by Cora Brent
“Are you having a stroke?” Jason asked from ten yards away, after I’d stopped in my tracks and cupped a hand over my mouth when I realized he was in the company of Lukas Lund, ex-boyfriend, Nordic god, brilliant architect, and currently ranked number two on my Best Sex list.
And to add to the irony of this strange scene, Lukas was unknowingly standing beside number one on that same list.
Both Lukas and Jason were staring at me at this point, so I forced myself to resume walking and pretend there was nothing odd about this.
“Lukas,” I said with forced enthusiasm. “Wow, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Good to see you too, Audrey,” he said. Everything about Lukas was cool, from the sweep of his unblinking glacial blue eyes to the way his large body occupied space with a kind of imperial detachment.
“I take it you’ve met before?” Jason said, and I noticed that he seemed honestly surprised. Surprised and not altogether pleased.
“We’ve run into each other a few times around town,” Lukas said evasively, and looked away in the direction of Chase Field as if the subject already bored him. We weren’t together that long, only for about four months, more than two years ago. Lukas was gorgeous, intelligent, and fantastic in bed, but I never felt quite comfortable around him. Particularly because I’d seen how quickly that cool, calm veneer could vanish if something really pissed him off.
“I take it you’re not at Stern and Foster anymore?” I asked Lukas, referring to the architecture firm he’d been working for when I met him.
“No, I’m not. I’ve been at Lollis for nearly a year.” He gestured to the expanse of open dirt. “I just took over this project from the original architect.”
“What happened to Mike Destin?”
“He’s dead. Massive heart attack three weeks ago.”
“That’s sad,” I said, knowing it sounded lame. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yup.”
I swallowed. “So how have you been?”
“Can’t complain. And you?”
“I’m good.”
Lukas zeroed in on me with his intense stare. He held it for a long time before he said, “You certainly look good.”
It was an inappropriate thing to say. And Lukas had already demonstrated to me just how terribly unpredictable his moods were. Yet I found myself unable to do more than mutter “Thanks,” and look away.
Jason cleared his throat, maybe to remind us that he was still around. “It might be easier to conduct this meeting at the diner across the street. Anyone up for breakfast?”
“I thought you already had a buttered muffin this morning,” I said with sarcasm.
“Only a single bite,” Jason replied, blinking at me. “And it wasn’t nearly enough. Let’s get something more substantial. Come on, my treat.”
“You mean the company’s treat,” I countered.
“I wouldn’t mind some breakfast,” Lukas said in his silky baritone.
On the walk over to the diner, Jason started chatting with Lukas about baseball. Lukas was a huge baseball fan. It made sense that he would have run into Jason at a Diamondbacks game, especially after I gleaned from their conversation that during yesterday’s game they happened to be guests of a valley land developer.
After the recent shock of finding Lukas Lund at my jobsite this morning, I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I ordered a cheese omelet to be cooperative. Jason and Lukas had ended their discussion of pitching rotations and moved on to the groundbreaking ceremony in a few weeks. I should have been contributing to the conversation and, in fact, Jason tossed me curious glances a few times, but I was too busy consuming copious amounts of coffee and reflecting on how disconcerting it was to be sitting at the same table with two men whose dicks had been in my mouth.
“What do you think, Audrey?” Jason asked me suddenly.
I set down the coffee cup. I had no idea what I was being asked to think about. This was not the scenario I envisioned when I woke up this morning.
“I think the courthouse project represents an opportunity for us to showcase our best work and make an enduring contribution to the city,” I told the men.
There. A very benign, if slightly cloying, bullshit answer to whatever question had been asked.
Jason and Lukas glanced at each other.
“That’s great,” Jason said with his telltale smirk, “but I was really asking for some input on Lukas’s idea of expanding the lobby. He thinks the original design will prove inadequate once the courthouse is in use.”
