Stay With Me (3 page)

3

I looked at the clock and cursed Fred, one of my regular customers, under my breath. He’d shown up at closing time to buy a cheesecake with a customized message. Of course he hadn’t preordered it, and as usual I hadn’t managed to say no. On the other hand, it was thanks to people like him that I’d been able to keep up with my mortgage without ever defaulting on a payment.

The delay left me just enough time to take a quick shower. I had to tie my hair into a ponytail. In the end it was just a dinner to say welcome back to Ashley, though I would have been more enthusiastic about attending a lecture on quantum chemistry. But I couldn’t excuse myself from it. Ash’s family was mine as well. The fact that I couldn’t stand her didn’t matter. I would behave, if only for Josy and Mag.

When we were younger, I’d tried to establish a rapport with Ashley, but despite my best efforts, we were the devil and holy water. Night and day. Total opposites with no meeting point. Which was especially evident when she’d moved to the Big Apple four years ago to do the one thing for which she had real talent: strut down the runway.

Alright, yes, she was a model. Not very famous, but whatever she was doing allowed her to make a more than impressive living. I’d hoped with all my heart she’d always remain there on the other side of the US. Instead, she was coming back home with a rich fiancé in tow.

I shook my head and tried to shake off the memories of that harpy, who was smaller than me only in age—because in terms of inches, she had at least four over me. To say nothing of her beauty. She was tall, blonde, and had a dazzling smile and legs that were miles long, whereas I capped off at five-foot-five and had chestnut hair and eyes. I was cute. Nothing more.

She was the sort of woman every man would have wanted by his side, whereas I was the pleasant girl next door who people would go to for a cup of sugar.

Ashley was about to get married at twenty-four, whereas I was alone at twenty-six with a daughter to take care of.

After Andrew, I was celibate for nearly two years, for obvious reasons. It was difficult to find men willing to go out to dinner with a woman who had a watermelon in place of a flat tummy. And after Olly’s birth, things didn’t get much better. My body, instead of resembling a small bottle of Coca-Cola, now looked more like a Bartlett pear. That certainly didn’t facilitate my meeting Prince Charming.

Then finally, things seemed to go back to normal. I’d managed to survive on the small trust fund my parents had left me, and thanks to the help of Carl and Margaret, I’d managed to take life into my own hands by buying the small building I lived in and starting my café.

They were my family. And unfortunately, this connected me to Ash.

Just my luck
, I thought as I finished getting ready.

“Mommy!” Olly’s high-pitched voice almost made me fall out of the closet.

“Sweetie, how many times have I told you not to enter my room that way?”

“Sorry, Mommy,” she said, putting on that adorable scowl that caused me to melt. She knew how to get what she wanted—it was a quality she’d inherited from her father.

I smiled, holding up two outfits to my face, needing the
expert
opinion of my daughter. “Which one should I wear?”

“Wed!”
she cried out, clapping.

I didn’t give it a second thought and put it on. It was a plain red tube dress that came to a little above the knee. The neckline was covered, but a good part of my back was exposed. It wrapped my body like a second skin.

“Beautiful Mommy!”

“Thank you, love, but you are even more so. You are the most beautiful person in the entire world.” I lowered myself to give her a kiss on the forehead. “I’m going to finish getting ready. Go ask Jenny for a cup of milk. I’ll come and say goodbye before I leave.”

She nodded, skipping out of the room, while I put on my only pair of black high heels and grabbed my purse.

I went to the kitchen, where Olivia was insisting that Jenny let her play the princess game.

“I’m heading out,” I said. “Jenny, the number for the restaurant is on the refrigerator.”

She smiled. “Of course, Zoe. Go have fun. Little Olly and I will manage, as always.”

“Thanks!” I said, then turned to Olivia. “Behave yourself, Olly. Try not to drive Jenny crazy.”

“I
good
!”

“I know, sweetheart, but I prefer to remind you. Now give me a kiss, because I need to run to Aunt Mag’s.”

She raised her arms and squeezed me behind my neck. “I
wuv
you, Mommy.”

“I love you too, sweetie.”

I arrived at the restaurant wondering why Ashley and her future husband hadn’t taken advantage of the splendid evening to dine near the ocean. From what I could gather, though, they were both more interested in appearances than substance.

They’d chosen one of the city’s trendiest restaurants. A place that I, with my modest finances, would have normally only observed from the outside. Or at the most, I might have been able to sell them my desserts.

I adjusted the bottom of my dress, which had ridden up more than I would have liked, as I headed toward the entrance.

“Zoe, darling!” Mag’s warm voice called out and I approached her, smiling.

“Am I late?” I asked, looking around.

“Not by much, but don’t worry. Carl, my sister, and Ash are inside, but her fiancé has not yet arrived. Thus you’re not the last one to arrive.”

She took me by the arm and led me inside. I looked around, and the first thing I noticed was the aseptic color. It looked like a hospital. No color, no warmth. So different from my café.

The glass walls overlooking the street were covered with heavy gray drapes, and the only light came from the iron structures hanging from the ceiling. It was horrible, and its name betrayed every expectation:
Sensation
.

What was going through Ashley’s mind when she chose to take her family to a place like this? She probably did it to show everyone what she could afford. Or better yet, to show me.

Her family had never cared about those trivialities. She was from a well-to-do family, but they certainly didn’t love ostentation.

“Zoe, darling, what a pleasure to see you again!” Ashley’s mother took me in a warm embrace, and it reminded me of how nice it was to be close to her. The same woman who’d taken care of me, with the help of her sister, Mag, after my parents’ accident. They were the closest thing to a family I had left, and I appreciated everything they’d done for me and Olivia.

