by Sara Celi
My attention wandered back to the car window and I watched the city streets pass. My thoughts rewound to the party we’d just attended. When was I ever going to step foot in a restaurant like that again? Best guess—never. That place had white tablecloths and exotic champagne stocked at the bar. I probably couldn’t afford a glass of wine there, let alone dinner.
But it had been fun to be on Luke’s arm. More than fun. Intoxicating.
Luke maneuvered the BMW into the driveway and stopped the car in front of the garage. “I had a good time with you tonight. Thank you for being my last-minute date.”
“You’re welcome. Any time.”
And, of course, I meant that. Luke lived a life that would be easy to fall in love with, if I let myself. He owned a beautiful beach house, a car that cost several hundred thousand dollars, and he spent his free time drinking expensive liquor with people who worried about things like where to vacation for Christmas. My meager reality didn’t resemble his at all.
Remember that, remember that, remember that…
I hooked my fingers around the passenger door handle. “I guess I better get going. What should I do with the outfit? Have it cleaned?”
His gaze roamed over my body, spending a little extra time on the swell of my small breasts. “Keep it.”
“Can I pay you for it?”
He shook his head.
“I couldn’t—”
“You should. It’s yours. I don’t have any use for it. And it looks great on you.”
“But…you don’t have to give me something like this. It’s too nice of you.”
“Just thank me,” he whispered.
I swallowed. “Thank you.”
We fell silent. His stare met mine again, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to?
What was I doing here?
“Good night, Natalie,” he said instead.
My heart sank a little. The night was over. Time to get back to my real life. The fantasy had ended.
“Good night.”
I got out of the car and walked over to my own vehicle. As I unlocked it with my key fob, I heard him climb from the BMW and trot over to me.
“Wait,” he said as his hand caught my shoulder. I whirled around, and his gaze searched my face once more.
“What?”
Please kiss me…
“You left your clothes inside.”
I blanched. “I did?”
“Let me go get them.” He spun and jogged into the house, then returned a few minutes later with a small black tote bag. “Here you are. Wouldn’t want you to miss these.”
“Thank you.” I took the bag and our gazes locked. I sucked in a deep breath and held it inside my chest. The way he looked at me—I longed for him to look at me like that for the rest of my life.
“I want to see you again.” He brushed a strand of hair off my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. His gaze followed his own movements. A warm tremor moved from my ear, down my neck, and into my lower belly. He shifted his eyes up and locked his gaze with mine. “Tomorrow night. Dinner. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” I whispered, mesmerized by the deepness of his voice. “Absolutely.”
His mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Good. What’s your phone number?”
“Snap out of it,” Helen said the next morning as she shuffled past the reception desk with a basket full of used towels. She stopped at the edge of the counter and regarded me over a small mountain of fresh towels piled into the laundry basket. “You’re a trillion miles away today.”
She was right. I’d been thinking about Luke on and off ever since I left his house. In fact, I’d hardly slept because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the way he looked: chiseled jaw, natural tan, soulful eyes… I blinked a few times and shook my head. I knew better than to tell Helen any of this. She wouldn’t get it.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just thinking about something.”
“Well, whatever it is, you’re distracted, and it’s written all over your face.”
“I know.” I shook the mouse by the computer to wake it. “But it’s nothing. I promise.”
Nothing and everything at the same time…
Helen shifted the basket and balanced it between her hip and the counter. “I meant to ask you earlier—do you remember Josh’s friend? Keith?”
“Yes.” I tried to keep a straight face and the dread out of my voice as I answered her. “What about him?”
“Well, he really wants to meet you. So, I’m thinking, maybe next week the four of us can go out. Sturkey’s?”
Josh, Helen’s much younger boyfriend, tended bar at Sturkey’s three nights a week to earn some extra money. During the day, he worked as a spinning instructor and personal trainer at the Atlantic Tide Resort, a place he said should have paid him twice what he made. He always claimed he worked there reluctantly, but he hadn’t tried to get a new job, either. I suspected he liked it more than he wanted to admit.
Josh also had biceps larger than my thigh, and when that man “had to eat,” he could pack away three hamburgers in one meal. He talked about bodybuilding and not much else. That type. I could only imagine what Keith would be like.
“That’d be great,” I lied. “Set it up.”
“You sound thrilled.”
My phone vibrated, signaling I had a text message. I resisted the urge to look at it. “I am.”
Helen cocked her head. “Let me guess. You’re still thinking about Luke Rothschild, aren’t you?”
I tried to keep my expression unreadable. My aunt had a big mouth, and once she had a plan, she dug in. There would be no changing her mind. Plus, I didn’t feel like I could tell her much about my love life. She might have been my aunt, but she was also my boss. Didn’t want to make things more complicated.
“Luke’s a nice guy,” I said. “And I hope he comes in here soon to take another class.”
Sounded good. Non-committal. After all, what was I to Luke, anyway? We’d gone to a reception, and we had plans that night, but so what? It could mean anything—especially for a guy like him. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he had dozens of women at his disposal.
