by Holly Hart
“Let me see!” Carson crows.
I suddenly remember that the previous photo in my library is of the woman in the red dress. A tiny stab of panic goes through my belly as I tuck the phone into my purse before he can get his hands on it.
“A girl’s phone is her castle,” I say. “Or something like that. You know what I mean.”
“You’re absolutely right,” he says with mock gravity.
“I like the sound of that.”
Carson pulls a bottle of Salon champagne from a perspiring silver ice bucket in the console and pours us each a flute. The matching silver tray next to it is covered in a pyramid of chocolate-dipped strawberries that doesn’t seem to be shrinking, even though each of us had at least half a dozen.
The interior of the limo is ringed by bands of polished cherry wood that gleam a deep auburn in the reflection of the bar lights. All in all, it’s the kind of place I just didn’t even think existed before I met Carson. For the second time, I mean.
He raises his flute. “To ugly old men who look like women,” he says.
“I’ll drink to that,” I giggle.
A voice comes over the intercom from the front seat.
“Boss, we’re about a block from Piccolo.”
“Thanks, Leonard,” Carson answers. “Let’s do a few laps before we go in. There’s still champagne to finish.”
“You got it, boss.”
“I can’t believe you pay a driver to be on standby all day,” I say, clucking my tongue.
“He doesn’t cost me near what your dress did.”
That’s it. I pummel him with both fists. He grabs my wrists and we play wrestle for a little bit. I’m having déjà vu so hard it’s almost a physical feeling. Still, there’s one thing I know for sure. There is no way he was this strong when we were in high school.
“Besides,” he laughs. “It makes me feel good. Call it job creation.”
After we settle for a moment, I take a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
“Do you remember when our study dates would devolve into stuff like this?” I ask.
He gives me a wistful smile. “Of course. It’s not like we had to study, so why not?”
“I always knew you had it in you, y’know.”
“Had what in me?”
“This,” I say, waving a hand through the interior of the car. “The dress, the car, the driver on standby.”
“Really?”
“Okay, maybe not this level, but I knew you’d be a success.”
He smiles. “You will be, too, Cassie. I’m positive of it.”
“How do you know?”
He leans forward and plucks a couple more strawberries from the tray. I open my mouth and he slides one in. My lips close over his withdrawing fingertip for a moment until it pops out with a wet smacking sound.
The look in his eyes is priceless.
“Ask me again sometime,” he says. “Right now I want to focus on the moment.”
So do I. God, those eyes: the color of the morning fog in San Francisco bay. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they could see right into my soul.
I wonder what he would think if he actually could.
“I want to talk about your career soon, too,” he says. “I bet it’s been fascinating.”
No, thanks – we’re not going down that road.
I swig back the dregs of my champagne and drop the glass into the little rack on the inside of the door.
“Ask me again sometime,” I say, searching desperately for a humorous way out. “Right now, I’m starving and I want to see if I can spend as much of your money on food as I did on this dress.”
“Challenge accepted,” he grins. His finger finds a panel on the door frame. “Leonard, we’re ready now.”
“Just pulling up front as we speak, boss.”
Seriously?
We come to a stop and the door opens a couple of seconds later. Leonard reaches in a gloved hand and helps me out onto the curb.
“Ma’am,” he says, tipping his cap.
Carson claps him on the shoulder and says thanks. Leonard slips behind the wheel again and is back in traffic almost immediately.
“That’s why I keep Leonard on standby,” he says. “He’s worth every penny.”
I take Carson’s arm again and he leads me toward the carved mahogany doors of Piccolo. I glance around, trying to get my bearings.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in this particular block before,” I say.
“This is a pretty exclusive little area,” says Carson. “A lot of people pay a lot of money to be out of the public eye here. There’s a world-class boutique hotel next door.”
“Really? I’d love to see it sometime.”
Carson’s smile is dazzling as he leads me into the restaurant.
“I can definitely make that happen,” he says.
Chapter Thirty-Four
34. CARSON
The exterior of Piccolo is bland enough that you might walk on by and not even notice it’s there. Except for the rich wooden doors and the deep red canopy leading to them, it’s basically just another of the featureless granite buildings that line the streets of Manhattan like Lego blocks.
But then you step inside.
The low-ceilinged foyer is quite understated, done in darkly veined marble, with a brass-and-wood reception desk that’s only a few feet wide. The maître d is a very serious-looking bald man named Avery – I’ve never been able to figure out whether it’s his first or last name – who always calls you by name, even if it’s your first time here. I have no idea how he pulls it off, but he does. Maybe a careful study of the Forbes list.
He looks up at us over his glasses as we enter.
“Mr. Drake,” he says. “Ms. Vincent. It’s a great pleasure to have you join us this evening.”
I admit it: I love to be served by people who are cultured and discreet. It’s one of the best perks of being rich.
All right, all right, if I’m being totally honest, it makes me feel like I’m James Bond. But I also tip extremely well.
