Chapter 14 #2
"The word is fuck. Just don't say it to Dad." I sit back on my heels. "And 'what the fuck' is my apology just failed. Thanks, kid."
She thrusts a scrap of lace in my face. "Everyone else on the planet knows you don't get a woman lingerie unless it's preplanned. Lingerie isn't a gift."
"She told me. But..."
Lyndall moans. "Oh, man, these chocolates are good."
"Don't eat them. They're insanely expensive."
She eats another, scooping them into their box and shoving another one into her mouth. "Insanely good..."
"I got all this, and she threw it at me."
Lyndall sighs and helps me clean up. Then we get in the elevator and take it to the kitchen level.
"I give up." I pull out a trash bag.
"Don't. And don't throw it out. Here..."
Lyndall pours me a drink, eyes me to see if she can get away with one, but decides to get a can of Coke Zero from the fridge instead.
She snips the flowers down, laying them on the island.
She leaves the lingerie, then eyes the chocolates, pulls out a serving platter I didn't know I owned, and piles on the lingerie, littering them with peony petals from a smashed flower before adding the chocolates in piles.
Not that there are heaps of chocolates, but there are enough to make it look pretty.
Afterward, she fills some vases with water and starts to arrange the flowers in them.
I drink my whiskey, reach for the bottle, and refill. "Well, I tried."
"Not in the right way."
"So, I don't even get fucking points for effort?"
She pauses, flower held in one hand. "Not yet."
"Great."
"You need a gesture that's personal and big, and small and intimate, too. A chef dinner by the pool that's littered with floating candles."
I raise my hand. "This is fucking Brooklyn. No pool."
"Not even in that basement?"
"No."
"What—"
"Lyndall? Concentrate," I mutter.
She sighs. "Okay, well. Dad has one. On both properties."
I look at her like she's lost her fucking mind. "I'm not taking any kind of date to one of Dad's places, let alone the daughter of his enemy."
Her eyes get big, but I narrow mine, and she drops it. For now.
It's always for now with Lyndall.
I shrug and take a sip. "Maybe something without a pool."
She points the flower at me. "You have the backyard. It's tiny. But it's nice. And you've got the terrace on your floor and mine."
"You have a suite, not a floor."
"No, I have a floor. You don't use much of your home, you know."
"Okay, so I, what?"
"Send some dresses."
"After the fiasco with the lingerie?"
"Dresses and an option for us to change them. Come on, let me have your card to do that with..."
"Do I trust you?" I draw a pattern through the water she's spilled on the island.
"No, but you can." And she smiles and goes back to arranging.
"So, what is it I'm doing?"
"Dinner." She gasps. "You know that Michelin star chef, Francois from Frank's in the West Village?"
"How...?"
"You took me to his restaurant when I turned fourteen. Yum, and yum."
I wisely don't ask what she means by that.
But dinner. Here.
It's a good plan.
I pull out my phone and make a call.
My bedroom is to one side of the terrace. But since I bring guests up here, if I have guests, there's a sitting room off it, the idea being to go out through that room for more intimate drinks and then into the bedroom. The perfect seduction.
That was how I designed it.
But I don't tell Lola that.
I don't tell her anything because I'm in the hall, and Lyndall's just brought her to me.
She's got her own meal coming her way, and she's going to go down to the kitchen to annoy Francois.
But he brought two of his best waitstaff.
The reason I can't talk, though, is Lola.
She's a fucking vision.
Her hair is pinned, and the lilac dress is pale and sensual without being overtly sexual. Tendrils of her hair whisper against her neck, and my tongue is stuck to the top of my mouth.
Christ.
Fuck.
"Later," Lyndall says, scampering off.
Lola gives me a wary look.
"You look stunning. I'm sorry about the gifts yesterday."
She sniffs and can't settle her gaze anywhere. "You don't need to be nice to butter me up."
"Me?" I laugh. "That particular brand of so-called charm isn't something I practice."
She grips her hands.
I think about what I just said and realize how that sounds.
"What I mean is I'm not that kind of slick guy.
I can hand out all kinds of empty platitudes, but I really don't." Fuck.
I'm screwing this up. "I meant it. You look stunning.
I... I don't want to screw this up, Lola, I really don't. So, I just told you the truth.
And my sister pointed out the stupidity of the gifts. "
Pink rushes to her cheeks. "They weren't that bad. They were nice, just..."
