“What’s that?”
“Promise you won’t laugh...”
He crossed his heart. “I promise.”
“Promise, promise?”
“Promise, promise.”
“I’ve never been so horny in my life.”
His eyebrows arched. “You’re horny?”
“You don’t even know how horny I am. And when you kiss me like that? Good God, I just want to have sex on the floor with you right now.”
“I wish I’d known, because trust me, I would have been doing something about it. Hell, for the past few months, I’ve been trying my best to keep my distance from you because I thought that sex would be too uncomfortable for you.”
“I know—I get it. It’s because I’ve become a whale.”
“First of all, you are not a whale—so please stop saying that. The reason is because you are eight months pregnant, and since I’m a man, I have no idea what that feels like. I’ve wanted to make love to you more than you know, but I didn’t want you to feel pressured to go through with it just to please me.”
“And I love you for that,” I said. “But trust me, feel free to find a way to get the job done—if that’s even physically possible—because tonight, Alex? I need a mercy fuck. You know, when you kiss me like you just did? My mind goes to mush and all I want is you on top of me, though that probably wouldn’t work at this point. In fact, if you were to get on top of me, you’d likely be reduced to a Teeter Totter. Still, if you’ll have me, I do want you to make love to me. I’m not sure how that will work, but we can figure it out. Can’t we?”
“Let’s figure it out tonight,” he said.
“Oh, my God, please!” I said. I reached for his hand and kissed the back of it. “Alex, I’m sorry about how I’ve been behaving. This isn’t me. I’m not myself, and I know it.”
“What can I do to help?”
“What we have in mind for tonight will be a huge help—trust me.”
“What else can I do?”
“Just keep being you?”
“There has to be more...”
“Alright. How about if you go on the black market and get me something to stabilize the hormones that are coursing through me?”
“I would if I could.”
“I know you would. But, look, here’s the bright side—in a few weeks, the baby will be here, things will start to settle down, and you and I at long last will be parents.”
His eyes brightened when I said that.
“Don’t,” I said. “Because if you start to get emotional, then there’s no telling what will become of me.”
“But don’t you see?” he said as he leaned in to kiss me again. “When you say that we’re about to become parents, I become the happiest man in the world.”
AFTER ALEX HAULED ME off the sofa, I asked if he was available for lunch.
“I have a meeting,” he said tentatively. “But I can cancel it. In fact, let me cancel it. You’re more important than any meeting.”
“No, no,” I said. “Go to your meeting. I’ll call Kate and Epifania, and see if either of them are free. If they aren’t, maybe Ann would like to join me for lunch. Either way, I’ll be fine.”
“Where will you go?”
“Probably to some greasy diner because what I’m craving right now is a big fat burger and fries.”
He furrowed his brow at me. “You’ll go out? But I thought the deal we had is that you’d be staying in.”
I pressed my finger against his suited chest. “Don’t worry, because I’ve already thought about that and I have it covered. I’ll take the elevator to the lobby, and Cutter or Tank will drive me to wherever I decide to go. A few steps to the car, a few steps out of the car, a few steps onto the sidewalk and then into the restaurant. Nothing more than that. And since one of them will be at my side, I think we can both agree that with them watching over me, my having lunch out is nothing for you to concern yourself with.”
“I guess that’ll be OK,” he said reluctantly.
“It will be fine. Because after dealing with the ugliness that was Blackwell and Lisa this morning, I need one of three things—Kate’s calm, Epifania’s ability to make me laugh, or Ann’s perspective on how best to deal with the final month of my pregnancy. So,” I said, “give me a kiss, go to your meeting, and I’ll see you later this afternoon.” I winked at him. “And especially later this evening...”
“You’re on,” he said.
I wrapped my arms around him—well, nearly around him. My stomach was too much in the way for me to completely seal the deal.
“I love you, Alex.”
When I said that, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me before he slid his hands down the length of my body and grabbed my ass.
“Not more than I love you,” he said. “As you’ll see tonight...”
CHAPTER SIX
AFTER TRYING KATE’S number and getting voice mail, I decided to call Epifania, who answered after two rings.
“Hey, studsy to the Rudsy, what you wearing now?” she asked, clearly not aware that it was me on the phone. “Are your pants too tight in the crotch because you thinking about my little meow-meow right now? Epifania want to know, especially after last night, when you came on my—”
“Epifania, it’s me,” I said. “It’s Jennifer. For goodness sake, don’t you check your caller I.D.?”
“Yennifer!” she said. “Well, Heyzeus Cristo, I sure as hell didn’t that time! But consider yourself lucky, lady, because I just gave you a leetle peep show of the kind of phone sex the Rudsy and I have—and I was going to do it right here at the Saks!”
“You’re at Saks?” I said.
“I am! I love the shopping. After all, what else is the dead Chuckie’s money good for, you know?”
“Saks is just a few blocks from Wenn. What are you doing for lunch?”
“Epifania having lunch with you! Where you wanna go, the kitten?”
“Don’t judge...”
