by Megyn Ward
“Yup, he told me that too,” Jase says with a grin. “She hot?”
“Excuse me?” I say, trying to remember that this is Jase. My brother. Not some guy in a nightclub who needs his skull cracked open.
“She is.” His grin widens. “Can I have her when you’re finished with her?”
It’s not a strange question. Not for Jase. We’ve shared women before, but before I know what I’m doing, I bolt out of my seat to tower over him. “You’ll stay away from her—got it?”
“Holy fuck.” Now his mouth falls open, gaping at me. “It’s her, isn’t it? It’s her. The—”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Stepping away from my desk, I head toward the sideboard where I keep a decanter of Dalmore 64. It’s too early for a drink but if I’m going to have to deal with Jase, I’m going to need it.
“Bullshit you don’t,” Jase counters, watching me like he’s afraid I might have rabies. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. The woman. The one who got you all fucked up, a few years back.”
I never told anyone about Silver. What happened that night. The morning after. But the fact that Jase was able to put it together isn’t that hard to believe. Growing up in Brighton, you develop survival instincts. Your senses sharpen. You see things other people can’t. Maybe don’t want to. Still I feel the need to lie through my teeth.
“There’s been a lot of women.” I lift the decanter and pull the stopper to pour myself a double. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Yeah. There’s been a lot of women—” He nods in agreement. “but only one that took you out of the game for a year and a half.”
He’s right. After Silver, what I thought I knew about her, I stopped trusting my instincts. At least that’s what I told myself. Looking back, I think I just didn’t want anyone else.
Not after having her.
Even after I got back into the swing of things, my sex life has been considerably slower than it was before Silver. There have only been a handful of women since that night and none of them have lasted more than a week or two before I’m clawing for the escape hatch.
I toss my drink back, barely feeling the burn against the gnawing hole in my gut. “Is there a reason you’re in here and not in your own goddamned office?” I growl, turning to glare at him.
“Yeah,” he says, totally unconcerned with the fact that I clearly want to murder him. “I wanted you to know that I met with the Senator last night for drinks. It’s all good—” He stands and re-button his suit jacket while giving me an angelic smile. “we’re in.”
For all his bullshit, there’s a reason Jase is my second. The guy I can count on. This is it. We’ve been chasing this government contract for nearly a year. Hand-feeding politicians and massaging city officials. Last night was the culmination of months’ worth of work and he saved my ass.
“Thank you,” I say because he deserves to hear it.
“You want to thank me?” he says, wagging his eyebrows at me. “Tell me what she looks like.”
I laugh, shake my head. “Still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.” Jase shakes his head, laughing at me on his way out the door.
As soon as I’m sure he’s gone, I pull on my jacket and follow him out.
“Cancel my next block of appointments,” I say to Lara, on my way to my private elevator.
“Shall I re-route your calls to your cell, Mr. Bright?” she says, raising her voice slightly as I move past her without stopping.
“No.” I press the button and the elevator door slides open almost instantly. “I’m taking the rest of the day off.”
Silver’s gone.
I’m standing in the middle of my hotel suite’s living room, looking around, trying to figure out what happened.
Where she went.
What went wrong.
Breakfast sits on the table by the window, stone cold and completely untouched. I imagine room service delivering the standing order. Silver’s confusion. She would’ve asked questions and they would’ve explained because I’ve never given them instructions not to.
Because before Silver, I’ve never cared about how the women I’ve brought here have felt about knowing they’re not special. That the opulent suite and car service isn’t about them. It’s just standard operating procedure.
Shit.
I leave the living room, pushing my way through the double doors that lead to the bedroom, knowing what I’ll find before I even look. The clothes I had Angus buy for her last night are folded neatly on the bed. On top of them is a note.
Tobias –
Thank you for your offer of investment in our restaurant but I’ve decided to move in a different direction. Good luck in all your future endeavors.
S.
On top of the note is the bracelet I gave her. Seeing it there tells me everything I need to know. This isn’t some trick, some ploy to get me to chase her.
Silver is gone and she isn’t coming back.
35
Silver
“Silver, there’s a man here to see you.”
I look up to see Jean Luc, my assistant, poking his head through the open kitchen door. In the background, I can hear the ringing of silverware and the chime of crystal as my army of wait staff and busboys set thirty-six tables for dinner service.
“Thank you, Jean Luc,” I say, wiping my mouth before setting my napkin next to my plate. “Send him in.”
I don’t ask who it is.
I already know.
It’s Tobias.
I knew he’d follow me. That the note turning down his offer of investment would go ignored. That the bracelet I left behind would demand an explanation.
Men like Tobias aren’t used to being told no but I’d hope that if I wounded his pride enough it would keep him away.
At least until I was ready to face him.
I’d hoped he wouldn’t make me do this here, in front of my father. In front of Noah. I took the train home while Tobias has a fleet of Lears, lined up and waiting to take him wherever he wants to go, at a moments’ notice. To be honest, I’m a little surprised he wasn’t here waiting for me when I got to the restaurant.
