Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires)

by Jessica Blake

  Warmth bloomed in my heart and spread through the rest of my chest. “Good. I was worried about coming across as a little too forward.”

  “Why is that?” She didn’t look at me, instead keeping busy by playing with her hair and gazing out the window.

  “Because,” I slowly began, “We don’t know each other very well. By the way… I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Her entire posture changed when I said those last words. Her shoulders tensed, and the fingers in her hair tightened then drew together into a fist. The only thing that didn’t change was her line of sight. Her eyes remained fixed on the window.

  “Thank you,” she rasped. “I guess Gwen told you.”

  “She did…” I took in a deep breath but didn’t know what else to say.

  Claire looked back at me. Her eyes were impossible to read. “She probably wanted to explain to you why I ran away from the bar.”

  That was exactly what happened.

  “I figured you were tired.”

  “Hm.” She looked down at the table. “So, those flowers… is that why you sent them? As a condolence?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Her face was tilted down, but I could see her bite her bottom lip. And were her cheeks coloring?

  My heart rate sped up. Did she think the flowers had been a romantic gesture? Should I have alluded to them being just that? At the time I sent them, I had thought it would be wildly inappropriate to be romantic in any way.

  But should I have been?

  You’re thinking too much. Just shut up.

  “He died suddenly,” Claire said to the table.

  I held my breath and waited for more, unsure if more was coming.

  She turned her face back up, but her eyes went to the window. I got the sense that she’d half-forgotten I was even there. She was lost somewhere else, gone on a trip to another time and place. A place I didn’t exist.

  I worked my throat. The desire to know more burned inside me. I had to be careful though. I needed to be tactful and anything but pushy.

  “How long were you together?”

  She smirked — an odd gesture, but again, I didn’t know what was going on inside of her.

  “Um, a little while.” Her head snapped towards me. “So how come we never ran into each other in Crystal Brook before?”

  “My parents only bought the house there a few years ago. We haven’t spent much time in it.”

  “You go a lot of places with your parents?”

  “Not really. Sometimes.”

  She cocked her head. “So what do you do? Like, what’s your job?”

  “I don’t have one.” I tensed, not sure how she would react to that news.

  “Oh. What’s your field? Are you looking?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  I wanted to say I was “taking time off” but that would have been a lie. To take a break from your career you needed to actually have one to begin with.

  Her lips twisted. She wanted to say something else.

  “It’s all right,” I told her. “You can ask me.”

  She smirked, looking relieved. “It’s kind of rude.”

  “It’s fine. Really.”

  “Okay, then. Um, so what is it exactly that you do with your time?”

  I arched back in my chair, stretching the lower part of my back. “Well, I volunteer with Habitat for Humanity some—”

  “That’s right. I remember now that you said that.”

  “And support numerous other charities. I read a lot,” I offered. “I studied English at Brown.” I chuckled.

  “What?”

  “That sounds kind of pathetic.”

  “I know you’re not saying going to Brown is pathetic.”

  “Right. I’m talking about the other part.”

  “Reading?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. How much do you read? Like, in a month?”

  I scratched my chin and thought about it. “Maybe four to eight books.”

  “Wow,” she breathed. “Fiction or non?”

  “Both. I like history.”

  “Which segment of it?”

  “All of it.”

  “See,” she gestured, stretching her palm out as if showing me something. “That’s worthwhile.”

  “You think so?”

  She chortled. “Yeah. I do. I mean, what? Is getting a job in an office or a department store more beneficial for yourself or society?”

  I opened my mouth to answer that it depended on who you asked, but she went on.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re feeding your mind and learning about things most people will never bother to learn about. And then you go out and interact with other people… so you’re influencing the world in that way.”

  “Like a teacher?”

  “Yeah.” She took a sip from her sweating glass. “Have you ever thought about teaching? Isn’t that what a lot of people who study English do?”

  “No, I’ve never really thought about it.” I laced my hands together and dug deep into the well of my memory. Claire wasn’t the first person to suggest I teach, but I couldn’t remember a day in my life when I’d even half believed I could really enjoy or be good at teaching. Talking and sharing ideas with people one on one was my favorite thing to do. It fueled me and gave me enthusiasm and love for life. But it was the intimacy of those talks that I loved. The thought of standing up in a big room of forty or fifty people just didn’t do it for me.

  “I never really wanted to do anything other than read,” I admitted. “And then talk with one or two people at a time.”

  “What about writing?”

  “Nah. I don’t think so…”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “So you really mean what you said?”

  Claire smiled slightly. “About you educating yourself being important and useful to the world? Yeah.”

  “Even though I just told you I have no interest in teaching or writing?”

  “You like to share your ideas in a small group, right?”

  “Yes… very small,” I grinned.

  “So, yes. Of course I still mean what I said. You share ideas. Like right now.” She gestured at us both. “You’re educating me now.”

