26
Florence
I climb into Tilly's old beat-up Toyota. She and Josie decided I would ride with Tilly to the penthouse, although I haven't exactly puzzled out why.
"Don't judge my twenty-year-old Camry. Some of us don't come from money," she says, shifting into reverse and peeling out of the parking lot before I have the chance to put my seatbelt on.
"Maybe don't judge me, either," I snap. We had enough when I was growing up, but we certainly didn't have everything handed to us. "I've worked hard for what I have." My brothers and sisters and I all have. Well, Hettie married money, but she's successful in her own right.
"Yeah," she mutters.
I realize it must be hard for her, being in her final year of residency and barely making ends meet. Fifteen years of education is a long time. "You'll be official in less than a year, right?"
"In August." She's quiet, her eyes focused on the road.
"You know," I muse, "if this is about toys, I could probably spot you enough to improve your collection." I'm not sure what makes me offer, but I get the feeling that Tilly is lonely—and hypersexual.
She snorts. "I keep myself satisfied, Florence, trust me. But it's nice of you to offer." She chuckles low in her throat. "I'd say you should offer that to Josie, but she's not that into toys."
"Oh?" I'm curious how she knows this. "You know this from experience?"
She pulls into the parking lot behind Vanderveen Tower and turns to me, grinning. "Are you jealous?"
Her phone buzzes, and her eyes light up in amusement at whatever she sees. "Josie's here, too. Over there." She nods toward Josie, a few cars down.
"The penthouse is in the Tower?" I ask in surprise.
"Apparently, there was beef between Josie's grandpa and the Vanderveens, way back. They're the ones who get his fortune if Josie doesn't come up with the money."
I frown. I don't remember Hettie ever mentioning anything about this. Her father-in-law and her husband own the place. I'll have to ask her about it one of these days.
Josie joins us as we head into a door on the side of the building. "There's a separate entrance for the penthouse. You can get to it from the fifty-fourth floor from the main entrance, but almost no one ever goes that way. I think the Vanderveens have forgotten the penthouse even exists."
I raise an eyebrow. Maybe I shouldn't ask Hettie about it, then. "Maybe then you won't need to come up with the money."
She hits the elevator button before she shakes her head. "No. The lawyer said that doesn't matter. If I don't settle the estate before the ten months is up, their lawyer will be notified. But until then, they might not even know."
"But if they're watching for it, they would see his obituary," I point out.
Tilly rolls her eyes. "I think after thirty years, they've probably given up on the guy. Not to mention, his name isn't that uncommon. Even if they had a search alert set, they'd have to sort through too much to make sense of it."
"It's not a secret, though. My brother mentioned it Wednesday at dinner." I hadn't realized at the time Joe was talking about Josie's grandfather.
Josie looks at me. "I forgot you had a brother. What did he hear?"
"A brother and two sisters. We all get together for dinner at Mom and Dad's on Wednesdays—everyone but Catalina, anyway. She's the one who called the other morning—she's in Italy. You should come sometime. They want to meet you."
The elevator stops, and Josie motions for me and Tilly to exit first. "I'm not going to ask how your parents know about me. What did your brother hear?" she repeats.
I shrug my shoulders. "I told you he's a coin collector, right?" I sigh. "Apparently, your grandfather was well-known in numismatic circles. He's shown some of his private collection to some of the more exclusive members of the community. They're all very interested in finding out what will happen to his coins."
She unlocks the door and pushes it open. Tilly waltzes right in, and I follow her.
I look around in amazement. The place is like a museum. Paintings, sculptures, a wall full of books. But beyond all the priceless stuff in here is an entire wall of glass—a window looking out over the shimmering lake. I've always had an affinity for the water.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Josie says softly. I walk toward the window. She follows me, circling her arms around my waist from behind, and puts her chin on my shoulder. "I think I could stay here and stare out at the water all day."
I turn my head to meet her eyes. "We could, you know."
She closes her eyes, her cheek nuzzling my neck. "Florence, don't tempt me right now," she breathes into my skin. She brushes her lips against the soft skin at the nape of my neck before letting go of me.
"All right, break up the love fest." Tilly clears her throat loudly. "You can do that when you get home later." More quietly, she adds, "God knows you both need it."
"Tilly…" Josie warns.
