A Billionaire for Christmas (6 page)

This is hard. Having tough time.

A minute later came the response:

Meeting at church 2 blocks away.

Starts in 15. Get your ass there.

Alex was right. Shelly had plenty of time before dinner, she wasn’t supposed to be to Justin and Aubrey’s house for a while, she needed to get her ass to a meeting. Shelly couldn’t get the type of fix she desperately wanted. She couldn’t ever return to that life. The stench of sweaty old men climbing across her body. Waking up in rooms she didn’t remember entering. No. Nothing was worth that life. How many men? How many times?

No. Never again.

She couldn’t go back. She wouldn’t be in that place again. No high was worth the self-abuse she had heaped upon herself with that life. Shelly pulled on her boots and stood. Her gaze landed on what had once been her favorite picture, her and Vinnie and Anthony standing outside of Nonna’s house with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders.

Pain cut through her chest. Thinking about all she’d lost only made the need to forget slide deeper into her gut. She turned, walked from her bedroom and down the stairs.

“Nonna, I’m going out for a while.” Shelly grabbed her coat from the closet and was out the door before she heard a response. The cold air smacked her face and snapped her out of the past. To now. To this moment. The open expanse of the street swept away the memories. Her lungs filled.

She walked to the end of the block and stood on the corner. She could turn left and go to Joey’s, the dive bar that had sat on the corner at the end of the street since forever, or she could go right to Saint Bernard’s and find that meeting. At Joey’s she knew she’d find a drink and a high to take away the pain. Wasn’t that where she’d scored her first oxy anyway, in those horrible days after they’d learned of Vinnie’s death but before his body had been shipped home?

But at Saint Bernard’s? She’d walk through the front doors of the church around the corner where she’d received three of the seven blessed sacraments, into the church hall to a NA meeting. There’d be cigarettes, and lots of addicts, just like her, trying to make certain they didn’t head anywhere for a fix and a fall. She looked both ways. The choice was hers. There would be coffee at Saint Bernard’s. Really really hot coffee. Shelly filled her lungs and looked up at the dark night sky scattered with clouds.

“Dammit, Vinnie, I miss you,” she whispered and started to walk.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Shelly recited the words at the end of the meeting, a prayer offered by her and the twenty-some other addicts assembled in the church basement. Her gaze swept the room over the group of formerly pill-popping, coke-snorting, heroin-shooting ex-addicts. As the meeting closed, most drifted toward the exit, many yanking packs of cigarettes from their purses and pockets. Shelly empathized. Her final addiction was nicotine, and she doubted that she’d ever entirely kick that substance. Some days it felt as though a cigarette well smoked was all that stood between her and a syringe of H.

The coffee had been good. The coffee was always good. The topic: thankfulness through the holidays. The speaker had been a woman not too different than Shelly. She’d ended up homeless, strung out, and turning tricks after losing her three kids. Now she was the grandma of three and a social worker. Clean for twenty-three years.

“Please God, please,” Shelly mumbled as she walked out the door, past the clumps of NAers who smoked cigarettes and sipped their final cup of NA coffee before making the pilgrimage back home to their sober lives. Deep breath. She reminded herself that she was building a new life, one day at a time.

The pain, the shame, the doubt, and the anger still crept through her chest and constricted her heart. But now, instead of numbing all those feelings, she tried to let them pass through her. She breathed deep and allowed the feelings to slip around her. Each time the process grew easier. What had once been giant waves of emotion swamping her, careening her toward a fix, now only tossed her for a bit.

Shelly flicked her lighter and lit a cigarette. Once cigarette smoking had been as normal a sight as someone hailing a cab in Manhattan. Now when you lit a cigarette, people looked at you as though you were an addict, or worse. Fuck it. She’d been a drug addict
and
worse. She’d deal with the sour looks from the nonsmokers of the world. A deep inhale pulled the first drag into her lungs. Who knew, maybe she was wrong. Maybe she would kick this habit someday, but she wasn’t starting now, not today, only days before Christmas.

