by Peggy Jaeger
“I don’t know about Enright,” Nick said, “but I’d be an idiot to refuse a meal in this house. I remember just how delicious the food is,” he addressed Maeve.
She folded her lips inward and bit down on them, pleasure coloring her cheeks again.
“And you, young man?” My mother said to Cade. “Are you staying?”
Cade tilted his head, his attention resting on me. “It’s really up to Aurora. I’d planned to take her out to dinner tonight, but I’m not sure she wants me around right now.”
“Aurora?” My mother asked.
Talk about being put on the spot.
“You can stay,” I said.
That damn heart-stopping smile broke over his face.
“But I’m still mad at you.”
“Noted,” he said. “And deserved.”
“Dinner will be in about twenty minutes, then,” Maeve announced.
“Just enough time for me to have a cocktail. And I need one after the day I’ve had. Nick? Join me?”
Once they’d quit the room, mom taking the arm he offered her, and we were alone, Cade took my hand.
An instant pulse of heat shot up my arm.
“I’m really sorry, Aurora, for not telling you who I was. I wanted to, but…”
He lifted one shoulder and for the first time since coming in I realized he was dressed for the night out I’d bailed on.
An umber colored sports jacket that fit his broad shoulders to perfection topped a light tan Oxford shirt opened at the collar. I could see a dusting of hair below the notch in his neck, enough to tell me he wore nothing under the shirt. Trousers with a front pleat sharp as a stiletto dropped down his powerful legs into Italian leather shoes, buffed to a sheen.
I was in an old pair of sweat pants, no shoes, and a zip-up hoodie with my boarding school logo stamped across the back. My hair was up in a high ponytail and my face was bare except for the moisturizer I’d slathered on after my shower.
We couldn’t have looked more different.
“At the risk of sounding like an my mother’s echo, I have to ask why you’re here? You got my text?”
He nodded.
“Then why did you come? I couldn’t have made myself clearer about not wanting to see you again.”
“You were clear, but I wouldn’t accept why. We’d had such a great time together it made no sense you just wanted to end it.”
In another smooth move he dropped my hand, slid his around my waist, and tugged me flat up against him.
“I came here because I was determined to find out what happened, what I did to make you want to stop seeing me. I knew the moment I walked into this room why you had, and again, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.”
The truth was all over his face.
“Being with you the other day was one of the best days I’ve ever had. I haven’t felt so relaxed and…happy in a long, long time. We’re good together, you have to know that, see it.”
“I – I had a good time, too,” I said, then almost rolled my eyes at how lame it sounded.
I’d had more than a good time, and that was the plain truth. Cade and I clicked in so many ways and not just sexually. He was fun to be with, engaging to speak to, and, God help me, looking across a table at him smiling certainly wasn’t a hardship.
The question was would I be able to get over his deception? Could I look past it and just enjoy the man? Would I always worry that he was keeping something from me, or worse, lying? I wasn’t looking for everlasting love right now. I still had so much to do with my life since I’d been robbed of so many years.
But Cade was right. We were good together. With him I’d felt like that young, carefree girl of twenty again. It was an intoxicating sensation.
“Aurora?”
His deep, verdant eyes held a question I was ready to answer.
I cleared my throat and held up my index finger. “Ground rule.”
“Anything.” His grip tightened around me when his free hand joined the other around my waist.
“Total honesty. About everything. I won’t tolerate anything less.”
“Done. Is that it? Because you have to know I’ll do anything you ask.”
Oh, the thoughts that ran through my head. If he only knew.
“Anything?”
That crooked grin shot across his face. When he placed a small kiss to my temple and pulled me in for a proper hug, he said, “Anything legal, anyway.”
“Good to know.”
He smelled so damn good, I got lost for a moment just inhaling the deep, clean, masculine scent of him when I went up on my toes and returned the hug, my nose nuzzling his neck.
He exhaled, long and slow, and rubbed his hands up and down my back. His touch was gentle and meant to soothe. It had the opposite effect, though as his fingers lit little fires along my nerve tracks, causing the lower half of my body to burn with need.
“Aurora. You feel so…good.” The warmth of his breath as he skimmed his lips down my cheek and across my chin shot that need up several thousand degrees.
His lips found mine. Tentative at first, as if seeking permission, then firmer, surer, when he received it. I clung to him as he completely undid me with a kiss that reached down to my soul and claimed it.
I may not be looking for love but I knew if I allowed myself to, I could find it with this man.
On my own long sigh, I pushed back and took his hands from around me.
“Come on. Dinner’s waiting and I don’t want to be scolded if I’m late.”
With my hand wound around his arm, we made our way to the kitchen where an unusual sight met me.
Nick had removed his jacket and was stirring something at the stove and sneaking glances at Maeve while she was busy arranging a platter with chicken and my mother was taking down dishes from the cabinet.
“We’re eating in the dining room tonight,” she said as she pulled utensils from one of the drawers. “There’s more room. Get glasses.”
