by Corri Lee
“And you’ve still been running with the threat of rain?”
“What?” Glancing down at his attire, he shook his head slightly before taking a long gulp of water. “No, I’ve been at the gym—I prefer to shower at home. I needed the endorphin kick. You should try it.”
“Oh, um...” Yeah, I remembered that buzz after a good session of trying to run away from my life on a treadmill. I also remembered feeling like a failure because the weight wasn’t melting off. Gyms were possibly one thing I wasn’t happy to welcome back into my life. My ‘ban’ hadn’t been official, but I knew my mother would kill me if she found out that I was exercising again. “I’m not really a physically proactive person. I’m too inwardly competitive.”
“You’re the kind of person who has to beat their own high score on arcade games, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
Calmly, he took my left hand and turned it palm up to stroke the lines in my skin. I never understood why people did it, but morbid fascination let him proceed even when his fingers traced the band of my emerald ring. It was almost soothing, and I suspected he was doing it on purpose to pacify me before begging a favour.
“You said you’d been trying to call?”
“Yes, I—” He frowned and traced the edge of a scar on my inner wrist. “When did you do this?”
Now that made me pull away, not that he let me. His hand wrapped over the scar and pulled it back to him. “Five years ago.”
“So lonely at seventeen.” What the hell? Exactly how much had he found out about me on Google? I was almost certain my age hadn’t been on Blaze’s Wikipedia page. Did that mean I had one of my own? What if I didn’t?
Well done, you set your sights on a stalker...
Looking up directly into my eyes, Calloway moved his attention back to my palm. “I’m sorry, I’m jumping to conclusions. You cut yourself?”
“Not so much cut as...” I waved my free hand in the air and pulled a face, hoping to inject some humour into the conversation. “... Stabbed?”
My whimsy disappeared when his face fell. “Are you being hyperbolic?”
“What? No, I... uh...” My cheeks flushed pink. Okay, humour wasn’t going to work. I guess it took a certain type of person to laugh about self-harm. “It was in the college bathroom and all I had was a broken ceramic tile—not exactly sharp so... I’m sorry, this is baggage over my weight limit. You don’t need to hear this.”
He shook his head dismissively. “Doesn’t bother me. Are you free tonight?” Wow, rapid subject change. It took a second to jar my mind back into play, where it quickly ground to a sudden halt again. My eyes tracked up my arms to his and fell on the wrist holding mine. Unmistakable clean white scars marred the skin there.
“Oh...” He smiled at me unapologetically and shrugged. Well, I had been expecting him to have a few demons lurking behind him.
Expected or hoped?
“So, tonight?”
“What?” My eyes snapped away from his wrists. “Oh, right. I’m free. What were you thinking?” Releasing my arm, Calloway sat back to allow the waiter to place a pizza down on the table between us. Hell, there was no way I’d eat it all, so I held out a fork shyly. “Want some?”
Seemingly surprised by the offer, he stammered for a minute before reluctantly taking the fork. I might have cracked a joke that he should chill out because it wasn’t poisoned if I didn’t notice that dulled look of panic and distant sound of conflicting opinions rattling around in his head. I’d seen it on the faces of the girls who’d sat with me around the dining table in the psychiatric unit. It seemed that we might have more in common than I thought.
After a few tentative bites of the pizza, he took a sip of his water and straightened himself. “There’s an annual benefit to raise funds for renovations in Brooklyn tonight.” I picked absent-mindedly at a pizza crust, forcing my mind back to the stack of event invitations Henry had forwarded to me in the hope I’d go to represent the family. There had been galas, auctions and full blown black tie balls, and I hadn’t attended a single one.
“Huh, yeah... I think I was asked to go to that.”
“You weren’t planning on showing?” My eyes narrowed. That sounded an awful lot like he already knew I was on the guest list.
“Mr Ryan, have you had me profiled?” He almost spat out his new mouthful of food when my eyebrow rose in dead severity. I suspected that was his interpretation of ‘yes, yes I did probe into your privacy and have you profiled’. He at least had the good grace to look guilty about it. “Such events have lost their sparkle, Cal. I’ve been going to them since I was twelve. So no, I wasn’t planning on donning a frock and boarding a train to The Village. Not tonight, anyway.”
He smiled when he realised I was being playful and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. “I don’t suppose I can sway your mind? It’s been a while since I had a beautiful lady on my arm.” A second date? After the disaster of last night? And something so huge? The press would be swarming, ready to jump in with assumptions to spread across the front pages of magazines.
“Are you sure you want to go with me? I mean—”
“I know what you’re thinking.” My mouth snapped shut and twisted. “People will make assumptions based on us getting out of the same car. Today you’re the runaway business prodigy, tomorrow you’ll be my latest plaything.” Shooting that wolfish grin at me again, Calloway leaned closer to me across the table. “Or I’ll be yours.”
