Love Around the Corner Read online

  “I’m in charge, I decide when we close. And it’s now.”

  “Oh, sure, sure.” Frank fished his wallet out of his back pocket and threw a few paltry bills on the bar. “Time for us old stiffs to clear out.”

  Gemma scooped up the cash. Tonight’s register receipts probably wouldn’t even cover the cost of turning on the lights, never mind paying her anything for the hours she’d spent there.

  “I bet you got a hot date, right, Gem?” Dennis asked, hiking himself off his bar stool.

  She had a hot date with a glass of wine, some episodes of The Great British Bake Off, and her dog, but she’d be damned if she’d admit that in front of Brendan.

  “You know it, Dennis.”

  “You’re really closing up?” Brendan asked, fixing her with that stupid, melting-chocolate gaze. He still had a hint of the freckles he’d sported in high school. She hadn’t noticed until now, when he was staring at her from two feet away. They didn’t make him look boyish anymore, though. They made him look burnished, dusted with bronze, gilt-edged and gorgeous. Definitely too expensive for her.

  She cleared her throat and waved a hand at the empty room behind him. “No reason to stay open. So out you go.”

  He watched her in silence for another moment. She refused to look away, even though her stomach was in knots. Oh please, just go back to your penthouse in the sky and let me be, she prayed.

  “Guess I’ll see you around then, Gemma.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  He smiled, a small, private smile. “Yes, I do.”

  Then he turned and left, Frank and Dennis talking his ear off the whole way out. Gemma let out her breath for the first time in what felt like hours.

  Chapter Three

  Gemma took her time closing up, drying the last of the glassware after washing it instead of leaving it to air-dry overnight, and checking the levels on the kegs before emptying the register and shutting off the lights.

  Outside, the neighborhood was quiet and dark. Good thing she’d closed up early. There would have been no more customers tonight anyway. Reaching over her head, she grasped the bottom of the steel roll gate and gave a massive pull to get it moving. It didn’t budge, as usual. The goddamned thing was a menace. It needed to be replaced, but for now, that stayed on a long list of upgrades they couldn’t afford. She blew out a frustrated breath and pulled harder.

  “Need a hand?”

  “Jesus,” she gasped as she spun around and spotted Brendan leaning on the lamppost on the corner. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking up, I was waiting.”

  “Why?” She turned her back on him, reached for the stubborn security gate and yanked on it again. Brendan came to join her, grasped the security gate and got the stupid thing moving with one effortless tug.

  “I got it started for you,” she grumbled, crouching to lock the padlock.

  Brendan cast a look up and down Court Street. “Do you always close up alone? It doesn’t seem safe.”

  “I’m a big girl,” she replied as she stood.

  “I can see that,” he murmured. And damn if his eyes didn’t dart down the length of her body as she straightened.

  Gemma ignored that frank once-over. Plenty of guys looked. It didn’t mean anything. Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she planted her hands on her hips. “One: I’m not always alone. Dad’s off tonight. Two: half the guys in this bar are cops, along with most of my extended family, and everybody around here knows that. And three: I’m armed.”

  Brendan choked on a laugh. “Really?”

  “Really. You’re lucky I didn’t blow a hole in you when you snuck up on me like that.” Not that he’d been in any real danger. She’d been in gun safety courses since she was a teenager. But nothing wrong with keeping him on his toes.

  “I told you, I wasn’t sneaking, I was waiting.”

  “And I’m asking again, why?”

  “We didn’t get a chance to catch up earlier.”

  “Catch up? What exactly are we supposed to catch up about?” She thought she’d played it pretty cool when he came in earlier, but she wasn’t sure she could maintain this front of disinterestedness one-on-one. They had way too much history together.

  “How are your sisters?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I need to get home.” She turned away and started off down the sidewalk, tugging her jacket closed against the cold.

  “No problem,” he said, turning to follow her. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Gemma stumbled to a halt. “What are you doing?”

  “Walking with you. I remember the way.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and grinned, the first full smile she’d seen on his face in years. Oh, she’d forgotten the power of that smile—his bright white teeth, those dimples that were more like slashes bracketing his mouth. Brendan’s smile had always been disarming. Now it was downright deadly.

  “Suit yourself,” she muttered, turning around and stomping away. He caught up. Of course.

  “So...” he tried again. “Your sisters?”

  Okay, fine. Maybe if she satisfied the fleeting burst of nostalgia and curiosity that had made him seek her out, he’d go away and leave her in peace for another fourteen years. Or forever.

  “My sisters are doing great. Jess is a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Post. Oh, and she’s engaged.”

  “Jessica’s engaged? She’s just a kid!”

  “It’s been fourteen years. Kids grow up.”

  “Who’s the guy? You like him?”

  “Alex? What’s not to like? Rich, handsome, polite, and heir to a media empire.”

  Brendan processed that for a moment. “Alex...as in Alex Drake?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Jessica is engaged to Alex Drake?”

  “Yep. You know him?”

  “I know of him.” His elbow brushed against hers as he dodged a teenager walking a dog.

