by M. S. Parker
She gave a tired laugh. “No. That would imply he’d been sleeping and he hasn’t been doing much of that.”
The ragged edge of the nerves in her voice would have gone unnoticed to someone else. But I wasn’t someone else. Fawna was more my family than the parents who’d adopted me. “What’s wrong? Eli’s not sick, is he?” I lowered my hand, concern growing inside me. Concern and self-loathing. Here I was, moping over Aleena, and Fawna was dealing with a sick baby.
“No.” She sighed and this time, when the baby made a noise, it was a weaker, soft sort of snuffle. “He’s not sick. He’s just not doing well on his formula. I took him to the doctor today and we’ve got to start him on one for babies with sensitive stomachs. They told me to expect it, what with the drugs his mom had done and all the other health problems. I’d just hoped...” Her voice trailed off and then after a moment, she said, “The pediatrician gave me a recommendation for a new formula. I’ve got a few samples of it and he’s already calmer. I’ll give it a few days just to be sure before I buy any though. No use wasting money.” Her tone shifted into business mode. “Now…give me a minute. I’ll find Annette’s number and you’ll tell me why Aleena can’t give you the information.”
I grimaced and dropped back on the bed.
I should have just left it alone. I knew I didn’t have a choice now though. Fawna wasn’t going to leave it be.
A few minutes later, I had the number and I’d explained, sort of, to Fawna what had happened with Aleena.
“Has it occurred to you that maybe she just wanted a night alone?”
Scowling, I stared out the window at the night-darkened sky of New York City. Well, it was possible. But…I shook my head. Then, remembering Fawna couldn’t see me, I said, “Something was just off. I can’t think of what it was, but there was this distance between us.”
“So why didn’t you ask her?”
“What in the hell am I supposed to say?” I demanded.
“How about you ask her what’s wrong?” Fawna suggested, an exasperated sound to her words that I recognized well from when she’d been my teacher rather than my assistant.
When I didn’t respond, she cursed under her breath. Rubbing my neck, I closed my eyes. I was really starting to regret having called her.
“Dominic, you’re a grown man and you’re in a serious relationship—”
“No, I’m not.”
I cut her off, the panic in my voice coming through loud and clear to both of us. My heart gave a nervous thud. There was silence for several seconds and I was suddenly having a hard time breathing.
“Aren’t you?” Fawna finally asked.
Fuck. I squeezed my eyes closed.
“Dammit, Dominic!” she half-shouted through the phone. I had a feeling if Eli hadn’t been there, she would’ve been louder.
I held it away from my ear as I turned away from the window. “Look, Fawna…”
“No. You look.” Her voice was sharp, that no-nonsense voice that had given her command of the rowdiest students in the school. “You’re a grown man, dammit. I realize that what happened messed you up. I know that. I understand and I’m sorry for it. But that doesn’t mean you get to keep using it as an excuse. You’re involved with Aleena. For fuck’s sake, you’re sleeping with her! Now, are you or are you not serious?”
I closed my eyes. “I…I don’t know, Fawna. I don’t...” I passed the back of my hand over my mouth. “I don’t know if I’m even ready to think about that.”
“Maybe you should have considered that when you told me she was good for you.” Fawna’s voice was waspish and I knew it wasn’t just lack of sleep. “Or did you mean she was good for your dick?”
She hung up.
It took me a few seconds to realize what she’d done and in a dull, dazed shock, I lowered the phone and stared at it.
She actually hung up on me.
I should be mad.
I might be later, but just then, I was too busy realizing something.
Fawna was right.
I’d only been thinking about one specific thing—or rather, one specific area—when it came to Aleena. We were good sexually. Scowling, I thought about all the clients I had coming and going through Trouver L’Amour. I didn’t have much to do with any of them, not once I got them through the door. That was the matchmaker’s job, not mine. I poured funds into the place and yeah, I’d been roped into working with Penelope, but the truth was, I was quietly talking to one of the top-level matchmakers I’d hired away from another company to take her off my hands.
