She was not the weak, helpless, afraid-of-her-own-shadow woman who’d left him. And he certainly wasn’t going to take advantage of her now. Mitch owed her some afterglow. Damn him for ruining her afterglow. He was allowed to do it when they were married—it came with the marital ups and downs, but not now when the afterglow wasn’t his to take.
But Nikos was grabbing at his pants and tugging his sweater over his head, his face unreadable. “Cosmos sounded like it was serious, Frankie. I think you should get dressed.”
Hookay. So was this the perfect excuse to get rid of her after all that talk of exclusivity? Maybe she hadn’t left him wanting more like he’d left her, and he wanted out? Maybe he had some kind of code with Cosmos that would allow him the op to bail because she sucked. Misery began to form a knot in her stomach. The empty one that was apparently ravenous now that all the bedsport had given her an appetite.
“Stop thinking what you’re thinking, Frankie.”
Frankie looked away, her eyes scanning the room for her clothes, taking in the heavy log armoire in the corner and the puffy red and taupe striped chair in the corner.
Nikos sat on the bed, clasping her wrists in his hands, his thumb caressing her skin. “There really was a call from Mitch, Frankie. Cosmos isn’t my alibi to escape from your less than experienced clutches.”
The sting of stupid tears filled with doubt wet her eyelids. “Okay.”
“No. It’s not okay, and you’re not okay. Your reservations are written all over your face. It makes sense that that would be your first thought because of how Mitch treated you. He created suspicion and the fear of being lied to for any man you happened across after him, but I’m telling you the truth. Now let’s get dressed and see what Mitch said.”
Someone pounding on the door made Frankie spring into action without allowing her to dissect Nikos’s insightful, sensitive words. Tearing the comforter from the bed to keep her covered while she hunted for her clothes, she searched the floor for her ridiculously high heels.
Nikos left her with quick strides, heading for the front door. She hurried to throw on her push-up bra and top, dragging her panties and her skirt over her hips with hands that shook.
The rumble of voices beyond the bedroom door made her run her hand over her hair, which was now scrunched into balls from the hair-spray Jasmine had sprayed at her like an exterminator killing an infestation of roaches. Shit. Her purse with the brush in it was at the diner.
She popped open the bedroom door to find Cosmos standing on Nikos’s front step, a frown on his face, muttering something to Nikos.
“Cosmos?”
His face went from impatient to grim. “Frankie, Mitch’s assistant called. He’s in the hospital.”
Frankie smoothed a hand over her skirt, pausing to gather her wits. Did it make her a horrible person to wonder why she was supposed to care so much it warranted a phone call to her? They were divorced. Had she been in the hospital during their seven months apart, would Mitch have cared? Would anyone have called to tell him? Didn’t divorced mean those kinds of emergencies no longer applied to each other? “Juliana called?”
He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, that’s her name. She said Mitch is in the hospital and he needs you.”
Needed her. To what? Find his pulse? Straighten his IV pole? Give him a sit-bath? Though, eighteen years of obligation tore her in two different frames of mind. They had been married. She had once, admittedly, loved Mitch, and now he needed her.
Yet, the rebellious side of her wanted to scream that had she needed him—when she’d needed him during the course of their marriage, he’d never been there for her. Not to mention the way he’d left her with next to nothing without even so much as a call to check on her well-being. So why did she have to be there for him if their marriage was over? Did Mitch’s medical emergency beat her pain and suffering because it was only a little divorce? “Did she say what was going on and if it was serious?”
Cosmos shook his dark head in the negative. “She was pretty vague, but she gave me the address at the hospital and said that Mitch asked you to come right away. Then she hung up before I could ask her any questions. Sounded like some kind of commotion in the background. I think it might be serious, Frankie.”
Frankie wasn’t thinking about Mitch, she was seeking Nikos’s eyes—eyes that filtered his thoughts with such obvious caution it hurt her to look into them. Maybe this made her selfish, but the odd vibe between her and Nikos worried her more than Mitch and his emergency did.
