Because there is no fucking way the leasing agent is telling me this.
“The landlord had a change of heart,” she says once more, and the sweet one-bedroom in Chelsea slips through my fingers.
I grit my teeth, and suck in a breath as I pace outside the emergency room entrance at the hospital where I work. The sidewalk is clogged with nurses and paramedics, not to mention visitors. I move away from them, walking along the brick exterior during a short break in my day. “But this is the fifth time a place has fallen through,” I say, doing my best to keep my tone even.
I don’t have a temper. I don’t get angry. But if I were to, this might be the reason because Dante was wrong. Finding an apartment in New York City is the tenth circle of hell. Eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth too.
Consider my luck so far in this impossible quest. The first apartment went bust when the landlord changed her mind. The second time, the place was rented to someone in the family. The third pad had termites. You get my drift.
“It’s a tough market right now,” Marie, the leasing agent, says, her tone sympathetic. Gotta give her credit. She’s been trying to find me four walls and a floor for more than a month. “I’ll keep looking through to see what’s available.”
“Thanks. My sub-lease is up so I’m going to be homeless soon.” I turn around and pace back toward the entrance.
She laughs. “I doubt you’ll be homeless. Besides, I’ve told you, the couch at my place has your name on it. Come to think of it, so does the bed, if you know what I mean.”
I blink. I do know what she means. I just wasn’t expecting to be propositioned by my leasing agent at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday.
Or a Thursday. Or a Friday. Basically, on any day.
“Thanks for the offer.” I rein in my surprise because I thought she was married. And not just the regular kind of married, but the happy kind.
“You let me know, Chase. I make a great ceviche, I’m incredibly neat, and I wouldn’t even charge you a dime. We could work out some other form of payment,” she says, with a purr.
And my leasing agent has now officially requested that I be her boy toy. Fuck. Time to grow a beard. I know I look young for my job. But young enough to be asked to be a sugar boy? I turn to the glass window of the hospital and consider my face. Clean-shaven, hazel eyes, light brown hair, chiseled jaw.
Damn, I’m quite a specimen. No wonder she propositioned me. Maybe I should take her more seriously.
But here’s the problem. Her offer is borderline tempting even though I have zero interest in serving as anyone’s sex slave. That’s because I’m at the end of the line. I’ve scoured Craigslist and everyplace else, but I might as well give a kidney for a one-bedroom— that’d be easier than finding a pad in this city.
You know all those TV shows where the perky twentysomething advertising assistant nabs a swell apartment with a flower planter, bright purple walls, and a reading nook on the Upper West Side? Or when the wet-behind-the-ears dude with an entry-level post at magazine lands a swank bachelor pad in Tribeca?
They lie.
Hell, at this point, I’d give my spleen just for a closet under a staircase. Wait, I take that back. I like my spleen. It’d have to be a closet on the first floor for me to give up an organ, even one I can easily live without.
“What do you think? You up for it?” Marie asks, in what no doubt is best sexy-as-sin voice. “Bob said he’s fine with you being here too.”
I frown. “Bob?” Immediately, I want to take back the question because I’ve got a sinking feeling Bob is her vibrator and I walked right into that one.
“Bob, my husband,” she says matter-of-factly, and now I only wish we were talking about a toy.
“That’s quite generous of him,” I deadpan. “And please let him know that while I appreciate his magnanimity, a mattress in the locker room just opened up.”
I turn off my phone, and head inside, my quick break over. The curly-haired charge nurse marches up to me, a serious look on her face as she tips her forehead to the nearby exam room. But the tiniest twinkle in her gray eyes tells me my newest patient’s situation isn’t dire.
“Room two. Foreign body stuck on the forehead,” she tells me.
That’s my cue to forget about square footage and unconventional living arrangements. When I stride into the exam room, I find an angular, blonde Aquaman perched on the edge of the hospital bed.
“Nice threads.” I flash a quick smile. Always helps to defuse the situation and besides, if I reacted to the three-inch shard of glass sticking out of the forehead of the guy in the green costume, they should take my goddamn license away.
He shoots me a rueful grin as he glances at his get-up. The polyester outfit is torn down the right arm, and ripped along the thigh.
“Looks like a fun morning,” I say. “Let me guess. Your forehead got intimately acquainted with a chandelier?”
He nods guiltily, the look in his eyes telling me he wasn’t trying to fly.
“And let me hazard another guess.” I stroke my chin. “You wanted to test the whole idea of hanging from the chandeliers.”
He swallows, gives another small nod, then an unsteady yup. “Can you get it out?”
“That’s what she said,” I say, and he chuckles deeply. I pat his shoulder. “Couldn’t resist, but the answer is yes, and there will only be a small scar. I’m excellent at stitches.”
He takes a deep breath, and I get to work. Twenty minutes later, I’ve sewn up his forehead, and a nurse returns with the shard in a plastic hazard bag. She hands it to me, and I pass it on to the rightful owner.
“A souvenir of today’s visit to the ER,” I tell the guy, and he takes the bag.
