I surfed the web and browsed through Express and Urban Outfitters, adding cute, expensive tops to my shopping cart. Buying crap made me feel better. I had a hole and I would fill it with stuff.
* * *
The town car whisked across the Bay Bridge and I stared out the window at the indiscernible black, rolling hills in the distance. My gaze flicked to the empty leather seat beside me. My hands spread over the seat and I imagined that he sat beside me. He grinned at me in excitement. Ben would have loved this. It was like thinking of a dead loved one. Tightness constricted my throat and the dark thoughts invaded my consciousness, sapping the life out of me and evaporating my desire for the party.
The car stopped in a quiet suburb deep within the San Francisco hills and the noise in my head stopped. I could hardly believe that such an ordinary place could exist in the city. It was an incredibly quiet street and the homes had driveways. I stared. Some of the houses were tall, vertical and pastel-colored. We were in front of a giant, white Victorian mansion that looked like a small castle. On the side was a greenhouse. The black gate opened and pink and yellow tulips lined the driveway and encircled the whole house. I got out of the car numbly and walked up the steps, surrounded by white roses. As I passed the glass house, I realized that it was actually a giant solarium, not a greenhouse. The floor was laid out in marble in a checkered black and white pattern. Beautiful patio furniture covered the gleaming floor and guests sat in wicker chairs, enjoying themselves, drinking champagne, and admiring the view.
As I blundered inside, I couldn’t stop staring. There were countless rooms: a room for the pool table, a library, and a study. Upstairs on the second level was a massive patio with its own garden and above that I could see porches sticking out of the bedroom doors. There were several private courtyards surrounding the first floor where one could sit on a sunny day, obscured from all traffic, and read. It was incredible. I never saw anything like it. I grabbed one of the bubbly glasses of champagne bobbing around the rooms on gold-plated trays and wandered.
The champagne slipped down my throat as I walked towards the crowd of well-dressed men and women, most of them Luke’s business associates. They were too intimidating to approach, so I wandered around on my own. He hosted the party in this ridiculously gorgeous mansion to celebrate the success of his multi-million dollar business deal. As his girlfriend’s best friend, I was invited. Jessica wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She refused to leave me alone in the apartment. Part of me loved that about her. Another part, the part closest to my bitter heart, was sick to death of being coddled.
She feels guilty, even though she did nothing wrong.
It wasn’t her fault, but damn did I resent it. And I hated myself for being such a petty friend. Couldn’t I just be happy for her? For the first time in her life, she was happy. I watched her struggle throughout the years with all the rape and abuse hanging like a ten-ton weight around her neck. A sick part of me even felt jealous for that. She was the tragic, selfless and brave orphan.
I didn’t have a transformative story. I was just a middle-class, white bread girl with no problems. No issues. No horrible trauma or secret abortion or drug habit. Nothing. I was ordinary. No one ever wrote stories about the ordinary girl. I had all the advantages in the world, and yet I was destined to be mediocre.
No one really understands how horrible mediocrity can be.
My fingers bit into the now-empty champagne glass. I walked through the mansion as the lounge music boomed in my ears, marveling at the number of stairs and the art displayed on the walls. I passed the living room where a Steinway & Sons grand piano stood. It probably cost him at least forty grand and I knew for a fact that neither of them could play. I sank my finger down on the ivory middle c and winced as a harsh note glared at me. Not only that, but it was out of tune! It was like biting into kale—bitter, bitter, bitter.
The glass tiers of intricate petit-fours and Kara’s Cupcakes, which had been customized with golden “P”s just for this party, and the bottles of champagne raised out of dripping ice to provide an endless pour of golden excitement—all of it irritated me. They were showing off. Look at me! Look at what I have! It was excessive. I wanted to spit.
The muscles on my face ached from smiling too much. I grabbed the door that led outside and pushed it. Desperate to get away from all the noise and people, I stepped outside and immediately sighed with relief. I wanted to be alone so that I could feel like crap without anyone asking me if there was something wrong.
