The Groom (3 page)

Her fingers traced the ugly scars
marring the inside of her left arm, some of them healing, some of them still as
hideous as ever. They reminded her every day of how far she had come. Despite
Victor’s attempts at roping her back into a life of wealth, social status, and
worse—easy access to drugs—Katrina had no intention of going back.

As she was pulling her pizza out
of the oven, her cell phone chirped in her purse. Katrina raced across the
living room and dug the phone out of her bag, knowing that it would be Angie
and that her friend would be worried.

“I’m fine,” she said once she had
the phone pressed to her ear. “I made it home safe and everything. He just
wanted to talk.”

“Talk about what?” Angie asked.
Katrina could faintly hear Jake’s voice on the other end asking if she was
okay. “She’s fine, Jake!”

Katrina giggled at the exchange.
“Tell the Incredible Hulk I’ll be fine, he can calm down now. I don’t need him
to go into fight mode for me.”

Angie breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s good. Glad to hear he didn’t try to pull any of his usual tricks.”

Deciding that her friends didn’t
need the added stress of knowing there might be a hit out on her, Katrina opted
not to reveal that little tidbit.

“No tricks,” she said, trying to
sound chipper as she sliced into her pizza. “You guys worry too much, Ang.”

“I think we worry just the right
amount. For God’s sake, Kat, your father is one of the most prominent top men
of the Italian Mafia. That’s nothing to piss at.”

Kat rolled her eyes. “You forget
my mother was from Harlem, so there are also several unsavory gang members on
my black side of the family. Really, it’s a wonder I’m not worse off than I am
now.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I have to find the humor in my
life somewhere. Anyway, it’s late, girl. Go to bed. See you tomorrow night,
okay?”

“All right. Watch your back.”

_________

LYLE WAS
SNATCHED abruptly out of sleep by the blaring of his cell phone. The irritating
chirp combined with the vibrations coming from his pocket, making it impossible
for him to slide back into the alcohol-induced slumber he’d finally succumbed
to a few hours ago. Scraping his fingernails over the rough stubble lining his
jaw, he reached for his cell phone with his free hand and glared at the screen
through blurry eyes.

He didn’t say a word as he
pressed the green call button and held the phone to his ear, but he was sure a
grunt of some kind passed from between his lips. The voice of Dan, his
co-worker, best friend, and best man, filled his ear and echoed through his
pounding head.

“Climb out of whatever liquor
bottle you’ve sunk to the bottom of and answer the damn door. I’ve been down
here buzzing you for the last fifteen minutes.”

Lyle groaned and ended the call,
tossing his phone onto the couch beside him. He didn’t want to see or talk to
anyone, but he also knew Dan wouldn’t leave until he let him up. Fighting
nausea and the urge to fall back onto the couch and sleep until the end of the
year, Lyle peeled himself off the leather and shuffled on bare feet through the
house. He buzzed Dan up, barking “I’ll be in the shower” through the intercom
before continuing on his dizzying voyage to the master bedroom, unlocking the
front door on his way to let Dan in.

He was too hung over to give a
damn about rose petals on the bed this morning and managed to get into the
bathroom and his marble-tiled walk-in shower without melting into a puddle of
depression on the floor. The hot sting of the shower woke him up some, and he
welcomed the pain of nearly scalding water. It turned his skin red and filled
the shower with steam, relaxing his muscles until he felt nearly weightless. He
faintly heard Dan enter the apartment, the slamming of the front door, and the
gentle hum of voices. One of them was feminine, and Lyle distinctly recognized
the Southern tones of Twila, his housekeeper. She was supposed to have the next
week off for obvious reasons, but Lyle should have known she’d show up today.

Meddlesome woman.

He took his time, avoidance his
strategy for as long as he could get away with it. After a while, he knew Twila
would come running in to be sure he hadn’t passed out in the shower and
drowned—that woman watched way too many horror films—so he quickly
dried and threw on a pair of dry-cleaned khakis and an already starched white
shirt, sliding on socks and loafers before combing his wet hair back from his
face and leaving the room.

Twila had already brewed a pot of
coffee and was across the room in a flash, a white ceramic mug extended and
full of her strong, potent brew. Dan was seated at the long, curved bar jutting
away from the kitchen, his own cup and a plate of Twila’s scrambled eggs in
front of him.

“Good morning,” Twila chirped
cheerily. Lyle glared at her over the cup but took a sip of the coffee—no
need to let it go to waste.