“Thanks, doc. The sad thing is we didn’t even get to the main event.”
“That’s why it’s an urban myth. You really can’t do it while hanging from the chandeliers. And hey, next time you’re feeling adventurous, take a ballroom dancing class, and then go home and use the table, okay? But make sure it’s a nice smooth wood because I don’t want to have to remove a three-inch splinter from your gluteus maximus. That’s not as good a war story.”
He nods crisply. “I promise. No more acrobatics.”
“But kudos on having a woman who likes you that much,” I say as we leave the room.
He tilts his head. “How’d you know she likes me?”
I nod towards the row of chairs in the waiting room at the end of the hallway. A woman in a busty emerald green costume nibbles on her lip and checks her watch. When she raises her face, her eyes light up as they land on Aquaman.
“I’m guessing the mermaid brought you in? And waited for you?”
“Yeah,” Aquaman says, with a dopey smile as he heads to his woman.
“Bed tonight. Use the bed, man,” I call out.
He gives me a thumbs up as he leaves.
And, folks, that’s today’s latest sex wound from the tales of the naughty deeds that land you in the ER. Yesterday it was a zipper malfunction. Last week, it was a fracture from a back handspring. Yeah, you don’t want to know what was fractured.
Later, when my shift ends, I change into my street clothes in the locker room, button my jeans, and tug on a T-shirt. I rake my fingers through my hair, grab my shades, and leave the workday behind me. The second the doors slide shut at Mercy Hospital, I turn off the work portion of my brain, plug in my headphones, and crank up the audiobook I’ve been listening to lately. It’s on the theory of chaos and it keeps me company as I head to Greenwich Village to meet a friend.
Once downtown, I leave the subway in a throng of New Yorkers on a warm June day. I make my way to the Sugar Love Sweet Shop to meet my friend Josie.
Yes, this friend happens to possess boobs.
Because I have another theory too. Men and women can be friends. Great friends. Even if the woman happens to be the owner of the most fantastic pair the man has ever seen. A body is a body is a body. I can appreciate her figure empirically, in all its
curves and softness, and that doesn’t mean I want to hang from the chandeliers with her, or even screw her on a table.
Fine, I’ll concede she’s totally table screwable, but I don’t let myself think of Josie that way.
Even if she looks amazing in that pink scoop neck T-shirt with the cute little apron tied around her waist. When she spots me, she wave, and calls me into the candy shop.
I go, and my mouth is only watering because I like sweet things.
* * *
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Sneak Preview of THE ONLY ONE, releasing December 2016
Prologue
* * *
Penny
* * *
Ten years ago
* * *
The clock mocks me.
As the minute hand ticks closer to eight in the evening, I wrack my brain to figure out if I got the time wrong. Maybe we picked two. Maybe he said ten. Maybe we’re meeting tomorrow. My chest twists with a desperate anxiety as I toy with the band on my watch.
But as the fountains of Lincoln Center dance higher under the waning light, I’m sadly certain there was no error in communication.
The only error was one of judgment.
Mine.
Thinking he’d show.
Drawing a deep, frustrated breath, I peer at my watch once more, then raise my face, searching the crowds that wander past the circular aquatic display at Manhattan’s epicenter for the performing arts. This fountain is so romantic; that’s why we chose it as the place to meet again.
One week later.
Foolishly I hunt for the amber eyes and dark wavy hair, for the lean, tall frame, for that mischievous grin that melts me every time.
I listen for the sound of him amidst the melody of voices, wishing to hear his rise above the others, calling my name, apologizing in that sexy accent of his for being late.
My God, Gabriel’s accent was a recipe for making a young woman weak in the knees. That was what he had done to me. The man melted me when I first met him last month in Barcelona at the tail end of my summer of travels across Europe.
When I close my eyes and float back in time, I hear that delicious voice, just a hint of gravel in his tone, and a whole fleet of butterflies chase each other in my belly at the resurgence of that faraway romantic dream.
I open my eyes, trying to blink away the inconvenient intrusion of memory. I should go. It’s clear he’s not coming tonight.
But, just in case I mixed up the times, maybe I’ll give him one more minute. One more look. One more scan of the crowd.
I let the clock tick past eight.
I still don’t see him.
I’ve been here for more than two hours, sitting on the black marble edge of the fountain. Scouring the corners of Lincoln Center. Peering left, then right down Columbus. Circling, like an animal at a zoo—pathetic modern-day female waiting for male to stay true to his word.
Sure, one hundred twenty-plus minutes is not much time in the grand scheme of life, but when the person you’re waiting for doesn’t show, it’s a painful eternity of disillusionment.
I wish we had picked midnight to meet because then I’d have an excuse for him. I’d wonder if midnight meant yesterday or perhaps today. But “six in the evening, on the first of the month, as dusk casts its romantic glow over Manhattan”—his words—is perfectly clear.
He was supposed to be on his way to New York for a job. I’d already landed a plum assignment in this city. Fate appeared to have been looking out for us, and so we’d made plans. One week ago, we’d drunk sangria and danced on the sidewalks of Barcelona, to street musicians playing the kind of music that made you want to get close to someone, and he’d cupped my cheek, saying, “I will count down the days, the hours, the minutes until six in the evening on the first day of September.”
