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She needs to grind it out. I get it.
I’m trying to keep my anger in check, because an angry guy isn’t what Vicky needs now.
But honestly? I want to be rearranging Denny’s face. My fingers curl with it. The battles I wage are usually about money and boardroom maneuvering, but this one I want personal and painful.
It won’t do anyone any good, I know. Still.
And Brett. What the hell was he thinking?
Of course I know what Brett was thinking. Our PI cracked through her fake identity, figured out she’s Vonda. Brett thought that if he put Denny on the board, it would run her off and add fuel to the incompetency fire. He would’ve been recording it.
I know she’s feeling better when she points out how dazzlingly blue the sky looks against the yellow Reynard Electric building. “It hums with blueness,” she says.
“Unbelievable,” I say. But I’m looking at her. I’m looking at her like she’s a gift. Vonda O’Neil. Strong as steel, with what she went through.
We grab chicken and rice from a halal cart and eat it on a bench at Marcy Place triangle park on the Lower East Side. We throw leftover bits of bread to the pigeons. She’s still shivering, so I give her my jacket to wear. She wraps it around herself and snuggles into me on the bench there. I keep my arm tight around her. “I’m so sorry,” I say into her hair.
“What did you do? You didn’t invite him.”
“I started those wheels in motion. Scheming with Brett.”
“I don’t blame you. In no universe would I blame you for that.” She puts a finger to my lips when I start to protest.
We end up walking clear up the East Village and taking the East Side Line the rest of the way to my place. It’s afternoon by the time we get up there.
I settle her into a chair out on the veranda overlooking the park. I drape a light blanket over her shoulders.
She smiles up at me. “Come here.”
I set my hands on her shoulders and kiss her.
“I feel better,” she says. “Thank you.” Her neck is warm under my thumbs. She’s so beautiful, she doesn’t know. I slide my hands over her blanket-covered arms, warming her more.
I leave her out there and make her tea and bake cookies out of the premade cookie dough I keep in the refrigerator. “Cookies and tea,” she says when I bring them. “Next thing I know I’ll come over and you’re knitting tea cozies.”
“I think I’m man enough to knit a tea cozy,” I say. Whatever that is.
She grins. “Oh, you’re man enough to crochet a doily.”
We watch the people in the park and talk about nothing. Doing useless things with her feels more important than the most massive asset takeover.
She complains about me fattening her up, but we nearly finish the pan.
She drains the rest of the tea and straddles my lap, kissing me, her cocoon a tent around us. It’s a slow, lazy kiss. The sunlight behind her tips the edges of her brown hair gold. She feeds me little bits of the last cookie and kisses me some more.
We need to talk about the Vonda situation, but now’s not the time. There’s been enough Vonda today.
She slides the pad of her pointer finger around my lips like she’s memorizing the shape of them. “I like feeding you cookies,” she says.
“That’s convenient,” I say. “Because I like your fingers in my mouth.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
Her gaze turns mischievous. She removes her hand from my lips and trails it down her neck. My heart begins to pound, because I’m also man enough that every ounce of me is focused on the pink and succulent end of the path her fingers are tracing.
Slowly she slides it down her shirt and into the waistband of her blue pants.
