Playing for Love at Deep Haven (7 page)

“Scotch,” he
said softly, placing the bottles and glasses on the coffee table before her,
then retreating to a wingback chair to her right. “You choose.”

She looked up at
him. “Twelve year. Neat.”

“Not eighteen?”

“Let’s start out
simple.”

He poured two
glasses and handed her one. Her fingers brushed his, and their eyes smashed
into each other for a second before she looked away. A bolt of heat raced from
her fingers to her gut and then lower, where it pooled, pulsing with awareness.
She scooted back into the couch, curling her feet up under her, watching as he
propped
his bare feet up on a matching footrest. She took a
shaky breath, bringing the glass to her lips.

“What are we
toasting to?” he asked with a side-glance.

“I don’t know,”
she answered honestly, pausing.

“To Vile and Z?”

She shook her
head, praying he wouldn’t make a toast to Violet-like-the-flower, or her face
would betray too much. She braced herself.

“To writers?”

She nodded,
relieved, and took a small sip, letting the amber liquid burn a path down her
throat. It felt soothing. It felt melting and welcoming. When she looked up, he
was grinning at her.

“So, your mom’s
still a nurse in Portland?’

She nodded.
“Yep. I’m supposed to spend the weekend after next with her. On my way home.”

“How is she?”

“The same.
Working too much. How about your folks? Your family’s still in Upstate New
York?”

“Cape Vincent.
They’ll never leave.”

She swirled her
glass and kept her eyes down. She remembered that his relationship with his
parents had been unhappy and strained, and from his tone, it seemed that hadn’t
changed.

“You see them?”

“Not much,” he
answered tightly.

“Your sister? She’s
good?” asked Violet, taking another sip, relaxing into their conversation as
she remembered things about him, facts and details that had been forgotten for
years. It was like opening up the file labeled “Zach Aubrey” in her head and
finding out it was still full.

“Cora? Oh, sure.
I just talked to her. She’s a really successful historical architect, like,
restoring old houses and apartments, that sort of thing. She lives in
Manhattan.”

“Is she
married?”

“Nah. She just
broke up with some
jerkoff
from London.”

“Not a fan of
her boyfriends, huh?”

“She’s my
sister. It’s hard to find a good one.”

“Tell me about
it,” she sighed, then realized how awkward her comment was and rushed to say
something else. “I remember her visiting that one weekend.”

“She liked you.”

“I liked her,”
said Violet softly. “You said you live in Manhattan too?”

“I do,” he
answered. “West Village. I rent a place. I’m not there that often, you know? I
tour a lot as a backup guitarist with some of the bands I write for. I can be
gone months at a time. When I’m in New York, I mostly write for Cornerstone
Records. But I’m getting sick of that gig.” He frowned at his Scotch, swirling
it around before taking a sip, then shrugged. “And you’re in Greenwich.”

She nodded,
feeling unaccountably disappointed that his life afforded so little stability
and, she sensed from his tone, so little satisfaction.

“How did
that
happen?”

“Don’t sound so
shocked.”

“Vile, you were
all into Allen Ginsberg and Thoreau at Yale. Antiestablishment. Beatnik. You
wore those low-cut ’60s tops that made me crazy. No offense, but it’s hard to
picture you in Greenwich.”

Those low-cut ’60s tops that made me crazy.
He tossed off
that comment like he was remarking on the weather. Her heart skipped a beat and
she felt her face flush, which annoyed her. Greatly. Hugely.

“None taken,”
she said as tartly as possible, then added, “
Shep
and
I lived there together.”

“How long ago
did you two break up?”

She took a
bracing gulp of Scotch, still avoiding his eyes, staring at the fire for a
moment before answering. “We didn’t.”

He practically
bolted out of the chair beside her. “Wait! What? You’re still together? I
thought you said—”

“He died, Zach. Over
a year ago.” She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes.

“Shit.” Zach
winced, sitting back down and putting his glass on the table. “Violet, I had no
idea. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

She swallowed
back the lump in her throat and downed the rest of her Scotch in one long gulp,
then held the glass out to him. “It was an accident. A texting kid hit him while
he was walking to work.”

