Long Summer Nights (16 page)

“I always find that summer is the season for miracles.”

At that, Didi quirked her brow, before glancing over at Aaron. “Yes, it does seem so. We should do lunch,” Didi promised, and Jenn smiled bravely.

“I’d love to.”

“Do not cower. It is not becoming. If you must be with a man of prestige, you must show the world exactly why he is with you.”

“Like a trophy?” Jenn asked, possibly sarcastic.

“Is that what you are?”

“No,” Jennifer answered with as much dignity as a non-trophy could manage.

Didi rapped her with her tiny beaded bag. “Good. I do not like trophies. They are cold and metallic and hollow.”

“Why is he here?” she asked, hoping that the party meant that Aaron had finally given Didi his manuscripts. He hadn’t said anything, but their relationship had only just progressed past sex and coffee-buying into the murky waters of preliminary dating.

When Didi smiled at her this time, there was something resembling warmth. “You do not know? He is here because of you. And please do not assume those haughty diva airs because I do not share the limelight, and you would only embarrass yourself if you tried.”

“Not a problem,” promised Jennifer, taking another long slug of wine.

As the night dragged onward, Jennifer tried to keep up, but this was not her element. This was some bizarre scene from a bad science-fiction movie, possibly involving space travel, dinosaurs and clones.

With subtitles.

It was nearly midnight when the surprise of the evening appeared. Cecil Barksdale, live, in person and slightly intoxicated.

Father and son stayed on opposite sides of the room like opponents in a ring, but Cecil was doing a better job of ignoring his son than Aaron was doing of ignoring his father.

“Would you like to leave now?” whispered Jenn nervously, hopefully.

Aaron tilted back his head and laughed, which did not bode well. “You’re not having a good time?”

“Fabulous,” she told him through gritted teeth, hoping to get a surly remark in return, but he pretended to miss the sarcasm and smiled at her, a trophy smile, and she knew it couldn’t get any worse.

“Are you going to introduce me, Aaron?” It was his father, and things just got worse.

Aaron pulled her into the crook of his arm, affectionate and loving and all those things that she knew he despised. “Jenn, meet the man who inspired me. Cecil Barksdale, the world’s greatest undiscovered talent. Dad, this is Jenn Dade.”

Jenn.
He called her Jenn. He never called her Jenn. The father was similar to the son. Tall, lean, with the same cool blue eyes. Right now, those cool eyes were looking her over with an alcoholic-induced leer. Peachy.

Cecil raised his martini glass and flashed Jennifer a smile. “Lovely to meet you. A man needs his muse, I suppose. Aaron lost his long ago.”

“I’m assuming the martini is your muse of choice,” she answered politely with a nod to his glass.

Cecil started to laugh, and Aaron’s smile grew a little dimmer. At last.

“Actually, it’s gin,” Aaron corrected.

Cecil shook his head. “Actually you’re both incorrect. Sex is so much more satisfying than alcohol. Although sometimes the morning after can get awkward. Hangovers are much more painless.”

And do did one answer that?
Retreat.
“I’m getting chilled. I think I’ll get my jacket and we can leave.”

It wasn’t polite—she didn’t have a jacket, but she needed to get out of this place, leave this old man, and be alone with Aaron the Grouch. She missed him and she wanted him back.

When Aaron looked at her, he nodded once, and she knew he got the message. “Let me tell Martin goodbye. I’ll meet you at the door.”

She scurried to the back room to retrieve her sanity. Unfortunately—because it was a night for unfortunatelies—she had been followed by Aaron’s dad, who apparently sensed a captive audience. Gee.

“You must be very proud of your son,” she said, pretending to be polite while pretending to search for a pretend jacket.

“Proud of him? For what?”

“For his accomplishments,” she reminded him because he seemed to have forgotten them, or at least pretended to.

Cecil laughed then, and it wasn’t nice. “Oh. Yes.”

“So you wanted to be a writer as well?” she asked, not so nice, either, but her head was pounding and she didn’t like the way he disrespected his son. No parent should treat their child like that.

“I am a writer,” he said as arrogant as his son.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t familiar with your work.”

He leaned against the wall, swaying slightly, and she
didn’t bother to keep him upright. Cecil Barksdale would have to do that all on his own. Which, unfortunately, he did.

