Second Hearts (The Wishes Series) (13 page)

“Some things never change.”

He leaned forward, kissing a long line down my neck as he unbuttoned my coat.

“Some things have changed but I’ll save them for another day,” I murmured.

I couldn’t claim to be the same girl he knew a year ago. My life had altered hugely. I wanted to tell him everything, and I wanted to know everything – just not at that very minute.

“Do you still believe in magic, Charlotte?” he asked, pushing my coat off my shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heavy heap.

“Of course.” In a million lifetimes, that would never change. “Do you?”

“Absolutely.” He murmured the word against my mouth. “I look for magic every day.”

On the brink of giving in, I pulled myself together enough to ask one last question. “Do you ever find it?”

“Today I did,” he told me, sliding his warm hand up the back of my shirt. “And she’s still beautiful.”

11. Set In Stone

Waking up alone wasn’t exactly how I pictured our first morning together.

I sat up, wrapping myself in the sheet. Through the doorway, I could see Adam in the empty lounge, clad only in a pair of jeans, talking on his phone. If it was supposed to be a private conversation, he had no chance. The acoustics in the small, empty apartment rivalled any good concert hall.

Love is inherently selfish. I didn’t want him to talk to anyone. As far as I was concerned, we should have been left alone to live out the rest of our days in my tiny apartment. For me, it was an obtainable goal. Thanks to my inability to maintain employment, I had nowhere else to be. Adam, however, would fail miserably as a recluse. It was just after seven in the morning and someone was already trying to track him down. After eavesdropping for a minute, I realised it was Whitney.

“No, Whit. There’s nothing to work out.”

She obviously didn’t agree. It was at least ten seconds before he got another word in. “Look, I’m not discussing this right now.”

There was another long pause, presumably to accommodate more ranting. That was the only concession he made for her. His tone was granitic and curt and it summed up exactly why eavesdropping was a very bad idea.

I didn’t even pretend that I hadn’t been listening when Adam returned to the room. I tried to keep my voice casual. “How is Whitney?”

He pushed me back on to the bed with his whole body, burying his head in the crook of my neck. “It’s not a problem, Charli.”

“Ryan told me that you dumped her at Nellie’s, the day you saw me.”

Adam rolled to one side. “She doesn’t even know about you,” he mumbled, staring at the ceiling. “It had nothing to do with you.”

I believed him – to a point. Adam hadn’t ended their relationship to be with me. A short while after, I’d stood in front of him, begging him to stay with me to no avail. I had no idea what his reasons were – then wondered if Whitney did.

“Why did you break up with her?”

He turned to catch my eye, frowning. “Because I don’t love her.”

“Why string her along for four years then?”

“Ryan really did give you the scoop didn’t he?” he asked. “I stayed with her because it was convenient – for both of us. We have the same circle of friends. We hang out at the same places. My parents like her.” He rattled of the reasons as if he was reading from a list. “It worked for a while.”

“I wonder how Whitney would feel about being used like that. She’s probably heartbroken.”

“Not over the loss of me,” he said bitterly. “It was a two way arrangement.”

I didn’t ask him to elaborate. I didn’t want to hear another word about it. Ignorance was bliss, and that ignorance was going to save me from rethinking my opinion on which of the Décarie brothers was the evil one.

“We have so much to figure out, Adam.”

His hand slipped under the covers, sweeping a long trail down my body that scorched my skin. “It’ll work out. I promise.”

As distracting as his wandering hands were, I needed to know how. In the cold light of day, the transition in to Adam’s New York life seemed a little tricky. “You have to listen to me for a second,” I demanded, squeezing his fingers to stop them creeping.

He heaved a long sigh. “I’m listening.”

“I don’t need a anything set in stone. I just need to know we’re on the same page.” I would’ve been content knowing that we were reading the same book.

“I have no problem setting things in stone, Charli. I’ll do it right now.” He practically leapt off the bed. I wrapped myself in the sheet, bundled the excess in my arms and followed him to the kitchen.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, watching as he rummaged around in a kitchen drawer.

“This,” he said triumphantly, holding a black marker pen in the air.

I’d always found it strange that although I lived without furniture, I still managed to fill a drawer in the kitchen with junk.

Reaching for my hand, he led me through to the lounge room, took the lid off the pen and scrawled a number one on the pristine white wall.

“What are you doing?” I asked, aghast.

“Setting our future in stone.” He sounded much too proud of himself. The Parisienne would kill him for a lot less.

“Gabrielle will skin you alive.”

“Gabrielle will never know. She doesn’t stop by often.”

He dotted his pen on the wall. “What’s first on the list?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are we going to live?” he prompted.

“You want us to live together?”

He looked at me. “I think we’ve wasted enough time apart, don’t you?”

Words failed me. I wanted to lurch forward, drop him to the floor and have my way with him, but my legs wouldn’t work. I nodded instead.

“Okay. Well, we can either stay here or you can move in with me.”

“I’m sure your parents would be thrilled.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t be, but I’m grown. They don’t actually get a say when it comes to who I live with.”

“They might notice me there, Adam.”

“I don’t live with my parents, Charli. I share an apartment with Ryan.”

“But I saw you there,” I accused, “the day I came looking for you.”

Adam shrugged. “It must have been a Friday. Ryan and I have breakfast there every Friday morning. It stops our mother from coming to our place to check up on us.”

It was by sheer luck that I’d seen him that day. There wasn’t an ounce of magic involved. If it were magical intervention, Whitney wouldn’t have been there to sour the memory.

“Make a decision, Charlotte.” He tapped the pen on the wall, snapping my thoughts back to the task. “The list is long.”

