My One Week Husband Page 6

  A smile spreads easily on his face, a knowing sort of grin. “She does that for me. We do that for each other. I never knew it was possible to feel like this.” He sighs, the thoughtful variety. “You could have that too, you know.”

  I scoff. “Sweet of you to offer, but I’m pretty sure we’re done with the threesomes.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Not what I meant.”

  I meet his gaze head-on, wanting him to serve it up. Cole and I have known each other for years. We don’t beat around the bush. “What do you mean, then? Are you truly telling me to go fall arse-over-elbow in love?”

  My longtime friend shrugs, giving me a small smile. “Is it the worst idea?”

  “It’s the unlikeliest. I’m not looking for that. I don’t want that. And I don’t have any empty spaces in my heart.”

  If I did, that would mean there were spaces in my heart that are already filled.

  Pretty sure mine is totally empty, drained long ago of any feeling.

  “I don’t believe that,” he says in the same cool, confident tone he uses when he negotiates deals.

  “Believe it,” I say, strength in my voice too.

  “And yet I don’t.” Cole drags a hand through his dark hair, as if lost in thought briefly, before he tosses out, “Are you happy?”

  All I can do is laugh.

  How can he ask that question? He ought to know.

  But I answer him anyway. “I do all of the things that make me happy. I enjoy life. I dine on fine meals; I drink the best wine; I go to concerts, symphonies, operas. I attend galas and fetes. I indulge in women, and I work it all off the next day at the gym. I make tons of money. And I enjoy that. I am meticulously happy. Insanely happy.”

  His brows narrow, the doubtful look of a cross examiner. “Meticulously happy? That’s not a thing.”

  “Maybe it’s not. But the point is, I am as happy as I possibly can be. I’ve learned to take each day for what it is.”

  We near our hotel in the eighth arrondissement, the magnificent archway rising up to greet us, doormen flanking the entrance. “That’s what worries me,” Cole says.

  “You think I’m enjoying the pleasures of the flesh too much? I’m not with a woman tonight. And I wasn’t last night either. No need to worry, mate.”

  “Amazing, your restraint. But be that as it may, someday you might want more than pleasures of the flesh, pleasures of the wallet, and pleasures of material things.”

  “That’s hard to imagine,” I say deadpan, but not entirely.

  Because it is hard to imagine when everything else is so damn fleeting. Life, talent, skills, love—they can all slip through your fingers.

  The only thing that’s left at the end of the day is money. So I grab onto that, and I hold tight so it won’t slip through.

  That’s what I’ve built from the ashes of my life, from the detritus of my choices. From the carnage wreaked in one furious moment when I let emotion get the better of me. When I let rage and unserved revenge lead me to an untenable choice that upended all my dreams.

  Now, a decade later, I’m left with a scar on my hand, the memories of what I once did, and a slightly above average skill.

  We stop outside the entryway to our property. Cole meets my gaze with an intense look. An I’m about to dispense important advice look. “And so I return to my point. Be careful with Scarlett. I don’t think she’s as far gone as you are, and certainly not as far gone as you let others think you are. How do you think things will go when you travel around to these hotels with her?”

  The question is open-ended. It can be addressed in a myriad of ways. I’m tempted to choose the easiest way out. To say, I think it’ll be great. We get along well. You know that. We’re good friends.

  Instead, I speak honestly. “I think it’ll be tempting as hell. I want her terribly. She’s the most fascinating person I’ve ever met. She keeps me on my toes. I can’t seem to stop wanting her. But I’ll find the will.”

  With a smile, he nods. “You do that.”

  We head to the bar, where Sage, his lovely fiancée, is waiting for him with a glass of bourbon. She calls me over, and I say hello.

  “Did you gentlemen have a lovely time tonight?” she asks.

  I tip my forehead to Cole. “Your fiancé gave me a terribly hard time about my romantic prospects. Apparently, he fancies himself something of a matchmaker,” I remark, making light of the conversation.

  “Seems I might have hit a nerve,” Cole says.

  Briefly I consider that, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer, because I’m not sure why the nerve is pinching. So instead I say, “On that note, I shall leave the two of you alone.”

  I say good night to my friend and his lovely bride-to-be, then I leave them.

  I take the brass-paneled elevator up to the penthouse floor, which is permanently reserved for me. I head down the hall, turn the corner, and unlock the suite that’s become my home away from home.

  Once inside, I’m drawn to the corner of the room by a window overlooking the city. I stop in front of the glass and stare out at the lights, a longing pulling at my chest. Answering it, I pick up my violin case, open it, and remove the precious jewel of an instrument. I position it under my chin, bow in hand.

  My heart floods all at once with joy, with the happiness that this instrument has brought me.

  But it also bursts painfully into shards full of regret. A regret that intensifies when I slide the bow over the strings and play my favorite adagio from Brahms, staring out the glass at Paris, shrouded in night, full of revelers, thinkers, and lovers.

  I imagine I am playing for them.

  To the untrained ear, I do a fine job. I could entertain a drawing room. I could play at a tea party. I could amuse friends lounging in the living room on a winter weekend as the snow fell outside the window.

