Chapter Seventeen
I left for class the next morning still surrounded by the sense that there were unwanted eyes on me. I jumped when I saw a black town car at the curb. Bryan’s driver was waiting by the door.
“Hi. Bryan Leighton sent me for you.”
I had half a mind to say thanks, but no thanks. But I was so glad to see him, and relieved too to avoid the streets with their easy opportunities for Wilco to track me. I slid into the backseat only to find I was alone. “Excuse me. Where’s Bryan?”
“He asked me to drive you wherever you need for the next few days.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
I rooted around in my bag for my phone. This situation was veering too close to my college ex-boyfriend Michael, and I wasn’t someone who craved danger like a drug. But my phone was nowhere in sight. Then I remembered Jill had dismantled it, and I’d somehow gotten so used to the few hours of being phone-less that I hadn’t even looked for it this morning.
The driver took me to class and I expected him to drop me off curbside. Instead, he stepped out of the car, scanned the street in each direction and then placed a hand on my back and led me into the building, as if he were a secret agent on my security detail.
“What the heck is going on?”
“Just getting you safely to class, Ms. Harper.”
“Is there a reason I wouldn’t get safely to class?” I asked, even though I had a feeling the answer was the man in the diner last night. Jill’s strategy to disarm Wilco by flirting hadn’t quite rattled the guy as she’d hoped.
“I’ll be here when class ends,” the driver replied and that was clearly all the information I was getting.
Sure enough, the driver was waiting inside the lobby of the business school building in the early afternoon. I started walking towards the main door, but he gestured down the hallway, wrapped a hand around my elbow, and guided me to a back door that led to the building’s rarely used service exit. There, the car was waiting.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on with the cloak and dagger?”
“Just following orders,” he said, as he started the car.
“Fine. Then can you take me uptown?” I gave him the address of a cafe where I was meeting Claire, and he drove me there, standing guard outside as I Claire and I sipped hot chocolate and I tried to pretend my day hadn’t been turned upside down with covert affairs.
“I want a full report when you return from Paris,” Claire said. “I’ll be out of the country for a week. I convinced my husband to take me away on a technology-free trip to Tahiti.”
“That’s funny because I spent the whole day without my phone. My roommate hid it from me.”
“And see! You still made it to our appointment on time. Maybe we don’t need to be tethered to our phones as much as we think.”
But I was missing my phone because I had no idea what was going on. When it was time to head home I settled into the safety of the leather seat of the town car, closed my eyes and tried desperately to let go of the caged-in day, to forget about the run-in last night. Then, as we idled in the stalled Park Avenue traffic, I heard the driver’s phone ring. My ears pricked as he answered.
“Hello?”
In his pause, I could make out the gravelly sound of the other voice. Nicole Blazer.
“Yes?”
A pause.
“She’s with me right now.”
Another pause, and a strange fear ricocheted through my body.
“I’ll bring her now.”
He ended the call and looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Nicole says Bryan has been asking for you.”
*****
Nicole placed a gentle hand on my arm. “His hand is pretty banged up, and it looks like he might have broken one of the bones in it.
“What on earth happened?”
Nicole held open the pristinely painted white door that led into the foyer of Bryan’s four-story brownstone on Sixtieth and Park. “We were meeting with Wilco’s attorneys this afternoon to review the wrongful termination suit and attempt to settle. We were all there, and it was going fine, and Bryan stepped out for a minute, then walked back in, and Wilco blew a gasket. Stood up, sucker punched him in the gut, jammed him in the back, and smashed his hand into the table.”
My eyes widened with shock. “Oh my god. That’s awful.”
She nodded. “His attorneys were totally freaked out. It all happened so quickly, and they didn’t even know what to do. The security guard at the office rushed in and restrained Wilco, and when the police came a few minutes later, they found a knife in his coat pocket.”
I rewound back the diner. To the way he’d touched the inside of his pocket. He’d seemed so unhinged. “I saw him last night. He followed me to a diner. I think he had the knife then too.” I placed my hand on my mouth. A tear slid down my cheek.
“He’d been skulking around here too. My place as well. Last night, he kept calling both of us all night, saying nasty things. That’s why Bryan sent his car for you this morning. To keep you safe all day.” Nicole noticed my wet cheek and wrapped her arms around me. “Hey. You’re okay. Everyone’s okay. Wilco’s in police custody now for assault and battery. And the attorneys dropped him as a client, so there’s no more lawsuit.”
