Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)

by Claire Contreras

  “Excuse me,” I said, walking up to where she stood with Gabriel. “I have a meeting scheduled soon.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh. Crap. I’d forgotten we came in the same car. Will you be able to drop me off?”

  “Sure, it’s on my way,” I said. It wasn’t on my way at all, but I didn’t want to give Gabriel the chance of offering.

  “I can take you,” he said anyway.

  Nicole looked at me for a long moment, searching for something. I wished she would just ask me for it so I could give it to her. Then she tore her gaze away and looked at Gabriel. For as long as I could remember, even when I was back in elementary school, I’d always be the first to get picked for things. Soccer matches, kickball team, softball, basketball. You name it, I had been picked first. I’d never understood what the other kids felt like until this moment. That feeling of your heart dropping into the pit of your stomach and your gut filling with uncertainty? I was in my thirties, for God’s sake. That wasn’t a feeling I wanted to experience at this point in my life. But as with everything that came to Nicole, there I was, experiencing uncomfortable shit.

  “It’s fine. Victor can take me. Thanks anyway. I’ll see you soon though, as I have to go pick up Bonnie,” she said after what felt like an eternity.

  Gabriel returned the smile she gave him, and for a fleeting moment I felt another pang in my chest as I caught a glimpse of what their life must have been like when they were good together—the laughter, the dreams they must have shared, the heartaches they’d endured. They were over, though. That seemed to dull the pain just enough for me to smile and shake his hand as I walked away with her.

  I’D PICKED UP Bonnie from the house I shared with Gabe and he’d asked me to stay awhile. Initially I said no, but he kept talking to Bonnie and scratching behind her ear, and I knew he’d miss her almost as much as I would have had he kept her instead of me, so I stayed. I was comfortable with it, until I wasn’t, because as usual, we ended up back at: where did we go wrong? What happened to us? Those were topics I no longer cared to address. I told him as much, and he agreed it was unfair of him to revert back to them, but I could tell the thoughts lingered even as he stood by the door and watched me walk to my car with Bonnie.

  “Are you still going out with Chrissy tonight?” Talon asked as she came into my work area. She was dusting off one of her makeup brushes against a towel as she watched me sew the black corset in my hands. “To celebrate?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “I feel like a celebration is in order in the form of getting intoxicated and dancing wildly.”

  Talon laughed. “That’s a good way to celebrate. I would join you, but the girls are sick.”

  “Sucks,” I said. “I won’t even try to convince you then. Moms are the best medicine.”

  “Speaking of which, when are you going to go visit yours?”

  I sighed, pushing away from the sewing table and running my hands down my face. I was dying to go see her, but with this whole ordeal, I hadn’t even looked at flights.

  “I don’t know, but hopefully soon. She’s finally done telling me the divorce was a mistake, and I really want to just go over there and lay low for a while.”

  “Is your dad still on his cruise?”

  “Yeah, they come back next week. Meire emailed me pictures and said he was itching to get back to the office. I can only imagine what a pain in the ass he’s being.”

  “These attorneys,” Tal said, shaking her head. “That’s probably why you like Victor so much.”

  I couldn’t keep the smile that spread over my face. I rarely spoke to him during the day unless he had something to tell me about the case, which at this point he said would be white noise until we got the finalized papers, but our late-night calls continued and those were much more interesting than law talk. He’d told me about his first girlfriend. I’d told him about my first boyfriend. We spoke about our longest relationships and shortest, and weirdest, and sometimes we’d throw in things from our past together and laugh at the fact we still remembered.

  “You really like him,” Talon said. I shrugged a noncommittal answer, though I didn’t make an attempt to deny it. I definitely really liked him. I always had, but this time it seemed like I liked him more. Like we were connecting on another level. As if we were becoming friends first. Had that been what we’d missed the first time around? I tried not to psyche myself out over it though. I knew him and his priorities were still intact.

