Happily Ever After: A Romance Collection

by Amelia Wilde

  “No,” I said. “Like I keep saying, I’m not interested. But actually, I have to go. I have a bus to catch.”

  “Chinatown?” he asked before taking a large bite of his donut.

  I nodded. “Yep. Eight o’clock. I don’t want to miss it—otherwise, I won’t get to the city until after one.”

  Eric nodded, swallowing. “Cool. Be careful, will you? Those things catch on fire.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I teased. “Have a good weekend, friend. Try not to get yourself sued.”

  I turned in my keycard to the security office in the lobby and exited through the massive revolving doors. It hadn’t snowed again since Monday, so the streets were clear and ice-free. I walked out to the curb to hail a cab.

  A shiny black town car pulled up, and I stepped back when the driver came around to open the door for a drop-dead gorgeous woman wearing a fur coat with black trousers and a black blouse. She smiled with perfectly pink lips, but it was a cold smile, the kind reserved for nameless help and people on the street. Her dark hair was pinned into an effortless chignon at the base of her neck, revealing large diamond studs that matched a sizable yet tasteful pendant necklace. She commanded the attention of just about everyone on the sidewalk. I wasn’t the only one watching as she brushed past me, the stiletto heels of her boots clicking impatiently on the concrete.

  When I turned around, I nearly shrieked when I was almost knocked over by the second person exiting the car.

  “Shit! I’m so sorry, miss. Are you all right?”

  I looked up to find Brandon Sterling gazing at me with obvious concern that changed almost immediately to surprise. He looked at me up and down with curiosity, and possibly amusement.

  In preparation for the ride, I had changed out of my work clothes into a more comfortable pair of jeans, black ankle boots, and an oversized gray turtleneck sweater that peeked over the collar of my parka. My favorite gray knit beanie covered my bright hair, which lay in a casual braid down one shoulder. I had replaced my contacts, which tended to irritate my eyes in the cold, dry weather, with tortoise-shell glasses. It was a far cry from the normal business attire he had seen before.

  “Something funny, Mr. Sterling?”

  His smirk grew into an impossibly sweet smile—almost enough to make me forget his crass offer. “Not at all, Red. I was just thinking you look…well, more like the student you are, I suppose. It suits you.” His eyes dropped to my overnight bag. “Going somewhere?”

  A flash of what looked like jealousy blazed across his face. I pushed my glasses up my nose, flustered.

  “I’m getting out of town for the weekend to visit family,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “I need to get going if I’m going to make the eight o’clock bus.”

  “Bran!”

  The woman in the fur coat stood in the middle of the revolving doorway of the office building, ignoring the multiple people waiting awkwardly on the other side. She frowned briefly in my direction before sending a bright white smile toward Sterling.

  “Bran, honey, aren’t you coming?” she asked.

  “Be right there.”

  Sterling wasn’t quite fast enough to erase the sadness from his face before I looked back. He rubbed a leather-gloved hand over his eyes and sighed before giving me a half smile.

  “I’m sorry about our…meeting on Monday, Skylar,” he said soberly. “Really. It was…not what I originally intended, I promise. If I could take it back and start over, I would.”

  His face tightened as he looked toward the office—likely at the beautiful woman waiting for him. She had called him “honey.” Was she his girlfriend? Perhaps an arrangement like he had requested with me. Whatever they were, he didn’t seem very happy in her company.

  Before I could say anything, Sterling reached out a tentative hand and squeezed me gently on the shoulder, the tips of his fingers lingering a moment before they fell away.

  “You have a good trip, Skylar,” he said quietly and walked away.

  I never liked the long bus ride to New York. The buses were noisy, usually packed with other poor travelers. I had heard the same horror stories Eric mentioned of the rickety old things bursting into flames right on the interstate. But the drivers drove fast and efficiently, and it wasn’t uncommon to make the trip in less than four hours if there was no traffic.