I laughed until I realised what else he’d managed to inveigle about me. My man-eating reputation had caught up with me on a later flight. Hell, I sure didn’t need that hanging over my head. “Is there anything you don’t know about me?”
He sucked on his bottom lip and sat back. “London has not been generous with your privacy, Emmeline. I imagine it looks a lot worse on the other side of the pond but there is a serious deficit of boundaries online. The media make it their jobs to find out as much as they can about you when you set a single toe out into the spotlight. Obviously people are starting to figure out why Henry sponsors so many mental health charities.”
“Oh, Jesus...” Pushing my plate away, I writhed with a wave of nausea and tried to make myself as small as possible. So much for new found anonymity and divested emotional baggage.
You really thought you could disappear? How naive are you?
Calloway reached for my hand again. “Take comfort in the fact that everyone seems to have a degree of admiration for you, and that your family and close friends refuse to pass comment about your personal life and problems. Blaze’s silence over your separation speaks volumes and the world is pointing the finger of blame firmly in his direction.”
I didn’t want his reputation tarnished over it, as much as I appreciated his lips staying buttoned. I was grateful that he wasn’t making a song and dance about it, not using it as a reason to make some extra money with interviews, but I sure didn’t want anyone to think less of him.
Least not yourself.
“So you already know about my ‘baggage’?”
“I know the diluted media-friendly version and it doesn’t vex me any. Maybe we can blow this joint, take you shopping and you can tell me how much of it is true.”
Pursing my lips, I fished my wallet out of my jeans pocket and sighed. Okay, I was going shopping with him. And he was probably going to try and pick my clothes for me. That didn’t make this like that. I had my own money and tastes this time. I wasn’t a wallflower anymore.
Who are you kidding? You want him to make the choices because you can’t make them yourself.
You think? I’ve made a lot of choices without male guidance. I’m getting sick of your running commentary.
Hey, you’re the one thinking about me. You’re the one who can’t let go.
Seriously? You think I want you in my fucking head all the time?
So why are you talking to me? You need me, fatso, like you needed half of that big ass greasy pizza. He’s not going to love you
when the paparazzi start zoom-lensing your love handles, but guess who would?
“Emmeline?” Calloway’s hand on my shoulder pulled me out of my inner argument and forced me back into the real world. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just—”
Hear voices. Go on, see if that ‘vexes’ him.
“I’m a little distracted by work, I shouldn’t have taken the day off.”
“Well, I’m glad you did.” As I stood, his hand moved down and settled between my shoulder blades again, filling me with that same strange sense of relief and comfort. Maybe I wasn’t on my own after all.
We swung by Calloway’s TriBeCa loft, an easy walk from Canal Street, so he could change out of his gym kit. Needless to say, I walked past the doorman wide eyed when he met Calloway by name and greeted me with a pleasant, ‘Miss Tudor’. Everyone knew my face and name, and considering I’d wanted to blend into the crowd like a nobody, it was taking some getting used to.
I daren’t ask the price tag on a place like his. It was a safe bet that it cost at least double that of Henry’s apartment and had all the mod cons to enforce the expense. The walls were all a bright white, the starkness broken only by the thick black framed arched windows that opened out to a stunning view across the neighbourhood and the Hudson River. The floors throughout were marble in neutral shades of grey and brown with the occasional rug adding a splash of much needed colour. I shivered, feeling as though the space was horribly impersonal.
“I’m in the process of moving out,” he explained, obviously noticing my unease. “I have a new place on Fifth Avenue.”
“Not far from me.” Distractedly, I moved away from him to check out the rooftop deck, wondering what the loft had looked like when it was full of his personal effects. Then, realising that it was probably his turn for clarification, I paused at the glass doors leading outside and waved for him to join me. “I’m on Park Avenue.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
Out on the deck, the breeze had a slight chill that reminded me that summer was almost over. The odd spots of flora I could see across the city were still green and I was glad that I would get the chance to see New York descend into autumn; a sight I was assured would amaze and satisfy.
Calloway wrapped an arm around my shoulders when my skin began to pimple and followed my mindless gaze across the impressive landscape ahead. His top floor loft was high—maybe high enough for us to see for miles. I was distracted by the unwelcome curiosity over how it would feel to fall all that way down...
“Why did you come to New York, Emmeline?”
“My father needed someone to come out to deal with some personnel issues, and I wanted to return your clip.”
And escape. You were trying to escape.
“And I appreciate that you did. That particular money clip is an heirloom.”
I looked up at him with a frown. “You gave me an heirloom? Why?”
“Because one way or another, I’d have to get it back. You could have mailed it to me, or I’d have to track you down. Either way...”
Stalker. Obsessive stalker.
“But I don’t believe that you’d fly all this way for work and good manners. Why are you really here?”
Escaping, just say it.
