Authors: Linda Francis Lee
Portia wrinkled her nose. “Do kids in New York really talk like that?”
“Huh?” the boy said.
“Ignore her,” Miranda said. “Come on, Dustin, let’s go upstairs to my room.”
Ariel’s eyes went wide. “You can’t take a boy to your bedroom! Dad will kill you!”
“Well, he won’t be home for hours, so he won’t ever know. Right?”
“I guess,” Ariel muttered.
“Right, Portia?”
“Don’t get me involved in this. I’m just the
maid,
remember?”
“Whatever. Come on, Dustin.”
Portia cursed under her breath. “Miranda, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to go upstairs. Stay down here, in the garden room.”
Miranda jerked around and gave her a look. “Dad hired you as a cook, I get it. But guess what? That doesn’t make you my babysitter!”
The boy laughed. “Dude,” he said with a nod.
“Your dad won’t be happy if he finds out you took a guy to your room. He might well decide that you
need
a babysitter.”
Portia didn’t register the sound of the front door opening until Miranda’s eyes went wide.
“What’s up?” Dustin asked.
“It’s Dad,” Ariel said. “He’s going to kill you.
Dude.
”
“You have to go,” Miranda added. “Shit, how do we get you out of here? What is Dad doing home so early?”
Before Portia could intervene, Miranda pushed the boy out the window and shooed him down the fire escape.
“Portia’s door is always open. I’ll take him out through there once Dad’s inside,” Ariel said as if Portia weren’t standing there.
Miranda nodded. “Great.”
“Hello, Dad!” Ariel sang frantically, blowing by him as he walked into the kitchen. “Back in a flash.”
Gabriel stood, taking in the retreating form of Ariel, and then turned to take in Miranda and Portia. “Did I miss something?”
“No,” Miranda blurted. “Not a thing. Right, Portia?”
Gabriel glanced between Miranda and her. What would she do if he asked her what was going on?
Just a few minutes later, Ariel burst back in.
Finally, he asked, “What’s for dinner?”
“It’s only five o’clock,” Portia said.
“I thought I’d come home early. See how my girls were doing.”
“Ah, yeah. Great,” Miranda stated. She tucked her hair behind her ear and strode past him.
“
I’m
glad you’re home, Dad,” Ariel said, as if trying to reassure him that he was loved.
Gabriel smiled. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
Then his cell phone rang, and he disappeared into his study. Portia was left alone again to finish dinner and was on the verge of leaving when Gabriel, Miranda, and Ariel reappeared.
“Dinner’s ready,” Portia said.
“Why don’t you stay?” Gabriel said.
Portia glanced around to see whom he was talking to. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Thanks, but I can’t.”
“Come on,” Ariel chimed in. “Stay.”
Miranda glared.
Portia shook her head. “Nope. But thanks.” No way was she getting roped into another dinner with this crew, despite the fact that she was starving.
At six, she found a can of tuna in her cabinet downstairs. At seven, she had eaten and cleaned, then started to pace. At eight, she called Olivia to get away from her thoughts. At nine, she called to check in on Cordelia, though her call went to voice mail. At ten, she went out, hoping to stop her circling thoughts. She was worried and irritable over one unavoidable fact. She was running out of money.
She walked for nearly an hour, but didn’t feel one bit better. When she returned to the apartment, Gabriel was sitting on the front steps, his forearms on his knees.
He didn’t say a word as she approached.
He always took her breath away, the mix of power and brutality, stirred together with an ache that was only visible if you looked closely.
She didn’t need to be with any man right then; she had enough complications as it was. Not to mention the fact that this man had his own set of problems, the biggest of which being that he had lost his wife—the mother of his daughters—the one who didn’t cook but was fun, at least according to Miranda. More than that—if she needed more than that—was the fact that she worked for him. To top things off, if … no,
when
things fell apart, they would be stuck in the same building, coming and going through the same cramped vestibule.
She hated that he made her want to forget everything and dive into him.
“I want a raise.”
He cocked a brow, leaning back, planting his elbows on the step behind him, a grin sliding across his face. “Last I heard,
Hello
was the accepted form of greeting in the U.S.”
