by Megan Hart
The phone had rung so many times Theresa was sure he wasn’t going to answer it. She wasn’t going to leave another voicemail. Not after the four or five she’d already left.
“Yeah?”
“Ilya, it’s Theresa.” She started talking before he could answer, not wanting to give him a chance to speak. “I know you’ve spoken to Alicia about this offer. I want to talk to you about it.”
“I already told her the same thing I’m going to tell you,” he said. “The answer is no. And, also, right now I’m staring out at a beach and the ocean, so this is the last thing in the world I want to talk about.”
“Wait! Please,” she added, softer. “When will you be back?”
There was silence, and she was sure he was going to disconnect, but after a long, disgruntled sigh, Ilya said, “The end of next week.”
“Will you at least meet with me? You and Alicia. I can outline all the plans and what will happen—”
“None of that matters. You can tell me whatever you want, but you know as well as I do that once they get the property, they’ll do whatever they want with it.”
“I can make sure the contracts are written in your favor,” she said, her fingers crossing that she could make that be true.
Ilya made another of those noises. “What’s your deal with this project, anyway?”
“It’s a lot of money. I work on commission.” He didn’t need to know why she needed the money, what she intended to do with it. That was her business, not his.
“I don’t want to talk about this now, Theresa. I’m about to head out into clean, warm water and look at beautiful things. And I don’t just mean the fish, I meant the women in bikinis,” Ilya said.
Theresa felt herself grimace, though why should she care what—or who—Ilya Stern did? It was the way he said it, like he was trying to rub her face in it for some reason. She wasn’t going to let it get to her.
“Just say you’ll meet with me and Alicia when you get back,” she said.
“Fine. If it will get you both off my case. I gotta go,” he said again, and hung up.
Maybe it was because he felt bad about what had happened in their family so many years ago. A guilt that had nothing to do with him, but one she would exploit to get what she needed. She didn’t have to be proud of herself. She just needed to get him to agree to do it.
She had another call to make: one of less importance, but one that at least had a bit less selfish motivation behind it. She pressed in the numbers and waited.
“Hey,” Wayne said, somewhat warily. “What’s up?”
Theresa closed her eyes briefly, then forced a smile. People could hear it, if you were smiling. It made them feel better about your conversation. She’d learned that in one of those trust-building classes she’d taken, one that had done very little to make it easier for her to trust and a whole lot better at manipulating people into trusting her.
“Hey,” she said. “So, listen. I can come pick up those boxes tonight, if you’re going to be around.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And, Wayne, do you have some time to also talk about something?”
She heard the hope in his voice when he answered. “Yeah. Sure. I thought you didn’t want . . . but sure, of course. I’ll see you when?”
“In about an hour.”
“Great. See you.”
He thought she wanted to talk about getting back together. She knew it. She also knew that when she told him that she’d secured the verbal commitment from the co-owners of the old Quarrytown quarry, along with the existing dive shop and all the accompanying equipment, he was going to move on the acquisition, because if there was one thing Wayne craved, it was always that next deal.
Her phone still clutched in her palm, Theresa allowed herself to take a long, deep breath. Time was closing in on her. If she didn’t get this deal signed, sealed, and delivered, it was going to fall through, and while it wouldn’t be the end of her career, it felt very much like it might be the end of her rope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dinner and a movie. Nothing terribly special about it. Pretty standard date fare. Pretty normal night out, even if you weren’t on a date but simply hanging with a longtime childhood friend, the younger brother of the man you used to share toothpaste with.
This was so a date.
With dessert afterward at the coffee shop, right out there in public where anyone in the whole world could see them, Alicia did wonder for half a second if they weren’t making a big mistake. If maybe it would’ve been smarter, better, easier, to keep meeting in hotel rooms and having furtive, fantastic sex. It had been Nikolai who’d asked her to go out with him, and although it hadn’t taken her more than three seconds to make up her mind and say yes, Alicia was second-guessing her decision a little bit now.