“Trying to distance myself from problematic scenarios.” Turning back to look out across the city, I let my head fall against Calloway’s shoulder while I fought to fend off the ‘what if’s of London. What if I’d shrugged it off and stayed? What if I’d just tried to ignore him again? What if he’d never told me at all?
Well, you could find out, but you won’t, Miss Prideful.
Surely it was better this way? If I was still there, I’d still be living the same life looking for change—drinking myself into a coma when Blaze wasn’t around and waiting for him to walk through the door like an obedient dog. What kind of life would that be?
Yours. Your life and you walked out on it.
“The way I see it—” Calloway sighed and rested his head on mine, tightening his grip around me as a gust of wind hit us, “—the instinctive decisions you make in times of trouble are often the best. I know many people who work more efficiently in a crisis. You made the best choice from a shit situation.”
“A shituation?” His laugh made me smile. It was deep and warm—a growling baritone—but genuine, too. Somehow, I felt safe with him. “I guess you’re right.”
“Well, I’m certainly seeing the advantages to you being here, and I very much hope to see more of them.”
I sort of got the feeling that he would. Despite only meeting twice before, Calloway very much had his own kind of gravity that made him feel like he’d been part of my life forever. That might have been his far too intrusive knowledge of me, but at the time, it felt more instinctive and involuntary. Okay, fine; he’d been probing around for information about me rather than learn to get to know me like anyone else, but I’d be a hypocrite to criticise him for that. It wasn’t like I’d never taken to a search engine out of nosiness myself. It was in his best interests to be armed with information because he was kind of a big thing.
Are you seriously making excuses for him?
“Cal?”
“Hmm?”
There was no limit to the changes I could make in my own life. If I didn’t want a shred of Emmy White left in my ‘now’, I could make it happen.
That means you’re finished.
“Do you know of any good shrinks around here?” Raising an eyebrow, he nodded and led me through to his study. I might not have been able to swallow my pride to stay with Blaze, but I could swallow enough to seek the help I’d refused years ago. Really, I didn’t need her company anymore.
Manhattan was almost pulsating with the enthusiasm of the swarming tourists that looked at the city with the same rose-tinted infatuation that hadn’t yet passed for me, either. Like it or not, I still craned my neck to admire the cloud-piercing spires of buildings and diverse faces that wandered the streets. The mixtures of races, styles and colours were always same, and yet different every time. It was like waking up in a new place all over again each morning.
When I asked Calloway if New York ever became less awesome, he grinned, shook his head and said “Not at least for the first year, when you’ve seen how we celebrate every holiday, but even then you’d be hard pushed to find it boring.”
I liked that answer. If I’d ever doubted my decision to move there, I couldn’t any more. The place was just too damn much fun.
In the midst of all the awe was the definite thrum of jubilation for the arrival of the weekend. Those who’d won an early end to their work week laughed with their friends while they hailed cabs as their tugged at their ties—almost like they were releasing themselves from a noose that bound them to responsibility. In spite of that universal relaxation, Calloway was back in one of his mouthwatering suits complete with waistcoat and cuff links, looking like the most official and uptight man in the city.
I was beginning to know better. To my surprise, he’d put up no resistance to my suggestion of taking the subway up to Herald Square and making our shopping trip by foot. He’d even hooked an arm around my waist to hold me up on the rickety tracks and made jokes about the posters for teeth whitening and extreme weight loss treatments plastered to the walls of the train’s car. Despite being five years my senior, he could still act like a kid—bugging me for information on what the infamous Esme really looked like. The seriousness of his demeanour was limited only to the clothes he wore.
Or so I thought. The battle to purchase my slinky black strapless cocktail dress from an ex-catalogue boutique around the corner from Macy’s had been won too easily. If anything, his appreciation for my budget-conscious attitude should have aroused some suspicion. But no, nothing until I was sat in front of the mirror in a neon-hued beauty salon with Calloway at one shoulder and a nervous looking stylist at the other, rendered mute by the conversation behind me.
“You see, Leoni,” he rambled, stro
king my head like I was a patient child, “it’s not about the dress, it’s about the woman in it. An updo is going to make her look like a hooker wary of getting cum in her hair but wearing it loose will make her look like a busty escort. I don’t want it to look like I’m paying for company tonight.” Seriously, I could not believe what was coming out of his mouth with such ease. He’d told me the damn dress looked great when I’d tried it on. Nothing was said that my options were looking like varying degrees of prostitute.
“So what were you thinking, Mr Ryan?”
He paused, looking at my reflection without catching my eye, and pursed his lips. “Crop it.”
I quickly found my voice. “I very much beg your pardon?”
“Short and sleek, Emmeline. Very professional. It will still be feminine but will demand the respect of peers and employees alike.”
“Fucking seriously?” Seething, my voice lost me again for a moment. Not half an hour earlier, I’d been telling him how staff loved my casual attitude and he’d agreed that having a personal style was important. When I found it again, I addressed the stylist. “Leoni, is it? Cut my hair and I’ll get you fired.”