by Kate Hewitt
They sat in silence in the cab, the spring sunshine pouring through the windows as the driver took them through Central Park.
Jaiven kept sneaking looks at Louise, just because he liked to look at her. She was staring out the window, the curve of her cheek so smooth and perfect, her hair dark and unruly.
He had an impulse—no, a need—to touch her, to smooth his palm along her cheek, tuck her hair behind her ear. A tender touch, rather than a sexual one, and the realization jolted through him.
He was starting to care.
How the hell had that happened?
He sat there, frozen, this sudden new knowledge trickling icily through him. He could see it all clearly now; he knew he’d started to care from the moment he’d met her, with her chunky glasses and dirty laugh and snappy comebacks—all of it hiding a vulnerability that he didn’t understand but still made him ache.
Just sex, he’d told her. Told himself. Yeah, right.
They didn’t speak the rest of the way up to Columbia, and when the cab finally pulled up in front of her office building, Louise turned to him, that vulnerability shadowing her eyes, making her nibble her lip.
“So…”
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked, his voice rough with the sudden urgency of needing to see her again. Because maybe she was starting to care, too. She was trying not to, he got that, but maybe—maybe something bigger between them could work.
An actual relationship?
The thought, Jaiven acknowledged, was terrifying. Because while he was starting to realize Louise had some emotional baggage, it couldn’t be anything close to his. And telling her his shit was the most frightening thing he could imagine.
And yet under all that fear was a tiny kernel of—what? Excitement? Hope?
Crazy.
“Tonight?” She frowned. “I’m having dinner with my sister, and then I have to go to an academic thing.”
The emotions careening inside Jaiven screeched to a sudden halt. An academic thing. He felt the distance between them, the life Louise lived that he had no part of.
“How about after?” he asked, keeping his voice light. “I’ll come to your place.”
Uncertainty chased across her face like shadows after sunlight, and then slowly she nodded. “Okay,” she said, and slipped out of the car.
A restless uncertainty dogged him all afternoon as he plowed through some work, and then headed to the gym uptown that afternoon for his weekly squash game with Alex. Alex was one of his closest friends, but ever since he’d discovered true love with Chelsea he’d been living in his own little la-la land, and being with him felt like eating too much candy. It made Jaiven’s teeth ache.
Today, though, he was curious about what had changed Alex from being a player to a one-woman man. After beating him two games to one, and that only by the skin of his teeth, they headed upstairs for their usual protein shakes.
“So how are things with Chelsea?” Jaiven asked, and Alex did a mock double take.
“You really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but I thought you were semirepulsed by my lovesick state.”
Jaiven grimaced. “There’s no semi about it.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “But I’m curious. What changed you, man?”
Alex sipped his shake for a moment, his expression turning thoughtful. Jaiven’s clenched his jaw. He hated that the very fact he’d asked the damn question had revealed something in him, this new need for something more. Could he really be thinking about trying for a real relationship with Louise—even if that meant telling her about his past?
“Chelsea did, I guess,” Alex finally said. “I wasn’t looking for it, God knows, and I thought at first it was going to be simple.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Just sex.”
“Uh-huh.” Jaiven looked away. This was sounding scarily familiar.
Somehow sex with Louise didn’t feel simple. Already he felt as if he knew her better than any other woman he’d slept with—as if sex somehow revealed her. Revealed him.
And he didn’t want to be revealed. The one time he’d laid it all out there he’d faced condemnation, horror and disgust.
All of those reactions had been deserved, even if he’d been hoping for forgiveness. Desperate for absolution. And he’d had a diamond ring in his pocket.
But Louise was different from Emily. She was kinder, older, more mature and understanding. He hoped.
“What about Chelsea?” he asked. “She seems like a pretty cool customer, to me.”
“Watch it,” Alex answered lightly, but Jaiven still heard the iron in his friend’s tone. Okay, so he was a little protective of Chelsea. Understood.
Like you’re protective of Louise?
He thought of how he’d wanted to comfort her when she’d gone wobbly at lunch. The need he’d felt to touch her cheek, to be tender with her.
Hell. He really did care.
“I saw myself in her,” Alex said after a moment. “We’re similar in a lot of ways.”
Were he and Louise similar? Jaiven wondered. On the surface, no. She was educated, smart, an academic. He was a dropout with a prison record. They were totally different.
Then it occurred to him that Louise and Chelsea were sisters. How had he forgotten that fact? Perhaps because they were so different. Louise was warm and curvy and genuine, while Chelsea seemed all frosty polish, even though Alex obviously saw something underneath her glossy exterior.
“What’s Chelsea’s background?” Jaiven asked casually. “Grew up in Connecticut, went to a la-di-da boarding school like you did?”
Alex grimaced. “Far from it.”
Curiosity flickered. “She seems that way to me.”
“Maybe you just have a chip on your shoulder about people who grew up rich.”
So maybe he did. Why shouldn’t he, when his mother and father had fought hard simply to feed and clothe him?
And look how you repaid them.
“Far from it?” he repeated. “So, what do you mean?”
