One Night

by Best, Victoria J.

  “I don’t want to talk to him, Nic, not ever again. He is the reason I’m in this stupid mess to begin with.”

  Nicolette sighed and looked at me like I was an insolent child.

  “Liza, do you know who Jackson Radcliffe is?” She said it like he was the King of England.

  “No, should I?” I shrugged, taking my time to sip my now lukewarm tea. “The only thing that you told me about him is that he owns a clothing company.”

  Her eyes practically bugged out of her head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. I’m not like you, Nic, I don’t follow the socialite crowd.” I waved my hand at her with dismissal.

  Nicolette laughed, throwing her head back, and it reminded me of the way Jackson laughed when we were in the limo. My mind flashed back to the kiss and my body heated for a totally different reason it had moments earlier. I shook my head to dissipate the images. No, now was not the time to make things worse by thinking about kissing the man who may have just ruined my life.

  “When are you going to realize that as long as you are friends with me, you are part of the socialite crowd,” Nicolette said, rolling her eyes.

  “Right, me, a firefighter’s daughter from Long Island.” I rolled my eyes. “When are you going to open your eyes and realize that not everyone wants to be a part of the Manhattan socialite crowd?”

  “Whatever, Liza. But I think you should call him and figure this out. His mom was the designer, Lori Radcliffe. He is heir to one of the biggest clothing companies and department stores in the country. He doesn’t just own ‘some clothing company’.”

  I looked down at my coffee, hiding the amazement in my eyes by taking a sip. He was one of those Radcliffes? In the five years, I had lived in Manhattan I saw many tabloid covers of his Aunt Beatrice and her husband and kids. Maybe that was why Henry looked so familiar? But I couldn’t recall ever seeing Jackson before the night I met him in the club. I would have remembered him if I had.

  “How come he’s never on the tabloids?” I asked Nicolette suddenly.

  Maybe I should call him? There had to be a reason he wasn’t ever on one of their magazines.

  Nicolette shrugged. “I bet he has a connection,” she said, pointing her finger at me as if to indicate her point was just made.

  I tried to think of a retort but it was hard to argue with her though because she may just be right.

  “I don’t know, Nic. I’m so embarrassed. I don’t think I can call him,” I said, hiding my expression behind my mug again.

  “Liza, this could ruin your life in the city,” she said seriously. “Just think about it. If I were you, I’d put aside my embarrassment for a something like this.”

  She picked up her empty mug, rinsed it, and placed it in the sink. With a last pointed look, she pivoted dramatically and headed down the hall to her room, closing the door behind her.

  I sighed, putting my face in my hands for a minute. This was a disaster; all because I wanted one night where I wasn’t myself. How could I be so stupid? I drained the last of my tea from the mug and placed it in the sink. No closer to a decision, I dressed in my pajamas, which consisted of an old t-shirt and underwear, and brushed my teeth. When did my life become so complicated?

  * * *

  The next morning, nothing seemed clearer, and my only saving grace was that upon checking the internet on my phone as soon as I woke up, there were no stories about Jackson and me kissing on a city street. Yet. I had time to decide if I should call him today, but not much. For some reason, I was dreading facing Nicolette this morning and lingered in bed longer than I normally would. Being a morning person, I typically got out of bed early and either went for a run or showered right away. Today, all I wanted to do was lie under the covers and forget about last night, pretending it didn’t happen.

  A knock sounded on my door and I groaned. What was Nicolette doing up so early? She was not a morning person. Peeking my head out from the blanket, I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and glanced at the time. It was earlier than I thought, only six thirty.

  “Liza, I need to talk to you,” Nicolette said.

  Groaning again, loudly this time, I pulled the blanket down and hoisted myself out of bed. My limbs felt heavy and fatigued, and I shuffled to the door. Shame and dread made me feel as if I were ill. I yanked the door open and Nicolette stood there, fully dressed. That was when I realized why she was up early—the children’s benefit.

  “I’m worried about you,” she said frankly and I frowned.

