The car’s engine roared to life. My pain was ebbing now, its angry fire fading as the darkness returned. I felt empty. Hollow. Numb.
Why did it have to be tonight?
I asked him in my head.
Why are you doing this? Where are you taking me?
“Where are you taking me?” Alexa asked as she took my outstretched hand.
To my bed,
sang my body, sparking at the sensation of her palm sliding against mine. Our fingers entwined effortlessly.
“I told you,” I said. “It’s a surprise.” I tugged lightly, drawing us down the front steps. As I scanned oncoming traffic for a cab, I wished, absurdly, that I had arranged to have a limousine waiting. What was it about this woman that brought out the extravagant in me?
Shaking off the unsettling thought, I flagged down a taxi and gave the driver an address in Midtown while opening the door for Alexa. Once we were settled inside, I felt bold enough to reach for her hand again. “Tell me about your day.”
Alexa shrugged. “It was uneventful. I was in class.”
“Well then,” I said, trying for once in my life to sound like my mother, “what did you learn at school today?”
She laughed. It was a good sound, throaty and rich. “Do you really want the boring details?”
“The details wouldn’t bore me. I had to take a class on the intersection of law and social psychology one semester, and I found the law part fascinating.”
Alexa crossed one leg over the other and shifted on the seat to lean closer to me. “You know…at first, I thought you were lying about your degree.”
“You did? Why?” This was intriguing. Especially since she looked a little chagrined. It was a cute expression on her.
“Well, people with a master’s in counseling psychology aren’t usually bartenders.”
“Alexa Newland!” I exclaimed, pretending shock. “You are a snob.”
“Pot, kettle,” she singsonged.
“Low blow. Just because I have the snob gene on both sides doesn’t mean that it’s expressing.”
Her face became serious and she covered my hand with hers. “Just so we’re clear: in no way am I here with you tonight because you’re Edward Darrow’s daughter. I’m sitting in this cab because,” and here she smiled, “you wouldn’t leave me alone, and I owe you for two weeks of chai.”
I blinked, taken aback by the sudden change in trajectory. I’d had plenty of experience with women who were interested in me only because of my last name, and she had exhibited none of the indicators. Hell, if I hadn’t kept after her for two solid weeks, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. So why did she feel the need to explicitly mention that she didn’t care about my family’s fortune or political connections?
She must have noticed my surprise, because she quickly hurried to clarify. “I just didn’t want you to ever have a moment of doubt that I might be gold-digging. I made it here from small town Wisconsin entirely on my own steam.” Her shrug was self-conscious, but elegant even so. “Sometimes I think my mother believes I’m a changeling.”
I smiled and angled my body toward hers, wanting to ease the tension I could feel in the tight press of her fingertips against the back of my hand. Hopefully, I could convince her that she didn’t have to prove herself to me.
“Well, just so we’re clear: I’m glad you’re not after my money, because while my grandfather did leave me a hundred-eighty-million-dollar trust fund, I can’t touch a penny of it unless I marry a man.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?” When I nodded, she rested her free hand on my thigh. The warmth of her palm soaked through the light wool and into my skin. “That is…awful.”
“That money comes with a lot of baggage that I’d rather not deal with. I’ll do fine on my own. And believe me, there are still plenty of perks that I enjoy.” I tried to make my voice sound mysterious. “As you’re about to discover.”
At that moment, the cab pulled over next to the curb. I paid the driver, hopped out, and hurried over to Alexa’s side. “Shall we?”
She looked around in confusion. I didn’t blame her. She was looking for a restaurant, and there weren’t any in sight. Struggling not to betray my excitement, I led her toward a nondescript black door between two high-end clothing boutiques. When I rang the bell, an intercom crackled to life.
“Good evening,” said a male voice. Alexa turned toward me, clearly puzzled. I grinned.
“Valentine Darrow and Alexa Newland,” I said.
“Of course. Thank you.”
The door opened. When I gestured for Alexa to precede me, she raised her eyebrows and smiled faintly. She was intrigued. Good.
