What if she woke up ten years from now, alone and with three more cats and wondering what had happened? It was what had happened in her marriage to Peter: the insidious rebranding of fear as contentedness. It had taken a divorce and a move to the city — it had taken Liam and Jack — to shock her out of her complacency.
Was her abstinence just another version of fear? It had made sense right after she broke things off with Liam and Jack. The whole point had been to spend time alone with herself, to face all the questions she’d avoided answering when she’d been too wrapped up in her awakening sexuality.
But it had been nearly a year since she’d left Jack on the street in Paris, since she’d watched Liam walk away. She had to try again eventually, didn’t she?
She imagined herself sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for some stranger she’d met online, wondering if his profile picture was twenty years old or if he was six inches shorter than he’d claimed — both things that had happened to Moni.
The thought wasn’t exactly inspiring.
She slipped on her coat and shut off the lights. She loved the gallery this way: the brick wall warm in the soft light they left on at night, the shadows long in the corners, the photographs on the wall holding new mystery.
She paused for a minute to appreciate what a blessing the place had been over the past year. Then she set the alarm and stepped outside.
The cold hit her like a freight train, and she shivered as she turned to lock the door. Slipping her keys in her pocket, she tightened her scarf and tucked the ends more firmly into her coat as she started for the subway.
She was halfway down the block when a voice spoke behind her.
“Nina.”
She slowed down, wondering if she was hearing things.
“Nina, wait.”
She stopped walking and turned around to find Jack on the sidewalk. He was like an apparition, standing just outside the light of a street lamp, his gloved hands at his side.
“Jack.”
She could hardly breathe. All these months she’d sorted her feelings for Liam and Jack into categories.
Liam, something like love.
Jack, something like obsession.
But now that Jack was in front of her she had the overwhelming urge to step into his arms, not because she wanted him, but because she’d missed him.
“Please,” he said, “can we talk?”
She looked around. “Here?”
The streets were nearly empty, everyone driven inside by the dark and cold.
“If you like,” he said. “Although I’d prefer to get you out of the cold.”
She’d forgotten this about Jack — his old-fashioned manners, his insistence on treating her like something fragile and priceless. She hadn’t known if she liked it at the time, but now she couldn’t help feeling relieved.
“Why don’t you let me give you a lift,” he suggested.
She looked at the curb and noticed for the first time the black car idling there. Reggie was doubtless behind the wheel, although Nina couldn’t make out his features through the glare on the windshield.
A voice in her head was telling her not to be an idiot. Not to let Jack get away with what he’d done in Paris. Not to act happy to see him.
“All right.”
He didn’t move as she came closer.
She stopped a couple feet away from him. Physically, he looked the same, body still trim and fit, posture erect. His hair was still swept back from his face, but in an uncharacteristic display of humanness, a lock had pushed forward near his forehead. It made him look almost boyish, and she had to resist the urge to smooth it back.
His expression was as fathomless as she remembered, but something burned in his eyes, his gaze penetrating, seeking something in hers that was already trying to fight its way out from behind her defenses.
He opened the car’s back door. “You must be freezing.”
She stepped past him and slid into the backseat. She had to force herself not to close her eyes and sigh as she inhaled the familiar scent — Jack’s cologne, tailored wool, leather.
Money.
Power.
Authority.
He sat next to her and closed the door.
“Hi, Reggie,” Nina said.
Jack’s driver met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Good evening, Miss Fontaine.”
“Going home?” Jack asked her.
She nodded and Reggie pulled away from the curb. Privacy glass raised discreetly between the front and back seats. Nina wondered if Reggie had raised it or if it had been Jack.
She felt Jack’s eyes on her as they glided through the nearly-empty streets, but she forced herself to breathe, to gather her thoughts and her composure, before turning to look at him. “What are you doing here?”
There was no knowing smile. “I came to see you.”
She looked down at her hands. “Why?”
It took him so long to answer she was beginning to think he hadn’t heard her.
“Because I can’t stop missing you.” Anguish colored his voice, and she looked up to see him smoothing back his hair.
“I don’t know what to say to that.” It was honest at least.
“You don’t have to say anything.” He hesitated. “Will you tell me how you’ve been? What you’ve been doing?”
“I’ve been fine.” She smiled a little. “I’m afraid the stuff I’ve been doing isn’t very interesting.”
“You underestimate yourself, Nina. You always have.”
She met his eyes. “Have I?”
“I’ve never met a more fascinating woman.” He lifted a hand, then dropped it back into his lap. Her cheek burned where she’d been anticipating his touch. “Tell me.”
“I’ve been working mostly. Moni made me a manager at the gallery. I’ve been getting more involved in curation.”
“And do you enjoy it?”
“Very much,” she said.
“What else?” he asked.