  Second in line to board, I was able to get my preferred seat: right in the front, where I could watch the road and avoid carsickness. My seatmate was an elderly lady who barely reached my shoulder and didn’t crowd our small space. She lived in Roxbury and was going down for the weekend to visit her son in New Jersey.

  “Do you come to New York often?” she asked, the letter “r” barely evident under her thick Boston accent.

  “My dad lives in Brooklyn,” I said with a nod. “I grew up there.”

  “Oh, what a good daughter you are, going to see your dad. I wish my Tommy would come up more, but he’s got a big job on Wall Street.” She lifted her hands up into the air as if to say, “what can you do?” Then she looked at me up and down the way only older women can do without appearing brazen. “Pretty girl like you. Look at all that red hair. Is your family Irish?”

  I smiled politely. “A bit on both sides. I’m told I get the hair from my grandfather. I never knew him, though.”

  “Does your dad look like him?”

  “Not at all,” I told her. “He takes after my bubbe, with dark hair.”

  “You’re an Irish Jew? Honey, you are definitely from New York. There ain’t nowhere else someone who looks like you would have a bat mitzvah, that’s for sure.”

  I looked down at my copy of the Harvard Law Review. I never had a bat mitzvah; technically I wasn’t Jewish, since my mother wasn’t. Dad didn’t go to temple anymore, and Bubbe never seemed to care one way or another if I did. “I guess not.”

  “Your dad like your boyfriend?”

  I frowned and looked back up at her. “Excuse me?”

  She tugged a bag of knitting from underneath her seat and pulled out the start of a tiny sweater. “This is for my daughter’s baby, due in October. Little girl. I can’t wait to be a grandmother.” She leaned over knowingly. “Pretty girl like you must have a boyfriend, don’t you, dear?”

  Before I could stop it, a handsome face with dark-blond hair flashed through my head. That thick lion’s mane. That stupid Cheshire grin. Oh, he would just love this conversation.

  I shook my head, as much to rid myself of the image as to answer her question. “No, no boyfriend. I’m in school—too busy.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said with the trace of sadness I often heard in Bubbe’s voice.

  The bus chugged on into the night, and it didn’t take long for the hum of the wheels on the pavement to put me to sleep against the cold window. Hours later, I awoke to a light tap on my shoulder.

  My seatmate smiled kindly. “We’re here, dear.”

  Blearily, I pulled on my cap and pushed my glasses up my nose as I filed off the bus after my seatmate.

  “Well, I hope you have a nice visit with your pops,” she told me as she took her suitcase from the driver.

  “Thanks,” I replied, taking my overnight bag from him as well. “You have a nice trip with your son.”

  “I will. Tommy’s waiting for me just over there in a taxi. I’d offer to introduce you, but I see you have an escort waiting for you.”

  “What?” Confused, I looked up from my phone, on which I was checking the time.

  She chuckled and tapped a finger on the side of her nose. “Sure, you’re too busy. Well, he’s a handsome one, dear, I’ll give you that.” She pointed over my shoulder.

  I turned around, wondering who she was talking about. And there, of course, was Brandon Sterling, with that damn smile in its full-blown glory as he pushed casually off a lamppost like he had been waiting there for me my whole life.

  8

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The question flew out, sharp and curt, befo
re I could stop it. I was still half-asleep and probably had upholstery lines on my cheek. The last thing I expected was six feet, four inches of heart-stoppingly gorgeous, utterly chauvinistic tycoon waiting for me on a poorly lit corner in Chinatown. A solid day’s worth of dark-blond growth on his ruddy cheeks gave Sterling a more rugged quality than usual, but still dressed in his three-thousand-dollar suit, he looked out of place in this neighborhood.

  A light nudge at my back reminded me that there were still other people waiting for their bags, so I handed a tip to the porter and walked past Sterling without waiting for his answer. The nearest Q stop was at least ten blocks down Canal Street. I wanted to get out of the cold.

  “Skylar! Hey! Where are you going?”

  I continued to walk. It was after midnight. I was tired and hungry, having skipped dinner. My bullshit tolerance was down to zero.

