Chapter Ten
RHYLAND
T hree days had passed since Dylan propositioned me for anal in front of my forty thousand followers.
Three days since I last spoke to her or Bruce Marshall.
I’d refrained from following up with Marshall on Tate’s advice, not wanting to seem desperate, knowing I’d see him soon at Row’s event in New York. But something was gnawing at me. I wanted to do more to push this deal into completion. But I also didn’t want to appear as panicky as I really was.
I spent my day going to the gym, grocery shopping, and sweet-talking a few potential investors. I then made the mistake of checking my bank account and regretted the decision immediately. I was fast approaching being in the red, and I still had to pay Dylan an unfathomable amount of money. By the time I returned to the apartment building, it was ten at night.
I ended up hitting the fifth-floor button on my way up to my penthouse.
It was Dylan’s first week in New York. The least I could do was make sure she’d survived it.
I rang the doorbell. No answer. I glanced at my Patek Philippe, frowning. Ten at night. She must be home. She didn’t have a babysitter, and I imagined it was way past the child’s bedtime.
Had something happened to her?
If so, it’s not your goddamn responsibility. You already saved her once, the metaphorical devil on my shoulder said.
She’s your best friend’s baby sister. If the chick is dead, Row will be a major pain in the ass. Already he’s irrepressibly grumpy, the angel on my shoulder countered.
Making an executive decision, I pulled out the extra key Row had given me and turned it inside its hole. I pushed the door open, peering into the apartment. It was quiet and dark, save for the bluish hue of electronic screens. Maybe Dylan had just called it a night early. But I wasn’t going to leave before confirming she and that annoying mini version of her were okay.
Stepping inside, I closed the door and sauntered past the living room and kitchen. I stopped in the hallway, filling the doorframe to the nursery. Her daughter was curled up in a too-small cot, her stubby, Pillsbury-boy arms encircling that damn pink penis. She seemed perfectly fine.
I advanced farther down to the master bedroom. Pushed the door open. The bed was empty, still made, the linen pressed under the mattress like in a hotel. I listened to the hum of the AC, the traffic blaring from downstairs, and detected the gentle noise of water swishing. My throat bobbed with a swallow. She was taking a bath.
Good. Now you know. Turn around. Walk away.
But something stopped me. What if she’d drowned? Got injured? Fallen when she got out of the bath?
I stepped to the ajar en-suite door, feeling very much like the creeper I apparently was. A tiny sigh echoed in the bathroom. It had a floor-to-ceiling view of Manhattan, one of those reflective-finish windows that gave the glass a one-way mirror effect. She could watch the entire stretch of Fifth Avenue without it watching her back.
I caught a glimpse of her, and my pulse kick-flipped right down my pants, making my cock throb.
Dylan had her naked back to me, everything from her spine down covered by a sheet of bubbles. Her hair was caught in a white claw clip. She was staring out the window—not down at the busy, lively street full of people but up at the sky. Her chin was propped on the back of her hands, and in that moment in time, she was that beautiful girl I left behind in Staindrop.
The most beautiful girl in the world.
Wild but soft. Brave but lost. Imperfect but whole.
“Oh, look,” she said, our eyes locking through my reflection in the window. “It’s my wallet.”
Her words were harsh and sarcastic, but there was something tired and defeated about her demeanor. Something that made me step inside without being invited and lean a shoulder against the wall.
“You shouldn’t have let yourself in,” she said, her voice void of anger, and I remembered Dylan had never really had her privacy. She’d always lived under other people’s roofs, never spreading those beautiful, black-tipped wings of hers.
“That is no way to greet your fiancé,” I tutted.
“I forfeit, smart-ass. I feel too much like shit to engage in this battle of wits.” Her gaze rolled back to that invisible spot in the sky. To the liquid darkness and the stars that spun inside it like silver freckles.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’ve spent the past few days obsessively looking for a job and putting Grav in front of the TV,” she explained. “She didn’t do anything fun. And she misses her granny and Marty. I feel like the worst mom in the world.”
“In the world?” I snorted, pushing off the wall, striding toward the foot of the clawed bath and taking a seat on the edge of it. I reached down to touch the water, watching the suds disperse as they met my skin. “Bitch, please. You’re not even top twenty thousand worst mothers in the state. What about that asshole woman from Westchester who killed her kid and called 911 after a month?”
No comment. More star-watching. It was the first time I’d seen the seductive, feisty Dylan Casablancas being contemplative and vulnerable.
Finally, she opened her mouth. “I have a job interview tomorrow at eleven. I need you to babysit Grav.”
Shit. I knew it was coming, but I’d pushed it to the back of my mind.
I worked my jaw back and forth. “I’m not good with ki—”
“We have an agreement.” She cut me off, whipping her head around to look at me. “And I know you won’t let me down, since you need me on your arm for Row’s spice-brand event.”
She had me there, and she knew it.
Dylan soldiered on. “I would also appreciate it if you could build her toddler bed. It’s in a box in the guest room. And you’ll need to do my groceries. I canceled Row’s auto-deliveries, because they’re full of ingredients I don’t use. I’ve been so caught up with job hunting I don’t even have milk.”
This Bruce Marshall plan had better work, or I was basically paying $10K a week to be Dylan’s servant.
“Whatever,” I said. “What’s the job?”
If Dylan felt self-conscious about talking to me while stark naked under those damn persistent bubbles, she didn’t let on. “A marketing intern position at Beaufort. I’m not sure it’s enough to keep us afloat once our arrangement expires, but I have to start somewhere.” She turned her head back to the sky.
I didn’t want to sound like a bigger asshole than I already was, but I couldn’t think of one damn reason why a twenty-six-year-old woman who’d poured diner coffee her whole life would be called in for an interview at one of the world’s largest fashion brands, second only to Chanel.
It wasn’t that Dylan wasn’t great—it was just that you couldn’t see all those things through her résumé.
“I’ll be there,” I confirmed. “Is there anything in the sky I should know about? A UFO? A crashing plane? The apocalypse?”
Please say the apocalypse. That way, I won’t have to babysit tomorrow.
Her reply came somber and off guard. “You know…ever since I gave birth, I’ve stopped dreaming,” she croaked out, her eyes still stuck on the sky. “I spend my days either working or with Gravity. And I love her. I truly do. But being a single mother is the loneliest existence one can have. Between taking care of her, meeting her needs, working, tidying up, making food, and doing the dishes, I barely have time to think. It’s so exhausting that by the time my head hits the pillow, I’m too tired to dream. And I miss my dreams. So every night, before I go to bed, I always look at the stars and dream in my head while I’m wide awake.”
Well, fuck. Now I felt bad.
“What do you dream about?” I murmured around the figurative foot I’d shoved into my mouth.
She parked her chin on her curled fists. “Lazy weekends on the beach. Traveling. Dancing with friends. Going back to school.”
I couldn’t help but notice she hadn’t mentioned a relationship.
I nodded. “Wild dreams, huh?”
“The wildest.”
Silence stretched between us. She was still looking at the stars when she asked, “Is that all? The water’s getting cold.”
“Yup. See you tomorrow, Cosmos.” I saw my way out.
She didn’t respond to her new nickname. The one I made up on the spot.
She wanted her dream to last a little longer before she went to sleep.