by Jade Kerrion
The only problem was, with the abundance of social media and Maggie’s rising fame, there was simply no way to “watch from afar.” She didn’t flaunt her affairs, but the paparazzi did. Like a moth drawn to flame, Drew could not not watch, and he drove himself crazy in the process.
Felicity reached for her coffee. “I’ve been thinking recently that I might be ready to invest my time and energy in something long term. You’re not at the same place. Perhaps we should go our separate ways.”
Drew expelled his breath in a sigh. He nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”
She waved her hand, dismissing his apology. “I knew, going in, that you weren’t quite over someone, and now I see that it’ll be a while before you’re ready to move on. We’ll still be friends, though, won’t we?”
Felicity’s voice was level, but Drew caught a glimpse of pain lurking in her dark eyes. He had hurt her, too, with his obsession with Maggie. “Yes, of course.” He pushed to his feet and walked over to stand behind her chair. He rested his hand on her taut shoulders. A tremble coursed through her. The breakup was not as easy on her as she made it seem.
His chest ached. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, interlacing his fingers on her chest, over her breasts. His cheek pressed against hers, the gesture an intimate farewell.
Felicity leaned into his embrace and chuckled, the sound wavering between a sob and a laugh. “Maggie’s a fool if she doesn’t know what she has in you. Or maybe you’re the fool for not letting her know.”
Together, their breath rose and fell on a sigh. Drew closed his eyes against a future that offered nothing. “Sometimes, it’s better not to know what you can’t have.”
Felicity left after breakfast, and his one-bedroom apartment fell silent. Moving slowly from emotional and mental exhaustion, Drew cleared the breakfast dishes and then returned to the table. He flipped open his computer notebook and continued working on his analysis of investment opportunities for Maggie. The work would eat up his entire weekend, but then again, it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do. Besides, working for Maggie was a hell of a lot less painful than thinking of Maggie.
CHAPTER FIVE
Maggie’s second date with Tyler began with brunch at Café Reggio in Greenwich Village. Their knees bumped under the table as Tyler pulled up a map of New York City on his smartphone. “Now, my goal is to give you a whirlwind tour of the most iconic, non-touristy New York sights,” he said.
“Sure. I can get behind non-touristy.” Any day when she could avoid the paparazzi was a huge win. “Where do we start?”
“We’ve started.” He tapped on his smartphone screen with one hand and waved his other hand to encompass the café. “Did you know that this café is a hundred years old and boasts the oldest espresso machine in the city?”
“That monstrosity back there? Does it still work, or should I be grateful I ordered tea?”
Tyler laughed. “You can try my cappuccino.” He set the phone down as a waiter came over with their drinks and breakfast—a bowl of granola for Maggie and pancakes for Tyler. “So, not that I’m complaining or anything, but why did you make New York your home instead of say, Milan or Paris?”
“Well, I came for college—Parsons School of Design—and after I graduated last year, it made sense to stay. The top fashion brands may have originated in Italy, but all of them have offices here—Armani, Versace...” Drew. She dug into her granola to conceal the sudden flush. “What about you?”
“New Yorker, born and bred. Never leaving. No other city in the world compares. No other city is as…alive.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I know this place like the back of my hand.”
“Looks like I’ve found the perfect tour guide, then.”
Tyler looked under the table. “You wore comfy shoes like I told you. Good. We’ll be eating well and walking a ton to appease the gods of skinny waistlines.”
Maggie laughed. Motion by the entrance of the café drew her attention. Several people stood by the door, pointing and waving at Tyler and her. “Friends of yours?” she asked.
“Never seen them before.”
One of the gawkers, a woman in her mid-thirties, walked toward them with a sheepish smile. “Excuse me, Ms. Marguerite. I’d like to take a photo with you.” Her eyes darted to Tyler. “And you too, please?”
“Of course!” Tyler grinned and pulled his chair closer to Maggie. He slipped his arm around the back of her chair, and leaned in.
Maggie glanced at the crowd gathering outside the café. Her heart sank.
One photograph became two, then three. The line kept growing. At some point, Maggie stopped counting. By the time she got back to her breakfast, her granola was soggy. She picked out the last strawberry from the sodden mass of grain and bit into it. From across the room, several smartphone cameras went off, capturing her every move. Maggie closed her eyes, wished for Tylenol, and prayed for patience.
After brunch, the initial crowd fell away as Tyler and Maggie made their way across Washington Square Park, but gawking newcomers arrived to fill the gaps. Maggie and Tyler spent their day in the Village. They visited a comedy club, had a picnic lunch in Washington Square Park, and then spent the afternoon in a jazz club. Frequently, a celebrity watcher worked up enough courage to request a photograph and then it became a free-for-all until Maggie found herself wishing for professional paparazzi instead. At least the professionals would not have stopped her for selfies.
