War and Love Read online

  “Hey,” I say, greeting her a moment later. “What’s going on?”

  She gathers the lapel of her robe in her left hand, the other one holding onto the knot of her belt. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I know it’s late. I, uh, I have an issue and I’ve called the super, and all I got was a voicemail that said it could take twenty-four hours for them to get back to me. I called a plumber, but the quickest anyone could get out here would be two hours from now, and by then my entire apartment might be flooded so—”

  “—what happened?”

  “I drew myself a bath, walked away for a few minutes, came back and went to shut off the water, only the water won’t shut off,” she says. “It’s like the faucet is broken or something.” She worries the left corner of her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry. Maybe you don’t even know how to fix something like this, but I just thought I’d ask.”

  “Yeah. I can take a look for you,” I say. Her expression softens and I follow her across the hall, where she leads me through her foyer, past the living room, down a hallway, and across her master bedroom to an all-white bathroom. The standalone tub acts more like a waterfall at this point since the overflow valve can’t keep up, and there’s a good inch or so of water on her bathroom floor, some of it sopped up with towels.

  It takes maybe thirty seconds for me to locate her water shut-off valve and give it a good couple of cranks.

  The water stops and Love stands in the doorway with wet feet and a pretty smile on her pink lips.

  “How did you know what to do?” she asks.

  Rising, I shrug. I can’t let her know that I’m a plumber by trade. According to Hunter, I’m a “strategic consultant” with multinational clients. It’s exactly the kind of job you can BS because no one really knows exactly what it is you do and contracts are private, so …

  “I might be a little on the handy side,” I say.

  She smooths her palm over her lapel. “Well, I’m impressed. And grateful. This should buy me some more time until the super can get someone here.”

  “But you won’t have any running water in your bathroom until then,” I remind her, hands on my hips as I ponder my next move.

  I could fix this issue for her easily. There’s usually a missing piece inside the faucet, a screw or part that came loose, but I don’t want to give myself away because something like that isn’t exactly common handyman knowledge.

  But screw it.

  She doesn’t have time to wait for the super to call her back. By then, her apartment will be so water damaged, she might even have to relocate.

  Crouching over the tub, I slip my fingers up the faucet opening and sure enough drag my fingertips across a loose part.

  “Got a flashlight?” I ask.

  Love turns to leave, returning a few seconds later with a black flashlight, handing it over.

  Less than two minutes later, she’s back in business.

  “Wow … thank you so much,” she says, leaning down to grab a soaked towel. “I still don’t know how you just knew what to do.”

  Growing up, my father always taught me never to depend on anyone for anything, which was fitting because I couldn’t depend on him for shit.

  Also didn’t hurt that I was a mechanic in the Army. I’ve never met a valve, part, engine, or apparatus I’ve never been able to take apart and rebuild.

  “What do you do anyway?” she asks. “Like for work? You were dressed so nicely the other night. Wall Street?”

  “Nope.”

  “Banker?”

  “Nope,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Strategic consultant.” I hope to God I can sell this.

  Her brows lift and she nods like she knows what that is. “How’d you get into that?”

  “Business major,” I lie. I’m so going to hell. “And just … made the right connections and got the right experience over the years. Wanted to be my own boss. That kind of thing.”

  “Huh.” She studies me, though there’s no denying there’s an underlying hint that she finds my handy-yet-Upper Eastside persona attractive. I doubt there are many of us.

  “What about you? What do you do?” I pivot the conversation.

  She snarls her lip for a second then exhales. “Honestly? Nothing.”

  Love shakes her head, like she’s disappointed in herself.

  “But I’m meeting with my attorney, going to start up some charitable organizations,” she says. “I’ve recently … come into some money … and I plan on giving 95% of it away.”

  “Only 95%?” I tease.

  She laughs a sweet, delicate laugh. “A girl’s got to eat.”

  For a moment, I find myself enjoying this conversation, wet socks and all. There’s something unexpectedly down-to-earth about Love, and she’s easier to talk to than I anticipated given the fact that we have nothing in common but our current addresses.

  “Where are you from?” she asks, slightly squinting.

  “I didn’t realize you were interviewing me.”

  She swats my hand. “I’m just asking because you’re obviously not from here. You’re way too nice.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It’s not bad at all. Just … different. Unexpected,” she says. “Yeah. Unexpected. So where are you from?”

  Dragging in a long breath, I rub the back of my neck before letting it go. “Everywhere. I’m from everywhere.”

  Love’s nose wrinkles, like she’s disappointed in my answer. “Can you be more specific?”

  “Moved around a lot. I was a military brat,” I say. It’s partially true. The year I turned thirteen my father got a dishonorable discharge for beating the ever-loving shit out of my drug-addicted mother and leaving her for dead. After that, he went to prison and we went to live with my aunt in Tulsa before moving in with our grandma in Queens.

  “Bet that was interesting.”

  “Something like that.”

  Love lifts a brow, giving me a side eye. “I feel like there’s more to you than meets the eye. Like you’re holding back or something.”

