The Bet: A Manhattan Nights novel

by Natalie Wrye

  My heart starts to race, alarm turning my mouth into mush, as I stare at the chaotic scene before me. Until a very large man, decked all in black, steps forward, his touch surprisingly light as he taps my elbow, urging me forward.

  I sigh so hard my body sags. I glance up into the familiar face.

  “Phil, Jesus.” I glance over the noisy crowd being shuffled out of the doors by building security. “What the hell is going on?”

  He shakes his head, his thick neck barely moving as he levels an annoyed glance over the rumbling mob. He glowers.

  “A new development in the case.” He shrugs. “But it’s okay. Mr. Jackson and Ms. Carpenter are expecting you.” He finally smirks. “Come this way.”

  He leads me all the way to the platinum-covered elevators, hovering like a protective blanket. We ascend like a bullet towards the seventieth floor, and as the double doors leading to Elsie and Brett’s private hallway part, I remember where I am, who my friends are.

  In the middle of my own misery, I’d almost forgotten.

  I had my own problems. But none as pressing as the closest people in my life.

  What was an ongoing argument with your ex-husband compared to the not-so-secretive life of a singing superstar and her TV-show partner?

  What was selling your old marital condo compared to being the son of the most famous criminal in the country? I let Phil escort me all the way to the door, my own woes whisked away by those of my friends, as I lift my hand towards the pricey paint polished over their penthouse door.

  I take a deep breath I can feel all the way to my toes, tightening my fist. And then I knock.

  Chapter 4

  HEATH

  Happy hour is over.

  I close the deep mahogany doors behind me, clenching my coat collar against the frigid cold.

  The time on my watch says “I need a drink.”

  As far as days and minutes ago, I’m already on Scotch-o’clock and by the time I walk into Le Petite Pony after three hours of unpacking and two hours of jet lag, I feel somewhat normal.

  If normal means being-able-to-put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-while-fighting-the-urge-to-fucking-run.

  Because that’s all my mind has been able to do since I landed back in New York. Run.

  No one said coming back home would be easy…

  But what I didn’t expect is that my face would be flashed on every TV screen from coast to coast, that my frown would be splayed across newspapers from here to Beirut, as social media users of all ages and colors debated on whether or not I was too pretty to play my rightful role.

  A role I’d been auditioning for since I was twelve and old enough to know my father was the last person I’d wanted to be.

  I’d been a hot-tempered teen once—tense and angry. Harvard Law School made me mellow. Dropping out made me sane.

  Clutching my navy trench against the wintry wind, I inhale the warm air as I enter the bar with the name that sounds more “strip club” than anything else, my eyes roaming along the wooden expanse, gaze pivoting before at last landing on the tattooed man perched in the corner, his blue eyes alive with mischief as he chats with the bartender.

  I stroll over, taking the empty seat beside him just as he looks up. He smiles, an expression that has frankly won the world over. He bares his teeth, punching me lightly on the shoulder.

  “Fuck…” I exhale on a shuddering breath. “I must really like your ass to brave this icy weather. Missing West Coast hospitality more than ever right now.”

  “West Coast hospitality?” My best friend Brett smirks. “It’s ‘southern hospitality,’ Heath. West Coast hospitality is not a saying.’”

  “It should be.” I shake off ice. “They hand out triple non-fat lattes like candy.”

  “Along with all the ‘hospitality’ you can get, huh?”

  “You say ‘hospitality’ like it’s another word for ‘vagina.’”

  He grins even wider. “In your case? It is.” He nods to the bartender before glancing back at me. “I know you well enough by now…” Motioning to the drink in front of him, he fingers its rounded edge. With a sigh, he says, “Or maybe you’re just like me. Stressed out from…hell, life, and ready to brave the cold for anything alcoholic.” He passes a twenty over the bar’s rough scratched surface. The barkeep takes it. “He’ll take the same as me, Kent,” he directs to the guy behind the wooden slab. “A pint of the Freak of Nature.” A local favorite brew. I raise a finger.

  “Actually… I’ll take a scotch, if you got it.”

  My alcohol tastes are as varied as my moods.

