“Hey yourself. I see you’ve partaken of the black magic that is Jorge’s Cuban coffee.”
“I think this is honestly the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life. Actually, the best four cups of coffee I’ve ever had in my life. If I start shaking uncontrollably, or have sudden cardiac arrest, you know why.”
“Four?” he asks. “Wow. I think that beats my personal record. But I guess you needed it after everything that happened before.”
I look right at those blue eyes, embarrassed even more and trying my hardest not to get emotional. I don’t really know this man, but every time he speaks to me it’s like I’m hypnotized. I just wish we were talking about anything else.
“Yeah. That was something unexpected.”
“May I sit?” he asks.
I motion to the empty seat next to me. He sits down, never looking away from me, as if he’s holding me in place with his eyes. “Listen, I realize that the last thing you want right now is to relive that nightmare from earlier. I’m not even going to pretend to know what that felt like, but I wanted to let you know it’s going to be alright.”
I love that he’s saying this to me, but I’m not in the mood to be comforted right now—I’m in the mood to forget. “I’ve seen you around, you know. Here and there.”
“That’s a good description of where people usually see me. Here, there, everywhere. I move around a lot. I have a diverse set of responsibilities in the building. It’s better than sitting behind a desk counting the minutes until the day is over—that’s a slow death.”
“I agree—I’m not a nine-to-five girl either. And speaking of the building, I remember when I first got there. Do you remember that day?”
“You think I’d forget when you walked into the building for the first time? No way.”
Here we go again. I’m starting to melt, but I decide to play coy. “Why? You probably see a lot of people come and go in that lobby.”
“Hundreds over the past year, at least.”
“Then why me? I mean, do you always go up and offer to help people with their bags?”
He smiles. “Hell no. We have staff for that. In fact, that might have been the first time I ever did that.”
My eyebrow goes up and I try to gauge if he’s the cockiest guy I’ve ever met, or if he’s just a rare form of confident that makes everything he says seem like the last word on that topic. “Then why did you do it with me?”
“Because you were sad.”
“I was what?”
“Sad,” he repeats. “It was all over you. I saw it when you passed by me without even knowing I was there. I saw it when you were talking to that old man who walked you in the building, and I saw it right before I came up and put my hand on your shoulder.”
Of all the things he could have said, I didn’t expect him to say that. I’m not even sure what he means. “I didn’t feel sad that day.”
“Yes, you did. You were just hiding it very well. But I know what sadness looks like—I’ve unfortunately seen a lot of it in my life. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it on you either.”
Now I’m really confused. “What are you talking about? That was the first time we met.”
“It was. But it wasn’t the first time I ever saw you. You’d come to the building once before we actually met. You came with Chandler, and I remember you catching my eye. You were sad then too.”
“How could I be sad?” I ask. “I was moving into a new place with my new fiancé and starting a brand-new life. How could that not be one of the happiest days of my life?”
“That I couldn’t tell you, Penelope. I’m not psychic, I can just read people. It’s a skill I’ve always had, and it’s gotten even sharper over time. Maybe you knew something about this amazing new life that you didn’t want to accept at the time, but I’d only be speculating. All I know is that, when you stood there after that older man walked away the day you were moving in, there was something in you that called out to something in me, so I came over and offered to help you.”
He’s starting to freak me out. His intensity is a little overwhelming, but I can’t help but be drawn in by it. It’s like he knows things about me without me telling him. Maybe he is psychic. “I’m not sure what to say to all of that.”
“You don’t have to say anything, it’s just the truth. You have that same look now. But I’m hoping it goes away soon.”
“Me, too.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A while,” I tell him. The truth is I lost track of time a while ago. It’s not like I need to be somewhere. Any plans I had took a sharp left turn when that woman came to my place. But I don’t want to say that to him because he’ll just try and comfort me. Instead I just want to talk about something else that’ll take my mind off what happened. “Can I ask you something, Dylan?”
“Anything. Just name it.”
“What exactly do you do?”
“I think that’s the best question I’ve gotten in a long time. I’ve done a lot of things and had a lot of jobs in my life, but when I met you I was Graham J. Morgan’s personal assistant, and what he titled the ‘building supervisor’, but I’m still not totally sure what that means.”
“But what do you actually do? Like on a day to day basis.”
“I do a lot of things. Whatever Graham needs me to do, or whatever needs doing in the building—and neither of those things is ever a short list.”
It seems like he’s evading my question, and it makes me take a mental step backwards. I’ve had enough deception for a while. “It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me, we barely know each other after all.”
He looks surprised by my comment. “No,” he answers. “I didn’t mean to be vague, I’m sorry. It’s just not an easy position to describe—it’s not like I sell insurance or something. My days can all look very different from each other.”
“So give me a random day. Last Friday.”
“What about last Friday?”
“What did you do? What did Graham and the building need that day that you had to do?”
