Heart Breaker (Break on Through) (8 page)

“
Kyle
, what the
hell
are you doing over here with
that
woman?”

I whipped my head around to see the same woman I had seen with him on TV. His latest divorce client. She had one hand on her hip, jutted out to the side in an exaggerated manner, with eyes turned into laser-focused slits, looking up and down the length of me. Her dress was definitely a size too small and her silicon-enhanced breasts were about to make an escape out of her deep V. She was also just a shade lighter than Willy Wonka Oompa Loompa Orange. It was a shame because the woman was actually very pretty and didn’t need the whole
Real Housewives
tacky franchise look. It was also obvious that she wasn’t a longtime DC resident either, because the women of the area didn’t dress like her. They were into subtle elegance. Didn’t mean they didn’t get a lift or tuck, but it was all meant to look timeless. Ageless.

Not like the train wreck in front of me now, who had obviously taken her beauty cues from the porn industry. So sad.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” I said, my pensive coming out more than my sass, “he’s all yours.” Then I stepped aside in time to see Patrick walking up to us with two drinks in hand. I grabbed my clutch off the table.

“Sorry it took so long, baby girl. The line was forever!” His eyes moved toward my handbag. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Huh,” the woman huffed. “Looks like you’re trying to collect all the hot men tonight. Take yours and back off of mine!”

Kyle grabbed her by the upper arm and practically growled in her face, “Damn it, Yasmine, we are
not
together. You asked me to accompany you tonight as a favor and that’s it.”

Patrick put the drinks down and came over to me, wrapping his arm around me. “You okay?”

“She’s
fine
,” Kyle spat out, “and we were in the middle of a private discussion.”

“I’m not fine,” I retorted, glaring back at him, “but I am done.” Then, turning back to Patrick, I said, “I’ve got to go, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

His face immediately softened. “Sam…”

I plastered on a fake smile, which I just knew didn’t reach my eyes. “Everything’s fine, Trick. Really.” I was trying too hard and it showed. So I sighed, gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

And without looking at Kyle or the divorcée or anyone else in the eye, I bolted straight for the exit. I could hear Kyle calling for me, but I didn’t look back. My hands slammed onto the metal handles of the double doors, and, as soon as they opened, I was practically blown sideways by a harsh, cold wind. Luckily the doors emptied right by a cabstand, and I was immediately whisked off, back over the Key Bridge and home to the place that had become both my salvation and my prison.

Chapter Six

Out with Henry. Don’t wait up! Insert squeaky girly noise here. :-)

See ya mañana,

Jess

“Well, at least one of us is having a good night,” I mumbled into the air, while tossing the note into the recycling. I had forgotten that Jess was going out with one of the teachers from her school, some guy who taught the advanced classes to sixth graders. Personally, I thought he was all wrong for my sister, a guy filled to the brim with his own self-importance. The first time I met him, the douchebag somehow managed to “slip” in that he had published a book
and
was voted Teacher of the Year in the state of Virginia—ten years ago. And that meeting had only lasted fifteen minutes. Jess didn’t usually have a lot of patience for what she called puffed-up-peacock arrogance, but she had heard his back story during lunch with some of the chattier staff members, about how his wife was killed by a drunk driver years ago. Just like our parents. And that’s all it took. My sister was a sucker for romance and lost causes, a die-hard rescuer. Couple that with a shared tragic history and I knew that spelled at least getting to third base with my sister.

“I give it two months,” I said to no one but myself, while looking in the fridge and seeing nothing I wanted to eat, in spite of being half-starved at this point. So instead, I opted for a glass of red wine and went to my room. The one I had been in since my first memory. Of course, I had redecorated it as soon as Jessica and I had moved back after our parents’ accident. It went from swirls of pinks and purples, well-loved during my teen years, to its current palette of celadon blue and white with touches of green apple accents. I stripped out of my beloved Gucci dress, kicked off my heels as if they were on fire and plopped myself on my bed. My stomach growled, which made sense because I hadn’t eaten since lunch and, because of that, the wine went right to my head. My brain was now fuzzy and warm and my belly had been quieted. And there, alone in the dark of my room, wearing nothing but my underwear, I let the tears roll down.

Silently. Steadily.

I missed my mom and dad. Like a phantom limb. I longed to be able to hear their voices, especially after a disaster of a night like tonight. Usually, if this had happened while they were alive, I would have gone back to my apartment and called them. Or waited ’til my next visit to Vienna, when I would spill the sordid details over my dad’s French toast and my mom’s perfectly crispy bacon. And by the time I would have finished with my story, both of them would have had me laughing ’til my sides hurt. My mom would have reached out to play with my hair, which she loved to do, and say in that melodic, breezy cadence of hers, “Sam-Sam, when God feels it’s time, He’s going to bring a man worthy of you because you are one of His most extraordinary creations. He will not be perfect, but he will be perfect for you.”