"The safe is upstairs, right?" she interrupts, turning around and heading up the stairs.
Somehow the view of the lake is even more mesmerizing from the landing on the second floor.
"It's in the little room at the end of the corridor." Josie says, following Tilly into the last room.
I peek into the doors as I pass by them. A small room has coins mounted on the wall and drawers upon glass drawers of trays full of coins. There must be hundreds in here, maybe thousands.
I peek into the next room and it's the same with sports cards and stamps. In the last room, Tilly and Josie already have a painting taken down off the wall and the safe opened. Around them are shelves of books, many of them enclosed in glass, and piles and piles of papers.
"Absolutely not. No way," Tilly says vehemently.
Josie looks up as I come into the room. "Pretty cool, isn't it?" She glares at Tilly. "This conversation isn't over." She takes out another pile of papers and puts it on a small desk in the corner of the room. "I think I've figured out some of his rhyme and reason, at least behind the books. He'd pick up fifty or a hundred new releases every year—going back to the late forties. Then he'd sell them ten or twenty years later if they didn't pan out."
"How do you know that?" I ask curiously.
She shrugs. "He has receipts, filed by decade. He kept meticulous records."
"That's a good thing, right?" I ask. If he was good at keeping records, that should erase doubt about a lot of his valuables.
"In theory," she says. "In reality, I've found receipts and records for most of the books, stamps, and baseball cards. Some of the coins have Certificates of Authenticity, but a lot of them don't. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it opens up the possibility that they're stolen property."
"That doesn't mean that he's the one who stole them," Tilly says. "He could have bought them from someone else who did."
"Even if that were the case," I argue, "it would still be stolen property. There was so much looted during the war." Even Nonna's place was looted when she was a kid. I guess seventeen wasn't a kid back then, but to me—
"It's impossible to track all of that down," Josie murmurs. "My grandfather spent eight decades trying to track someone down to no avail."
"Whoever it was is gone by now." Tilly sighs. "In theory, we might be able to find the families of some of them, but that would be a lot of work."
I come up behind Josie. "You said the Auction House won't work with you?"
She leans back into me, settling against my body. "For the coins. They still don't know about that one coin, but there are a bunch of others that are raising red flags."
"What would you think about my brother coming to look at some of the collection? If he came with one or two of his buddies, they might be willing to make you an offer and buy directly from you. It might get you closer to your goal."
"It's an idea."
"Josie?" Tilly's voice pulls me out of my Josie-bubble. "You realize what's happening, right?"
Josie shakes her head. "What are you talking about? What's happening?"
Tilly snorts. "She's wheedling her way into your heart."
Josie shakes her head. "No, it's not like that. She's just a friend, Till. The rest is for show."
Tilly smirks. "A friend you want to touch constantly."
Josie shakes her head. "We're all touchy-feely, Till. You are, too."
She raises an eyebrow. "But you don't fuck me on the kitchen table."
I step away from Josie, stung. "It was the dining room table," I tell Tilly hotly. I look at Josie, who looks as surprised as I am at Tilly's snide comment. I need to get out of here.
I can't breathe.
"I'll be downstairs when you're ready to go."
I spend a long time staring out the window, watching the sun sparkling on the water. I don't understand how all my thoughts revolve around this woman I met less than two months ago. Yes, I need her for appearances, and I agreed to spend time with her because that's what she wanted. But I never thought she would find her way into my heart.
I was with Katie almost four years before she decided to look for greener pastures. It took me less than a week to get over her—to realize I was happier without her constant need for more of me.
Is that what I'm doing to Josie? She doesn't even want to spend the time with me that she's entitled to. I slump against the window. Maybe I need to stop spending time with her. The rumors about Woodhouse have stopped, so there's not much need for us to be seen together in public—at least not for a while. It hurts to think about giving up our time together.
"She's all yours, darling." Tilly's voice pulls me out of my thoughts. "I'm going to get out of here."
I can feel her eyes on my back. I don't turn around.
Her breath is suddenly against my neck, in my ear. "Try the bed next time."
I yank my head away from her. "There won't be a next time."
"Well, don't be like that. A beautiful woman, warm and pliable under those long fingers of yours…"
At least she has the decency to step out of my personal space.