He stops and looks up at the ceiling, like the alternating black and white tiles overhead are holding the contents of his memory. After a few seconds, his expression changes from inquisitive to that ah-ha face we all make when we remember something. “Last Friday I woke up at six, which is late for me.”
“Excuse me?” I joke. “Late?”
“Very. I’m usually out of my bed by five am, but I’d had trouble sleeping the night before because the couple in the apartment next to mine were. . . well, let’s just say that they’re newlyweds.”
“Ah, I see.”
“So I got up at six, and then followed my normal morning routine, only I did a little less of everything. I had to cut my workout in the gym downstairs to thirty minutes instead of an hour, that way I could meet Graham upstairs at his place for our morning meetings.”
“You have morning meetings?”
“We did. Everyday. He’d go over what he needed me to do, and what things in the building I should attend to personally.”
“Wait, I’m confused. What’s with Graham and this building? You’re making it sound like he owns the whole thing.”
“He does. Kind of. Let’s just say he’s in control of it.”
I’m not sure what that means, but he’s sparked my curiosity. “What kind of control?”
“Graham’s company owns the property and the building itself. It’s one of his many real estate holdings, but it’s also a co-op, so it has a board.”
“I know. Chandler tried to get on but he was denied. They said. . .”
“That he was too new to the building, right?”
“Yeah, how did you. . .”
“It’s one of Graham’s rules. How he controls building policies. Once his company renovated the property, he had his closest friends and co-workers grab up the first apartments, and he put his most trusted people on the board so he knew the votes would always be favorable to whatever
he wanted. He also hired all of the staff, including me. So even though technically he’s just another resident, he’s really in control of the entire building.”
“Wow,” I say. “That’s crazy. I didn’t know things worked that way.”
“Neither did I before I started working for Graham. But now I know a whole lot of things I never did before. It’s like I told you when I first met you—it’s my job to know things about people. Its why Graham hired me.”
He does remember. He remembers what he said, what I looked like, and even though I won’t admit it to him, he knows exactly how I was feeling. I was sad. I am sad. My life was changing in ways that didn’t seem right to me. My fiancé was growing ever more distant the more successful he became, and I was getting further—literally and figuratively—from my family back in Queens. Who is this mysterious man?
“I’m starting to see that. So, keep going. What else after your meeting with Graham?”
“Oh, we’re still on last Friday?”
“Uh-huh. I want to know. I want to get a sense of what you do and who you are.”
“Let’s see, then. We met, had coffee, and talked for a few minutes. I did what I always do, which was to make a list on my phone of what he needed. That day he needed me to fix something with Mr. Foster’s account, and then. . .”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, cutting him off. “You mean Elias Foster? The food industry billionaire?”
“Yeah, do you know him? Nice guy. Loves the Yankees.”
“I know of him, but never met him face to face.”
“He’s really cool—as long as you’re not trying to start a rival chicken company, then he’s as ruthless as they come. But of the many things I am trying to do, starting a chicken company is not one of them, so we’re cool.”
“What are you trying to do, then?”
“Huh?” he asks.
I guess I didn’t phrase that very well. “I mean, is this what you want to do forever? Be Graham’s assistant? I mean, I’m sure he pays you really well and all, it’s just. . .”
“Just what?”
“You seem like an ambitious man, Dylan. And I know from being around them that ambitious men don’t stay in positions that end is ‘assistant’ very long.”
He smiles. It’s hypnotic. “I have my dreams, sure, but I don’t want to sound like an egomaniac by talking about them.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I want to know.”
“Another time, Penelope. I promise you. Right now, I need to figure out what I’m doing for work. I’m currently unemployed.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I’m exaggerating a little bit. I’m sorry. Graham is moving out of the building, so before I tell you about all of my plans to conquer the known universe, I have to figure out what I’m doing next.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out—you seem like you’re doing better than me at the moment.” I don’t mean to change the subject so suddenly, but I now feel like there’s an elephant in the room that I need to address. He’s being really nice to me, and he deserves to hear from me about what happened. “Look, I just wanted to apologize about before. It’s probably not every day you get to see an episode of the The Real Housewives of New York live and in person like that, huh?”
“No, not every day. Not ever, really. But if it’s any consolation, I got her out of the building as fast as I could.”
“Thank you. She was right.”
“Who?” he asks, looking puzzled.
“My mom,” I explain. “She was absolutely right.”
“About?”
“Chandler. My mom hates him. She always has, even before all this. I guess she saw something in him that I didn’t.”
“Moms always do.”
“I don’t know. She also tells me all the time that I should have stayed with her in Queens, but if I listened to her I wouldn’t get to taste this amazing coffee.”
His ears perk up all of a sudden. “Wait, come again?”
“I said, my mom always tells me that I shouldn’t have moved to the city with that rich guy—that’s what she calls Chandler, she refuses to call him by name—she thinks that I should have stayed in Queens.”