  Despite everything, Nicolette was my best friend and I couldn’t have asked for a better one. To have found someone like her, in college no less, and from a different background, we couldn’t have been closer and I considered her as a sister more than a friend. Tears clogged my throat as she looked at me and I shrugged, more for something to do than to actually say anything.

  “I don’t want to deal with it today,” I said honestly.

  Nicolette nodded. “I have to go to the benefit. I’ll be late if I don’t leave soon, but I left Henry’s number in the kitchen if you want to call or text him and get Jackson’s number. I think you should at least contact him and see what he can do, Liza. I don’t want you to lose your job or reputation over this.” She patted me on the arm and I leaned in to hug her.

  “Okay,” I mumbled against her shoulder.

  When I pulled back, I looked her over quickly. “You look pretty.”

  Nicolette smiled. She tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and smoothed her maroon dress. It was short, but not too short, and she wore black leggings and heeled booties, with a matching scarf wound around her neck. Nicolette was very good at fashion and I often wondered why she decided to go into PR instead.

  “Thanks. I hope this is appropriate for the children’s hospital.” She smoothed her skirt again and I could tell she was nervous.

  Her biggest worry was that she would disappoint her dad. We both had that in common.

  “I think so,” I said to reassure her.

  She smiled again before turning away from me and heading down the hall. Before she reached the kitchen, she turned back and looked at me, the smile gone .

  “Please call him, Liza. I’d hate to see this hurt you. A one-night fling isn’t worth it. Trust me.” She said the last part with a frown and I wondered what she hadn’t told me, but decided to let it go because I knew she was running late.

  I sighed. She was right. “I will. I promise. Knock ’em dead at the benefit.”

  Nicolette smoothed her skirt again and I wondered why she was so anxious today. Confidence was usually the mask she wore but this morning, she was anxious and fidgety. Something else was going on but I’d have to wait until she came home to ask. She gave me a weak wave goodbye before gathering her things and disappearing out the door.

  I turned around and looked back at my bed, wishing I could crawl back in and get under the covers. But I decided to woman up and call Jackson because my livelihood and character depended on it.

  I padded out to the kitchen on bare feet, running a hand through my messy, sleep-rumpled curls as I searched for the post-it Nicolette wrote Henry’s number on. It was stuck to the fridge and I eyed it suspiciously, as if Henry and Jackson could see me, folding my arms over my chest defensively. I grabbed the number quickly, before realizing I left my phone in my room. I walked back down the hall and sat on my bed. Dread filled my stomach and made it flip at the idea of talking to Jackson. I’d text him after I got his number because the idea of talking to him made me sick to my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I entered Henry’s number into a new text message and began typing.

  Me: Hey, Henry, it’s Liza, Nicolette’s friend. I was wondering if you would be able to give me Jackson’s number. I have to talk to him about something important.

  I waited, practically holding my breath. What if he thought I was a groupie and wanted Jackson’s number to stalk him? I hadn’t even thought of that and just as I was typing up an addendum to my
original text, saying I didn’t need the number after all, his reply came through.

  Henry: Hey, Liza. Sure, I think he wants to talk to you anyway.

  He followed up the text with a contacts link for Jackson and I stared at it for a very long time before clicking it and added it to my phone. I continued to stare at the number, willing myself to call him, but settled for opening a new text message. My heart was fluttering uncontrollably and my stomach was somersaulting. Never had I been so anxious about texting someone before. It wasn’t like I was asking him for a date; I was simply asking him to keep our picture from the tabloids. Why was this so hard? Henry’s words ran through my mind again. Why did Jackson want to talk to me? After wiping my sweaty palms on my t-shirt, I began to type.

  Me: Hi, Jackson. This is Liza, from dinner last night. I am texting you because of the situation with the paparazzi. I don’t know if you can do anything about it or not, but is there a way to keep the photo out of the press? I think that I may lose my job if the principal of the school I teach for sees it. I appreciate it.