  I cocked my head. “Am I?”

  “Yes. We’re talking about jobs and worthiness and all that stuff.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, not able to take my eyes off of her. The more Claire talked, the more she got involved in the conversation. Her head bobbed, and her hands gestured excitedly.

  “God knows enough of us are dumb asses,” she said. “Take me, for example.”

  “You’re not dumb,” I quickly said.

  One of her perfectly arched eyebrows rose. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know you have a pretty important job. New York head of a realty office that spans the English speaking world. You can’t be an idiot and have a job like that.”

  If it surprised her to hear I knew so much about her job it didn’t show on her face.

  “Come visit my office and meet everyone who works there, then you might be singing a different tune.”

  I chuckled. “Oh, yeah?”

  She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She pretended to zip her mouth shut.

  “I’m sure it’s fine. It’s likely no one overheard. None of your co-workers like to frequent hipster coffee shops in the village, do they?”

  She laughed a bit. “Here’s hoping they don’t.”

  I leaned farther back in my chair, finally starting to feel fully relaxed. Claire was already cheerier than she had been in Crystal Brook, and it seemed a great sign. Now I knew why I had been immediately drawn to her. There was a lightness that seemed to be an integral part of her being. She almost glowed with it.

  “So you went out last night?” I asked. “Is that why you slept in late?”

  Her face fell slightly, and she looked down at the table. “Uh, actually, no… did I say I did? Sorry.”

  “
Don’t apologize. It’s fine.”

  “I was just at home,” she mumbled. “Trying to sleep. It’s, uh, been hard.”

  My stomach tightened at the sight of her in such clear pain. “Understandably. Have you tried anything to help?”

  She peeked up at me. “Like sleeping aids? I have something that I got with a prescription, but I don’t want to use it regularly.”

  “Ah.”

  She exhaled heavily then turned her lips up in a forced grin. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, quickly searching for potential things to talk about. “Uh, so how about that game last night?”

  “Which game?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea. I don’t watch sports.”

  Claire laughed. “Neither do I. What’s even in season?”

  “Baseball, I think.”

  “Oh. Baseball is… okay. I’ve played it.”

  “I’ve read about it.”

  Claire giggled. “I bet you have. You never played any sport?”

  “Soccer, for a while. I’m afraid I’m not very athletic.”

  “But you have such a nice body.”

  Half a second after she spoke, she blushed. “I mean that, um… you look athletic.”

  “Thank you,” I told her while reminding myself not to read too much into the slip up. Even if Claire did find me attractive — and damn, I hoped she did — it didn’t mean she was looking to start anything up.

  The time had definitely come to change the subject, yet again. “Do you have any plans today?”

  “I’m going to meet up with my friend Radha in a little bit.” She looked at her watch. “Actually, wow… in about thirty minutes.”

  “Ah.” My heart started to race. I didn’t want another four weeks to go by before we saw each other again. “I have some free time while I’m in town. Would you like to hang out again?”

  I tensed and waited for her response. Hopefully, I had selected the right words. If I got too pushy, she might get scared away.

  Claire licked her lips. “Maybe… yeah.”

  “What about Monday night?”

  Her brows furrowed. “But Monday night is the Met Gala, right? Aren’t you going?”

  “I planned on it. I don’t have a friend to go with me, though,” I said, taking care to use the word friend instead of date. “Would you like to?”

  Her eyes went wide. “To the Met Gala? Damn.” She whistled low. “I don’t want to come across as low class or anything, but I’ve never been asked to a red carpet affair before.”

  I chuckled. “You definitely don’t come across as low class.”

  “Are you sure you want to take me?”

  There was a hint of sadness in the question.

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be sure? Because we don’t know each other well? Or because…” I trailed off, getting nervous. Claire herself looked slightly uncomfortable and hesitant to answer. “It won’t be a date,” I assured her. “I promise to be the perfect gentleman.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” she said in a soft voice.

  A pleasant chill went down my back.

  No, I told myself. Danger, danger! Do not think of her in that way.

  She started nervously playing with a thin silver bracelet on her wrist that I hadn’t noticed before. “It’s just… well, I’m not in the best place right now. So I would hate for you to go all out and show up to one of the biggest events of the year, and then have something happen.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Like the person who came with you breaking down.”

  She looked flatly at me.

  And then that moment became a dare. Claire herself didn’t dare me, no. Life itself did. There I was, presented with one of the most captivating people I had ever met. It was just suck ass luck that we had met during such a difficult time for her.

  So what are you going to do, life seemed to ask. Are you up for the challenge?

  Could I be nothing more than a casual acquaintance — or, hopefully, friend? Could I stick to the boundaries she needed? Was I strong enough to control what was already my budding romantic feelings?

  I didn’t have a choice. The woman had already reeled me in, though she hadn’t meant to. Even if I was destined to fail, God help me, I was going to try.