I wipe the tear from my cheek before I twirl around. "Don't talk about her like that." I take a step into her space. "She's a person who deserves your respect. She's not a piece of meat."
Tilly raises an eyebrow. "You can respect a woman and still worship her body."
I turn back to the window, hiding my face. "Be safe on your way home." I try to swallow back the lump in my throat.
Yes, you can still worship her body.
She's quiet for a minute. "Hey. I didn't mean to upset you."
I half shrug. I noticed Josie pulling away from me before Tilly started joking about it. "She doesn't do feelings. I get it." I wish Tilly would go already.
"Florence." When I don't answer, she puts a hand on my back, stepping next to me. "She's going through enough shit with all this stuff, with her grandpa being a creepy pervert, all of it. She needs all of us right now, especially you."
"Well," Josie's voice comes from the stairs, "I certainly didn't expect to come down and find the two of you in a compromising position."
"I think," Tilly quips, looking up at her friend without missing a beat, "that your idea of a compromising position is different from mine." She leans closer to me to whisper in my ear. "Keep working that CEO charm on her, Boss. It's working." Laughing, she kisses my cheek before turning to Josie. "Jealous?"
I hear murmured conversation behind me, but I keep my eyes on the water in the distance. Tilly leaves quietly, and Josie comes up behind me.
She puts a hand on my back. "Can I hold you?"
I shake her hand off me. "Did you find what you were looking for?" I ask through the knot in my throat.
She steps next to me, her eyes on the distant view. "Appraisals for most of the art, all of the gems, sports cards, books. For some of the coins, but nowhere near what you'd expect, given the size of his collection upstairs. By my estimate, he's got nearly a thousand coins up there. You saw—there are drawers and drawers of them upstairs."
"Maybe they aren't that valuable," I offer. "If they're not worth much—not to say they aren't worth much, but relative to the other things he has—it's possible he never bothered with getting them appraised."
"Most of them are from Europe, and everything that I've looked at is really old, medieval or older. There's quite a few from before the war, too—early 1900s. It's more likely that they were looted. It's pretty obvious he did that a lot."
"How do you figure?"
"His letter felt almost like a confession to me, more than anything. His search for that girl feels like his way of trying to make things right."
"You can never make things right, not the pain and suffering men like him caused," I say sourly. I've heard some of Nonna's stories, things that have haunted her for the last eighty years—things that will haunt her until the day she dies.
She leans into me, her shoulder warm against mine. "I didn't mean it that way, Florence. I wonder if it was his attempt at atonement, though." She sighs. "We all do things we regret. We can't undo or unsay things, but we can try to mitigate the damage."
"It's not the same."
"No, it's not," she says quietly. "But if we can take a tiny fraction of pain away from someone by atoning for our sins…"
"It's self-serving."
She nods, silent for a long minute. "Can I ask you something?"
"You can ask." That doesn't mean I'll answer.
"What did Tilly say that upset you?"
I stiffen. "She's rude. And crass."
"Underneath that, she's a sweetheart when you get to know her," she says, defending her friend.
I simply nod. I've seen signs of it, even in the few times I've met her.
She steps away from me and studies me. "Are you jealous of her? You know I'm not sleeping with her."
Am I? "No, I'm not jealous of her," I scoff lightly. "And I told you at the beginning that if you hook up with anyone, it's fine—as long as you're discreet about it."
"Florence, look at me." She waits for me to comply. "I love Tilly as a friend. I'm not fucking her. I only want you."
But she's not interested in a relationship.
"But I know how hard it is to have feelings for someone who doesn't feel the same way. I should refrain from even touching you." She sighs. "It's still hard when Mel touches me. When I hug her, I have to stop myself from inhaling her."
Of course. Everything is about Mel.
"I don't want to hurt you. I care about you." When I don't respond, she releases a long breath. "Tell me what you want me to do."
The corner of my mouth tugs up. "I want you to take me to bed and kiss me all over, all night long." I could go on, but I don't think that's what she's asking for. "I'm afraid you'll get bored with me—or worse, that you'll do something you don't want to, just to appease me. Do what you're comfortable with."
"I promise I won't do anything I don't want to." She cups my face. "So can I kiss you?"
I lean into her, brushing my lips against hers. "You can do whatever you want," I murmur against hers.
She pulls back, closing her eyes with a sigh. "Not here."