“Typical Esme.”
Darby laughed. “I know, but I like the way she doesn’t let anything or anyone hold her back. I could use more of that myself, I’ve come to realize.”
“For now, leave that all be.” He touched her chin lightly with his index finger. “What do you want?”
Her love of books had stayed the same, no matter if she was a Barbizon guest or a Gibbs girl. “I want to work with words, with writing. I met a girl at the Barbizon who works in publishing, and that sounded like fun.”
“If you want to work with words, I have no doubt you’ll make it happen somehow.”
The simple conviction of his delivery brought tears to her eyes. “So you don’t want me to go back to Ohio?”
“What?” He tossed his coffee cup into a nearby trash can in an easy arc. Darby did the same but missed by a foot.
“Oops.” She picked it up and dropped it in. “I thought you might be tired of me hanging around and wouldn’t want me working at the same place you do.”
He took the scarf from his neck and looped it around Darby’s, pulling her in closer to him and kissing her on the lips. “No. I don’t want you to go back. But the whole point here is that you decide what you want. Do you want to stay?”
“Yes.”
And she did. Her first decision, made on her own, was that New York would be her home. The second was that she’d find Charlotte as soon as she got back from London and charm her way into a job. If she had to work waiting tables in the meantime, that would be fine. And one day she’d repay her mother.
“I think I know what I want,” she said.
Sam didn’t ask her to elaborate, just kissed her again. “And I want to watch you get it.”
“Should be a crazy trip, I must warn you.”
“I like crazy. Do you mind if I come along for the ride?”
She swallowed hard. “I would love that.”
“Good. Because I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
New York City, 2016
Rose’s father had banged his head and broken a hip trying to walk unassisted, and was on sedatives and painkillers after spending several hours in surgery. The nurses and doctors warned her that the recovery would be difficult. Of that she had little doubt. Her father was a shrunken figure in the hospital bed. Jason had insisted on staying with her and taking her back to the Barbizon. He wanted to cook her dinner. She couldn’t let him see where she was staying, so she conceded that he could make her a quick meal in his apartment. She’d have a bite and go home.
She expected his apartment to be in one of the modern, bland condos that were springing up like Jack’s beanstalk around town, but instead he lived in a floor-through in a Gramercy Park brownstone, one of the poshest and most coveted addresses in the city.
He gave her a small glass of bourbon. “This will help.”
“Do you think he’s in terrible pain?”
“The doctor promised to keep him medicated and the nurse said he’d sleep through the night.” Jason spoke as he stirred a pot of soup on the stove. “You can go back first thing in the morning, but for now you need to eat and get some sleep.”
“My poor dad.” She took a sip from her drink and exhaled as it seared her esophagus. “He used to stroll in the front door after a day at school and call out my name and insist I tell him everything that happened that day. I’d tell him all the silly details of a nine-year-old’s life and he’d listen so carefully, like I was discussing state secrets.”
“Try this.” Jason handed over a bowl and a spoon. She tasted the soup, butternut squash with a hint of cinnamon. And something else.
“You’ve been experimenting with spices.” She took another spoonful. Delicious.
“I have. Sam’s book inspired me.”
She gestured around the room, a mixture of modern furniture with a few antiques. “How did you end up here?”
“My grandmother lived here for years, and she left it to me. I moved in after my mother died.”
“I had a feeling the china cabinet wasn’t your pick.”
He looked at it and laughed. “No.”
“My father’s going to die, isn’t he?”
Jason didn’t answer.
“He hit his head, broke his hip. How can he recover from that? I have to face the facts. That’s what the doctor hinted at, right?”
“That is what he said. I’m sorry, Rose.”
She was glad he was there. That she had someone near to confirm the underlying message the doctor had given her, the tone that seeped out from under the inventory of body parts and injuries.
Jason continued. “They’re going to keep him on heavy sedatives, he won’t feel any pain, and he won’t be confused. He seemed very peaceful by the time we left, remember that.”
She nodded. And burst into tears.
He came around from the other side of the counter and stood close, wrapping his arms around her. Her head fit perfectly into his shoulder, and she wept. When she was done, he passed her a napkin to wipe her eyes.
“Sorry about that.” She balled the napkin up in her fist.
The heavy weight of his hands pressed on her shoulders. She wanted to be tight against him again, to feel the body of another person with its muscles and contours. Several years ago, she’d read a book by a woman with autism who had invented a “hugging machine” that pressed against her on all sides and offered a relief from anxiety. That’s what she wanted from Jason. To be enveloped and enclosed, to shut out the awfulness of the day.
She put the napkin on the counter and placed her hands around his neck.
He gently removed them.
“Have you ever covered a war and fallen into something because you felt so bad, and it made you feel good? Have you ever done that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind for this.”
“You know what I’m talking about, though, don’t you? Where it takes away some of the pain?”
“I do know.”
“Then let this be that.”
She pulled his head gently toward her and kissed him. He stayed very still but didn’t pull away. She continued, enjoying his lips against hers, reaching her tongue out, rewarded when he parted his lips and gave a short intake of breath. Rose moved her hands to his waist and pulled him into her and he took her face in his, his tongue exploring her mouth and moving to her neck. She gasped as he teased the curves of her ears. He knew his way around a woman.
And that’s what she wanted. He led her to his bed, asking if she would regret this tomorrow. She insisted she would not and knew she wouldn’t. Jason was an unexpectedly graceful lover. He savored every inch of her, relished bringing her almost to the edge, then retreating and teasing her, his eyes sparkling with a delicious cruelty. His technique was unlike that of any other man she’d known, and for moments at a time she was transported. She returned the favor, enjoying the satisfied look on his face afterward.
“So there’s that, then,” he said, rolling onto his side to trace one finger along her belly.
“Yes.” She thought of Bird. “I should be getting back.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. Thank you.”
“I aim to please.”
She kissed him lightly. “I bet.”
She grabbed her phone and called the nurses’ station at the hospital. “He’s resting peacefully,” she reported to Jason.
Rose slipped on her panties, turning away slightly, then yanked on her jeans. “I’ve really got to go. Back to real life. And we should probably lay low until the Barbizon project is finished up.”
“Worried about the ethics of this?”
She sighed. “Always.” If he only knew how unethical she really was.
“What happened with Gloria Buckstone?” He sat up and put a pillow behind his back, as if he had all the time in the world.
The vision of Gloria’s black leather boots, which hugged the shin and ended right below the knee, flew into her head. Rose closed her eyes, remembering the look on Gloria’s face as she leaned against her desk, her mouth set into a firm line. It was what had made her the star she was, her way of incorporating the coyness of a twenties film queen with the granite determination of an undertaker.