  Tonight? I’m a scotch man. Dark and dry.

  My attitude is slowly working its way up to aged Whisky, but I don’t tell Brett. I don’t want to ruin the meeting we’ve waited weeks to have. Or bring my bad attitude into a good friend’s life.

  Good friend. I’m tempted to snort.

  Brett Jackson is one of the only friends I have, if I’m being honest—something I’m going to have to be with myself now that I’m back in brutal-as-hell New York.

  I take a sip of the dark drink before the bartender barely removes his hand from the glass. I exhale, needing the liquor more than life. I take a swig from the glass edge and swallow, glancing over at my best friend.

  My eyes narrow. “So…what did the asshole do this time?”

  He blinks. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, did your dad kill someone this time? Or has Chris ‘Jerk-Off’ Jackson just stuck to stealing every dime of his partners’ money? Which new crime will we see splashed all over the news?”

  He frowns. “This meeting isn’t about my jackass father.”

  I swallow another gulp of the scotch. “Isn’t it?”

  “No, this is about you, bro. And Marilyn. Elsie. Seriously, Sparrow. I know my fiancée needs a break from all this scandal surrounding us. This circus.” His lips turn downward into a frown. “I had to get her out of the house. And I figured you needed that too.” He exhales, his broad shoulders slumping. “What does the doctor say?”

  I lower my drink. “It’s good and bad. Mare is going to be fine…” I trail off, my stomach tightening as I say the words. “But my father…”

  I don’t have to finish for Brett to understand. He nods, knowing how the sentence will end. He grimaces. “And your father’s lawyer?”

  “Another subject for another day.” I sip my scotch, wishing I could shoot the damned liquid into my veins. It’d make the slow death inside of me go quicker, at least. “Let’s just say that my father has left me in charge of his matters.” I take another swallow of the scotch. “More than I ever thought possible.”

  Brett stares at my face, hope shining through his different-colored irises. His green one winks at me. “You’ll rise to the occasion, Sparrow. You always do.”

  “I don’t know, Brett.” I exhale, removing my coat from my shoulders. “Maybe not this time.”

  I watch as he shakes his head. But I don’t want to hear anymore.

  No more words of wisdom. No more advice. No more cheer-ups.

  I want to hear nothing but the sound of the scotch making its way into my system. I divert the conversation quickly, my fingers tapping the edge of my quickly emptying glass.

  “When’s Elsie heading this way?” I watch as Brett glances towards the door.

  “They should be here any minute. I didn’t want to interrupt her girls chat but they’re probably on their way as we speak.”

  “They?” I ask, my already-tense attitude slipping southward. “They? Who’s they?”

  Kent the bartender suddenly reappears. He slides an amber liquid-filled glass towards me, his hazel eyes alight with hidden humor. He winks.

  “A glass of Macallan single malt for the lady.” A two hundred-fifty dollar bottle of Scotch to meet my current mood.

  My smile slips. “Last time I checked I didn’t have any ‘lady bits,’ brother.” I glance down at the glass. “And I didn’t order this drink.”

  “
No,” Kent gestures towards the end of the bar. “But she did.”

  And when I follow his finger to the woman standing on the other end, I suddenly wish I didn’t.

  Shock slams into my gut, my breath halting, as I stare at the face of Violet Keats. She glances in my direction, surprise draining the color from her face.

  She looks beautiful—regal. Better than I remembered. And she also looks livid, her stare slanting, her stride undeterred as she walks in the direction of the man she once swore she’d never see again.

  Just my luck…that I happen to be that man. I sit straighter. Waiting.

  One. Two.

  Chapter 5

  VIOLET

  The Cabernet I drank with Elsie earlier in the evening threatens to come up.

  I can do nothing but stare as a brown-haired wall of muscle and Italian tailoring stares in my direction, his almond brown eyes locked on my face.

  His own face is perfectly symmetrical, strong and sharp at the jaw. I remember when that perfect face was buried between my thighs, licking at my most sensitive parts, bringing me to orgasm more times than all the fingers on my hands could count.