  But that’s not what I once did with the violin. Party tricks were not my specialty.

  I was capable of moving worlds.

  I could make the instrument weep.

  I could bring audiences to their knees.

  I can still play.

  But not like that.

  More like a shadow.

  My fingers, my muscles, my mind—they can all play the notes, and I hear the flaws in between the notes I play.

  I know, too, how to repair them. How to make this instrument play magnificently in the kind of way that earned me a solo chair at the opera house.

  Only, I can’t do that anymore.

  My hands don’t work in that fashion any longer.

  They can no longer make world-renowned music.

  They haven’t been able to for more than fifteen years, since I was eighteen years old and consumed with an anger I never expected, courtesy of a decision that blindsided me.

  A decision that failed to deliver the justice my family deserved.

  At the time, righteous rage jet-propelled me to do the stupidest thing of all—punch a wall.

  With my right hand. My prized possession. My greatest gift.

  I damaged my ability to do what I loved most: making music.

  It was a crime of passion. I was the perpetrator. I was the victim. I was the fool.

  Now I’m left with memories of a once-great talent and a long, jagged scar on my hand.

  It’s a reminder of how dangerous emotions are. Emotions lead to consequences. To families torn asunder. To talent squandered because of a matchstick choice.

  I’m the sole architect of the destruction of my once-upon-a-time career as a violin prodigy, playing on the world’s greatest concert stages before I was even eighteen.

  I ended the greatest love affair of my life with an emotional choice—a choice that ended the violin and me.

  Now, it’s best to keep my heart sanitized of emotions.

  Closing my eyes, I finish the Brahms piece, the slightly above average, merely good enough music that I now make doing its part to numb my heart once again.

  I lower the bow, then r
un my fingers gently along the body of the instrument, treating the violin with the tenderness it deserves.

  I tuck it away in its case where it’s safe from harm.

  Safe from me.

  7

  Scarlett

  “What does one pack for a weeklong trip with her business partner?”

  I pose that question to my friend Nadia a few days after the dinner with Cole and Daniel.

  She furrows her brow as we walk through Le Marais following a lunch with some of her advertisers. Nadia is mostly fluent in French, but I was there to help her translate, since she’s in Paris meeting with advertising executives as part of her plans for marketing pro football here in Europe.

  “That is the dilemma,” she says with a thoughtful hum as we pass Amelie’s, the delectable scent of raspberry tarts and chocolate croissants tempting me from the bakery. I lift my nose in the direction of the open door, like a dog shamelessly stealing a whiff. “Add in the caveat that one is actively trying to deny an attraction to said business partner,” Nadia continues with a wink.

  My jaw drops, and I fling a hand to my chest. “Moi? Never.”

  She points at me. “You.”

  I shrug in admission. “Fine. Fine. No denials.”

  “It’s always good to be honest with oneself and one’s friends. Men? That’s another story,” she says with a laugh as we round the corner, passing a boutique peddling shoe after decadent shoe. Her eyes swing to the display of fuchsia, garnet, and cranberry-red heels. She holds up a finger. “Hold on. We must discuss all the things, but first, I have to ogle these beauties.” She stops to practically undress the footwear with her eyes.

  “Would you like to go in there and rub up against that lovely pair of sapphire-blue pumps?” I ask, pointing to a shiny four-inch set in the display. “Perhaps mate with them? Take them home and pet them all night?”

  “As a matter of fact, I think I will,” she says, then tips her forehead to the store. “Let’s indulge in shoes as we discuss hot, broody, complicated men.”

  “So, just like any other time we’re together?”

  Flipping her dark-brown hair off her shoulder, she laughs. “You know me so well. Shoes make my lack of a love life so much better.”

  I shoot her a sympathetic look. “I thought you were mostly content with your lack of a love life?”

  She shrugs, then sighs heavily. “Mostly. But at other times, I wonder—what does it take to get a date as a twenty-five-year-old who owns a football team? I’m anthrax to men.”

  I pat her shoulder. “The dilemmas of the young female billionaire.”

  “Exactly. Men are terrified of me, or I’ve been taught not to trust them.”

  “I can’t fault the trust issues. Mine are a mile-deep and a canyon-wide.”

  “Understandably. But shoes? Shoes I trust,” she says breezily as she grabs hold of the door and tugs it open.

  We head into the shop, faint strains of Édith Piaf playing overhead as wafer-thin sales associates with carved cheekbones organize stylish boots, strappy sandals, and sexy heels.

  “Yes, exactly,” I say, then toss out a bonjour to the associates.

  “Bonjour. Let us know if you need anything,” a man in black jeans and a sequined tank top says to us from his place near a display of completely shameless shoes with peacock feather embellishments.

  “We will,” I reply.

  Nadia beams at the man and asks in French for the sapphire shoes in her size.

  “Bien sur.” The shopkeeper scurries to the back room to grab a pair of the blue shoes for Nadia.

  “The height of my fluency is shopping terms,” she says to me.

  “You know much more than how to shop. But you do excel at transactional French,” I say, my eyes drawn to a pair of silver flats. They’d be perfect for the trip. Great for walking around. For checking out hotels.