A redwood porch with tables and chairs overlooked a sprawling garden and backyard. I clutched my shrug around my shoulders and shivered in the freezing, starless night. My shoulders curled forward as I set the champagne glass on the rail and leaned so that the wood dug into my ribs. The noise of the party shut out, I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering breath. The darkness reminded me of nights with Ben when I’d lie in bed and watch him sleep. I never felt so safe.
“Bad night?”
A husky voice shattered my sanctuary and my body turned—right into another body.
“Whoa.” I looked up and saw a broad chest. I backed away and saw a man standing in front of me, looking disheveled in his dark gray suit. It wasn’t his attractiveness that I noticed right away; it was the restlessness of his black eyes, which seemed to hold me still.
A slow smirk stretched across his rugged face. His dark hair flared around him, just as wild as the rest of his appearance: loose tie and shirt untucked, a shoelace trailing behind his scuffed patent leather shoes. He looked drunk, except he held nothing in his hands. There was no stink of alcohol.
“Speak for yourself.” I felt a surge of annoyance toward the man who spotted my dark mood. A bit of surprise registered in my brain. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to talk to an attractive guy like him, but I didn’t find him intimidating at all.
He gave me an unconcerned shrug. “What, this?” He tugged his collar. “I hate parties, but I’m always expected to go to them. I try to look like shit so people leave me alone.”
A smile flickered on my face and he grinned back. Even in his haphazard attire, he was handsome. He had a straight nose and hollowed cheeks. His flushed cheeks would have made him look like some sort of dark angel if it weren’t for his narrowed eyes. How could someone be so attractive but look like shit at the same time?
“I don’t want to be here, either.”
I normally wasn’t this honest, but something about him made me feel like being open. I shivered as he drew closer to me. There was so much energy behind his eyes that I felt suddenly warm and my skin trembled with the abrupt change. A jolt of electricity shot up my leg as his jacket slid from his sinewy shoulders so that he could drape it around me. His hand rested for a few seconds on my shoulder and I felt the absence of his warmth when he took it away like a swift fist to my stomach.
“T—thanks.” I stuck my hand out from his jacket. “I’m Natalie Porter.”
He took my hand and squeezed it. My heart fluttered as another surge shot through his hand into mine. The way his hand grasped mine made me wonder how his hands would feel around my hips. I snapped myself out of it.
“William Pardini.”
Pardini? Oh, crap. I reflexively squeezed his hand. “You’re—you’re Luke’s—?” I couldn’t quite keep the doubt from creeping into my voice. He’s a member of that super rich family? He sure doesn’t look like it.
“Cousin. Yes,” he said in a tone that really said: Yes, unfortunately.
William didn’t look like a Pardini. Sure, he had the Italian features: black hair and eyes, a permanently tanned look, but he was dressed like a homeless person. It was as if they had plucked one of the homeless from Civic Center and shoved him into a designer closet.
He only released my hand when I pulled back. His hot gaze dipped down my dress and back up again. He was being blasé about checking me out, but there was no shame in his eyes.
All I could think about was how perfectly shaped his lips were
and the slow drip of never ending solitude, of entire weekends constructed around a visit to the grocery store and checking my email obsessively. The hole in my chest throbbed like a festering wound and his eyes seemed to burn with the same desperate longing.
“So, what do you do?”
My hand flew to my neck to play with the necklace that dangled there. “I’m a graphic designer. I work at the San Francisco Bay Aquarium.”
He leaned on the rail beside me, stretching his body luxuriously as every bit of his eccentric energy focused on me. His tie was dangerously loose and I fought the urge to readjust it.
“You don’t sound very excited about it,” he commented.