  On my way home, I called Marcus. He’d asked for time off to see his sick aunt a few days before the mediation. He said he hoped there was still a job for him when he got back, but he understood if I needed somebody else immediately. I told him he wasn’t getting rid of me that easily. I’d gotten used to having him around. When Marcus didn’t answer the phone on the second ring, I hung up and called Victor.

  “Hey,” he said. My veins thundered at the sound of his masculine voice. “Can I call you back? I just got to a restaurant where I’m meeting with a client.”

  “A woman client?” I asked. He chuckled.

  “Hmm. No answer. Interesting,” I said.

  He paused for a beat. “Are you jealous?”

  “Is she hot?”

  “Not hotter than you,” he said, his voice firm, but I could also feel a hint of amusement in it.

  “Whatever,” I mumbled. The entire time I’d been his client, I hadn’t gotten the let’s go to a restaurant and discuss your case there treatment.

  He sighed. “Nicole, please don’t be jealous. I can assure you that you have no reason to be.”

  “I’m not jealous,” I said, and I wasn’t. I just wished things would have been different. I wished we could go out and do things while we got to know each other instead of hiding our conversations behind late-night calls and stupid meetings, where our personal conversations were overshadowed by my past with Gabe.

  “Good. I really have to go. I’ll call you when I get out of here.”

  I mumbled a goodbye I wasn’t even sure he heard before hanging up. I was stuck in traffic for twenty minutes before Marcus called back. After asking him how the ailing aunt he went home to visit was doing, I gave him the overview of what tonight would be like: club, girls, drinking, partying.

  When I got home, Bonnie trotted to the door to greet me, her floppy ears dangling as she tilted her head for me to scratch. I did and picked her up as soon as I set down my bag, keys, and kicked off my heels. I held Bonnie on my hip and sorted through the bottles of wine I had placed on the wooden bottle holder on the wall and set her on the floor and poured some into a glass before putting on a pair of sneakers, and headed out back with her. I let her roam a bit while I sipped on my wine and took in the ocean breeze, watching her to make sure she didn’t number two without my knowledge. There were few things I hated more than stepping on the shit an irresponsible dog owner left behind.

  “Is that a cocker spaniel?”

  My head snapped up to the shirtless guy slowing down from his jog. Perks of living on Manhattan Beach—hot shirtless guys jogging.

  “Nope. King Charles.”

  He smiled, crouching down to meet Bonnie’s excited little hop. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled.

  “She looks like you.”

  I felt my face heat up a little as I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve never seen you around here.”

  “I just moved from . . .” I paused. He obviously didn’t know me as Gabriel Lane’s wife, so he wouldn’t know where I’d lived. It was the first time I realized I was starting from scratch. I was just Nicole Alessi again, and unless you were into digging into people’s past and saw my socialite, wild child days, very few people knew who I was. “I just moved over here,” I said, correcting myself.

  “Oh. Where did you move from?”

  “Like twenty minutes away.”

  “Oh. I moved here from Georgia a few months ago.” He paused. “I’m Brent, by the way.”

  �
��Nicole,” I said, bumping the fist he extended for me.

  “My hands are sweaty,” he said as way of explanation.

  I heard my phone ringing inside and jerked out of my seat. When I looked at Bonnie again, I noticed she’d chosen that exact moment to take a crap. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I have to get that. Enjoy your run. I’m sure I’ll see you around again.”

  “I hope so,” he said, taking off again. I watched him leave for a second before Bonnie tugged at her leash, and I sighed, coming back to reality.

  “What have I told you about using the bathroom in front of people?” I whispered, crouching down with the baggie in my hand. “So disgusting, Bonnie. So disgusting.”

  When I walked back in the house, I noticed the missed call was from Victor. I debated not calling him back, but I didn’t want him to think I was being childish or jealous because he was out with a female client, so I called back.

