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CHAPTERTWENTY
LYLA
Blame it on the vodka, I tell myself as I walk downstairs.Blame it on the vodka. Blame it on—
I step into the dining room, and Nick is already there. My heart picks up in double time. He’s dressed in his usual black attire, his hair neatly combed and his cuff links glinting as he sips from a coffee cup and then sets it back on the table.
All I’m focused on is the flex of his forearm. Lust pools in my stomach. I can recognize what happened last night was a mistake all I want. But I still want him too. Want a hell of a lot more than what took place between us.
Already standing, Nick ruffles Leo’s hair and then walks toward me. “I’ve got to head out early,” he tells me.
“O-okay.” I study the lines of his face, and they’re nothing but smooth and impassive.
“My mother already left. She had a luncheon to get back for.”
I explore his smooth expression, trying to decipher any details he’s not sharing. One tense dinner is not much of a visit. I wonder if the brevity has something to do with me and Leo. If he asked her to leave or if she decided to.
I can’t discern anything at all. There’s no sign of the hunger that was there last night either. The broken or the bloody.
Nick is looking at me the way you approach an unfamiliar work colleague—with polite indifference.
“Okay,” I repeat. “Have a good day.”
He nods and keeps walking past me, out into the front hallway. I hear the front door shut a few minutes later.
I paste a smile on my face and turn toward Leo, who’s eating his cereal. “Morning, bud.”
“Hi, Mom.”
He’s focused on a thin paperback, folded next to his bowl. I help myself to some toast and coffee. If—when, I remind myself—we return to Philadelphia, it will be a rough transition back to our old morning routine.
* * *
The day passes slowly and uneventfully. I go for my daily walk, drive with Leo to and from school, and spend an uncomfortable dinner avoiding eye contact with Nick as he talks to Leo.
After we finish eating, I wander into the living room, which has become part of my predictable routine here. There’s a small selection of English titles in the library. Most of them are heavy volumes on heavy subjects. One of them is a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I got halfway through the book this afternoon.
There’s a fire in the fireplace, same as there’s been every evening. I curl on the couch with the book, surprised when Nick and Leo follow me in here. Leo usually heads up to his room after dinner, and Nick typically retires to his office. They have a planned task in mind, both of them settling at a table to the right of the fireplace.
Nick pulls a deck of cards out of the drawer and begins shuffling them. The crackle and pop of the fire muffles some of what they’re saying. I think they’re also talking softly so I can read. But I’m more focused on them than the words on the page. On watching their profiles shift as they exchange cards. Seeing how Leo beams and the way his brow furrows as he stares at the fan of cards.
They play for over an hour. There’s a lightness around both of them that I don’t ordinarily associate with either of them. Nick is rarely lighthearted or playful. And Leo is what his teachers have always called an “old soul.” Thoughtful and serious, focused and responsible. I thought it was because of me, because of the financial stress I tried to hide and how it was always just the two of us. But maybe some of it was genetic.
As soon as the game ends, Nick says good night to Leo. I catch his glance in my direction out of the corner of one eye, but he leaves the room without speaking a word to me.
After a cheerful good night to me, Leo scampers upstairs. It’s past his usual bedtime—something I’ve been strict about since coming here, mainly because it’s felt like one of a very few things I can control.
I sit and stare into space for a while. Someone usually comes in to freshen the fire when I’m in here, but no one entered tonight. It’s not hard to guess why.
All that’s left are embers, glowing softly amid piles of gray ashes.
Rather than head upstairs, I walk down the hall toward Nick’s office. The door is shut, a strip of yellow light visible beneath it.
I knock on his office door softly. I should be ignoring Nick the same way he seems to be avoiding me. Instead, I’m seeking him out.
Aside from Leo, he’s the one person Iknowhere. The one person I trust. I have nothing to do and no one to talk to. I blame that isolation on what happened last night as much as the vodka I helped myself to after he left me sitting alone at the dinner table.
And also…I’m attracted to him. I’ve never been drawn to anyone else the same way I’m pulled to him. No guy before or since has ever compared. Admitting that, even to myself, makes me feel weak.
