Closer (22 page)

“She came unannounced.  I was waiting for you.”

Their eyes locked as she searched the truth beneath his even tone.

“What’s that about?”  She finally asked, nodding to the contract.

“Shanghai,” he replied.  He knew it was all that needed to be said because he was still waiting for her answer from last night.

“Well, maybe it would be better if Celeste goes with you.  She seems to care more about your career than I do.”

He angled his cheek as if she had just slapped him. 
Bitterness
.  He recognized it seething out of her.  Ducking his reply, she bent forward, swept up something from the floor, and slapped it into his palm. 

Perplexed, he studied its color and texture. 
Black thong panties
.  How or why she had found them, he had no idea, but he wasn’t about to let her believe the worst of him.

“Inez, you’re making assumptions—”

“No, I’m not making any assumptions because you’re free to do whatever you want.  We have an arrangement, and anything more than that is just—unpaid work.  And I don’t have that luxury of time.”

“You’ll be paid for coming today, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She laughed, a mocking burst of condescension.  “Good, because that’s definitely the only reason I’m here.”

He stared at her, realizing their exchange had gone all wrong.  He shook his head, unable to comprehend how things had turned so quickly against him.  Seeking to redeem himself, he automatically moved to the safe, keyed in the code to open the door, and removed a stack of one hundred dollar bills.

Silently, he held it out to her.

She crossed her arms and fell silent, as if she was deciding whether or not it was worth the effort to cross into his bedroom.  Finally, she folded, pushed towards him and snapped the stack out of his hand.  But in exchange, he snagged her by the hand.

“Come to the opera with me tonight,” he said, reeling her into his nakedness and his vulnerability.  “Come back here after your fitting with Ebony.  I want you to be here with me.  I want us to have a pleasant evening—together.”

He made the offer with tenderness in his voice, letting her read into his intentions. 

“No, it’s not possible,” she replied coolly, enduring his grasp but avoiding his gaze.  “I’m not available.  I’m meeting Enzo.”  She deliberately accentuated the words, like she wanted nothing more than to wound him.

“I see…”  He released her hand and backed away. 
She wasn’t the only one making assumptions that were wrong
.

She fell silent.  Painfully silent.

“Then it’s best that you go,” he directed her.

She abruptly turned to leave, then stopped and gazed back at her portrait on his dresser.  “You promised me you would destroy it.”

It was as if she was determined to lance his heart with her dagger.  His chest tightened with his own aching bitterness.

“And I plan to keep that promise.”

“Good,” she said.  “I’ll be back here to meet you tomorrow night for the opening.”

“Don’t bother,” he replied flatly.  “I’ll have one of my drivers pick you up and we’ll arrive separately.”

“Even better,” she punctuated.

He nodded and stood motionless until he was certain he heard her departure.  Then, he exhaled and tossed the panties across the room.  Whatever she believed he was, whatever she believed he wanted from her, she was wrong.  And whatever he had believed was between them, whatever connection he believed united them beyond their arrangement, he was wrong.  She was using him.  And he was using her.  And with that realization, Sven swept his entire arm over the surface of his dresser, scattering her portrait and the depths of his rage across his bedroom.  It was a certainty now—there was nothing that could save him from the looming threats of incapacitating darkness and despair.  He was a man completely alone.

Chapter Twenty

“Please tell me this gown won’t be exposing my underwear tomorrow night.”

Inez stared at herself in the three-way mirror, wearing the lilac gown with a slimming bodice, plunging neckline, and a floor-length train with slits up the right and the left sides.

Ebony shifted behind her, tugging gently on the charmeuse and pinning together the final alterations.  “That gown cost thirty thousand dollars,” she mumbled past a pin between her teeth. “And it was flown in from Paris from one of my favorite couture dress shops in Montmartre. Even the panties were handmade.”

“Yeah, I imagined all the little old French women sewing on the ruffles in the mezzanine of the Moulin Rouge.”

Ebony smirked and removed the pin from her mouth.  “What did Sven think?”

“He thought you were intentionally taunting him.  He said you know that he hates tattoos.”

“He does.  And I was.  But I also knew you’d looked fabulous in it.  Besides, it was the Modern Architecture Society gala.  I wasn’t going to send you there in some boring conservative Vera Wang knock off.  And definitely not with your curves.  Did he at least give you a compliment?”

Inez paused before answering, considering both kisses from Sven last night.  They weren’t from the stern bitter man she had assumed he was when they first met.  They were kisses from a complex man with a constant undercurrent of heat and passion raging within him.