“That’s where I’m from.”
No way. I should have smelled it on him—we Queens people are our own breed of New Yorker—it’s like a world within a world. “No shit?”
“I shit you not, I promise.”
“Where from?” I ask.
“Flushing. I grew up there. I actually just came from an early dinner at my nonna’s house.”
“Aww. And what did Nonna make?”
“Rigatoni ala vodka and some homemade garlic bread. Basically, bowls and bowls of carbs with little else—except cheese. Lots of cheese.”
“That sounds amazing. I wish my grandmother could still cook for me. She died a few years back.”
“My grandfather died a year ago, I get it.”
“I’m sorry. Were you close?”
“Very. He was like a father. He and Nonna raised me after my real parents died.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t. . .”
“I was nine, it’s okay. It was a really long time ago.”
“I’m sorry you lost him.”
“Me too. Every day.”
Just as I’m about to say something to him, he reaches frantically into his pocket. “What is it?”
“Sorry, it’s Graham.”
He looks down at his phone and reads the text he just got. “Everything alright?” I ask.
“As much as it ever is. Why, am I making a face?”
“Big time. A worried one.”
“About that. . . I need to go handle something. Are you still staying. . .”
“Hell no. I got a hotel room a few blocks away.”
“I don’t know how long this is going to take, but I’d love to finish this conversation over a meal. Maybe we could trade stories about the old neighborhood or something.
“You already ate dinner,” I point out with a small hint of a smile.“I could eat again. Unless you want to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” I tell him. “I’m not very good at it. I just don’t want to be with Chandler.”
“In that case.” He hands me his phone and tells me to type in my number, which I do without hesitation.
“Here you go. Text me later.” I hand him back his phone.
“I will.”
10
Dylan
I thought he’d be taller.
Maybe that’s stupid, but I tower over the guy. I always expect powerful people to be physically imposing, but in my experience, they never are. Truth is, all 6 feet 3 of me is looking down at the man who might end of up being the richest man in the city one day.
The text before was from Graham telling me to get my ass to the building, asap. Specifically, he told me to come back to the scene of all the drama—Chandler’s apartment—where he was waiting inside with the man himself.
Like I said, I thought he’d be taller.
“How are you?” he says, greeting me with an overly hard hand shake. I give him the same grip right back, and I squeeze just a little harder than him. That over the top handshake is alpha male shit—guys like him do that to exert dominance right away when meeting someone, so I’m just letting him know that I don’t play that shit.
I’m not intimidated by anyone, especially guys like this.
“I’m fine, sir, how are you?”
“Chandler, please.”
“Chandler it is, then. I’m fine. How are you?”
“Well, judging by the fact that our friend Graham gathered us all here tonight, I think you know exactly how I am.”
I really wish Graham had given me way more of a heads up before I walked into this rat trap. In the span of a few hours I went from his personal assistant, to unemployed, to Chandler’s potential PA, to the guy comforting Chandler’s soon to be ex-fiancé in a Cuban coffee place, to. . . I don’t
even know where I stand right now. I’m just confused.
“Right. Well, if it’s any consolation, I. . . um. . . escorted that woman out of the building swiftly and without incident.”
“Graham told me as much, thank you. A man in my position appreciates discretion, as I’m sure you know working for this one here.”
“Trust me, Chandler, Dylan’s learned the ropes around here. He knows the kind of discretion men like us demand when it comes to sensitive issues like this one.”
Sensitive issues? Yeah, like banging some crazy woman and knocking her up while you’re engaged to be married.
“I do, sir. . . Chandler. Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”
“Good. That’s what I like to hear. Graham speaks very highly of your skills, and from a man like him that means a lot.”
“Does that mean I’m hired?” I’m joking, but I’m the only one smiling. I can tell right away that Chandler’s not a joking around kind of guy. He has an endless intensity in his eyes—almost predatory—and he never seems to let his guard down.
“Not quite,” he says. “Graham’s endorsement of you is a very positive thing, but I like to keep my own council on who works for me—especially someone who would be working as closely with me as you would be. Graham, I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” he says. “I can’t tell you who to hire, but I can tell you without any doubt that Dylan is a man with good instincts. He understands our world even though he’s not from it.”
Not from it. There’s the understatement of the century. You’re talking to a kid who had a job at ten, who spent a year on food stamps when his grandfather lost his job, who had to work and sweat for everything I ever got. That’s right, Graham, I’m not from this world of yours—and I’m damn proud of that fact.
“That’s good to know. We may be able to work something out, but I didn’t bring you here tonight to hire a PA.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry. What do you need?” It makes me sick to ask like that, but I need this job badly.
“I need to know exactly what you saw. What you heard. Leave out no details.”
I recount the events of earlier. I give as much detail as I can, right up until I walked her out and put her in a cab.
Secret Keeper Page 5