Well, how could I? It was a dead end job, but the money was stable and that’s all I seemed to care about anymore. Safety. I wasn’t one for taking risks. Ben was safe. I wasn’t like Jessica, who practically emptied her bank account to donate her money to a soup kitchen. Stop comparing yourself to her. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but notice the irony in how our roles were reversed. Now she was the one with her shit together and I was the struggling one. Maybe I deserve this.
I shrugged at him.
“Are you any good?”
“I think so, yeah.”
He made an indistinct sound in his throat.
“What do you do?”
“I’m the VP of Marketing.”
“Sounds fun,” I said, echoing his deadpan tone.
His fingers rapped on the wood. “It’s okay, but what I really want is to become CEO. My dad is retiring soon. Luke’s dad is safely out of the way, so that goody-goody bore definitely won’t get the job. It’s a fight between me and my four siblings.”
My mouth hung open in shock. Safely out of the way? “He’s dead, not safely out of the way!”
He merely shrugged at my indignation. “Yeah, so?” he said defensively. “He was a jerk. Even Luke admits it.” Will suddenly sniggered to himself in the darkness and I jumped at the noise.
A savage grin filled his face as he looked at me. “I couldn’t believe that he hired that girl just to fool his dad—spent tens of thousands on her and even after all that, his dad only left him five hundred grand. What an idiot.”
The backyard rang with his laughter. It was such an infectious, loud laugh that I couldn’t help but smile. The shock of something so rude being said out loud and the layer of truth within it softened how offensive it was. A small giggle escaped my mouth.
“I just assumed that it was something rich people did. Don’t have a girlfriend? Go out and buy one!”
His lip curled. “Not this skinny Guinea.” He shook his head. “But I guess it gives you insight on how screwed up some rich people are.”
Like you? I rolled my eyes and blushed hard when he caught me.
The black eyes zeroed in on me. “You’re jealous.”
Guilt stabbed my insides. “I am not!”
“You so are. You’re practically seething with jealousy. It’s okay. I mean, I know Luke is jealous of my brothers and me, even though he’s a rich bastard.”
Luke was many things, but he was not a bastard. The charm of his crazy, offensive behavior was starting to wear off. “Luke’s my best friend’s boyfriend.”
William looked at me. “Oh, sorry,” he said, sounding completely insincere as if he said it thousands of times a day. “That explains it, though. I was wondering why a chick like you would be here.”
Did he just insult me? “What does that mean?”
He smiled at my outrage. “You’ve never been to one of these parties. I can tell because of how nervous you looked when you were in there. That means you don’t work for us. Hot girl alone at a party, it raises questions.”
Hot girl? He was watching me? The compliments flooded my chest with warmth, but at the same time I wanted to run away from him. He was so…forward. We were standing close enough to kiss and I could smell the magnetism from his body. The loose tie dangled in front of my face and I took it in my hands. I slid the blue silk up and readjusted it so that the knot was back on his throat. I couldn’t look away from him. Not even as I took his collar and folded it over his tie. His eyes burned like coals, shifting and falling.
“Sorry,” I said quickly, going a bit pink. I stepped back from him, starting to feel a bit suffocated by his presence.
“So, you’re one of those OCD types?”
My face flushed. “What?”
“You just seem like the type to get overly upset when you see a stain on someone’s shirt. And the type to draw needless attention to it in a desperate attempt to shame them so that they would change clothes.”
Will cocked his head slightly as he watched me, waiting for me to answer.
My face burned at this very negative assessment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
He let out a laugh that made me feel confused.
“Relax, Natalie. I was just messing around.”
I looked at him curiously. He was probably the strangest man I ever met. I wasn’t sure if I liked him much. He was handsome, but he was a bit too strange and kind of insulting. Why is he staring at me?
“We should get coffee sometime.”
The abrupt change in conversation made my head spin. Is he joking? From his behavior, I didn’t think he was remotely interested in me. Either it was a poor joke or he was socially stunted. I sniggered at his serious face and the deadpan delivery. This has been such a weird evening.