Alex shook his head. “It’s not my place to say, Jaiven. If you want to know about Chelsea’s background, you can ask her yourself.” His mouth curved in a mocking smile. “We’ll have you over for dinner. Set you up a blind date.”
Jaiven shuddered. “No thanks.”
“Chelsea’s sister, Louise, is single.” Jaiven nearly spit out his drink. “Although,” Alex mused, “she’s not really your type.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jaiven raised his eyebrows, both amused and more than a little nettled. “Why not?”
“You like model types, right? Generally ones without too much going on upstairs.”
“That’s a bit harsh toward models.”
Alex shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
“And Louise,” Jaiven said carelessly. “She’s not a model type?”
“She’s pretty, certainly,” Alex answered. “But curvy. And very smart.”
And suddenly Jaiven didn’t like Alex talking about Louise. Pretty and curvy? She was more than that. She was hot. And funny. And damn sexy. And Alex shouldn’t be checking out Louise’s curves, anyway.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, and Alex raised his eyebrows.
“Seriously?”
Jaiven shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about Louise anymore. He wanted to think about her, and how he was going to show up at her apartment tonight, and…
Tell her how you feel? Really?
He still wasn’t even sure how he felt. Maybe he should stick to fantasies.
Like the fantasy you have about telling a woman you love her, and she says it back? The one where you admit all your faults and failings and she says she loves you anyway?
That really was a fantasy. And one he hadn’t let himself dwell on for so much as a second in over a decade.
“I’ll get Chelsea to set a date,” Alex said, and Jaiven murmured something vaguely positive in response. His mind was definitely elsewhere.
*
“Miss Jensen?”
Louise looked up from the essay she’d been marking to stare blankly at the two young women who stood in the doorway of her office, uncertainty visible on their faces.
“Yes…” she said, because one of them looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place them and she didn’t think she had any appointments this afternoon.
“Nora Grant,” one of them said, and stepped forward. “I emailed you about Harlow? You agreed to meet us today.”
“Of course.” Louise stood up and shook their hands. How could she have forgotten the meeting, she chastised herself. She hadn’t given it a moment’s thought since agreeing to it by email a couple of days ago. She hadn’t even thought about Harlow, who was allegedly missing.
She hadn’t thought about anything, Louise acknowledged, except Jaiven.
She’d gone to all her lectures and seminars, of course; she’d graded papers and attended staff meetings. She’d even submitted a paper she wanted to present at a conference at Berkeley this summer. But she wasn’t fully engaged in any of it; she was like an automaton, going robotically through the motions while her mind was a million miles away. Focused only on one man, on being with one man.
Not good. Not good at all.
“Come in,” she said now, and pulled forward two wooden chairs for both young women to sit in. They were surprisingly similar in looks: beautiful, blonde and polished, definitely from money.
So not like her, then.
She liked to think she’d moved on from the old insecurity that had dogged her as a child, when she’d been desperately jealous of Chelsea’s slim good looks while a crossed eye, corrective glasses and fifteen pounds of puppy fat had made her a beauty pageant dropout to her mother and the class geek at school.
It had taken a lot of effort, therapy and time to get over the insecurity and fear that had led to a seriously bad choice of a husband, and then been worsened by the two years she’d spent in that marriage. She hated that those old fears and wounds were being scraped raw now.
It was Jaiven’s fault that she was thinking this way again, Louise thought, but she knew she was kidding herself. It wasn’t Jaiven’s fault. It was hers.
If anything, Jaiven had helped her with some of her issues. When he touched her, she felt beautiful and desirable. Strong and powerful.
It was her issue, her weakness that was making her feel needy and afraid again. Because this thing with Jaiven had gone too far. Become too emotional.
So what are you going to do about it?
Not a question she could answer now.
“Nora.” She nodded at the young woman. “I do remember you from the introductory course I TA’ed a couple of years ago.” Thankfully that memory had clicked into place. She turned to the other woman, who was nervously nibbling her lower lip. “And you are?”
“Addison.” A pause, and then the young woman’s voice turned grimly resolute. “Addison Treffen.”
Treffen. It felt as if a grenade had been lobbed into her office. Just a couple of months ago Chelsea had taken down Jason Treffen, human rights lawyer turned pimp, on live television. Just hours later, he’d been shot and killed; the perpetrator had never been caught.
Louise realized she was staring; Addison was blushing, her chin raised defiantly. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “Was Jason Treffen your father?”
Addison nodded stiffly.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Louise continued quietly. She turned to include Nora in the conversation. “So you’re both worried about Harlow.”
“Yes, the three of us have been friends for a long time,” Nora answered. “We were sorority sisters here at Columbia and we’ve always stayed in touch. But for the last month she’s been out of communication, and it isn’t like her.”
Louise frowned. “She’s abroad, isn’t she? On an internship?”
“She had an internship with Treffen, Howell, and Smith’s London office,” Addison interjected quietly. “Then about a month ago she stopped answering our texts or emails. I did a little digging and found out she hasn’t been back to her apartment in weeks.”
