by BETH KERY
“Eleanor, let’s sit down,” he insisted, nodding toward the couch.
“Just answer me, Trey.
He saw no escape. “Yes,” he said. “Your sister’s death hit me hard. She was . . . very special.”
“Were you two lovers?”
He halted in the process of reaching for her when he absorbed her question. Her whisper clung in the air between them.
“Never mind. You don’t have to answer,” she said stiffly. She walked past him.
“Eleanor, wait,” he called. It was all a mistake. She’d misunderstood. He’d be able to make this right. “Eleanor, the answer is no. I wasn’t involved that way with Arcadia . . . Caddy.”
She turned abruptly. His stomach dropped. Tears swam in her eyes. She looked devastated.
“We were attracted to each other in the beginning.” Panic swelled in him when her eyes widened and a tear skipped down her cheek. “It was just an initial attraction, Eleanor, when we first met,” he hurried to explain. “That’s all. I swear, it never went anywhere. We got to know each other through working together. We respected each other too much to go down that path. She had as much luck with men as I did women. You must realize that about her? We didn’t want to screw things up between us. We made a pact to just be friends and to only see each other at work.”
“You and Caddy were friends. And you were attracted to each other.”
“It sounds bad when you say it like that. I’m just trying to be honest. I mean . . .” He waved at the photo on the table helplessly. “Your sister. I had no idea.”
“I think you’d better go,” she said.
It felt like he’d been shoved. “No. I’m not leaving. This is just a misunderstanding.”
She shook her head so adamantly that several tears skipped down her cheeks. “It’s not a misunderstanding. This whole thing . . . Us.” She waved between them, looking dazed. “It isn’t right. I should have known there was something strange about you wanting me.”
“There’s nothing strange about me wanting you,” he growled fiercely. He stalked toward her, determined to set things straight right that second. She staggered back, flinching. He halted, stunned to the core by the expression on her face. She looked betrayed.
“What are you talking about? How can the fact that you’re Arcadia Green’s sister have anything to do with us?”
“You’re attracted to me because you thought I was like Caddy. But I’m not. Not really. Don’t you get it? I’m not an established exhibitionist or a voyeur. I’ve never done a striptease for anyone in my life until that night I did it for you in the window. I’ve been acting all bold and sexy and confident, wearing Caddy’s clothes, living in her condo . . . trying to be someone you would be attracted to. And you believed in the performance. But it’s all been based on a lie.”
“What?” Eleanor’s condo had been Arcadia’s? “I never knew Arcadia lived in the building next to me,” he stated firmly. “You see, Eleanor? That should go to show you that our relationship was completely confined to work. I had no idea.”
“Go, Trey,” she said miserably. “Just go. Please.”
“Jesus,” he hissed. He was floored. “Eleanor, what the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, sounding so incredulous, he couldn’t help but believe she was just as bewildered as he was at that moment. “I don’t know anymore. Maybe my mother has been right all along. Maybe I have been grieving unnaturally.” She sniffed and raked the back of her hand across her cheek. “Look, I’m sorry. I know you came all the way out here to get me. But I think I should stay here with my parents tonight. Is it all right if you just let yourself out?”
“Eleanor,” he called, but he was talking to her back. He strode after her down the hallway, halting only when he saw the rear of her disappearing up a flight of stairs. A moment later, he heard the sound of a door shutting briskly.
He just stood there for a minute, as dazed as he would have been if someone had just clobbered him on the head for no reason.
TWENTY-TWO
She arrived back in the city the next day as dusk began to settle. The temperature had plummeted that morning. A frigid wind blew off a lead-colored Lake Michigan. Entering the condo felt like walking into a cold tomb.
She turned up the heat on the thermostat. She walked through the chilled condo, pausing to look out the window onto the traffic flying down Lake Shore Drive. It struck her then, how she had previously imagined asking Caddy for her advice about how to progress with her seduction of Trey.
It’d never once crossed her mind that Caddy had been much more familiar with Trey than Eleanor had ever been. It was so bizarre to consider it, that there was such a crucial thread of Caddy’s life that she’d never even imagined. Logically, it made sense, of course. Everyone associated with dozens, even hundreds, of people through their jobs on a daily basis who their family members and intimates never knew about.
But the unexpected connection—a special connection, according to Trey—between Caddy and the man she’d fallen in love with had left her reeling.
Bleeding.
Was it jealousy? Is that what she was experiencing?
Maybe, in part, it was. It was a hard pill to swallow, to realize that her sister and Trey had shared a special relationship way before she’d ever shown up on the scene. But that’s not what was mainly paining her.
It was that she’d fallen in love with a man under false pretenses. She’d been pretending to be something she wasn’t. Trey’s admission that he’d been attracted to Caddy, that he’d found her special, was like a knife in her side, but it also made perfect sense. Caddy was passionate and exciting, beautiful and brilliant. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the two of them together at all.
In fact, it was sickeningly easy.
