Chapter 9
“I nfuriating, miserable man. Why am I even still here?” I set my phone down when he doesn’t reply and peer around the now empty room, the lighting dim, the floor quiet.
“To torture yourself of course.” Ugh! I should have walked straight out of here when I discovered who I was going to be working for.
Part of me wondered if I was that forgettable or if he’d eventually recognize me.
But when he didn’t, when I even threw out the word bunny and he was more confused than ever, not even the slightest flicker of recognition in his eyes, that’s when I should have left.
My self-goddamn-respect demanded it and yet, Friday night, I’m still here.
I like the job though. It’s interesting.
Most of the people—with the exception of Jenny—are really nice and I can even see becoming good friends with Greta and Charlie, who I’ve been having lunch with regularly.
But there are plenty of other jobs out there and they don’t involve Kaplan Fritz.
Yet I’m still here. Texting him. Doing my job. Creating monstrous art in his name.
The problem is, I don’t know if he hides from the world.
It was a guess. A wish. A prayer.
Because the Kaplan Fritz I remember was warm. Kind. Open. And liked me.
He was not anything like the Kaplan Fritz I’ve been fighting with via text all week because the man refuses to call me back. That’s why I’m still here. To prove to myself that it was real. That a connection so vital to me wasn’t a lie.
Part of me knows I likely shouldn’t have stayed in Boston. I was only here because of Tod, and truth be told, I wasn’t all that jazzed when he told me this was where we were getting married and moving to.
I didn’t plan my wedding. Tod’s mother and my mother did.
I was busy finishing up grad school and frankly, I didn’t care all that much.
The wedding wasn’t important to me. What I wanted was the adventure.
The new beginning and I had hoped, foolishly, that in marrying Tod I’d be seen as something more than I’ve always been seen as.
Bunny. That sweet, innocent girl. The one who can’t take care of herself. The naive one. The partially broken one—I wasn’t lying about that to Kaplan. Bitterness and self-decay battle inside me and I shove it away.
“Stupid,” I mutter to myself, standing now and forcing myself to put on my coat.
Maybe that’s why I stayed. To prove to myself that I’m none of those things I’ve been pegged as.
That I can do this job and do it well and do it for myself and no one else.
That I can make it in a new city and a new life all on my own.
Or maybe Kaplan Fritz was a larger draw than I care to admit to myself. “Stupid,” I repeat and wholeheartedly mean it.
I was a child the last time Kaplan was in my life.
Do I even want him to recognize me? What would I say? I’d be flustered and embarrassed and no. I am not a child anymore. I was Bunny Parker to him. I’m Bianca Barlow now. I should cut all my losses and go. Nothing good comes of this if he finds out.
But somehow, I know I won’t be leaving Boston or quitting this job tonight either.
The glass doors of the building glide shut soundlessly, only to lock directly behind me.
My gaze casts left and then right as I bundle myself into my coat.
The cold is definitely not something I’m used to yet.
I’m half tempted to call an Uber here and head straight to the studio.
Dinner be damned. But I need to change my clothes. I also need food.
More importantly, I need to stop thinking about my new boss and what Monday will be like.
Pressing myself against the wind, I head in the direction of the T. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a car. Sunday I move into my new apartment. Tonight is the only time I’ll have to work on my art and I’m jittery with that pulsing need. My fingers twitching beside me.
The streets are dark and wet but crowded with Friday night dinner traffic.
Women in expensive shoes clinging to the sidewalk, away from the dark slushy mess of leftover snow that hovers along the edges of the curb.
The smell of garlic and cooked meats fill the air, the restaurant fronts of the North End warm and welcoming.
“That’s totally him,” a girl practically glued against the steamy glass of one of the restaurants says. “Kaplan Fritz. I’d know his hot AF face anywhere. The owner of the restaurant practically threw me out when I tried to go in.”
“No way. What would he be doing sitting alone in a restaurant?” her friend remarks. “He’s dating that woman now, right? Millie Van Der Heusen? I saw it online.”
“No. They’re just friends, I think. But I’m telling you it’s him.”
“Friends my ass. Maybe he’s waiting on her. It’s a totally romantic restaurant, right?”
