In my Arms Tonight (NYC Singles Book 2) (9 page)

“Nuh-uh. I’m too health-conscious to poison my lungs with nicotine.” Kat locked her arms in front of her chest.

Paying no heed to her words, he lighted a cigarette and breathed out the first puff of polluted air.

Having that smoke around made her frown. Passive smoking was more dangerous than active smoking.

“Why haven’t you quit smoking yet?” Kat asked. “I’m sure you know how bad it is for your health.”

“Because I can’t.” Frustration was threaded through his voice. “And I don’t want to anymore.”

“You should try again. It’s common to fail the first few times. A friend of mine recently quit after struggling for years. There’s a lot of support available these days.”

“I’ve been smoking for too long to quit.” He tipped his head back.

“How long?”

“Over thirty years now.”

It took three seconds for her to process that. Then she gasped. “You started at sixteen? That’s underage. How can you harm your lungs at that age? And how did your parents not say anything?”

He peeled the cigarette away from his lips, eyeing her curiously. “I didn’t have parents.”

“What do you mean?”

Backtracking, Kat tried to recall what she’d read about his past in his biography. Well, there had been no mention of parents anywhere, but she’d not thought the omission important.

“Who did you grow up with, then? Relatives?” Flapping her hands to fight off the gray-black cloud of air that was winding its way towards her nose, she distanced herself from Alex.

“No one. I just drifted from foster family to foster family, I guess.” His gaze momentarily lost focus.

Absently, he pushed away a wayward strand of hair that had fallen into her eye, his thumb pad brushing her forehead in a languid, sensual curve.

Kat would have expected her muscles to clench at the unwanted bodily contact, but they loosened instead, as if Alex had done the most natural thing in the world by touching her.

The texture of his skin, rough and gritty, sent an earthquake down to her belly when his thumb traced the arch of her eyebrow. Eyebrows were hardly the most intimate part of the female anatomy. Even so, the spot between her thighs moistened with heat.

“So how did you… go to college? Who paid for it?” Her throat could have been stuffed with cotton.

“I worked for two years to save up enough so I could go to community college, because I didn’t want to take on student debt. In my second year, I was offered a full scholarship to transfer to Princeton, and I worked part-time to cover my living costs.”

Shadows darkened his irises and his hand moved to her head. He began stroking her hair, attention still miles away.

Finally realizing what he was doing with her hair, Alex withdrew his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t notice that I was… doing… whatever I was doing.”

Kat hoped her face didn’t convey her disappointment. His touch had gotten her so excited, but now she felt like a fool for overestimating the importance of a casual touch.

“It’s okay,” Kat assured him, awkwardly. “I didn’t mind.”

Alex’s right eye twitched. “I think I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

He tossed the burnt cigarette butt into a bin and pried another one from his pocket. Chain smoker, huh?

Turning right, he lengthened his stride. Kat didn’t know where they were heading, but she followed him, because she wanted to stay around him. She felt intimate walking around with him at night, talking.

Drawing her hands back, Kat visually catalogued his side profile. “Do you smoke only when you’re stressed or is it all the time?”

“I’ve never analyzed. Most time I don’t even realize what I’m smoking.” Alex stopped.

“So you smoke other stuff?” She was whipping out her notebook and pen already, ready to take notes. Wow, talk about twenty-four-seven job obsession.

“Other stuff?” Tapping the cigarette in his hand, he let the ashes float away with the breeze. “Like what?”

“Joints, perhaps?”

“That’s twice you’ve asked me about my recreational drug use.” The LSD thing earlier. He must be meaning that. “My answer remains a firm no.”

“Would that answer change if I said that this conversation was off the record? Which it is, by the way.” Kat tested the waters.

“No, it wouldn’t.” He looked at her like she’d insulted him.

Okay, point taken. Alex didn’t do drugs.

“Pity. I’d thought I could get something useful for my friend who works for the
Globe
.” She pretend-sulked.

“I’m sure there are enough pop stars getting high in NYC clubs to keep tabloids busy. They don’t need me.”

He put out the second cigarette by crushing it under his shoes, then produced a third one.

“You can’t have three in a row! You’ll turn into a chimney,” Kat exclaimed. Being the health freak that she was, she just couldn’t let this slide.

He smirked. “I don’t think that’s possible, darling.”

Darling
. That did a number on her heart. Alex was acting so different tonight. The superficial politeness was gone now and between the cracks in his guarded armor, she glimpsed a different man.

And she liked this man.

“Trust me. It’s entirely possible, the rate at which you’re going,” she retorted.

The big white letters printed on black and flight of stairs going down said they’d reached the subway station. It was time for her to go.

Shaking his head, Alex flicked the lighter and a flame leapt up, but then unexpectedly, he killed it and tossed the cigarette away.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s late.” A beat passed. Kat knew what was coming next. “Thank you for what you did today. You didn’t have to. You went out of your way, writing an article and all. I’m really—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You saved me and almost lost your chance at becoming mayor because of it,” Kat interjected.

He rubbed his palms together. “But just to be clear, I’m never saving you again. I can’t handle a repetition of this.” There was a glint of humor in his broodiness.

“Good. I’m never bailing you out after a fiasco like this again, either. I had to take the day off.” Burying her fingers in her hair, Kat combed through her hair, frizzed by the humidity.