  “Scotch-o’clock” has abruptly become “Throw-up-and-scream o’clock.”

  Forty minutes after agreeing to meet up with Brett for a night-cap, and I find myself at my favorite Irish pub, my pink-painted fingernails digging into the pockets of my red pea coat, a desperate attempt to steady myself when I finally stop in front of the only Sparrow I never wanted to see again, the heir to the Sparrow fortune standing proudly in a charcoal suit the color of a storm-filled sky.

  He nods slowly, a natural gesture that speaks of his trust funded sophistication.

  “Violet,” he says towards me, towering over me. As usual. I lean in to give my greeting to Elsie’s fiancé, Brett, and the entire time, my body is shaking, regret and anger both working their way under my skin. I stare up into the face of the Devil himself, hating myself for recognizing how handsome he is. I purse my lips as he looks down at me.

  “Brett didn’t tell me you were coming,” he declares. He glances down at me, burning a hole into my brain. “It’s been too long.”

  I want to say that a century wouldn’t have been long enough to see the man who makes my insides quiver, who pisses me off like none other. I’ve done my best to avoid Heath Sparrow, a feat that was easy when he was still in LA.

  But now that he’s here, suited to perfection and smiling in my direction, I have no defenses, no brain cells left to help me speak…and no earthly idea what he’s doing here.

  “Elsie didn’t tell me you’d be here tonight either.” I clear my throat. “I thought…” I stumble over my words, sounding drunker than I feel. “I thought you were heading back to Los Angeles.”

  He offers the seat beside him, pulling the back of it against his broad body. “I was.” I sit, feeling shaky. He smiles sadly, his brown eyes flashing with something enigmatic. “I’m here for Marilyn, of course.” His voice turns hoarse. “But then I got roped by this one,” he notes, motioning towards Brett, “into an ‘emergency beer meeting.’”

  He smiles with hard, unmoving eyes, shrugging. “I may not know jack-shit about emergencies…but I know a whole hell of a lot about beer.”

  His smile—even sad, like it is now—is enough to make the inside of my panties sing a song, and I take my first sip of the whisky, wishing it could chase away the burn I feel every time Heath Sparrow—AKA the worst person in the world—steps anywhere near me.

  HEATH

  I have never wished to be as fucked as I am now. Literally.

  Elsie and Violet sidle up beside Brett and me, joining the small pity party, happening in our barely-lit corner. Watching Brett, my best friend and trusted business partner, with his fiancée is a show I don’t get to witness often enough since I packed up and moved to LA and find myself enjoying every minute.

  Despite the chaos happening in their famously busy lives, I can’t help but watch. Elsie’s mascara-lined brown eyes are excited, her energy contagious. She claps her hands after twenty minutes of conversation, beating both the bar locals and the few bold fans into a captivated submission with the flick of her manicured hands.

  A quintessential and literal star in every sense, Elsie captures almost every eye in the small Irish bar we used to frequent, soaking in every bystander’s attention. Except mine.

  My eyes are reserved for the woman sitting in our small corner.

  Every sexy business-suited inch of her.

  A year has done nothing to soften the severity of Violet Keats’ ruby-colored locks—or my attraction to her, for that matter, and I watch her face closely as Elsie tries her best to beat away the hulking elephant in the room. Hell, the several that are waiting to crash into our night and wipe the whole damned thing out with the drama surrounding Brett’s dad’s case. Not to mention the car accident that nearly took away half of my family.

  The car accident that still might.

  “Okay,” Elsie beams at first me, then Violet. “It’s settled. Heath…” She glances at my disapproving face. “You’ll be best man. Violet, you’ll be a bridesmaid. I want this affair low-key, away from the cameras.”

  I raise one pointed eyebrow. “You’d have to have it on Mars to achieve that.”

  “We’ll keep the wedding a secret,” Elsie counters. “No plus-ones. Just all of our Day-Ones.”

  She smiles in Brett’s direction, and I observe as he melts under a self-satisfied grin. They snuggle closer together, every bit of the sickeningly-sweet couple that the TV cameras have shown them as, but there’s nothing “sick” about it.