“I couldn’t stand living with Ryan,” I muttered, staring at the vandalised wall.

“Fine.” He turned to the wall and began writing. “I’ll move in here.”

He didn’t need my input for number two. Furniture.

“Things get a little more complex at number three, Coccinelle,” he warned, calling me by the nickname I feared I’d never hear again. “I have another two years of law school left. Do you think you could be happy here for that long?”

“I like New York.”

“Well, isn’t that ironic?” he drawled. “Makes you wonder why you fought against it for so long, doesn’t it?”

He slipped his arm around my waist. We stood admiring his vandalism.

“Should repainting the wall be on the list?”

“No. It can stay there forever. Our children can scrub it off,” he mumbled, brushing my hair aside as he leaned in to kiss my shoulder.

Twisting in his arms, I studied him closely. “The list will be very long by then.”

“I hope so,” he whispered.

Convincing Adam to return to the bedroom was easy. All I had to do was abandon my grip on the sheet.

“We should never leave this bed,” I insisted, breathing the words into his ear.

He groaned in agreement, sending a hot rush right through my body that he felt. He responded by sending me to a place I was happy to revisit – the point of no return.

12. Little Elephant

Adam and Ryan’s apartment was only a few blocks away, on a street I’d never explored. “I haven’t been down here before.”

“Good,” replied Adam, tightening his grip on my hand. “It’s a very seedy part of town.”

It didn’t look seedy. The street was lined with trees that winter had stripped of leaves. The stately pre-war buildings were elegant and grand. The cold, crisp air smelled clean and traffic was at a minimum.

Adam was adaptable. I’d seen him spend hours scraping and sanding a grotty old boat, dressed in paint-spattered jeans with flecks of wood in his hair. The thought of Ryan residing in a less than prestigious area seemed impossible.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” I accused.

He chuckled. “Yes, I’m lying.”

He was
really
lying. The inside of the apartment was every bit as modish as I anticipated. The front door opened on to an open plan living room. The floor was syrup coloured timber, and the walls were rustic, exposed red brick. It was masculine, industrial and stylish. The only seedy thing in the apartment was Aubrey, Ryan’s date from the fateful lunch at Nellie’s. She was sitting on the couch, touching up her makeup.

Ryan was there too, standing at the granite island bench, thumbing through a newspaper. “I was wondering how long it would be before you two surfaced,” he mocked.

“Hello to you too,” said Adam. He turned his attention to dodgy Barbie. “Good morning, Aubrey. I haven’t seen you here for a while.”

Aubrey snapped her compact shut and stood, smoothing her night-before dress and her bedroom hair. “Well, they do say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“You’re assuming Ryan has a heart. That’s charitable.”

Aubrey muttered an insult I didn’t quite catch and walked to Ryan. She whispered something in his ear that made him simper and breezed past us to the door.

Ryan was the second seediest thing in the room. I couldn’t help noticing his eyes following her the whole way. Once she was gone, he turned his attention to me, dropping the sordid stare and smiling sweetly. “How are you, Charlotte?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“Staying out of trouble?”

“Leave her alone,” warned Adam. “Pay no attention to him, Charli.”

“Have you found another job yet, Charli?” asked Ryan.

“Not yet.”

“You can come back to Nellie’s, you know.”

“You wouldn’t want her back,” said Adam, searching through the kitchen cupboards. “Where’s the tea?”

“We don’t have any tea,” claimed Ryan. “No one of sound mind drinks tea. Why don’t I want her back?”

“Charli drinks tea. You don’t want her back because she doesn’t have a green card.”

Ryan glared at me, appalled. “Oh, joy. Why am I not surprised?”

I didn’t answer him.

Adam gave up looking for tea and tried to tempt me with a mug of coffee, promising it was the best in New York.

“This is how it starts, Charli,” Ryan foreboded. “Before you know it, he’ll have you hooked on the harder stuff. Espressos, Turkish coffee….”

I walked in to the kitchen and took the mug from Adam, totally buckling under peer pressure.

“It’s Saturday. Why are you dressed like you’re going to a funeral?” asked Adam, absently stirring his coffee while he looked his brother up and down.

The Décarie boys were tragically good looking. Ryan’s biggest problem was that he was well aware of it. He straightened his grey silk tie and brushed the shoulder of his dark grey suit like he was dusting it off. “I’ve been summoned to breakfast with the queen,” he announced in a faultless British accent.

“Why?” asked Adam.

“Because you haven’t been taking her calls all week. I assume she wants the lowdown on dim Whit. She’s not happy with you. I thought I’d take her somewhere classy so she can’t raise hell in public.”

Instantly I knew that the queen was their mother. I began to feel incredibly nervous but had no clue why.

“Thanks,” Adam said, seemingly unconcerned by his mother’s fury. “I owe you one.”

Ryan fidgeted with his tie again. “You already owe me many. You shouldn’t have told her Charli was in town. She thinks you’ve dumped Whitney and run off with the little minx.” Ryan pointed at me and I scowled. “Her words, not mine, sorry,” he whispered, expressing badly acted pity.

“Ridiculous,” uttered Adam.

“How does she know about me?” I asked. More importantly, why had she formed such a low opinion so soon?

“We’ve always known about Adam’s little summer romance,” said Ryan. “He just wasn’t expected to bring her home.”

***

Adam’s bedroom was at the end of a short hallway. It shared the same rustic brick walls as the rest of the apartment but the large window on the far side of the room made the space bright.

I followed him in and sat on the edge of the bed, scanning the room without moving my head.

Adam slid open the wardrobe, dragged two suitcases from the top shelf and dropped them beside me.