One is a Promise(40)
His eyebrows pinch together. “You don’t embarrass me.”
He opens the driver’s door and unfolds his tall body from the car. There’s no one else in the vicinity, and very few cars fill the parking spaces. We must be in a private level of the garage.
He shuts the door and grips the ledge, facing me. “With the money you’ll be earning, you can live more comfortably. Unless you continue to hand it all out.”
“I am comfortable. I like my shit hole and shit car and my drugstore sandals. It’s just stuff.” I release the seatbelt and bend forward with my elbows on my thighs. “You know what makes me happy, Trace? People. Relationships. Connections.” I tip my head to look at him. “Have you ever been in love?”
“No.” He scrapes out a tired breath.
“I didn’t think so. That’s why I let your cruelty roll off me so easily. I don’t condone your insults. It’s just…” I sigh and pull the hair tie from the windblown mess on my head. “I pity you, Trace.”
“You pity me?” Straightening his spine, he puts his hands on his hips and watches me finger comb my hair.
“I really do. All the money in the world won’t buy the best kind of happiness.”
He grips the edge of the door and leans in, eyes like blue blades. “And where is your happiness now, Danni?”
My heart lurches with a hollow achy thud. I lower my head, lower my hands on my lap, and squeeze the engagement ring.
“He left me,” I whisper. “Then he died.”
Unbidden, a brew of misery pushes against my senses, forming wool in my ears and blackening the edges of my vision. Trace fades from my periphery, but his footsteps are there, circling the rear of the car. He removes his jacket from the trunk. Then the passenger door opens, and an outstretched hand appears beneath my face.
“Come on,” he says quietly, softly.
I stare at the hand, fully aware of the unpredictably that comes with it. Cruel words and passionate kisses. Outrageous paychecks and mercurial moods. Scowls and laughter. Silence and banter. Who knows what he’ll deliver next?
He’s well-versed in calloused expressions, but his indifference is skin deep. If Trace Savoy wasn’t affected by me, he wouldn’t be standing here now, offering me his hand.
I clasp his fingers and allow him to pull me out of the car, toward the exit, and inside the elevator. As we ascend, he tucks me against his body with my cheek on his chest. It feels good. So deeply, inviolably, wonderfully good.
“I’m sorry.” He cups the back of my head. “For your loss. And for the way I talk to you. I’m not a nice man.”
My throat tightens at the unexpected apology. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.
“The former isn’t your fault,” I say, “and we can work on the latter.”
“You’re remarkably optimistic.” He props his chin on my head.
“Ever heard the saying, an optimist laughs to forget, and a pessimist forgets to laugh?”
“No, but it sounds like it was written by a realist.”
The elevator dings, and when the doors open, I expect to hear the beeping din of hundreds of slot machines. But it’s silent. As I lift my head, he leads me out and into a huge unfamiliar room.
“Where are we?” I glimpse an open kitchen to the left and a dining area to the right. Beyond the humongous sitting room straight ahead, a wall of glass brings the St. Louis skyline indoors. “This is your penthouse?”
“Correct.” He leaves me teetering in the entrance, tosses his jacket over a chair, and veers into the kitchen.
“I thought you were going to show me the restaurant.”
I shouldn’t be here. I mean, I want to be here. My interest in seeing his private space ranks right up there with my desire to see him naked. But my current frame of mind is on the fragile side of messy. I’m already imagining the countless women he’s paraded in and out of this bachelor pad.
And what a pad. It’s like something out of a Marvel Hero movie, with an industrial warehouse feel, exposed pipes, brick columns, and raw wood beams. Very rugged and masculine but also trendy in a way only money can buy.
“It’s been a long day.” He walks out of the open kitchen with two Bud Lights. “I’ll show you the restaurant another time.”
“This is…really nice.” I linger near the elevator, unsure why he brought me here.
“Thank you.” He lowers onto a buttery brown couch near the two-story windows and sets the beers on a large vintage trunk that serves as an ottoman. Then he reclines, spreads his legs the way a man does when he’s relaxed, and crooks a finger at me. “Come here.”