Lifting my glass of wine, I take a bracing sip before turning toward my father. “I’ll ask you not to say anything until he leaves,” I say, offering him a reassuring smile. “I need you to trust me. I’ll explain everything, but not until he’s gone.”
My father, who’s been watching me since Jean Luc made his announcement, nods his head but he doesn’t look convinced.
“Promise me, Dad.”
“I promise,” he says, grimacing slightly, like the words taste bad in his mouth. “Who—”
Before he can ask, Tobias appears in the doorway. He’s wearing a pair of dark jeans and a dark-colored, crew-neck sweater under a dark-leather jacket. His expression caught somewhere between anger and relief, he looks beautiful. A little dangerous.
He looks like the man I met on my birthday at a nightclub, five years ago—nothing like the buttoned-up billionaire I met yesterday, not more than a dozen yards away.
He’s staring straight at me, chest heaving slightly, like he’s having a hard time just standing there. Like he’s trying to convince himself to keep his distance.
He has my bracelet in his hand.
“Mr. Bright,” my father’s voice rings out, his promise to stay out of things forgotten as soon as he made it. “We weren’t expecting you but I think we have room for one more. I’d love to hear about the potential locations for the restaurant you and Silver—”
“I’m afraid your daughter left before we had a chance to scout locations, Chef,” he says as he approaches the table, his dark blue gaze narrowed on my face. “As a matter of fact, she’s informed me that she’s turning down my offer to invest altogether.”
“Silver?” My father turns to look at me. I didn’t tell him that. When he asked me how things went in New York, I told him fine.
>
“Dad, Mr. Bright and I have a previous relationship,” I say, fighting the flush that’s trying to push its way into my cheeks. “In light of that, I think it would be inappropriate to take his money.”
“Previous—” My father’s gaze sharpens considerably.
“What Silver is trying to tell you is that we met in a nightclub five years ago.” He’s talking to my father but he still hasn’t looked away from me. “While I’ll spare you the details, I will tell you that I was an unbearable prick the morning after, and not a day has gone by since then that I haven’t regretted the things I did, on about a dozen different levels.”
“Silver?” My father’s tone is low, his voice soft. I can hear it in his voice. I know what he’s asking me. That he deserves an answer but I can’t give it. Not yet. Not with Noah sitting beside me, listening to every word being said.
“You promised, Dad,” I say without looking at him before addressing the man standing in front of me. “Tobias—”
“I haven’t used that suite in six months,” he says because he still thinks that’s what this is about. He hasn’t even noticed Noah, half-hidden by the turn of my shoulders. “And even then, less than a handful of times since the night I met you.” He steps closer to lay my bracelet on the table between us. “I told myself it was because after what happened, what I believed about you, I didn’t trust myself. I made mistakes. Opened up to you. Let you get too close. That I got lucky. Dodged a bullet when it came to you.” He swallows hard, his gaze trained on my face. “But that’s not why—not even close. The reason is—”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand, shaking my head, panic seizing me so hard and fast I can feel my heart lodging itself in my throat. “Please, I can’t let you—”
“But I want to hear how he did it, Mom,” Noah pipes up behind me. From the corner of my eye, I can see his dark head peek around my shoulder. His face aimed straight at Tobias.
At his father.
“I want to know how to dodge bullets too.”
36
Tobias
As soon as I found her note, I called Angus and had him ready my plane. Drove myself home and changed because when I saw her again, I wanted to be me.
Not Tobias Bright, the billionaire.
I wanted to be me.
Tobias.
The man who fell in love with her.
I was so focused on Silver, that when I walked in, all I could see was her. Explaining everything to her was all I could think about. Making her understand. Forgive me, was all that mattered.
Now that I see him I can’t look away.
“I want to know how to dodge bullets too,” the boy says, his wide, luminous gray eyes staring up at me from behind Silver. The same eyes that have haunted me for five years, set in a face I know as well as my own.
He looks exactly like my mother.
When I don’t answer him, when all I can do is stare, the kid leans even closer. “Mom?” he says, his brow slightly furrowed, bouncing a look between me and his mother.
Silver clears her throat and shifts herself in her seat again, giving me a better view of the boy behind her. “Noah,” she says carefully, slipping her arm around his shoulder. “This is… my friend, Tobias. Tobias, this is my son Noah.”
My son.
As soon as she says it, my ears start to ring—a high-pitched howling that makes it hard to concentrate. See straight. Think clearly.
My son.
Not your son.
Not even our son.
My son.
“Nice to meet you, Tobias,” the kid holds his hand out for me to shake.
“Hi, Noah.” I breathe it out while I take his hand, letting my fingers wrap around his. “It’s nice to meet you too.” I must be smiling because the kid suddenly beams up at me, giving me a grin that nearly splits me in two. “How old are you, Noah?” I don’t know why I ask. Maybe because I need confirmation, despite what my eyes and my heart are telling me. Maybe because I can feel Silver’s father staring at me from across the table and I want him to know that I didn’t know. That if I had known…
“I’m four,” he says. “But I’m almost five.” He nods sagely, like being almost five holds some sort of magical property. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two,” I tell him, somehow managing to sound normal. Not at all like I’m holding a conversation with a part of myself I never even knew existed. “I’m almost thirty-three.”