  “Don’t worry,” I told Claire with full confidence, trying to assuage her concerns. “Our evening will be perfect. Trust me.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Claire

  They slipped through the crack underneath the drawn blinds, headlights sweeping the living room. I turned, not wanting to leave the beautiful dream.

  There, I studied the stack of books on the coffee table. They were all fiction titles I didn’t know. A couple of them looked unread, but the other four had colorful tabs marking their pages.

  I resisted the urge to crack one of the books open and take a peek. Peter was definitely the kind of guy who wrote notes in the margins of novels. I hadn’t known someone like that since tenth grade. My English teacher, Mr. Bryant, had been proud of such a little quirk. I’d found it slightly geeky and assumed I’d never meet another person who did the same.

  But then I met Peter.

  I met him, and just like that, someone hit the fast forward button. Time had gone by like mere minutes.

  And yet they’d taken on an importance I didn’t know time could possess.

  As time — more specifically, time with Peter — became more important, everything else became so much less so. Sleep took the biggest hit. I’d gotten maybe three hours of it in the last day and a half.

  But really, who needed it? Who needed it when everything you set your eyes on seemed devoted to blessing you, to bestowing you with its grace?

  You could live off of the life force of the Universe. You could float around, sucking its strength in.

  But you had to be in love with it all. That was the secret.

  The floor creaked. I snapped my head towards the doorway. Peter stood there, not a hair on his head changed from two minutes ago. It was all the same. Same unruly brown hair. Same strong jaw. Same crooked smile. I hoped he stayed that way forever.

  “You can look at those,” he said.

  I felt my cheeks color. “I didn’t know if it would be intruding.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Slowly, he stepped across his living room and towards me, each one of his footsteps matching ten of my heart beats. When he settled onto the cool leather couch, we were less than an inch away. The heat from his thighs teased my skin even through the fabric of my jeans.

  Feeling slightly self-conscious though we’d been this close a number of times, I ran my palms against my knees and searched for something to say. “I finished your book.”

  He smiled. “Really? Already?”

  I shrugged sheepishly. “What? Was that too fast?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think there’s a standard.”

  “Hm. It probably was too fast though. Poetry is meant to be savored. Right?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “You’re the poet.”

  “Ah, but you’re the reader, the one who gets to enjoy the poems.” His hand found mine, and he lifted my fingers off my thigh so they could twist around his. “But if you’re worried about it, read it again.”

  “I will,” I promised him. “I haven’t read much poetry, but God… there was that one that just took my breath away. The one about seven generations. It was amazing.”

  His thumb ran a little circle over the top of my hand, distracting me. There was something else I had meant to say, but when Peter touched me like that, words had a way of floating right out of my head.

  “I’m glad you liked it,” he murmured. “I’m still adding poems to the next one. I’ve been sending them to my publisher.” He grinned. “She’s trying to convince me to cut back. She thinks no one wants to read a two hundred and fifty page book of poems.”

  “I do,” I quickly said. “If they’v
e been written by you.”

  I was vaguely aware that I sounded like a blabbering fan girl, but I also couldn’t be bothered to care. Both of Peter’s hands were caressing mine now, and his lips swooped down to press against mine.

  Somehow it was even better than our first kiss, or the one after that. In fact, like everything else with Peter, kissing just got better and better. The heat from our mouths fell down into my torso and fired me up. I untangled one of my hands from his and placed it on his cheek. His skin burned just as hot as mine, matching my desire.

  Without warning, Peter broke off the kiss. Our faces hovered inches away, just far enough that we could see into each other’s eyes. His gaze softened as he looked at me, and simultaneously, the elated sensation in my chest grew.

  Did he feel what I felt?

  Was this the thing I’d read and heard about so many times, but never once experienced myself?

  Were we falling in love?

  Peter’s lips fell against mine once more, and there, in our touch, I found all the answers to my questions.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Claire

  Radha stared at me from across my coffee table. Positioned right in the middle of the couch, her long black hair in a sleek ponytail, she looked more like a human sized doll than a real living being.

  “Well?” I asked. “Did you hear me?”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah. I heard you. Is he legit?”

  I crossed my arms and leaned back in my favorite chair, the only chair since the living room in my one-bedroom apartment was so small that the single plush chair barely fit across from the couch, even wedged in the corner as it was. The place was minuscule, for sure. The kitchen literally existed in a corner of the living room. There were four squares of linoleum and the tiniest oven I’d ever seen.

  Since getting my raise at the company the year before, I had more than enough income to move. I loved Hell’s Kitchen though. It was super accessible, and my apartment was undeniably cozy.

  And it came with memories. In fact, it was one of the few places Peter and I had spent time in that I could still go to. His Brooklyn apartment was off limits, of course. I didn’t even know what had become of it. Presumably, Peter’s brother had come and cleaned it out, keeping select objects and throwing others away.