"Obvious?"
She half nods. "Just a little jittery, you know? I'm sorry I overreacted."
I nod because, yeah, I think I get it.
She wanted to know if there was an ulterior motive.
I guess there both was and wasn't. But I did want to sweep the past away with flashy gifts.
"I don't think so. There's work to be done to get past the betrayal as you see it. And that stuff said nothing."
"This will?"
"It's different. I guess you'll have to see."
"I guess I will."
I gesture with my hand and lead her through the sitting room to the table and chairs on my terrace.
Lyndall put fairy lights through the flowers and bushes there, and the backyard is also alight.
"It's beautiful. And different. What's your plan here?"
I don't answer.
She half smiles. "Mysterious. But..."
I bite my tongue because she's struggling for her words, and the last thing I need is to give them to her. No matter how much I want to.
Lola takes a shaking breath. "But I don't need another manipulation or a band-aid for the fact I'm finding it hard to trust you."
Isn't there some fucking song about how the truth hurts?
"I'm not asking you to magically forgive me, Lola. To me, I did the right thing for the wrong reasons, I guess." I take a breath. "No. I might have done it from a well-meaning place, but I was in the wrong, and you're well within your rights to be upset with me."
For a moment, silence reigns between us.
"Are you just saying that?" Lola smooths a hand along the edge of the crisp white linen they've put on the outdoor table where I sometimes sit with the computer and drink coffee in the morning.
I think about her words.
"No. It'd be easier to try to make you see my point of view. Or even wait things out on my end. But that's not right."
"Is that what the flowers and lingerie were?"
I half-grin. "You forget the chocolates. But, yeah, maybe, in a way. I hope you can find it in you to see it wasn't anything more than impatience."
"Not a diabolical plan?"
I toy with the water glass. "No, just short-sighted impatience."
"And I should just believe you?"
Fuck it. I'm here. I open the doors for her.
"I care, Lola."
When she goes to speak, I shake my head. "And I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry I invaded your privacy and violated your trust. And I hope one day you'll see that."
She sits there, not saying a thing as the waiter comes in and tells us the menu, asking if there's anything she'd like changed for her. Her, not me. Because this is all about her.
When she says no, he brings in the starter and drinks.
Clearly, he brought them up with him, or the other one is waiting in the sitting room.
I accept the wine and ask for a whiskey to be brought up.
"Just water for me, please." Lola probably wants a clear head.
Who can blame her?
I'm betting I make her head spin.
When we're alone, she drinks her water and takes a bite of the spiced pumpkin raviolo in the burnt butter sauce with the basil drizzle.
She sets down her fork. "I think I'll accept your apology, Enzo. This isn't sustainable. I want to move past it."
"And us?"
She looks at me. "Is there such a thing?"
"I don't know, honestly, but I hope...I want to see where it goes. Lola, you're in my heart, like I said, and we want each other. That's clear."
Her cheeks darken. "Yeah."
"Maybe that's all we need. And maybe, given the rest, it's more than most have." I've never laid myself bare to anyone before. It's shockingly vulnerable.
"So, you want to give a relationship with me a go?"
"Something like that. Yes."
Lola is so quiet that for a moment I don't think she's going to agree, or that deep down, she feels differently.
Her voice is so soft as she says, "Okay."
My eyes widen. "Okay?"
She nods. "But first, you need to promise me something, Enzo."
"If you want me to cut off one of my nuts, I'm thinking the answer—"
She laughs but stops herself. "No! God... I want you to promise you'll never keep anything from me again. I don't think I can handle more secrets."
I breathe out. "I can do that."
"Can you?"
I give her a hurt look, and she gives me a sharp one right back.
"Yes."
"So, there's nothing you need to 'fess up to?"
"I'm not secretly married with ten kids."
"One?"
"None. No wife. No girl. No kids."
She smiles. And as she does, the Lyndall thing starts to niggle.
I'm not telling her that, clearly. But that's not keeping a secret.
All I really have is a hunch. The hint of a possibility that she might be Lola's half-sister. But that's more of a Lyndall bomb if it's true, and it's something to share with my sister first.
I don't know.
So, it's not a secret.
I do want to be honest, but I can't share it with her. Not until I know for sure, and then only if Lyndall wants to share she's not my biological sister, but Lola's.
So, I take her hand.
"I promise, Lola, there are and will be no more secrets."