In spite of the lack of physical progress, Tyler looked like he was having fun. His indulgent attitude toward the endless stream of celebrity hunters soothed the irritable edge of Maggie’s temper. He smiled and laughed as if born to the spotlight. Drew, Maggie reflected, could never have handled the attention as gracefully. Even when he had been Stanford’s star quarterback, he would take the long way around the stadium to avoid reporters and fans. After the initial burst of news around his car accident, Drew quietly faded out of public consciousness and never found his way back.
Most of the time, Maggie suspected Drew did not mind not being in the spotlight, but she had seen him look at pictures of her on the arms of other celebrities, with shadows in his eyes that hinted of loss and regret. She never understood it, and she never asked. Her friendship with Drew had clear boundaries; his car accident and its tragic aftermath were out of bounds.
“You look like a thousand miles away.” Tyler’s voice drew her back to the present.
Maggie turned to him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with the crowd. It’s usually not like this.”
“Oh? How is it like usually?”
“Usually the casual-clothes-and-sunglasses disguise works better.” She tapped the frame of the sunglasses she wore. “I can get around unnoticed unless I’m with someone more famous, like an actor or a celebrity.”
“But I am a celebrity.” Tyler thumped his chest. “The person with the most social media followers wins, and I am right up there with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Even better, I’ve got something they don’t.”
Unease coiled in the pit of her stomach. “Really?”
“I’m the every man.”
“What?”
“The man on the street. The celebrity non-celebrity. I’m just a data analyst who has made his fame the real way, the hard way, posting smart and funny video commentaries about living in New York. Every like, every share, is one person saying they support what I do. They don’t just let their fingers do the clicking. They do the walking too.”
Maggie stared at him. “You’ve been sharing our date on social media? Is that where all these people are coming from? They’ve come out here because you’ve told them where we are?”
“Of course.”
“What do you mean ‘of course’? You said the high school reunion didn’t count as a date because it was too public and you were surrounded by too many people for you to relax and just be you. What do you call this?” She flung her arm out at the host of people surrounding them, people
that Tyler was apparently not seeing.
“How was I supposed to relax surrounded by the jocks who tormented me in PE, or the sorority chicks who snubbed me in front of all their friends, and mine too? Everyone stared when I walked in with you on my arm. I kept expecting someone to trip me up just to make me look like a fool in front of you.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Marguerite, are you really so naïve? Isn’t modeling supposed to be one of the most cutthroat industries out there?”
“It is, but I wasn’t expecting a high school reunion to rank alongside it, and I certainly wasn’t expecting a running Twitter or Facebook commentary on our date.”
“My followers are loving it.” Tyler grinned. “My last tweet about how sexy you look in that yellow sundress had nearly four thousand retweets. That’s publicity money can’t buy, Marguerite. You’re trending on Twitter, right up there ahead of the 6.0 earthquake that hit San Francisco this morning.”
“And that statement, right there, is exactly what’s wrong with the world.”
Tyler chuckled. “Reality sucks. People want to live a dream, and that’s what I’m doing for them. The ordinary man on the street, dating a model. It doesn’t happen for everyone. I’m making dreams real, and you’re a big part of it.” He flashed her a grin. “Don’t you want to make dreams come true? Be an honest-to-god fairy godmother?”
Maggie laughed, because it was easier to laugh at her unease than to give in to the nagging uncertainty. “Are you going to buy me a magic wand?”
“I can, if it helps the image.” Tyler brushed a kiss over her lips.
His kiss did not set off any delicious, toe-curling sensations, but several smartphone cameras clicked anyway. Maggie stifled the sigh and decided to go with the flow. She was overthinking the situation—never an attractive trait—and Tyler was right: He was giving her publicity money could not buy. Any publicity was good publicity, after all; even her agent had told her that.
~*~
By the time Maggie arrived home late that evening, her feet hurt but it was a good kind of ache. Tyler had shown her every attraction worth mentioning in Greenwich Village, and they had walked the length and breadth of the Village several times. It was an experience her other dates would not have offered, probably because they would have considered it too common. Drew would have thought of it, and likely enjoyed it, but his injured knee would never permit it.
Maggie frowned at the thought of Drew. The next day was the third Monday of the month, when they usually met for their monthly discussion on her investments, but she had not heard from him all weekend. She tugged her smartphone from her handbag, but Drew had neither called nor sent her a text.
The message light on her home phone, however, was flashing. Odd. Drew always reached her on her mobile. Maggie called her answering service and smiled when she heard Drew’s familiar voice. “I have some investment ideas for you, but I know you’re busy. Let me know if you still want to meet tomorrow.”
She called him back immediately. It bothered her, just a little, that he sounded surprised to hear from her. “I still want to meet tomorrow,” she said immediately. “Same time, same place?”
“Sure.”
“So, what are these ideas you have for me?”
“Ways to make your money work harder for you—passive and active partnerships in various fashion ventures.”
She leaned against the wall. “You want me to own my brand?”
