Chapter 10
The bell on the door tinkled as I entered the Buttercream Beanery for the third time in my life. After the door closed behind me, I paused and glanced around before making my way to the counter. It was Sunday, so I hoped this was a good day to come. Gi and some friends had gone up to the Hamptons for the weekend. She’d said it was to study, and they’d all have their instruments. Finals were coming, and they needed to prepare.
Greg Wickham couldn’t have gone because I’d ensured my childhood tormentor wouldn’t be anywhere near Gigi for the foreseeable future. Thanks to Liz, my little sister was safe.
When I approached the counter, I set my hands down on the surface. “Hi, I’m looking for Elizabeth Bennet. I need to speak to her.”
The girl bit her lip. “I’m sorry. She isn’t working today.”
“I hadn’t considered. . .May I leave my name and phone number? I need to talk to her.”
“You’re William Darcy.”
I turned to where a petite Asian woman stood behind me. Her short black hair was cut close to her head, and she wore a pair of wide-legged, ripped jeans and a t-shirt that said, “ I bake because punching people is frowned upon. ” A pair of black Dr. Martens boots peeked from under the hem of her trousers. They were dusted with what could only be flour.
“I am.”
She gave a bob of her head. “I’m Charlotte Liu, Lizzy’s assistant. Come with me.” She waved me to follow.
I glanced around but took a few hesitant steps after her. “Where are you taking me?”
“You said you needed to talk to Lizzy. She’s at home, so I was going to show you the easy way from inside the store to the lift that will take you up. Otherwise, you’ve got to walk the long way around to the side street and have her buzz you in.” I stood dumb for a moment. You could access Liz’s house through the store?
“Are you coming?” Charlotte turned around and looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Yes, sorry.”
We walked around the corner into the bookstore, and Charlotte took me through a pair of double doors then down a hallway with several storage rooms branching off from it. Shelves lined the walls up to the ceiling where boxes of books were organized and stacked; around another corner was a set of elevator doors. Charlotte led me inside and scanned a lanyard on her neck before pressing a button.
“You need a pass card?” Yes, my voice had taken on a higher pitch, but this was more sophisticated than I’d imagined.
“So the employees can use the elevator to bring books to the upper floors of the store and visit the corporate offices without accessing Lizzy’s flat.”
The elevator stopped, dinged, and the doors opened. When I stepped into the large marble-floored foyer, I stopped and gawked. In all the talks of buying Novel Books, how had no one told us this was here? Jane had said her uncle had an apartment upstairs, but it had been thought to be one of a dozen small flats and not all that large. That was what original plans showed. Apparently, those were wrong since the floating staircase showed that this was the entire top two floors of this particular building.
“Lizzy!” Charlotte smiled at me and held up a finger.
“Char?” came from a doorway under the curved staircase. Charlotte grinned and beckoned me to follow her into the room.
“What’s wrong?” Liz rose from a chair by the window, her eyebrows shifting toward the center when she saw me. Holy shit, my jaw just about hit the floor. She was wearing a muted eggplant crop top hoodie and a pair of casual black leggings that showed off her figure to perfection, her pierced belly button peeking at me over the waistband of the tight trousers.
“Nothing’s wrong. Mr. Darcy came into the café looking for you. Since the last time you saw him was because of his sister, I thought it might be important. It’s unusual for Gigi to come in on a Sunday, but not unheard of, so I brought him up.”
Liz scraped her teeth on her bottom lip, which was distracting—to say the least! “You’re right. It’s probably better this way, Char. If Gigi saw us talking about it all, she’d never forgive us.”
Charlotte jerked her chin toward the door. “I’ll let the two of you catch up then.”
“You don’t have to go,” said Liz.
I looked back and forth between them. Liz had said she and Charlotte had discussed the situation. “You don’t need to leave on my account. Besides, Gigi is in the Hamptons with her friends. They’re having a study weekend before finals.”
The petite woman grinned. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m meeting my partner for tea.”
