Chapter 40
40
RESTAURANT ROMARIO, GREENWICH VILLAGE
‘It was always Ben’s dream to work for the family business. I was the one who always went against the grain,’ Oliver said as they shared a plate of olives, sardines drizzled with lemon, fresh bread and a garlic butter.
‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting your own path,’ Hayley said, trying to delicately skewer an olive. ‘I wasn’t going to be a housewife like my mother or a bricklayer like my dad and I wasn’t ever as clever as Dean.’ She scoffed. ‘I definitely proved that by getting pregnant young and ruining all my plans.’
‘I think you’re too hard on yourself.’
‘Maybe you are too,’ she responded. The mood had shifted. This was easier, safer territory. ‘So, were you really good at football? Like Jonny Wilkinson was to rugby?’
‘Something like that. I take it he’s good,’ Oliver said with a smile.
‘I can just see you in the outfit.’
‘Uniform,’ he corrected.
‘Tight, white pants, bigger shoulder pads than Joan Collins… ’
‘I looked hot in that uniform.’
‘I’m not saying otherwise.’
The thought of him in tight pants was causing an involuntary reaction. She was hotting up from the tips of her toes and the flush was moving upwards at a rapid, unrelenting rate. He was looking right at her, sultry, like if they weren’t in a populated restaurant, he might rip all her clothes off.
‘Is that your boardroom face? Because it’s totally working on me.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘Right now, I’d do anything for you,’ she whispered. What had come over her? Was this the wine talking or her innermost thoughts jumping out of her lips? Her heart was racing now.
She watched his composure drop away and he wet his lips. Before she knew it, she was slipping off her shoe and stretching her leg out under the table until she connected with him. Keeping her eyes on his, she slowly began to inch her toes up his calves, past his knee and up onto his thigh.
‘You are a bad, bad, girl,’ he whispered, his eyes not leaving hers.
She jolted in her seat as she felt his foot on her, moving latently upwards.
‘We shouldn’t be doing this in a family establishment,’ she said, swallowing as she felt his foot slip up onto her chair and begin parting her thighs.
‘Absolutely not,’ he agreed.
Her delicate foot was kneading his groin and he was powerless. He was raging with lust, completely out of control. He should stop but it was too good, erotic, sensual, something more than that all at once. He pressed his foot forward, inch by inch, knowing he was so close to the most intimate part of her and wanting to feel it.
‘Have you still got the uniform?’ Hayley asked, her voice raspy.
‘What do you think?’ he whispered.
He watched her squirm as his toes made contact with her. He pressed a little harder.
‘Is it getting hot in here?’ She fanned a hand at her face as she looked back at him.
‘You tell me.’ He felt her furl and unfurl her toes on him and he knocked his knife off the table with his elbow.
‘Ditto,’ she said, eyes wide, lips parted.
‘A large Capricciosa and a Tre Gusti,’ Tony announced, slamming their plates down with no finesse at all.
Oliver shot his leg down from Hayley’s chair. His face was flushed and he made a grab for his napkin. ‘Thank you, that’s great.’
‘Fast service around here,’ Hayley remarked.
‘Almost a little too quick,’ he replied.
Oliver watched her, tearing apart her pizza and eating it like she was a famine victim. There was nothing superficial about this woman. She wasn’t sat there putting on a show for him; she was who she was and that was a breath of fresh air. Everything about her invigorated him. Everything she had going on in her life and she was still able to be so… natural, so free. If it wasn’t so stimulating, he would probably feel jealous.
‘This pizza is so good,’ Hayley said, wiping a sheen of grease from her lips with a finger before grabbing a serviette.
‘It’s the best pizza in the whole of New York, in my opinion. ’
‘So,’ she took a sip of her champagne. ‘Why did you stop coming here?’
She didn’t pull any punches. And he didn’t have an answer ready. Why had the Drummonds stopped coming here? Ben had died and the whole family had fallen apart, not feeling whole when one of them was missing. Maybe that was the problem. They hadn’t clung to each other; they had all done everything they could to get away. Richard with the business, him too – the only person who’d tried was Cynthia. And she was still valiantly trying now.
He shrugged, sitting back in his chair. ‘Ben died. It didn’t feel right, I guess.’
‘But you and Tony are friends; you still came here on your own.’
He shook his head. ‘Not for a long time. And Momma Romario never lets me forget it.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of that one. She has the grip of a strongman.’ She picked up another piece of pizza and gazed out onto the street. Two children were building a snowman on the sidewalk, their parents helping gather up piles of snow. It reminded her she’d promised to make Angel a snow president.
‘Angel loves Christmas,’ she remarked.
‘She’s a kid. All kids love Christmas.’
‘I always like the food more than the presents,’ Hayley said, poking in the pizza slice.
He laughed. ‘You surprise me.’
‘So do you do the whole going to church thing at Christmas?’