“We can find the space if we cut out some of those useless decorative pillars and move one of the jury-duty rooms,” Lukas said, eyeing me. “I was playing around with it last night and can get the proposed revision over to your team by tomorrow.”
“And then we can present it to the county.” Jason nodded. “I think they’ll like the idea.”
“That sounds great,” I said with a little too much enthusiasm.
Jason and Lukas didn’t appear to notice, however. They returned to discussing the project and assorted progress benchmarks. I paid attention and made the appropriate comments, but all along I couldn’t shake the surreal sense that this was a dream.
“Wait, you have one of those condos in the high-rise next to the ballpark?” Jason asked Lukas.
“Moved in last year,” Lukas confirmed. “It’s nice to be able to see the games going on even when I’m not inside the stadium. Plus, the commute to work is pretty sweet.”
“Man, color me jealous. I bought a house in Chandler a few months ago and I miss the easy commute. That I-10 is the devil.”
“You bought a house?” I asked Jason with surprise. When he first started working for Lester & Brown, he was living in some mancave close to the chaos that was Arizona State University. Since then I’d heard he moved up to a nice downtown place, and I had just assumed he was still there.
Jason nodded. “Yes, I bought a house.”
“Why’d you move out to Chandler?”
He looked down. It was uncharacteristic of Jason to look uncomfortable, but he hesitated for several long seconds before he spoke again. “You get more bang for your buck in real estate out there, plus I’m dealing with some family issues.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. All I’d ever known about Jason’s family was that they’d once been wealthy but their fortunes changed when his father’s business failed. I’d be curious what kind of family issues would motivate a player like Jason to settle down out in the stucco suburbs of the East Valley. But he didn’t look as if he was in the mood to talk about it. Instead of asking for details, I took a bite of my cheese omelet.
Lukas left a few minutes later to deal with some architect emergency, but before he walked away, he handed me his card and fixed those startling blue eyes on my face with hypnotic intensity.
“I’m glad we’ll be working together, Audrey,” he said in a tone that was actually pretty inviting. “Reach out to me anytime if you want to discuss the project. Or anything else.” He nodded to Jason. “See you, Jay.”
“So long,” said Jason, but he was looking at me.
“What?” I snapped when Lukas was out of sight.
He sighed and whipped out his corporate credit card. “That was awkward.”
“For who?”
“For everyone, I think. So, you and the Viking architect . . .”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Jason leaned forward. “Then finish it for me.”
I cut the remains of my omelet with the side of my fork. “Yes, Lukas and I used to see each other. It was a little over two years ago. He was one of the architects on the Samaritan Hospital project, and when it wrapped up, he asked me to dinner.”
Jason broke into a nasty grin. “And did you, ah, have dinner with him more than once?”
I glared at him. “Don’t venture into perverted territory. I won’t follow you.”
“Then you’ve changed, Audrey,” he said with a nasty grin tha
t reminded me we’d spent a lot of time naked together.
I sat up suddenly and angrily, nearly toppling my chair. “You never stop.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Jason said, and he actually did look kind of sorry. His usual smirk had disappeared. “Please sit down and finish your breakfast.”
“I’m done anyway,” I said, but I sat. “It’s really not a big deal. Yeah, Lukas and I dated for a few months, but it was several years ago and we haven’t kept in touch. I had no idea he’d wind up being the chief architect on the courthouse. I can’t say I had a strong desire to run into him again.”
“It doesn’t seem like he feels the same way. Poor boy was practically drooling.”
“Lukas . . .” I started to say but didn’t know how to continue. Jason didn’t need to know the rest. Lukas Lund was a great lover and always paid for dinner, and sometimes that icy calm dissolved without warning.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had suspected something was off with him even before he seized a drunk bar patron and slammed him into a wall after the guy taunted that I had a nice ass. Yet his temper didn’t flare often, and I began to think my worries were all in my head. Then came a night when he became annoyed that I kept answering work emails at dinner, and out in the parking lot he grabbed my phone out of my hand and hurled it against a brick wall.