“Epifania never yudge no one—except for maybe that beeg beech Immaculata Almendarez. I ran into her last night at this hoitsy to the toitsy party at Henri Dufort’s. She and I had another spat in the ladies room, which I still the laughing at, because I saw what that broad was doing earlier in the night. She was trying to shake down another rich dude, and I called her out on it. She pure poison, that one.”
Alex and I had received an invitation to Henri’s party—but we had to decline because it was so uncomfortable for me to be on my feet for too long. Especially in heels. Still, I would have loved to have seen Henri, if only because I adored him so much.
“So, where you wanna eat?” Epifania said. “Because I been shopping since ten, and this girl is hungry.”
“Have you ever heard of the Comfort Diner?”
“The Come For Dinner?”
“No—the Comfort Diner.”
“Never heard of it. And since when we eat at the diners, anyway?”
“Since about a month ago, when my craving for fried food went through the roof.”
“Oh! This about the baby. Well, honey, if that the case, just tell me where this Comfort Diner is and I’ll meet you there in—what? Thirty minutes?”
“Thirty minutes would be perfect,” I said. “It’s only a few blocks from where you are—214 East 45th Street. I’ll see you there soon—and thank you, Epifania. After this morning, I need a side of fries, a side of mash, a side of eggs Benedict, and even a side order of their delicious comfort quesadilla, which actually will be a full order, but to hell with it. Don’t judge.”
“Baby, I was born on a fucking banana leaf—you know that. So who in the hell am I to yudge? Look, I see you there in the thirty, the cookie. And I can’t wait to kiss your face, because even though I see you only few days ago, I miss your face already!”
“I love you, Epifania.”
“I love you, too, the cookie,” she said. “And guess what? I gonna buy you a bib right now, because it sound to me like you gonna need one!”
“I probably will,” I said in abject shame.
“Don’t worry! It be a classy bib. Swarovski crystals on it—you know, the whole shebang. And just so you know, because Epifania is getting plenty of the sex with the Rudsy, she in a mood today! So you better get ready for that now, because after what the Rudsy did to me last night? Oh, dios mio! At the very least, Epifania hungry for another beeg fat hot dog!”
WHEN I CALLED DOWN to security for a driver, I specifically asked for Cutter.
“Hi, Jennifer,” he said when he answered. “What’s up?”
“I’m having lunch with Epifania, and Alex won’t allow me to leave here without either Tank or you at my side and behind the wheel. Would you mind driving me?”
“Of course not. Are you leaving now?”
“I’ll be down in five.”
“See you then.”
Yes, you will, I thought. And if you’re open to it, we’re going to talk about the situation you’re in with Daniella when I get there...
When I arrived in the lobby swaddled in my winter coat, gloves, and holding my handbag at my side, Cutter was there to greet me—and I knew at once from the uncomfortable look in his eyes that he knew that I knew that he’d broken it off with Daniella.
I saw embarrassment on his face, which made my heart break for him. Beyond Daniella’s insistence that they find an apartment and move in together, what had she said to him when she didn’t get her way? How ugly had things become between them to make him actually leave her—even if this only was a temporary situation, which I hoped it was. That girl could be a nightmare when she wanted to be, and if she’d really gone off on him as only Daniella could, I knew that there was the very real chance that Cutter might decide to cut his losses sooner rather than later—and choose to leave her for good.
I stepped out of the elevator and gave him a kiss on each cheek.
“How are you?” I asked.
“What’s more important is how you are doing and especially how you are feeling,” he said. “Not long now, right?”
Skillfully dodged...and not taking the bait.
“Cutter, let me just come clean with you now—I feel like a zeppelin. But it is what it is, I guess, right? What matters is that the baby is healthy.”
“And you look healthy. You’ve got that glow, you know?”
“That glow would be my hormones taking over my body and holding it hostage,” I said. “But I appreciate the compliment.”
“It’s well deserved.”
I wanted to keep the moment light between us, so I went for the joke. “You know, before we go, you might want to have someone pack a wheelbarrow in the back of the limo, because after we leave the Comfort Diner, which is where you’re taking me, you might need to wheel me out of that joint. I’m that hungry, Cutter—and no, I have no control over it.”
With a wink, he lifted up his right arm, and flexed his bicep for me through his thick black overcoat—which apparently couldn’t conceal the truth of just how fit he was. “I highly doubt that, ma’am. Former SEAL, and all. I’m good to go in any situation.”
“I know. Remember? I saw you in action on that island. So, please—take me to the golden palace that serves the coveted comfort quesadillas.”
“You’ve got it,” he said.
When we left Wenn, Cutter took me gently by the arm, led me across the busy sidewalk to the car that was double-parked at the curb, and then he opened the rear door and helped me with my seat belt since I couldn’t seem to buckle it on my own. When he was finished, he got behind the wheel and asked me for directions to the diner.
“214 East 45th Street,” I said. “And ASAP!”
“We’re off,” he said as he cut into traffic.
But at this hour, with everyone out for lunch, traffic wasn’t moving, and soon, we found ourselves at a standstill.
