The Bet: A Manhattan Nights novel

by Natalie Wrye

  I blink. “You mean… I would cook the food for the event?”

  Marilyn smiles. “Unless you can give a good reason not to.”

  My shoulders slump as she stammers. “What the—what the hell, Mare? I’m sure I can give you twenty. For one: I’m not a professional chef. Two: I’ve got a huge court case consuming what’s left of my life, and the man my clients want to prosecute…”

  “Is the groom’s father. The bride’s father-in-law,” Marilyn finishes. “We all know the story. Brett’s dad. Christopher Jackson. Fraud. Phony bank accounts. Embezzlement.” Marilyn smiles sadly. “Why do you think I’m throwing this goddamned party? In the middle of shooting my new season. It damn sure isn’t because I need another distraction. It’s because I know that they do… Brett and Elsie.”

  Her eyes grow glossy. “The whole world’s looking at them. They’re the talk of the town. I just thought it would be nice…” She looks straight at me. “If their best friends in the world gave the town something else to talk about. At least, for now.” She frowns. “And since when did dad’s clients turn to yours?”

  She glances up at me, her clear irises shining. “Heath Donovan Sparrow, you sneaky little slut, you.” Marilyn practically whispers at the nape of my neck. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here…”

  I can feel the heat of her stare on the middle of my face, but I ignore it… just like I ignore the implication of the question she’s posing. I feign ignorance.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Yeah,” she reasserts. “Between you and Violet, muneca.”

  The Spanish term for “doll” doesn’t lessen the accusation in her suspicious voice. In fact…it sharpens it, heightening my senses.

  At this point, it’s safe to say that Marilyn knows me better than I do. But if I tell her about Violet, who knows what will happen? The brunette powerhouse was unpredictable as it was. I’m tempted to snort at the thought…

  Like brother, like little sister.

  My sister—the incomparable Marilyn Daniels, screen siren extraordinaire—had all of her hard-headed older sibling’s Wild Child ways minus the Sparrow name, which she’d shed like a second skin at seventeen.

  A walking felony with the fame and wealth to pull it off, her new starring role on the winter season of the TV show, The Hotel, was a scorcher… Made so by a fluke fire that happened on set after-hours and an on-set love triangle around a hot production assistant.

  All of which were blamed on Marilyn, a rumor I’d taken to believing was true.

  Subtly was never my sister’s style. Not one little bit, and as much as my younger sibling tries to play it cool, the way she searches my face for answers is anything but. Putting her off when she smells blood in the water is almost always the best bet. I order a second drink from the bartender.

  “Christ, Marilyn,” I moan, almost believing myself. “Between Violet and me? You must mean the blatant hatred.”

  “No,” she stresses, sitting on the leather barstool opposite me. “I mean the blatant heat.”

  I stare, swinging on her. “There is no heat between that woman and me.”

  “Oh, really?” she rolls off her tongue. “There’s been a five-alarm fire on your face every time her name comes up.”

  I grind my teeth, grateful that no one at the office can tell. At least, not yet.

  I was just learning my way around the firm, learning to navigate. Trying to save my father’s company from David King’s incompetence was a full time job. And I hadn’t exactly been ready to surrender any more ground to him than I already have.

  I steady my jaw, turning to her.

  “Marilyn, you don’t get it. We’re closing in on D-day…”

  “Dick day?” she interrupts.

  “No. Destruction Day,” I emphasize. “The day of reckoning, departing, decision… Chris Jackson’s day in court is coming, and I might have to walk into a courtroom with a thousand cameras to play witness to a case I’m not supposed to be a part of. A case that could define King & Sparrow’s entire future. A case I can’t touch with a ten-foot pole.”

  Marilyn smirks by the slightest fraction, her navy eyes glistening. “Who said you can’t touch the Chris Jackson case?”

  “Sanity.” I take a swig from my drink, staring at Marilyn. “Touching this case is career-suicide. And I’m not going to let Brett’s father drag down dad’s company—and stocks—with it.”

