City Vibes - Complete Series (BWWM Interracial Billionaire Romance) (7 page)

Chapter 14

“You said you wanted me to be a part of your life.” Reese knelt down in front of him, resting her hand on his cheek. “So let me in.”

Daniel trailed his hand across her cheek and traced her lips with his finger. “I know what I said and I meant it, but this, my job, is none of your concern.”

Reese felt her eyes sting with the promise of tears. She gulped, “But,”

But Daniel interrupted her, pressing his fingers against her lips and whispering, “Shhhh.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach with, landing like an unforgiving knife-fall as she lowered her gaze. How could he be so exclusive and secretive all the time? She couldn't help but wonder if he kept her out of his affairs because he didn't think she could understand, or because that's how he treated all of his girlfriends. Yet, in imagining the Chanel-clad daughter of the CEO of Coca Cola, something told her he wouldn't hesitate to tell her all the going ons in his office.

“Hey...” Daniel murmured as he lifted her chin. He leaned into her and kissed her.

Reese closed her eyes, willing this embrace to erase all of her doubts about him... and about herself. But it ended far too quickly and by the time she had opened them again he was gently pushing himself away from her.

He stood up and grabbed his jacket from the elaborate wood carving sitting right next to his front door, that also doubled as a coat rack.

She stood in front of the dining table, watching him leave.

“You can go to the Whitney while I'm gone. I'd hate to see you miss it because of this.”

Reese bit her lip. Half of the allure of going to the exhibit in the first place, was going with him. She could hardly imagine herself trekking all the way down to the Whitney all by herself. It reminded her too much of how she was before she had met someone who didn't mind spending hours and hours looking at things that made you think.

Daniel, seeming to have seen the desperately disappointed look on her face, held his arms open for a hug. She went to him, burrowing her face in the bit of cashmere sweater still exposed under his thick London Fog wool coat. He pulled away, muttering, “Excuse me while I go lose my job.”

Reese ran her hands through her tangled hair as he opened his door, stepped over the threshold, then shut it behind him. The sound of the shutting door echoed throughout his spacious apartment, but when that was over, an eerie silence settled in. Reese turned to appraise the penthouse, her hands on her hips and her lips folded into a frown. Her gaze swept over the kitchen, whose counters were still covered in all of the things Reese had used to make breakfast; the dining table had two identical place settings across from each other, equally uneaten.

A distinct feeling of malaise settled in the pit of her stomach as she stepped down into the dining area and began to clean the counter. It occurred to her that she was, once again, completely alone in the penthouse, which she had been every single day since she had moved in. For a short moment, she considered getting dressed and just going into the lab, but the thought of taking a subway down 100 blocks, just to stare at a bunch of papers she wouldn't even be able to concentrate on was extremely unappealing.

As she set to work, wiping the slashes of egg and stray pieces of avocado off of his kitchen counters, her mind inevitably wandered back to the conversation they had just had and the words she was trying her best to just forget. It was like Daniel kept her on a seesaw of emotions, telling her that he wanted her in his life, taking her to his dinners and his parties, introducing her to his friends... but then holding her at arm's length when it really mattered. She felt like a screaming child in a sound proof room: no amount of discussion in argument was ever going to make him see her side.

Eventually, she finished cleaning. As she sat on the couch, sinking into the cushions with an issue of The Economist (Daniel's favorite magazine) in her hand, the beeping light on her phone caught her eye. Her stomach flipped as she remembered the message and request from Jack. She grabbed her phone and opened the message. It read: “Please tell me this is that insanely interesting girl I met at The Roosevelt on New Year's Eve.”

Reese couldn't help but to smile at this. She typed, “We hardly said five things to each other. Don't get ahead of yourself.”

Almost immediately, he replied with, “That's what makes you so interesting...”

She furrowed her brow, but held the message feed open as he typed more: “I'm just going to cut to the point here. I know how this may look, but Daniel and I are pretty good friends and I just want to get to know you.”

She laughed once, surprised at how forthright he was being, and yet not believing a word that he said. “And I suppose you just want to be friends...” She typed.

