The One I Love to Hate Page 14

  “She already was. I can’t believe you’d think I didn’t know about Peyton’s nasty side. That’s the only one I ever saw.”

  “I was just trying to throw her off the scent, get her to leave me the hell alone and keep her away from you.”

  “Oh.” Those kaleidoscope pieces collapsed into a pile, shifted, then shifted again. No clear picture yet. “I kissed Josh to get back at you.”

  “What?”

  “I was angry...humiliated. I thought you were just jerking me around. And then Josh was right there in front of me, and I thought ‘You know what? Fuck him,’ and I kissed Josh.”

  “That was for my benefit?”

  “Yep.”

  “But you dated him for two months.”

  “I had to! He had a huge crush on me. If I told him I’d used him, he would have been devastated.”

  “So you pity-dated him for two months. Nice. He must have been just as devastated to get dumped by you eventually.”

  She had to hand it to Alex, he never let her off the hook about anything. “He dumped me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He met Caitlin and it was...you know...love at first sight, or whatever, and he broke up with me.”

  “I’m sorry...” A sputter of disbelieving laughter burst from his lips. “Josh. Dumped you? For Caitlin?”

  “Yes, he did, because she was absolutely perfect for him and I wasn’t. So you see? I got my payback.”

  “That’s just...” He dropped his head, his shoulders shaking with barely constrained laughter.

  “Oh, shut up. It’s your fault I ended up dating him, anyway.” She tried to fight it, but his laughter was contagious. Because it really was hilarious, if you could step away from the bruised feelings and anger, and time had done a lot to dull those edges. Before she knew it, she was laughing, too, so hard that tears streaked down her face.

  “It’s not funny,” she wheezed.

  “Yes it is.” He threw his head back as he laughed, long and loud. Had she ever seen him laugh like that? She didn’t think so. “You dated a guy you didn’t like for two months all because a girl I didn’t like couldn’t take a goddamned hint. Sorry, but that’s hilarious.”

  Her laughter subsided into a few hiccuping chuckles. “God, I hated her.”

  “Peyton? She really gave you a hard time?”

  Jess swiped a finger under her damp lashes and took another sip of her beer. “Oh, yes. I thought it was just because she’s a snob, but now I suspect it was because she’d sniffed out my crush.”

  At her side, Alex stilled. Oh, shit. There she went again, her mouth spilling out things she hadn’t even consciously thought yet. “What?”

  Tossing back some more beer, she tried to play it off with a casual shrug, but suspected she failed. “I had a crush on you, too. Back then.”

  Alex took a long sip of his scotch. “Well. I thought that Ivy League degree was supposed to mean we’re smart, but we seem to be a walking disaster.”

  “You could look at it that way.”

  Nothing about that night had been a lie. Nothing had been a lie.

  What were you supposed to do when the event that entirely defined a person in your mind turned out not to be true? Well, other things had helped form her opinion of Alex years ago, but he was steadily taking ax swings at all of those suppositions, too.

  “I always wondered how you and Josh stayed so friendly,” Alex said, many minutes later. “After he started dating Caitlin, I mean.”

  His hands busily turned that highball glass in circles on the bar. Jess kept tracing lines in the condensation on her glass. Even the air around them felt electrically charged after everything that had just been said.

  “It was such a relief when he dumped me.” She took another nervous sip of her beer. “And Peyton?”

  “What about her?”

  “Did you guys eventually—”

  “I told you, that was all her. I kept putting her off and eventually she slept with Chase and lost all interest in me. Thank God.”

  “That Chase. His libido sure comes in handy.”

  “Look, I know his personal life is pretty questionable—” Jess let out an ungraceful snort of laughter, and Alex nodded in weary agreement. “Okay, very questionable. But he was a good friend to me growing up.”

  “He must have been or you’d have never gotten him hired at ClickNews.”

  The shift in Alex’s expression was subtle, easy to miss, unless—like Jess—one was busy obsessively cataloging every inch of his face. His eyebrows furrowed slightly and his lips flattened out. Not quite a frown, but almost.

  “What?”

  He threw a questioning glance at her, the almost-frown vanished. “What, what?”

  “What I said, about getting Chase hired at ClickNews. Your face went all...” She scrunched up her fingers to demonstrate his expression.

  The corner of his mouth twitched with a suppressed smile. “That’s what my face looks like? No, I was just...” He trailed off and looked away, taking another thoughtful sip of his drink.

  Elbowing him lightly, she pressed on. “Come on. Tell me.”

  “I wanted that job,” he said at last.

  “Chase’s job?”

  “Yeah. Head of journalism.”

  One less beer would have made coming up with a tactful reply somewhat easier. Instead, she blurted, “You’re hardly missing out. It’s not much of a journalism division.”

  “That’s the point. I had this idea...this...dream...” Pausing, he shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Tell me.”

  His eyes roved quickly across her face and whatever he saw there made up his mind. “ClickNews has an amazing platform. Even before we bought it, the page hits and web traffic were off the charts, and it’s only gotten better.”

  “Yeah, I’m well aware of how many people read your site every day.” Not that she was jealous. Or bitter. Well, maybe just a little.