“For now.”
“For now. But really. That’s all there is. Right now.”
“Where’s Bryan? How is he?”
Nicole tipped her forehead to the staircase. “Upstairs on the living room couch. He’s a little loopy right now. We took him to the hospital to get him checked out. His hand was pretty messed up, so they gave him some pain meds. Then he kept asking for you.”
I felt some of the fear leave my body. “He did?”
Nicole nodded. “He said he wanted to see you. He wanted me to call you.”
She gestured to the stairs, and I followed her, unsure of what to expect. When I reached the living room, Bryan was stretched out on the couch, his head resting on a pillow, the TV on a low volume. He was wearing a checked button-down shirt and dark gray pants, but his shoes were off, kicked onto the hardwood floor. The sleeves on his shirt had been rolled up a few times. There was a bruise on his cheek. He smiled at me as if I were the answer to any question. “Hey you.”
I melted at the sound of his voice and the way he looked at me, his eyes so warm, his smile so soft. I liked him even more when he was a little loopy from meds. I walked over to him.
“Sit down.”
I sat gingerly on the edge of the couch, not wanting to hurt him. I pointed to his bandaged hand. “Does it hurt?”
“Not now. Those little white pills have worked their voodoo magic.”
I laughed once. “I bet. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. And if I’d known all I had to do to get rid of a lawsuit was let him land a few punches, I’d have done it sooner.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Kat, do you want something to drink?” The question came from Nicole.
“I’m okay.”
“Bryan? More water?”
“How about a beer? When can I have one of those? Or maybe we should get champagne to celebrate the suit being dropped.”
Nicole rolled her eyes, and headed upstairs.
“So.”
“So,” he replied and flashed me another one of his woozy smiles.
“Those pain meds must be good.”
“Not as good as you.” Then he reached his un-bandaged hand into my hair and pulled me to him, bringing my lips to his and kissing me softly. It was the last thing I expected, but it was the thing I wanted most in the world, and I gave in to the kiss, to the way his lips knew mine, to the way he tasted sweet and salty at the same time. “Now I feel much better.”
He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
*****
Nicole didn’t know everything. But she knew enough.
“It wasn’t that hard to figure out,” she said, as we sat on the metal stools in Bryan’s kitchen while he dozed. Nicole’s feet dangled; she looked even tinier on a stool.
“Really?”
“I noticed how he talked about you. And I think you’re pretty brilliant too, but there was something else in his voice. It was always more vulnerable at those times. And then yesterday in my office when you looked at him as he walked away, it all clicked.”
I dropped my head in my hands. “I’m so obvious.”
“No. You’re just in love.” Nicole sounded like a gruff, tough chick doling out truisms with that husky voice of hers.
“I guess it’s obvious. But we’re not supposed to be.”
She waved a hand in the air. “When are we ever supposed to be? I mean, does it ever happen at the right time? I met my partner on a work project too. There are always complications in every relationship.”
“So what did he say?” I was fishing for information, but I didn’t care. We’d been so careful. I couldn’t just accept the notion that suddenly all his concerns had flown out the window.
But it was more than that. I wanted to be something with him. I didn’t want to be his phone booty call. I didn’t want to be the girl who always had to lie low. I wanted to be out-in-the open and for real with him. All or nothing. That’s what I wanted.
“I just asked him point blank at the hospital if he had a thing for you. He said yes.” My heart fluttered, and even with Bryan banged up downstairs I couldn’t help but grin wildly. “And he was all worried about the board and how they’d look at this because of Wilco’s affair. And then there’s Caldwell, who’s Captain Conservative.”
“Right, and those are all still true.”
“Yes, but you’re twenty-three and not an employee.” Nicole reached out and took my hand. She had this satisfied look in her eyes, like a good matchmaker pulling off a match. “So when I asked him if it was the real thing with you, and he said yes to that as well, I told him I’d talk to the board and to Caldwell in particular. The guy’s conservative as hell, but he didn’t freak out when I brought my partner to the holiday party last year so I think I can convince him.”
This was all I wanted. To be more than just playmates. To be a real thing. A rush of happiness warmed me all over.
“What about NYU though? And the mentor program?”
“I told Bryan that as long as he recused himself as your mentor, everything should be fine.”
Ah, there was a catch. There was always a catch. Without this class how would I graduate?