He almost instantly replied with, “Lol. Calm down. I have a girlfriend.”

Reese raised an eyebrow. It struck her as strange that he had showed the type of interest in her that he had at that party if he truly did have a girlfriend. “Oh really?”

“Yeah. She's a dancer on tour with Lady Gaga right now.”

She gulped. A dancer? “So, what's your point?” Reese asked, trying her best not to sound offended by his insanely legitimate girlfriend.

“My point is: I've got a free dance card today, so I was wondering if you wanted to go on an adventure.”

Reese couldn't help but laugh out loud at this. “And what would this adventure consist of ?”

“I don't know.” He replied.

She giggled again at this. “What?”

“I was honestly hoping you had an idea. You seem like the kind of person who goes on adventures a lot.”

Reese sighed to herself, taking note of the fact that she was, indeed, still smiling. Just the thought of going to the Whitney with him instead of sitting in the apartment all day, or worse, going alone was already starting to make her feel better. She stared at the set of tickets lying next to her mug on the coffee table. Daniel did say that he wanted her to go without him... in fact, he made it sound like he didn't care where she went or what she did, a sentiment that she wasn't entirely unused to when it came to him.

“You know what, I actually have two tickets to an exhibit on Cold War art at The Whitney that I am dying to make use of.”

“Great. What time do you want to meet up?”

Reese checked the time on her phone, then did a quick physical assessment of the state of her hair and body. After determining the time it was going to take her to get dressed, she replied with, “1 PM.” Once the message sent, she stood up a stretched her arms out, a light smile on her face. As she held her gaze fixed on the sun, which hung high in the sky, and the glimmering buildings it illuminated, she was already starting to feel a hundred times better.

Chapter 15

Once Reese stepped out of the subway, then stopped to adjust her heavy scarf and the wool beret she had placed on her head as a last minute decision just before leaving. She slipped off her glove and pulled her phone out of her pocket in order to check the time. Just as she did this, her phone chimed with a message from Jack: “I'm outside.”

Reese inhaled a sharp breath as she read this and typed a quick reply. Her heart beat with a fast and steady rhythm and she crossed the street, and half walked, half-ran down the two blocks that separated the subway station from The Whitney. Eventually, she turned the last corner and it came into view. The huge building, with its dark, wooden covering, its artfully situated bridge that connected the busy street with the vast glass doors, with the moat-like body of water that surrounded its front, then slipped off the sides in a waterfall that glistened in the frosty sunlight seemed to pulse with the life it fed off of the hundreds of thousands of art pieces that filled it.

As soon as she joined the crowd of people she whipped her phone out of her pocket and hastily typed, “I'm somewhere in this sea of people,” then continued to stare at her phone not only to await his reply, but also to make sure she looked busy if he caught sight of her. She knew it was bit childish, but she couldn't seem to shake that habit.

She had been scarcely standing there for a minute before she felt something tap her on her shoulder. She looked up to find the tall, blond man she vaguely remember from the New Years Eve party. He wore a thick leather jacket and a gray beanie, a style combination that made him all but unrecognizable as the Wall Street whiz she assumed he was, or the nautical champion his profile picture made him out to be. In fact, as he stood before her, his genuinely bright and excited smile revealing a set of perfectly straight and bright white teeth, she couldn't help but find him strikingly down to earth.

“Hi!” She greeted him, flashing him her set of tickets.

He bit his lip. “Ugh! Great! You already have tickets.” he exclaimed.

“Yes. So now we can walk right past this crowd and straight into the exhibit like a couple of bad asses.” Reese joked as they started to work their way through the crowd.

“Right, because spending a Sunday at a Cold War exhibit is totally bad ass.” He teased as he opened the door for her.

Reese slipped inside and immediately unwrapped her scarf. Jack followed suit and they made their way to the coat check, where Reese offered up her coat, hat and purse and Jack followed with his jacket, but he kept his beanie on. As they stood in the short line in front of the man who was checking tickets, Reese stole a sidewards glance at Jack. She couldn't help but smile at how adorable he looked in his beanie and thick, black sweater. “Hey! At least I had an adventure to offer.” She shot back as they stepped inside of the first room of the exhibit.