  I felt, rather than heard, his steps quicken next to me.

  “Hey,” he said again. “Not even a hello?”

  I sighed but refused to meet his gaze as I kept on. I didn’t need that face doing things to me again. I just wanted to get home.

  “Skylar, really?”

  Finally, I mustered the best glare I could, even though just looking at him made my steps falter slightly. “Fine. Hi. How are you? And what are you doing here, Mr. Sterling?”

  “It’s Brandon, I told you. Five days ago, I had my tongue down your throat, Red, so I think we’re past formalities, don’t you?” He raised a sly brow, and my steps tripped again.

  I huffed at the wet pavement and tried to outpace him, but his long legs had no problem keeping up. So, I decided to give up the fight. I stopped and faced him, ignoring the way my bag fell down my shoulder again. This stupid coat. Stupid bag. I’d have given anything at that moment for a backpack or a rolling suitcase. God, I couldn’t wait to get home.

  “Look,” I snapped. “What the fuck is your problem? Are you stalking me or something?”

  Sterling grinned. His face transformed with that smile, an effect that irritatingly seemed to grow, not diminish. The more he did it, the more attracted I was, no matter my foul mood.

  “It’s cute, you know,” he said. “Your accent comes out when you’re pissed off.” He leaned in so his mouth hovered near my ear. “I wouldn’t mind bringing out that growl someplace more private, you know?”

  That did it. I didn’t see a smile anymore. I only saw red.

  “Oh my God! What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you some kind of creep? I don’t know what about me makes you think ‘cheap hooker,’ but Jesus FUCKING Christ! I might be the daughter of a garbage collector, but that doesn’t make me trash! Do you always treat women like this? Did you not learn that no means no? Do I need to call the fucking cops?”

  Now breathless, I nodded down the street, where a few police cars were parked. Even at this time of night in the middle of winter, the central part of Canal Street was crowded with tourists.

  Sterling’s cocky smirk disappeared. He drew a hand roughly through his hair. His ears were turning red in the cold, and all signs of that infuriating arrogance were gone.

  “Fuck,” he muttered as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Fuck. No. I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I?”

  “That would be a massive understatement.” I crossed my arms and glared.

  Sterling met my gaze and swallowed. “I’m just…Shit. I don’t do this sort of thing, Skylar. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but there’s something…”

  He shook his head in confusion. I sighed. I didn’t have the patience to figure out this guy’s mood swings. I heaved my duffel bag back over my shoulder, then continued toward the subway. A few seconds later, footsteps caught up with me yet again.

  “Skylar. I’m sorry. Truly. Can we please start over? I’m not a creep or some psycho stalker, despite what you might think. And if you knew me, you’d know that I’m the last person to judge someone based on their background.”

  “Oh?” I asked dubiously. “And why’s that?”

  “Because I don’t exactly come from much myself.”

  I stopped again and turned to him directly. His blue eyes bore no trace of sarcasm—they were wide, guileless.

  “Garbage collector’s daughter?” He pointed at me before turning his finger back at himself. “Foster kid.”

  My shoulders slumped. Yeah, he certainly had me there. It didn’t explain his crude behavior, but it at least absolved him of being a classist dick.

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “Well. Really?”

  “Eight years in the system,” he said, his voice strangely upbeat. “Two when I was a baby, six more after I turned twelve. In between, I was stuck in a shitty row house in Dorchester with my fuck-up parents, when they were even around.”

  It didn’t escape me the way the “r’s” in “Dorchester” flattened out, the way my classmates from rougher parts of Boston spoke. I had barely heard Sterling break his usually region-less diction. I sympathized; accents were hard to shake.

  “Dorchester, huh?” I asked.

  Sterling grimaced. “I don’t really like talking about it, but if you insist, I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

  He cocked his head toward the ever-present town car that had apparently been creeping alongside us the entire time.

  I frowned. “Well, that solves the rich kid problem, but you’re still a creepy stalker. You had your driver bring you all the way here so you could appear at my bus stop?”

