Chapter 12
"I won't tell anyone," I say.
She's looking at me from underneath her lashes. There are tiny beads of sweat across her forehead. It’s not what I expected her to say, but it’s exactly what I want to hear.
"Our pretty little secret," I tell her.
"Good," she says.
She reaches for me. I’m eager for her all over again.
We fly back in the early evening, the city lights coming up beneath us through the porthole glass.
The car that brought her to the airfield this morning is waiting for us when we land.
I've barely taken my hands off her since we left the hotel room.
In the car, I pull her against my side, and she lets me, which is new.
She lets me without calculating it first, without the small assessment she usually runs before she allows any contact.
Her head is against my shoulder. She's watching the city come back through the window.
When we reach her building, she straightens up and reaches for the door handle.
I catch her wrist.
She turns.
I kiss her long and unhurried. She makes a sound low in her throat and kisses me back. When she pulls away, her eyes are still mostly closed.
"Secret," she says. "Remember?"
"It doesn't have to be a secret here."
She opens her mouth. I don't let her use it. I pull her back and kiss her again, harder this time, my hand at the side of her face. She makes the same sound as before, and her fingers close around my lapel. When we come up for air, she tries to frown, but her eyes are already laughing.
"I'm going to be busy most of the day tomorrow," I tell her. My thumb is on her jaw. "Come up to the suite when your shift ends, if you want."
She raises one eyebrow. "Cade Nightingale, are you asking me politely?" She gasps. “Or are you playing a trick on me?”
I laugh. "It’s not a trick. I just want to spend time with you."
She grabs my cheek and kisses me firmly on the lips. Then she gets out of the car.
She's three steps from the door when she turns back. She doesn't say anything. She just looks at me once, briefly, through the window, and then she goes inside.
I sit in the car for longer than I need to.
My first meeting the next morning is in the Mission with a printmaker.
I've seen the pieces twice, in photographs and once in person at a group show in Oakland, where the framing didn't do them justice.
His studio is small and serious — an ink-stained floor and racks of prints leaning against every wall.
We talk for forty minutes. He's precise about his work and suspicious of me, which I respect. By the end of it, he's less suspicious. I shake his hand, tell him Tomas will be in touch, and mean both things.
In the elevator, I take out my phone.
Cade
How's your shift?
She replies in under a minute.
Suzanne
Roger sneezed near the tea kettle. I'm unwell.
I'm smiling at my phone…in an elevator. I don't particularly care.
Cade
Tragic. Survive until tonight.
I step out onto the sidewalk.
Adrian Maddox is on the same block. Coincidence or pure machination? It doesn’t matter. I don’t intend to engage with him. He steps in front of me before I reach the Aston Martin.
"Have you finally come to your senses?" he says. "Realized what I actually have on you?"
I don't stop walking. "Have you finally realized how completely impotent you are next to me?"
His smug smile curls back. "Keep telling yourself that."
I get in the car and ignore his existence.
I drive to the office. My hands are steady on the wheel, but my jaw isn’t.
Beau's on my desk with his feet up, drinking coffee. He looks comfortable, too comfortable.
"Rough morning?" he asks.
I frown. "Get your feet off my desk."
He gets his feet off and stands. "Theo says you brought someone to the lake."
"Theo talks too much."
"Theo talks exactly the right amount." He picks up the cup of coffee again. "Who was she?"
I sit down in my chair and open the top folder. "Nobody you need to know about."
Beau is quiet for a moment and pays attention. He sets the mug down.
The reason I haven't said anything is simple. Well, there’s a version I tell myself, and then there’s the truth.
My family has an investment in my personal life that I've never asked for and can't get rid of. My mother calls Beau. Beau calls Theo. Theo shows up somewhere he hasn't been invited and makes himself at home. They mean well, but they are relentless.
The moment I say a name out loud in this room, it becomes a topic, then an opinion, then a conversation, and Suzanne doesn't deserve any of that yet. She doesn't deserve to be managed before anyone has even met her.
