The One In My Heart

I gulped down some tea. “He’s been cyberstalking me?”


“Well, why not? You are the point at which his life could have taken a very different turn—if he’d come to Paris. Why wouldn’t he Google you? And once he saw what you look like, why wouldn’t he want to know everything about you?” Zelda grinned. “I rubbed it in—told him he blew it by ditching us in Paris. And guess what he said to that?”

“Something about his Park Avenue apartment and how successful he’s been without us?”

“No, he asked me whether you were seeing anyone.”

I was speechless.

Zelda leaned forward. “I think you’ll like him. He’s splendid-looking. Very personable too. According to Frances, he made an absolute fortune out west. Not to mention he’s a Somerset—your father would have been tickled.”

Pater would indeed have enjoyed being connected to the Somersets, who were English aristocracy transplanted to New York. I gave Zelda a sideways glance. “You’re not hearing wedding bells, are you? That would really be putting the cart before the horse.”

“A little, I’ll admit. But I get the sense the boy is seriously interested in you.”

And the boy could take his serious interest and shove it. A man should know his place, and this man belonged firmly in fiction.

“Maybe I’ll meet him after I get tenure, but not before.”

And maybe after I was offered tenure, I’d find some other excuse to not meet the Somerset boy.

I pulled out my phone and brought up the image of Aragorn and me, together in one frame. “Now come here. I’ve got something that’ll blow your mind.”


TEN DAYS LATER, ZELDA LEFT for her trip to the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. I worked more or less day and night, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day included. The day after Christmas I woke up late, did laundry and dishes, and went for a walk in the afternoon.

It was a bright, crisp day, almost not cold under the sun. Central Park was crowded with tourists who wanted the Christmas-in-New York experience. I smiled at couples taking selfies together, and bundled-up toddlers riding on their fathers’ shoulders—and wished Zelda were already back.

On the other side of the park was Fifth Avenue. The moment I set foot on it, someone called my name. “Dr. Canterbury!”

I looked across the street and couldn’t speak for a moment. It was none other than Bennett, in a beautifully cut grey overcoat worn over jeans, a blue scarf around his neck, too stylish and gorgeous for someone not fronting an advertising campaign for a major Italian fashion house.

“Hey!” I found my voice somewhere.

It wasn’t Munich. But I’d take it. I’d totally take it.

He crossed to my side and kissed me on my cheek. “You look almost too pretty.”

I had on head-to-toe black and no makeup. His compliment stoked my vanity in all the best ways. I couldn’t help smiling. “You, on the other hand, look only regular pretty.”

“Medical school sucked all the hot out of me.”

I laughed. “How are you? And what are you doing here?”

“Out for a walk. I live around the corner.”

From where we stood, Park Avenue was only two blocks away. I raised a brow. “Don’t tell me you’ve succeeded in becoming a Park Avenue trophy husband.”

“No, I had to buy my own apartment on Park Avenue. But the maintenance fees are atrocious, so I’m still looking for a sugar mommy.”

I’d figured he probably had independent wealth of some sort—the house in Cos Cob couldn’t have come cheap—but an apartment on this stretch of Park Avenue too? A teasing question was on my lips about whether he worked at a mob hospital and knew where all the bodies were buried, when gears started turning in the back of my head.

The boy came back in grand style, bought an apartment on Park Avenue and all that.

Park Avenue apartment. Check.

According to Frances, he made an absolute fortune out west.

The area code of Bennett’s cell phone number was 510. Berkeley, California—I’d looked it up.

And there were whispers of a most unsuitable older woman.

What had Bennett said to me when I told him that my age in binary was exactly one hundred thousand? I have been known to like an older woman.

I goggled at him, thunderstruck. Could it be? “Bennett, what’s your last name?”

“Somerset.”

He was the one who didn’t show up, the one whose absence set off—

I stopped. That was and had always been an irrational chain of thoughts. Nothing would have been any different had he come to the ball. And he didn’t have to account for a misstep from almost half his lifetime ago.

He did, however, have to answer for his more recent actions. “What were you doing e-mailing and having lunch with Zelda?”

“You were my only score since I came back to New York,” he replied cheekily. “I figured it would be easier to get you to put out again than to convince someone else from scratch.”