Right Place, Wrong Time (14 page)

“I know, Ali. It stinks, doesn’t it?”

“I want everybody to be together. I want us all to live at home.”

Gina ran her hands over Alicia’s soft, dark hair, ferreting out the narrow braids and fingering the turquoise beads. “I wish I could make the whole thing better. I wish your parents could stay together. But it looks like that’s not going to happen. You’ll be all right, Alley Cat.
Your mommy will take care of you and she loves you so much. And I love you. I’ll always be there for you.”

“But I want—I want—” Alicia’s voice dissolved into weeping.

“I know.” She ran her fingers through Alicia’s hair again, touching the beads and wishing the kid could take more home from this week than just those bright turquoise baubles, and a shirt and some nail polish that changed color. She wished Alicia could take home the peaceful wind, the spicy fragrance of the flowers, the magical silence of the fish they’d viewed through their snorkeling masks. She wished Alicia could take home the warmth and the leisurely rhythm of life on the island, the satisfaction of being able to build bridges with just a bit of sand and sea water.

But the one thing Alicia wanted more than anything, Gina couldn’t give her. So she only hugged her, and stroked her, and let her cry.

S
HE COULDN’T SLEEP
.

She’d managed to get Alicia down for the night, though it hadn’t been easy. She’d lain beside her in bed and sung to her, not songs from
The Little Mermaid
but traditional lullabies she hoped would soothe the grieving child—“Tu-ra-lu-ra,” “Hush, Little Baby,” “All the Pretty Little Horses” and an old Grateful Dead lullaby with the haunting refrain, “I will take you home.” That was the song Alicia had fallen asleep to.

Once Alicia was sleeping deeply, Gina packed their suitcases. Venturing to the kitchen to prepare and wrap sandwiches and the few leftover cookies so they’d have something to snack on during their layover at the airport in Miami, she heard no noises from the master bedroom. Had Ethan and Kim departed? Without saying goodbye?
The few items they’d left lying around the living room during the week—shopping directories and catalogs, a tube of imported French sunscreen, beach towels spread across the backs of the dining area chairs to dry—were gone. Maybe Ethan and Kim were gone, too.

Just as well, Gina told herself. Saying goodbye to Ethan would have been awkward. This way they could avoid the whole thing.

Still, just as Alicia had a gaping hole in her heart, Gina had a hole in hers, small-bore but clean through. She’d wanted to say goodbye to Ethan. Actually, no—of all the things she’d wanted to say to Ethan, goodbye wasn’t on the list.

Which was why he’d undoubtedly done them both a favor by clearing out with Kim tonight.

By midnight, everything was crammed into the suitcases except Alicia’s pajamas, the oversize T-shirt Gina was using as a nightgown, their still-drying swimsuits, which were draped over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom, and the clothing and toiletry items they’d need in the morning. She crawled into bed, closed her eyes, listened to Alicia’s faint snores and felt adrenaline zing through her body. No way was she going to be able to sleep.

Sighing, she swung out of bed, tiptoed to the door and stepped out into the hall.

Some of the best moments of her vacation had been spent on the terrace, letting the gorgeous Caribbean night wrap around her. Why not enjoy at least part of her last night out there? Why lie awake in bed, punching her pillow and kicking at the sheets, when she could be sitting outside, listening to the ocean and letting the breezes dance around her?

She had the slider half-open when she spotted Ethan
in his usual chair, so still she thought he might be asleep. But he wasn’t. When she didn’t push the door the rest of the way, he turned to her. He looked neither pleased nor surprised to see her. In fact, he looked almost resigned.

She hesitated, unsure whether to join him. She was scarcely dressed—a baggy T-shirt and panties didn’t exactly qualify as fully clothed. As her gaze took him in, she realized that he was wearing only a loose-fitting pair of athletic shorts. As much of him had been exposed every time they’d gone swimming together. But his skin was dry now, the contours of his muscles barely visible in the hazy moonlight, and his gaze drilled through her.

She hovered in the doorway. He remained silent. “I couldn’t sleep,” she finally said.

“Neither could I.”