“Let’s do something with Keith next week, just like you said,” I added.
“Perfect.” Helen slapped her free hand on the countertop. “I’ll let him know.”
She crossed to the large hamper on the far end of the room, the one closest to the women’s changing room, and proceeded to add some of the towels to her basket. I let out a small sigh. Helen really wanted to make this “thing” between me and Keith happen, and she’d been trying for months to force it. She’d spent an unusual amount of time talking Keith up, telling me how nice he was, and a few times she’d shown me various photos from his Instagram and Snapchat accounts.
But he wasn’t my type. However, it would be much easier to tell her that I didn’t want to date Keith after I’d met him. Less conflict that way—which I avoided with Helen whenever I could.
“Oh, I meant to tell you something.” She closed the hamper and turned around to face me. Her expression changed, and she arched one eyebrow. She wanted me to listen very carefully to what she had to say next. After a breath, Aunt Helen said, “I looked up Luke Rothschild on my phone last night.”
“And?”
“His life is complicated at best. Did you hear about the dead fiancée? Totally strange. And sad.”
“Oh?” I made sure to raise my voice and widen my eyes, so I sounded more believable and more stunned. I had no plans to tell her about my impromptu turn as Luke’s date, or about the designer dress I had stashed away in the back of my closet. “I hadn’t heard about that.”
“She died about three years ago in a terrible car accident. And since then, he’s been just…drifting.”
“Really?” Again, I took care to keep my voice nonchalant. “That’s sad.”
“Absolutely. And just like I suspected—his dad is Barrett Rothschild.” She said this as
if the name Barrett should trigger a negative reaction from me. I didn’t give her one. “Barrett Rothschild was the one who funded that huge hedge fund, Harvest Capital. And he spent the whole Great Recession making a killing buying foreclosed homes and businesses in New York. Including ones owned by senior citizens.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Would I joke about something like that?” Helen held her mouth agape and rushed a few steps toward me. “He profited off people’s pain, Natalie. He made money off their misfortune—almost $500 million in three years. But, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. He’s a rich guy. You know how those people are.”
I had only one way to respond to my aunt’s comments, and I knew it. “Totally.”
For the last eighteen months or so, I’d watched Helen become more and more socially active. Everything she talked about these days circled back to community involvement, social justice, and an “us versus them” mentality. “We can’t afford to stay on the sidelines,” she often said. “There’s too much at stake.” I didn’t disagree with her, but I also didn’t see everything from behind the same lens.
But anytime I’d tried to bring this up with her, my aunt had either interrupted me, or walked away.
“That’s a lot of money,” I added. “A whole lot.”
And it was—I couldn’t think of how much money $500 million would really be. Did they have bank accounts for that kind of figure? Where did that money go? Was it real, or tied up in investments? Could you access that kind of cash all at once? Didn’t banks have account balance caps?
“Also, get this…” Helen gave me a knowing look. “Page Six recently reported that Barrett wants to give control of the family’s New York commercial real estate business to his oldest son, Luke, but that he won’t do it until Luke gets married. He even threatened to disinherit him if he turns thirty-five and isn’t engaged to someone.”
“Really? Engaged?” I quickly coughed a few times and looked away. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect you to say that.”
“Of course, that means someone ‘acceptable.’ Someone blueblooded. You know how rich people think. Only the best for them.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right,” I said, but the words tasted hallow and meaningless in my mouth.
“Then there’s that whole thing with Faye Masters. So sad.” Helen clicked her tongue against her teeth. “The state police said the driver of the semi-truck fell asleep at the wheel.”
“And they were set to get married just a few months later.”
Helen’s eyes widened.
“I mean…that’s what I assume—that the wedding wasn’t far away?” I glanced back at my aunt and hoped my expression would help her buy my next lie. “Since you said she was his fiancée.”
“Hmm,” she said after a moment. “Regardless, the people in the one percent are so weird. They don’t live normal lives.”
“You have to admit, though, he’s hot. And he seems…seemed like a really nice guy.” It was about as close as I wanted to get to confessing how much I’d been thinking about Luke in the last week.
Which had been a lot.
“He’s good looking in a too-rich-for-his-own-good kind of way. I will give him that.” Helen moved down the hall to the small linen closet where we stored the studio washing machine and dryer.
I watched her until I knew for sure she wasn’t paying attention to me. Then I flipped over the phone.
Luke: Hey there. Pick you up at 8?
Interesting.
I glanced down the hall at Helen. The mass of towels still distracted her.
Me: Perfect. See you then. I’m at 4530 Flager Dr. Apartment 16.
Natalie lived in a large apartment complex that rimmed a central, in-ground pool, the kind of place developers built in less than six months, marketed to twentysomethings, and overcharged for on the rent. I parked the car in front of the second unit of eight apartments and jogged up the stairs to hers. She cracked open the door a moment after I rapped on it.
“I’d invite you in,” she said as she stepped out in the breezeway and closed the entryway to her apartment, “but it’s embarrassing.”
“No, it’s not.”
“My apartment is tiny.”