‘When I was a kid. Not now.’
‘Me neither. I’m not sure I know what religion’s really about. I’d just like a world where everybody respects everybody, for who they are as people, not anything else.’
‘Thought about running for office? You’d definitely get my vote. ’
‘People make life too complicated,’ she mused.
‘There’s just never enough time,’ Oliver stated.
‘It’s us not making time that’s the issue,’ Hayley corrected.
‘Sometimes, it isn’t that simple.’
‘And that’s my point. It is that simple… if you want it to be.’ She looked up at him. ‘Like, if you knew your father and Ben were going to die, what would you have done? Would you still have done whatever you did or would you have spent more time with them?’
‘It isn’t an ideal world.’
‘And you haven’t answered the question.’
‘Of course I’d want to spend more time with them.’
‘And you know you should have.’
‘That’s not really fair, Hayley.’
‘I wasn’t talking about you.’ She sighed. ‘I was talking about me.’ She kicked the table leg. ‘My father died just after I had Angel and, unlike my mother, he didn’t think I was a waste of space, or a let-down because I’d made a mistake. I took him for granted, Oliver. I assumed he would always be there. I didn’t cherish things, I didn’t spend enough time living in those moments and I wish I could go back and change that.’
‘He wouldn’t want you to be feeling guilt about it. No one knows how long they have here.’
Oliver swallowed as the conversation hit close to home. He certainly didn’t know how long he had here. He was supposed to be all about the moment. He’d always tried to pack everything he could in to however long he had left. But in an entirely different way to what Hayley was suggesting. In a detached, solitary way that meant nothing to anyone. Hayley would hold her loved ones close, not push them as far away as possible like he was. He took a sip from his glass.
‘My mother told me at my father’s funeral that me getting pregnant and having Angel had aged him. She practically accused me of putting the nail in his coffin.’
‘She’s wrong, Hayley and you know that.’
‘Is she?’
He reached his hand across the table, slipping his fingers in between hers. ‘Yes, she is.’ He used his other hand to raise her chin with his finger, forcing her to look at him. ‘And I’m betting anything if your father can hear you now, he’s hammering his fists on whatever cloud he’s on, telling you you’re letting him down thinking this kind of crap.’
Hayley sniffed and he saw the tears in her eyes. He just wanted to pull her towards him, envelop her body with his.
‘What d’you think your father would be saying?’ she asked him, gently.
He sucked in a breath. That was a hard question to answer. How would Richard feel about the situation with Andrew Regis and his mother? The course he was steering the company on with the Globe? How he’d lived his life since his death? Hayley? Richard would definitely have liked Hayley. He smiled then.
‘He’d be saying “Oliver, you have a beautiful woman right here with you; why are you wasting your time thinking about me?”’
He felt a laugh come from her and she unlinked their hands. ‘I’m sorry, I made this kind of deep, didn’t I? I blame the carol singers out there.’ She nudged her head towards the scene outside.
‘I blame the extortionately expensive champagne.’
‘But I’m worth it.’
‘The jury’s still out on that one, Lois.’
She swiped a hand out, catching him on the shoulder.
‘Ouch, that hurt. ’
‘Sorry, was that the injured shoulder?’
‘No, that was my baseball arm.’
‘I bet you’re a pro at that too.’
‘Of course. And NHL and NASCAR.’
‘I do know what those are.’
He laughed. ‘No you don’t.’
‘I could try and guess. I’m good at abbreviations.’
‘Go ahead, I might LMFAO.’
‘You are so annoying!’
She was looking across at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, that infectious smile on her face. She was so beautiful, sat there sparring with him. He blew out the candle and leaned across the table, taking her face in his hands. Slowly, he brought her lips to his, needing to feel her mouth. She softened beneath his fingers, warm and open to his every move. Deepening the kiss, he lost himself, letting everything he was starting to feel for her flood over him. He slipped his hand into her hair, drawing her nearer still, driven on by the heat of her mouth and the intensity of her responses.
And then he broke the connection, needing to breathe. He carried on looking at her, trying to read her eyes. He swallowed as she matched his gaze and finally, he was able to speak.
‘I want to take you home tonight.’
‘I thought that’s what the town car was for,’ she replied.
‘ My home,’ he said, his eyes not leaving hers. His heart was leaping like a child on a pogo stick, bouncing so hard, it was starting to hurt.
She smiled at him, grazing her fingers down the fine stubble along his jaw. ‘A lady cannot accept an invitation to the penthouse on the very first date.’
‘Screw that,’ Oliver said, taking hold of her hand.
‘Why, Mr Drummond, what language in front of a lady!’ She smiled before continuing. ‘Last time I spent the night with someone in New York, things got really complicated.’
He watched her drop her eyes, her mind somewhere else. He tilted her chin with his finger again. ‘We’ll keep it safe in the red room, I promise.’