy-degree angle, Lexa was able to confirm his report. “I remember leaving the gala and then—”
“You tripped. Not sure how, but you tumbled into the street just as a taxi was pulling out. You landed with your right arm out.” He demonstrated, stiffening his arm and miming a fall.
“Can I go home?”
“We’re waiting for the doctor. It’s Sunday, so everything moves a bit slower.”
“Sunday? What happened to Saturday?” She spoke slow and slurred.
“You slept. You have a pretty nasty concussion, Lexa.” Jett pressed the call button beside her bed. The nurse had told him to notify her when she woke up. “And a pretty nasty bruise on the side of your face.”
“That explains the percussion section playing in my ears.” She sat forward, hand over her lips. “I feel nauseous.”
“I called for the nurse.” Jett glanced around for a basin or something to catch her distress, should she need to throw up.
But Lexa sat back with a deep breath. “I’m thirsty.”
Jett filled a glass from the dispenser in the room and held it to her lips. When she’d taken a long drink, she squinted at him, shielding her eyes from the light creeping around the edges of the window shades. “You’re still in your tux.”
“It’s my new thing, spending all nig
ht in a tux.” The nurse entered with the doctor following.
“Your new thing?”
“Bad joke. Forget it.”
“Morning, Lexa, I’m Dr. Haft.” A dark-skinned, dark-eyed man with intense confidence bent over the bed and fired a light in Lexa’s eyes. She groaned and turned away. “You’re at Mount Sinai. Can you squeeze my hand?” He gripped her good, left hand. “Good. You have a significant concussion. Can you tell me your whole name?”
“Lexa Leann Prescott Wilder.”
Wilder. Jett backed away as the staff poked and prodded his wife. Ex-wife. Hearing her say her name, his name, plumbed a buried delight. She still had his name.
Seeing her fall face first in front of the cab nearly stopped his heart. He ran to try to catch her, but he was too far back.
When she hit, he yelled for the doorman to call 9–1–1, then sat in the street, protecting her, whispering she was going to be all right, until help arrived.
He intended to go home once they admitted her, but she seemed so vulnerable and alone. He used her phone to call Skipper, let her know what happened.
“Do I need to come up there?”
“Not yet. She can talk to you when she’s better.”
“Thanks, Jett. I take back the mean things I said about you.”
“Can you let your parents know?”
“Yeah, and please, call if anything changes.”
Then the admitting nurse kept asking him all sorts of questions, things a husband would know, and he did his best.
By then it was one in the morning and he was too tired to leave.
“You’re a lucky girl,” the doctor said. “Running into the street without looking usually has disastrous results.”
“Actually, she tripped,” Jett said.
“You’re the husband?” Dr. Haft motioned him forward. “You’re going to have to take good care of her. She’s going to need a lot of help for the next three to four weeks. She’ll be in a cast for six but the last two won’t be as intense. I’m sending her home this afternoon but with strict concussion protocol. She needs to be in a calm, quiet place with little to no physical activity.” He grinned at Jett. “Take it easy with sex. Wait a few days, a week.”
“Yeah, sure, or longer.” A lot longer.
Lexa tried to sit up. “Wait, Dr. Hath, Jett is—”
“Let’s talk about your arm. The break was clean but severe.” Dr. Hath fired off a list of instructions. “I want you resting, no jostling about. I want you off work until I know the bone has set properly and will heal on its own without surgery. Any kind of bumping or minor trauma can cause it to misalign. You’ll need to stay away from crowded streets and subways.” He flipped Jett a card. “Can you help her with bathing, dressing, cutting up her food?”
“Um, sure.” Bathing?
“Call my office to set up an appointment for a concussion assessment in a week. Number’s on the card. I’ll check that bruise too.” He lightly fingered the brownish-black area around her eye and down her cheek. “In three weeks, I want to examine the arm.” He leaned close to Lexa. “A humerus break is very painful. Do not overdo it. Rest. Heal. Let this guy take care of you.”
“Dr. Hath, Jett is—”
“Did we give you a pain script, Jett?” He took a pad from his pocket. “Where can we call this in for you?”
“The Greenwich Pharmacy.”
He handed the prescription to the nurse, then turned back to his patient. “I’m serious about taking caution with your arm, Lexa. You look as if you don’t believe me. A slight bump can cause a mountain of pain. If you fall or trip again, you could inflict greater damage.” He clapped Jett’s shoulder. “You’re her husband. Will she listen to you?”
“He’s not my husband.” She finally said it.
Jett winced. “I used to be.”
“I see. Do you feel safe with him?”
Lexa eyed him around the doctor and his pulse did a one-two. “Yes.”
“Can he support you?”
“I can.” He fielded that one.
“Is everything okay in your life, Lexa? I can ask Jett to step out if you need to talk.”
“Everything is fine. But I can take care of myself.”
