The tile needed to be regrouted in the master. What was that saying about the cobbler’s children not having shoes? You’d think the head of the biggest construction company in Manhattan would have an immaculate home—but his business sucked up practically everything; his time, his attention, his energy...and a fat lot of good that did for you in the end, he thought bitterly.
He turned the shower all the way to scalding and stepped under the spray. The pungent scent of day-old alcohol seemed to ooze out of his pores as the hot water hit his skin. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. He’d been known to party back in the day, but it had been years since he’d had a hangover like this. He grabbed the bar of soap—trying to make a mental note that he had to replace it since it was basically down to a sliver. Hana had always taken care of things like this—soap, milk, laundry. Even now, a year later, Jason still regularly encountered a lack of clean underwear, and empty cartons in the fridge.
Jesus, man, grow the hell up.
He managed to work up a lather and ran his hands down his own muscular body, relieved to find that at least this part of himself wasn’t slipping yet. He didn’t need a gym. Building and running from project to project kept him in shape. He was never afraid to grab a hammer and pitch in on one of his jobs if he needed to. His hand reached his crotch, and he paused for a moment, feeling the involuntary leap under his own soapy fingers. Then the ache in his temples throbbed, and he moved on, thinking that he didn’t particularly deserve any pleasure this morning—even if it was a gift to himself, so to speak.
He turned off the shower, ran a towel over his body and wandered back into his bedroom, casting one longing look at the bed before he pulled on some clean jeans and a T-shirt. The hot water had helped a little, but he knew that things weren’t going to be set right until he drank at least a pot of coffee.
Of all the rooms in this apartment, the kitchen actually felt the least scarred by his divorce. It had always been his territory. Hana had been an unwilling and indifferent cook, perfectly happy to drink a cup of tea and eat a bowl of cornflakes for every meal if given the choice. Jason, on the other hand, loved to eat, and he realized early on that he would have to take the reins in the kitchen if he wanted more than take-out Chinese and frozen Lean Cuisine.
So when they renovated the kitchen, before work had completely taken over his life, he’d actually designed it for himself—setting the counters and cabinets for his six-foot-two-inch frame, organizing it by his exacting standards, putting in a wood-burning pizza oven. He frigging loved this kitchen. He and Alli, who had inherited his appreciation of the culinary arts, thank God, used to spend hours in here mucking around.
Before you got too busy to spend time with your own daughter, you stupid asshole.
He put the kettle on to boil and ground enough French roast for the pour-over and then sat down, trying to ignore the teetering stack of unopened mail on the kitchen island in front of him. He wrinkled his nose at the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Maybe he should hire a new housekeeper. He’d fired all the help when Hana left, wanting to be alone in his misery.
He thought about just selling the apartment, leaving it all behind—the mail, the grout, the dishes—starting over fresh. Someplace with no memories. But his wasn’t the only history here. Alli had grown up in this apartment; this was her home, and he could only imagine her reaction if he yanked her childhood home out from under her. Things were hard enough between them as it was. He couldn’t bear to take one more thing from his daughter.
The only thing he still felt like he had under control was his business. His father’s business, really, but now Jason’s. Russo Construction had been in his family since Jason’s great-grandfather had come over from Genoa and started out as a handyman on Staten Island. His father had made it into a huge success, and just before he died, he’d retired and it had passed down to Jason.
His dad had made a toast at his retirement party, his normally stern voice going rough with emotion.
“I think of the day my own father retired,” he’d said, putting his arm around Jason’s shoulders. “And how he handed down the business to me. And now here I am, doing the same thing with my own son.” He’d looked at Jason, his eyes wet with emotion. “A man couldn’t ask for any more than this.”
And Jason had pushed away any questions in his head about whether or not he actually wanted the family business and smiled and hugged his father and thanked him and promised to work hard and do him proud.