“Christ! That’s
terrible.” He moved quickly to reopen the bottle of Scotch and refill her
glass.

She took another
sip. “Worst day of my life.”

He stood in
front of her for a minute, across the coffee table from her, and she knew he
was trying to figure out if he should hug her or comfort her. She hoped he
didn’t. She hoped he did. She was a mess on so many levels. Finally, he sat
back down.

“You two were
together a long time.”

“Almost eight
years.”

“Were you
married?” he asked.

She shook her
head, biting her upper lip as her eyes welled.

“Engaged?”

She shook her
head again, remembering the police giving her the battered little box they’d
found in the park across the street. “Almost.”

“I’m sorry,
Violet. I’m so damn sorry.” He raised his glass toward her. “To
Shep
. He was a good man. He was . . . good to you.”

She lifted her
glass to her lips, hearing the unspoken words in her head as though he’d said
them:
Better than I was.

***

Better than I was. That’s for damn sure.

Zach was genuinely
sorry to learn about
Shep
Smalley’s death. Oh, there
were many times during his sophomore year at Yale that he’d seen Violet with
Shep
and wished Shepherd Fucking Smalley was dead. But as
the weeks turned into a month and whatever window he’d had to win her back
decisively closed, he’d seen how good
Shep
was for
her. He was that easygoing, confident, mannerly sort of American blue blood who
was fifth-generation Yale and umpteenth-generation gentleman. By the time he
realized what he’d lost, Zach knew he couldn’t compete with
Shep
Smalley.

Zach had gotten
his first tattoo, in fact, after the first time he saw them kissing. He’d been
walking from class back to his dorm when he passed them under the bridge that
connected the east and west sides of the dorm. His heart clutched, seeing her
held by the handsome blond frat boy, her head tilted back as another man kissed
her lips. Zach got drunk on cheap bourbon that night and woke up with a tiny
violet on the inside of his wrist, over his pulse. It was the only tattoo that really
meant anything important to him. The others meant things, but that was the only
one that truly mattered.

“He was a good
man,” Violet said. She wiped her eyes, then turned to him with a weak smile.
“Please talk about something else.”

“Yeah! Of
course. Um, so, I write music . . .”

“You were always
really talented, Zach.” Her smile grew stronger, and she sniffled once, taking
another sip of Scotch. “That’s so great. What have you written? Anything I
know?”

“Yeah, um, I’m
sure.” Which sellout rocker anthem was he least ashamed of? Hmm. Remarkably
difficult choice since they were pretty much all crap. “Have you heard of ‘Driving
Rain’? By the Mechanics?”

“The Mechanics?
They’re, like,
heavy
heavy
metal, right?”

He nodded.
“Yeah. How about ‘
Slammin
’ in the Sun’? By Savage
Sons?”

She shook her
head, looking uncomfortable.

“Doesn’t matter.
It’s all shit anyway,” he said. “I haven’t written anything good in a long time.
But that’s about to change.”

“The stuff you
wrote in college was great,” she said, smiling encouragingly.

“The stuff
you
wrote in college was great.”

“The poetry? It
was okay.”

Okay? Is she crazy? Her poetry was epic.
He looked at
her downcast eyes. “I expect you’ve written a dozen books of poetry by now?”

“No. I wrote one
novel.” She averted her eyes and her cheeks flushed salmon.

He knew about
her book, but he wasn’t ready to open that can of worms quite yet. “Why no more
poetry?” he asked instead.

“It doesn’t
sell,” she said sheepishly. “I never told this to anyone, but I sent a
collection to an editor at Masterson. The publishing company. I never heard
anything back from them. It wasn’t good enough.”

“I doubt that,”
he said, his voice rough and angry.

Zach knew of Masterson
House Publishing. They were owned by the same media conglomerate that owned
Cornerstone Records. He passed their floors in the elevators whenever he was at
the in-house studio cutting a record or using one of the writing rooms. The
editors, getting on and off the elevators, all looked like stuffy, frustrated,
old-school suits. He suddenly hated them all for not giving Violet’s work a
chance.