  I reread the text and tapped send. It wasn’t personal and was very to the point. This way, there could be no misconstrued thoughts about my intentions. Because after this was taken care of, I had no reason to see Jackson Radcliffe ever again. My stomach did another uncomfortable flip-flop. It seemed like hours I sat there waiting for a reply, but it had only been about five minutes. I felt foolish, waiting around for a man to text me back, even if it wasn’t for romantic purposes.

  Still without a reply, I tossed my phone down on the bed and stood to change into running leggings and a workout shirt. I wasn’t going to wait around all day. Going for a run would take my mind off of everything and that was just what I needed to do. I laced up my running shoes and put my headphones in. Running was like therapy for me and today, I would use it to put all thoughts of what happened last night, and the weeks before, behind me.

  When the text came through, I was in my office, as I was most Saturdays. The text was very formal and cold, and I snorted when I read it. Not because I thought she was being snooty but because she was trying so hard not to get personal. Somehow, I could just see the look on her face, the same one she wore in the limo the night before when she was pretending to ignore me, and I chuckled again at the image I was painting.

  Little did Liza know, I had already taken care of the photo. I had been doing it for years—every time I was caught by paparazzi, I would call my fixer, Nancy, and she gave the tabloids something else to run instead. This time, it was about the opening of my hotel chain, The Lorelei, in Manhattan. The story was going to be big because even though the hotel had been open for two months, no one knew I was the one who owned it. The tabloids got their exclusive and in doing so, I got my privacy back. I always made sure what I gave them would bring in enough readership to cover what they would lose on the original story. If it didn’t, I paid the difference. Everybody won.

  But Liza didn’t know that and I decided to let her sweat a little, even though it wasn’t the nicest thing to do.

  I stood up from my desk, stretching out my stiff limbs. The time I spent in the office on a Saturday lately was more than I cared to admit and today alone, I had been in my office since six thirty. It didn’t help any that I couldn’t sleep thinking about the kiss Liza and I shared the night before. Regardless of all of the drama with the paparazzi and the way she tried to ignore me and push me away all night, I couldn’t get her out of my head. Frustrated and exhausted, I finally gave in and went for a run at quarter to six before heading downtown and taking a shower, then changing in the bathroom attached to my office.

  My office phone buzzed and I walked back around my desk, pressing the button as I leaned in to talk.

  “Yes, Barb?” I asked my assistant.

  I didn’t require her to come in on Saturdays, but she was more of a workaholic than I was.

  “Mr. Radcliffe, your aunt is on Line one. She says it’s important.”

  I sighed. Aunt Beatrice and I had a tenuous relationship. Sometimes she treated me like her son, but mostly she treated me like I was still an eight-year-old boy who needed help with everything. Taking another deep breath to gather my thoughts, because I was running on no sleep and a short fuse, I answered the phone.

  “Hello, Aunt Bea,” I said sweetly, hoping to charm her before she came up with some strange request I couldn’t possibly fill.

  “Good morning, darling,” she said in the Park Avenue accent she perfected over the years. “How was last night?”

  I internally groaned, wondering if Henry told her about what went down at the restaurant. Sometimes he blabbed about things to his mother that he had no business talking about. Not that it mattered too much what Aunt Bea thought, but she did tend to blow certain things out of proportion. I decided to take the focus off of myself for a minute.

  “The double date was fine. Have you spoken to Henry this morning? He and the Fowler girl seemed to have hit it off,” I said with a smirk on my face because I knew she would bug Henry about finally getting married once she knew he was interested in a woman.

  “Really,” Aunt Beatrice drawled, a hint of the South Jersey accent slipping into the Park Avenue facade.

  “Oh yeah, you should ask him about it,” I said, barely containing the laughter that was building as I visualized Henry’s face when he found out.

  “I’ll do that. But that wasn’t really my reason for calling you, Jackson. What’s this I hear about you opening a hotel chain? Your uncle called me from the office to tell me his assistant saw a picture of you on the front of the New York Post. And to make matters worse, we’re having the foundation benefit there tonight, and I didn’t even know it was your hotel.” Her Park Avenue voice was back and she was pissed.