  “Of course you do,” she said under her breath, putting some space between them again. “The rich hang together, I guess.”

  He ignored her biting comment. “What about Livie?”

  “Grad school, getting her PhD in Astrophysics. She’s in Colorado. She’s got a guy, too, now. Some rich-as-sin computer expert. He followed her out there.” She still wasn’t sure how much to trust Nick DeSantis, but Livie was head over heels in love with him, and everything Nick had done indicated he felt the same about Livie, so...she guessed that meant the little criminal was sticking around.

  “Wow, Livie, all the way out in Colorado. Hard to imagine. You must miss her.”

  How dare he ask the questions about her life that were sure to press on all her tender spots? Like he still knew her or something.

  “I do.” She missed Livie so much it was hard to breathe sometimes. It was inevitable that her sisters would grow up and move on with their lives. She was so proud of both of them. And if sometimes the echoing silence of their house was enough to drive her crazy, that was her problem to deal with.

  “How’s your dad?”

  Her elbow brushed his. This time she was the one who’d drifted closer. Adjusting her bag on her shoulder, she moved away again. “Fine. Great. Dad’s great.”

  “Did I hear one of the guys say he’s dating?”

  “Teresa. His girlfriend.”

  “She the first one since your mom died?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Well, Mom was Dad’s first love. Sometimes you don’t get over that.” Thank God she hadn’t spent years of her life hung up on Brendan Flaherty the same way. He wasn’t worth that kind of devotion.

  “He did, though.”

  She shot him a quick look, unsure how to interpret that expression on
his face. “Eventually, yeah. He did.” At the corner of her street, she paused. “This is my block.”

  He stopped too, watching her. The orange glow of the sodium streetlight did unfair things to his bone structure. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “You don’t need to walk me home.”

  “I know.”

  She huffed in frustration. Why wasn’t he leaving? After all, Brendan Flaherty was a pro at leaving. “You’re really just gonna keep following me?”

  “Unless you tell me to go. Are you telling me to go?” He slid his hands into his pockets and hiked an eyebrow. His lips twitched as he suppressed a smile.

  Cocky bastard. She should tell him to go fuck himself all the way back to Chicago and enjoy his gilded life there. She had no idea why she hadn’t done it yet. Sick, morbid curiosity, maybe? The same curiosity that fueled those shameful late-night Google searches. Maybe she needed this peek at his adult self so she could quit wondering once and for all.

  “Ugh, whatever.”

  His grin broke free. She turned and stomped up the sidewalk, just to avoid being blasted with another dose of that irritating, intoxicating smile.

  He followed, easily matching his stride to hers. They’d always been physically in sync. In a whole lot of ways. He’d moved with a sort of barely restrained exuberance when he was younger, all boundless energy and physical power. That had been tempered by the years. Now he walked like a man supremely comfortable with his place in the world. Easy, confident, infuriatingly sexy.

  “So,” he asked. “Is Kendra still around?”

  “Yep. Kendra’s still around. She’s exactly the same.” Her cousin Kendra had been an irrepressible force of nature in high school, and hadn’t changed a bit in that regard. She was also the only person in Gemma’s family who knew about Brendan.

  When she and Brendan had first collided in that white-hot blaze of teenage passion, it had only been a couple of months since her mother had died. Their family had still been shell-shocked. Her father had been barely holding things together. Jess and Livie had been ten and eleven, respectively—far too young to lose their mother forever—not that it had been any easier for Gemma. But they’d needed her more and suffered more when she’d died. Gemma’s job was to be strong, to help hold them all together, to take care of her sisters as her father did his best to fight his way back to the land of the living.

  Falling in love with Brendan had felt unspeakably selfish. How could she bring him home to her family, all full of happiness and hearts and flowers, when they were still deep in the throes of mourning? So she never brought him home, at least not when anybody had been there to meet him. She didn’t keep him a secret so much as she just didn’t tell anyone about him. It was harder to hide what was between them when they were in school together, though, especially since Kendra was in the same year as her. Luckily, Kendra was good at keeping secrets and a sucker for drama.

  Gemma had planned to tell her family all about Brendan eventually, when things were less raw. She’d desperately wanted to bring him home and introduce him to everyone, certain that they’d love him as much as she did. But he left town before that could happen. And after he was gone, there hadn’t seemed much point in telling anyone about him, so he was still her secret.

  “Hasn’t changed much, has it?”

  His voice startled her back to the present. That eighteen-year-old boy in a Catholic school uniform faded away, replaced by this grown man in an expensive suit, inexplicably walking at her side again after all these years. She shivered in discomfort.

  “The new people have more money.” She tipped her head toward one of the row houses they were passing. The new owners had ripped up the old front yard and replaced it with a formal Japanese garden in miniature. “Things change.”

  He gestured to Mrs. Maratelli’s house across the street and the icon of the Virgin in her front yard. “And some things don’t.”

  She wasn’t interested in whatever point he was trying to make. Time to turn the tables and put him on the spot for a while. “So what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What prompted this trip down memory lane after all this time?”