“Niko! Hey, man!” The guy with the receding hairline who clapped Nikolai on the shoulder shot Alicia a look. “Hey, Allie.”
Nikolai looked a little confused at first, so Alicia filled in the blanks for him. “Hey, Mike. Good to see you.”
“I didn’t know you were back in town. Heard about your grandma. I’m sorry.” Mike Taylor, the guy who’d once bragged to Niko about kissing her, glanced at Alicia again and gave her a nod. “Where’s Ilya?”
“He’s on a dive trip,” she answered. “Jamaica.”
“Lucky bastard. Here we are freezing our tits off, and he gets to go to Jamaica?” Mike shook his head and, without asking, pulled out a chair and sat. “Niko, man, where’ve you been? What’ve you been up to?”
The positive side to this was that Mike clearly did not seem to think he was interrupting anything important, which meant he didn’t assume they were together as anything more than old friends. The bad thing was he was totally interrupting, and there wasn’t much Alicia could say about it. She shot Nikolai a pleading look, but he was leaning forward to hear something Mike was saying and didn’t see her.
In the next minute, she caught a wave from across the room from another high school friend, Tammy Peters. She was sitting with a bunch of her girlfriends. Alicia had seen them all around, of course—she and Tammy had been good friends a few years back, before Tammy had a baby and had sort of dropped everything in favor of being a stay-at-home mom. They still kept in touch, but since all the conversations had started revolving around baby stuff, the friendship had faltered.
“Be right back,” she said to Nikolai, and got up to say hi to the table of women clustered in the corner. Each of them had a copy of the same book, some battered and some pristine. Ah. Book club.
“Allie, hey! Hi! Grab a chair!” Tammy said.
“Oh, I can’t interrupt book club,” Alicia said. “Besides, I haven’t read the book.”
A woman sitting against the wall shook her pixie haircut so her long silver earrings swung. “You didn’t miss much.”
“Amy hated it,” Tammy said. “Most of us liked it. But what have you been up to? It’s been ages.”
Amy clearly had other concerns. “Is that Niko Stern over there with you and Mike?”
“Yeah.” She remembered Amy now. A year ahead of her in school. She and Jennilynn had been frenemies, both of them on the cheerleading squad.
“He grew up nice,” Amy said with a slide of her tongue along her teeth that made Alicia want to slap the smug right off her face.
“His grandma died, right? My sister-in-law works at Country View. She said she’d seen you there.” Tammy frowned. “Sorry. I know she was a nice lady. I met her once, that time at your house.”
Alicia glanced over her shoulder. Mike seemed to be regaling Nikolai with some complicated story that required a lot of hand gestures. Nikolai was listening, laughing even, but when he looked up and his eyes sought the room for her, the look on his face as his gaze settled on her sent a rush of warmth through her so fierce it made her sweat. This man, with one look, could make her shake.
“Sure you don’t want to sit? We have a space. We’re all done talking about the book.” Tammy grinned
.
“I’m actually on my way to the ladies’ room,” Alicia said.
“Maybe next month you’d like to join us?” Tammy glanced around at the rest of the table, everyone else nodding with varying degrees of enthusiasm. “We’re going to read a classic. Anne of Green Gables.”
It was one of Alicia’s favorite childhood books. “Give me a call, okay? I’ll see.”
In the bathroom, she used the toilet, and at the sink while she was washing her hands, she wet a paper towel with cool water to press the back of her neck and her temples. February might be cold outside, but in here she was starting to sweat, and all because of that look he’d shot her.
It hadn’t been a sexy look, lusting and lingering. No, Nikolai’s look had been of . . . relief. As though he’d been worried she’d gotten up and left him, and when he found her there across the room, the sight of her had eased every fear he’d ever had.
“Not sure you can handle this,” Alicia mouthed to herself in the mirror. Small tendrils of her hair had escaped the high ponytail she wore, clinging to her damp skin. Her eyes were bright. Cheeks pink. She freshened her lipstick and was searching for the compact in her bag, so she could powder away some of the heat, when the restroom door opened.
