Chapter 27 JACE
JACE
The shop has been quiet for two hours.
I know this because I have it open on the second monitor, top right—the camera feed in Wild Tide. Cooler in the corner. Counter front and center. Wren in and out of frame all day—pulling stems, taking calls, ringing up an arrangement I watched her build over the lunch hour.
Three minutes ago she put her phone to her ear and walked into the back room.
The phone is on her shoulder when she comes back out. She is laughing. Saying something I can’t hear. She rolls her eyes at Sasha. Hangs up. Goes back to the cooler.
I don’t know what the call was. But it wasn’t him.
The order was served at twelve-fourteen. Ryker confirmed the process server’s signature, the apartment, Vaughn taking the paper at the door. No comment. Shut the door. Hasn’t been seen on his block since. No second burner. No call. No text.
He has gone quiet.
Not gone away. Men like him either escalate or vanish for a while.
She’s back at the counter. Sasha gestures with a pair of shears about something. Wren laughs—full this time, head back, hand at her stomach—and I’m watching the side of her neck and the line of her shoulder and the place under her ear where my mouth was last night.
Nora knocks once and opens the door.
“Mr. Carrington.”
I close the feed.
“Yeah.”
“Your four o’clock is here.”
“Send him in.”
She pauses.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
She raises an eyebrow but sends him in.
I check the feed one more time before he sits down. She’s at the cooler. Hair slipping out of her knot. Hand on her hip.
I close the feed.
* * *
At five-fifteen I’m over the bridge.
The Range Rover is cool. AC/DC low on the speakers. The light is going gold at the edges of every building. Park is on the corner of Court and Bergen where he’s been all day. Davis broke off at the office to be at my building when I get back.
I pull up outside Wild Tide at five-twenty-five.
She’s at the register. Sees the car. Looks at me through the window. I lift a hand.
She comes out of the shop.
Christ.
Those legs.
It was the first thing I noticed this morning when she walked out of my bedroom and I had to look at the ceiling.
Ten hours later they are still a problem.
The little white skirt hits her mid-thigh and the rest of her is bare down to her sandals, the black tank fitted just enough to show the curve of her tits, her strawberry hair loose down her back catching the sun.
She crosses the sidewalk toward my car and I forget what year it is.
She gets in. Shuts the door.
I lean across the console and kiss her. Once. Slow.
Her hand comes up to the side of my face.
When I pull back her eyes are soft.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Ashford.”
“Long day?”
“Long enough. You?”
“Crazy. The Bellweather wedding is in nine days and the bride changed the palette this afternoon. I have until Monday to source three thousand stems of butterfly ranunculus.”
“Butterfly ranunculus.”
“Don’t pretend you know what those are.”
“I do not.”
“I have a charity thing on Saturday too.”
“Do you?”
“Black tie. The Brooklyn Botanical fundraiser. I do the centerpieces every year.”
She glances at me sideways.
“You’re coming with me.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Black tie.”
“Yes.”
“Ashford.”
“Carrington.”
“Is that a question or am I being told?”
“You’re being told.”
I look at her.
She’s looking out the windshield with the corner of her mouth lifted. She’s going to make me wear a tuxedo on Saturday and put me on a dance floor and I’m not going to fight her on it, because there’s nothing in this world I’m going to fight her on right now.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine, Wren.”
“You’re coming.”
“I’m coming.”
“I’m picking the tux.”
“Of course you are.”
I pull off the curb.
She smells like the shop. Eucalyptus. Cold water. And underneath it, something warm that’s just her.
I take her hand off her bare thigh and lay it on the console between us. Cover it with my own.
She laces her fingers through mine.
My eyes are on the road, her bare thighs an inch out of my peripheral, my mind already at the apartment.
I have a problem.
We are halfway over the bridge when I move my hand off hers and lay it on her bare thigh. Slide it up, slow, under the hem of her skirt.
She doesn’t stop me.
“Jace Carrington. You’re driving over a bridge in rush hour traffic with your hand up my skirt.”
“I know.”
“You’re gonna crash.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
She laughs, shaking her head—and then I pull my hand back toward the wheel like I’m letting her off the hook.
She catches my wrist and puts my hand right back where it was.
I glance over. No laugh now—eyes dark, the want plain on her face.
My fingers shove her panties aside and find her clit, stroking, circling, until she’s slick against them and her hips are chasing my hand—then I push one inside her.
She gasps.
“Oh god, Jace—”
She bites down on her lip, trying to look like a woman just sitting in traffic, and loses it anyway.
I stroke her. Easy. My thumb on her, my finger curled inside her, my eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel and her thigh tensing under my arm.
She is gripping the door with one hand and her head is back against the seat.
She is moaning—soft, breathy, into the inside of her shoulder—and the sound is doing things to me I am not going to be able to come back from.