Maybe she could just call the hospital . . . She sure couldn’t call Mitch or even Juliana. They’d changed their numbers shortly after her television debut, claiming, via Mitch’s attorney, that she was insane and unstable—maybe even prone to homicidal threats. She’d found out purely by accident when all she’d wanted to do was get inside the brownstone to find her second set of car keys.
Nikos was the first to speak, clearing his throat. “Maybe you should go to him, Frankie.”
Why did that statement feel like a test?
Nikos solved her quandary by saying, “I’ll drive you. It’s late, and I don’t want you out on the roads on Christmas Eve alone.”
Jasmine was suddenly there, her car keys dangling between her fingers, with Simon and Win in tow. “We can always take the C-Rex,” she cooed.
Frankie frowned, running her hands over her now frigid arms. “You don’t want to go to some hospital on Christmas Eve. You go home and enjoy the rest of the evening.”
Nikos grabbed his jacket from a wrought iron hook by the door. “Thanks, Jasmine, but I’ve got it. You two go do Christmas Eve things.”
Jasmine pushed past Nikos, drawing Frankie’s jacket around her shoulders and handing her her purse. “You sure? I don’t mind coming for the ride. Not to mention, I’d love to know what the hell that snake wants with you on Christmas Eve.”
Frankie gave her a quick hug. “I’m fine. Go and stand under some mistletoe with your man.” Pulling her close, Frankie whispered in her ear, “And thanks for everything.”
Jasmine’s smile was Cheshire when she whispered back, “Never doubt Jasmine’s ability to rope in a man, or read one, for that matter. I hope it was everything you wanted it to be. Don’t forget, I want to hear all about it tomorrow. So call me. Now be safe, and I really hope it’s nothing serious with Mitch. Just FYI, I have my doubts it is. He’s a prick, but still, I don’t wish anything more horrible on him than a limp dick. Anyway, Merry Christmas, honey.”
Simon gave her a quick kiss before taking Jasmine’s hand in his. “You call if you need anything, Frankie. Don’t let that jackass sack you, okay?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll be at Jasmine’s if you need us.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes, pulling him out the door and directing him over a patch of ice as Win took her hand and brought it to his chest, leaning in toward her with a hushed voice. “Truly, miss, you are lovely tonight, but might I suggest you allow me to straighten your hair for you? It would seem a stray eyelash has met its fate in your hair.” His hand discreetly reached to the top of her head where he plucked the eyelash out and stuck it in his pocket. “All’s well,” he said on a wink. “A Merry Christmas to you and yours. It was a pleasure meeting you. Safe journey now.”
Frankie smiled up at him in gratitude as her hand flew to her eyes. Shit, both of her eyelashes were missing. No one could ever mistake her for anything remotely like a vixen.
She watched Win’s back as he made his way out, fully expecting Cosmos to follow. Yet, he lingered, waiting in skulking silence.
Nikos turned to her. “You ready?”
Frankie shook her head, catching the hard gaze Cosmos shot her. “I can’t let you take me, Nikos. You go spend Christmas Eve with Voula and everyone. I’ll be fine. If you could just give me a lift to the village to get my car, I’d appreciate it.” No way was she letting Nikos and Mitch in a room together—especially if Mitch really was having some sort of medical emergency. He was nothing s
hort of an asshole when he had a mere hangnail.
“Not gonna happen,” he said with a definitive tone and a shake of his head. Yet still, there was a new tension between them Frankie didn’t understand but really wished they could take a moment alone together so she could try and navigate it.
Cosmos shook some keys. “I’ll drive. You two can argue about it on the way. Let’s go.” He stomped off through the cold night air toward a detached two-car garage and a large, white Suburban.
Frankie followed behind him with Nikos at her elbow to keep her from falling. “Cosmos! Voula will never forgive me if I take not one but both of you away on Christmas Eve. I’m a big girl. I can drive myself.”
Cosmos scoffed, popping open the driver’s-side door. “Voula would never forgive us if we let the ‘bad Mitch’ have at her Frankie without us there to protect her. She was the one who said we should go. Now get in,” he ordered with a snap to his words while Nikos remained stoically silent.