  “I feel like I came in here to fix your bathtub and now I’m being psychoanalyzed.”

  She laughs, reaching for a strand of pale hair and tucking it behind her left ear. “Sorry.”

  I slide my hands in my pockets. “Now it’s my turn to ask questions.”

  Head tilting, she shrugs. “Okay.”

  “What are you doing Friday night?”

  Silence.

  Dead silence.

  Her honey-hazel eyes flick to the wet floor as her lips part and then seal shut again.

  “This is about what Tierney said earlier…” she says, finally glancing up at me as her voice trails off. “Seriously, you don’t have to do this.”

  “This has nothing to do with what your friend said.” I pull my shoulders back and flash a confident smirk, laser focused on my target. “I want to take you out.”

  I swear she blushes for a moment, but it vanishes just as quickly as it appeared. There’s a bit of modesty under that poised façade.

  “Seven o’clock?” I ask.

  “Jude.” The way she says my name tells me the answer to my question. “I’m so sorry. You seem like a really nice guy, but I’m not dating right now.”

  Shot down.

  I offer a gracious smile and make my way across her bathroom with sopping wet socks. Talk about kicking a man when he’s down.

  Not that this date would’ve been real, but I didn’t think being turned down would bruise my ego this much.

  Love walks me to the door, keeping a few paces behind, and I show myself out to the hallway.

  “I’ve just gone through a divorce and I’m sort of putting the pieces of my life back together. Dating isn’t really on my radar right now,” she says again, lifting her pink nails to her pink mouth. Everything about her is velvet and delicate and I wonder how the hell she survives in a city that eats nails for breakfast. “Truly, I’m so sorry.”

 
“Don’t be,” I say. “I get it.”

  She smiles, resting her cheek against the open door. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I ask.

  “For being such a gentleman,” she says, her voice pillow soft. “You’re a class act, Jude Warner.”

  If she only knew.

  Chapter Five

  Love

  Growing up, I never aspired to be a kept woman. I never wanted to live in a high-rise luxury apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I never wanted to be that woman who kept herself busy between nine AM and five PM and then pounced on her husband the second he came home from work like some sex-starved centerfold.

  I wanted a simple life.

  A loving marriage. A happy home. A fulfilling career. A baby or two when the time was right.

  “Sign here, Love,” Richard Wexler, my attorney, slides a stack of papers across his desk and points to the little sticky neon arrow at the bottom. “And on the next page.”

  He’s helping me set up my first charity, Agenda W, which is aimed at helping women get back on their feet after life-changing events. We’ll provide job training, scholarships, resources … all the tools they might need to ensure they can make it on their own without the help of a man.

  My real estate agent is going to help me find a space for it in Brooklyn where we can get more space for less money, and I’m going to spend the next six months or so getting it up and running.

  This … this is step one.

  Richard slides another stack of paperwork toward me. “This is establishing that you’re a not-for-profit organization.”

  I sign my name at the bottom of the page.

  “You’re a very kind person,” Richard says in his born-and-bred New York accent. “I know you’re going to do good things in this world.”

  “Thank you, Richard,” I say, capping the pen and placing it diagonally across the signed stack. “That’s my plan.”

  Freedom—especially financial—is still a foreign concept to me. Even as a married woman, I never had my own money. My bank account was always shared with Hunter and the daily limit was so small sometimes I had to split my purchases between my debit card and the spare AmEx he gave me for emergency purposes.

  A few times over the years, I’d try to discuss the money situation with him, but it would never end well. He would quickly become agitated, shoot down my suggestions, disqualify all of my reasons for needing my own account. Once I told him I was looking for a job and he wasted no time reminding me that our travel schedule wasn’t conducive to me working outside the home … and he was right. I accompanied Hunter to every event, be it local, nationwide, or global. We were gone just as much as we were home.

  He had me exactly where he wanted me.

  Despite the fact that he claimed to be “richer than God,” Hunter was still a tightwad—but only when it came to everyone but himself.

  One Christmas, he gave me a Gucci bag. The strap broke after a couple of months, so I took it into the Gucci store in SoHo where the clerk proceeded to inform me that it was, indeed, a fake.

  “A very good fake,” she said.

  But a fake nonetheless.

  Cheap bastard.

  Growing up underprivileged, I think Hunter always had this deep-seated fear of losing it all, so he clung to it so tightly, so selfishly, that in the end he did lose it all. He lost the only person who ever truly loved him when he had nothing to give but a kiss and a smile and the heart beating in his chest.

  Only I don’t know if he’ll ever realize that.

  “I’ll get this filed today,” Richard says, standing up and smoothing his red satin tie down his shirt.

  A moment later, he walks me to the lobby, and I ride the elevator to the main level, only it stops at the fourth floor first, picking up a man with dark hair and the same tortoiseshell frames Jude was wearing the night I met him.

  I still can’t believe he asked me out last night, and I’m absolutely blaming Tierney, even if he says her little comment had nothing to do with it.