“I don’t think he remembers much about last night,” Inez finally said, forcing herself to dismiss everything that had happened between them.

Puzzled, Ebony frowned and wrapped her measuring tape around Inez’s bustline.  “You know, I don’t get it.  Your bustline changes size every time I see you.  Like…an entire cup size bigger.  Are you doing some sort of Suzanne Somers thigh-master for your boobs?”

“Nope.  Something way higher maintenance.”

Ebony narrowed her eyes, heavy with black eyeliner. “What could possibly be higher maintenance than a thigh-master for your boobs?”

“Breastfeeding.”

“What?”  Ebony dropped her measuring tape and stood back from the pedestal in disbelief.  “You’re a mommy?  Does Sven know?”

Inez shrugged. “I think he just assumes that I’m naturally a quad D.”

“Of course he does.” Ebony clucked.  “Men.”

“Men,” Inez repeated, picking at her chipped fingernail polish and reflecting on her discovery of Sven—naked with a hard-on in front of Celeste—and her black thong panties.

“Wow, a mommy.  I had no idea.” Ebony’s surprise faded into interest.  “So what’s your baby’s name?”

“Luna.  Sometimes, Lunita.”

“Lunita—little moon.  Aww, that’s precious.”

Inez nodded, fighting back a sudden wave of emotion.  “She’s the brightest light in my darkest skies.  I never thought I would ever want kids, but then I got pregnant, and now there’s no way I can think of my life without her.” 

“Well, I can tell you one thing,” Ebony said with conviction.  “I think Sven is starting to think he can’t think of
his
life without you.  He seems to be under the impression that you’re traveling with him to Shanghai.”

“What do you mean?”  Inez asked, running her hands over the smooth fabric of her dress, taking in its soothing lavender sheen. 

Ebony removed a pin from her mouth and darted it into the cushion around her wrist.  “He called me yesterday and ordered an entire new wardrobe for you.  He wants it finished by the beginning of next week and shipped out to Shanghai.”

Incredulous, Inez stared at Ebony in the mirror. “That was probably before I turned him down this morning.  He offered to take me to the opera tonight, but I told him I was planning on spending the night with my ex-boyfriend.”

“Ouch.” Ebony replied, sweeping out the hemline of Inez’s gown and checking its length.  “So you guys are still together?”

“Not really.  Not anymore.  Aargh, I don’t know.  It’s all become ridiculous and complicated.  And pretending to be Sven’s girlfriend has made everything even more ridiculously complicated.”

“Yeah, Sven is pretty complicated,” Ebony conceded.  “Especially after what happened with Celeste and his brother.  It broke his heart, you know.”

“Yeah, dating someone who sleeps with your brother is about as low as you can go,” Inez confirmed.

“And losing his eyesight because of it just made everything worse for him.”

Inez studied their reflections in the mirror and decided to take the leap. “What do you mean…losing his eyesight because of it?”

Ebony gazed back at Inez.  “You don’t know?”

Inez shook her head.

Heaving a deep sigh, Ebony propped the heel of her black leather boot onto the edge of the pedestal and fiddled with the final alterations along her waistline.  “Well, I only know what Sven told me, which isn’t much because…well, you know Sven.  But apparently, they were all on his yacht together, the day after Sven had returned from a three week trip to Shanghai.  He had organized the getaway because he was preparing to propose to Celeste on the deck of the ship and he wanted Hans to be his best man.  But instead, Celeste and Hans told him they had fallen in love while he was away and that they were engaged.”

Inez’s mouth dropped open.  “And I thought I was a cold-hearted bitch.”

“Yeah, horrible, right?  Anyway, I don’t know exactly what happened, but Sven was furious, of course.  There was some kind of a fight between Sven and Hans, and somehow Sven ended up overboard.  He smashed his head against the hull and almost drowned.  He was in the hospital for weeks and he permanently lost his vision in his left eye—the one with the patch.  And if that wasn’t bad enough…the headaches started and then his vision got worse in his right eye.  That started about three months ago and he’s been trying to hide it ever since.”

“I had no idea,” Inez said, quietly.

“Yeah, it’s been hard. Really hard on him.  I mean, it’s bad enough that he’s losing his vision, especially since he’s such a talented architect, but what’s worse is how it’s changed him.  After the accident, he had a slow recovery, and it was like he was a different person—moody, bitter, resentful.  It was as if he hated everyone around him, but even worse, he hated being around himself.  And it all seems like such a shame because I don’t even think he was really in love with Celeste.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sven fall in love with anything except his work.  But losing his eyesight jeopardizes everything he’s ever worked for. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to him.  I suppose I had a bit of hope yesterday when he called me and told me you were going to Shanghai with him because it was the first time in a long time that I almost heard the old Sven in his voice.”  