“What time were you planning to meet Epifania?” he asked.
“In twenty minutes, but we should be fine. It’s not that far from here.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Traffic is pretty bad.”
“Don’t worry—I’ve got Epifania on speed dial. You know how easygoing she is. She won’t mind waiting if we’re a few minutes late.”
He nodded at me, but when our eyes connected in the rearview mirror, I saw that he quickly looked away.
“Cutter, let’s not do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Ignore the elephant in the car—you know, the one that isn’t me. I’m concerned about you. And I’m sorry about whatever happened between you and Daniella. If you want to talk about it, you can always talk about it with me. You know that I’m a vault. If you want to unload on someone, whatever you say to me will remain between us.”
When he didn’t answer, I took that as a positive sign and asked him what had happened.
“How much do you already know?” he sighed.
“Just what Blackwell told me this morning—that Daniella was pressuring you to get an apartment together.”
“We’ve only been seeing each other for a year,” he said.
“Actually, not even a year,” I said. “It’ll be a year on Christmas eve.”
“Exactly. And where I come from? That’s too soon to move in together.”
“And try telling Daniella that, right? Look, Cutter, we all know how she can be. And if you are feeling that anyone is questioning your need for space right now, let me assure you that nobody is. Not even Blackwell, because she—like the rest of us—knows exactly how her daughter can be.”
His gaze flicked up to meet mine in the rearview mirror as we inched forward in traffic. “Barbara isn’t angry with me?”
“Not at all. In fact, if she’s angry with anyone, she’s angry with her daughter for creating this mess.”
“Daniella and I had one hell of an argument, Jennifer. I said some things I probably shouldn’t have said to her.”
“In the heat of the moment, I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t said things that they don’t regret. When Alex and I started seeing each other, I believe there was one particularly epic night in which we had our share of words too. In fact, I might have even thrown fistfuls of diamonds at him at a party in front of hundreds of people before I walked out on him—and swore to myself that I’d never see him again. But look at us know—four years of marriage later, and we’re more in love than ever. Oh, and there’s also a baby on the way.”
“You threw diamonds at him?” he asked.
“I did,” I said. “I literally hurled them at him.”
“That doesn’t seem like you at all.”
“I was a lot younger then, and it was a different time in my life. But I don’t regret it, because when I stood up to him? He respected me for it.”
“I had to stand up to Daniella,” he said.
“And it got ugly?”
“Oh, it got ugly.”
“Do you want to talk about it? If you don’t, that’s fine. I just want you to know that as your friend, I care about you. I also know that not everyone is comfortable broaching this subject with you, and that you might feel—”
“I love her!” he said. “I can’t get her out of my mind! But she wants too much from me too fast. Why can’t we just be chill, be in love, and allow our relationship to grow without any pressure?” He cut into the left lane and advanced forward when he could. “You know what? I wanted to be the one who proposed that we should live together. I wanted to have the privilege of that moment, because I’m a traditionalist—just like Tank is. But Daniella? Daniella always has to rule the world. If she can’t, she’s unhappy. When she first came to me with this, I was caught off guard. And do you want to know why?”
I was so riveted by what he was saying, I just stared at him. “Why?”
“Because in a few more months—you know, like in the spring, when it’s actually a good time to move? I was planning to ask her to move in with me. My apartment is huge—we’d have plenty of space.”
�
�Well, shit,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“But spring is only a few months away. What happened between you that you felt that you needed to have time apart?”
“It’s what she said to me,” he said.
“What did she say?”
“I don’t know if I even want to say it.”
“We’ve gotten this far, haven’t we?”
“I suppose.”
“Look, Cutter, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No. It’s fine. She said that if I didn’t want to find an apartment and move in together, then there was no way in hell that she could believe that I was in love with her. She said that if I didn’t want to live together at this point in our relationship, then we were a sham. Which we’ve never been—at least not as far as I’m concerned.”
Oh, Christ, Daniella—why do you always have to be this way? Why do you always want to destroy the best parts of your life?
“I’m sorry that she said that to you, Cutter.”
“So am I.” When he shrugged, it was out of exasperation and frustration. “Because I’m not going to lie to you. It hurt.”
With an effort, I leaned forward and placed my hand on his shoulder. “I can only imagine that it did.”
“It’ll be OK,” he said in a quiet voice. “But if for some reason we can’t come to terms and I think we should go our separate ways, then it will be OK in time.”
“I hate this,” I said.
“So do I. Because when we were on that island? Don’t think for a moment that I don’t know that it was Daniella who stood by my side and tended to me when I nearly died. Without her help and her love, I likely wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be dead. All of us know that. All of us know what she did for me there. And in my heart? I know that she’s devoted to me and that she loves me. But, Jesus, Jennifer, when she comes on that strong? And when she goes for the jugular? It’s hard. You know?”
“I do know,” I said. “I’ve had my own dealings with her. So let me ask you this—where do you stand with her now?”
Holiday: Annihilate Them, #2 Page 4