  But I suppose there’s nothing wrong with hanging out sometime …

  I could see myself being friends with him, though it might be a bit of a challenge to keep my eyes where they belong. The other night when he was fixing my faucet, I caught myself staring so hard at him that I forgot to breathe, studying the way his broad shoulders strained against his shirt, the way he raked his hands against his strong jaw, how his dark lashes framed his striking, almond-shaped gaze.

  Just hope he didn’t notice.

  Heading back to The Jasper, I mull over my next steps for Agenda W. Jude mentioned he was some kind of strategic consultant. I wonder if he could help me or at least point me in the right direction? Maybe charities and NFP organizations aren’t in his wheelhouse, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, and if he can’t help, maybe he’ll know someone who can?

  Thirty minutes later, I’m making my way down our shared hallway.

  I don’t know his schedule, I don’t know when he works from home or when he travels, and I hate to just pop over unexpected again, but not having his number leaves me with no other choice.

  Clearing my throat, I square my shoulders with his door and give it a knock. From where I stand, I can almost make out voices. Plural. And the pounding of footsteps, like someone’s running.

  Shit.

  He must have company.

  A moment later, the door swings open and a young woman not much younger than me stands at the threshold with a toddler on her hip. With straight dark hair cut into a bob, bangs straight across her forehead, tight jeans, a white cotton tank top, and ruby red lips, she’s as bold as she is eye-catching.

  “Hi,” I say. “I was just looking for Jude.”

  She says nothing, taking me in from head to toe, though not in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s quite possible that I look familiar to her. For the better part of last year, my picture was prominently featured in Us Weekly, Star Magazine, OK!, and even People.com. I get these kind of looks everywhere I go, at least once a day. People squint and stare and search my face as they try to place me in their mind’s eye.

  “I live across the hall,” I add, breaking the silence.

  The toddler stares at me, unblinking, and another little girl squeezes between the raven-haired beauty and the doorjamb.

  “Who is this, Mommy?” the older girl asks.

  Before she has a chance to answer, the door widens a little more and Jude appears. Scratching his temple, he offers a half-smile that almost makes me forget what I came here for, but seeing the four of them standing together, so comfortably close, so natural and united, makes me realize this might be his ex or baby mama or whatever and these girls might be his daughters.

  And that’s perfectly fine—it’s not like it changes anything.

  “I didn’t know you were busy,” I say, taking a step toward my door. “I can come by another time.”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” he says before turning to the woman. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

  Slipping out into the hallway, he pulls the door closed behind him and aligns himself with me. The faint scent of his spicy cologne fills my lungs, though there’s something familiar about it, like it’s something Hunter would’ve worn … which is slightly disappointing, but I won’t let it ruin my impression of him just yet.

  “That’s my sister, Lo,” he says. I wasn’t going to ask because it’s none of my business and I didn’t want to pry. “And my nieces, Piper and Ellie. They were just coming by to check out the new place.”

  “Are they from around here?”

  “Brooklyn.” His eyes haven’t left mine once. “So what’s going on?”

  I wave my hand. “I had something to ask you, but we can talk later. I don’t want to hold you up.”

  He arches a brow. “So you’re just going to leave me hanging?”

  “It’s nothing. Really. It can wait,” I say.

  Jude checks his watch. “Was going to take my sister and
nieces out for a late lunch, but now I’m going to be distracted the entire time.”

  “Fine,” I say, pretending to wave an imaginary white flag. “I was just going to ask if you’d be interested in consulting for me.”

  His hand lifts to his jaw, partially covering his full mouth as his brows meet, and then he stares over my shoulder, lost in thought.

  “You can think about it,” I say, sensing his hesitation. “I don’t even know what your schedule is like. Maybe you’re booked out. I don’t know.”

  Stop rambling, Love…

  Jude exhales and I brace myself for a “no,” which is fine. I came here with zero expectations.

  “Why don’t we talk about this over dinner?” he asks. “Friday night. Seven o’clock.”

  The tension between us is thick, ripe. Ready to be plucked and devoured.

  “Oh, you’re smooth, Jude Warner,” I say, head tilted and finger pointed as I step backwards toward my door.

  He wears the smile of an Olympic gold medalist, his hands resting in his pockets as he shrugs his shoulders.

  “So that’s a yes?” he asks.

  “It’s not a date,” I say.

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a work dinner,” I add.

  “Sure.” He reaches for his door knob, eyes lit. “See you Friday.”

  He disappears into his apartment, and I turn toward mine, whispering “work dinner” under my breath a half a dozen times as I head inside with sweaty palms and a swirl of butterflies in my middle, the very things I haven’t felt since I was eighteen, the things I promised myself not to feel again until I’m ready.

  I lock the door behind me and press my back against it, composing my liquefied self as the space around me spins like a carousel. My head is light—the way it gets after a few too many glasses of champagne.

  I’m pretty sure this is what excitement feels like, something I haven’t felt in years.

  Drawing in a long, cool breath, I let it go and stride down the hall toward my bedroom to peel out of these clothes and slip into some pajamas so I can order takeout and binge watch the rest of The Crown.

  I need a distraction. I need to focus on something else.