And the other reason, the one I’m slowly beginning to realize, is that I’m not ready. Being in a relationship, a public one, is real work. There are expectations, ones I might never be able to fulfill. I’ve never failed at anything. I fear I might fail at this. And Suzanne is too special for that.
I want to keep something that's mine for a while. That's the whole of it.
"There's a wine auction," Beau says. He's moved on, which I appreciate. "The Cross Foundation. It’s in three weeks. I've been on the committee for six months, and I'm already exhausted."
"What's the format?"
"Silent bid. Forty lots. Mostly Napa and Bordeaux, a few outliers." He rubs the back of his neck. "It's a good event. It matters. I just need it to be over."
"Do you need anything from me?"
"No. I'll handle it." His gaze goes to the ceiling, then drifts past the window to the city below. "Can I count on you to be there?"
"I'll be there."
He nods. He doesn't say anything for a while. The office is quiet. Outside the window, the city goes about its business, indifferent. Beau has his eyes on the middle distance, somewhere past my left shoulder, and there's something in his face I don't have a name for.
"Are you happy?" he asks.
I look at him.
"I mean it." He still isn't looking at me directly. He turns to me. "Do you get lonely?"
His eyes are tired. I look at my brother, and I'm aware, for a moment, of the distance between where I'm sitting and where he is, and I don't know what to say that would cross it.
"Never mind." He shakes his head before I can answer. "I’m going to Jonathan’s funeral." He says it plainly, no charge in it. "You should come."
"I’ve made up my mind about that."
"I know." He moves toward the door. "Just…think about it." He pauses in the doorway. "He was still your father."
He leaves.
I sit with it for a moment, letting the weight settle. My phone lights up before I can take another breath.
I pick it up.
Suzanne
What are you doing?
Cade
Working. You?
Suzanne
Polishing a lamp that's already gleaming.
Cade
For how long?
Suzanne
Until I stop thinking about you.
I put the phone face down. I pick it up and look at the message. I put it down again without answering. There's a pull in my chest, warm and ridiculous. I get back to work.
My mother calls soon enough. She starts with her usual tactic — a friendly greeting, buttering me up for what she’s about to say.
"Henry's in the city next week," she says. "We thought we could all go for dinner."
"Is this about the funeral?"
A pause. "We'd like to see you."
"I'm not going, Mom. I've told you."
She's quiet. "I heard you," she says. She ends the call.
I sit with the decision for a minute. My mind is settled. Nothing can change it.
I put it away.
I leave the Nightingale building at 5:30 p.m. I'm heading toward the car when I hear her voice.
"Mr. Nightingale."
I stop.
She's standing on the sidewalk. She didn't come from the building — she was waiting on the street, which means she knew I'd be here. The man beside her is 40s, heavy, the kind of man who has learned to use his size as a statement before he's said a word. He has his arms crossed. He's watching me.
She smiles like we know each other. "What a coincidence. Aren’t you the rich man who’s seeing my little girl?”
I turn.
I know who she is.
I look at her — the blonde hair, the leather jacket, the rehearsed openness in her face — and then I look at the man beside her. His arms are crossed, jaw set, sizing me up as if he’s dangerous. I take them both in, and I know exactly what this is.
"Walk with me," I say.
I take them across the street to the small park.
She falls into step beside me easily, like she expected an invitation.
Darryl follows several paces behind, still with his arms crossed, and positions himself just inside the gate when we reach the bench, standing and watching.
He doesn't speak. Well, he doesn't need to. He's the threat she brought to show me.
I sit. She sits.
"Just figured I'd get to know the man my daughter's seeing.
" She smiles. It's a comfortable smile. "You know how it is.
Daughters get into a relationship and forget all about their mothers.
" She glances back at Darryl, then returns her gaze to me.
"I've been trying to get her attention for a while now.
That's why I brought Darryl over there." She gives a small shrug, almost apologetic.