  Marilyn smirks. “Didn’t know you cared so much…”

  I snort. “I don’t.”

  “Then why have you been so intent on doing what’s best for King & Sparrow while dad’s away?” She presses forward. “Why are you so focused on doing the right thing if all you’re going to do is pack up and head back to Hollywood anyway?”

  Her voice quivers on an empty note. My sister turns from me, hiding the flush on her face. The actual fucking flush that I haven’t remembered seeing since I was ten. Her blue eyes grow teary.

  I’d taken Tank when I wasn’t supposed to. Showed up at the hospital every day since. But the look on Marilyn’s disappointed face tells me that it’s not enough. That it was never enough. And that I should have known it.

  Somehow, living my life, I’d broken the unspoken promise I’d made to my sister.

  The promise I’d made to save the day.

  Because that’s what older brothers did, right? They saved the day.

  God knows I need to make up for all the days I didn’t, days I hadn’t been there when she was hurting. I’d run to Hollywood because doing so served me, and me alone. In so many ways, I was every bit of the bastard Brett accused me of being. Only looking out for myself. Leaving behind the people who meant most to me. Like him. Like Marilyn. My family.

  My Violet.

  It was strange, how often I was coming to think of the little lawyer as mine.

  I trail a hand across my sister’s shoulders finally answering her unvoiced question.

  “Mare… I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. For once, I want you to lean on me. Count on me to do the right thing. God,” I scoff, “it’s probably the first time I want to.” I squeeze her small neck. “Take advantage.”

  I can already see the thoughts forming inside my TV star sister’s head, her fingers threading through themselves as they clasp each other tightly. Her dark, sky-colored eyes go bright. She tilts her head.

  “So are you staying in New York for good…?”

  “No! I mean, yes. I mean…“ I throw my hands up, nearly laughing.

  God, Mare was good at shredding my anxiety. I start again, feeling ten times lighter.

  “This is about overcoming my fears, my past. And since I’m back at King & Sparrow, walking into the one place that gave me the worst memories and shaping it into some of my best, then I’m turning things around. That’s all I’m saying.” I stand, placing my hands the edge of my hips. “I’m conquering the fucking beast.”

  Marilyn crosses her legs, pointing a finger at me.

  “And by fucking beast, I’m sure you mean Violet Keats.”

  The sound of her name puts a strange fever under my skin.

  I throw Marilyn a bone. “One can only hope.”

  Marilyn smiles, cocking a cynical eyebrow, and I know now that the Violet talk is on pause. At least, for today.

  I nod, feeling satisfied with my misdirection skills. But after saying our goodbyes, as I start to walk out, I feel a flutter in my gut—an uneasiness that hints of events to come and a myriad of words left unsaid.

  Chapter 14

  VIOLET

  Day twelve passes slowly…but without a hitch.

  Outside my office window, the sun sets in a rainbow of butter-gold and red on a New York City skyline—a skyline that, years later, I don’t even recognize anymore.

  Maybe it’s because the Towers are missing.

  Or maybe my twenty-eight year old eyes just don’t see it the same way.

  Water-paint like skies clash against a concrete slab outside of my of
fice window, and the vision of Manhattan on the other side of the glass is like a dream, its dwindling lights and falling snow reminding me of why I fell in love with this city in the first place.

  I loved the Brooklyn brownstone that’d been a family vacation home for years, but I’d always been drawn to the dregs of the other borough. The one thriving with people, businesses, brick and concrete as far as the eye could see.

  Living in New York was expensive. Emotionally and physically. Anyone could tell you that. But I’d taken to the metropolis like a moth to a flame. Somehow, here, in a sea of ambition and taxi cabs, I fit, as if sliding into a new pair of name-brand pumps.

  Speaking of which… I hadn’t waited more than a minute after the last worker left to take mine off tonight.

  In my office, my legs crossed and bare soles up, I tap the heels of my tired feet against the wooden desk to the sound of the classic nineties band, The Cranberries. The music matches my mood as my mind races through the details of the day, the tune to Dreams putting a pep in the beat that I drum on the front of my teeth with my pen-cap.