Then he’d taken me to his room, wearing that dark and dirty look in his hazel eyes. A look that told me how much he wanted me. Words had fallen from his lips over and over that last night in Spain as he’d undressed me, kissed me all over, and sent me soaring. My Penelope, give me your body. Let me show you pleasure like you’ve only imagined.
Cocky bastard.
But he was right. He’d made all my fantasies real.
He’d made love to me with such passion and sensuality that my traitorous body can still remember the imprint of his hands on my skin, the caress of his delicious lips leaving sizzling marks everywhere.
Standing, I run a hand down my pretty red sundress with the tiny white dots and the scoop neck. He loved me in red. One night we’d walked past a boutique that sold dresses like this. He’d wrapped his arms around me from behind and planted soft, sultry kisses on the back of my neck. “You’d look so lovely in that, my Penelope. And even lovelier when I take it off you. Actually, just wear nothing with me.”
I’d shuddered then.
I hurt now as the memory snaps cruelly before my eyes.
I turn away from the fountain, swiping a hand across my cheek. The seed of discouragement planted in the first minutes after he failed to appear has sprouted over the two hours I’ve waited for him. It’s twisted into a thorny weed of disappointment that’s lodged deep in my chest.
There are no two ways about it. My three-day love affair under the starry Spanish sky with the man who whispered sweet nothings in my ear while he played my body like a virtuoso pianist isn’t getting a second act.
Gabriel has my email.
He knows how to reach me.
He chose not to.
Que sera, sera.
I refuse to cry.
With my chin held high, I walk away.
The rest of the night, the hurt deepens, burrowing into my bones.
The next day, shame wraps itself around that weed in my chest, dominating my emotions. Shame for having believed him. For having bought the damn dress. For having hope.
When I open my closet, I swear the red dress laughs at me. I huff, yank it off the hanger, and stuff it in a grocery bag. I grab the pink one I wore the day I met him, then the soft yellow skirt I had on the next day we were together, which made for such easy access. When I pull down the silky blue tank next, I’m walloped with a reminder of his reaction when he first saw me in it.
His eyes had widened, and he’d groaned appreciatively. “Beautiful.”
It was all he’d said, then he’d kissed the hollow of my throat and blazed a sensual trail up my neck, along my jawline to my ear, and whispered, “So beautiful in blue.”
I’d melted.
I’d believed all his sweet, swoony words. He’d said so many things that had set my skin on fire, that had made my heart hammer, that had made my panties damp.
Even now, as I clutch the clothes I wore with him, then didn’t wear with him, goosebumps rise on my flesh. I squeeze my eyes shut and tell myself to burn the house down.
It’s the only way.
I leave my apartment, march ten blocks uptown, and donate the bag of clothes to the nearest Salvation Army.
When I return home, I open my laptop and find the folder with the photos I took of the two of us. I’m tempted, so temped to grab a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, run my fingers over the pictures, then download Skype and call his number in Europe to ask why the fuck he didn’t show.
But I can’t be that girl. I start my first job tomorrow. I need to be a responsible grown-up. I can’t be the clingy twenty-one-year-old who isn’t able to deal with being ditched.
I’m Penelope Jones, and I can handle anything.
I bring the folder to the trash, then I call up his contact information. His email address. His stupid phone number in Spain. I slide his name to the garbage can, too. My finger hovers over the empty trash icon for several interminable seconds that somehow spool into a minute.
But as I remember the way I felt last night, all alone at Lincoln Center, it’s wholly necessary to stab the icon.
Let him go.
A clean break.
For the next ten years, I do my best to keep him out of my mind.
Until I see him again.
* * *
THE ONLY ONE is a sexy, romantic second chance love story! It releases in December!
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to my amazing readers, as always! Big love to my husband, my children, my family and my dogs. I am grateful for the guidance of Michelle Wolfson and KP Simmon, as well as the insight into the story from Jen McCoy, Kim Bias and Dena Marie. Lauren McKellar works editorial magic and Karen Lawson is a goddess of precision. Thank you to Kelley, Candi and Keyanna. Thank you to Helen for the stunning cover, and Lauren Perry for the photography. Thanks to that sexy man on the cover for having a beautiful body! The lovely Nelle L’Amour helped me with the French and gave a beautiful quote. And thanks to my friends who keep me sane, though that’s up for debate admittedly, every day.
Also by Lauren Blakely
BIG ROCK, the hit New York Times Bestselling standalone romantic comedy!
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MISTER O, also a New York Times Bestselling standalone romantic comedy!
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WELL HUNG, a New York Times Bestselling standalone romantic comedy!
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The New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Seductive Nights series including Night After Night, After This Night, and One More Night
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Sweet Sinful Nights, Sinful Desire, Sinful Longing and Sinful Love, the complete New York Times Bestselling high-heat romantic suspense series that spins off from Seductive Nights!
The Sexy One Page 17