Before I can tell him exactly what he, is he grabs my face between his hands and pulls me into a kiss. His lips are urgent, pleading, burning my mouth in the sweet, fierce way they always do.
“—a distraction,” I finish in a rush of air.
“Don’t.” I can feel the warmth of his breath trace the paths of his thumbs as they trace circles across my cheeks. He rests his lips against my forehead. “Don’t do this. Don’t run away again because you’re scared.”
If he knew the real reason, that I’m trying to protect him, would the conversation change? “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I push him away from me. “This… you… you’re not what I want.”
“You don’t mean that.”
I don’t.
“Yes, I do.” I lift my chin in defiance. “I’m sorry if it’s hard for you to hear, but what I want is to get to California on my own. I didn’t leave my own wedding just to fall into another messy relationship.” I look up into his face. I can’t tell if he’s angry or disappointed or hurt or something else entirely.
Better the pain now instead of later, when it would be impossible for me to make a clean break. It’s better this way. Jesse can go his own way, and in a few days, he’ll forget all this. Forget all about me.
“I mean, come on!” I laugh, knowing it will upset him. “This isn’t exactly the type of thing that would have worked out anyway.”
“Give me a fucking break, Frances!” he shouts, driving his hands through his hair and flinging water everywhere. “How can you even say that? Most relationships don’t work out the way everyone expects them to. Ninety-nine out of a hundred fall apart because they weren’t right for each other to begin with.”
He grabs my hand and pulls it against his damp chest, his skin is soft and warm under my fingertips. His heart beats out a steady rhythm. “But this? This is right. We’re fucking right. We may not have known each other for years and years, but it doesn’t matter. I know it took you a long time to trust me, and I get that there was a reason for it, but I’m asking you to trust me now. Because the bottom line is that the ones who truly fit, the ones who are made for one another are the ones who manage to fight through the same shit and chaos that drag the others down. And I’m ready. I don’t fucking care what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter. What matters is you and me and what you really feel. That’s it. I’m willing to weather any storm if it means I’m standing at your side when the rain finally stops. I’ll swim through whatever flood is coming for us.”
He looks into my eyes and I swear I can feel him inside my head. He knows me better than I would like to admit.
“But you? You’re drowning. You may not be able to see it, but you are, Frances. And I’m trying to hold on to you. I’m trying to keep you from going under. But we both know I can’t always save you. You have to save yourself at some point.”
His skin burns like a brand beneath my hand, his heart thundering against his ribcage like an oncoming storm. It’s as if my own heart is beating out the same furious rhythm, matching his tempo.
I can’t listen to this any longer. It hurts too fucking much. There’s only so much self-inflicted torture a human can take. I have to get away.
As if in an answer to some unspoken prayer, the elevator finally arrives. The doors slide open, providing me with an escape. I shake my head and step through the entry.
Jesse reaches for my elbow in desperation, his dark eyes anguished beyond recognition. “Don’t do this,” he pleads. “Please, Frances. I love you.”
A single tear slips over his cheek, plummeting to the carpet at his feet.
“I have to go, Jesse.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” I press the button to take me to the lobby. “I’m sorry,” I whisper as though it will fix everything, voice thick with the weight of two words.
His hand slips from my arm as the doors begin to close. I stare into his eyes as another tear falls down his face. And another. And another, until the doors finally slide shut and I’m alone, staring into my own tear-streaked reflection.
19.
A warm breeze whistles through the wide, flat boughs of a nearby palm tree and across my sweaty neck as I slowly make my way to a lone park bench just across from the Mirage’s fountain. I walk the perimeter and concentrate on not concentrating.
The short ride in the elevator had been torture. It took every ounce of strength in me to even remain standing. Thankfully, I was alone, and nobody joined me as I made my way down to the lobby. I’d managed to make it down the hallways and through the hotel without causing a scene, though I cried silently as I ran from the premises, forcibly willing my legs forward. More than once I’d wanted to stop, to drop to my knees and sob until I was dried out and the tears would no longer come.
But I knew if Jesse were to come after me, if he followed me and found me a weeping mess incapable of even standing, he’d ignore everything I said to him. He would have picked me up off the floor without a second thought, carry me back to the room, and made love to me until I couldn’t remember my own name let alone the reason for leaving in the first place.
And that would put me right back where I started - something that can under no circumstances happen. I can’t make myself say goodbye to him twice. Once was hard enough.
So hard that every time I find myself thinking about it, my head swims with images of Jesse and I want to go back.
I finally reach the bench on the far side of the small lake and plop down in a miserable huff, frightening away a flock of pigeons nearby. The sun is just finished setting behind the rocky hills of the Nevada landscape. Lights are sparkling from every direction and the volcano glows in front of me underneath vibrant red lights.
He’s probably angry with me. No. Angry isn’t enough. He’s probably furious. He’ll hate me forever, I know. Not that he doesn’t have a legitimate reason to. I’m a despicable, selfish human being. But this is for his own good. He’s much better off without me.
I wish the same could be said for me. I’ll never, never be able to get the image of his eyes out my head. Not if I live to be a hundred. Filled with tears, hurt, confused, that’s how I’ll be forced to remember them.