Jack opened his mouth to say something else, but his response hung in the air as the two of them surveyed the room, disappointment settling in with its depressingly dark glow. The room's walls were all bare save for the random photo of Berlin here and propaganda poster there. As they scanned the exhibit, they found that the most interesting thing was a rendition of the famed Marilyn Monroe pop art piece by some obscure Andy Warhol wannabe. As they reached the landing of the stairway leading up to the second floor, Jack paused. “This is surprisingly underwhelming.”

Reese giggled at this. “God, I know.” She replied. A group of serious-looking middle-aged men approached them so she tugged on Jack's arm to get him out of the way. “I can't believe I almost dragged Daniel to this. He would have been so pissed at me.”

Jack furrowed his brow in curiosity. “You were going to take Daniel?” He asked in a voice that sounded more like he meant, “I wasn't your first choice?”

Reese grimaced. “Of course I was going to take Daniel.” it came out much more rude than she had originally anticipated.

“So why didn't you?” He snapped back.

She lowered her gaze. “Because he had to work.” She mumbled.

“What?” Jack leaned in closer so that he could hear her.

“He went to the office.” She repeated in a louder voice.

“On a Sunday?” Jack replied in a judgmental voice.

“Don't give me that!” Reese cried. “I don't understand it anymore than you do.”

Jack grimaced. “Wait, he didn't tell you why?”

“Well he did.” Reese insisted, but as she lowered her eyes, she added, “Kind of...”

“You have no idea how it works with him do you?”

“It's not really important....” Reese mumbled defensively.

“He's your boyfriend and you don't think it's important for you to understand his life?”

“It's not his life... it's his job. And he doesn't think it's important.” She corrected.

“Well, that's weird. Julie is currently two thousand miles away and she knows everything about my life.”

“Julie's your girlfriend?” Reese asked, just as she realized she was, indeed extremely jealous of his girlfriend.

Jack shrugged, as if to dismiss the idea of his girlfriend all together. Another, larger group of people came up the stairs, so Jack pushed the two of them farther to the side. In the tight space of the back corner of this secluded landing, they continued their conversation. “I will never forgive you for getting me excited about this exhibit.” Jack changed the subject, feigning anger.

Reese rolled her eyes. “Well, I didn't ask you to bet your whole life on it, I just told you I was going.”

Jack rested his hand on the wall just above Reese's head, closing her in. “I just assumed it was going to be amazing because you were going.”

She bit her lip in order to keep her smile from growing too wide. “You've got to stop doing that.”

He cocked his head to one side, but kept his gaze fixed on her.

Reese, feeling herself falling deeper into his eyes and feeling her breath slip farther and farther away, lowered her stare.

“Doing what?”

“Making assumptions about me.” she muttered as she stared intently at his boots.

“Why?” He asked. “Are my assumptions... wrong?”

Reese glowered at him. “You know exactly why. And that's not it.”

Jack chuckled darkly, and as he did this, Reese could have sworn he had drawn himself closer to her. “Don't make this into something it's not.” He murmured in the silkiest voice Reese had ever heard.

She took in quick, shallow breaths as her mind struggled to hang on to coherent thoughts. “And what
is this, exactly?” She asked, finding it harder and harder to resist his intoxicating stare.

They were inches apart now and faced with Jack's piercing almond eyes, with his body heat surrounding her like a summer aura Reese couldn't bring herself to stop what she knew was coming at a hundred miles a minute. She held her breath as he placed his hand on her cheek... then his lips against hers. She sighed as she felt herself relax in this gentle embrace. It was like someone had just opened a window in a room that was filled with carbon monoxide; like she had been carrying a million tons of weight on her shoulders and Jack had simply lifted it with no effort at all. In fact, she almost kissed him back until awareness washed over her like a wave of icy water.

Reese abruptly drew her head back and shoved him away. He took two big steps back in order to catch his step, but, other than that, seemed completely unphased by her reaction. She opened her mouth to reprimand him from kissing her, but, unable to bring herself to say anything, scurried off the landing, down the stairs, and out of the Whitney.