As soon as she was gone, Liz clasped her hands in front of her. “Can I offer you a glass of wine? Or water? You don’t have to drink, but I was having a glass of pinot.”
I trailed behind her to a table where a bottle with a familiar red waxed top sat on a table. Liz typed something on her phone while I picked up the vintage. “I know this one. I keep it in my cellar. It’s good.” A black and white cat rested on the back of a nearby sofa. He lifted his head and blinked in my direction, obviously undisturbed by a stranger.
“It’s a sentimental favorite,” said Liz. “My uncle enjoyed it often with meals.”
“I keep some of the reserve vintages in my cellar—not that it’s a true cellar—”
“It’s probably like the one my uncle had put in off the butler’s pantry. While not underground, it’s climate controlled specifically for wine storage.”
After I nodded, I shoved my hands in my pockets, but an older woman bustled in with a wine glass.
“Here you are, dearie. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hill.”
I couldn’t help but allow a small smile. “You have your own Mrs. R.” I startled at a nudge to my elbow. The large cat had tightrope walked the back of the sofa so he could beg for pets.
Liz shrugged. “I suppose, except mine is Mrs. Hill, and she bakes as well as I do. She worked for Zio until his death and has been like a grandmother to me.
“Ignore Atticus. He’s an attention whore.”
I stopped scratching behind the cat’s ears and pointed at him. “Atticus?”
“Yes, he’s not shy like most cats and will beg for love from anyone. When the chimney company came to inspect the fireplaces, he chewed their equipment and tried to climb up the vent to the woodstove in my bedroom.”
“I don’t mind him.” I continued to stroke his back. “As for Mrs. Reynolds, I was four years old when she came to work for us. Anyway, about why I came. I’m sure you’re wondering what happened with Gi.”
She handed me a glass of the deep burgundy liquid. “I confess I’m curious, but it’s not any of my business.”
I swallowed my first sip, savoring the richness of the pinot on my tongue. “I disagree. You and Gi are friends. I’d prefer you know in the unlikely event Greg turns up again. He’s like a bad penny as the old saying goes.”
She gestured toward a chair near the window, so I abandoned her cat to sit while she took the chair opposite. I glanced out the window. “Is that the courtyard on the side of the café?”
“Yes, although it’s bigger than it looks from the café,” she said. “That’s the part that extends around the back of the building. I love that I have a bit of green in the view from this chair.”
“I hadn’t realized it was that large.”
Her eyebrows drew down. “Once the tables, greenery, and fountain fill the space, it seems smaller.”
“I suppose that’s probably true.” I shook myself. “Forgive me. I was telling you about Wickham. Pemberley Books has several investigators we keep on file for different matters. They’ve come in handy for theft—employee or customer depending upon the circumstances. I sent them Wickham’s information and what you told me. It didn’t take long to find him. He’d come to New York for modeling jobs, as he’d told you, but his work here has dried up. He’s been offered a lucrative deal in the UK—one that he can’t pass up.”
“You arranged this?”
I lifted one shoulder. “All of his modeling jobs were coming through a particular agency. I’ve met the head of the company at numerous functions. He chairs a committee that raises money for art and fashion scholarships based on need. I simply promised him a generous donation should Greg need to leave the States. Wickham was on a flight out this morning.”
Her eyes flared as she took a long draw from her glass. “That doesn’t mean he can’t contact her. He could attempt to maintain some kind of relationship from afar.”
A heavy exhale poured out of me. “I confess that I’d hoped you’d let me know if she implies that’s happening.”
“Why not tell her the truth of what he is?”
“Because that would cause her pain. I’d rather not if I can help it.”
Liz set down her glass and rose. “You can’t shield her from the world. She’s na?ve as it is and keeping the truth of this—that he wants nothing more than her inheritance—won’t help her mature. She needs to learn from this, so she doesn’t trust those who are not worthy of it.”
“You sound like Richard.”