My punishment.
But I’m not going back; not back to my parents, not back to Andrew, not back to the Mirage and Jesse, who is safe from heartbreak and disaster now I’m gone. I can only go forward. And if fate is sure I should be alone, I’ll go by myself.
All I need to do now is find a ride or wait for a miracle, whichever comes along first.
The sky is cloudless, tiny sliver of an early moon hanging delicately above me. I sit where I am and watch rhythmically timed spouts of water the shoot majestically into the sky before falling back into the pool below.
I swing my legs around on the bench so my feet dangle over the arm rest of one end. I cross my arms behind my head, trying my best to get comfortable on the hard, metal surface with little to no luck.
The shores of blissful oblivion and rest are a long way off.
The car swerved around the corner with ease, a blur of speed and power. The ruby red Aston Martin moved with catlike agility along the road, powerful, fast, and smooth before stopping on a dime in front of the Grand Carnegie Hotel. I removed the shiny silver key from the ignition and stepped out of the stunning vehicle.
The evening was ridiculously cold, even for late December. Even though Christmas was only a few days away, it wasn’t shaping up to be a postcard holiday, the kind with a lovely, white dusting of fine, powdery snow. The air was bitter, the days cold and gray.
My crisp, ironed shirt did nothing to keep back the chill as I hurried to the valet station. I reached my post, passing the key from my hand to the waiting palm of a strikingly beautiful, blonde woman. She wore a tiny, black “fuck me” dress and no coat. Hell, if I looked as good as she did, I wouldn’t wear a coat either.
“Here are your keys, ma’am,” I told her with a plastered-on smile. “Thank yo
u for choosing to celebrate your holidays at the Carnegie.”
She frowned at me but quit tapping her perfectly painted toes against the sidewalk before she climbed in through the driver’s-side door and drove away, leaving me in the metaphorical dust.
“What took you so long?” Sean asked as he came running up behind me. My coworker was a short, stub of a man, balding in his mid-thirties and bulging at his gut. He was pink and shiny, the grown version of a happy baby. “I had to convince Mrs. Archibald not to call management on you. She was waiting for over half an hour!” He was breathing heavily, beads of sweat forming across his bow despite the cold.
“Thanks for covering me,” I told him, tying my hair up in a ponytail. “I just took the car for a little spin around the block. No biggie.”
I’d taken it for more than a little spin. Being behind the wheel of a car like that had acted like a fast-acting drug to my system, one that was impossible to resist and would absolutely relapse with given half a snowball’s chance.
“No biggie?” Sean shook his head in disbelief. “No biggie? You’re not supposed to take guest’s cars off hotel property! You know that.”
Looked like I was going to have to bring out the big guns.
I bit down on my lower lip and flashed him a pair of sad, puppy dog eyes. “I know, Sean,” I purred, slipping into an impish grin. “But it’s like the car was begging me for it. I just had to have a ride.” I stuck my chest out a little, the fabric of my vest tugging at the buttons.
I didn’t know why Sean ever bothered to scold me. I had only been employed by the hotel for a few months, and already knew how to work him any which way I wanted to get my way. He was like putty in my fingers. The lonely, horny, masturbate in the shower every morning sort of putty.
Sean’s chipmunk cheeks split with a conspiratorial grin. “Don’t let it happen again, Frances,” he said in a tone that practically screamed “I really need to get laid and I’m only being nice to you because I might have a shot”.
He didn’t have a shot.
I flipped my ponytail with my hand and leaned in close, whispering in a perfect imitation of Mae West or Marilyn Monroe or one of those other old school floozies. “Alright, Sean. I promise not to be a bad girl.”
I stepped back from the hot and bothered lump of a man and reverted to my original voice. “I’m going on break.” I pushed past him, not bothering to wait for a response.
I started my walk around to the employee entrance at the back of the hotel, arms crossed across my chest in a poor attempt to cling to what little warmth remained. A group of Red Hat Society ladies waved to me as they strolled past, their red hats and purple coats glowing beneath the festive lights the hotel had hung around every corner and window.
I listened to the soft music coming from inside the hotel ballroom. Tonight was the annual Grand Carnegie Christmas Party, arguably the biggest event of the year. Live music, a five-star meal, rivers of freely flowing booze, no expense was spared when it came to giving their guests a one of a kind holiday celebration.
Warm lights shimmered against the glass, not quite touching the frozen valet girl huddled outside in the cold. I felt like the little match girl who froze to death on the street to teach the masses a lesson or whatever that horrible fairy-tale was about.
Fucking Hans Christian Anderson.
A band played classic jazz from atop the ballroom stage as several couples spun their way around the dance floor. I wondered briefly if my parents were inside, dancing and drinking to the holidays, dressed to the nines in clothes more expensive than my monthly rent. I thought briefly about sneaking inside and joining them. The caterers and valet weren’t allowed to attend the event; can’t have the hired help mingling with the upper crust.
I relished the thought of what the look on my parents’ faces would be like if I cozied up to them in my valet uniform. It would almost be worth having to talk to them.