Oh, tonight was just turning out to be the bestest evah. She’d boffed herself dizzy with an amazing man who appeared genuine and deep when all she’d ever known was shallow and immoral, and instead of basking in that revelation, she was on her way to the hospital to see to Mitch’s needs.
Yet the tug of years of obligation made her feet move and get in the backseat.
Nikos slid in beside her, but his hand didn’t reach for hers, leaving her even more miserable than the news that Mitch was in the hospital.
Thankfully, the traffic was light due to everyone being where they should be on Christmas Eve. At home. With their families. Warm. Safe. Nikos looked out the window as they passed a blur of decorative lights, but his glance didn’t stray to her. Cosmos’s silence was palpable, leaving Frankie feeling awkward and an imposition.
No one spoke while Christmas music played, soft and bittersweet to her ears.
Cosmos pulled into the emergency room entrance with a jolt. Frankie yanked the door handle and hopped out as fast as her heels would allow, the sharp wind whipping at her jacket, relieved to get away from a tension she couldn’t figure out. “I’ll go find Mitch and Juliana and meet you back here in the waiting room.”
Frankie took off in the direction of the reception desk to find Mitch already there, sitting in a wheelchair, moaning and holding his chest with one hand, clinging to a blanket with the other. Juliana was at the desk, scrolling through papers.
Her approach to Mitch was hesitant, her steps sluggish. “Mitch?”
“Frankie!” Juliana called to her, her full cheeks red, her misshapen clothes askew. Frankie felt a pang of remorse for her. She looked run-down. No doubt, now that Mitch didn’t have her to run ragged, Juliana was likely taking the brunt of his workload.
Frankie smiled in her direction, drawing her coat tighter around her neck. “It’s good to see you, Juliana. How’ve you been?”
Her cheeks puffed outward. “Tired, but okay. Listen—”
But Mitch cut her off, managing to roll his wheelchair between the two women. His hands shooed at Juliana in impatience. “You go fill out the forms, Juliana, and go home. It is Christmas Eve. I’ll speak to Frankie.” He coughed, his eyes searching hers.
For what, she didn’t know.
Frankie’s lips pursed as Juliana cocked an eyebrow in Mitch’s direction before making a reluctant retreat and turning her attention back to his release forms.
Frankie crossed her arms over her chest. “So what’s going on, Mitch? You look fine to me. I’m not sure why you called me to begin with, but seeing you, it doesn’t look like it was anything dire.” And definitely nothing that should have dragged her from the warmth of Nikos’s bed.
His lined face went slack with a defeated, hurt expression. “I disturbed your Christmas Eve, didn’t I?” His hand reached for hers, cold and smooth, so different than Nikos’s. “Accept my apology?”
Frankie’s sigh was a mixture of impatience and frustration. The hell he was going to pull the martyr act with her. It drove her absolutely insane. Whenever Mitch wanted something, he put on his sacrificial victim pants and had at her, twisting the situation to his advantage by creating guilt because she was aggravated. Nope. He didn’t get to do that anymore. “Why did you need me here, Mitch? What was so urgent you asked for, of all people, me? Because this doesn’t look urgent, Mitch. You’re being released, for crap’s sake. It’s not like you’re dying.”
He let his wide shoulders crumble inward. His gray-blue eyes grew watery. “But that’s just it, Frankie.”
Her teeth clenched, her hand remaining slack in his clingy grasp. “What’s just it, Mitch?”
“I am dying, Frankie.”
She blinked.
Shock washed over her in a wave of disbelief.
Dying?
Mitch was dying? Of all the horrible things she’d wished on his person after he’d trashed her life, never once had she wished death as his fate.
Wait—honesty check. She’d never wished it and truly meant it.
Frankie’s shock was followed by the sharpest stab of guilt she’d ever experienced in her life, bar none. She’d been so aggravated with him for dragging her away from her antics with Nikos and now look.
She’d even gone so far as to accuse him of martyrdom.
Dying trumped martyr-ish activities—big.
Frankie’s hand went to Mitch’s cheek just as Nikos and Cosmos whisked into the emergency room on a cold blast of air.
But the air wasn’t nearly as cold as the glare Nikos gave her.
Whoever said timing was everything could stuff it up their ass for being so spot on.