There was a skill to this, an art almost. It was fun, in a way, I had to admit, seeing some of the people I knew get matched up, but I didn’t believe in it. Not for myself. Even now. Not even with a woman like Aleena who made my brain go a little fuzzy and my heart rev up and race. We could have a relationship, but it couldn’t be one with a real future.
Happy ever after was fine for others. Just not for me.
Still…I had to make myself admit something painful. Sooner or later, Aleena would want that. And she deserved it. I just didn’t know if it meant I would have to give her up.
Or if I could.
Chapter 4
Aleena
“Girl, I gotta tell you, that look on your face? It’s not the look of a woman who is well satisfied with her man.”
I stared stupidly at Molly over the top of my menu. “My man?”
Molly stabbed a fork in my direction. “I knew it! Trouble in paradise!”
“What? No!” I brushed it off and flipped through the menu. I didn’t want to talk about work or about Dominic. “I think I’m just going to get a Cubano and some sangria. What are you getting?”
“Some pliers and a dentist’s drill, so I can get a straight answer out of you, no matter what it takes.” Molly pulled the menu out of my hand and snapped it down on the surface of the table. Then she leaned forward. “Come on, Aleena. What gives?”
I absently picked up the little plastic encased menu with the specials. Being purposely evasive, I said, “Nothing. Why you asking?”
“Because, one, you won’t look at me and, two, you’re drinking in the middle of the day. Dead giveaway.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Now, come on. I’ve a class in two hours.”
“How is school going?” I latched onto a new topic with desperation. Molly had decided she wanted to go back to school recently and, normally, that was one thing guaranteed to distract her.
Not this time.
“Now, Aleena,” she said ominously and leaned forward.
I sighed. I knew that look. I doubted she’d even be swayed if some hot stranger walked by, and that was saying something. So, I started to talk, feeling more and more like an idiot as I laid it out. I had to stop barely two minutes in as the server came by and took our orders. This was definitely not something I wanted anyone else to hear. I took the moment to enjoy the warmer air coming in through the windows. They were only open a bit, but it was enough to feel the promise of spring. I was so ready for it. Of course, I’d already lived through my first New York summer and I knew, in no time, I’d be ready for cooler temperatures again.
After the server left, I looked back at Molly.
“I’m starting to feel…out of place,” I finally said.
“You don’t even know if he has, or even had, anything going with this Annette woman.” Molly caught my hand and squeezed it. “It sounds to me like he’s pretty into you. And Penelope…” she made a face “…forget her. She’s clearly on a power trip.” Her eyes widened. “Shit, please tell me she’s not that Penelope Rittenour—”
I shot her a look.
Molly’s eyes widened even more. “Oh, shit. She is, isn’t she?”
“How do you…?”
Molly grimaced. Then she dug into her purse, pulling out her phone. “Gimme a second.”
A minute later, she handed me her phone. It had an article from ECHELON pulled up. It was one of the local New York society mags. One all about the rich, the power
ful, and of course, the beautiful. I knew the name because I’d seen the interview he’d done for them when Trouver L’Amour had opened. I’d gotten the feeling he’d been annoyed by the whole ordeal and had only done it because he needed the promotion.
And now, Penelope Rittenour was on the front of the magazine.
The headline read: Inside the Rittenour Experience
I stared at it for a long moment and then looked at Molly. “Inside the Rittenour Experience?” I repeated it back to her.
Molly gazed back at me, her expression unreadable.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. After a moment, I had it under control. “Okay, just what is the Rittenour experience? The life of a rich, privileged white chick?”
“Pretty much.” Molly grinned at me.
The server appeared with our drinks and I was surprised to realize less than ten minutes had passed since I started detailing how crappy I’d been feeling over my so-called relationship with Dominic. The server gave us a basket of tortilla chips and salsa, and then lingered to smile at Molly. She smiled back, of course, but it was a distracted smile. She was clearly more focused on me and the Rittenour experience.