  Theirs is a love that’s genuine. Long-awaited and rare.

  If it weren’t for the fact that I know them so intimately, I’d think a love like that was impossible, but my tattooed, television show-producing business partner is nothing but proof of that. Proof that some parts of life are ethereal. Inexplicable.

  They work because the universe somehow ordained it.

  Violet frowns, her auburn brows lowering as she stares at the singing blonde pop star and soon-to-be-bride, crossing her tiny suit-covered her arms.

  “I’ll gladly be a bridesmaid, Elsie…just as long as you don’t make us wear any of those putrid green dresses that the latest Instyle thinks is so ‘in’ right now.”

  Elsie gapes, her hand flying to her buxom chest. Mock outrage shines through her gleaming eyes. She scoffs. “Putrid green? I would never.”

  Violet exhales, reaching for her whisky to take a sip. “Thank you so much.”

  “I’m thinking more of a muddy brown.”

  Violet’s powder blue eyes go wide. “Elsie, no…”

  “Or what about sickly Salmon color? I hear that tuna look is very in this season.”

  Violet laughs, a sound that sends a stirring to my groin. I notice the twinkle in her smoky blues, a laughter I’d often forgot was there. She shakes her head, making strawberry-colored strands of her spin.

  “You must not want bridesmaids after all.”

  Elsie nudges her with her elbow. “I’m only kidding. Only the best for my bridesmaids.” She smirks. “It’s settled.” Her cell phone rings and she reaches for it, her eyes lighting up from within.

  “That’s my cue.” She hops up from her barstool, all platinum gold hair and smiles. “Late night voice-over session for the show.” She hugs me, leaning into my ear. “Be nice, alright?” she hisses.

  I smile, but the expression almost hurts. “Always.” I let her go. “Now go kick some TV show ass.”

  She kisses Violet’s cheek, apologizing quickly. Brett departs after her with a fist-bump to me, adding a second kiss to Violet’s cheek.

  With a last swig of his beer, he’s off—right after his fiancée, and they walk hand-in-hand together out of the pub, clutching their expensive television-funded trench coats against the cold.

  Violet’s and my eyes follow their every movement until they both disappear out the door. My skin starts to hum as t
he silence between us stretches, and the sultry redhead turns to me first, her blue eyes darting back and forth across the surface of the bar. She sighs, a sound so heavy that I almost feel it, closing her eyes before opening them up once more.

  “Am I the only one here who thinks that quick exit was on purpose?” Her laugh is light.

  I grin in agreement, unable to do anything else. The scotch I ordered myself no longer burns, but whatever bullshit my long day of travel has piled on me is washed away in a wave of whisky-amber liquid, the silky saxophone music playing in the bar’s background catching my ear and keeping it.

  I can’t stop staring at Violet, stop soaking in every detail of her face. I remember studying her face as she lay between my sheets just a year ago, finding a new detail every second that she slept. In my bed, I discovered ninety new features to marvel at in the after-glow of our all-night fucking, and I can’t help but notice a few of them now, her button nose, red lips and glossy hair making everything below my belt start to stir.

  My stare raises back to her eyes, and I blink, the liquor thrumming through me.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Wow,” she exhales. “Not listening. Something new for Heath Sparrow,” she declares with a roll to her dark blue eyes. I tilt my head at her.

  “Hey,” I lift my glass to my mouth, drinking the dark liquor. “It’s been a long day. Besides…” I trail off. “I was paying attention to something more important.”

  “I know.” The look in her eyes says she’s sorry. “I’m really sorry about what happened to Marilyn. And your dad.”

  I shrug. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.” I point towards her drink. “Except maybe the vintage of that whisky. I hear it’s the worst.”

  She suppresses a smile, the corners of her lush lips turning upwards. They fall just as fast as she starts to stand again.

  “Well, what you didn’t hear was me saying that I’m calling a cab to get out of here. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’ve been in Chicago on extended leave, so…” She reaches for her purse, and I put a hand on hers, shoving her wallet away. I take mine out and place it on the tabletop, my eyes never leaving her face, taking note of the frown hidden behind her eyes. I probe.