Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Thank you, Inigo, for coming with me. I really wanted to get a few cute things for the baby while I was here. I’m not sure I’ll be coming back to Manhattan for a while after the birth,” Bianca said as they left Bonpoint and stepped out into the heavy foot traffic on Madison Avenue.
He held his four-year-old nephew Benito’s hand and all of his sister’s bags as they walked up the street.
On a certain level, this shopping trip was his way of apologizing for sleeping with Marielle.
He’d never meant to hurt his sister, and he knew that seeing Jose’s former mistress on New Year’s Day had upset her.
“Not a problem. I love spending time with you and Benito.”
“Me too, Tío,” Benito said. He was holding a small wooden replica of the first Moretti Motors Formula One car.
“But you hate shopping,” she said. “Don’t deny it. No man wants to spend hours looking at children’s clothing.”
“Honestly, it was a nice distraction this morning. I have my first time trial in the new simulator, and I would have just been going over setups and running the track in my head if I hadn’t come with you. And I pretty much did that last night, so we’re good.”
She laughed. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be in that life. Jose was like that, always thinking about the tracks and the setup. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and jot down notes for his engineers or sometimes even call them,” she said.
There was a note in her voice that he didn’t recognize, but he did know this was the first time that he’d heard Bianca talk about her deceased husband without a layer of bitterness. “He was very demanding. But that was what made him the best.”
“Was it?” she asked.
He glanced down at Benito, who wasn’t paying them the least bit of attention. “What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the lifestyle, the women, the attention from the paparazzi—you know how he ate that up.”
Jose had been the kind of person who commanded attention wherever he went, not unlike a movie star or a famous rock and roll singer.
There had been something about him that just drew every eye in the room.
Inigo hadn’t been surprised that women were drawn to him; he knew men were too.
He’d been charming and funny and had a way of making each person he spoke to feel as if they were the only one who mattered.
But Inigo had been surprised that Jose hadn’t been loyal to Bianca. How had he read that wrong? There had been a feeling of sincerity in his brother-in-law that Inigo still couldn’t mesh with the reality of what he’d learned after Jose’s death.
“He did,” Inigo said at last. “Do you want to talk about her?”
“No. I never want to discuss that. You know she wasn’t the only one,” Bianca said. “Just the last one.”
He had known that. He’d learned it from his tech-genius brother, Alec, who had dug deep on the internet to find all of the details so that there would be no more surprises for their sister.
He got all the dirt that Jose had hidden from them and laid it bare.
There would be no more surprises from beyond the grave.
“He was such a bastard,” Inigo said but then shook his head. Jose hadn’t been, though. For all his faults, he’d come across as a great guy.
“It would have been easier if he had been,” Bianca said.
As they continued up Madison nearing the famous Ralph’s Coffee that was part of the flagship Ralph Lauren store, he could see a crowd of people. “I wonder what that is.”
“Me too,” Bianca said. “I love the energy in the city. It’s so different from Cole’s Hill.”
“Definitely. At home the only crowds are at the Bull Pen on Friday night.”
“So true,” she said. “Can you see who it is? I wonder if it’s someone famous.”
Inigo maneuvered around people trying to get a glimpse of the person and stopped in his tracks as he saw the familiar long silver-shot blond hair and silvery-gray eyes. Marielle.
“It’s no one famous,” he said.
“Oh, it’s probably just someone you don’t recognize. Maybe a Kardashian.”
“It’s not. I know who they are,” Inigo said, trying to steer Bianca away from the crowd. But his sister was stubborn and elbowed him.
“Stop it, Inigo. You’re being silly. I want to see who it is,” she said, moving closer.
He wasn’t going to physically keep her from seeing Marielle. After all, she was pregnant and needed to be careful. But his sister had definitely inherited their mother’s mule headedness.
She made her way forward, and the crowd shifted. He knew the instant his sister saw her. Her back stiffened, and she turned away, walking back toward him. “You did know who it was.”
“I did. I wasn’t sure...”
“Don’t worry. I think I’ve had enough of the city. Can you get me a cab?” she said, reaching over and taking Benito’s hand.