Then they both looked at each other and then a smile split their lips. A moment of understanding passed.

“You’re lucky you saved a reporter. Imagine if you’d saved a teacher or a front-end developer. She wouldn’t be able to help you get out of this.”

“True.”

Making eye contact, Kat gave his upper arm a sympathetic squeeze. “Although things look really bad now, I’m sure that in a while, it’ll all go back to being like it was.”

“I hope so.” In the distance, the sky was pitch black. Alex’s hand dove into his pocket, and he retrieved his phone. “Can I have your number? If I need to call you in the future.”

“Of course.” Kat fed her number into his phone. She had his already, so it was only fair to exchange. And she was kinda hoping that he’d call her and ask her out for coffee sometime. Unlikely, but hey, it could happen.

When he got back to the main screen of his phone, Kat spotted his screensaver and her reporter’s brain went into overdrive.

It was a photo of a woman holding a baby and smiling.

Wrapped in a slightly out-of-fashion dress, the woman on the screen wasn’t young—mid-thirties, likely—but she was graceful with a nurturing aura around her. The woman’s eye color was the same as Alex’s—an endless dark brown.

Since she knew that Alex wasn’t married or in a domestic relationship, what was a picture like this doing in his phone?

“Who’s she?” Kat questioned, leaning closer to Alex.

“Guess,” Alex challenged.

“Your lover and the mother of your secret child?”

A full-bodied, spontaneous laugh ripped out of his throat. “You have a colorful imagination; I’ll give you that.” He waited for the hiccups of laughter to subside before continuing. “She’s my mother. Was my mother.”

A gasp wrestled out of Kat. “I thought you didn’t have parents.”

“She died when I was four.” That faraway look again, along with the same melancholic tone.

Reexamining the photo, she could see vague similarities between the baby and Alex. He wasn’t the cutest kid she’d seen, but he had a certain sense of purpose about him—as if he knew he was going to become someone important when he grew up. That was a weird thing to say about a baby.

“How did she die?” Rolling up the sleeves of her T-shirt, Kat fanned herself. It was really humid today.

“Road accident. Hit by a truck. She was dead before the paramedics got to her.” Alex’s narration was unemotional, distant.

“I’m sorry,” was all she could say.

They stood in silence. His expression become darker and darker. He looked her way a few times, like he was trying to say something, but held his tongue.

Clamping her lips, Kat hummed, hoping that would get him talking. She was curious to know more about him and all that curiosity wasn’t professionally motivated.

“Do you—” Alex hesitated. “No, it’s nothing.”

Lingering for a minute, Kat waited for him to do something. And he did—taking up the cigarette he’d abandoned earlier.

Smoke funneled out through the ‘o’ his mouth formed.

Exasperated, she stamped her foot. “Oh, come on. Talk about it instead of smoking it out. Whatever’s bothering you.”

His irises shifted uncertainly, then the tiredness of the day must have overtaken him, because he looked like he was considering telling her about what was bothering him. And from someone as tight-lipped and guarded as him, that would be nothing short of a miracle.

“Do you want to go to the Empire State Building?” he asked, out of the blue, drawing two tickets from his pocket.

Her eyes widened. “Right now?”

“The observation deck is open until two am. It’s only twelve. We could make it.” He fingered the tickets. “They expire tonight.”

It was late at night and she should be getting sleep so she didn’t faint at work tomorrow, but for some inexplicable reason, she wanted to spend more time with Alex. Hang around him and talk about… well, anything. Just hear his voice. Let her blood remain heated for a few more hours.

Sure, she barely knew Alex, but her heart said yes. And she always listened to her heart. Because it was never wrong.

Her response surprised even her. “Let’s go.”

An hour later, Kat found herself drinking in an ocean of buildings and lights, which enveloped her vantage point in the observatory from all sides. From the hundred and eighth floor of the Empire State Building, the world looked like a galaxy of bright stars. All hers.

Around her, the observation deck was empty except for Alex.

Striking a
Titanic
-esque pose, Kat spread her arms to her sides and pushed her chest out, shutting her eyes. But it was sticky, humid air that clung to her skin, not romantic sea breeze.

So much for that.

“I’m curious. Why did you have two tickets?” she said, walking over to Alex, who was clutching the metal grille.

He’d been gazing at the night sky intently, but her voice shook him out of his trance. “Sorry, did you say something?”

“I asked why you had two tickets.” This time, she was louder.

“Oh.” The lines on his face deepened. “I’d planned to come here with someone a year ago, but she couldn’t come. I’ve been carrying these tickets around since then. It’s stupid of me to hold onto them, but I have a hard time getting rid of things.”

Being a reporter, Kat hated unfinished stories, so she had to continue probing. “Who was she? Your girlfriend?”

Amusement crossed Alex’s features. “No, somebody who helped me when I was younger. A sort of motherly figure, I’d say. We lost contact with each other once I… graduated from high school.” That pause fell at an interesting place. Was he omitting something? “But I found her through one of my Facebook contacts a year ago.”

Kat urged him to go on with a slight nod. “So you contacted her and asked to meet her?”

“When I called her, she told me she had cancer and that she’d never been up on the Empire State Building. I thought I’d take her there.” Exhaling into the space between them, Alex started strolling around the observation deck. Kat remained close behind. “But her health was far worse than I thought. She died not long after I bought the tickets.”