Chapter Seven
Magnus
T he last thing I expected was an invite out. But I take it.
We take the train to Manhattan and honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was on public transport. But it’s good, because I can now say how easy it is to get from my new enterprise to the city.
So far, my plan’s going perfectly.
Little Zoey Smith’s aching to ask me about poor gran. I’ve dropped small hints that there’s more going on than an old lady who’s had some kind of fall.
The one thing I didn’t expect was her reinforced backbone made of titanium. That’s Zoey’s, not my imaginary gran.
“So where are we going in the East Village?”
This is a place I’m dragged to by Ryder, otherwise I have no interest in this part of Manhattan.
“Avenue A and St. Mark’s. My friend Suzanne loves swank and hip parties and I don’t.”
I stop and look at her. “Not enough cookies?”
Her eyes narrow. “You have something against cookies?”
“They’re pointless snacks.”
She gasps. “Only a monster would say that.”
“Or a man who cares about his health. I drink, so I guess I’m only part monster.”
In my head I’m flipping through swank places around here where people might know me, along with anyone by the name Suzanne, but I come up blank.
Besides, any small risk is worth it to spend time with Zoey outside her natural habitat. It allows me to morph the relationship, to mold it into the direction I want it to go, to make her easy to pluck and strip down. Metaphorically. To get her building.
The streets are filled with people and we weave through them until we reach an apartment building perched above the buzzing stores on the corner of Avenue A and St. Marks. It’s not much outside, but someone’s renovated—cheaply inside. We take the elevator up to the penthouse and it opens on a by the book place that’s meant to be classy, but is just overpriced.
A blonde with big tits in a shimmery black dress that’s like a second skin swoops down. She falters when she sees me and then flutters her eyelashes. “And who are you?”
Her gaze barely touches on Zoey, which for some reason pisses me the hell off. I don’t know why. It’s not like I care.
“This is Suzanne,” Zoey says.
“I’m Suzanne and you’re gorgeous.”
I wince. “I’m here with Zoey.”
The woman blinks hard, and her head jerks back a little. Just when I’m about to pin a label on her, she flicks it away with a big grin as she looks at her friend. “Good for you, Zo.”
Zoey groans. “Don’t—”
“Do.” I say, instantly interested. I tell myself I’m mining for soft spots and vulnerabilities in the sweet smelling thorn in my side, and I shift closer to Zoey. She’s warm and I already know she’s soft skinned and with the kind of subtle curves that make a man reconsider his tastes.
Not that I need to. I’m not my brother, but my type is more personality than build.
“Tell me everything.”
“Zoey needs to meet a good man.”
“Oh does she?”
“She does not,” says the subject huffily. “A woman, Suze, contrary to your outmoded opinion, doesn’t need a man.”
“It’s not about need. It’s about want.”
“Come on, Magnus, let’s get a drink. And you…” She pins her friend with a hard stare, “aren’t making me come out again.”
“Spoilsport. Bye, Magnus…” And she makes a beeline for a hot guy.
The drinks that are lined up in the vast open living room, all decked out in white with touches of silver, are top shelf. At least, the kind of top shelf this lot cares about. It’s not my kind of party and judging from the misery edging into the corners of Zoey, it’s not her place either.
These people are moneyed. They most likely have high-powered, flashy jobs and they like to show it.
But I’m not interested in them. I’m interested in Zoey. The more I know the more I’m armed against her with my next move. I’m thinking multiple attacks, but my diabolical plan is still front and center in my head.
There’s a set of stairs through the kitchen area, and as it’s the penthouse and a quick glance outside shows another structure above the deck—New York law means a penthouse must have a certain amount of space given over to roof top access—I’m guessing there’s another level.
I grab the bottle of wine Zoey went for earlier that no one else has touched and gesture with my chin to the stairs. “Wanna get some air?”
“Yeah.”
The stairs are dusty and gloomy as we climb, and the door heavy that I push open at the top. But as we step out onto the empty, bare bones space, it’s worth it, because Zoey unfurls.
She lifts her face to the Manhattan sultry night air and breathes in, letting it out with a sigh and a smile. “Thanks.”
“For dragging you off?”
She shakes her head and moves to the railing. We’re about the equivalent of nine floors up now, but all around us the city glows and sparkles, the noise of life wafting up and making us both part and apart from it all.
“I’m more comfortable in a bookstore or a dive than here. This isn’t my world.”
“Then why come?”
She leans forward on the rail, then lifts her glass and takes a deep swallow. “Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s the best way to keep Suzanne quiet for a while. We met in college and she’s a good friend, don’t let her flirting fool you, but we’re very different.”
“Wait, you studied and she partied?” I top up her drink and add a little to mine.
“No. She partied and studied. But she comes from money and she loves this world. She thinks that I’ve been single too long and I spend too much time with books over people and I sink my money into a failing project.”
Oh, Suzanne, you just might be my new best friend. I make a noncommittal noise.