Inez closed her eyes.  She knew what Ebony meant; she had met that Sven last night—charming, unguarded, and inebriated.  But after their exchange this morning, it was clear that he was more Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than she could deal with—even for five thousand dollars per night.

“Well, unfortunately, this is just a job for me and it ends tomorrow night,” Inez replied.  “After that, there’s no more fancy gowns and no more galas.  Faux Cinderella has to go back to being the unwed maiden with a baby to care for and no time or energy to be rescuing blind Princes or believing in happily ever afters.”

“Well, I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic who believes every girl deserves a happily ever after.  Or at least, a fabulous gown that makes her feel like a smokin’ hot princess—even if it’s only for one night.”

They both fell silent and admired the lilac evening gown, flattering Inez’s dark hair and olive complexion.

“You’re very good at your job, Ebony.”

“So are you, faux Cinderella.  Or Sven wouldn’t want you to travel with him to Shanghai.”

“Maybe he’s just enchanted with my quad D.”

Ebony snorted through her nose ring. “Men.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Inez ran up the dim stairwell with a hopeful heart.  She planned to pick up Luna early from Sarah’s care and meet Enzo for their first outing as a family—together.

A family
.  She could barely whisper the phrase in her mind.  It felt like a shameful secret—her private longing to be a part of a family. 
Yes, she had her grandmother
.  And she owed everything to her grandmother for rescuing her from the dysfunctional foster care system after her parents died.  But it took nearly five years of administrative paperwork, court hearings, and supervised social service visits to convince them that a legally blind seventy-year old woman could properly care for her granddaughter; and by that point, Inez had grown from an emotionally scarred child into a disillusioned hardened teenager who had long since given up on the idea of being part of a traditional family.  A mother, father, sister, brothers are what everyone else had.  She had her grandmother, and now, she had her own daughter.

And for Luna’s sake, she wasn’t ready to give up on the ideal of a traditional family. 
Luna deserved better
; s
he deserved a father
.  Inez considered the possibility that she had been too quick to judge Enzo.  He had been faithful to her for the time that they were together; she knew that much.  And the same night he had taken the photographs hanging in the gallery of the museum, he had promised he would marry her.  She had believed him because she loved him and she thought he had loved her.

She swallowed hard as she reached the third floor landing.  There had only been one time when she had ever had sex without a condom—the night that they conceived Luna.  It had been unplanned and unexpected, a moment of unbridled intimacy between them during their final night together before he left for Argentina. 
The night he had promised to marry her—someday
. 
And she believed him
.  But in the end, the only thing an entire year of separation yielded was the birth of their child and the cruel lesson that her love was a gift that could be received, used, and returned—even without her consent.

Now, all those intimate nights making love in his studio loft seemed like a tragic love affair between two people who vaguely knew each other. 
Except for the fact that she had loved him
. She had loved him, truly, deeply, and in a way that opened herself up to more pain from his betrayal than she could possibly endure because it not only shattered her heart, but also her dreams of a future together—together with Luna.

Was he really willing to start over and commit to her?  Was she a fool for wanting to give him another chance
?  Heartache flared inside her, but the possibility of giving Luna something better than her own childhood seemed so much more important than punishing Enzo for screwing around, because she wouldn’t just be punishing Enzo.  She would be punishing Luna, too. 

Was it too much to dare to wish for now, a father and a mother—together
?  For Inez, it had always been a splinter in her heart that she constantly sanded over with anger and resentment—anger and resentment at the world for depriving her of something as basic as a family.  But for her innocent, unblemished baby, everything still seemed possible.  It was this realization that spurred Inez up the final steps and through Sarah’s unlocked apartment door.  Yes, she was willing to swallow her own wounded pride if it meant giving Enzo another chance to prove that he meant what he had texted her—that he wanted to be with her and Luna, together as a family.  But selfishly she was willing to offer him another chance because it meant holding onto the hope that those intimate nights in Enzo’s loft weren’t just a lost love affair between two strangers; they were moments shared between two people who had loved each other deeply enough to have a baby and who still could love each other that deeply again.

“Helloooooo?” Inez called out in a hushed voice, stopping herself in the living room and noting the unusual silence within the apartment.  Only the broken blinds rattled like dry bones in the breeze wafting in through the open window.  Inez crept along the hardwood floors of the hallway, knowing the most evil thing you could do to a babysitter and a baby was to wake up them both up from naptime.  She paused again, just outside Sarah’s bedroom when she spotted Luna in the bathroom, strapped in her car seat, eyes open while sucking on her favorite giraffe. 