“Then good for him for standing up to you. I’m sure there aren’t many who do, and while I agree with your motives, this was officious. You can’t be her guard dog every day of her life. If something happens to you, she’ll be left on her own—”
“She’d have Richard.”
“Somehow, I think he’d have managed this situation differently. You’ve spent all of this money with an investigator. Show Gigi the proof of whatever he’s done, so if he does turn up again, she’s not so trusting.”
I shook my head, my insides now writhing. “You’ve no idea what he’s capable of.” My voice was lower than I’d intended.
Her finger pointed right at my face. “And that’s exactly why she should be told. You’re making her more vulnerable to him and any other man like him.” Liz’s voice was somewhat raised and as she’d spoken, her arm now gesturing to the window as though all of Manhattan was filled with Greg Wickhams.
“I disagree.”
She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “Of course you do.”
I rose and pressed my finger to my chest. “I know how to take care of Gigi! I’ve been doing it for five years now. Do you know what it’s like to go home and tell your fourteen-year-old little sister that she’ll never see her mother or father again? As much as I’d wanted to protect her from that, I couldn’t, so if not telling her everything of Greg Wickham saves her some heartache and horror, then that’s what I’m going to do.” The cat had barreled from the room, tail low, when I’d started yelling.
Liz took one step toward me. “As much as we’d love to wrap the people we love in some kind of protective barrier, we can’t. It’s not reality.” Her tone had softened.
“And I suppose your uncle told you everything. He never tried to protect you by keeping something secret!”
“We spoke openly on almost everything! The only thing he never told me was the contents of the trust, but every day, particularly after the opening of the café, he made a point to teach me how his business worked. I just didn’t realize what was going on until I was informed I was his heir.”
Liz stood much closer than when we’d started arguing. A soft vanilla fragrance tickled my nose and made me lean further in.
“Perhaps that was his way of protecting you.”
She gave a slight flinch, and her eyes became glassy. “I-I don’t know. I never asked Mrs. Hill if she knew why.” A single teardrop landed on her cheek.
My hand lifted and brushed it away. “I’m sorry, Liz. I shouldn’t have brought your uncle into it.”
Our gazes collided and held, and some invisible tug in my chest made me close that last little bit of space between us and press my lips to hers.
A swift inhale from her accompanied the first touch. A current traveled from my lips and through my entire body. I cupped her top and then bottom lip with mine before she began to kiss me back. My palms slid along the soft waistband of her leggings, grazing the velvet of her sides, to pull her against me.
The richness of the wine lingered on her tongue as I deepened the kiss with a groan. She fit perfectly in my embrace, her lush breasts flush with my chest. One of my hands continued to press into her lower back while the other embedded itself in the silky curls on her head.
I’d never experienced anything like this—this awareness of my entire body. I could drown myself in her and never regret it.
When her hands pushed me away by my chest, I blinked and stared at her. Everything in me screamed to take her back in my arms—to never let her go.
“I need you to leave.”
I shook myself. “Did I do something wrong?”
She straightened. “You came to tell me about Gigi and Greg Wickham. Thank you for the information. Now, if you could leave.”
From the first moment I’d noticed her at the gala, her eyes had almost been a window into Liz’s feelings. But when she straightened, that quality in her gaze shifted. I couldn’t get any glimpse of what she was feeling. A sharp pain shot through my chest like something inside it cracked.
“Liz, please talk to me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I need you to go.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
If she’d shut herself down so completely, I’d never get her to listen, even if I could get her to tell me what was bothering her.
“I’ll check in with you later.”
When I re-entered the elevator, I studied the selections on the keypad. How was I to get out of here? I didn’t know which to press. After hovering over the keys, my finger making a circle as it did so, I hit the bottom-most button. Hopefully, that would take me to the exit.
As the elevator began its descent, I leaned against the wall and adjusted myself in my trousers. How was I still hard?
“You may as well give it up,” I said, looking down. “It’s not like you would’ve gotten any anyway.”