Amy joined her at the sink, turning to lean on it as though they’d been besties for years. “Niko Stern, huh?”
“What about him?” Alicia snapped the compact closed and tucked it away in her bag. She looked in the mirror, carefully not looking at Amy, and touched the corners of her mouth to check her lipstick.
“He’s hot.”
Alicia slanted the other woman a look. “Okay?”
“Is he single?”
Alicia paused. “I . . .”
“Could you introduce us?” Amy turned to look in the mirror, using the tips of her fingers to feather her short cut along her cheeks and spike it over her forehead. She sucked in her cheeks to hollow them, then gave herself a slow, sassy smile.
Clearly, Amy thought a lot about herself.
“No, he’s not,” Alicia said.
Amy frowned. “Damn, really? Is he married?”
“No.”
Amy shrugged and found Alicia’s gaze in the reflection. “So . . . not that serious, then?”
“You’d have to ask him, I guess.” Alicia shouldered her bag and smoothed her skirt. The entire conversation was making her stomach hurt. She shot Amy a smile, though. “Maybe I’ll see you next month at book club.”
“Allie.” Amy’s voice caught her with a hand on the door handle. “Hey, I just wanted to say that . . . your sister was the one girl I looked up to at QHS.”
The words struck Allie like a slap, although she kept herself from reacting like she’d been struck. All these years later, and it was no easier to handle the condolences. Time should’ve made it softer, eased the edges of the hurt, but it hadn’t. If anything, it somehow seemed worse than when the pain had been fresh, because for people like Amy, they were only jogged into remembering Jennilynn when they saw Alicia, while she had to remember her sister in a dozen different ways every other day. Alicia felt her shoulders trying to slump, but she straightened them. She nodded, glancing over her shoulder.
“Thanks. That’s a nice thing to say.”
“It’s hard to believe she’s gone, I guess.”
“It’s been a long time,” Alicia said, with a yank on the door to emphasize the conversation was over, not caring if she came off as rude. Back at their table, she didn’t take a seat. “Can we go?”
Mike looked up with disappointed confusion, but Nikolai stood at once. “You okay?”
“Headache. Can we head out?”
“Sure, of course. Mike, buddy, it was good to see you.” Nikolai shook his hand but kept the exit moving toward the door, even as Mike tried to call after him. “Yeah, call me! We’ll get together!”
In the parking lot, around the corner from the front doors and big glass windows, he pushed Alicia gently against the wall and took her by the upper arms. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. It’s stupid. That girl, Amy . . .”
“What about her?” Nikolai pulled her close for a moment, his lips pressing the top of her head. At the sound of someone coming out the doors around the corner, he put distance between them.
She noticed. Of course she did. He was as cautious about revealing the truth about them in public as she was, and he hadn’t even lived in this tiny town where everyone knew your business for a long time. What did he care if gossip started? Soon enough, he’d be long gone.
Alicia put another few inches between them, then started walking toward the car without answering him. She pulled her coat tighter around her, wishing she’d brought a scarf. The temperature had dropped—it was an uncharacteristically frigid late February—and all reports were pointing toward at least one blizzard, maybe one as late as March. Figured: no snow all winter until it started to be time for spring. In fact, when she tipped her face up toward the pitch-black sky sprinkled with a few bright, sparkling stars, a lone snowflake drifted down and landed on her cheek.
“Alicia. Hey. What’s wrong?” He caught up to her.
She turned. “Maybe you were right. We can’t be doing this, Nikolai.”
“Having coffee?” He was smart enough to know what she meant, but he was playing innocent.
She didn’t want to laugh, so she poked the front of his coat. “Anything.”
“Nobody knew anything. It’s not like I had you spread out over the table . . . though . . . mmmm, that is something to think about—”
“Shut. Up.”
She poked him harder and pushed past him to get to the driver’s side. When they were both in the car, Alicia turned on the ignition and punched the seat-warmer buttons. She didn’t want this to become an issue between them, and certainly not an argument, but she’d come away from the coffee shop feeling as though something needed to be discussed. She could feel Nikolai looking at her as she drove.