“You’re not supposed to be here,”
Lyle said eventually, his voice low and raspy.

Twila bustled back over to the
stove, piling a plate with bacon, toast, eggs and a mixture of cantaloupe and
honeydew melon. She set the plate on the bar and pulled a stool out for Lyle.

“Well, I am here, so you’re just
going to have to deal with it,” she said in that abrasive way of hers. Usually
Lyle appreciated her frankness and in-your-face personality. Today, he wasn’t
in the mood.

He speared Dan with his sharp
gaze, his hand once again finding the five o’clock shadow on his face. The
stubble irritated him, but he didn’t feel like shaving.

“What about you?” he asked. “What
the hell do
you
want?”

Before Dan could even answer,
Lyle already knew. Dan was wearing his “lucky” plaid pants and golf shoes.

“Thought we could play a few
rounds at the club today.”

“Okay, stop it, both of you.” He
couldn’t help the edge in his voice; it was just kind of there.

“Stop what? Eat your eggs.”

Lyle cut his eyes toward Twila.
“I don’t want eggs.”

“Then drink your coffee.”

Already mid-sip, Lyle shot both
intruders another defiant stare over his mug. He didn’t want them here. He didn’t
want anyone here. He definitely didn’t want to talk about . . .

“Has she called?” Twila asked as
she moved toward the dishwasher, unloading Lyle’s meager dishes from the day
before and replacing them with her used pans.

Lyle snatched his gaze away from
the dark colored contents of his mug. “Did who call?” He’d hoped his voice
would have enough warning in it that she would take the hint. No such luck.

“Holly. You think she’d at least
call to apologize or—”

Twila yelped in surprise, and Dan
leaped about a mile in the air as a white ceramic plate made contact with the
ecru wall. Scrambled eggs joined the décor, a sunburst of yellow against the
neutral tone. Bacon grease dripped down the wall in slow motion, traveling in
rivulets toward the broken bits of plate spread out over the tiles.

“Get out, both of you,” he said
calmly.

Dan, who looked as if he was
about ready to haul Lyle off to the nearest psych ward, traded nervous glances
with Twila, who had already lifted her broom and dustpan and was headed toward
the mess staining the walls and floor.

“Stop!” Lyle barked. “Stop
cleaning. Stop cooking and stop asking me questions about
her
. Stop
asking me to go play golf and stop calling me. And for God’s sake—I don’t
think I’m asking for too much here—get the hell out and leave me alone!”

Without waiting for either of
them to answer or make a move, Lyle turned and fled, retreating back to his
office and away from wide-eyed stares and the stench of pity. By the time he’d
lowered himself into the plush, leather chair behind his desk, he heard the
slam of the front door and knew that he was alone. Sagging against the back of
the chair with relief, Lyle booted up his computer, cringing in emotional pain
that seemed to translate itself into the physical as Holly’s face filled the
screen. The photo was a candid shot someone had snapped of them at a holiday
mixer for the surgical staff at Mount Sinai Medical Center last December. In
it, they appeared the quintessential couple; Lyle in his bow tie and tux, Holly
in a sexy but demure red cocktail dress.

In the photo, Lyle had one arm
around Holly, pulling her back against his front. His eyes were on her, full of
adoration and pride at the beauty of the woman on his arm. Maybe he’d been
about to lean in for a kiss, he couldn’t quite remember. Holly’s attention was
focused elsewhere, her gaze just beyond the camera, her red lips parted in a
smile. As his computer finished booting, he couldn’t help leaning forward to
study the picture, his elbows propped on the desk, his chin resting on his
hands.

Looking at the photo now, he
couldn’t help but think of the irony of his current situation. Had he really
been blind enough to think Holly actually loved him? The old saying went, that
a picture was worth a thousand words; in this case the photo on his desktop was
speaking volumes. Throughout their year-long relationship, Lyle had been
entirely devoted to her and, just like in this picture, focused completely on
her. It never dawned on him to second-guess her words of love. Now he realized
that Holly’s eyes had never been fixed on him, and her love had never been
equal to his. Like a fool, he’d believed that marriage would solidify them,
that if he showered her with all the adoration, money, gifts, and
security—everything that he thought a woman would want—she would
eventually come to feel as passionately about him as he did her.

It just hadn’t been enough. Even
on what should have been the most important and profound day of his life, it
hadn’t been enough.