  “How was your lunch date?” I asked. The harsh breath he exhaled into the phone line made me shiver as if his face was on me.

  “Meeting, Nicole. It was a meeting.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Not the same difference. I don’t sleep with my clients.”

  I bit back a smile, tried to mask it from my voice. “That’s too bad. I heard you have a client who was just about to touch herself thinking about that possibility.”

  “Fuck, Nicole,” he groaned.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re killing me,” he said, voice gruff. Butterflies ignited deep in my belly.

  “What kills you more, Victor? Knowing you can have me and passing it up or thinking about me going out tonight and finding another man to satisfy this urge?”

  He was quiet, but I knew he was there because I could hear his labored breath in my ear. I stayed quiet. I was never one to shy away, but I was afraid maybe I’d pushed the envelope and in turn pushed him farther away.

  “I’ve been sitting outside, staring at the office building trying to get rid of the hard-on you’ve managed to give me, and now that’s looking like it won’t be going away any time soon, which means I’m going to be late to a fucking meeting I arrived twenty minutes early to,” he said, pausing. I smiled. “To answer your question, both of those options fucking kill me, but when I fuck you again, and I will have you again, it’s my name you’re going to be screaming.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, trying not to sound as affected as I felt.

  “Yeah, we will see.” He let out a breath. “I have to let you go so I can see what to do about my . . . problem.”

  I laughed. “Sorry. Sort of. Good luck in your meeting.”

  “Thanks. I’ll call you tonight.”

  “Oh. I won’t be home,” I said. His silence told me he was expecting me to expand on that, but I didn’t. I wanted him to be the one to ask.

  “Where are you going?” he asked finally.

  “Out with Chrissy.”

  “Chrissy . . . the friend you go club-hopping with?”

  I laughed at the fact that he knew Chrissy as the club-hopper. “We don’t club-hop. We’re not twenty-one. We just go to one.”

  “Still sounds like trouble,” he said, but I could hear the smile in his voice as he said it.

  “You know me, always up to something.”

  “I do, and I like that. I’ll call you when I get home. Maybe I’ll catch you before you head out.”

  After I hung up with him, I drank two more glasses, soaked in a bath, ordered sushi, got dressed and put on my makeup before Marcus knocked on my door. I opened it and welcomed him inside while I walked around making sure I’d blown out all the candles I’d lit during my hour of relaxation. Rather than her picking me up, I promised Chrissy I’d meet her at the club.

  “Let’s go, Marky Mark. If I don’t leave now, my buzz will be gone by the time I get there and I won’t be brave enough to walk into the club by myself.”

  “Didn’t you just tell your friend to put me on the list so I could escort you in?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t, but it’s okay, I don’t want to know.”

  It took us a bit to get to the club, and then a little longer to park in the back. Marcus suggested valet, but I said no. There was no way I was letting a valet drive my Cayenne. And there was no way I was getting out of the car with the paparazzi around. I wanted to wait for at least some of them to scurry out. Once they did, we got out of the car and walked to the back door. We got inside with no hassle at all. The bouncer looked at me and let me go in, and then did the same to Marcus.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t card you,” I said loudly, over the music.

  “Why?”

  “Baby face,” I said, raising a hand and slapping him playfully. He shook his head.

  We made our way upstairs, where Chrissy was waiting with Cass and a few other friends again. The minute she saw me, she bolted out of the chair and pulled me into a hug. But the moment she saw Marcus she let go and gave him all her attention. I couldn’t stop laughing at the look on his face. He came over and told me he was going to stand by the foot of the stairs just in case I needed anything. I was sure he was doing it to get away from Chrissy and her forwardness.

  I joined Chrissy and let her pour me a drink from the bottle she’d ordered.

  “How’s the hot lawyer?” she asked.

  “He’s . . . there. Being hot,” I said as I took a sip of champagne. I really didn’t want to get into it, especially not at a loud club.