Then my dad would stop eating and stare at my mother. With awe. With even a tinge of incredulous disbelief, like a man who had won the lottery and couldn’t grasp the magnitude of his good fortune. My mom would beam back at him, wink at me and proclaim, “Samantha, that’s the kind of love worthy of a girl like you. Enjoy your playtime for now, but when the time comes to settle down? Don’t settle. Never settle.”

Both my parents considered themselves blessed to have found the other, but there was always an extra element of wonderment for my dad. I always figured it had been because he was the guy from the wrong side of the tracks who had fallen head over heels in love with a breathtakingly beautiful redhead from Southern Virginia. A girl who came from family money and impeccable breeding, someone expected to marry a physician or a senator. They had met at the College of William and Mary, where he was on full scholarship, studying economics. She was a sophomore and he was a senior, just accepted into the combination master’s/PhD program at Princeton University. A handsome man with a bright future with barely two cents to rub together.

He started the academic year as her tutor and was her husband by the following summer, eloping when she was only nineteen and he was twenty-one. She transferred to Princeton, and they lived in student housing for six years while he earned his graduate degrees. Even though they continued to pay for her schooling, her parents didn’t directly speak to her for two years, until I came along. Once he secured a position with a prestigious economic policy think tank based in Washington, DC, most of the family rifts had mended.

“I may have lost you both,” I whispered in the dark, “but I didn’t lose what you taught me. Not a word of it. So I want you to know I’m done playing. I’m ready to find my man, the one who may not be perfect, but the one who’s perfect for me.” I took in a trembling gulp of air and closed my eyes, hoping sleep would take over my fatiguing body and spirit.

Instead, I heard a series of pings on my bedroom window.

I was used to scrapes, but not sharp, irregularly staccato sounds. That’s because planted right in front of my house was an oak tree and I had spent my life listening to its branches and foliage brush against my bedroom window.

I crawled across the bed and grabbed the robe I kept hanging on the back of my door. As I walked to the window, I cinched the sash belt tightly around my waist and, this time, I could actually see small pebbles hitting the window frame.

“What the hell…” I muttered, my voice drifting off as my face came closer to the glass.

Sure enough, there was Kyle, standing under my oak tree. On my front lawn! I stared at him with my mouth gaping. Then I rolled up my eyes to the heavens.

“You have
got
to be kidding me right now.” I shook my head and pressed my forehead to the glass.

He made eye contact and gave me one of his panty-melting smiles. All he needed was a big ol’ boom box, a deluge of rain coming down, and his John Cusack/
Say Anything
movie moment would be complete.

I shook my head and grasped both latches and opened the window. His smile grew wide and warm as soon as he saw me lean on the sill.

“
Kyle
,” I whisper-yelled down, “what are you doing here?”

He was still wearing the same stunning Tom Ford suit from earlier, with gloves on this time but no coat. It was early March in the Mid-Atlantic, which meant it wasn’t arctic cold, but it wasn’t balmy either. Didn’t seem to touch him though, the cold, even though I could see his breath steam in the dark.
Goddammit, he’s beautiful,
I thought begrudgingly.

“Came to find you, honey,” he drawled, rocking back and forth on his heels, his hands now going deep in his pockets. “We’ve got some unfinished business.”

He offered me a crooked smile, and if it were possible for an expression to have too much swagger, his had it. And while I can’t deny I was flattered by him showing up, I still grimaced, looking off to the side to see if any of my neighbors were tuning in to the performance on my lawn.

“I think you finished any business between us when you did the fifty-yard dash the morning after. Oh, and don’t let me forget the
money
you left for me too.” I was all hellfire now, not feeling even a hint of the cold coming through my bedroom window. I placed my hands on the latches and was ready to shut it down.

“Goddamn it, Sam. Wait a sec!” he called out, walking closer to the house. “Listen, I get it. I fucked up.” His hands came out of his pockets and he crossed his arms in front of him, shoulders starting to hunch as he jumped in place to try to keep warm, the cold finally breaking through. That said, he didn’t lose a shred of determination on his face when he looked at me.

“Will ya come on down here and let me in so we can talk?”

I stood there, with half my frame partially hidden. I didn’t like seeing him get cold out there, but I did not want to let him in my house. My sanctuary.

You can lose everything in this life except your dignity and your manners,
I could practically hear my mom saying in my head, with that look on her face which said without saying,
Don’t disappoint me now.

“Crap,” I mumbled. Because I knew I couldn’t let him freeze out there either.

“Oh…fine!” I threw up my hands and leaned out the window. “You get
five
minutes and that’s it! You hear me, Kyle?”

He answered me with a beaming, million-watt smile, which felt like the first genuine moment from him tonight. “Got it,” he answered. “Now come on down here already.”