So far, he’d kept his promise. He was a good contractor—he liked the hands-on part of things just fine, working with the engineers, architects and subcontractors. Building from the ground up or renovating, he didn’t really care, it was all the same to him. But what he’d always been especially good at, what he’d been trained in from a young age, was the social aspect of the business. The schmoozing and the drinking and the backroom deals. He’d learned how to seal a deal at his father’s knee; he was born and raised to be the best.
He used to really enjoy it. He used to love the chase. There had been no one better at making people want to work with him. But after Hana and Liam left the company, everything had gone sour. He couldn’t get it up for any of his old tricks. And now, every time he kissed another old-timer’s ass, or forced himself to smoke another rank cigar or down another water and whiskey before noon, when he laughed at another disgusting joke that wasn’t funny, he imagined that he could feel a tiny piece of his soul chip off and disappear.
There was the money, of course. Russo Construction had always been successful, but when Jason hired Liam, his old college buddy, to run the operations, they became the best. Between the two of them, they’d built dozens of major buildings from the ground up, doubled the size of their workforce, and tripled the value of the company within ten years. Russo Construction had revenue of more than a billion dollars, and that was a good thing. Jason used to regularly remind himself that he had a wife and a daughter to support, workers who counted on him, his father’s legacy to keep intact.
But then Liam had fallen in love with Jason’s wife. Or maybe Hana had fallen for Liam first; Jason had never really been entirely clear on that, but in any case, everything changed. Liam left the company and opened his own competing construction business; Hana and Alli moved out. Jason fell to pieces, and yet, Russo Construction just kept growing like the monster it was.
Even when he wanted to lose, he still won. Rather than headhunting a new COO, Jason hired an unqualified but ambitious young woman fresh out of business school named Leela Rajan. She turned out to be brilliant, which was lucky, because Jason knew he wasn’t exactly pulling his weight lately. But despite that, and the clients that Liam took with him, they had actually managed to increase profits and expand their territory over this past year. They were still the premier builders in Manhattan, but now they were also building shopping malls upstate, huge estates in the Hamptons. But working with Leela was different than working with an old friend, and Jason, who had once worked and lived exclusively in partnerships, now felt alone both at home and at his office.
The kettle suddenly whistled, a high, shrill scream. Startled, Jason lashed out at the stack of paper, wiping all the envelopes to the floor in one furious move, along with his waiting coffee cup, which shattered with a loud, angry crash.
God damn it, he thought as he closed his eyes to the mess he’d just made. The mess that he’d have to clean up himself. He couldn’t go on this way. He had to pull himself together. He was acting like an entitled child.
He stood up slowly, first turning off the kettle and then fetching the broom to clean up. The problem was, he’d let himself stop and think. He needed to get to work. He needed to be distracted. He emptied the shards of pottery in the trash. He’d get coffee on the way to the office. He didn’t want to spend another moment alone in this apartment.
Chapter 7
Good God, she was perfect.
Liam M
aguire looked across the dining room table at Hana as she absently sipped a cup of tea and read the Times. Her long black hair fell in a sweep across her face as she leaned forward, spilling onto the paper. He loved watching her in the morning, when she was still soft and rumpled from bed, before she pinned up her hair and put on her lipstick.
She took a gulp of tea and turned the page of the paper. There was a smudge of newsprint on her cheek. He smiled to himself. He always teased her about reading the newspaper. She must be the last person in America who refused to get her news online.
She reached for the teapot and upset her cup, spilling a few drops of amber liquid on the table. She picked up her napkin but he beat her to it, compelled to reach over and polish the spill away with the cuff of his robe.
She looked at him, amused. “I was going to clean it up.”
He shrugged, embarrassed by his protective reaction. He should hate this table. This stupid, shabby-chic farmhouse nonsense had replaced a twenty-thousand-dollar lacquered goatskin Karl Springer extension table. It wasn’t his aesthetic, it wasn’t of any real value, it clashed with everything else in the apartment, but he still felt a messed up little ache of triumph every time he looked at it sitting here in his kitchen. Hana loved this table, and though he hated to admit it, he knew that Jason had, too.