  “So just imagine, instead of just pulling stuff off the wire services and padding it out with our weak local stuff, we had a real journalism team providing original content. Hell, with our structural organization and resources, we could put together investigative journalism teams to rival the biggest names out there. We’ve got the money to finance in-depth investigations. We’ve got the platform to publish multi-part stories that would leave the Times and the Spotlight guys in the dust. ClickNews has already built a loyal following. People check in every day, and they read everything we post. Imagine if we gave them something real to read, made them aware of issues no one else is talking about. We could change everything, the entire direction journalism has gone in this country. We could restart the national dialog, and make a whole generation of people fucking informed again. Can you imagine that?”

  Oh, hell...he had integrity. Alex’s gorgeous face was potent enough. But with that brain? That passion? Jess suddenly felt herself on very dangerous ground. Her heart beat hard in her chest in a visceral response to him.

  “Alex—your idea sounds amazing. You’ve got to do it.”

  Just like that, the fire in his eyes went out, like it had never been there. With a dismissive wave of his hand, he turned back to his drink, sipping morosely from it. “It’s not what we acquired the site for. They’ve got a good business model in place. It would be insanity to mess with it when it works.”

  “Yes, it’s good now, but it could be so much better. With you in charge, it could be brilliant.”

  He shook his head. “Not me. My stint there is temporary. Chase’s the one staying on.”

  “It’ll never happen under Chase. Chase wouldn’t know solid reporting if it bit him in the ass.”

  “Hey, he’s not as good as you—”

  “Or you.”

  “But he’s not bad. He’s been doing good work there since we hi
red him.”

  In a rush, the day’s events came back to her. No one knew who was behind the ClickNews thefts, and both Chase and Alex were too close to the situation for comfort.

  Her gut told her it wasn’t Alex. Yes, he had a dream for ClickNews, but let’s be real—he was talented enough on his own to achieve it. He didn’t need to steal from anyone. Chase, on the other hand... She wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe Alex wasn’t involved, but he was close to someone who might be. Which meant sitting here talking and laughing with him was supremely stupid.

  “I have to go.” She slid off her stool, but the floor was farther away than she’d guessed and she stumbled. In a flash, Alex was off his stool, his arms around her, holding her up. And holding her tightly against his chest.

  Oh. A flush crept up her neck to her cheeks. Alex looked down at her and licked his lips.

  “Um...” She pushed herself away from him unsteadily. He reached a hand out to her, but thought better of it, raking his fingers through his hair instead. The silence was so loaded, it hurt.

  Without warning, Gemma sailed into the strange, electric atmosphere they’d just created.

  “You doing okay?” Gemma asked. “You almost fell off your stool.”

  She rubbed a hand across her forehead, feeling a little punch-drunk with beer and laughter. “I’m fine. But I should go home. I have to work tomorrow.”

  “I can kick these guys out and close early,” Gemma offered. “They’re just warming chairs, anyway.”

  Jess shook her head. “No, it’s okay.”

  “I’ll walk you home,” Alex volunteered. Jess and Gemma both swiveled to stare at him. He shrugged. “It’s not far, right?”

  “A couple of blocks,” Jess murmured.

  “You okay with that?” Gemma asked her.

  She nodded. “Yeah, he’s fine. Not an ax-murderer.”

  “You said he was a stalker.”

  “I was kidding. Mostly.”

  Gemma pointed a finger at Alex. “We have four cousins on the police force. That’s just cousins. Half the regulars in this bar are former cops, and Jess is the baby of the family. You got it?”

  “Gemma—”

  Alex held up his hands in defense. “She’ll be safe. I promise.”

  Gemma nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  “Thanks for dinner. It was amazing.”

  Of course, Alex knew exactly what to say to any woman to charm her, even Gemma in full-on Mama Bear mode. “Thanks. See you around.”

  She shrugged into her coat, watching Alex do the same. When they were both buttoned up, he smiled tightly, wordlessly holding his arm out, indicating that she should take the lead. She did, feeling like she was sliding sideways off the edge of reality as she knew it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Outside, the night had grown colder, the air sharp and bracing on her flushed cheeks. Shivering, she tugged her scarf tighter around her neck and stuffed her hands in her pockets. Alex let the door swing shut behind him and came to stand next to her. He glanced up at the sky, glowing orange as the sodium streetlights reflected in the low-hanging clouds.

  “Feels like snow,” he said, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

  “It doesn’t snow before Christmas.”

  “Sometimes it does.”

  “Yeah, sometimes it does.”

  “Remember that year it snowed the day before Halloween?”

  “That was wild.”

  “Yeah.”

  Wow, they’d chattered away for two hours without stop inside, and now they were having this painful conversation about snow?

  “Where do you live?”

  “Oh. Um, this way.”

  She started walking up Court Street toward home. The shops they passed were a mix of old Italian businesses she’d known all her life and trendy restaurants and boutiques that had moved in as the neighborhood gentrified. The familiar storefronts—DiPaola’s Bakery, Vinelli’s Meats, Russo’s Pizzeria—were comforting. She’d grown up running in and out of those shops. The DiPaolas, the Vinellis and the Russos were like her extended family. Because she didn’t have enough family all on her own.