  I hold up the silver flats for Nadia to see. “Shall I get these for my trip?”

  She eyes them disdainfully, then asks, “Is that your strategy—wearing flats around Daniel so that you don’t look as sexy as you know you look in heels?”

  I shoot her a curious look. “Mince words much?”

  “Never, so I won’t now. You’re attracted to him. You said as much a few minutes ago. And for some reason, you’re going all proper and businesslike, twinset and pearls, on this trip. But not wearing heels around him isn’t going to stop your attraction.”

  “I wear flats every day. I wore them to dinner with him and Cole,” I point out.

  But what’s the point?

  The flats I wore didn’t make him less attractive.

  Is Nadia right? Am I deliberately picking clothes that make me feel businesslike with Daniel? So I can stay in that familiar zone? So I’m not tempted to explore this rush of feelings I have for him? “Flats are easier for navigating Paris,” I tell her, perhaps trying to convince myself as well.

  “They are. But a good pair of heels can make you feel the same way as a new lace bra-and-panty set does,” she adds, dropping her voice as she flops into a plush pink chair. “I bet you bought that for your trip.”

  I shoot her a withering glare. “How do you do that?”

  “See right through you?”

  I nod. Of course I bought new underthings, but a woman always needs those. “Yes. That exactly.”

  “I know you well,” she says, and she’s right on that count. We met a few years ago, when I was mentoring her in her bachelor’s degree program. Since then, her life’s been a whirlwind—inheriting an NFL franchise from her father, running it with her friend . . . Nadia’s the youngest team owner in the league, but winning the Lombardi Trophy her first year at the helm has helped her earn the respect of her peers.

  “You know me better than anyone,” I say, since she’s become a confidante and a shoulder to lean on. Funny, how our roles have switched, but I think that’s how good friendships work—you need each other in different ways at different times.

  “Now come, sit next to me,” she says, patting the chair beside her. I join her as I hand the silver flats to another sales assistant and wait for my size. “Why are you trying to ignore this attraction to Daniel? It is because you don’t want to get involved?”

  “See point number one. He’s my business partner.”

  She tsks me. But it’s sort of a loving tsk. “Is this really about him being your business partner?” She taps my breastbone. “Or is it about that heart of yours that’s still on ice?”

  I sigh heavily. “Can you blame me?”

  She shakes her head. Then she huffs out an irritated breath. “I only blame your husband. I still want to exhume Jonathan’s body and shake some sense into him.”

  I cringe, laughing a little in horror. “You tend to be filter-free, but even I can’t believe you just said that. That’s kind of gross.”

  Nadia arches a brow so high it practically rises through the ceiling of the store. “Kind of? I think it’s horrifically gross and quite macabre. But I still can’t believe what you learned after he died. It’s awful. One hundred percent filter-free awful.”

  My heart winces, but it’s not the sucker punch that it was three years ago, after my husband was struck down with an aneurysm in Battersea Park when we were out for an evening walk, heading to dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant, the one with the chana masala I loved.

  A night that ended with an ambulance, the words dead on arrival, and a gutting of my heart.

  It’s not the serrated knife edge that scooped out the organ in my chest when I opened a drawer in our home a month later, deep in mourning, and learned who I’d been married to, who I’d buried.

  I shudder. These days it’s not so much abject, awful hurt that rips through my body when I think about Jonathan. It’s coolness. It’s a chill. And that chill is a reminder to avoid falling in love. To avoid connection that can lead to being absolutely blindsided, smacked upside the head, and left behind. I shake my head. “Let’s not talk about Jonathan,” I s
ay.

  “But do you need to talk about him?” she asks softly.

  I shoot her a sympathetic smile, then squeeze her arm. “I love that you’re always willing to talk. About anything. I love that. But let’s chat about shoes instead,” I say as the shopkeeper trots over and sets down a pair of blue shoes for Nadia and the silver flats for me, then takes off.

  “I can always talk about shoes.” Nadia slides on the jewel-colored beauties, then emits an appreciative ooh.

  I stare at the heels on her feet, a small burst of envy spreading through my chest. I make grabby hands. “Those are divine,” I say.

  “Told you. You should just get a pair for your trip.”

  I laugh. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to push me toward them?”

  She leans a little closer, dropping her voice to a stage whisper. “Because I am.”

  “And why are you so determined to get me to climb Daniel like a tree?”

  “Because it’s been a long time for you. Maybe, just maybe, you could indulge a little bit.”

  I blink, considering her statement. “You think I ought to indulge in a tryst with Daniel Stewart?” I whisper as if her idea might be the height of scandal. It kind of is.

  “The two of you have these red-hot sparks. Every time I see you together at an event, you’re like the poster children for flirting. Why not indulge? He doesn’t seem like the relationship type. You don’t seem like one either. You both would probably be up to keeping everything at arm’s length.”

  “Does that even work?”

  “If anyone can pull it off, it’s you. You’re brilliant at that. You line things up the way you want. You plan, you strategize, you organize. And you make things happen. That’s what you do. Besides, why couldn’t you do it?”

  Is she for real? Is that something that could actually work?

  I slide my feet into the silver flats, staring at them, studying them as I ponder her forthrightness.