“You already own your brand, and you can leverage it the way many models have done by launching your own line of fashion or cosmetics.”
“But I don’t know how to run a business.”
“You learn, and you take on partners and employees you can trust.
I trust you. “But won’t it take a while?”
Drew sighed. “Anything worthwhile usually takes a while. After our last conversation, I thought you wanted a stronger guarantee of future income. Well, this is one way to do it.”
Maggie giggled. “You didn’t like my alimony retirement plan?”
Drew responded with silence—a silence that managed to make Maggie feel like a bitch and a fool for baiting him. Tyler would have had a witty comeback. Heck, just about everyone else she had ever dated would have known how to respond with humor. But not Drew.
She decided to hang up before she said something else stupid. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” A passing thought pricked her. “Drew, wait.”
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you call me on my cell phone?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t want to interrupt your date.”
Maggie inhaled sharply and bit down on her lower lip. “You knew?”
“Anyone with a Twitter feed knew. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SIX
Maggie was already waiting at their usual table outside the Green Café when the elevator doors opened and Drew walked out. His messenger bag slung over one shoulder, and in his other hand, he held a brown paper bag. Maggie smiled. Relief flooded her like a tsunami washing over the beach. Drew wasn’t angry with her; how could he be when he had brought her roast pork buns?
The rational part of her wanted to smack the giddy part of her. Was she really using the frequency and quantity of “roast pork buns” as the gauge for her friendship with Drew? She peeked into the bag he held out to her. Six, as usual, and still warm. She drew in a deep breath, sucking the aromatic fragrance into her lungs.
Out of habitual politeness, she offered him one. He refused, as he always did.
Good start, Maggie thought as he took his seat across from her. The familiarity of their encounter soothed the nervous jitters in her stomach.
“You look tired.” The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Actually, he looked a great deal more than tired. The tense set of his mouth and the way he flicked his gaze away after meeting her eyes—as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at her for any longer than a few seconds at a time. Oh, God. Maggie pressed her hands against her stomach. He’s angry with me.
“I had a busy weekend,” he said. His tone was steady.
“Did you and Felicity go anywhere special?”
“No, not really.” He set his computer notebook on the table. “Are you ready to discuss the investment ideas?”
She stared at him. “You don’t do small talk, do you?”
“I don’t have anything small to talk about.” His gaze flicked away again. “I know you’re busy. I am, too, and we’ve got a lot to cover.”
“Why are you mad at me?” No, no. She had wanted the words to come out stronger, but even to her ears, she had sounded like a whining child. She supposed there wasn’t much difference, sound-wise, between a whining child and a woman on the verge of tears. Unshed tears from the shocking awareness that she had disappointed him, or worse, broken his heart, lay heavy against her chest.
Drew stared at her. “I’m not angry.” He looked away. “Not at you. Can we just—” He angled his computer screen toward her. “—talk about this?”
“Is it because I went out with Tyler?”
A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek. “No.”
Yes. “It didn’t mean anything,” she hastened to explain.
“Look, Maggie, you don’t have to justify your dates to me. I’m just your financial advisor.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
His dark eyes locked on her. The intensity in them scalded her. “Don’t make this difficult.” His voice was harsh.
Her chin tilted up. “Make what difficult?”
“You know—”
“I don’t know anything. You don’t tell me anything, but you growl at me like a bad-tempered pit bull and act as if I’m supposed to read your mind.”
He slammed down the computer screen. “I’ll e-mail the files to you. We can talk next month.”
She stood and grabbed his hand before he could walk away. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my dates with Tyler?”
/> He stopped as if she had punched him in the gut. Pain rippled over his face. Maggie expelled a shuddering breath. Oh, God. If only she could take the words back.
“No need to,” Drew spoke after a long, silent moment. His voice was even. “It’s all over every social media channel. Even mainstream media picked it up.”
“Only because he’s a normal person. I swear, it didn’t mean anything, Drew.”
“I told you; it’s not my business.”
“That’s what you say, but I’m getting an entirely different message from the way you act. What is it, Drew? Do you want me or not?” Oh, damn. Maggie pressed her hand to her lips. That last question had popped, completely uncensored, out of her mouth. It had to have come from a perverse desire to get a reaction—any reaction—out of Drew.
She watched the play of expressions across his face, too quick and too subtle to decipher. He inhaled deeply. His hands clenched into fists and then slowly relaxed as he exhaled. “I’ll see you next month.” He pulled out of her grip and strode away.
“I hate the way you walk away from me.” Like you’re leaving me and never coming back. Her mouth twisted into a sneer. Deliberately crude, she said, “I want to know what crawled up your ass and died.”
He spun around to face her. “I don’t want to argue.”
“News flash, hotshot. We’re already arguing.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “You…this friendship matters to me. I’m not going to let you provoke me into walking away.”
“Walking away? What the hell do you think you are doing now if not walking away?”
“I…” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m giving us space so I don’t say something I’ll regret.”