William frowned at me. “Well, that’s rude,” he said, turning pink.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped, clutching the rail to stay upright. “Are you serious? You’ve been insulting me this entire time. Why would I want to go anywhere with you?”
His mouth parted and for a moment he looked abashed. Perhaps he wasn’t used to being rejected. “I don’t really have a filter. I don’t mean to come off like an asshole.”
Well, now what should I say? “I see.”
“You know that I’m rich, right?” He was staring at me like I was a sea urchin.
“Well, I assumed so, yes. And?”
Will closed in on me, eyes narrowed. I saw the question in his eyes: Why doesn’t she want to go out with me? “Usually women jump at the chance to go out with me.”
“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
A smile lit up his face as if I paid him a compliment. “You’re a bit cheeky. I like that.”
I’m normally never like this. I shrugged. “Well, whatever. I have everything I want. Anyways, I’m not really looking for a relationship.”
A part of me knew that I was incredibly stupid for saying that. Even if I wasn’t looking for a relationship, wouldn’t it be worth it to give it a shot? Just to say that I was young once and I did something wild—I went out with a billionaire.
Suddenly, he closed in on me, trapping me against the rail. Whoa, this is too close. My heart hammered fiercely when I looked up at his smiling face. He wore a faint sprinkling of cologne that made my skin flush with heat, or perhaps it was his pretty dark eyes looking down at me as if I were a particularly delicious dessert that he was dying to taste.
No one ever looked at me like that.
“Ah, I get it now. You’re still getting over some guy. I can make you feel better, Natalie. Come home with me.” He looked immensely satisfied that he had finally pinned me. I was recovering from a breakup. Finally, I made sense to him.
A stroke of his finger against my cheek set my nerves ablaze. Jesus, he’s forward. It was insanely hot, but I had no desire for a one-night stand. I wasn’t ready for this. He’s just going to throw me away as soon as he’s done with me. Men like him don’t want me.
I ducked under his arm before he could tempt me any more, his laughter making me cringe as I fled back to the party. I glanced back and he was standing confidently with his arms crossed, still smiling.
“I’ll see you again, Natalie.”
His eyes licked up and down my body like flames.
He’s ju
st an asshole who wants to get laid.
Forcing myself to turn around, I fled back inside the warmth of the house, and realized with a hot blush that I still had Will’s jacket draped around my shoulders. I’ll see you again, Natalie.
Damn it.
“Natalie, there you are!”
I recognized Jessica’s voice and fixed a cheery grin on my face. A soup of emotions mixed inside me as she walked over with a beaming smile on her face. Her golden hair, normally straight, bounced on her shoulders.
“Are you having fun? Whose jacket is that?”
My cheeks burned. “Oh, it’s some guy’s.” I pointed towards the dark figure brooding outside. “Yeah, great party. Really great.”
I took in the white glove waiters offering trays of obscure hors d’oeuvres, the live jazz band playing in the living room, the flowers, and the balloons.
She rolled her eyes at it all. “I know. It’s a bit much. I’m still getting used to all this.” She gave me a knowing grin. “Who’s that?”
My heart knocked on my ribs. “Well, he says he’s Luke’s cousin. Pretty weird guy. His name is William.”
Jessica’s eyes went round. “Oh, him. Yeah, Luke talks about him a lot. He’s the youngest of his brothers. Apparently, he’s a bit of a dick.”
Yeah, I think that I got that impression.
I didn’t want to tell her what happened outside. It had been such a strange conversation.
“Come say hi to Luke. He’s been wanting to see you.”
I was dragged back into the suffocating crowd. I really doubted that Luke cared whether he saw me. He looked immaculate in his pinstripe suit. An involuntary wave of heat flushed my skin when he smiled at me. Jessica raced forward into his arms and I realized with a sickening feeling that he was smiling at her—not me.
Don’t fucking crush on your best friend’s boyfriend.
“Natalie, how’ve you been?”
I hated the undertone of concern, the wrinkles creasing around his eyes.
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