“But that didn’t
discourage you,” he said. “You still write it, don’t you?”

“Not very often
anymore. And if I do, I don’t show it to anyone. It’s just for me. I can’t help
it, I guess.”

“It would be a
huge fucking loss to the world for you to stop, Vile. I mean it. Your stuff was
the best—”

“Zach—” she
started to protest, but the phone rang somewhere in the house, and she jumped a
foot. “Wow, that’s loud! Should we answer it?”

“Nah. The
machine will get it.”

They paused,
listening to the machine beep.

“
Yo
, Zachariah, you shithead! I called you a thousand times.
I just bitched out Johnny John and he finally gave me your number. I don’t. Want.
Ace. I want
you
. Think about it. Forty.
Forty green, Z! Don’t let me down,
wanker
. Call me
back.”

The machine
beeped again, and Violet’s eyes showed dry surprise. “Charming. Friend of
yours?”

Chapter
6

Zach huffed
loudly, his chiseled face souring before her eyes. Whoever that was on the
answering machine, Zach was not happy to hear from him. He rubbed his neck with
his hand, then picked up his glass and downed the remainder of his Scotch.
Violet leaned forward to uncap the bottle and refilled his proffered glass. A
little bit dripped onto the leather chair where he was sitting, and he swiped
at it with the hem of his T-shirt, teasing her with a glimpse of his flat, tan
stomach.

“Now I’ll smell
like a distillery.”

Violet capped
the bottle and placed it on the end table between them, cuddling up into the
corner of the couch. He pulled the blanket off the top of his chair and handed
it to her. She realized she’d shifted closer to him, but she didn’t care. The
Scotch and the fireplace were making her feel warm and cozy, and she was
surprised to discover how comfortable she felt with Zach, how easy it was to
slip back into a friendship with him. She winced internally at the word
friendship
, then forced herself to
lighten up.

“Whatever will
your mother say?”

He grinned.
“You’re getting drunk, Violet.”

“So what? I’m a
big girl.”

“You’re not
that
big—”

“You’re evading
the question, sir. Who was that charming character on the phone, and for what
is he offering forty?”

“You always did
have a way with words.”

“It’s my gift.
Now, spill it.”

“
That
was Malcolm Singer, lead singer of
Savage Sons.”

“His last name
is
Singer
? Well, that’s original. He
didn’t have a thesaurus around when he chose that name?”

Zach tilted his
glass and clinked hers gently. “Spoken with the disdain of a true writer.”

“Quit side
barring via flattery.”

“Okay. My agent
worked out an aggressive deal with Cornerstone because my songs have been
pretty successful. I generally get a five-thousand dollar advance and then the
royalties come much later, after the song’s been tweaked, recorded and
launched. Sometimes it takes years to see a big check. Malcolm needs four songs
right now and he’s offering me double the advance upfront: forty thousand
dollars out of pocket to finish his new album.”

“With royalties
later?”

“Yeah.
Probably.”

“And you are . .
.?”

“Turning him
down. Obviously.”

Her mouth
dropped open. “Because you’ve developed lunacy in the decade since we knew one
another?” She sat up straighter. “We’re artists, Zach! When someone offers you
forty thousand dollars, you say ‘Thank you very much’ and write a few songs!”

He took a deep
breath. “I have to get off the hamster wheel, Violet. I’m wasting my life
writing shit songs for mediocre bands. At some point I have to say no.”

“And you choose
now
? Now, when someone’s offering you
that much money?” She tried not to think about her own dwindling bank account.

“Since when does
money mean so much to you?” he asked.

She thought she
saw disappointment in his eyes and in the way his body shifted subtly away from
her, and it made her feel bad, like she was falling short of his expectations
or something. Not that she owed him anything.

“Since I became
an adult,” she snapped. And s
ince I felt
the fear that comes with a drastically dwindling bank account, an unstable
income and writer’s block as far as the eye can see.