I don’t even realize I’ve stopped moving until I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk, eavesdropping.
“Romantic? It’s weird. Who rents out an entire restaurant?”
“He must have rented it out for their date. So they’d have privacy.”
My gaze hits the window and I scan through the glass along the empty restaurant until I find Kaplan all the way in the back, talking to the waiter.
He’s not waiting on a date. I don’t know how I know that, but somehow, I do.
I shouldn’t go in there. I shouldn’t even be tempted to see him.
It’s Friday night and he’s dining alone likely so he won’t be bothered, and I need to get back to the hotel so I can eat, change, and go.
I shouldn’t be opening the door of the small, quiet, and yes romantic restaurant with its light-wood tables, flickering candlelight, and roses in small bud vases. Maybe he is here to meet a woman? That woman.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, we’re closed tonight to diners. I meant to lock the door.” A woman in all black with a black apron covering her front comes barreling out of the back, rushing nervously over to me.
My gaze cuts straight across the room and lands on him.
Kaplan is holding a glass of wine, the rim poised right by his lips as if I caught him about to take a sip.
I don’t say anything and for a beat, he doesn’t either.
He just stares at me, his expression unreadable, even as it drags lazily down my body, sticking on my heeled boots and then back up to my face.
I get a what are you doing here raised eyebrow.
I return it with an I have no freaking clue shrug.
“It’s okay,” he finally says to the woman without removing his eyes from mine. “She can join me.”
“I never said I wanted to join you,” I smart, even as I’m crossing the room to his small two-person table in the back.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a real response. More importantly, how did you know I was here?”
I shake my head as I sit down while the staff rushes to put a place setting, wine and water glass, and a napkin in front of me. I don’t touch anything, still undecided.
“I didn’t. There were two girls with their faces pressed to the glass swearing it was you in the back and that you were waiting on a date. I simply overheard them as I was heading for the T.”
He curses low under his breath, taking a hearty gulp of his wine.
“This week has been a nightmare. Worse than normal, and truly, that is saying something. I didn’t even want to subject my siblings to dinner with me.
That’s how bad it’s been. Women. Press. Even patients’ families and hospital staff and administration.
There were several reasons I never wanted the foundation, and these are at the top of the hit list.”
“You didn’t have a choice?”
“No, Echidna, I didn’t have a choice. So again, what are you doing here?”
I lean forward, planting my forearms on the table and erasing some of the space between us.
“If you genuinely bought out every seat in a restaurant on a Friday night because you want to be alone, tell me. Have you changed your mind and want me to go or are you just being your cantankerous self, needing to hate me on principle? I don’t care who you are, Kaplan, or what your family’s last name is.
What foundation you run or how many lives you save.
And I certainly don’t care how fat or thin your wallet is.
But you’re sitting here alone and I’m not sure that’s truly what you want.
If you want me to go, I will. I do, believe it or not, have other things I can be doing.
But if you’d like me to stay and have dinner with you so we can talk shop or whatever else is on your mind, I’m happy to do that as well. ”
“I went home first,” he says instead of responding to any of that.
“The space in front of my condo was completely blocked. My parking space. The private gate that leads into my complex. There were people hiding in bushes and attempting to scale up the exterior of my building and onto my patio and my condo is three stories high and over the water on two of those sides. I haven’t brought a woman home with me in well over a year.
I haven’t dated a woman in the same amount of time.
And if there are faces glued to the glass, they will see you dining with me. ”
“So you want me to go?”
“No. I want you to stay and have dinner with me without all the bullshit that could potentially come with it.”
“Between us or if the world sees us?” I tease.
His hand drags a frustrated path through his hair. “Nothing is happening between us. This isn’t a fucking date.” He’s so on edge he looks like he’s about to explode all over this restaurant.
“Relax, there, Doctor. Believe it or not, I don’t want anything to happen between us and you’re the last man I’d want to date. And you don’t have to worry about the world seeing us have dinner together either. I’m your new assistant. We have plausible deniability.”
“Are you a lawyer now?”
I smirk at his growly tone and fierce expression. “No. I’m the stepdaughter of a lawyer.”
Now I hold. I wait. I watch. Nothing.