That only happened once.
I made up my mind to break things off with Lukas the instant I saw the spider-web cracks on my iPhone. Maybe he only threw a phone, but who does that? And could that escalate to something else? There was no way I was going to stick around for that shit no matter how sexy he was or how profusely he apologized. But Lukas didn’t even try to argue. He accepted the fact that it was over between us and he wished me well. It would have been a very dignified breakup if I weren’t clutching a small can of pepper spray in my sweater pocket just in case he got out of line. Luckily he didn’t.
“Audrey?” Jason’s voice was gentle. “It’s really none of my business. And I don’t care how gifted an architect the guy is. If he broke your heart, then he’s a douchebag.”
It was a silly thing to say, but he was trying to be kind for once. I just didn’t have time to deal with Jason’s abrupt transformation into a caring human being.
“He didn’t break my heart.” I stood up and collected my purse. “I’ve got to head back to the office. Remember, we have that conference call at eleven.”
He nodded. “I remember.”
I left him there to finish paying for breakfast. Before I returned to my car, I paused by the empty space where a stately modern courthouse would someday stand. If I closed my eyes, I could see it as if it had already been built. When I opened my eyes, there was nothing to see but dirt and possibility.
I hadn’t lied to Jason. Lukas never broke my heart. And Jason never broke my heart. My heart hadn’t even been cracked by Dole Closterman or any of the handful of other names that had been important to me for a little while.
No, the only person who’s ever really broken my heart is me.
CHAPTER SIX
When you’re the only daughter born into a wealthy family, life comes with certain advantages. It’s like being born on third base. I didn’t appreciate that fact of life until I’d already managed to waste a lot of those benefits.
Throughout my childhood I was a good student and a decent athlete, although nothing remarkable like my big brother, who never glanced at a trophy or a medal that didn’t end up in his possession. My family was a collection of diehard overachievers. My mother spent hours at the hospital or engaged with one of her various committees, leaving the big house always feeling empty. As for my father, he was always working hard at something very important, which I didn’t fully understand at the time. All I understood was that it was better to stay out of his way when he walked through the door until he had a chance to visit his study and suck back a highball. Or two. Or five. He couldn’t seem to handle being home for more than fifteen minutes without nursing a drink.
Aaron and Cindy Gordon weren’t naturally affectionate people, but I can’t say that I felt unloved. I attended great schools, owned fantastic wardrobes, and received the keys to a BMW convertible before I even officially had my license. But all that privilege can have its pitfalls, especially if no one ever explains that it’s a bad idea for a sixteen-year-old girl to drink a bottle of schnapps and play Lipstick Dick at a party. I quickly discovered that I liked drinking. I liked sex. And I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from doing either one.
As it turned out, they didn’t even notice at first. Unless there was a high-profile event where I could be trotted out as the perfect daughter, my parents barely acknowledged my existence. I hadn’t realized how unhappy I was until I found some terrible distractions to dull the ache of their benign neglect.
Now when I think about those days, I’m horrified. I deserve to be horrified, deserve to wince as I remember my brother picking me up out of a puddle of vomit after Brynna Cole and I combined a bottle of tequila with some painkillers stolen from my mother’s medicine chest. No one was home at my house, as usual, so we had invited Clark Lutz over to party, whom I vaguely remember humping in my canopied bed before I started puking everywhere. Clark and Brynna got spooked and took off. So it was William who found me, William who drove me to the hospital, William who tried to convince my folks that I was at the point where I needed help.
But they weren’t convinced despite William’s pleas. Having a daughter go through rehab wasn’t an item on their bucket list. Plus, even though the Phoenix metro area is huge, all the rich people seem to know each other. The country club crowd would have found out and it would have been a source of humiliation for my parents. And as I sat there picking at my scratchy paper gown in a hospital bed while my mother stared out the window and my father angrily signed the discharge paperwork, I understood that potential gossip meant more to them than I did.