She slapped her thigh. “God, you with the jokes. But I’m serious. And as you just pointed out, this is the U.S. Haven’t you heard of redistribution of wealth? You appear to have lots. I need some. Hence the raise.”
His grin hitched into a smile. “You’ve barely made half a dozen meals.”
“A half dozen of the best meals you’ve had in a long time.”
“It’s pretty hard to get breakfast wrong.”
“You’d think. But I have a nose, Mr. Kane, and the smell of burned oatmeal wafted from your kitchen the other morning.”
“Wafted?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
His dark hair looked black as night in the sun, the waves reflecting the light, his matching eyes so dark that she couldn’t tell where the pupils ended and the irises began.
“You’re a good cook. I’ll give you that.”
“And then there were the cupcakes.”
“True.”
“Then you’ll give me the raise?”
“No.”
She heaved a melodramatic sigh, somehow feeling better already. “This really isn’t funny,” she said.
“Actually, it sort of is. You look like you’re sucking on a lemon.”
She shook her head with a jerk. “Untrue!”
“Nope, true.”
“Do men your age say words like ‘nope’?”
“This from the woman who just used the word ‘wafting.’”
For a second, she thought he was going to laugh outright. Again. This man who people said was ruthless. But then the lightness dissolved, his face shifting back into hard, unyielding edges, and he stood. “Haven’t you heard how intimidating I am?”
She rolled her eyes. “Who could have missed Big Bad You on the front of
The New York Times
?” She patted his shirt. “Go scare those poor guys at Global Guppy, or whatever company you’re trouncing. I’m not afraid of you.”
He actually looked a little insulted.
“One article does not a ruthless magnate make, Gabriel. What’re you doing? Warming up to doing a Donald Trump ‘You’re Fired’?”
“Me channeling Donald Trump is about as likely as me giving you a raise.”
“Well, you do have better hair.”
His head fell back, and he looked up to the sky. “Three females in one suddenly small town house, not a one of them who listens to a word I say.”
“Ariel listens.”
He glanced back at her. “When she wants to.”
They walked up the stairs and into the vestibule, but when she reached the entry to her apartment, she turned back. He was watching her, hands jammed into his pockets.
“For the record, I don’t believe a word of that article,” she told him.
He studied her. “You should. Every word of it’s true. I get what I want, Portia. And I crush anyone who gets in my way.”
She blinked, then broke into laughter. “If you’re not careful, someone’s going to ask you to star in your own reality-TV show.”
His eyes narrowed in a way that gave her a flutter of alarm.
“Were you sitting out there for a reason?” she hurried on.
He appeared to debate letting her change the subject. “I rang your bell and you weren’t home.”
“I was out.”
“What, no business plans to refine?”
“Ha-ha. You with the joking.”
He stood there for a second. “I’m guessing Miranda had a boy here this afternoon.”
Portia stiffened.
“I’m not an idiot, Portia. I assume he went out the kitchen window after I came in the door.”
She debated. “Yeah, he did.”
They stood in silence for a moment or two longer.
“I didn’t know much about the girls before my wife died,” he said, surprising her. “Now it’s just me taking care of them. And I know what those boys are thinking. That’s one thing I know about, being a kid lusting after a girl. You don’t think about the fact that one day you’ll probably have your own daughter.”
“You know what they say about karma,” she said delicately.
“I say it’s a pain in the ass,” Gabriel muttered.
Portia smiled at him. “There’s more to raising girls than protecting them. You need to figure out how to have fun with them. Let them see that you
can
have fun. Make them feel at ease so they’ll open up to you.”
Gabriel’s jaw set. “I know how to have fun.”
“Really?” she challenged.
“Really.”
“Prove it.”
He glanced at her. “I don’t have to prove anything.”
“Maybe that’s true in business. But with your daughters? Do you really believe you don’t have to prove anything, especially when you admit that you weren’t a big part of their life before their mother passed away?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
The noise of New York felt distant, as if just the two of them existed in this city of millions.
“Make something up,” she suggested.
“What?” The word came out as a snap.
“I don’t mean lie. I’m talking about simple kid things. Like looking up in the sky and finding shapes in clouds.”
“I am not a child.”
“No, you’re a dad who’s trying to connect with two daughters. You need to remember what it’s like to be young, Gabriel.”