“Fancy,” I said, and did as commanded. Since it was just the three of us in the house most days, with Murphy at his own apartment a few blocks away, we typically ate in the spacious kitchen, seated around the breakfast bar. That my mother wanted to entertain in the dining room, which rarely got used anymore, was a nice gesture.
“You help,” I told Cade, handing him glass wear I pulled from the cabinet.
Without a second’s hesitation he did.
Dinner was more relaxed that I would have imagined. It couldn’t have been easy for Maeve to be seated at a table making small talk with the man she’d thrown over so many years ago, but you would never have known it. There was an easy, companionable flow of conversation between the three of them, my mother included, as he told them about his life since retirement.
More than a few times his gaze drifted to Maeve and stayed while he spoke.
My mother was a gracious and loquacious hostess and pleasantly grilled Cade on his life, his career, and even his family. With an open ease I found delightful, he answered all her intrusive questions.
“I think we should discuss where we go next, Aurora, with finding out what happened to you,” Nick said at one point.
For the briefest of moments my mother froze, her fork grasped in front of her. I watched her swallow, then take in a tiny, shallow breath.
“Meeting with Phillipa is a good place to start,” he added.
“I agree,” I said once my mother started moving again. “But I don’t know where she lives, or how to get in touch with her.”
“I can help with that.”
Surprised is too tame to describe my response at hearing those words come from Maeve’s mouth.
“Her mother still employs the same staff as she did when you two were as thick as thieves,” she said, lifting a shoulder, “and I know her cook, Darcy. I can call her and ask for Phillipa’s number and address.”
“She won’t think that’s weird, you asking for it out of the blue?”
“Maybe. But it�
�s worth a try.”
Nick nodded. “Thank you, Maeve.” To me, he said, “You should call and ask her to meet you again.”
“I’ve got a feeling she’ll refuse.”
“Then go to her unannounced like you did with me. I can’t imagine she’ll slam the door in your face.”
“You didn’t see her that day she ran out of the café. She just might.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Cade said. “You two were so close. I remember her talking about you, telling me you were the sister she never had.”
“Play on that emotion if you have to,” Nick said.
“That just seems, I don’t know? Wrong?”
“What’s wrong,” Nick said, “is that you were robbed of a decade of your life and deserve an answer as to why. If she knows something or has any idea about who drugged you or why, she needs to divulge it.”
“Assuming she does,” my mother said, “why do you think she’ll tell it now? She’s held on to it for fifteen years. Why would she just up and reveal it after all this time?”
“Because Aurora said Phillipa was scared that day. There has to be something behind that fear and I’m betting it has to do with what happened.”
That made sense to me, and Cade was right. It was worth trying to find the answer.
When dinner ended I walked Cade to the front door after he thanked my mother and Maeve.
“This isn’t how I hoped the evening would end,” he said, quietly, as he took my hand.
Those little erotic flares shot through me again at his touch.
“I had thoughts of enticing you back to my place.” He flicked a glance over my head, probably to ensure we were alone, and lowered his voice. “Maybe even talk you into staying the night this time.”
I would have been tempted and told him so.
“You don’t know how happy hearing you say that makes me.” His thumb drew lazy circles around my wrist.
“Rain check?”
His quiet laugh shot straight through me. “I feel like I’ve heard that before.”
He bent and gave me a sweet kiss that held such promise I almost told him to wait right there while I shot upstairs and packed an overnight bag.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” he asked.
I nodded and sent myself a reminder to unblock him.
He cupped my cheek and ran his thumb across my bottom lip.
“One more,” he whispered before kissing me again.
A few hours later while I was in bed my phone beeped.
~Just wanted to make sure you’d unblocked me.
Laughing, I typed back:
~Who is this?
A sting of arrows in hearts emojis had me smiling, while I shut down for the night.
Chapter Nineteen
“I don’t see her yet, do you?”
I was sitting in a coffee shop on the upper west side, on my phone with Cade who was seated across the shop, hidden from view at a corner table. We were lying in wait for Phil.
I’d tried calling her several times over the past few days, using the number Maeve had acquired. None of my calls had been returned. Frustrated, I’d then had Murphy drive me to the condo she now shared with Trey. The doorman had announced me but I’d been refused entry.
Phillipa really did want nothing to do with me. When I’d relayed my inability to see or talk to her, Maeve had gone into action again. How she found out that Phillipa frequented this coffee shop every day for her morning cup of caffeine I will never know. But, armed with this information, Cade had come up with the idea of an ambush.
“She won’t want to cause a scene in a place where everyone recognizes her,” he’d reasoned. “And I’ll be there, waiting to swoop in and help you get the answers to your questions if need be.”
I have to admit, knowing he was there to have my back felt all kinds of comforting.
“She’s across the street now. You should spot her in a sec,” he said.
A moment later Phillipa opened the door and sauntered straight to the counter. She didn’t smile at the barista, just gave her order and stepped aside to wait for it.