“Josy, we only see each other on Saturdays. How do you manage to always look younger each week?”

“You sure know how to charm an old woman.”

“Don’t talk nonsense; fifty’s the new forty!” I cried out as I winked, and then noticed the person sitting at her side.

I tried to mask my annoyance at seeing her again. She was always perfect, disgustingly beautiful. How could women like that exist? It wasn’t fair. At least they shouldn’t be allowed to mix with us mere mortals.

“Hi, Ashley.”

“Zoe, I’m so happy you accepted my dinner invitation.” She smiled, and I found her behavior very strange. She never spoke to me so sweetly.

She stood and moved to hug me.

Caught by surprise, I didn’t immediately return her hug, though I finally managed to put my hand on her back.

“I’ve missed you so much! I couldn’t wait to come back and see you.”

“Oh . . . yeah. Me too.” I was confused and disoriented by all of this affectionate behavior.

Perhaps the New York air had done her well. Or perhaps love had turned her into a better person. I’d learned to not let anything amaze me.

I sat down next to Josy and in front of the seat meant for Ash’s fiancé.

The only positive thing about the place was the music wasn’t louder than our voices, and we could talk without straining our voices. Even if it was all Ashley telling us about her fabulous life in Manhattan and how her fantastic fiancé never let her want for anything, all the while moving her left hand in a way that showed off her enormous rock.

My purse fell to the ground and just as I bent down to get it, Ash’s voice went up a few notches, enough to almost make me fall over.

“Drew, my love, I thought you’d never get here!” she chirped.

“Darling, I’m sorry. I got held up.”

My heart rocketed to my throat and my head started to spin. It couldn’t be. My ears were playing a bad trick on me. Or maybe I’d just been working too hard.

It definitely had to be my fatigue.

I held on to the edge of the table to pull myself up, but I wasn’t ready for what awaited me. I would have never been ready.

It couldn’t be . . .

How could fate play such a cruel trick on me? What the hell had I done to deserve this?

I composed myself and told myself to focus on the folds of my purse as I gathered my thoughts. But I couldn’t see anything. I could only concentrate on his voice.

That voice.

My God, why?

Fear had taken over my body. I couldn’t find the courage to raise my eyes. I was paralyzed by the anxiety of watching all of my fears materialize right in front of me.

I watched my fingers trace circles on the black leather of my clutch. They were shaking.

I tried to control my breathing, performing the exercises I did when I felt a panic attack coming, but Ashley’s voice penetrated my thoughts, preventing me from continuing.

“This is Drew, my fiancé.”

Drew, not Andrew. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. They only had very similar voices. Too similar.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you all. Please forgive my delay. Work never ends,” he said, causing my breath to come to a halt. “In any case, Ash loves to call me Drew, but I’m Andrew. Andrew Cooper.”

That was the moment I stopped listening. I was squeezing my clutch so tightly that my knuckles had turned white, and then with a strength I didn’t know I had, I raised my eyes.

The world, at least my world, stopped.

Perhaps no one had noticed, but when my gaze locked with his, it felt as though the earth beneath us started to shake.

Or maybe it was that my soul had recognized its rightful owner.

In that moment, I realized how much our time apart hadn’t changed a thing. I loved him as much as I had four years earlier, while he looked at me with the same detachment as he had back then.

“Zoe?”

My name had never been pronounced in such an impersonal tone, and yet so paradoxically . . . it had never sounded as beautiful to me as it did then.

“Hi, Andrew.” My greeting was almost a whisper.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Mag stiffen. She understood who the guest really was. I hoped with all my heart that she would restrain herself from causing a scene. This was not the time or place.

“You know each other?” Ashley asked, astonished. But I had known her my entire life, and I knew perfectly well that she was lying.

She knew. I could see it in her eyes.

She’d done this on purpose. I was certain of it. What were the odds that she in New York, a city with millions of people, would become engaged to Andrew?

My Andrew.

I was no genius at statistics, but if someone had asked me the chances of this, I would have answered: none. Pretty much the same probability as winning the lottery.

I watched her carefully, and noticed the strange fold in her lips. Her expression was one of total satisfaction. She’d accomplished her goal: to wound me. But it wasn’t her plan that hurt me—her evilness had rolled off my back for years.

The thing that dug a hole in my chest was the confirmation of the doubts that had haunted me for years: Andrew was not against emotional relationships; he simply had never wanted me.

God, if that didn’t hurt.

“Not really,” I said atonally, returning to the present.

“She worked at Alfredo’s restaurant. She was just one of the waitresses.” Then brushing back Ashley’s hair, he concluded, “I used to go there every day, and so we got . . . acquainted.”

“Right,” I confirmed. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Andrew.” He nodded without directing another word toward me. Despite the fact that we were standing right in front of each other, he wouldn’t look into my eyes.

I, on the other hand, wanted to lose myself there. I felt like I’d been catapulted into a movie—a horror movie.

Just a waitress.

The world swirled around in my head. And for the first time, I wanted to strangle him. He could have simply said we were acquaintances, without needing to get into specifics, avoiding denigrating what had been between us.

“What exactly do you do, Andrew? Ash never went into any detail,” Carl asked, as he brought a glass of wine to his lips. I mentally thanked him for shifting the attention toward something else.

“I work in my father’s company.” As he spoke, he caressed Ash’s blonde hair. It was a gesture so intimate and so natural that it caused my stomach to clench. I didn’t want to look at them, but my eyes were fixated, and I couldn’t manage to move them. His gaze was turned toward Carl, who was seated at the head of the table. “Essentially, we acquire companies that are in trouble, fix them up, and reorganize them. Then we sell them at a higher price.” He calmly explained the things I already knew. He had told me during one of the many nights we’d spent together.