“So?”
She locked the deadbolt and dropped her key in her black tote bag. “Have you ever lived in an apartment, Luke?”
“Of course. In Manhattan.”
“Park Avenue doesn’t count.” She began to walk down the stairwell, and I followed her. She wore a black skirt, gold flat sandals, a lightweight, white sweater, and a gold necklace. She stayed a few steps ahead of me, and I admired her ass.
Nice, round, and just the right amount of perky.
“I never lived on Park Avenue,” I said.
“Well, the entire Upper East Side doesn’t count. Neither does Tribeca, or Soho…”
“How about Greenwich Village?” I asked as we reached the main sidewalk that linked the units and parking lot together. “I lived there for about two years after college.”
She shook her head.
“Brooklyn? My cousin had a place there a few years ago. A brownstone with a few units. One of those rehabbed buildings in a gentrified neighborhood full of hipster assholes with long beards and ten-dollar espresso habits.”
“Nice description.” She laughed, and we kept on walking. “But nope. Still doesn’t count.”
“I don’t care where you live. It doesn’t matter to me. I want to get to know you.” I unlocked the car with my key fob and opened the passenger door. “I mean that.”
“I keep asking myself why.” She got in the car, looked up at me, and held my gaze with probing, brilliant pools of green. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“Not everything in life must,” I replied as I shut the door.
We had a reservation at Renato’s, a restaurant tucked just off Worth Avenue. Just like Nicolato’s, people liked to be “seen” at this bistro, and when we arrived, the host led us to a quiet table overlooking the sidewalk and Worth Avenue’s luxury shops. I settled into a seat across from Natalie and asked for a bottle of chardonnay from the extensive list.
“I take it you’ve eaten here before.” She opened the leather-encased menu and scanned it.
“Many times.”
“And what’s good?”
I made a few suggestions, and the waiter returned with the bottle of wine. He poured us two glasses, and we settled on two entrees, the linguini and the rigatoni. Soon, we found ourselves alone again.
“It’s a beautiful night,” I said, making a sad attempt at small talk.
“It is.” She regarded the rest of the diners on the patio. “This place is packed.”
“Always during the winter, even on a Tuesday night.”
“I never make my way over here, so I wouldn’t know.”
“First time for everything.” I raised my wine glass. “Cheers to that.”
She lifted hers, too. “Cheers.”
We both sipped our wine, but when Natalie put down her glass, she furrowed her brow, and her gaze didn’t meet mine anymore.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.” She looked away, over the railing and up the sidewalk.
I shifted in my seat. “Come on. You don’t mean that.”
She exhaled. “Okay. I’ve just been…thinking about something.” She broke off for a moment, and I sipped my wine, waiting. “What’s going on with you and your father?”
“Oh, I see. Someone’s been Googling, huh?”
“No.” She shook her head with vehemence, causing her hair to tumble over her shoulder. Then she acted as if I’d accused her of a crime. “No, I haven’t. Helen did.”
I nodded as things became clearer to me. “And of course, a few articles from the New York media came up right away, among other things.”
I drank some more chardonnay and reminded myself to remain calm, even though the mention of what the New York City tabloids had written annoyed me. They often got it
wrong, but in this case, they’d gotten most of it right, and that felt worse. Dirty laundry that didn’t need airing.
“My father is an…interesting man, and so is our family.”
“I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“And yes, what you’ve read is mostly true. My father wants to hand over control of his real estate empire to me as his oldest son, but he won’t do it until I find ‘the one’—if she lives up to what he wants. And if I reach thirty-five before finding her, he won’t give me any of it. Not one penny.”
She grimaced. “That seems extreme.”
“I don’t disagree with you.” I waved a hand. “He’ll be forced to put his life’s work in a trust for my half brother Marcus, who is fourteen, and a freshman at Phillips Exeter Academy.”
“And he doesn’t want to do that because…?”
“My father is seventy. He wants to retire as soon as possible, and he’s thinking about his…legacy. Leaving the company to Marcus means he can’t retire until Marcus finishes college, maybe eight years or so from now.”
Simple and complex all at the same time. I knew my place in the world, but ever since Faye’s death, I’d had trouble accepting it. It kept feeling like I was living a life that wasn’t mine.
And I didn’t like that.
Most people would have been content inheriting their father’s company and continuing an expected legacy, but for the last few years, it hadn’t been a comfortable path for me. I knew I had the talent to handle my father’s empire; however, allowing my life to become part of his monarchy had always felt hollow and unfulfilling.
But maybe it was time for a change.
Natalie gulped. “What you are saying sounds complicated.”
“It is, in a way. But in other ways, I guess, it’s simple.”
She raised her glass to her lips. “So, when is your thirty-fifth birthday?”
“Next month.” I laughed at the tremendous absurdity of it all, and just as she was taking a sip of her drink, I blurted, “I’ve always been good at taking things to the wire.”
She tried to swallow, but the wine came back up and she began to choke.
“Are you okay?” I scooted my chair back, stood then sat again. “Can you breathe?”