“When you’re healthy, yes. But you’re not right now. Trust me, you’re not going to be able to manage alone. If Jett’s not an option, then who should we call?”
She pressed the fingers of her good hand to her forehead, wincing. “My sister is in Florida.”
“I can call her, Lexa,” Jett said.
“No, don’t. She’s supposed to be in the command center for the next rocket launch. She can’t be here for three weeks.”
“Your parents?” Dr. Haft said.
“They’re in Zambia.”
“Jett, can you give us a minute?” Dr. Hath pulled a chair around, sat, and gently rested his hand on Lexa’s good arm.
Jett exited without a word and leaned against the cool wall just outside the door. Was he really so horrible that she didn’t want his help?
She had a good friend, Maria, but he wasn’t sure how much help she could be. Most of her friends had been his friends, and she lost them in the divorce.
In short order Dr. Haft entered the hall. “She’s fine going home with you.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll be back this afternoon to check on her before you go.”
Jett nodded. Back in the room, Lexa stared toward the window, a tear glistening on her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is inconvenient.”
“Forget it. You’d do the same for me.”
“Would I?” She dabbed her cheek with a wadded tissue. “The worst part is I realized I’ve worked so much I don’t really have any friends. I’m twenty-nine and I can’t think of one good friend to call.”
“What about Maria?”
“She got married and moved to White Plains. They had twins in June.”
“I told them I was your husband so I could stay with you.” Jett remained at the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets. He’d owe late fees on his tux rental.
“You didn’t have to stay.” Eyes closed, her emotions walled, he tried to listen between the lines. Even in pain, she held him at arm’s length.
She once claimed she’d learned to detach due to all the moving she’d done as a kid. But Jett suspected deeper fears and wounds.
“The doctor said he’d release you this afternoon.” He checked his watch again. “If I leave now I can get cleaned up and run by your place, pick up a few things. Would you mind?”
For a good minute she didn’t answer. “My toiletries are in the cabinet below the sink. There’s a travel case in the wardrobe.” She glanced at the cast. “I don’t know what I’m going to wear but bring what you can.”
“We’ll figure it out. You can have the master bed and bath. I’ll sleep in the guest room.” He reached for her clutch. “Keys in here?”
When she nodded he slipped them into his pocket. “I’ll Google some ideas and tips on how to live through this.”
A shiny stream trickled down her cheek. “Why are you being so nice, Jett?”
He shrugged. “We’re divorced, not enemies.”
She sniffed and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “I promise I’ll be out of your place as soon as I can shower on my own.”
On the street, he waited for an Uber ride, trying to imagine the days and weeks ahead.
Never in his wildest imaginings had he seen Lexa crossing his threshold again, much less living with him. Even less that she would have to depend on him.
He’d be helping her bathe and dress, eat, wash her clothes, tie her shoes, brush her hair.
Maybe in one of those awkward yet intimate moments, he might be able to ask a two-year-old nagging question.
Lexa, what happened to us?
Chapter 11
Coral
“Jett, you can’t be serious. She was hit by a cab?”
Coral had arrived at the Fifth Avenue Literar
y Society Library Monday evening with an order of Virgil’s Real BBQ and a bottle of Sangiovese.
On this, their third gathering, she was beginning to consider this adventure more than haphazard. But why?
And by whom? She had her suspicions. Someone she’d been getting to know recently.
Already she was starting to see the society members as possible friends. Not deep, heart-to-heart, tell-it-all friends. Not yet anyway. But perhaps . . .
At the gala she’d wanted to speak with Lexa, but Dad involved her in an intense political discussion with Brad Bishop, an up-and-coming New York City political candidate. When she freed herself of that quagmire, her mother, who’d arrived fashionably late, dragged her across the Starlight Room to meet the single son of a friend.
By the time she extracted herself from Sebastian William Ludwig V, Sabrina had arrived and Zane was accepting his award with Lexa nowhere in sight. Nor Jett.
The news Lexa had spent the weekend in Mount Sinai troubled her.
Careful. Don’t dive in too deep. You barely know these people.
“You should’ve called.” Chuck set the bags of barbecue on the table Jett retrieved from the closet.
“Sorry, didn’t think of it. The whole weekend is a blur. I barely remembered to text her sister.” Jett explained about Lexa’s concussion and broken arm, how she slept through Saturday into Sunday. “By the time we got home Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted. I got her settled and went to bed.”
“She’s staying with you?” Coral raised a brow. “How’d you manage that one? Be honest, did you push her in front of the cab?”
Her attempt at levity fell flat even though Chuck let out a snort. From his chair, Ed gasped.
“No, I didn’t push her.” Jett’s answer contained no offense. “It’s just temporary until we know the bone is healing well.” He tapped his upper arm. “A humerus break is painful. Takes a while to heal. And she’s in a long arm cast.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“She’s asleep. The pain meds knock her out. My neighbor agreed to check on her every thirty minutes.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to leave right at nine.”