  The Christmas decorations were already up, with white lights hanging in swags over the street and giant glittering red-and-green holly leaves adorning every lamppost. Once, Court Street would have been a ghost town at this hour, but now that it had gentrified, it stayed busy late into the night.

  “Will your sister be okay on her own at the bar?”

  “Gem? Oh, sure. She wasn’t kidding about half those guys being former cops. Nobody touches Romano’s.”

  “Right.”

  “Plus she’s armed.”

  Alex spluttered in disbelief, making her smile.

  “Never mess with a Romano girl. Everybody in Carroll Gardens knows that.”

  “I think I’m beginning to understand that. So you grew up here?”

  She nodded. “The same great-grandfather who opened the bar bought our house. Angelo Romano. My family’s lived there ever since.”

  “It’s...”

  “What?”

  “It’s nice. Your history. That you have so much history. And family.” They walked side by side, hands in their pockets, shoulders brushing now and then.

  “You don’t?”

  He shook his head. “It’s just me and Dad.”

  “Where’s your mother?” she asked cautiously. She knew better than anyone what a loaded question that could be.

  “Connecticut, occasionally. She and Dad divorced when I was a kid.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that. Except I guess it’s obvious that he’s single, what with all the...” She’d been about to say “with all those women he hooks up with” before she managed to stop the word vomit. At least there was one embarrassing thing she managed to not say tonight.

  “It’s okay. You can say it. When it’s everywhere in the press, it’s hardly a secret. He likes women. He liked them when I was eight, too, which is why they got divorced after my mother caught him with the lady planning my birthday party.”

  “Oh. Ouch.”

  She looked up just as he flashed her one of those easy, disarming grins. “It was a long time ago. She’s remarried now. Her husband is Swiss, works in banking, so they spend a lot of time overseas.”

  “And your dad got custody of you?” Dan Drake had never, even slightly, struck her as a hands-on father.

  “I split time between both of them when I was growing up. Actually, with nannies, to be honest. You can board at Reynolds starting at twelve, so I mostly lived there after that. It was more fun. Then when I started college, I moved in with Dad, because DeWitt was in Manhattan.”

  “He lives in the city?” She didn’t know why that was surprising. Dan Drake seemed like the kind of person who only existed on a private jet, flying from one metropolis to another. Either that, or he lived tucked away on some estate or private compound, the kind of place tourists took pictures of from tour buses. But she really had no idea. She’d never thought about it. She’d also never really thought about what Alex’s childhood was like. His description of it was casual, but it sounded lonely and cold, at least compared to what she knew.

  “Well...” He reached up to scratch his ear. “He has a few properties—”

  She laughed. “Forget it. I forgot who I was talking about for a minute.”

  “But yes, he lives primarily at the place in the city.”

  Biting her lip, she tried to keep her voice casual. “Just out of curiosity, where are the others?”

  He hesitated, and she immediately regretted the question. He must get invasive questions like that all the time, for all the wrong reasons.

  “Never mind. You don’t have to answer that.”

  “No, it’s okay. Um, there’s a house in LA, an apartment in London, and one in
Paris, and there’s a small estate in St. Croix. That’s really just for vacations.”

  Wow. There was knowing Alex was rich and then there was knowing. She was almost sorry she’d asked. It was much easier to poke at him and take verbal swipes when she had no concept of his net worth. Now she felt like a butterfly who’d been teasing Godzilla. He could scoop her out of the sky and squash her flat with a flick of his wrist. Except that was all in her head, wasn’t it? Alex was just Alex. And, as tonight had made amply evident, she’d gotten a lot of things wrong about him.

  “I don’t visit them too often,” he hurried to add, a touch defensively. “I’m almost always here in the city.”

  “Funny, me, too,” she quipped. “It is nice to get out of the city now and then, though. Sometimes we go out to my uncle Richie’s place on City Island, just for the weekend.”

  “Cut it out,” he groaned, elbowing her, and she laughed.

  “This way.” Unthinkingly, she snagged his elbow and tugged him into the turn onto her street. And now her hand was tucked into the crook of his arm, sandwiched up against the warmth of his body. She’d have to tug to get it free, which might be more awkward than just leaving it there. Or maybe not, because now she was obsessed with her hand on his arm. It felt like every atom in the universe had changed its course around them, drawn into the powerful black hole forming where she was touching him.

  “Your neighbors like Christmas, huh?”

  Almost all the houses on her block were lavishly decorated for Christmas. Colored lights twinkled from every hedge and window frame. All manner of reindeer pranced across front yards and no less than three yard signs pointed the way toward the North Pole. Two houses even had inflatables in the yard, which was actually possible in Carroll Gardens. It was a quirk of the neighborhood that the town houses were set back off the street, with little front yards, instead of fronting right onto the sidewalk, like in most of Brownstone Brooklyn.

  “Yeah, everybody decorates here. It’s kind of a big deal.”

  They’d left the foot traffic behind when they turned off Court. Here, they were the only two people on the block and the night was quiet around them.