"He's going to make things very difficult for her if she doesn't give me what I want.
" She lets that land, then tilts her head. "She owes me. Wouldn't you agree?"
She waits.
I look at her.
I consider Darryl first — what it would take to have every license he holds quietly reviewed.
Every outstanding warrant in every county pulled to the surface, every landlord and employer he's ever had contacted by someone whose name they'd recognize.
A week? Less, probably. He'd be too busy drowning to bother anyone.
Then I consider her. I think about what it would mean to let this run — the calls to Suzanne, the stalking. She has no intention of stopping. I've dealt with people like this before. They don't stop because you reason with them. They stop when it costs more than it's worth.
I reach into the inside breast pocket of my jacket and take out my checkbook. She sees it. Something shifts in her face — a loosening, a quiet bloom of satisfaction — and that tells me everything I need to know about how she thought this afternoon would go.
She wants money? Fine. She can have money. She can take it and disappear, and Suzanne will never have to think about her again.
I open the checkbook across my knee. I write a number. I look at it. I tear it out and begin again on the next check, because the first number was an offer, and this needs to be a conclusion. I tear it out and hold it between two fingers.
I look at her.
"You're going to take this." My voice is quiet. "You're going to cash it. And you and Darryl are going to leave this city before the week is out." A beat. "I don't care where you go. I will know where you've gone."
Her mouth opens.
"You're not going to contact Suzanne again — not a text, not a call, not through a cousin, a neighbor, or him.
" I glare at Darryl once and look back at her.
"If either of you comes within a mile of her, I will reach into every corner of your lives and pull until there's nothing left standing.
I have resources you cannot fathom. I will make whatever you think you have built look like something I stepped over on my way to work.
" I extend the check toward her. "You've seen the generous version of me today.
I strongly suggest you don't come looking for the other one. "
She takes the check.
The satisfaction is gone. What's left is something flatter and quieter, and she doesn't let me see it for long. She stands, smooths her jacket, and walks to Darryl without looking at me.
I stand, button my jacket, and walk back through the gate to where my car sits at the curb. I get in. The door closes, and the street goes silent.
I sit for a moment with both hands on the wheel, thinking about Suzanne.
Then I pull out and drive.
The Cresswell is quiet when I arrive. I take the private elevator and step out onto my floor. I'm reaching for my key card when I hear the cart at the far end of the hallway.
She's finishing the suite. She's got her back to me, pulling the door closed behind her, and she hasn't seen me yet. Her hair is up. She has a cloth tucked into the pocket of her uniform.
Her face transforms when she sees me. Her brown eyes light up. Her lips spread into a wide smile.
The hallway has cameras at both ends. Any door could open.
I walk to her anyway. She watches me come. She doesn't retreat, which is new. She holds her ground and looks up at me with those eyes.
I pull her into the alcove and press her against the wall.
She makes a sound against my mouth before I've even finished kissing her. Her hands come up to my chest. I put one hand on her back and slide it down, and she arches slightly and kisses me back. I pull the hem of her shirt loose and get my hand underneath it, and her skin is warm and she —
Her pager goes off.
She pulls back. "I have to go."
"You don't have to listen to Roger." My mouth is at her jaw, her neck. She smells like the lavender spray from the rooms, and underneath it, something that is just her. "He can wait."
The pager buzzes again.
"Cade." Her voice is unsteady. She clears it. "I really have to go."
I pull back enough to see her face. Her cheeks are flushed. Her shirt is untucked on one side. She's going to have to fix that before she goes anywhere.
She steps away. Her hand catches mine before she fully lets go. We're standing in a hotel hallway in full view of two cameras, and she's holding my hand, and she seems to realize this at the same moment I do.
She squeezes once.
"Tonight," she says.
She lets go. She tucks her shirt back in as she walks, quick and efficient, as if nothing happened. She reaches the service elevator, presses the button and doesn't look back.