But where was Sarah
?  Inez quickly unstrapped Luna and swooped her up into her arms.  Her fresh baby scent and velvet skin soothed all her senses.  “I missed you,” she cooed, rubbing her cheek against Luna’s dark downy head of baby hair.  She opened her mouth to call out for Sarah until she heard something from the bedroom that stopped her.  It was a moan, too bass and guttural to be Sarah exhaling through difficult yoga poses.  She carried Luna down the hallway and noted the bedroom door, left ajar.  She peered into it and everything turned to slow motion—Enzo’s strong naked body over Sarah’s bare lithe figure; the expression on Sarah’s face, eyes shut, mouth slackened with ecstasy, enduring his primal thrusts; the churning of the ceiling fan that spun Inez’s emotion into a visceral need to vomit. 

Luna stirred in her arms, spit out her pacifier, and release an impatient whine.  It was feeding time.

Sarah opened her topaz blue eyes and spotted Inez and Luna through the doorway.

“Stop, stop, stop—” She scratched at Enzo’s bare back while kicking him off her, as if there was some way she expected to cover up the fact that they were fucking each other.

Inez pushed open the door with one hand.  “Oh please, don’t stop because of us,” Inez slung at them.  “Your multiple orgasms are clearly more important than babysitting my infant.”  

“Inez,” Enzo implored her, his hand stretching out to her like he expected her to join them.  “Don’t—”

“Don’t what, Enzo?  Call you both out for being assholes for leaving Luna alone in another room while you two hump each other like teenage rabbits?” Her furious eyes shifted onto Sarah.  “And you.  I already knew Enzo was a manwhore.  But I was under the illusion that you were my friend.”

Sarah gathered the sheets around her naked body and flipped her long strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder.  She shrugged and drew out a long winded sigh, the way she did whenever she was smoking her Virginia Slims.  “Well, it’s not like you’re still dating him.”

Inez stared at her, unable to comprehend her complete lack of common decency.

“Wow, that’s true, Sarah.  Thanks for the reminder.  I can’t believe I even considered anything else except dumping him.  Especially when he’s more than willing to fuck anyone who will spread her legs and say please.”

Sarah snorted, like she was both insulted and amused.  They both knew she was always willing to spread her legs for whoever would take her.

Enzo jumped out of bed and confronted Inez, full frontal.  “Sarah’s right, Inez.  You haven’t said you wanted to come back to me. But now, I wonder if you are so angry because you are as jealous to see me with Sarah as I am when I see you with your new fancy boyfriend.”

Inez glared at him while Luna writhed in her arms. “The only thing I’m truly angry about is that I was so wrong about you, Enzo.  So wrong about us.”  She fought to hold back her tears. 
She would not cry in front of him, damn it
. 
She would not ugly cry
.

Still hard with arousal, he spread his palms out like he had nothing to hide.  “Inez,
mi amor
…it’s just sex.  It’s not love.”

He kissed Luna on the head and she settled in Inez’s arms.  Every fiber in Inez’s body fought to keep from pulling her away from him.  He was still Luna’s father; nothing had changed except the foolish fantasy that he could offer Inez more than that.

“I’m not interested in being with a man who thinks sex and love are two separate things, Enzo.”

He reached out and stroked her cheek.  “Our kind of love made our child. Isn’t that all that matters?”

For a moment, Inez saw her own reflection in his dark glossy eyes and remembered what she was capable of without depending on anyone.  “The only thing that matters is that whoever I’m with makes me happy.  And I’ve finally accepted, Enzo, that’s not going to be you.”

Enzo scoffed.  “And is that what you’re getting from your new fancy boyfriend?”

She shifted her eyes to Sarah, and then thought about all the other nameless, faceless women he had slept with.  “Well, I’m certainly not getting chlamydia.”

It was a bitchy assault against them both, but she didn’t care.  Luna was hungry and fussing, and it was time to finally leave the disappointment and betrayal behind her.  Turning out of the bedroom, she attempted to gather up Luna’s car seat and head for the door.

“Inez—” He called after her, his voice stern and reprimanding. “We have a child together.  You can’t deny that we will always be connected through her.”

Exhausted and empty, Inez shot him a glare, her emotions spinning and repeating like a warped record. “Yeah, it’s called child support, Enzo.  Read up on it.  You’ll get a notice in the mail.”