She kept picturing Trey’s bewildered expression last night. She’d been shocked to the core by his revelation that he’d known and cared for Caddy, but he’d been sideswiped as well. Confronting Caddy’s death in such an unexpected way had obviously pained him. She remembered the look on his face when he brought up losing his friend, that bad-boy rocker Gerald Sturgis, who had died from an overdose.
He’d seemed even more torn up by Caddy’s death.
Trey had tried to call her several times since last night. She hadn’t answered his calls. With a heavy heart, she’d revoked the permission-to-enter form she’d left at the front desk for him. The idea of him knocking on her front door, confronting him . . . well, it broke her heart to consider it. She couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. It was hard to put exactly why into words.
It was a little like that first time she’d ever done a striptease for him. She’d gotten so hot during her performance, so lost in her role. After she’d brought herself off, it’d suddenly hit her in a rush. She’d just masturbated in front of a stranger. She’d just been intimate with a stranger.
Shame swamped her every time she thought of how baldly, how selfishly, she’d seduced him.
Her need mortified her. Was she really so desperate as to enter into a frenzied, hot, mind-numbing relationship with Trey because she needed to forget her grief?
She suspected now it was true. Her mother had been right.
She’d been acting out, behaving like a bold, passionate playgirl—acting like Caddy—because she needed to fill that gaping hole in her chest.
Caddy had advised her to take a bite out of life, to stop being afraid. But Caddy and Trey and her mom—and Eleanor herself—hadn’t understood just how ill-equipped she was to take on that role.
The realization that Trey and Caddy had known each other for years, that they’d been attracted to each other, had shattered the illusion somehow, vanished the glamour of what was happening between Trey and her. Last night, when Trey had said he knew Caddy, it’d been like the magic spell had suddenly evaporated. She’d been left standing i
n front of him naked, all of her inadequacies, her lies, the thinness of her character, all exposed to his eyes.
The atmosphere of the silent, oppressive condo swallowed up the sound of her choked sob.
—
The following week, she looked up when she heard a knock on her opened office door.
“You’ve been avoiding me ever since you got back,” Jimmy said, stepping past the threshold.
“I haven’t been.” She waved at the mess on her desk. “I’ve just been buried with work ever since I got behind last week.”
More accurately, she’d buried herself in the work, eager to focus on something other than the fact that the days and nights not seeing Trey were starting to accumulate. His calls were coming less frequently. She told herself it was what she wanted, but her thoughts didn’t ring true.
Every day that passed not seeing him, every night spent without him, seemed to be making the aching hole in her chest gape just a little wider. So she worked. And she tried to forget.
It wasn’t working in the slightest, she acknowledged grimly as she watched Jimmy plop down in the chair in front of her desk.
“How’s your dad doing?” he asked.
“It seems like he’s doing better every day. He got the okay for regular exercise from his doctor, and he and Mom joined a health club. We found one that has a cardiac rehab specialist on staff. Last night when I visited them, my dad was showing off his hip new workout clothes and talking about things like free weights, reps and optimizing his cardio routine,” she told him drolly.
Jimmy laughed. “That’s great. I should go with you out to Evanston sometime soon. I’d like to see them.”
“That’d be great,” she said, setting down her pen and stretching.
“And how are things going with Riordan?”
She froze, then sighed and lowered her arms.
“They aren’t, to be honest,” she admitted after a pause. She had been avoiding Jimmy a little, mostly because she didn’t want to have this conversation. She’d been evasive about the topic of Trey with her parents too.
But maybe it was time to start coping with the truth.
“Trey and I aren’t going to see each other anymore,” she said as evenly as possible. “It’s over.”
“Why?” Jimmy asked, sitting forward in his chair.
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “You didn’t really think what was happening between him and me was going to last forever, did you?”
He blinked and started back slightly. “I don’t know, exactly. But the way you two were looking at each other that night at Gold Coast, I thought there was enough steam to keep it going for a hell of a long time. That’s for sure. What happened?”
“It’s a long, boring story,” she said dismissively, avoiding his stare and shuffling the papers on her desk.
“Eleanor?” She looked up and saw his arched eyebrows. “I’ve got time.”
She exhaled resignedly. The truth came out awkwardly at first. By the time she got to the revelation that Trey and Caddy had known each other for years, and formed a pact not to get involved romantically despite their attraction for each other, the words were spilling out of her throat in an anxious rush.
“So that’s it,” she said breathlessly after several minutes. “Just my luck, isn’t it? That they’d known each other? Liked each other? Back when we first met, Trey told me that he was taking a break from relationships . . . trying to figure his life out. He called it an existential crisis, brought on by some ugly breakups and losing two close friends.” She met Jimmy’s dark eyes. “One of those friends was Caddy.”
Jimmy shook his head. “That’s incredible. I guess it’s not too surprising, though. They did live right next to each other.”
“That’s the weird thing. One of the weird things,” she amended, grimacing. “They didn’t know they lived next to each other, according to Trey. Their relationship was strictly professional. They saw each other only through work.”