Hana added tea to her cup and the strap of her nightgown slipped down over her shoulder, exposing the top of her breast. Liam took a sharp breath against the violent thrill in his stomach, the tight rush to his groin. God, he would never stop wanting her. He still couldn’t believe she was finally his.
Liam remembered every detail of the first time they’d met. It had been one of those ice-cold February days in New Haven. He’d been sitting outside his dorm, smoking and freezing his balls off. He’d gotten drunk at some sorority party the weekend before, lost his winter coat and he couldn’t afford to replace it. Jason, who was his roommate at the time, strolled up with this short, pretty Asian girl casually tucked under his arm. She was wearing a puffy black jacket and a red wool hat, which matched the red of her cheeks, her lips and the tip of her nose. Jason had introduced them and Hana had cracked a smile and then asked for a drag off Liam’s cigarette.
“I’m trying to quit, but it’s been a long, weird night,” she’d said. Her voice was young and sweet, belying the arch look she threw at Jason as she spoke. “I earned a puff.”
When she reached for the cigarette, Liam noticed that her fingers were as small as a child’s, but looked square and strong. Her nails were painted black and bitten to the quick. She inhaled, her eyes closing in pleasure, and the long, straight sweep of her lashes met the curve of her cheekbones.
She was not Liam’s type at all, but as he saw her lean up against Jason, Liam felt himself washed in utter regret over the fact that he hadn’t found this girl first.
When Liam had first met his new roommate, he’d immediately sized Jason Russo up as one of those kids who had everything and took it all for granted. The college was teeming with his type—wealthy, pretty golden boys, friendly and dumb as yellow Labs. Never had a hard day or a single damned thing to be worried about in their lives. Liam figured that Jason was just another rich prick in a school of rich pricks.
But it didn’t take Liam long to realize that he was wrong. Jay was actually one of the best guys that Liam had ever met. He was generous and funny, loyal and as smart as Liam, but without the bitter chip on his shoulder. They quickly became the kind of friends who stayed up nights, drinking beers and sharing a joint, admitting to things they’d never dared tell anyone else before.
But as close as they were, Liam could never forgive the fact that Jay came from money. It popped up in all sorts of ways. The slick clothes, the Range Rover that Jay drove, the fact that he never had to scramble for beer or weed or cigarette money, the casual way he went to restaurants and concerts, the family trips to Aspen and Capri over winter and spring breaks. Hell, Liam couldn’t even afford the airfare back home to Chicago on his breaks. He felt lucky when he could scrape up a campus job working maintenance so he’d have a place to stay. Even their grades—Liam had to work like crazy to keep his scholarship, while Jay, secure that his tuition would always be covered, shrugged off his studies like a B was just fine and a C was no big deal at all.
The only place Liam could compete with Jay was when it came to women. Liam might not have the money for expensive dates, but he knew how to play up his Black Irish good looks and punk rebel attitude. Just a hint of his messed up backstory and girls dropped their panties like they couldn’t wait to screw the tragedy right out of him.
Hana and Jay were thick as thieves from the very beginning. She was always in their dorm room, hanging around on Jay’s bed, wearing some weird little outfit, her sketchbook in one hand and a novel in the other. Even when Jason wasn’t around, she would wait for him there, feet tucked under the blankets—she was always cold—and when she was bored, she would ask Liam questions.
At first, he resisted, refusing to look up from his computer or from the book he was reading, claiming a paper he had to write or a test he had to study for, any excuse not to talk to her. But she persisted, plying him with easy, casual questions at first: What did he like to eat? Anything. He was not picky. What was his favorite color? Purple. He always told people it was blue, but somehow he didn’t want to lie to her. If he had to choose between burning to death or freezing, which way would he go? Freezing, of course—an absence of feeling was always better than feeling too much. And then, once he got used to it, and in fact, started to enjoy the attention, she hit him with the more personal stuff: Where did he grow up? Chicago. South Side. What was his family like? Useless, absent. What kind of girl did he like? Blonde. Big tits. Easygoing. At least, that was what he used to like, because the real answer, the one he couldn’t say out loud, was: you, Hana. I like you.