“That was quite a performance.”
I whirled around, surprised by the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar voice.
Standing behind me was a blonde Calvin Klein model. He was tall, sleek yet broad shouldered, dressed a black jacket and matching bowtie hanging loose around his neck. His fair hair was parted to the side, showing off hypnotizing blue eyes; bluer than the ocean, than the sky, than the bluest blue I could dream up.
“Huh?” I asked, gazing up into his face. He was beautiful.
“I was just watching you handle that guy at the valet station. Out front.” He took a sip of whatever drink was in his glass. It was red and smelled like fruit punch and rum. “I was just wondering who I should make the Academy Award out to.”
I shrugged and turned back to the window, feigning disinterest. “Were you spying on me?”
He laughed, a deep bass, good-natured and welcoming. “I wasn’t spying. I was taking a phone call out in the lobby when I noticed Mrs. Archibald. I thought it odd that she was still waiting for her car when she left the party over thirty minutes ago.”
“You don’t say,” I said, turning quickly from the window and continuing my trek around the building.
He followed me. “So, I walked out the side entrance to see if she was having car trouble, which I guess in a way she was. But then you pulled up a second later, and your boss or whoever-”
“Sean. He’s not my boss.”
“Sean ran up to you and you gave him a show of ‘little miss don’t yell at me and I might sleep with you even though we both know it’ll never happen’. Quite good actually.”
I halted beneath an enormous maple tree that marked the club’s property, its limbs bare and dry.
“Thanks, I guess,” I told him, playing hard to get. Let’s see if he can figure out this act. “But I’ve got to get back to work soon. Just leave the Oscar at the front desk and I’ll pick it up before I leave.”
“I’ve seen you before, you know,” he voiced suddenly, taking another nonchalant sip of his drink, and smiling at me from over the rim.
I stopped in my tracks. Damn, he’s good.
“Oh really?” I asked.
He nodded. “A few weeks ago. You were working at Starbucks and making a terrible mess of things, come to think of it. I take it you no longer work there?”
“No,’ I shrugged with indifference. “It wasn’t a big deal or anything. They had to let me go because of an accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
“I accidentally forgot to come to work a few times.” I shrugged, watching my breath freeze in the air in front of my face. I wrapped my arms around my torso, trapping in what little warmth I could hold on to. “Shit, it’s cold.”
“Don’t swear,” he said, looking down at me with polite disapproval.
Did he just tell me not to swear? If he weren’t so good-looking, I might have punched him.
He extended his own glass. “Here,” he said. “It’ll warm you up in a jiff.”
I took the drink and glanced at my handsome stranger over the rim of the crystal glass. Maybe I shouldn’t accept a drink from a man I’d just met, but I was freezing, and I’d just watched him drink out of the same glass. I took a trusting sip and felt my throat burn as the liquid slid down my throat. “What is this?” I sputtered.
He took the cup back, drinking deeply. “Just something I invented. A little of this. A little of that. A lot of alcohol.”
I smiled. “You should market it and sell it by the bottle. You’d make millions.” I looked him over again, realizing what I’d just said. “Although, seeing as how you’re attending the party tonight, I’m assuming you already do.”
This guy was probably way out of my league. What was I doing flirting with him?
I turned and started my way back to the employee entrance. “It was nice meeting you, but I think you should get back to your people now.”
His shoulders stiffened at my thinly veiled accusation. No doubt he caught the meaning of my carefully chosen words. “Those aren’t my people. I don’t even like mo
st of them. I’m only at this party because my uncles own the club and are here to rub elbows with the high and mighty. My mother made me feel guilty about not supporting their meticulous networking skills.”
“Bud and Bogie are your uncles?” I asked.
“You know them?”
“Not personally. But my parents mention them all the time. You’re their nephew?”
“Don’t go spreading it around,” he teased, placing a frozen finger to his lips. “Otherwise someone at this party might actually want to talk to me.”
“Watch out for my mother. If she manages to get her teeth in you, she’ll never let go.”
“Your mother?”
I nodded and kicked at a piece of gravel with the toe of my shoe. My body had gone numb five minutes ago. I was officially a block of ice.
“Your parents are at the party?” he asked. “Why aren’t you inside with the rest of then? Family of club members were invited, too”
I snorted. “You’re playing awfully fast and loose with the term ‘family’. I think my parents are still trying to disprove the fact I came out of my mother’s uterus. I think they’ve gotten rid of any tangible evidence. They’re just trying to figure how to get around their little DNA problem.”
He smiled, showing off identical dimples on either side of his mouth. “Is that why they have you working valet then? To keep you hidden?”
“I’m working valet because I’m broke.”
He laughed again and took another drink. “So, your parents are members of the elite then?”
“Yep. You know those new hot tubs your uncles just had installed? Guess who paid for them.”
His eyes grew wide. “Your parents paid for the renovations to the saunas?”
I nodded.
“Oh my God! I know who you are!” he all but shouted, grinning ear to ear. “You’re Frances Renner! Your parents are Alan and Jean!”
One More For The Road Page 21