He winced,
speaking with derision, “An adult who lives in tony Greenwich.”

“So?” She was
playing into his suspicions but she didn’t set him straight. She didn’t owe him
explanations about the state of her finances.

“So write
another book as good as the last one and I bet you make a million this time.”

Her mouth
dropped open and her eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“It was good,
Violet.
Me and Then You
? It was
really good.”

Oh, my God.
Her breath hitched and her whole body
slumped in wind-knocked-out-of-lungs surprise, except for her eyes, which shot
up, capturing his. She searched his face and the earnestness there made her
eyes water.

“You read my
book.”

He shrugged,
taking another sip of Scotch.

“Zach?”

“Yeah. I read
it.”

“It was chick
lit. A beach read.”

He blushed,
which she guessed was an uncommon reaction for him because he reached up and rubbed
his cheeks with his palms. “I knew the author.”

“What did you
think?” she asked, half dreading the answer.
Me and Then You
was a thinly veiled, fictionalized account of her
and Zach’s story. In a million years, she never thought he’d read it, and she
certainly didn’t think she’d ever see him again and discuss it with him.

He found her
eyes and held them, and Violet perceived such sadness in his, such longing, she
flinched, her heart beating faster and her skin tingling with awareness.

“It was about
you and me . . . ,” he whispered, twisting his body so he leaned over his
armrest, his face closing the distance between them. “And it made me realize
all over again what I’d . . . how much I . . . Violet . . .”

“I should go to
bed,” she said abruptly, turning away from him and scooting forward until her
feet hit the floor. She folded the blanket neatly, unable to look over at him
as he leaned back into his chair. She was overwhelmed by the tone of his voice
and the stark vulnerability that looked so out of place on his tough face. She
was embarrassed and confused, and her body was not cooperating with her plan to
maintain boundaries, trembling and quivering in places she’d forgotten were a
part of her anatomy.

“Well,” he said,
“you stayed for more than one drink. Thanks for that.”

The forced
lightness in his voice made her look up. “Zach, we’re really different people
now. I write chick lit. You write heavy metal. I’m Greenwich, Connecticut, and
you’re Greenwich Village. I’m Ralph Lauren, and you’re Black Sabbath. You turn
down thousands of dollars for a single song, which I think is terribly foolish
and . . .” She bit her lip, shaking her head. “I’m not here to rekindle a
college friendship or catch up with you. I don’t need distractions. I need to
write.”

His eyes had
narrowed as she spoke, and when she finished, he was looking at her with that
disappointed expression again. Like she was all about money and work and status
now when she used to have depth and meaning. She chafed at his misperception of
her, but she’d partially chosen her words in an effort to alienate him. She knew
it was for the best. It would put distance between them—distance that she
needed, that would keep away feelings confused by ancient history.

“Whatever you
say, Vile.”

“I’m not trying
to be rude, I—”

“Rude? Hell,
Violet, I was just trying to be friendly.”

She stood up, clenching
her jaw, annoyed by his insouciance. “Yeah. Kissing me earlier was
really
friendly.”

He stood up,
too, towering over her. “Not like you were pushing me away.”

“Try it again
and you’ll get a different response.”

He smirked at
her, his thumb rubbing his lower lip again as she tried to look irritated with
him. Her traitorous eyes darted to his lips and then back up.

“
More
of a response?” he asked, his voice
low and gravelly.

She imagined her
knee connecting with his balls. “Yeah. Definitely more of a response . . . in
your
groin
.”

It took her only
a second to realize that while she was alluding to injury, his eyes flashed
like he’d taken her meaning to be that he’d get hard.
Shit! That’s not what I meant!
But her discomposure was just the
chink in her armor that he needed to press his advantage.

His arm hooked
around her waist, yanking her up against his body as his lips found their mark.
She pushed against his chest halfheartedly before her hands went slack and she
gave herself over to the pressure of his tongue parting her lips. She slipped
her hands up the landscape of the toned muscles under his T-shirt, sliding
slowly over the contours of his neck until her fingers sank into his hair,
tilting his head so that her tongue had better access to his mouth.