Louise felt a plunge of worry deep in her belly. She remembered Harlow as being sharp and smart, but also a little bit reckless. She was from old money, and she’d thought she was invincible. Untouchable.
Louise hoped, for Harlow’s sake, that she hadn’t learned she wasn’t.
“We’re talking to you because we thought you might know something,” Nora said. “Something in her thesis, maybe, that she wanted to investigate?”
“Investigate?” Louise’s voice rose in alarm. “Her thesis was about sex trafficking.”
Nora and Addison exchanged apprehensive looks, and Louise leaned forward. “You don’t honestly think Harlow would dig into that? She’s pursuing law in London—”
“For my father’s firm,” Addison spat. “You do know, I assume, what he did? What he was killed for?”
“I know he ran a prostitution ring,” Louise answered steadily, and it was to Addison’s credit that she didn’t so much as flinch. “But that was here in New York. Harlow’s in London—”
“If in New York,” Nora asked somberly, “why not in London?”
The question seemed to echo through the office, the appalled realization of what Nora was implying visible on all three of their faces.
Louise gazed blindly down at the essay she’d been marking. Gender Politics in South America. She blinked, looked up again. “Are you saying,” she asked, “that Treffen might have had prostitution rings in both New York and London?’
Nora shrugged, her expression bleak. “Why not?”
“From all accounts,” Louise replied carefully, conscious she had the man in question’s daughter right here in the room, “Jason Treffen worked alone.”
“In New York,” Nora agreed, then sighed impatiently. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on over there, or what happened to Harlow. All I know is she’s missing and she was working for Treffen, and that stinks to high heaven.” She shot a quick, conciliatory look towards Addison. “Sorry.”
Addison lifted her chin even higher. “What are you sorry for? It’s true.”
“Have you contacted the police—” Louise began, and Nora shook her head.
“They’re not interested. She’s just another twenty-something socialite having a good time.”
“What about her family—”
“Same thing,” Nora answered flatly. “Only more so.”
“I’m not sure,” Louise said slowly, “what you think I can do—”
“Don’t you have her thesis?” Nora asked, an urgency in her voice that Louise was starting to feel herself. “If you read it again, closely, maybe you could find some clues. Something she felt she should check out.”
“I can,” Louise answered, “but that seems like a long shot. What about learning more about the law firm in London? If anything is going on…”
“We don’t have any leads there yet,” Nora admitted with a quick look at Addison.
“My brother Austin was looking into it,” Addison explained. “But he hasn’t found anything yet.”
Louise shook her head. “If something is going on in London, it obviously doesn’t involve Treffen anymore. Someone else is involved, and that means it’s dangerous.”
“For Harlow,” Nora finished flatly, and they all stared at each other. Louise felt sick. Harlow, bright, beautiful Harlow Spencer, in this kind of danger?
“I’ll do what I can,” she finally said. “I’ll look through the thesis, and I might be able to make some other queries.” Chelsea, and Alex, with his huge news network, might be able to help. If it had to do with Treffen, they’d both want to see Harlow found. “I’ll email you if I find anything.”
Nora rose first, elegant and determined. “Thank you,” she said, and held out her hand. Addison followed suit.
They murmured their goodbyes and Louise saw them out of her office, returning to sink into her chair with a th
ud.
Her mind spun with all the two young women had said, all they didn’t know.
Harlow, Harlow. Where are you? What have you got yourself into?
Could Harlow really have become tangled up in some sordid scheme? In human trafficking? It seemed impossible, absurd even, for Harlow was a smart, privileged, accomplished young woman.
Just like all the other women Treffen used.
But Treffen was dead. And Harlow was in London…
If New York, Nora had asked, why not London?
Louise rose from her desk and paced restlessly. Why was the world such an awful, fallen place? she wondered uselessly. And why were men such—such monsters? And if not monsters, then at least skunks?
It wasn’t a fair assessment of the male species, Louise knew, but she felt it all the same. Had she known a single truly good man? The losers her mother had brought home certainly hadn’t been. When they hadn’t been drunk or leering, they’d been pawing her sister. Her ex-husband had been a complete bastard. Even the forgettable boyfriend of five years ago had dumped her because he claimed he couldn’t handle her “issues.” Louise hadn’t regretted saying goodbye, but she couldn’t really consider him a shining example of manhood.
Chelsea had obviously snagged a good one, but her road to that elusive happily-ever-after had been rocky, to say the least. And who knew what her—or anyone’s—future held?
And what about Jaiven?
How could she even answer that question? She didn’t really know him. She’d been playing at fantasy sex with a stranger, but she didn’t know what was important to him, what he believed, what he was capable of. All she knew was he wasn’t interested in a real relationship, had a lot of sexual fantasies and had apparently got it on in a limo once or twice.
And yet she wanted to know him, Louise knew. She’d enjoyed herself with him more than with anyone else, ever, and she’d given more of herself to Jaiven than she’d ever meant to.
Because she cared about him.
You don’t care about him. You don’t even know about him.
And yet she knew he made her laugh. He made her body sing. He’d comforted her when she’d been sad—
He put his hand on top of your own, Louise. Get over it.