“And Trey told you that they’d decided early on not to date or see each other romantically?”
She nodded, her eyes downcast. “He said they made a pact about it. He said they respected each other too much, and were open about their bad luck with relationships. So they mutually decided to just be friends.”
“Wow,” Jimmy said, leaning back as he took it all in. “Did you believe Trey when he said it?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
“Did you believe him when he said that he and Caddy hadn’t slept together?”
“Yes,” she said hollowly. “Don’t you think I should have believed him?”
Jimmy shrugged dubiously. “You know him better than me. Would he have lied about something like that?”
Her mouth hung open as his question repeated in her head. “No,” she stated absolutely after a pause. “Trey’s not like that. He doesn’t lie. Not about anything elemental. Honesty means too much to him.”
Jimmy nodded. “But . . .” He made a “next step” gesture with his hands. “It bothered Trey, knowing you were Caddy’s sister?”
“No,” she exclaimed. “He was blown away when he realized Caddy and I were sisters, but I wouldn’t say it bothered him, precisely.”
“So . . . why aren’t you guys seeing each other, then?”
“Because it bothers me,” she stated baldly.
“It bugs you that Caddy and Trey were friends?”
“Yes. No. I mean . . . You don’t understand,” she blurted out in frustration. She glanced up uneasily from twiddling her pen. Sure enough, Jimmy appeared bewildered. “Don’t you get it? Mom’s been worried that I’ve been hashing out my grief over Caddy by wearing her clothes, acting all bold. She never said it, but I assume she’d include doing something as daring as seducing Trey Riordan in that category, if she knew about it. It seems like you think something similar. You said it the other day at brunch,” she reminded him. “Now, come to find out, Trey probably was attracted to me because I was acting and dressing like someone whom he respected and was attracted to for years. In other words, he was probably attracted to me because there were similarities between Caddy and me, and he recognized that unconsciously. He probably even recognized some of her clothes on me,” she mumbled, sinking in her chair, mortified at the idea.
“Whoa, wait a second,” Jimmy said, holding up his hands. “I never said you were acting like Caddy.”
“Yes, you did. Well, you sort of implied it.”
“I said the opposite, point-blank,” he defended. “I said you weren’t pretending to be Caddy. That’s not what I think your new look is about.”
“You told me you thought me wearing her clothes, and this thing I started with Trey . . . all of it, was only happening because Caddy had passed.”
“Yeah, I did,” he said. “I also said that you wore the new look really well, but that I thought you weren’t owning it.”
“You said that I was playacting!”
“No,” he said, his dark eyes flashing. “I said that when Caddy suggested you take a bite out of life and live passionately, she meant that you should live your passion. Not hers.”
She flinched back.
“Right,” Eleanor said after a moment, her throat tight. “And you and Mom both think I’m just trying to step into Caddy’s shoes—literally—in order to do it. That’s why Trey fell for me.”
“No,” Jimmy bellowed. He threw up his hands, clearly fed up with her. Feeling deflated and overwhelmed, she sagged back into her chair.
“Look, I don’t know the exact reasons Riordan is attracted to you,” Jimmy continued in a calmer tone. She rarely saw him so serious. Despite her agitation, she found herself hanging on his every word. “I think that Caddy knew you had your own passion, and that for whatever reason, you were keeping it buried. Under wraps
. I think she was telling you to liberate it. Live it, because life is too short. And maybe you found your passion and set it free by wearing her clothes once in a while, and by taking risks you normally wouldn’t have when you moved into her place. But that doesn’t make what you were doing, or how you felt, playacting. I think . . .”
“What?” Eleanor whispered, utterly focused on him now.
“I think it was your passion all along, Eleanor. I think that’s what Riordan was seeing. I think that’s what he’s fallen for. Maybe Caddy gave you the opportunity to borrow her luxurious lifestyle, and her wardrobe and her confidence, a rare chance to find your own passion.” Jimmy shrugged. “But don’t you think the time has come for you to take full ownership of it now?”
TWENTY-THREE
That night when she got home from work, there was a huge, sophisticated flower arrangement consisting of white lilies, freshly cut ranunculus and larkspur sitting on the doorman’s station.
“Someone is trying to tell someone that he likes her,” Harry told her when Eleanor commented on how striking the arrangement was.
“I’ll say,” she agreed, pulling her gaze off the flowers. “Any packages, Harry?”
“Just those,” Harry said, nodding at the flowers.
She blinked in disbelief. “These are for me?”
“Yeah. Along with this.”
Harry stood and opened a closet door behind his doorman’s station. She gaped at him in amazement when he walked toward her carrying an equally lovely, colorful, fresh-cut bouquet of wildflowers. Her heart squeezed tight in her chest. Flustered, she accepted it. Her fingers fumbled with the attached envelope. She withdrew a card. It read:
The florist asked which type of arrangement suited you best. I said I wanted to send both of these. She asked if I was unsure about which one was right, and I said no. They both reminded me of you.
I’m not giving up, Eleanor. Just give me a chance to talk to you.