His other arm
wrapped around her body, and he forced her hips up against him, grinding into
her, the inadvertently promised response to a second kiss unmistakable,
straining against his jeans. It flitted through her mind that she should raise
her knee just to call his bluff, but her body had turned electric as he held
her, and doing anything to jeopardize the heaven of full-body contact with him was
not an option. So she forgot about him breaking her heart. She forgot about him
rejecting her. She forgot that she had a deadline bearing down on her. She
forgot about her money woes and
Shep
dying and the
mix-up with Deep Haven. She forgot about everything but Zach Aubrey and how he
made her feel, how he had always made her feel. She leaned into him, cradling
the rock-hard bulge between her hips that prodded her through the thick
material of his jeans, frustrating her even as it turned her insides to liquid
heat.

“Damn.” He
sighed and released her lips, softly pressing a trail down her cheek to her ear,
where he grabbed the soft skin between his teeth, biting lightly. His warm
breath made a shiver sail down her arm.

“Violet-like-the-flower,
I want you so bad,” he growled softly into her ear, drawing out the words so
slowly, her eyes almost rolled back in her head from wanting him. Muscles deep
in her body contracted, clenching, remembering.

As she closed her
eyes to lean into him, a verse passed through her mind.

Treacherous heart

Beaten, bloody

Sobbing yes

Wilts with shame.

Shame
. Her brain forced her to remember
that
 
he had been very clear,
heartbreakingly clear, once upon a time, that he didn’t care about her, didn’t
return her feelings for him, and that despite a weekend which had blown her
mind emotionally and physically, they were better off as friends. No matter how
good it felt to be held and kissed by him she’d be stupid to forget he had
turned his back on her once before. Despite that comment about regretting how
they left things, he’d never apologized, never explained himself.

Shame
on her. Shame on her for not being
smart enough to protect herself the moment she realized who he was. Shame on
her for wanting his hands to touch her. For wanting them everywhere – on and
inside every inch of her body
. Shame.

She went stiff
in his arms, except for her breasts, which brushed against his chest as she
tried to slow down her breathing. He drew back to look into her face, flinched
with what he found there, and released her.

Without another
word, she turned and walked quietly up the stairs.

***

Zach watched her
go, hands on his hips, not even attempting to conceal his rampant hard-on. He
ground his jaw in frustration. Being with her, touching her, was like taking a
hit of some ridiculously awesome-feeling drug that made him only want one
thing: to be naked, watching her head thrown back in orgasm as he buried
himself inside her over and over again.

He heard her
door slam upstairs.

“Fuck!” he
snarled, hating himself for wanting her to the point that he could barely think
about anything else. Hot, hot waves ran across his skin, and his erection
pulsed uncomfortably, urgently, against his jeans. He took a deep breath,
trying to ignore how much he wanted her, trying to think of anything but how
her nipples would taste in his mouth, how she once flooded hot and wet for him,
how it felt to sink into her so long ago. He swiped at his sweaty forehead with
his palm and adjusted his pants, trying to get more comfortable, but it didn’t
help.

Out of options,
he strode to the front door and opened it, grateful for the rush of cold air
that chilled his hot skin, almost painfully at first, then relieving as his body
started to relax. Only then did he think about something else that made its way
up to his consciousness, somehow bypassing his raging, urgent passion: her face
when he’d told her he wanted her.

Her face had
registered shame, and her eyes had said the rest:
Get your dirty, tattooed rocker hands off me.
Her cold, furious
eyes had bored into his, and he couldn’t reconcile them against the eager heat
of her body. Why? Because he said he wanted her? Had that offended her fine
sensibilities?

Am I not good enough for you anymore, Greenwich?
It’s all about status and money now, huh?
A decade with the
Smalleys
hadn’t done her any favors, that was for sure.
She’d changed from a deep, soulful poet into a spoiled, money-grubbing little
sellout.