“Are you my mom’s boyfriend?” he asks me, his face scrunched up while reclaiming his hand. “Because Papa and I were hoping that Patrick could be her boyfriend because Papa likes him and he lets me push all the buttons in the elevator but Patrick says—”
“Noah James—” Silver says in the kind of warning tone all mothers seem to come equipped with. As soon as she says it, she goes pale, her mouth clamping shut before the rest of it can escape.
“Fiorella.” I finish for her.
She didn’t even give him my last name.
“Tobias,” she whispers, finally managing to tear my attention away from the boy behind her.
“Don’t.” I say it softly because her father is still staring at me and so is the boy and I can’t say what I want to say. Not without all hell breaking loose. Not without saying things that might hurt or confuse Noah.
My son.
“I’ll let you get back to your dinner,” I say, forcing myself to look at her before refocusing on Noah. “It was nice to meet you.”
I turn to retrace my steps. Through the swinging door. Down the service corridor. Past the dining room. Out the heavy glass door, my gaze focused on the Maybach Angus kept curbside at my request.
“Will you at least let me try to explain?”
I knew she was behind me. Heard her calling my name as she hurried to catch up to me. I had no intention of answering her. Of stopping. I have to get out of there. Away from her.
“Tobias, please.”
Against every instinct I have, telling me to leave. To go back to New York and forget I ever met her, I turn around and look at her.
“What do you want?” I say, turning around to pin her with a glare that seems to freeze her in place. After she stares at me for a few seconds she starts to shake her head, her face pale and stricken.
“Nothing,” she says, arms wrapped around her middle. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“Good.” I jerk open my door before Angus has a chance to get out of the car and do it for me. “Then that’s exactly what you’ll get.”
37
Silver
“What do you want?”
As soon he says it, I feel like someone’s knocked the air out of my lungs. I feel loose inside. Like my guts are going to spill out so I wrap my arms around my middle to hold myself in.
“Nothing.” I shake my head, trying to breathe my way around the pain. This is exactly what I expected. Exactly what I knew would happen. He’d find out about Noah and think I want his money. “I don’t want anything from you.”
He glares at me for a moment, like maybe he’s trying to figure out what my angle is. Like maybe he doesn’t believe me. “Good,” he snarls at me, yanking his own car door open before Angus can even get out of the driver’s seat. “Then that’s exactly what you’ll get.”
He shuts the door in my face. A few seconds later, the car pulls away from the curb and I stand there, willing myself not to fall apart.
The rest of the evening passes by in a fog. As soon as I came in from chasing Tobias out into the street, my father pounced on me, demanding to know what was going on. If Tobias Bright was Noah’s father.
“Yes.” That’s all I said, because that’s the only thing there is to say. Tobias is Noah’s father. There’s nothing else to explain. How can I explain what happened when I don’t even know. Can’t even wrap my head around it.
When Jane showed up after work, she took one look at me and knew. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t pepper me with questions. Didn’t say I told you so. She just
wrapped her arms around me and said what I needed to hear.
“I’ll be waiting with a bottle of wine and box of tissue when you get home,” she says, smiling at me before scooping Noah up and taking him home for me like she does every night.
Have I mentioned how lost I would be without her?
I spent the rest of the night on auto-pilot. Putting out fires and dodging my father until the last diner was out the door and the night’s totals were tallied and locked in the safe in my office.
I called an Uber and slipped out the front while my father was still in the kitchen.
When I finally got home it was well past midnight. Usually, Jane is asleep on the couch when I come in and I wake her up and send her down the hall to her own apartment. Tonight, she’s wide awake, promised wine open and half gone on the coffee table, a buffet of junk food laid around it.
She even managed to wrangle Delilah.
“Where’s Noah?” I say, peeling off my coat.
“Asleep, in his own bed,” Jane says, pressing a glass of wine into my hand as soon as I sit next to her on the couch. “I figured you might need a good cry.”
She’s right again. It’s impossible to get a good cry on when you have a curious four-year-old asking why you’re crying every ten seconds.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the wine while offering her a weak smile. “I’m sure I’m going to need it.”
“Well,” Delilah says, curled up in the armchair, her bare feet tucked underneath her. She’s wearing a leather mini-skirt and enough eyeliner to make Ozzy Osborne jealous. Despite her obvious club attire, she looks mostly sober. “You want to tell us what happened?”
I don’t.
I don’t want to tell anyone what happened.
I just want to take a shower, try to scrub the last few hours off my skin and crawl between my sheets to sleep and cry for a week straight.
Maybe longer.
But I tell them anyway because they deserve to know and maybe if I say it all out loud, I can figure out where I went wrong.