He grumbled something, and then said, “There are no clouds.”
“You can’t see them because of the streetlight. But I bet if we go up on the roof,” she said, her tone teasing and singsong, “we could see some.”
“It’s night.”
“There’s a full moon.”
“We are not going up to the roof.”
She ignored his glower, then headed for the front door. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“Ms. Cuthcart—”
“Don’t go all ‘Ms. Cuthcart’ on me. I’ve wanted to see the roof again ever since I got here.”
She stood in the vestibule, waiting expectantly at his front door, his hard gaze locking with hers. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, trying to look sweet and innocent.
“That would work better if I didn’t know you’re only sweet around me when it suits you.”
She gave a surprised burst of laughter. “Touché.”
After a second, he relented and put his key in the lock. Before he could change his mind, she slipped inside and started tiptoeing up the stairs.
Amazingly, Gabriel followed, floor after floor, quiet so the girls wouldn’t hear them. When they came to the doorway that led to the roof, Gabriel reached out and opened it for her.
The minute she stepped outside, Portia smelled the cool evening air. She felt like the clock had been turned back, Gram still alive, Great-aunt Evie still here, the summers filled with promise of a very different kind of adventure. Portia had loved New York when she was younger, but in a way that was so different from what she felt for Texas, with its giant blue sky and easygoing charm, like sweet tea over ice on a hot day. In New York, nothing was easy; everything was dense, nothing fluffy about it, like bagels slathered with thick cream cheese.
Of course, Gabriel had renovated the space. Latticework provided privacy from the town house next door, a cabana-like structure creating a private space. The long swathes of roofing had been covered with a wooden deck. A table perfect for rooftop picnics stood to one side, with two chaise lounges perched at the far end.
The sky was a dark blue, almost black, the buildings like silhouettes. Only a hint of clouds could be seen.
“It’s too dark,” Gabriel stated, then turned back as if either this space, or the night sky, or maybe Portia, made him feel too much.
“Not so fast.” Without thinking, she grabbed his hand.
He glanced down, and Portia felt the shock of his skin on hers. He didn’t tug away when he dragged his gaze back to hers, but the expression on his face was unfathomable. “Are you intimidated by anything?” he asked softly.
Portia let go and walked away from him, with the same overwhelming awareness that he made her feel sliding through her like a warm sip of brandy. “Of course I am,” she called back.
“Like what?
The future. A life derailed. Twice. Not understanding what I did wrong, or what I could have done different to make things turn out right.
But she didn’t say any of that.
“Hmmm, like what?” She studied the wide black sky. “Like sports metaphors, navigating the Thirty-fourth Street subway station—I mean, seriously, how many subway lines do they have down there?—and SquareBob SpongePants. Or is it SpongeBob SquarePants? Whatever, I don’t get him or his underwater bikini world.”
She heard what sounded like a reluctant snort of laughter as she went over to one of the chaise lounges that sat side by side at the edge of the roof. After a second, she said, “Up here I feel completely alone, despite all the windows, the lights burning. Or maybe it’s because I know that even if someone does see me, here, in New York, no one cares. It’s freeing.” She lay down and looked up at the sky. Finally she looked over at him.
“Come on, Gabriel. The girls are asleep. They’ll never know you were up here instead down in front of your computer, slogging away like a efficient hamster on a wheel.”
She was almost certain he muttered a few curse words and that he would storm back downstairs. Instead, he stood there for a second before he strode across the roof, those broad hands of his shoved in his pants pockets. After a moment more, he lay down on the chaise next to hers, so close that they nearly touched.
“What do you see?” she asked finally.
When he didn’t answer, she rolled her head to glance over at him. He was looking at her, and this time his eyes held unmistakable heat.
The night air drifted between them, something charged. She told herself that she hadn’t had sex in well over a year and that of course a guy like Gabriel with all his barely contained control would make her think of just that. Sex. It made sense that he intrigued her despite the fact that she knew nothing good could come out of getting involved with her neighbor. Besides, he had kissed her. Sue her, she wanted another taste. Which, despite all her bravado about him not intimidating her, was about as sane as thinking it was safe to pet a cuddly-looking grizzly bear.