I shake my head at some other nouveau riche guys, who drop thousands of dollars in high-end strip clubs with an entourage of losers. They surround themselves with noise and booze and people who are only along for the ride.
Give me a quiet, elegant room any day, with gourmet food and a beautiful, intelligent woman who gives as good as she gets.
Especially when that woman is the one by my side right now.
And Maksim, of course. But he’s different.
I see Cassie’s jaw drop a full inch as Avery leads us out of the foyer and into the dining room. Her head tilts up to follow the walls that go all the way up to the second-floor ceiling. Piccolo is so expensive, it can actually take up two whole floors of the building for a single-floor seating area.
As big as it is, the place still manages to feel cozy and intimate. It uses sound baffles built right into the architecture and artistic features of the dining area to turn each table and booth into its own perfectly private conversation area. Short of stripping completely naked and waggling your you-know-what you know where, you could do pretty much anything without getting noticed.
Avery leads us to a curved booth in an intimate corner next to a huge granite fireplace, dormant now that the temperatures are soaring into the 90s. As we slide in, he bows deeply from the waist, his narrow frame looking a bit like a coat rack that’s hinged in the middle.
“A bottle of the ’65 Chateau Lafitte will be here momentarily,” he says. “I recommend the duck this evening. Bon appetit.”
Cassie blinks several times, taking in the understated opulence. Piccolo is unlike any other restaurant I’ve ever seen, and as cool as I try to look on the outside, the real me deep inside is reveling in being able to give her this incredible experience. In truth, I would buy this woman the world, and worry it still wasn’t enough.
The wine arrives within moments and the steward opens it at the table. He hands me the cork a
nd I take a sniff.
“Perfect,” I say.
He nods and pours us each a glass, then leaves as silently as he arrived.
“Show off,” Cassie says with a smirk.
“What, the cork?”
“You don’t need to do that anymore. Modern winemaking techniques are so foolproof that you never hear about wine turning to vinegar these days. Not even wine from 1965.”
I give her an indulgent smile.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Mr. Fancy Pants, that’s so.”
“What about from 1865?”
Her eyes widen as those delicate orange brows lift and crinkle her freckled forehead.
“Are you kidding me?” she breathes.
“Take a sip.”
She looks at the glass, awestruck, for a full ten seconds before finally lifting it off the table. I raise mine in return.
“Do I want to know how much this cost?” she asks warily.
I wince. As far as I’m aware, the only bottles of this particular vintage were found off the coast of France, buried in a sandbank approximately sixty meters beneath the waves. Perfectly chilled. In fact, the perfect environment for wine to survive in perfect condition all this time.
“Probably not.”
She sighs, but she’s smiling. That’s a good sign.
“What should we drink to?” she asks.
I lean close and lock my eyes with hers.
“To new experiences,” I say.
She smiles and our glasses touch, sending a tinkling chime through our little booth sanctuary.
We both take a sip. Cassie’s eyes close and she tilts her head back.
“Oh. Em. Gee,” she moans. “That’s ah-may-zing.”
That’s just the start of the ah-may-zing things tonight has in store for us. At least, if I get my way.
She takes another sip, savors it. We sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, looking into each other’s eyes. A pianist somewhere plays a Cole Porter tune that floats through the room like subtle incense.
Cassie eventually breaks the spell. I could have stayed there the rest of my life.
“Where are the menus?” she asks, glancing around the table.
“Piccolo doesn’t have menus,” I say. “It’s a four-course meal. The entrée is the only item you choose, and even with that, you only decide on the main ingredient.”
She looks confused.
“But how does the chef know what dishes we want?”
“Is the wine good?”
“The best I’ve ever tasted. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“We didn’t choose that, either,” I point out. “And yet it’s exactly what we wanted. Trust me, the chef here is a culinary Michelangelo. Everything he produces is a masterpiece.”
She runs a delicate hand along her throat and looks deep into my eyes.
“Remember when we used to talk about backpacking around Italy when we were kids?” she says. “Going to see David in Florence. Following in Da Vinci’s footsteps. Seeing the ruins up close.”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“I suppose you’ve been there a hundred times,” she sighs. “You were telling your friend the other day that you were there not that long ago.”
Her cleavage peeks out from the neck of her gown as she leans forward on the table, prompting a sudden mist of perspiration on the back of my neck.
“A few weeks,” I croak.
“What did you do while you were there? Tell me everything.”
I shrug.
“Nothing that involved any culture. Just hung out with… friends. Had a few laughs.”
Very few laughs compared to the time I’ve spent with her. I’ve barely given two minutes thought to my jump over Lake Garda since Cassie walked back into my life.
And friends? That’s stretching it a bit. More like friend – singular – and his acquaintances.
I flash back to the night with the two English girls in my bed, and suddenly I’m ashamed of how shallow it was. How shallow I was.
I guess it took Cassie returning to my life for me to truly realize it. All this time I became nothing more than a parody of the man I thought she wanted. When nothing could have been further from the truth.