“Welcome to Stella’s.” The voice belonged to a middle-aged man wearing a tuxedo. He shut the door silently behind me and then led us down a long hallway lit intermittently by tall, thick candles set into wall sconces. At one point, Alexa looked over her shoulder, as though checking to make sure I was still there. I had a feeling that the expression on my face was bordering on smug, but here, it was hard not to be.
When the corridor emptied out into the dining room, the host paused. Alexa gasped quietly. I moved to stand next to her, daring to thread one arm around her waist, and wondered what impressed her the most. The crystal chandeliers? The elegant, three-tiered fountain that took up the center of the room, ending in a stone basin populated by large, orange koi? The immaculately attired band playing jazz music on a dais?
“Your table is this way,” said the host. He directed us to an alcove, out of sight of the musicians but with a perfect view of the fountain. “Enjoy your meal.”
I pulled out a chair for Alexa. She looked bemused, but didn’t try
to stop me. Once we were both seated, she reached for my hands and squeezed hard. I let my thumbs gently caress her knuckles, enjoying the sight of her so clearly excited. A light flush had settled high on her cheekbones, and her eyes were glittering. Coming here had been the right thing to do—I had no doubts now.
“This is incredible,” she breathed. “What is this place? Where am I?”
Where am I?
The ground was hard and cold. Wind howled somewhere above me, and a drop of moisture landed on my cheek. I was outside, and it was starting to rain. But I had been in a car, hadn’t I? Had I? I tried to open my eyes, but pain roared through my head at even the slightest movement. Concussion—a bad one.
I could do nothing but lie still. I lay there forever with the night sky wheeling around me. There was the cold and the pain and the keening of the wind—nothing else. What if the memories I had of my life, what if they were a dream, and this was the reality? What if Alexa had been only a figment of my imagination? What if I had always been like this, broken and bleeding and utterly alone?
Or perhaps I was dead, and this was hell.
And then I heard them—low in the distance at first, but rising in pitch as they approached. Sirens. They sounded like church bells on Easter morning. It didn’t matter that they might be a mirage, or perhaps even another, crueler aspect of my eternal punishment. The sensation was one of buoyancy—of rising up, like a bubble climbing from dark depths toward the surface, and sunlight. Hope.
The world was blinding. I closed my eyes immediately, taking shelter from the devastating brilliance. The air tasted dry and smelled like disinfectant. Steady beeps rose over the whirring hum of some kind of machinery. I lay on something soft and warm, and I was very, very thirsty. Why was I in the hospital?
Oh no, Alexa. Was she here, too?
The thought propelled my shoulders from the hospital bed. But as soon as I moved, the pain came down like a giant fist, cracking my head open. I groaned over the ringing in my ears.
“Oh my God, oh my God, doctor, nurse, someone—please—she’s awake!”
It was my mother’s voice. Very slowly, I turned my head to the left and forced myself to confront the dazzling light. After a few agonizing moments, the world swam into focus. My mother was wearing a navy suit and matching hat. The hat had a feather in it. Diamonds glinted at her earlobes and neck. They hurt my eyes. She was looking down at me and squeezing my hand.
“Valentine, Valentine, can you hear me? Oh, sweetie, I’ve been so worried—”
I tried to speak, but nothing happened. I swallowed painfully and tried again. “Mom.”
She burst into tears and held my hand against her cheek. I focused on taking slow, even breaths, and gradually, the pain in my head receded to background noise. While my mother fussed over me, I tried to remember. Why was I here? What had happened?
I could remember Monday night. The double-whammy of a Physiology presentation in the morning and a Neuroanatomy test that afternoon had fried my brain. When I got home and told Alexa about my day, she dragged me to the couch. We spent the evening watching zombie movies and eating popcorn and making out like teenagers.
We went to bed. We made love. I could recall in vivid detail the way she had moved under me, the sound of her calling my name, the peace I’d felt as I curled myself around her afterward. But I couldn’t remember anything after that. Not a damn thing. Panic welled up from my gut, and the tempo of those steady beeps increased.
“Mom,” I croaked. “What happened to me?”
My mother blotted the skin under her eyes with a tissue. Her mascara was streaking. “You were…” She paused, and her grip on my hand tightened. “You were mugged, Valentine. He—he stabbed you.”