I slammed down the window with my heart pounding like a runaway jackhammer in my chest. I placed my hand there, feeling the drumbeat rhythm and glancing at myself in the mirror as I walked by. It was just me, looking the way I always did. Same long auburn hair and a tiny, pale body, with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose. Because of the red wine I had earlier, my lips looked almost dyed. I quickly checked my teeth and was relieved they hadn’t turned purple.

I also took a scan of what I was wearing and debated throwing on some jeans and a sweater. But he was already standing on my front porch, probably freezing to death. Retying my robe instead, I left my room, came down the stairs and opened the door. I didn’t even have a chance to register anything because Kyle came through in a rush, closing the door and locking it behind him. As if he had been coming and going from my home for years.

As if he belonged right there with me.

I shook off that notion like it was a wayward spider web I had accidentally walked into. I perused him from head to toe and saw he was shivering.

“Lucky for you I was raised right, by a proper Southern mama,” I said, gesturing him to follow me into the kitchen. It was a mess, but still in working order. “Have a seat,” I called over my shoulder while taking hold of the kettle, filling it with water and grabbing two mugs for tea.

Instead of taking a seat at one of the barstools I had purchased for my soon-to-be-installed kitchen island, Kyle came up behind me, the cold from the outside still clinging onto his clothes, but also the heat from his body, his perfect golden skin, assaulting me through my skimpy robe. He caged me in, just like he had the first night we met, his hands leaning on the counter on either side of me. My back was still to him, thank goodness, so he couldn’t see me closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath in order to shore up my strength.

“I know I didn’t handle things right,” he said, his voice rough, like sandpaper. I didn’t know if it was from the cold or from his confession. “Knew the minute I left my apartment that morning. By the time I got to my office, it took everything in me not to turn around and come back for you.”

“But you didn’t, Kyle,” I said on a whisper. “Not that day. Or the next.” I pushed him away with the point of my elbow and reached for the honey in the cabinet. I still didn’t face him. Couldn’t.
God, I’m being such a girl,
I thought. I wished like hell I didn’t care. I drizzled the honey in each mug and tossed two bags of my favorite herbal tea in each.

His hands took hold of me and ran up my arms, resting on my shoulders. He must’ve taken his gloves off at some point, although I hadn’t noticed when, and his skin scored mine, even with the satin between us.

I felt him take in a breath, as if he was about to speak, when the kettle blared its whistle through the charged air between us. Before I had a chance, Kyle leaned over, turned off the burner and moved the kettle aside.

“What are you—” I started, but shut up because he pivoted me so I was facing him. His hands came up to cradle my neck, and I tilted up so I could look directly at him.

I didn’t want to be drawn to him, but I was. More than to any man I’d ever met. I wanted to be able to gaze into those golden-whiskey eyes of his and feel nothing. I pursed my lips because I could sense the vulnerability in my soul rising. Like a ghost resurrected.

He gave me a squeeze and I tried to pull away. But his grip grew firm.

“Nothing doing, Sam,” he chided. “You’re going to hear me out and you’re going to forgive me too.”

“I don’t
think
so.” My voice had lost its softness. “You’re so sure of yourself, Kyle Masterson, but maybe this is the one time in your life you don’t get something you want. And maybe that would be a good thing to happen to you.”

In the meantime, for all my friggin’ bravado, I belatedly realized my arms had come around his waist and I had pulled him into me, gripping him as tightly as he was holding on to me. And what’s worse was that he knew it too, because his lips twitched ever so slightly, working hard not to break out into a shit-eating grin. Bastard.

“Don’t fight me just for the sake of your pride, babe,” he said while moving his hips forward enough for me to feel his impressive length against my heated core. “Knew the minute I saw you that you were magnificent. Having you in my bed felt the most right I’ve felt in a very long time.”

My throat closed up and tears came to my eyes. I pushed myself out of his arms and stalked as far away from him as I could. “So that’s why you ran from me so fast. Because we fit so well together? You’re not making any sense, and I think I would like you to leave.”

I may have said it, but there was no real conviction or bite to my words. Instead, I just sounded like a big ol’ baby, just another girl getting let down by a guy.

He let out an exasperated sigh and drove his fingers through his hair, looking around but not seeming to see anything. Stuck in his head. I wished I knew him better, so I could read what was going on inside. Actually, what I really wished for was to not be affected by him anymore. I decided right then and there, in spite of my mad love for the theater and its relentless explorations into the human psyche, that having feelings sucked. Big time.

“You remember how I told you I’ve got hyperthymesia?”

This was not what I expected him to say, so I just dumbly nodded.

His hands came to rest on his hips, but he looked anything but relaxed. And he started pacing some steps back and forth, as if coming out of his own skin.

“Everyone thinks of it as a cool party trick, like some kind of blessing, and perhaps in some ways it is,” he began, but I thought it interesting that now it was him having a difficult time looking me in the eye, “but it gets old real fast and there’s shit to this thing I’ve got. Stuff I find hard to shake off.”