  Every night, it’s the same thing.

  Me. My music. The solitude.

  With the exception of a few janitors and jilted workers, the office was always dead around this hour, quiet as a grave. And yet despite all my best efforts to give into the silence, the sound of Heath’s husky voice stays with me—my only company in the cold, abandoned office the falling snow on the holiday-decorated city just outside my window another reminder that I have no holiday to go home to.

  No family. No husband. No screaming kids welcoming me in.

  Unlike everyone else.

  The city was full of people rushing, always in a hurry. They rushed to work to start the day. They rushed home to end it. They rushed here, there, to and fro and to whatever small pieces of life they had waiting in the wings, finding some sense of sanctuary in whatever dog, girlfriend or loved one was waiting for them at home.

  I needed no church, no synagogue, no needle, and no safe haven.

  Work was my religion—the love I’d dedicated myself to.

  The office is where I get my best ideas, where inspiration finds me most. The concept of getting lost takes on new meaning within these walls, and I literally sit in what has become my second home…and dream.

  I dream up a world—a life—that gets new breath every day.

  My job is the only baby I have time for these days. It’s the only part of my life—period—that takes my time. I’ve barely gotten a chance to visit my parents in Chicago, my friends have almost stopped trying to get me to socialize, and sex…

  Sex?

  I’d somehow forgotten the meaning of it after eleven long months. Hell, make that twelve.

  I’d had to take the concept of self-satisfaction seriously these days, and sometimes on nights like this, when the city felt loneliness, I’d remove the small battery-operated boyfriend—otherwise known as the Rabbit—from my briefcase (as pathetic as I was becoming), my fingers drifting between my legs, rubbing to the thought of some nameless face.

  I’d even tried to use David for inspiration. Once. But like all the other nights, I shut my eyes, imagining nothing at all. Pushing back a sheet of red hair over my shoulders, I let my hands skim over the button of my white blouse, let them float to the lace between my legs. When they find warm and wet contact, the touch on my clit turns electric, my eyes drifting closed only to find a familiar face—gorgeous and strong-jawed—behind my darkened eyelids.

  I fling my eyes open immediately, startled to discover my skin hotter than ever at the thought of… Heath.

  I’d snatch my hands away, but the heat makes them stay. An attraction, raw and reason, quickens the pace of my delving hands. Fanning its way across my body, a blush brushes its way down my thighs, and in the midst of a tiny moan, dreaming about the dusting of dark hair along Heath’s jaw, the deep brown crop of strands at his temples matching his earthy irises, those goddamned shoulders broad enough to take a seat on, I discover an ecstasy I’d thought I’d lost, my pulse picking up, my skin twitching as warm sensations take me over, washing over my entire being.

  Because despite his cockiness, his imposition, and the fact that he pokes at my most sensitive nerves… Heath Sparrow has a sexiness that can’t be denied.

  I—like every other woman with a pulse—am utterly incapable of ignoring it. I wish I could…because within minutes, I am panting at the thought of Heath’s hands, his wicked smile—his lips. My fingers sliding frantically across my clit, circling and sinking, the hot as hell image of Heath brings me to the brink, an impending orgasm streaming through my system when suddenly… I’m not the only person coming.

  The sound of heavy footsteps echo across the carpet outside my office, and I bolt upwards in my leather chair, nearly knocking my laptop over, my fingers snatching from my skin as if the very surface were on fire.

  “What’s going on?”

  The steps across the threshold behind me throttle my senses, and I grab for the hidden bottle of mace in my purse, wrapping my shaking fingers around the plastic tube before turning to face whatever stranger might be dawdling in my doorway.

  I pivot, poised to spray when a pair of cocoa eyes stares back at me.

  It’s the devil himself…and he’s staring at me, his brown eyes scanning my body with a sleep-like gaze—hooded and dangerously sexy.