  “I’m pretty sure I saw him here,” she said, looking around. “I mean, it’s dark, but I could swear it was the same guy.”

  My stomach dipped. Victor. Here? I looked around and did a double, then triple take when my eyes landed on Victor. Even though his upper body was facing away from me as he spoke to the people beside him, my heart raced. And when he turned toward me, as if he were looking for me in the crowd, and his eyes met mine, unblinking, I felt the breath whoosh out of me. He stood, and even though it was too dark to see his eyes, I could read the lines of his face and followed suit.

  “I’ll be back,” I said to Chrissy, who was now enthralled in conversation with one of the girls sitting in our table.

  Victor turned and started walking in the direction I’d come from, and I followed. I saw Marcus when I got there and told him I would be right back. He saw Victor, looked at me, and nodded.

  “I’ll be right here,” he said as I walked away.

  Victor didn’t stop walking or go outside like I half expected. He didn’t go toward the bathrooms either. Instead, he walked to the right, toward the huge dance floor. My head was pounding with the music, my heart with excitement, trepidation. He stopped walking and stepped off to the side, toward a dark corner where nobody could bump us, and pulled me with him. He leaned back against the side of the bar, his forearm on it so the drink in his hand was dangling.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, stepping forward and speaking up so he could hear me over the music.

  His eyes made their way down my body slowly, he licked his lips as they made their way back up and suddenly, despite the vodka in my system, I felt parched. I swallowed and reached out for the drink in his hand, taking a sip of it and making a face at the unexpected bite of alcohol. Victor’s lips bloomed into an amused smile. When he extended his arm, I thought it was to take the drink back from me, but instead it went around my body and pulled me close to him so we were almost chest to chest and the heat of his gaze wasn’t the only thing warming me.

  “Isn’t that obvious?” he said, his breath tickling my ear. I shivered and shook my head. His chuckled vibrated into me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Dancing,” I said, tilting my face slightly so my nose brushed against his light beard.

  “So dance,” he responded, setting his hands on my hips. I leaned forward, brushing my chest against his arm as I set the drink down behind him, smiling when I felt his grip tighten a little. I started to move my hips side to s
ide, quirking a smile at the way his gaze smoldered on mine.

  “Well, I’m not going to stand here and give you a private show,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I charge for those.”

  His grin was dark and full of mischief as he pushed himself off the bar and began to move with me, his hips in perfect tune with mine. “I’d pay a fuck ton of money to see it.”

  I smiled, running a hand through my hair to push it away from my face. I tilted my head slightly with the movement, and gasped when his lips came down and sucked me there.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked, his lips making their way up my neck, to my chin, my cheek, my earlobe.

  “Did you?” I asked breathily, still moving along with him.

  He reared back, cupping the side of my face as he gazed down on me with those dark, lust-filled eyes. He nodded.

  I stopped breathing.

  Stopped moving.

  I looked at him, eyes wide. “What?”

  “Come home with me,” he said, his mouth brushing the edge of mine. “I’m sick of playing games. Come home with me, Nicole.”

  “Why now?” I asked. I tried to swallow that thought before I vocalized it, but it was no use. I had to know. I had to know he wasn’t the one playing games with me.

  “Because I want you too fucking much. Because the thought of you coming to this place and hooking up with some other asshole is just too much for me to bear.”

  I felt myself smile. “So you want to be the asshole that takes me home?”

  “More than anything.”

  More than anything. I didn’t dare question him further. There was no point. I could see the resolve in his eyes, and that alone assured me that this was happening. I could’ve just brought up the reasons he’d been turning this idea down, but I wanted it more than anything, so instead, I went for light.

  “No bathroom sex?” I asked, gazing up at him. His smile was slow, wide, and sensual as he shook his head as he brought his face close to mine again.

  “Fuck. No. Definitely no bathroom sex, unless it’s one of our bathrooms,” he said, his mouth near my neck. He dropped a kiss there. “People change.”