He became more obsessed by the day, standing quietly by, ridiculously smitten, inwardly writhing in agony as he watched every kiss and touch and secret smile and whispered word pass between Hana and Jay. But never once did he seriously consider the idea of making a move on his best friend’s girl.
Besides, he told himself, what would a girl like Hana do with a scholarship hood rat like Liam? Her parents were diplomats, she’d lived all over the world and spoke five languages. She’d had her first solo art show before she turned eighteen. She was perfectly matched to a golden boy like Jay. Liam was lucky she was even willing to be his friend.
That is, until the day twenty years or so later when Jason stood them both up for dinner. They were supposed to be meeting to celebrate an especially important job Russo Construction had managed to land, and the opening of Hana’s newest show in SoHo. But Hana had shown up alone—wearing a red sweater that hit Liam with a sharp memory of the wooly red hat she’d been wearing that day they’d first met—and Jay had never shown up at all. They waited for him almost an hour—something they had grown used to doing over the years—drinking their dinner, before Jay finally called saying that he’d been hung up at the office and they should celebrate without him.
So they had.
And it was everything Liam had ever dreamed it would be and more, somehow. He had been out of his mind with pleasure, overcome with emotion, drunk on her scent, her skin, the way she moved under his hands. She had uncorked twenty years of desperate longing and pent-up need. There was no turning back.
Afterward, Liam had expected her to cry with regret, be sick with guilt, but Hana had been tough as nails, just giving him a little smile and shrug and saying in that same soft, pretty voice that Jason had stopped giving a crap about her and their daughter a long time ago, so why should she give a damn about him?
And just like that, all of Liam’s loyalty to his best friend and business partner had slipped away, and his only focus became how he was going to keep this woman in his life now that he finally, finally had her.
Hana put her teac
up down and raised an eyebrow at him. “What are you staring at?”
He reached across the table and hooked the strap of her nightgown with his pinkie, pulling it down farther, fully exposing her breast. “I think I’m going to call into work and tell them I’m taking a personal day,” he said.
Hana laughed and shrugged the strap back up again, covering herself. “Stand down, soldier. Alli’s going to be in the kitchen any second demanding a cronut, some orange juice and a ride to school.”
“Lucy will feed her, and I’ll have Roman bring the car around and he can take her. In the meantime, we can go back to bed.”
She shook her head, smiling. “Too late. I hear her stomping down the stairs.”
On cue, Hana’s teen daughter popped her head in from the kitchen. “Mom,” she said, annoyed. “We’re out of orange juice.”
Hana shot a deadpan look at Liam. “Check in the back of the fridge. Second shelf.”
Alli rolled her eyes as she ducked back in. “I’ll just ask Lucy to squeeze me some.”
Hana turned back to him with a smug smile.
He sighed. Romance was severely limited when there was a teen in the house, but he loved Alli like she was his own, and knew that Hana and Alli were a package deal. “Okay, then, we’ve got that dinner with Mark Harrington tonight at Per Se. Wear something devastating and no underwear,” he suggested, “and we can sneak off to the bathroom when it gets boring.”
“Oh.” She tapped her finger along the edge of her teacup. Her nails were long and perfectly manicured now, the color of dried blood. “I forgot about that dinner. Since Alli is at her dad’s tonight, I was actually hoping to maybe hit my studio and pull an all-nighter. Get some real work done. It’s been a while, you know.”
He frowned. “The whole night? This dinner is really important.”
She shook her head as if shooing something irritable away. “You know what? Never mind. Of course I’ll be at the dinner.” She shot him a comical wink. “Sans sous-vêtements.”
Heels of Steel Page 9