And so I responded as any petulant teen would.
I became even worse.
I ignored curfews. I stole from my brother’s wallet to supplement my new drinking habit. I nearly flunked out junior year and nearly flunked out senior year as well. My father must have made a payoff or called in some favors, because there was no way I earned that high school diploma. I was too busy getting drunk in the school parking lot and then riding good old Clark or his buddy Max Levine in the front seat of my BMW while waving to passersby. College wasn’t even on my radar. William was excelling at Stanford Law School and I was surrounded by bright young things who couldn’t wait to sprint into their exciting futures. Yet the future sounded boring to me; it sounded like some bullshit that parents and teachers spat at you to keep you in line. I’d stepped out of line a long time ago. I was a hot mess. And I knew it.
I couldn’t guess what my parents were planning to do with me at that point. My father slapped me across the face when I told him to go fuck himself after he presented me with an ASU catalog. He apologized. His big hands shook as he pressed a towel filled with ice cubes to my bleeding lip. I remembered thinking that it was weird how he was more upset than I was. I was so wasted at the time that the blow had scarcely even hurt.
Then William came home for a visit and put his foot down.
“Goddamn it, I don’t fucking care how it looks. We’re getting her some help now, because I swear I’m not fucking going back to school until I know Audrey’s being taken care of.”
Even though I was sleeping off a hangover in my bed, I could still hear him yelling from the other side of the house. William was shouting, but he was shouting for me, not at me. Someone cared. Someone was on my side. Someone didn’t hate me even though I hated myself most of the time. And I drifted back to sleep feeling a little less empty than I had in a while.
I awoke to daylight and the noise my mother made as she rummaged through my dresser.
“What’s going on?” My throat was so dry the words emerged as a croak. For the past year my mother had visited my bedroom about a
s often as she ventured into the gardener’s shed in the backyard, which was next to never. So the sight of her handling my underwear was a little unusual.
She glanced at me long enough for me to see that she was not wearing her usual mask of perfectly applied cosmetics. “We found a place for you,” she said in a bright voice that sounded too high pitched, artificial.
I yawned. “A place? Can I expect to see bars on the windows?”
I took note of the open suitcase on the floor. It was part of an old set that I last remembered using for a tenth-grade school trip to Washington, DC. My mother dropped a pair of bras into it and then opened my T-shirt drawer.
“Don’t be dramatic, Audrey,” she said with a sigh. “I just mean that you’re going to a place where you can get well.”
“Am I sick?” I asked. Stupid question, because I really did feel sick. I needed my mother to leave so I could reach into my nightstand and find the unopened bottle of vodka I knew was hidden beneath some old empty journals. After a few sips I would feel better, more clearheaded. I could talk my mother out of whatever plan she’d made.
But she wouldn’t leave. She closed the suitcase and approached my bed, reaching out a hand that seemed about to caress my check before it was abruptly pulled back. There was sadness in her eyes when she said, “Yes, you’re sick. Now get up. Your father is waiting in the car and we are leaving right this minute.”
Typical rehab wouldn’t do for a member of the Gordon family. No, a cot in a sterile building was for the unwashed addicted masses. My folks found a place that was equal parts resort and rehabilitation center in the pinewoods outside Prescott. The first time I was there I stayed for a month, suffered terrible withdrawal, and endured countless therapy sessions where I learned my promiscuous tendencies were connected to my addictive personality. The drinking, the sex. I had tied them together, and I needed to stop doing that or I would never have a meaningful relationship. But the caring counselors assured me I could overcome those things. I didn’t need to be a prisoner to my worst urges, and I agreed. I returned home and enrolled in a few classes at community college. I went on normal dates. It seemed like a happy ending. And I’d like to say that everything went smoothly from there on out, but life isn’t like that. As it turns out, I relapsed several times before I was sent back to the pinewoods.