If it were possible she looked thinner and even more gaunt than she had the last time I’d seen her. Her long blonde hair hung almost to her waist. Gone was its shine, though, replaced now with straggled ends and a dishwater, lackluster appearance.
I’d planned what I wanted to say over and over in my head for the past few days, but now that she was almost standing right in front of me, all I could think about was wrapping my arms around her and telling her how much I’d missed her.
Yeah, I know. How could I still feel that way about her when she wanted nothing to do with me? I didn’t have an answer that made any sense so I pushed the sentimentality aside and braced myself for what was to come.
She didn’t see me approach her table where she sat waiting for her order, because she was glancing down at her phone, swiping through the screen. Luckily for me, she was seated with her back to the wall and didn’t have easy access if she wanted to run away when she saw me.
I pulled out the chair opposite her and quietly said her name.
Her finger stopped mid-swipe, and her mouth dropped open when she lit on me.
“What are you doing here?” she said by way of a greeting.
Her face had gone alabaster, her eyes popped open wide and if I had to put a name to what was running through them I’d say terror.
Her opening line had assured me this wasn’t going to be a friendly catch-up.
I caught her arm just as she jumped up from the chair, her intent clear.
“Sit down, Phil. We need to talk.”
“Let go of me. I—”
“Please.”
We were locked in a battle of wills, she wanting to flee, me wanting her to stay. I knew I was the stronger of us and if it came to it I could shove her back in the chair, even hold her in it, and force her to talk to me.
But that was the last thing I wanted to do to someone who’d once been as close to me as a sibling.
My plea must have filtered through the fear. Her gaze darted right and left a few times, then she gave me a single nod and tried to shrug out of my grip. I let go and waited until she sat before doing the same, still not sure she wouldn’t try to run.
Her hands shook so violently it took her a few tries before she was able to shove her phone back into her bag. “How did you know I would be here?”
“That’s not important. But what I need to talk to you about, is.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you, Rory. I told you that the last time I saw you. Why do you keep bothering me?”
I folded my own trembling hands together on top of the table and took a breath. Her emaciated face was a jumble of emotions from anger to fear. I’d planned on diving straight in with my suspicions that she knew something about my being drugged. I changed tactics.
“Because I need some answers and you’re the one who has them.”
“I don’t know anything,” she said immediately. Her hands weren’t the only things shaking now.
“I’ll get to that, but first, I’d like to ask you something, old friend to old friend.”
She squinted at me, her head tilted to one side.
“What?’
“Why didn’t you ever come to the hospital after I was admitted? My mother told me you’d never been, never called to see how I was doing. Nothing.”
Her thin shoulders sagged under her lightweight jacket and her face filled with shame. Dropping her gaze from mine, she shook her head, her hair cascading in front of her face, shielding her; hiding her.
“Phil?”
“I – I…couldn’t.” She lifted her head and tears glistened back at me. “I just…couldn’t.”
“Why not? If it had been you I don’t think I would have left your side for one second.”
She swiped at her nose with the sleeve of jacket. “Well, I couldn’t. Knowing you might die was just…” she shook her head again.
&n
bsp; “But I didn’t die.”
“Close enough.” Tears dropped down her cheeks and she wiped them away with her bare palms. “It was…horrible…seeing you like that. In the club you were…seizing, your mouth looked like you’d put shaving cream on it. I was…terrified. So scared I couldn’t move. When they took you away I…collapsed. Just lost it.”
Her gaze found mine again. “After that I couldn’t go to the hospital. I didn’t want to see you hooked up to machines. Not able to breathe. It was too much. Just…too much.”
In some weird way I could understand that. But still, I’d have gone to her if the roles were reversed.
“Think about what it was like for me for a minute, Phil. I woke up and almost right away asked for my best friend only to be told she’d ghosted me.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled. When she opened them it was so easy to read the sorrow floating there.
“I didn’t know you…woke up. Not for a long time, anyway. Trey was the one who told me when he heard it from his mother. Your mother kept it quiet.”
I nodded. “Because she and my doctors didn’t want the press to pounce. They were afraid it might be too stressful on me if word leaked out and reporters tried to get interviews or take an unauthorized picture. They did it to protect me.”
With her head cocked and her nose still running, Phil took another sleeve swipe across it as she regarded me.
“You don’t look like anything ever happened to you.”
“Oh, a lot has happened to me, believe me. But daily hard work and my mother and Maeve by my side to push me have gotten me back to this point. They never gave up on me. Never believed I wouldn’t wake up one day.”
Her deathly pale cheeks went cherry red, the implication of my words filtering through. Her chin wobbled a bit and her mouth puckered as if she’d tasted something sour.
A small part of me hoped it was regret.
“I lost a decade of my life, Phil and have spent the last five trying to get it back. Which is why I wanted to meet you.” I took a breath. “I need answers to what happened the night of my party.”
The fear replaced the shame again. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“For starters you can tell me about Kincade Enright.”