“You wouldn’t be familiar with anything I’ve done. Women with your particular talents wouldn’t understand.”

“What talents?” she shot back, feeling something new. Anger. Not pretending anymore.

“Oh, my darling Barbara, you are such a refreshing ingenue. I can see why he brought you out of the bedroom. You’re like a dollop of ice cream, without the cherry, of course.”

“The name’s Jennifer, bub,” she said, making a beeline for the door. “I think I should be getting back to Aaron.”

He stepped in front of her, blocking her way. “He was never as good as I was,” he bragged, sliding his hand down her arm. “But you probably know that.”

“I think I’m leaving,” she said, sidestepping him, but he cornered her against a cold white dresser and planted a wet kiss on her mouth, right before he was forcibly removed.

And thrown against the wall by his only son.

“Are you okay?” Aaron asked her, his eyes calm and cool and not nearly as angry as she’d hoped they would be.

Nervously she glanced in his father’s direction, but Cecil Barksdale went a lot more gently into the night than his son. His eyes were blurred and stricken as if Aaron had somehow hurt him. Impossible.

“I want to go home,” she said, because she felt slightly sick, and she didn’t want to spend the evening with witty, charming Aaron and his bastard of a father.

“As you wish,” he said, and they left the party with only the smallest of goodbyes.

Thank God.

A
ARON TOOK HER BACK
to the Four Seasons. He didn’t want to assume, but he wasn’t going to ask. He needed to hold her tonight. He needed to be with her tonight, he wanted to erase the memory of his father’s behavior.

Her skin was pale and chilled and he ran a tubful of hot water, undressing her carefully, because he owed her this.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting at the edge of the tub, watching as she slid down into the water. It wasn’t the moment to feel a hard punch of lust. He should be concerned and worried, and wanting to take care of her.

“Your father is a jerk.”

“
Bastard
is the better word,” he corrected, noting the exhausted smile on her face as she let the water lap over her, bare nipples riding above the surface. Her thighs parted, not in invitation but in languor, but it didn’t matter. His cock swelled and ached just the same.

“Did you know he would be there?” she asked, and he put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing the tight muscles because he wanted to touch her, and her sigh was pure bliss.

“He never leaves. My paternal doppelgänger.”

She covered his hand with one of her own. “I’m sorry.”

For long torturous minutes, he rubbed her shoulders, not allowing his fingers to steal lower. Comfort, he reminded himself. When the water turned cool, he handed her the towel and dried her off, lingering only slightly.

When he turned out the lights, she curled into his arms and promptly fell asleep, and he pressed a gentle kiss to her hair. Alone in the dark, his cock pulsed like some selfish heart, but being alone was no less than he deserved.

Bastard.

A
CCORDING TO THE HISTORY
books, the Spanish Inquisition had ended a few hundred years earlier, but Jenn knew the feeling. The summons had been hand-delivered to her apartment. Lunch with Didi Ziegler. Alone.

In lieu of chain mail and bulletproof vests, Jenn opted for unassuming white linen, accessorized with yellow polka-dotted sandals and a confident smile.

They met for sushi, and Jenn eyed the remains of the sliced fish on her plate with a sinking sensation. There was pointless chitchat until the waiter cleared the dishes, and then Didi moved in for the kill.

“In this town, there are very few secrets. I kept expecting you to disappear, but you have not, which makes me reassess my earlier opinion of you. I do not like reassessing the world. Time is too precious, especially for a woman of my advanced years. I’ve had you vetted for my own peace of mind, but a few pertinent facts and a meandering life do not tell me your heart. So, what are your intentions?”

“I sleep with him. That’s the extent of it.”

“I see. Very cosmopolitan.” She shrugged it off. “At least he tells me that he is writing again. That’s something.”

“He never stopped,” Jenn said, needing to get the record straight. The world thought Aaron Barksdale had frozen under the pressure of fame. The truth was, Aaron had merely relocated his world to someplace else where he could be comfortable and write in peace. It surprised her that Didi didn’t know this. Aaron would never stop writing. Heck, he would stop breathing first.

“You know this for sure?”

“He’s got twenty manuscripts under his bed.”