  I sighed. Somehow, I forgot that my aunt would lose it if she knew, or even thought, I was giving stories to the paparazzi. I also forgot to tell her about my hotel chain, but in my defense, I was twenty-eight and could run my own company and finances now, without her help. The usual frustration I felt at her treating me like an orphan child crept into my chest, and I took a deep breath before I said something I’d regret later.

  “Aunt Bea, the story is true. It’s not a rumor. I opened the hotel two months ago and have another in the works downtown. We break ground for that one after Christmas.” I paused, waiting for the onslaught of questions and concerns she would inevitably have.

  “Jackson, I don’t know about all of this. How did they get the story? Why didn’t you tell me about the hotels until after I saw the story?” Hurt crept into her voice after the last question and I felt guilty.

  Aunt Beatrice was like my mother, especially since my mother was killed in a car accident when I was eight years old and she raised me, but I couldn’t stand it when she babied me.

  “It doesn’t matter how they got the story,” I barked at her, and immediately regretted it when I heard her sharp intake of breath.

  Composing myself so I didn’t snap at her again, I finished my thought. “Look, Aunt Bea, I know what I’m doing. I’ve done research on the hotel industry for the last three years before I even brought this up with my financial people. I want something to leave behind in my mother’s name that isn’t clothes or a store, and this was the way I was able to do that.”

  Seconds ticked by after I finished speaking as I waited for her to respond. It was always hard to gauge how my aunt would react to my business endeavors. She loved the idea of my department stores, but mostly because she and my mother had discussed it before she died. This was new territory for her. Fashion and retail were her areas—she knew nothing about the hotel industry and I figured that was why she was resisting it.

  “All right, well, what’s done is done. I can’t do anything about it now and you are a grown man.” She said the last part like it was a bad thing but I decided to let it go. “Just be careful with the press, dear. After what they did to your mother…” she began, but I cut her off.

  “I know
what happened to my mother and I’m perfectly capable of handling myself with the press,” I snapped.

  She sighed. “Yes, Jackson, I’m aware that you are capable.”

  She paused again, and I could tell she was going to add something so I waited, trying to rein in my temper.

  “Be careful. That is my only advice to you. Not just with your business, but with the people you trust. Henry told me about the girl last night, and I didn’t want to bring it up but now that we are talking about the paparazzi, I feel I should. These women, the ones who chase wealthy and famous men like yourself, they will take all that you have and leave you with nothing.”

  I didn’t answer her right away, clenching my jaw to stop the litany that was building in my mind. In her own subtle way, Aunt Beatrice was reminding me of a previous mistake I made with a previous woman. A woman I tried not to think about or remember. It cost me a good deal, of time and money, and Aunt Bea wanted to make sure I thought about that before getting myself into another perilous relationship. What she didn’t know was I had no intentions of entering a relationship with anyone, period.

  I knew her concern came from not only a place of financial stability but of concern, and some of the rage left my chest, taking the wind out of my anger.

  “Thank you, Aunt Bea. I’ll be careful,” I said, unable to add anything else without sounding like an ungrateful brat.

  “I love you, Jackson. I’ll talk to you later,” Aunt Beatrice said, and she waited for a beat for me to reply.

  “Goodbye, Aunt Bea,” I said.

  I gritted my teeth, feeling guilty again because I was unable to return the sentiment. Not because I didn’t want to but because telling people I loved them, even if I did, was not easy for me.

  We disconnected and I set my phone back in its cradle, resting my face in my hands for a minute. Talking to my family, minus Henry, was exhausting. My aunt and uncle wanted what was best for me, just as they did for Henry, but too much had happened before I lived with them for me to really feel like I could be a part of the family. You would think, after twenty years, that would have changed, but, for some reason, it actually made me more isolated than I was as a child living in their spare room.