“It’s snowing,” he said quietly. “Be careful.”
“Sure, because I’m usually so reckless,” she snapped, both hands gripping the wheel tight enough to hurt her fingers.
The single flake that had kissed her cheek had been joined by a few dozen million or so, thick sheets of fluffy whiteness slanting out of the sky. It covered the road within minutes so that their half-hour drive became forty-five minutes as Alicia slowed to keep from sliding. Their conversation quieted so she could concentrate. By the time she pulled into her driveway, it had become questionable whether she’d be able to get into the garage, even with her car’s front-wheel drive. Sitting in the silence unbroken by the shush-shush of the falling snow, she turned off the ignition and let out a sigh of relief at having made it safely. She unkinked her fingers from the wheel and rubbed them to ease the ache, turning to say something to Nikolai about the weather.
He kissed her before she got a word out. Long, slow, steamy. His hand slipped around the back of her neck. They strained to get at each other over the center console. Her seat belt choked her. They broke apart with a gasp, both breathing hard, fogging up the windows.
“We should at least go in the house,” she said.
Nikolai sat back in his seat, licking his lips. “Yeah. Give me a second to get up, though.”
“What . . . ? Oh. Oh.” She laughed, heat flushing her cheeks as she looked at his crotch. The long coat hid any sign of his erection, but the fact he had one just from kissing her gave Alicia a thrill.
They looked at each other, both grinning. Nikolai reached to brush a few curling tendrils away from her forehead. He traced his fingertips along her jaw.
“Amy wanted to know if you were single,” Alicia said.
Nikolai’s hand drifted to rest on her shoulder. “What did you tell her?”
“I said you weren’t. She tried to ask more questions, but I got out of there. She wanted to talk to me about Jenni, and I wasn’t . . . I just couldn’t.” Alicia drew in a breath, looking into his e
yes.
The overhead garage light that came on when opening the door went out, plunging them into darkness lit only by the house’s outside lights and the lamppost at the end of the driveway. Alicia blinked in the dimness, watching the way Nikolai’s face fell into shadow. His fingers squeezed gently, then ran down her arm to take her hand. Their fingers linked.
His phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket. “Yeah. Yes, I see it. No, I’m actually—I just got home. A few inches . . . yeah, Mom. I heard. Well, are you okay? Do you need me to come get you? Are you sure?” He glanced at Alicia, who made wide eyes. “It’s not really my business, is it? So long as you’re someplace safe, I guess. Oh, does he? Well . . . that’s . . . awkward, but okay, thanks for telling me. Yeah. Fine. Yes, fine.”
He disconnected and leaned back against the seat with a groan that turned into a laugh. He looked at Alicia. “My mother.”
“I figured.”
“She’s not coming home tonight. She’s with a friend.” The way Nikolai said the word made it clear what he thought about that. “She says the weather’s too bad for him to drive her home.”
“Hmmm,” Alicia said.
He shrugged. “She’s a grown-up. The roads were getting bad. Not for me to judge.”
“Speaking of the weather, we should get out of the car. It’s getting cold, and snow’s coming into the garage.”
They both got out. In the short time they’d been in there, another inch had fallen, drifting into the detached garage so that she had to kick the snow away from where the door came down. It wet her shoes and her ankles through her tights, making her wish she’d worn boots. With the door shut, all they had to do was make it across the snow-covered drive and sidewalk up to the front door, unless they wanted to cut through the breezeway and around to the back. Though the path there wouldn’t be any clearer.
“I could carry you,” Nikolai said with his hands on his hips, face tilted to the sky so that soft white flakes gathered in his eyebrows and over his mouth, making a kind of mustache, before he smiled and shook his head to make it fall away.
“It’s just a few feet. I’ll have wet shoes, that’s all.” From next door, the outside light came on, and the Guttridges’ door cracked open, so Dina could peek out.