“I know my store sucks up money, but not everything is about being rich. It’s home, and it brings pleasure. It’s its own thing, and people like Edward Sinclair could never understand that. Not everything is cookie cutter—”
“Says the woman who owns a lot of cookie cutters.”
“I do not. I hand roll them. Unless it’s Christmas, and it’s not the same thing.” Zoey wrapped her hands around her glass as a siren’s scream rose up from the streets below. “People like that ugly, fat bully—whom I hate, by the way—”
“Really? I had no idea.”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all.” I top up our glasses and take a sip. The wine’s okay for warming wine, I suppose, but I’m more interested in what Zoey has to say to me in our tiny corner of the world up here.
“It’s just people like him don’t get it. They have no heart. They want uniform things. It’s like all those big box stores. There’s a reason New York keeps a lot of them out. They kill the small little neighborhood businesses. They steal.”
“I’d argue they don’t steal.”
“I’m not talking about money, Magnus. I mean the quirkiness of little places. Unique pieces of the world that make it up.”
She’s wrong, but she’s smart, I’ll give her that. But her stubbornness can’t just be from her bias against big business. Big business gets her books to her on time. It keeps things running. Creates jobs. And I have a heart. It’s just not bleeding and soft like hers. Which reminds me, I need to check on my charities and non-profits. Maybe I’ll add a school reading program to my list, to help underprivileged kids. I can name it after her.
“People like convenience.”
She nods and looks out over the east side and Tompkins Square Park that’s across from us. “You sound like my ex.”
“Uh oh.”
“Bronn’s not part of my world and I should have known it.”
I stare at her. “Bronn? As in Bronn Lichtenfeld?”
The words are out before I can stop them and her face swings up and she frowns. “How…”
“I think my marketing firm once did a campaign for his.” The Lichtenfelds are in big business. Banking. But they also snap up properties. All kinds. They don’t care about what they’re doing. They’re the quintessential amassers of fortune by sheer number and they’ve always wanted a piece of my family’s pie. Get a slice of Sinclair reputation and it’s easier to make some questionable investments and purchases in less than stellar environmental circles look better.
That’s the thought, anyway. I’ve never liked Bonn and how he handles his father’s company. Comparisons have been made with his philandering ways and Ryder. But that’s all they are.
Ryder likes women. A lot of women. He plays fast and loose and no one’s gonna pin him down, but when it comes to business, he’s scrupulous—his way.
But it puts little Zoey in a different light. The fact he went for her. I didn’t think he had it in him to see quality over flash.
“Yeah, well, he’s cut from the same cloth as this Sinclair monster,” she says darkly. “Probably cheats on her, too.”
And there we have it. But while I might go in for the kill, soft Magnus with the ailing, and probably by now on life support, gran wouldn’t. He’d be kind and supportive and digging all the information he can in a different way.
“Asshole.”
“Exactly.” Her shoulders deflate. “It’s a long time ago, college, but we were on and off for a few years after. That was me, not him, because I didn’t want his life, and he wanted the jets, the high rolling fancy restaurants. I just wanted someone who could be with me. Maybe love me. That was not him.”
I sigh and nod and wonder if Magnus should have a wound of the heart, too. “And it still hurts.”
“No. He’s a jerk. Suzanne thinks I’m still hung up, but I’m not. I dumped him. He cheated and lied and I don’t play with that. He didn’t get my little store, and he thought a gift to me would be to raze it to the ground, put up a chain bookshop so I could play at running it, and that was my final straw.”
I look at her. Stare.
Zoey Smith.
Little, unassuming Zoey Smith.
She’s something else.
“You dumped him over the store and not the other women?”
“Well, that didn’t help.” She gives me a small, rueful smile that, in the shadowy light on this roof top spot, lets her pretty face bloom into something more than I first saw. Like this, with that smile, that self-knowledge and utter artless way she has, makes her beautiful.
“Anyway, Suzanne has a mission to test any man I bring along to make sure he’s not the same kind of cheating asshole, and then she bugs me because I don’t have time for men. I dated a bit, but it’s just hard with the store.”
“Is it that important?”
“Yes.”
Fire burns in her eyes and something in me stirs.
“I get it.” I do, but what I get is far more important than a stupid crumbling store. My important is world’s away from hers. Mine is about changing the world, not selling moldy books.
“What about you?”
“I don’t have anyone.”
“Just your gran?”
I let out a long sigh. “Yeah.” Then I shift closer to Zoey. I like being close to her. Her scent is soft, sweet magic. “Have you ever wished you had something so you could just use it to save one small thing?”
“All the time.”
“Like your store, huh?”
“I’d give it up in a heartbeat if it was for the right cause.” She stops, takes a sip of wine and overhead a plane roars about the yells and shouts and traffic below. “Well, I live there, but I’d risk it, for the right reasons. I’d risk it all. I think anyone would.”
“No,” I say, taking her glass and setting it down with mine and the bottle. Then I step in, brushing the hair from her face. “I really don’t think so.”
And then, because I want to, because it just feels right, I lower my mouth to hers.