Cassie takes another sip of wine with the same reverence.
“I think about all the travel I’ve done with… work, and I realize none of it was enjoyable,” she says. “I’ve been to some exotic places, but never really had a chance to be a tourist. To explore the culture and just have some fun.”
My heart cramps a little when I hear that. Compared to her experiences, mine are just the ridiculous escapades of a poor little rich boy. When she was fighting – hurting for her country, what the hell was I doing? No doubt swilling champagne in some ghastly bar with Maksim.
“I’d love to hear more about it some time,” I say. “But not tonight. Is that okay?”
“It’s more than okay,” she says, looking relieved. “Tonight is about the experience. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
We toast again and drink deeply. Our glasses are empty only a handful of seconds before the wine steward appears and refills them.
“Little bugger comes out of nowhere, doesn’t he?” Cassie mutters. “Like some kind of booze ninja.”
I laugh hard. She looks at me for a moment, surprised, and then joins in.
When we finally settle down, our waiter appears beside the table. He’s middle-aged, distinguished-looking like Avery, with a mustache that most hipsters would give a year of their life for.
“May I be of service?” he intones.
“Avery suggested the duck,” I say. “And you?”
He tilts his head slightly to the left.
“It would be improper of me to contradict him, sir.”
“Right. Lobster it is, then.”
His mustache rises in a prim little smile.
“Excellent choice, sir.”
We watch him stride off and disappear around a dark-paneled corner.
“You picked up on his subtext very well,” Cassie says. “I’m impressed.”
High praise coming from her. I’m sure she’s been in situations where reading subtext literally made the difference between life and death.
“If you’re impressed now, be prepared,” I say. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
35. CASSANDRA
I really shouldn’t be doing this.
I’m setting myself up for disaster.
Nothing good can possibly come from this.
Shut up, brain, I’m trying to concentrate on my steps.
Carson sweeps me along the dance floor to the strains of Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” coming from the piano in Piccolo’s bar. He convinced me – against my better judgment – to work off the most exquisite meal I’ve ever eaten in my life with a slow box step waltz. The CIA trained me for an entire year to resist torture, and yet…
I’m practically hanging from him as he swirls around the floor, carrying me along with him like a child learning to dance by standing on her father’s feet.
“I’m sorry I’m so clumsy,” I say weakly. “But you know from experience that I’ve got two left feet.”
“Must be hell buying shoes,” he says, his cheek next to mine.
“Stop trying to make me laugh,” I say. “Besides, not all of us have unlimited time and money to take dance lessons.”
“I was born this way, baby.”
I giggle. “You forget that you’re talking to the girl who once slow danced with you to Hoobastank’s “The Reason”. I still have the bruises on my feet to prove it.”
And God, that dates me!
“I seem to recall I was distracted by something during that dance,” he murmurs.
A thrill runs through my belly as the full memory comes back: his lips were clamped firmly on my neck as we wandered around the gym, trying to avoid the gaze of the chaperones at the dance.
>
Nothing good can come from this. The Chase is still on. Whatever happens tonight, I’ll be sleeping with another man within a few days.
Suddenly tears threaten to fill my eyes. I breathe deeply and force them down. Compartmentalize. Focus on the now. You’re trained for this.
As if any sort of CIA training could prepare me for the situation I’m in right now. It’s so bizarre, I feel like I’m in an episode of the Twilight Zone.
“Did you know there are lyrics to this song?” Carson asks out of nowhere.
“Really,” I say, grateful for the distraction. For any distraction. “I’ve only ever heard the melody.”
“Most people know the song instantly, but very few have ever heard the story in the song. It’s about a man standing in the moonlight, singing to his girl’s window.”
He tilts his head close so that his lips are at my ear.
“The stars are aglow, and tonight how their light sets me dreaming,” he croons softly, tickling my lobe. His baritone is slightly flat, almost Sinatra-esque, and utterly charming.
“My love, do you know, that your eyes are like stars brightly beaming?
“I bring you, and I sing you, a moonlight serenade.”
My God, I just want to melt into him and never let go. This night is so impossibly perfect it makes my heart ache.
Because no matter what happens, it can’t possibly end the way I want it to.
“Carson,” I whisper. It’s almost a sob.
“Shhhh,” he breathes in my ear. “Just listen to the song, Picture the man singing to you from the garden.”
I close my eyes and imagine Carson, dressed in an old-style suit, in a black-and-white movie set of a yard, singing to me under a giant cardboard moon hanging in the sky.
My hand cups the back of his neck and I pull him closer to me, as strong and as desperate as a boxer’s clinch.
“I stand at your gate, and I sing you a song in the moonlight,” he purrs.
“A love song, my darling, a moonlight serenade.”
The song is over for several seconds before I finally realize it. We stop swaying and I let go of his neck. I feel like I’ve just woken up from a dream that I wanted to go on forever.