Didi slapped a hand on the table and the crystal jumped. Literally. “And he did not show them to me? Oh, the cad! I could have retired by now. I could be sunning myself on a beach in the Rivera, but instead he hoards all his little
pages like a feral rodent.” She pushed up her lenses, the better to stare sternly at Jennifer. “He’s told you this, or did you use your journalistic skills to discover it?”

“You don’t like reporters, either?” Jenn guessed, using her skills with great success.

“A bit-time reviewer trashed his book. Aaron drank for months.”

“I didn’t know about the drinking,” she murmured, wishing she could go back in time and erase so much of his pain, but she couldn’t, and apparently he’d beaten some of his demons on his own. The drinking explained the differences between the page-ripping exploits of Aaron Barksdale, author vivant, and Aaron Barksdale the man.

Didi waved a careless hand. “You wouldn’t know, no one cared. The world sees the writer as a tormented soul. They never believe that it is the world that is the tormentor. But you want to be a writer, as well?”

“I’m a journalist, not a writer.”

“And how is your career going?”

“You know how my career is going,” stated Jennifer, not quite a guess.

“He is looking out for you. You turned down the job at the
Long Island Herald?
”

“You know about that, too?”

“Darling, where do you think the offer came from?”

“I see,” she said, wishing her fairy godmother had opted to tell her.

“At Aaron’s insistence. I told him he should let you toil in your drudgery, but he wouldn’t. Does it bother you, his wanting to take care of you? Some women would rebuff such advantages, some would take advantage of it. Of him.”

“I’m a good journalist,” Jenn stated, picking her words carefully. “It’s a very hard field. If someone opens a door,
I won’t turn it down, but I don’t need it. I’m good enough to get back to the
Times
on my own,” she stated. And it was true. After so long doubting herself, she realized that she was in this for the long haul. No matter the drudgery. “The
Times?
”

“My previous employer,” Jenn told her, possibly bragging.

“That is very prestigious.”

“Yes,” Jennifer answered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You think he will help you return to the fold?”

“I don’t need Aaron for that. What I want from Aaron is to be with him.”

Didi looked over Jennifer, seeing the flaws, but seeing her heart, too. Finally she nodded with approval. “I like you. You’re very Alphabet City. I don’t like Alphabet City, but we all have our imperfections. He will need someone soon. I have always been the center of his universe, but I am closing my agency, and he will hurt. He will need you. You are up to this task?”

“He doesn’t know you’re retiring,” Jenn stated, because the news would kill him. There were few people in the world that Aaron cared for. Didi was pretty much it. And now Jenn. Maybe. Probably. Okay. Definitely.

“I told him about my leaving the business. He believed I was joking. Perhaps I did not tell him in such an unaffected way, but I dislike sincerity. Eventually we will talk. He should know the truth. He will need to prepare. Aaron must depart that cesspool of small-town Americana—he has lived there too long. I have been soft, spoiling him like a favored pet, letting him sulk out in the wilds with their simple smiles and their meat in a can. You cannot hurt him, I will not let you. I come from a long line of Romanians.
Very cruel with long memories. I’m sure you’ve heard about our curses.”

“I thought you were German.”

“A German Rom,” clarified Didi. “But my heritage is not my concern. He is.”

“No one could hurt Aaron,” clarified Jennifer.

“His father nearly killed him, just as he drove Aaron’s mother to the grave.”

“His father is a bastard,” she stated firmly.

“Yes, and Aaron believes that the apple must not fall far from the tree. It didn’t help that Cecil knew where to strike. The public flogging in
The Paris Review?
That was his father.”

Oh, my. Jennifer had read that review.
Intellectual shenanigans, disguised as art. A meandering maundering of monumental proportions.
And those were the nice things.

“I thought John O’Connell reviewed the book.”

“His father’s pen name, not that he ever used it. Except for the one time. He hates Aaron’s success. Aaron is Van Gogh to Cecil’s kindergarten handprints. He is Beethoven to Cecil’s karaoke. Aaron was the Bard of Brooklyn. He could be again.”

It was no wonder that Aaron had such an inflated sense of ego if his agent was always buttering him up like that. Of course it was the truth, but did everyone have to keep pointing that out? “His writing isn’t that good,” Jenn quibbled with a disdainful sniff.