Shelly glanced at her phone to check the time. She needed to hustle back to Nonna’s and get them to Aubrey and Justin’s. The sun had long since set, and darkness filled the sky. No clouds—just the moon and crystal pinpricks of starlight. Long Island smelled different than San Francisco, felt different too. The neighborhood felt closed in, more tightly packed, and familiar, like a warm jacket you pulled from the back of your closet.

She hadn’t been into the city yet. What would being downtown feel like? Damn, she’d only started driving again last month. She slid one hand into her jacket pocket, took another drag, and started the short walk home.

A black car, sleek and expensive, pulled to the curb. Her eyes flicked toward the car, but she kept walking. A Tesla was definitely out of place in this neighborhood. The passenger window slid down and the car stopped.

Desire flooded her as she realized who was behind the wheel, even before she heard his voice. Damn. The sensation nearly knocked her to her knees. How long since she’d actually
wanted
a man? Her gut twisted with a desire for Anthony’s touch, to feel his skin pressed to her skin, his hands on her body. How long since she had felt this desire, a desire attached to more than physical pleasure? Her gaze slid toward the car. Maybe since she’d last made love with Anthony. It might have been that long.

“Shelly?”

Her gut tightened at the sound of his voice, and a heat pulsed between her legs. Her name on his lips was a long-remembered caress. How many times growing up had she heard him say her name? She’d never be able to remember. She walked to the passenger side of the car and leaned down to look inside.

Her breath caught in her chest. The streetlight lit Anthony’s features through the windshield. He had always been the type of guy who made women pause, take a long second look. Sharp-cut jaw and full lips, with a smile, one she’d yet to see since she’d returned, that was a panty-melter for sure. There was no smile on his face tonight. He might as well be a dark-eyed stranger, a wealthy man in an expensive car in the wrong neighborhood.

She rested her hand on the frame of the open window. “Nice wheels, Tony.” She took the final drag of her cigarette and threw it to the ground, then rolled the toe of her boot across the butt. His gaze raked over her. Even through the darkness, the judgment in his eyes, so evident since she’d arrived home, reached across the distance between them and slapped her. “Don’t look like they belong here, though. Neither do you.”

She pushed away from the car and started to walk home. She didn’t need his rich ass judging her. Who was he, anyway? Yeah, she’d done things that she wished she hadn’t, but she was getting her life back together now. Anthony, with his fancy things, and all that money, and his look-at-how-successful-I-am attitude, wasn’t helping her any. Nope. She didn’t care how much money Tony Travati had managed to sock away in his bank account. She knew from experience that money didn’t make you a good person. She’d seen that first-hand.

The car rolled forward, tailing her.

“You better stop following me,” she yelled over her shoulder. “I got the 50 on my speed dial.”

“I came to give you a ride to Justin and Aubrey’s,” he shouted back. The car came to an abrupt halt.

She stopped and turned. He now stood beside the open driver door, one hand on the roof of the car. His gaze shifted from her back to the church and the clumps of people lingering on the front steps. Was he embarrassed to be seen with her? She’d run into a former teacher and two classmates in the meeting.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Nonna said you either be here or at Joey’s.” He nodded toward the church. “She hoped here. NA meeting?”

“Don’t get yourself all judgey. We all got addictions. Some of them are just more apparent than others.”

His gaze whipped back to hers. Surprise hovered in his eyes.

“What? You think I don’t know what you think? I see it written all over your damn face. ‘Why is Shelly back? Is she clean? Is she going to steal from her Nonna?’ You almost had the guts to say it to my face yesterday. So now you’re going to stand there and tell me that none of that crap went through that moneymaking mind of yours?”

Not one muscle in his face moved. He didn’t even cock his damn eyebrow, like he normally did when he was at least amused.

“Nothing now? Not a word? You used to be more honest than that, Tony. Working downtown with all those white-collar thieves must’ve taught you to keep those lips tight.” She shoved both hands in her pockets and walked toward the corner. She didn’t need a ride from him in his fancy car, bought with all that money he thought made him special. Nope, she knew better. Money did not buy class.

How many of those men who had come to visit her back in the bad times had been pulling down seven, eight figures a year? A lot. Before she’d really fallen and let herself go, anyway. At least those guys showered and paid. As she got worse off, so did the tricks, until near the end she’d been so strung out she’d been putting the needle in before they even left.