“You should read it.” She scooped up some salsa with one hand and gestured with the other. “It’s…riveting. She talks about the beleaguered life she’s lived, being the only Rittenour left to carry on the family name and the weight of sustaining a life of social privilege and how hard it is to maintain grace and class in such a classless society. How nobody appreciates art and beauty anymore. She has a master’s in fine arts and excelled in literature, yet when she attempted to publish a book about her family’s legacy, there was no interest in it.” Molly managed to deliver all of this with a downtrodden air and then she winked at me. “People would rather read about Snookie or sex or scandals instead of those who strive to better the lives of the rest of us poor folk.”
I clicked on the image and skimmed through the article, sipping from my sangria. “Poor thing,” I murmured and passed the phone back to Molly before I dripped sarcasm on it.
“Please tell me you’re not feeling outclassed by her.”
I made a face. “No. She’s an uptight bitch. And, FYI, she probably feels everything that’s written in that article is one hundred percent true and that’s she’s been seriously put upon. The publishing world should have wept tears of joy when she gave them her masterpiece.”
I snorted and took a healthy swig of my sangria then put it down. Brooding into its ruby red contents, I shrugged. “She isn’t the problem. I’ve seen the way Dominic looks when I tell him he has a call from her. I don’t like her, and it’s clear he’s not interested in her.”
“If that’s the kind of woman he wanted around him, I doubt you’d be able to stand working for him anyway. I was annoyed just reading it.”
“How did you come across it?” Puzzled, I flicked a look up at her.
Molly snorted and sipped at her water. “Assignment for my Introduction to Sociology class. We were told to find examples of privilege in New York.” She grimaced. “We’re acting them out. We can’t use names or anything, of course. I’m using her. She’s kinda priceless.”
I had another word for Penelope, but I decided not to name it.
“It’s not her. It’s the other woman then. The interior decorator.” Molly leaned back as the server arrived to put our dishes down in front of us. We lapsed into silence until she was gone.
“It’s not…” Then I groaned. No point in lying.
“It is.” She pointed at me with her fork before digging in. “She makes you feel nervous. You feel like she’s the kind of woman Dominic would be into, huh?”
Self-conscious now, I shrugged and focused on the food in front of me. “She’s gorgeous, Mol. She’s confident and friendly and she knows more about his world than I do.”
“Does Dominic seem to think you have to know about his world?”
I delayed my answer by taking a drink of my sangria. Then I looked up at her. “I don’t know. There are times…” I cleared my throat. “There are times when I know he’s covering or helping me out. He wouldn’t have to do it with her. Everybody in his world is rich.” I laughed bitterly. “And most of them are white. The few that aren’t? They’re from some distinguished black families that can trace their ancestry back to people like Booker T. Washington. They’re not some poor mixed girl from the mid-west.”
“That doesn’t mean shit.”
“It does to some.”
Molly leaned forward, glaring at me. “It doesn’t mean shit,” she repeated. “If they care, it says more about them than it does about you. You can’t let their prejudices bring you down, Aleena.”
She held my eyes for a long moment and I made myself nod. She settled back in her seat and I forced air into my tight lungs.
“Dominic,” she said softly. “Does it matter to him?”
“I don’t think it does.” I took another sip of sangria then looked down at my barely touched food. “But I’ve never come right out and asked him.”
“You need to talk to him about it.”
“Yeah.” I pasted a smile on my face. It was as fake as the palms the restaurant had stuck in pots around us, but it seemed to convince Molly.
“Talk to him,” she said again.
I nodded.
“I came here on a date a few weeks ago.” Molly smiled at me over the rim of her water. “They have this crazy thing on the weekends. Salsa dancing. It gets all hot and sexy. Maybe you should have Dominic bring you down here.”