She turns her head and reaches across the console.
Her hand drops onto me through my dress pants and rubs. Then her fingers go to my zipper and tug it down.
“Christ, Wren.”
“You started it.” She’s looking at me now, her hand wrapped around me, stroking, the rhythm going ragged as she climbs. I keep my eyes on the road and feel all of it—her hand on me, her breath coming apart beside me.
“Jace, I’m—”
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna—”
“Come for me, Wren.”
I add a second finger and curl. Find the spot. Stay there.
She comes.
She comes hard. A moan rolls out of her—full, broken, helpless—and she doesn’t bother muffling it.
Doesn’t care about the cars in the lane next to us.
Her head is back against the seat and her thighs are shaking around my hand and she says my name once, then again, and I work her through every second of it with my eyes on the road and the knowledge that I have her like this in rush hour traffic.
“Oh my god, Jace.”
“That’s one, Ashford.”
“One—”
“Mhm. There’s more where that came from when I get you home.”
She lets out a laugh, breathless and shaky.
I pull my hand back. Bring my finger to my mouth. Taste her. Her breath catches.
“Carrington.”
“Yeah.”
“That promise you just made.” She’s still catching her breath. “I’m holding you to it.”
Christ.
I’m still hard and we’re not home yet. My grip tightens on the wheel and I press my foot a half inch lower on the gas, because if I don’t get this woman home in the next ten minutes I’m going to lose my mind.
I take the off-ramp.
I see him before she does.
We are a block from my building. The sidewalk is busy with the going-home crowd—suits, briefcases, a woman with a stroller. And a man on the corner across the street in a baseball cap and black hoodie, watching my building.
Vaughn.
I’m supposed to take the next right and pull into the underground garage. I don’t take it. I roll past the entrance and pull up to the curb at the front of my building instead.
Cut the engine.
I’m parking here because I want this man handled, in front of me, before he gets one more night of thinking he can stand on this corner.
Wren has her hand on the door.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Stay in the car a second.”
“Why?”
“Do what I say.”
She goes still.
“Jace.”
“Stay.”
I get out. I dial Davis as I round the front of the Range Rover.
“Boss.”
“Corner. Hoodie. Across the street.”
“On him.”
Davis comes out of my lobby in three strides. Park is up the block on a phone—sees me clock him, sees Davis move, peels off the building he was leaning on and crosses toward Vaughn from the other direction.
Vaughn sees Davis. Sees Park. Looks at the Range Rover.
I’m in the middle of the sidewalk when I hear the passenger door open behind me. “Stay in the fucking car, Wren.” The door shuts anyway.
Jesus Christ. Why can she not, for once, just listen.
I turn.
She’s on the sidewalk. Hand still on the door. Eyes past me, on the corner.
“Wren.”
“Is it him?”
“Get back in the car.”
She doesn’t move.
That’s the moment Vaughn sees her. His eyes drag down her in the little white skirt, and he smiles.
Then he whistles. Low. Two notes.
I move. I round the front of the Range Rover and start across the street. Park has reached Vaughn already, a hand on his shoulder, saying something to him low.
Vaughn lifts his hands. Slow.
I hit the sidewalk. Davis steps in front of me.
“Boss. I have him.”
“Move.”
“The order is served. He hasn’t done anything illegal yet. He says one word and I have him for breach. Let me work.”
I look past Davis at Vaughn.
The man who picked my woman’s lock yesterday is standing on a sidewalk a hundred feet from my front door wearing a hoodie and smiling at me.
I’ve put men down for less than this. I could put him on the concrete from where I’m standing in three seconds.
I don’t move.
“Boss.”
“Wren is on the sidewalk. She’s watching this. Let me work.”
I turn my head a fraction. Look back across the street.
She’s watching. Hand on the open door, eyes on me.
I take a breath. I take another one.
“Take him.”
Davis nods. Turns. Walks Vaughn off the corner with Park on his other side.
I don’t hear what they say. Vaughn’s hands stay up.
He looks back at me once over his shoulder—still smiling—and Davis’s hand goes flat on his back and turns him forward and they walk him to the alley beside my building and out of my sight.
I stay where I am after they’re gone.
When I turn around she’s still where I left her.
I cross the street. I don’t say anything. I get to her, take the door out of her hand, shut it, lock the car, take her elbow.
I walk her into my lobby with my hand at the small of her back and the doorman holding the door, and I don’t look at her, and I don’t look at the alley.
She tries my name once on the way to the elevator.
“Jace.”
I don’t answer.
The doorman pretends not to see anything. We get into the elevator. The doors shut.
She’s leaning against the elevator wall watching me. I’m facing the doors. If I open my mouth right now, I’m not going to be able to put it back.
She knows it.
We are forty-two floors from a conversation neither of us is ready to have.