  Sterling glanced back at the car with disgust, as if he realized for the first time what it looked like. “Ah, no, this is not my car. My driver is still in Boston.”

  I said nothing. I had forgotten he had a live-in driver.

  “I called a car from the helipad,” he continued like that was somehow better, oblivious to the fact that he was basically speaking a foreign language. “I’ll give you a ride to wherever you’re going—I’m guessing your family’s place in Brooklyn, right? It’ll save you time. And train fare.”

  I pursed my lips, still determined not to give in despite the puppy-dog look I was currently receiving. I might have felt bad about the foster care stuff, and he might be as awkward with women as he claimed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t creeped out. “Um, no, thanks. I don’t get into cars with strange men I don’t know who follow me by helicopter. Subway’s fine for me.”

  I continued down the street, dodging around the increasing crowds perusing the late-night tchotchke stands or gawking at the Peking ducks hanging in restaurant windows.

  “Skylar, you spent the night at my house,” Brandon argued, fighting to stay alongside me. “We’re hardly strangers at this point, don’t you think?”

  “Fine. I don’t get into cars with former bosses who have propositioned me for sex either,” I insisted, hitching my bag over my shoulder once again. “And I like the train.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s well after midnight. It’s not safe.”

  “Mr. Sterling—”

  “Brandon!” he interrupted with a groan. “Can you please just call me Brandon?”

  He ran both hands furiously through his hair, back to front, causing pieces to stick up around his ears. Charmingly disarrayed, he looked the farthest thing from some hotshot lawyer full of arrogance and bullshit. He looked like a normal guy trying to figure out how to talk to a girl he liked, flubbing it every chance he got. It was…adorable.

  “Okay. Brandon,” I repeated slowly, although I refused to meet his eyes. I needed to hold onto my resolve. “I’ve been taking the subway by myself since I was ten. I’ve lived in this city practically my whole life. And I can tell you, without a doubt, most of New York is safer at any time of night than half of Boston.”

  He stared at me, dumbfounded. “You’re really going to refuse a ride?”

  “Yes,” I said, defiantly pulling my beanie farther over my ears. The wind off the East River zipped down Canal Street like a funnel.

  “Try to do the right thing, what do you get?” he gr
umbled to himself. “Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Guess not.”

  But as I started down the steps of the subway entrance, he continued with me.

  “What are you doing now?” I demanded.

  “I’m seeing you home. No—” he held a hand up while the other fished into his interior jacket pocket for a small billfold. “I won’t make any more inappropriate comments, I promise. I’m not an asshole, Skylar, and I’ll prove it to you. But seeing you home—that’s not up for discussion. You’re not walking around by yourself this late at night. I can be stubborn too, Red.”

  Several retorts rose to my lips, all cut off by the sweet perseverance on his face. The arrogant shithead was gone, leaving only the person I had met that first night: the confident, maybe even shy man who followed me into a blizzard and took me safely back to his home. Maybe—just maybe—he was worried about me.

  “Are you going to leave me alone after this?” I asked. “Or am I going to find you lurking outside my family’s house in the morning?”

  Brandon held up both hands in surrender. “You’ll never see me again if that’s what you want. I just can’t handle letting you walk around on dark streets past midnight. Soon as you’re home safe, I’m gone.”

  I sucked on my bottom lip, considering. He blinked, no sign of guile or mischief left in his eyes, now a pale blue. I exhaled a long breath. Maybe I should have said no. But the fact was…I didn’t want to.

  “Fine,” I said, and we continued down to the train.

  It wasn’t until I had already run my MetroCard through the reader that I realized Brandon hadn’t accompanied me through the turn stall.

  “You need to get a card over there,” I said, nodding at a pod of dispensers where a few people were lined up to purchase their cards.

  His face fell. “No tokens anymore?”

  I bit back a laugh. “How long has it been since you took the train?”

  A faint flush rose in his cheeks, which made me want to hug him. Shit.