“Just… learning to live alone, I suppose. Spending time with my friends, decorating my apartment. I got a cat.”
She was surprised to see an amused smile touch the corners of his mouth. “Did you?”
She laughed. “I did. Have I become a cliche?”
“Never.” He was still smiling.
“What about you?” They were skirting the past, avoiding everything that had happened between them and the question Nina had already asked.
What are you doing here?
“The stuff I’ve been doing isn’t very interesting either.”
She smiled at his use of the word “stuff.” It sounded funny coming from his mouth. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Business, social events, which are essentially more business, travel, which is — ”
“Essentially more business?”
“Yes.”
Reggie turned a corner and the light played across Jack’s face, casting it in reds and yellows before it retreated back into the shadows. She was overwhelmed with his presence, her chest filling like a too-full balloon.
Tears stung her eyes, and she turned her face to the window. It wasn’t the events of Paris that hurt, not anymore. Jack hadn’t understood the dynamic of their relationship. He’d confused her announcement about seeing other people with his own penchant for sexual experimentation, a mistake that had been harder and harder to condemn him for as time went by.
When she looked back on that night, it wasn’t the sex club that haunted her or the two women giving Jack a blowjob while she watched, it was the expression on Jack’s face as they’d fought on the street.
He’d been shocked by her reaction, genuinely remorseful that he’d misunderstood. It made her realize that he hadn’t known her. Not really.
And that hadn’t been all his fault.
She’d been so consumed with doing everything right that she hadn’t let him really see her.
The car came to a stop and Nina realized they’d arrived outside her apartm
ent.
Jack’s hand closed over hers. “I made a terrible mistake.” He paused. “More than one.”
“We both made mistakes,” she said.
“No.”
“Yes.” She met his eyes through the dark interior of the car. “I followed your rules — the ones you told me about and the ones you left unspoken. I didn’t let you know me. If I had, you would have known… well, you would have known Paris was a bad idea.”
He touched her chin and turned her head until she was forced to look at him. “I always wanted to know you, Nina. I still do, if you’ll give me another chance.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know, Jack. I’m not… I’m not like you.”
“I think you’re more like me than you’re willing to admit.”
Her cheeks heated at the implication, at the truth in it: she’d liked what he’d done to her in bed. Had liked the command he’d taken over her body, the way his authority left no room for thought, no room for anything but her need, hungry and unapologetic.
“In some ways maybe. But I can’t just… fuck you and then go about my business. I can’t be an empty vessel for your fantasies, and I can’t accept you as an empty vessel for mine. It’s not enough, would never have been enough.”
Silence stretched between them.
“I understand,” Jack finally said, his voice pained. “I’m afraid I’m not… very good at expressing feelings —“
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at living without them.”
A smile touched his mouth. “You didn’t let me finish.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What if we start with no apologies?” he asked.
“Start?”
“I’m not very good at expressing feelings, but I’m willing to try,” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She remembered the first time he’d done it — she’d been wet and cold, huddled in his car after falling on the pavement.
A lifetime ago.
“I’m saying I need you, Nina. I didn’t know how much I needed you until you were gone.”
“You don’t need me,” she said.
His eyes bore into hers. “I do. I realize I wasn’t good at showing it, but if you’ll give me a chance, I think I can do better.”
“With… expressing your feelings?”
“With making sure you understand how important you are to me,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
She was dancing close to the flame again. Her psyche screamed danger, but her body was already leaning into the warmth, mesmerized by its promise.
“We’ll start with dinner,” he said.
She laughed and shook her head. Some things never changed. “I haven’t said yes.”
“But you will.” There was no doubt in his voice.
She had to force herself not to smile. “I thought you were going to do better.”
His eyes darkened until they were bottomless. “With expressing my feelings. Some things won’t change, Nina.”
A shiver ran up her spine at the promise in his voice.
She reached for the car door. “I’ll think about it.”
She wasn’t being coy. She might still be powerless against the affect he had over her, but she was self-aware enough now to know it. She needed to think without the scent of him working its way through her body, without the magnetic pull of him inches away.
He looked up at her from inside the car and she was glad he didn’t make a move to walk her to the door.
“I’ll pick you up Saturday at seven.”
She turned around before he could see her smile.
5
“This would be tres sexy on you,” Karen said, holding up a slinky red dress.
Nina looked at it. “Or tres slutty.”
“They can’t call us that anymore,” Karen said, replacing the dress and flipping through the other hangers on the rack.
Nina paused at a backless dress in eggplant, it’s neckline deceptively demure. “They?”
“If women call us sluts, they’re traitors. If men do it, they’re misogynists,” Karen said distractedly.
“I guess I didn’t get the memo,” Nina said.
“Because you were in the suburbs.”