“Shelly, stop.” Anthony walked around the front of the car and angled to cut her off. His hand grabbed her arm.

Red flooded her vision. Heat pulsed in her chest and adrenaline spiked her blood. She’d been grabbed before. Knocked out for protecting herself. She wouldn’t be grabbed again.

Her gaze locked with his. “Better move that hand. You want me to stay,
ask
. You want to touch me, it’d better be gentle.” She wouldn’t play about this. Couldn’t. She doubted she’d ever be able to have a man reach out and grab for her again without feeling some tinge of terror, fright that turned into fight-or-flight.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Anthony’s hand slipped from her arm.

“Not startling, just how it is. Nobody gets to grab me.” She pulled her hands closer together in her pockets. “I’ve got to get home and get Nonna if I’m going to make it into the city on time.”

“She’s not going. I stopped there first. She was asleep on the couch. I helped her to bed. She said to tell you to have fun.”

Going to Aubrey and Justin’s tonight didn’t sound like fun. Especially by herself. “Then I’m not going.” She whipped out her phone and scrolled to Aubrey’s number.

“Your grandmother won’t be pleased if you cancel now.”

Shelly’s gaze flicked to meet Anthony’s eyes. She lifted one challenging brow. But he was absolutely right. Nonna might be gentle and loving, but she would be unyielding in her disappointment if Shelly cancelled on Aubrey and Justin right before she was meant to arrive at their home for dinner.

“I’ll drive. I’ll even have you home before midnight.”

Anthony’s tone had shifted. The last line reminded her of the playfulness he’d once had. He might not be acting quite like the guy who’d swept her off her feet when she was sixteen, but this was definitely not the uptight stuffed shirt who’d showed up at Nonna’s last night.

He opened the passenger door. She tipped her head and nodded. She wasn’t the same girl who’d ridden around beside Anthony for years, but then again, he definitely wasn’t the same guy.

*

A quiet drive to Manhattan with no conversation. Shelly’s lips parted at the view of the city. Anthony pulled to a stop at the front of Justin’s building. The foyer glittered with Christmas decorations. Once inside, he gently reached for Shelly’s elbow and steered her to the elevator doors.

“Some pad. Suppose yours is the same. Don’t you guys ever miss the old neighborhood?”

The elevator doors opened, and Anthony followed Shelly onto the lift.

“I get back when I can.”

“From what Nonna says, you get back quite a bit.” Shelly gave him a sidelong glance as she spoke, but he didn’t respond. Anthony visited Mrs. Bello for Vinnie, maybe for Shelly, but mostly for himself. Cold calculation made up most his life. Visiting Mrs. Bello let him relax and remember simpler times, and some days just be Tony Travati from the neighborhood.

“Thank you,” Shelly continued. The edge had vanished from her tone. “I haven’t been…” Her words trailed away. She turned and those ice-blue eyes met his. “I know you help her more than she knows. She thinks all those workmen are some kind of pension program for retired teachers. But it’s you, I know it. Thank you.” She reached out, grasped his fingers, and squeezed.

Heat fired deep in his bloodstream and warmed his frigid heart.

“The house looks good, she looks good, and she seems happy.”

“She’s happiest with you here,” Anthony admitted.

The softness around Shelly’s mouth hardened, and her eyes clouded. Of course he’d said the exact wrong thing. He seemed to have a talent for saying the exact wrong thing to Shelly.

“I’m trying to get it together, Tony.” She released his fingers and hitched her purse higher up on her shoulder. “I’m doing my best. I don’t expect you or anyone else to feel sorry for me. I made my choices, I got myself where I was, but I’m trying my damndest to come back from all that shit.”

Words stalled in his throat. She hadn’t only hurt Mrs. Bello. As loath as he was to admit it, she’d hurt him too.

The elevator doors slid open onto Justin and Aubrey’s penthouse.

Aubrey and Max stood waiting at the elevator door. Love beamed from Aubrey’s face. Her left hand rested on her pregnant belly. Max, closing in on adulthood, stood beside his mother. All Travati in his stance. Head up, chest out, his jaw hard-cut. The air of confidence often mistaken for arrogance.