One well-timed quip later, and she’d received a charming invitation to dinner. One elevator ride down from the restaurant and she’d started a hot, lusty, unstoppable affair that she knew, soon, would be all too…over.
“Sorry, love.” He secured the buttons on the cuffs of his sleeves. “Don’t have a clue when I’ll be back. But I know it will be soon.”
She loved how he didn’t sound like Hugh Grant when he called her love. She wouldn’t have minded Colin Firth, but Roman’s accent wasn’t as easy to peg as British or Aussie or South African or even Scottish. He’d claimed to be American by birth, but a resident of the world. It was one of the few things about him she believed.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Your loss.”
He quirked half a grin, bringing one devastating dimple into sharp relief against his stubble-roughened cheek. “You have no idea.”
She expected his kiss to be brief, yet he surprised her again by making it long and lingering. Rachel’s libido stirred just before he flashed out of the bedroom, and ten steps later, out of her small apartment in the SoHo section of Manhattan.
Her roommate, Jeannette, was in California on business and would be gone for at least another week. Rachel had the entire apartment to herself, and the loneliness suddenly echoed like shouts in a cave.
She relaxed against her pillows, closed her eyes and imagined how Roman would skip the elevator for the stairs, slip onto the lonely, nearly deserted sidewalk and hail a cab within moments, having some special magic when it came to summoning the often-impossible-to-find taxis that roamed the city.
She doused the light and for all of fifteen minutes, tried to sleep. The day before, she’d finished her assignment with the local news station, designing the new graphics for their eleven o’clock broadcast. She had a couple of new freelance projects to work on and a long-running assignment with an independent filmmaker to fiddle with, but otherwise, the next few days were hers to sleep late and explore the city since, because of Roman, she’d decided to stick around rather than head to the Costa Rican cloud forest. Her duffel bag had been calling to her for weeks, but she’d ignored her wanderlust. Somehow, trekking around Central America didn’t quite measure up to making love to Roman on a semi-regular basis.
After twenty minutes of tossing and turning, she roused herself out of bed and took a hot shower, hoping to wash the alluring smell of Roman’s cologne off her skin. If she didn’t, he’d haunt her all day. She was already obsessed enough.
Once dressed in her favorite sweats and Miami Hurricane T-shirt, Rachel grabbed her hip pack and keys. She wasn’t sure if she’d actually make it to the gym to do a round of circuit training and an hour on the tread-mill, but she’d at least make it as far as Iris’s coffee stand.
Rachel jogged down the steps of her building just in time to see Iris flick on the little rotating disco ball that told the neighborhood that her street-corner stand was open for business. The smell of fresh pastelitos and strong Cuban espresso assailed Rachel’s nostrils, making her stomach rumble. She was going to work out, right? One pastry wouldn’t kill her.
“You’re up early, mija,” Iris said, her thick Puerto Rican accent not hiding her surprise.
“I haven’t really gone to sleep.”
Iris arched a perfectly painted, black eyebrow. “Mr. Roman come to visit? Is that the third time this week?”
Rachel dug her hands into the pockets of her sweats and shrugged. “Fourth, but who’s counting? I’m sure I won’t see him again for a few days.”
“Why are you so sure?”
Iris handed Rachel a large foam cup steaming with frothy milk, espresso and the four sugars Rachel preferred.
She blew on the hot drink, then took a tentative sip. The sweetened warmth slid down her throat, then pooled in her belly, chasing away the last chill of Roman’s quick departure.
“The last two mornings, he left late, without the pager going off. But today, the pager summoned. He’s probably on his way to the airport as we speak.”
“Nah, just Uptown.”
Rachel nearly jumped with fright at the gravelly voice-how Mario Capelli could consistently walk up behind her with such stealth, never mind park his cab on the sidewalk only a few car lengths away, continued to amaze her-and Iris, who’d clearly seen him coming, now blushed a healthy pink on her cocoa skin.
“You dropped Roman off?”
Mario nodded, and then gave Iris his signature greeting with a touch to the brim of his battered Giants cap. “Had some meeting. Looked pretty happy for a guy on his way to work,” Mario said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Rachel slapped him playfully on the arm. She hadn’t been in the city very long when she’d been lured from the backseat of Mario’s cab to this street corner by the scent of authentic Cuban coffee. Rachel’s mother, a Cuban immigrant, had twice married men who didn’t share her Latin blood, but though her name no longer ended with a Z, Mireya Diaz Marlowe had refused to leave Miami and the rhythms of her roots. She’d never managed to teach her daughters to speak Spanish or get them interested in Castro’s politics, but they did all have a weakness for Caribbean food and music. Because of Iris’s stand, which now hummed with the music of Celia Cruz on a battered CD player Iris hung from the cart handle with a locked bicycle chain, Rachel had shelled out more than her budget allowed for the one bedroom walk-up just so she could get a little taste of home every day. Luckily, her roommate, when she was in town-which wasn’t often-didn’t mind the Murphy bed in the living room.
Rachel asked Iris for one of the pastelitos before turning back to Mario. “The man should look happy,” she said confidently. “He was with me.”
“I figured,” Mario said with a smirk, nodding his thanks when Iris handed him his single-shot espresso in a tiny porcelain cup that she kept just for him.
Rachel took a bite of the warm pastry, humming when the sweet, flaky crust opened to reveal the mildly spiced meat inside. She’d have to do two hours of tread-mill to make up for all these carbs, but she didn’t care.
“God, Iris. This is delicious. I swear, you need to teach me how to make them.”
“Then you won’t come down every morning and buy one.”
“If I promise to buy a dozen every Friday, will you teach me?”
The banter lasted until a few other customers showed up, leaving Mario and Rachel to shuffle over to a nearby mailbox, where they perched their coffees and enjoyed their familiar early-morning conversation as the city that never slept fully embraced being awake. Honking horns, blaring sirens and the rumble of a million commuters provided the background music Rachel dearly loved. Mario worked the night shift, but on his way home, he nearly always stopped by to see Iris as she was opening and would oftentimes pick up one last fare from in front of Rachel’s building on his way back to Brooklyn. More often than not lately, that fare was Roman. And chatty as Mario was, Rachel realized that he might have some elusive information about her mysterious lover.
Question was, would he share?
“So, Mario. Where did Roman go this morning?”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Some meeting Uptown.”
She knew that already. “Where Uptown?”
“You want the specific address?”
She shrugged indecisively.
“He had me drop him off just north of Central Park.”
Mario’s voice dipped a bit. They weren’t best buddies or anything, but Rachel knew a dodge when she heard one. “Dropped him off? Not at a specific building?”
Mario pursed his lips. His eyes narrowed and he scrunched his bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows over his kind, but shrewd, brown eyes. “Why you asking so many questions all of a sudden?”