I almost choked. Me…salsa dancing. With Dominic. Oh yeah, that would happen. Heat rushed to my face as I thought it again. Dancing. With Dominic.
“We…um…we don’t really go out on dates,” I said, shrugging the idea off as quickly as it came.
I went to say something else, but the look on Molly’s face froze the words before they came out. “What?” I asked. Automatically, I lifted a hand to my mouth. “Do I have food in my teeth?”
“You two don’t go out?” Molly stared at me. “At all?”
“Well. No.” I shrugged and pulled a piece of ham off the Cubano, popping it into my mouth. “What’s up?”
“Aleena, you two have been…well…involved for a while, and Dominic Snow is kind of known for taking women out on some pretty elaborate dates. So why in the hell hasn’t he taken you out?”
***
It bothered me.
As I worked all that afternoon and all that evening, I told myself I wasn’t working to distract myself from that question. I was a liar.
It bothered me.
Why hadn’t he taken me out?
I found myself constantly thinking about what Molly had said. Dominic had said he didn’t do relationships, but I knew Molly wouldn’t lie about him having taken women out on elaborate dates. She’d always loved gossip, especially about the New York elite. So, in the middle of researching the ritzy and very stable firm of Devoted…what happened?
I found myself googling Dominic.
Okay, it hadn’t started out that way.
I started out googling the owner of Devoted.
The CEO was Maxine Hall and, while the company itself was stable, it became clear pretty fast that she wasn’t. I spent more than a little time on her and found enough information that I figured Dominic would have something to play with. I was sure he had all sorts of investigators he could go to for more detailed information so I didn’t bother trying to do that. I was good with computers, but I wasn’t even close to a hacker.
But once I’d finished with what I could find, I found myself staring at the empty search bar.
And then…
Dominic Snow…
And I completely blamed Google, because the next thing that popped up was a single word: girlfriend.
Closing my eyes, I hit enter and then just let it happen.
I never should have done it, either.
I should have closed the damn browser and sen
t him off an email or even called him with my thoughts about Devoted. Jotted them down. Something. Anything but what I’d done.
After a few seconds, I gathered my courage and opened my eyes.
My gut twisted and bile churned.
Why in the hell hasn’t he taken you out?
Molly’s words echoed in my head.
I found myself staring at some sort of publicity still, definitely a posed image. They were standing on a red carpet and he was in a tuxedo while the woman at his side wore a dress of champagne colored silk. It highlighted her eyes and set off her porcelain skin to perfection. Her eyes were a pale, soft blue.
She was absolutely beautiful.
Much of the world thought so too. I thought so.
That was Madeleine Bateman. I didn’t need to read the caption to know who she was. She’d appeared in two of my favorite movies last year, and she’d appeared in no less than three images with Dominic last year too.
Before her? A woman who’d won two gold medals in the in Winter Olympics. A Russian ice skater, I thought. There was also a violinist from the New York Orchestra. A bestselling children’s author. A biologist.
“Well,” I said, trying to cheer myself up. “At least he seems to appreciate brains in a woman. That means Penelope is out of the running.” Even hearing the words out-loud didn’t really do much to perk up my mood.
I closed the window and then, because I felt like a fool, I cleared the search from my history and rose from the chair to pace.
I stopped by the window and stared down into the park, nibbling on my thumbnail until I realized what I was doing. It was a habit I’d broken in high school and there I was doing it again.
He was going to drive me crazy, I knew it.
Why in the hell hasn’t he taken you out?
“It doesn’t matter,” I told myself.
I was getting really, really good at lying to myself.
Chapter 5
Dominic
“Mr. Snow?”
I glanced away from the information on Devoted that I’d gotten from one of my more trusted private investigators. I’d been about to call Aleena and see what she’d found out, although it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait. I just wanted to talk to her. Sighing, I reached up and tugged at the knot on my tie before I answered, “Yes, Amber?”