Deciding that he’d suffered more
than any man had a right to, Lyle went through the motions of changing the
desktop picture to something more generic. White clouds against a blue sky
splashed across the screen, and he was finally able to get down to the business
of checking his email. In his inbox, he found about fifteen messages from
friends and family members, people he hardly ever heard from. Subject lines
such as “my condolences” and “hang in there” filled his computer screen,
flooding Lyle’s gut with cold, heavy stones of disgust. He deleted each one
without opening them, deciding that he’d had more than enough pity for one day
already and it wasn’t even ten a.m. yet.

That done, he shot an email to
the Chief of Surgery at Mount Sinai and told his boss that he’d be back to work
in the morning. He neglected to include that his right hand was still swollen
and bruised and that performing surgery was out of the question for now, but
decided to deal with that later. There were plenty of things to do without
going into the operating room, and Lyle intended to bury himself in even the
most menial of tasks to keep from having to think about anything else.

_____

He was back again. Katrina
noticed him the moment he stepped into Parson’s, his dirty-blond head towering
above most of the men in the room. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would catch
her eye ordinarily. He was obviously a working stiff, the type to clash with
her free-spirited personality. It wasn’t just the starched khakis or the
Oxfords that gave it away; it was something in his posture, in his carriage
that suggested it. If she had to guess, she’d peg him as some kind of
high-powered attorney or stockbroker.

Definitely not the kind of guy
she’d normally pay attention to.

And yet there was something else
that caught her gaze and kept it, a deep and obvious trauma that showed itself
in his eyes. Intertwined in the swirling green and brown tones of his irises,
Katrina found the barely-hidden emotion and recognized it for what it was.
Agony.

Angie breezed past her with a
full tray of empty beer mugs, pausing as she followed Katrina’s gaze toward the
bar.

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Sad
Guy’s back.”

“Sad Guy?”

Angie shrugged, shifting the tray
of mugs to balance them expertly with one hand. “Well, I don’t know his real
name, but that’s what I’m going to call him. It definitely fits. Came in here
yesterday wearing a penguin suit but looking like he’d just left the boxing
ring.”

Angie moved on through the crowd,
weaving her way back to the kitchen, reappearing a few seconds later with a set
of clean mugs. Sad Guy was now seated at the bar, and Angie made a beeline for
him, giving him what Katrina liked to call the “bartender’s smile.” Full of
concern, understanding, and charm, the “bartender’s smile” hooked bar drinkers
every time. The two chatted casually for a while, and Angie inspected his
knuckles before nodding in approval. Katrina overheard a few snatches of
conversation in which Angie offered him a free single malt scotch on the rocks
before moving back behind the bar to make the drink. Sad Guy accepted it, and
Angie went on about her work.

Katrina glanced at her watch and
realized that it was almost time for her to go on. For some reason, she could
feel the eyes of Sad Guy on her back as she moved up the four steps to the
small stage. It was ridiculous, really. Parson’s was full, and most everyone
was watching her take her place, some of the regulars already applauding in
anticipation of her performance. It wasn’t that his gaze was lascivious either.
There were plenty of men in the bar, most of whom had hit on her at least once
and a few very persistent stalkers that Jake had been forced to bodily remove
from the premises once or twice. Something about this gaze was different, and
as she lifted her guitar from its case, took her place on the high stool, and
flicked on her microphone, she changed her mind about the first number she
would sing.

“Good evening, everyone,” she
said, immediately met with catcalls, whistles, and applause. She laughed, a
deep, throaty sound that she knew made her seem mysterious. She lowered her
head as she strummed absently on the guitar, knowing that the curtain of curls
falling over one eye added to the mystery. With the dim lighting of the lounge
she was veiled, her own pain masked in seduction and promise. It was what kept
her regulars coming back, what drew people to her. She knew it and understood
how to work the crowd. She did it now without
thinking . . . she’d been rehearsing her act for years. Yet
something about this night was different. This time, as she leaned toward the
mic, her lips almost touching it, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the
hazel ones boring into hers from across the room.

“As you know I like to start with
a more upbeat number, but tonight I’m going to do things a bit differently,” she
said as she strummed. “I’m going to sing a song by one of my favorite artists.
She’s not very well known, but her music moves me. I hope it moves you too. The
song is “Your Eyes” by Amel Larrieux.”

The words came from her mouth as
she played, capturing the audience with the very first note.

Your eyes greeted mine and
whispered

Softly, slowly a secret only
for me.