They were at Bloomingdale’s, a departure from their usual routine that had caused Karen to look around for Julia, the personal shopper they both used at Bergdorf, as if Julia had installed tracking devices in their handbags to make sure they didn’t shop anywhere else.
Nina loved Julia, trusted her sense of style, but she had to put her foot down when it came to a huge sale at Bloomingdale’s. Her settlement from the divorce was still partially intact thanks to her job at the gallery, but she was nowhere near as flush as Karen, who worked as a senior editor at a publishing house.
Loyalty only went so far when it came to fifty percent off.
“Larchmont isn’t even an hour north of the city,” Nina reminded her. “And I've been here a year.”
“Not long enough if you’re still worried about looking slutty,” Karen said drily.
Nina’s phone buzzed. She stopped flipping through clothes and removed it from her bag.
I can’t wait to see you.
She shook her head and typed back. Do we have plans?
Yes. Seven, remember?
Do I have a say?
The hesitation of his reply made her smile.
Of course.
He’d been on her mind nearly every minute since he’d driven her home. It wasn’t just the white roses that had arrived at her apartment every day, much to Sal’s consternation.
She was like an addict who’d been re-exposed to her drug of choice after finally getting clean. She woke up every day with the image of him emblazoned on her mind, the memory of his touch, insistent but gentle, when he’d turned her face to look at him. She’d even sunk so low as to pull her coat from the closet the next morning, holding it to her face and inhaling deeply, seeking traces of his scent.
“Are you going to tell me who that is?”
She looked up to find Karen studying her over the rack of clothes between them.
“Who what is?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Karen said. “Did you finally find a hookup?”
“Not exactly.” Nina hesitated. “It’s Jack.”
“Jack Morgan?”
Nina nodded.
“Neen… you’re seeing Jack again?” There was a mixture of concern and hurt in Karen’s voice.
“Not really,” she said. “Not yet anyway.”
Karen came around the rack of clothes. “What’s the scoop?”
“He drove me home from the gallery the other day.”
“And?” Karen prompted.
“And… I don’t know. It was nice to see him.”
“But what did he say?” Karen asked.
“He said he missed me, that he wanted another chance.”
Karen closed her eyes and shook her head. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“You’re not going to fall for this bullshit, are you?” Karen asked.
Nina slipped her phone back into her bag and flipped furiously through the clothes on the rack without seeing any of them.
Karen put her hand on Nina’s arm. “Nina.”
She stopped flipping. “What?”
“Talk to me.”
“Why? You don’t want to listen,” Nina said.
“That’s not true,” Karen said. “I’m sorry. I do want to listen.”
Nina looked around. “Do we have to talk about this here?”
“Why not?” Karen’s gaze swept the women’s department. “There’s nobody around anyway.”
Nina resumed looking through the clothes, more for something to do than because she was still interested in finding a bargain. “You don’t know what it was like.”
“What are you talking about?”
; “Being with Jack,” Nina said. “You don’t know what it was like.”
“You told me what it was like.”
“No, I told you about the sex,” Nina said. “That wasn’t all it was. I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way at the time, but it wasn’t just sex for me. It was easy to think that because it was so overwhelming, but it wasn’t.”
“Then what was it?”
Nina drew in a breath. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “But I missed him when he was gone, and I missed how he made me feel.”
“Neen…” Karen’s voice held a trace of pity. “How do you know it wasn’t just the sex?”
Nina had a flash of her naked body, bound in scarlet rope. She saw Jack between her legs, felt him driving into her, the memory still so powerful that she was immediately wet, immediately desperate with the wanting of him, her face flushed, a pulse beating between her legs.
Then she was back on the street outside the gallery, Jack standing in the shadows, saying her name, her breath freezing in her lungs. She remembered the urge to walk into his arms, the sense that safety was only a few feet away, his pained expression when he said he wasn’t good at sharing his feelings and her strange desire to protect a man who seemed impervious to danger.
“I just know,” Nina said. “I’m not denying that the sex was… consuming. But there was something else there too. I wasn’t in the right place to explore it, but it was there.”
“I’m not saying I don’t understand,” Karen said gently. “But we’re talking about Jack Morgan here. How do you know…?” She shook her head.
“How do I know he wasn’t just playing me?” Nina asked. “That I didn’t feel the way I did because he was so good, so practiced at it?”
“It’s a fair question,” Karen said.
“He came back,” Nina said. “He said he’s willing to change, or to try anyway. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Karen adjusted her purse and flipped idly through the clothes on the rack. “It does,” Karen said softly. “It counts for a lot, especially given his reputation.” She stopped moving and touched Nina’s arm again. “I just worry about you, that’s all.”
Nina met her gaze. “I’m a big girl. I need your support more than your protection.”
The Surrender of Nina Fontaine (Awakening Book 2) Page 3