“Did we really just give that asshole a ride home?” Cosmos sneered at Nikos, who stood in the middle of plastic Mitch’s living room, wondering how Frankie had ever fit into this lacquered, glass, and white-marbled sterile world. Not a single square inch of this brownstone felt like Frankie.
Nikos clenched his jaw, narrowly avoiding a gold and glass sculpture shaped to resemble something he totally didn’t understand. He pulled his brother to a corner away from Mitch’s bedroom. Their old bedroom, he assumed. The bedroom with the bed Frankie was busy settling Mitch into with comforting hands that should be only on him. Not fucking Mitch. God, that was a shitty thought to lob at a dying man. “Cos, shut it. Yes. We gave him a ride home. Did you hear what Frankie told us? He’s dying,” he hissed low and infuriated. “So quit being a shit and knock it off.”
Cosmos jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket with an angry grunt. “She’s divorced. Why does Mitch’s dying involve Frankie?”
Nikos positioned himself in front of Cosmos, letting his lips thin. “Because she’s a decent human being, Cos. That’s why. What was she supposed to say? ‘Sucks to be you. Merry Christmas, gotta run’? Don’t be a moron today, okay? Just for once, take the day off and stop running at the mouth with the first thought that comes to mind, and keep your opinionated yap still.”
Cosmos pointed an angry finger at Nikos’s chest, his white teeth clamped together, but his face screamed disbelief. “Do you really believe all that crap about all these tests he’s supposedly had since the last time he came into the diner? Seems to me finding out he had cancer happened pretty quick.”
Nikos’s eyebrow rose. “How long does it really take to find out you have cancer? It just takes one test.”
“So why do you think he chose tonight to tell Frankie? Tonight of all nights?”
“You heard what he said, Cos. He wasn’t feeling well, and he panicked. I suppose if I had cancer, I might freak over every little ache and pain, too. When you have a terminal diagnosis, I’d imagine you’re always on red alert. Reaching out to Frankie was just a gut reaction born out of the fear this might be it. Maybe he wanted to apologize for being such a shit to her? You know, like making things right before you buy the farm? They were married for a long time.” Even he couldn’t believe he was defending Mitch. But there it was.
“Okay, fine. Then tell me this. Does he look like he’s
dying, Nik?”
There was that. “Just because he’s not on life support doesn’t mean he’s not seriously ill, Cos. Plenty of people look fine and don’t stop living until they’re forced to. You heard what he said.”
“You mean while he was slapped up against Frankie in the backseat, clinging to her like she was a starving man’s last jelly donut?”
Nikos ignored the jab and the subsequent anger he’d felt since he’d had to bear witness to that. “The doctor told him to keep living his life while he gets treatment. You heard the doctor say that himself. Wouldn’t you want to do the same?”
Cosmos blinked. “You’re kidding, right? I don’t know about you, but that doctor looked like he’d just graduated kindergarten. Mitch’s playing her just like she’s playing you. Jesus Christ, Nik, I can’t believe you did her!”
Anger, spiky and jagged, gripped him, making him gather Cosmos up by the collar of his jacket with rough hands. “Never, ever, as long as you live, refer to her that way, Cosmos, or I’ll kill you.” He shook him off with a hard shove, leaving his brother to fall back against the pristine white wall.
Cosmos threw his hands up in a gesture of acquiescence. “Fine. I’m sorry. I like Frankie, too. But I’m just calling it like I see it, brother. It’s Anita all over again. Plain and simple. All you have to do is look in that bedroom and see it with your own eyes.”
Nikos ground his teeth to keep from bashing in Cosmos’s. No. This was nothing like Anita. He’d never felt this way about Anita. “When I need your opinion, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, I’m a big boy, and I can take care of myself.”
A snort escaped his brother’s lips. “Right. I remember how well you took care of yourself the last time shit like this went down—”
“Shit like what, Cosmos?” Frankie asked from behind the two men, making them cringe in unison. “And shhhhh. He’s finally asleep.”
“Color me all kinds of happy the Sandman’s taken Mitch to peaceful pastures,” Cosmos retorted.
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