  I can barely breathe as my brain scrambles to catch up with my mouth.

  “What are you doing here?” I pant.

  I exhale like I’ve been running a marathon, and Heath—coolly decked in blue jeans and a white tee—regards me closely, his earthy eyes squinting as he gazes openly at me through the room’s muted light.

  He steps closer, and I thank the universe that the room is too dim for him to see the sweat at my neck. He glances around the small square space.

  “I left behind some notes. Thought they might be in here…” he trails off, his dark brows lowering. “Do you always stay in here after hours?”

  His reproach plays teasingly on the edge of a question. Speaking with the conviction that says he already knows the answer, his low voice rumbles as always, his blatant approach and presence placing a sudden weight in the room, making a palpable tension thrum through the air.

  His deep voice steals what little is left of mine, and I try to push through my sudden shyness, the accusation in his eyes and the faint smell of my dampness creating a thickness in my throat that makes it hard to breathe.

  His broad chest fills the entirety of the doorway.

  It is almost intimidating…but I scrounge every inch of my integrity to fight back against the shrinking of my own ego.

  I inhale slowly. “I work here every night.”

  Heath simply stares. “Hard at it, it seems.”

  He blinks innocently, the hint of a smile on his face revealing anything but innocence. And I wonder: Could he have heard my tiniest of moans?

  Indignation inflames under my breast, trumping embarrassment, and I scramble to straighten the reports on my desk, turning stolidly away.

  “Right. So if you’ll excuse me…” I say, standing.

  “I don’t think I will, actually.” Heath walks several steps to plant himself in front of me. I suck in a breath that hurts, and he inches close enough to almost touch me.

  “Now, everybody here at the firm can keep pretending to play nice…or I can take advantage of this extremely rare moment alone with you to tell you what I suspect you already know…because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t take such extreme measures to avoid me like you do.”

  Heath eyes me, his jaw tilting by the slightest fraction.

  “Don’t lie, Keats.” He sucks in a breath, blowing it out of his nostrils. “Is this firm planning to represent clients who may sue Chris Jackson?”

  The beat of my heart picks up at the mention of Brett’s father’s name. It’s a name that’s unspeakable in this building, and with the unfortunate incident involving Managing Part
ner Fitzgerald Sparrow AKA Heath’s dad, nobody wanted to touch any case implicating the long-time friend to the firm.

  At least, nobody but me.

  The truth? The firm wasn’t representing clients looking to sue Chris Jackson.

  But I was.

  Secretly vetting some of his most-affected victims after official office hours, I’d hoped my late-night sessions—sexual or otherwise—wouldn’t catch up with me. But I should have known that I would never fool a man like Heath, who was as sharp as he was shrewd. As sexy as he was sinister.

  He looks at me, his cinnamon eyes blazing under the dim light.

  “King & Sparrow is a good firm,” he utters slowly, “…but it could be great. Our focus is too litigation-based, our arguments uninspired. Our research has become stagnant, and what’s worse is that we’re better than this.”

  “We’re?” I lift a skeptical eyebrow.

  Heath glares. “Yes, we’re. I’m here now, aren’t I? That makes me part of the firm’s future. For now, at least…”

  His last sentence is scarily ominous, but I ignore it.

  “Our staff is too fucking good to put up with any ratings-grabbing bullshit. That’s why I’ve banned any talk of representing Chris or any of his crooked ass associates.” He glances quickly behind him. “But if you think you have a shot at going against him, I do have some notes I want to share with you…if you can stand being in the same room with me long enough to find them.”

  It’s a question. Not a command.

  A first for a male Sparrow, I’m sure.

  Heath Sparrow—the mighty Heath Sparrow—just set a record by making a decision that was entirely self-motivated. In the low amber light, he looks different today—stronger somehow. It’s almost as if the curtain of cold he keeps up has set as soon as the sun does, and when he leaves the room and returns, a heap of notes in his hands, I am breathless, my body struggling to adjust to this new man before me, who seems so much stranger than the last.