Mugged? Stabbed? I started to shake my head, then stopped. “Where? When?” I could hear my heart racing on the monitor. How could I have forgotten all of that? How much time had passed?
My mother looked frightened. “Can you really not remember?”
“No,” I whispered. Where Tuesday should have been, there was nothing. Nothing between falling asleep wrapped around Alexa and waking up here. Panic clogged my throat. How badly was I hurt?
“Tuesday night,” my mother was saying. “They found you on Canal Street, near the bridge.”
I could move my fingers and my toes, but was afraid to try anything larger. Canal Street? Near the Manhattan Bridge? Why would I have been down there? Had Alexa been hurt, too? Desperate for information, I sucked in too deep a breath and started coughing. My ribs were on fire and my throat was aching. I gripped the handles of the hospital bed hard, trying to still the spasms that racked my body.
“Where—” I gasped, when the fit had past. Blinking away the tears, I looked up into the concerned face of my mother. “Where is Alexa?”
When she hesitated, I felt the world start to disintegrate. Despair loomed like a tsunami, dark and inevitable. Oh no, God no, no, she couldn’t be— But then my mother sighed sharply and pursed her lips.
“Downstairs. Waiting in the lobby.”
I saw red. My hands were suddenly claws, digging into smooth metal. The threatening tide turned to vapor in the face of my anger. What kind of mother had the heart to do a thing like that?
How dare she? How fucking dare she?
“I promised to tell her when you woke up,” she added, as if that somehow made it acceptable for her to have denied my lover—whom she had met on more than one occasion—access to my bedside while I fought for my life.
“How long?” I grated.
“Three days.” Her words were clipped, her tone superior. In that moment, I hated her.
“I want her here. Now.”
“Valentine—”
“I’m awake, God damn it. Call her.”
“You need to talk to the detective who has been here every—”
“Later. I need Alexa now.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have her—”
“Six-four-six. Five-five-five. One-three-one-three. Now call her, or I’ll find someone who will.”
She extracted her cell phone from the bowels of her navy purse and slowly dialed the number while I lay trembling with rage and adrenaline. I strained to hear Alexa’s voice through the tiny speaker poised next to my mother’s bejeweled ear.
“She’s asking for you. Room 803,” was all my mother said before hanging up the phone. She rose from the chair and smoothed her suit regally. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, not quite meeting my gaze.
“Fine.” I was too angry to trust myself with more than a monosyllable. Once she had gone, I stayed focused on the door, fractals of anticipation blooming in my stomach. A bank of windows stretched out horizontally to the left of the door, but the blinds were pulled. I cursed at them under my breath as the seconds stretched out interminably.
The faint sounds of a commotion trickled under the door. “Hey, slow down!” someone called. I smiled. That, at least, didn’t hurt. And then the door crashed open, and Alexa was standing in the threshold, fists clenched at her sides. In three days, she had noticeably lost weight. Shadows partially encircled her wild eyes, and when she saw me, she gasped.
“Alexa.” I meant for those three, perfect syllables to tell her what my appearance obviously didn’t—that I was going to be fine. But my voice broke in the middle, and the next thing I knew, she was next to the bed and her arms were awkwardly wrapped around me and she was kissing my forehead, my cheeks, my lips.
“Val Val oh sweetheart thank God I was so scared…”
I breathed in as deeply as I dared. Her familiar, beloved scent eased the ache in my head and the dryness of my throat. I ran my fingers through her silky hair, savoring her nearness. Alexa, my touchstone. As long as she was with me, I could get through anything. Even this.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “So, so sorry.”
“Shh, love,” she said, resting her head next to mine on the pillow and lightly caressing my cheek with one finger. “It’s not your fault.”
I leaned forward slightly to touch her lips to mine. “No, I mean, I’m sorry about my mother. I wish to God that I’d thought about power of attor—”
The sound of someone clearing his throat made me pause. I looked past Alexa’s shoulder at a pale, slender man wearing a white coat and khaki pants and holding my chart. A pair of tinted, horn-rimmed glasses partially obscured his eyes. He was staring at me with an unnerving intensity.