  “It’s more than a trip down memory lane.”

  “Please don’t try to sell me a timeshare or get me to join Scientology. It’s not gonna happen.”

  Brendan threw his head back and laughed. “I pity the timeshare salesman who tries to get one past you, Gemma.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that you’re one of the smartest, most streetwise women I know. You always have been.”

  She scowled, uncomfortable with his compliment...if that’s what that was.

  “Okay, so you’re not forming a cult. Why are you slumming it back in Brooklyn?”

  “Because I live here now.”

  Her stomach turned over in slow motion and the ground suddenly felt unsteady. She stopped, absorbing his words. “What?”

  “I told you I wasn’t working for my uncle anymore? That I founded my own company?”

  “You told Frank, not me, but yeah. So?”

  “It’s here. In Carroll Gardens. And so am I. My apartment is right around the corner.” He grinned at her again, unabashedly enjoying her shock. “Guess that makes us neighbors again.”

  Brendan turned around and kept walking. Gemma gaped after him. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Gemma? Your house? It’s this way.”

  Slowly, she started moving again, still processing this colossal piece of news. Brendan wasn’t just back for a visit. Brendan was back. And apparently living right around the corner from her. This wasn’t just one uncomfortable night to be endured. She’d see him again. Maybe a lot. Oh, God...there wasn’t enough scathing snark in the world for that.

  He probably still had family here and had to have come back for a visit now and then. But as the years passed and they’d never crossed paths, she’d figured he wasn’t back for very long...or that maybe he’d avoided her on purpose. But tonight was no accident, no unlucky crossing of paths. He’d come to her bar seeking her out on purpose. Fuck. Maybe she wished he’d stayed invisible after all.

  “It’s not often Gemma Romano is speechless,” he teased. “Guess I played that one right.”

  “Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard, Flaherty. You just surprised me, that’s all. Why here?” She needed to get herself together. This didn’t matter. Not one bit.

  He shrugged, looking around at the row houses with something she’d have been tempted to describe as longing if she didn’t know better. “Why not? It’s home.”

  “It hasn’t been for fourteen years!” she blurted out, with a lot more passion than she’d intended. She might be still nursing some bruised feelings where Brendan Flaherty was concerned, but he didn’t have to know that. In fact, she’d die if he did.

  “This never stopped being home,” he said, eyes on his feet. “It just took me a while to realize that.”

  “So...what? You just quit your uncle’s business, walked away from all that, to open up shop in Brooklyn?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She didn’t know what to make of that. It didn’t jive at all with everything she’d thought she knew about Brendan Flaherty. Then again, when he’d decided to leave fourteen years ago, that hadn’t made sense to her either. Maybe it just meant she hadn’t really known him all that well back then, and she still didn’t.

  “This is me,” she murmured, stopping in front of the rusting black wrought iron fence in front of their narrow patch of front yard. She was uncomfortably aware of how scruffy the place looked in comparison to many of their newer, more upscale neighbors. The windowsills all needed repainting, and the windowpanes were grimed with a post-winter gray film. She’d meant to clean up their little front yard last spring, maybe plan out some actual landscaping for once. But spring had come
and gone, and so had summer, and she’d never gotten around to it. Now another spring was right around the corner and the front yard was still just a mess of patchy grass and half-dead shrubs. Landscaping cost money and took time, and both were in short supply. The bar ate up everything.

  She turned back to face Brendan, chin lifted in defiance, but he wasn’t looking at the house or the yard. He was looking straight at her.

  Behind her, on the far side of the yard, the house was dark and silent, and would stay that way. Livie and Jess had both moved out, and her father and Teresa were visiting Uncle Richie on City Island. Tonight, there would just be Gemma, all alone in that big, empty house.

  Once upon a time, Gemma and Brendan and a house that would remain reliably empty for the night would have been the start of a sex marathon that would shock the world. But that was then.

  Brendan looked over the worn red brick facade. “Nobody’s home?” he said, like he could hear her thoughts. Once, it had felt like he could, and she could read his. She’d been wrong. The whole time, they’d had very different ideas about the future. And now here she was, living hers, the one she’d once thought would include him. And Brendan had been happily living his, the one that had never included her.

  “Just me and Spudge,” she said, without thinking.

  Brendan went still. “You still have Spudge?”

  She cleared her throat, keeping her eyes on her feet. “Sure. He’s our dog. It doesn’t matter where he came from.”

  Brendan. Spudge had been a gift from Brendan. God, it had been so long and Spudge had become such an integral part of the Romano family that she’d almost forgotten.

  Chapter Four

  April, fourteen years earlier

  “Can I come over?” Brendan’s voice sent a shiver down Gemma’s spine the second she answered the phone, all deep and rumbly and so hot.

  “Now?” Gemma glanced furtively over her shoulder, which was ridiculous because she knew she was alone in the house.

  “Come on, Gem. Just for a few minutes.” He paused, breathing heavily into the phone. “Although if we’ve got more than a few minutes, I know how to use them.”