He nodded and lifted his arm to hail a cab. Two women walked by them as he did so.
“I love her. She’s got the best life and advice. I want to be Mari when I grow up. She’s really got it together.”
His eyes met his sister’s, and he saw the color drain from her face.
“Bia—”
“Don’t. Please don’t say anything. I hate that she’s Insta-famous and that people want to be like her,” Bianca said. The cab pulled up, and he opened the door. He helped Benito into the back seat first and then turned to hug his sister. She seemed smaller now, less in command, and he hated that.
He felt someone watching him and looked up to see that Marielle had noticed them. She lifted her hand to her lips and blew them a kiss. She had no shame. Not a shred of remorse over what she had done to Bianca.
Marielle was very pleased with the meeting she’d had.
She tried not to look smug as she left the building on Fifth Avenue, but it was hard.
The day was cold and gray, and after the way her new year had started, she had felt the same.
But she was shaking it off. She decided to stop by Ralph’s for coffee.
She posed in front of the famous Ralph’s sign for a selfie and shared it with her followers with a tease that she had big news coming before going inside.
A few of her followers spotted her and came over to pose with her and to chat.
She was enjoying the moment a lot; this was something she’d never thought she’d find for herself.
She texted Scarlet to thank her for recommending her for the meeting and then her manager to make sure he knew the terms she’d negotiated with the brand.
She glanced up to see Inigo and his sister staring at her.
Jose’s son was with them, but he was engrossed in the toy in his hand.
Bianca turned away, and Inigo followed her to hail a cab.
Marielle felt some of her happiness ebb away, and as Inigo hugged his sister and looked at her, she realized part of what she felt was guilt—but also defiance.
So she lifted her hand and blew them a kiss before turning and walking away.
Coffee would cure all of her problems, she thought as she joined the line in Ralph’s. A moment later someone entered the shop and got in line behind her.
“I’d ask if you are following me, but you were here first,” Inigo said from behind her.
She turned around and looked into chocolaty-brown eyes. He stood there looking better than he had a right to. “Shouldn’t you be in Europe training for the upcoming season?”
“Nope. Moretti Racing built a new facility on Long Island and we’re using it for the preseason training. They’re trying to get a foothold in the US market and nab up-and-coming drivers before they commit to NASCAR.”
“Just my luck,” she said.
“You say that like I did something to you,” he said. “I’m not the one at fault here.”
She shook her head. “Gentlemanly of you to point that out.”
She gave the barista her order, paid and then stepped away from Inigo. Why had she even bothered to speak to him? She should have ignored him.
But how could she?
She wanted him to accuse her of being a homewrecker so she could defend herself.
Tell him how Jose had said he was divorced.
How Jose had made it sound like he was the victim.
But really, what would that help? She’d been seeing a married man.
The fact that she’d thought he was divorced didn’t really matter, did it?
Carlton had told her to stay away from married men when he’d stepped in to fix the PR nightmare she’d created. And her father had backed up Carlton’s warning with a solid disinheritance threat if she didn’t toe the line.
Inigo stepped over to her, and she rolled her eyes as he arched one eyebrow at her. “Would you like to join me?”
“Why?” she asked.
“So we can say goodbye properly. We never had the chance,” he said.
She thought about it for a minute. He was right. If they ended this the way they should have on New Year’s Day, then maybe she’d be able to forget him and move on. She was of course already moving on, but the part of her that kept thinking that she didn’t have to would get the hint.
“Sure,” she said.
“Why don’t you grab us a table and I’ll get our drinks,” he suggested.
“Sounds good,” she said, scanning the seating area for a free table. When she spotted one, she moved quickly to grab it. She sat down and took an antibacterial wipe from her handbag and cleaned the table.
Inigo set their drinks on the table before sitting down across from her. He stretched his legs out under the table, brushing against hers. She shifted around, crossing her feet under the chair so he wasn’t touching her.
She wasn’t doing this again. She couldn’t. She’d hooked up with him once, and that was okay, but now...knowing who he was? Nah, she didn’t need that kind of trouble in her life.