That seemed reason enough to take her place beside him. She dropped onto the chair next to his, kicked her feet up on the railing, then quickly lowered them when the hem of her shirt shimmied up to her hips.

“How’s Alicia?” he asked. “Did you tell her about her father?”

Tears pricked her eyes. It wasn’t enough that he was glorious to look at, with his long, strong swimmer’s legs, his broad shoulders and those damn dimples. He also had to be compassionate about the feelings of a seven-year-old kid.

“She pretty much cried herself to sleep,” Gina told him.

He winced. “She’s lucky she’s got you.”

“Even if her parents had the best marriage in the world, she’d be lucky to have me,” Gina boasted, trying to lighten the mood. She didn’t want to fall apart on her last night here, especially in front of Ethan.

“She would,” Ethan said without a hint of a smile.

His words moved her. Despite her attempt to remain composed, fresh moisture gathered in her eyes, filling them, overflowing. “It broke my heart, having to tell her. I can’t stand causing her pain.”

“You didn’t cause her pain. Her parents did.”

“I was the one who had to tell her.” Her voice faltered and she swatted her cheeks with her hands. “It broke my heart, Ethan.” She couldn’t wipe away the tears fast enough. They streamed through her eyelashes and spilled down her face.

He gazed at her for a moment, then reached for her hand and pulled her out of her chair, into his lap. She was too startled to resist—and then not startled at all. Settling on his bony knees, she sank against him, rested her head on his shoulder, let his chest cushion her body, and wept. He wrapped one arm around her and toyed with the ends of her hair. His other hand held hers, strong and comforting. His skin grew damp as her tears got trapped between her cheek and the hollow above his collarbone. Did he realize how generous he was, letting her sob against him like this? Did he know that, for this one moment, he was everything she needed?

Eventually she wound down. She issued a quick sniffle and a faint hiccup, then subsided, taking long, steady breaths until she was certain she’d run out of tears.

“Are you all right?” he asked. His chest vibrated against her when he spoke.

“Relatively speaking. I’m sorry, Ethan, I shouldn’t have—”

“What? You shouldn’t have been sad? It’s a sad thing Alicia’s going through. Why shouldn’t you be sad?”

“Well, okay, I should be sad. But I shouldn’t have fallen apart.” She was glad she couldn’t see his face.
Talking about her melodramic little display was embarrassing enough when she was addressing the underside of his jaw.

“Why shouldn’t you fall apart?” he persisted. “You’re allowed.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it, Gina. You’ve been so strong for Alicia through this whole vacation. Who says you can’t be weak now?”

She eased back from him. He was right; she was allowed to be weak for a few minutes. She needed someone to lean on right now, and Ethan was letting her lean on him. He was actually welcoming her weight, inviting it. She was more grateful than she could say.

He stared at her for a long, loaded minute, and her gratitude faded, replaced by other, more troubling, more restless emotions. Oh, she was definitely weak. And maybe he was, too—or maybe he was so strong she had no choice but to surrender as he slid his hands up to her cheeks, pulled her face down and kissed her. Softly at first, just a brush of lips to lips. Then again, a little less gently, a little more resolutely.

With the third kiss, she was ready to wave a white flag.

Her entire body flooded with heat. Her fingers clenched his shoulders, clung to them, and her spine seemed to melt, making her feel limp. His tongue surged against hers, slid over her teeth, traced her lips and surged again. The air around her sang with murmurs and sighs and whispered pleas—whether coming from him or her she didn’t know. His hands roamed across the smooth cotton of her shirt, then under the bottom edge and up across her belly, her midriff, her breasts. Her thighs tensed and she felt his arousal through his shorts.

“Ethan.” Her voice emerged faint and wavering.

“Shh.” He seemed to be trying to calm himself as much as her. One of his hands cupped the underside of her breast, his fingertips moving in teasing circles against her skin. His other hand rested at her waist, holding her so she wouldn’t slide off his lap. He rested his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged.

“We can’t do this,” she said.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them and kissed the sensitive skin alongside her earlobe. “We can do anything we want,” he said.

“What are you, crazy? This is totally insane. We’re outdoors—”

“No one else is here. We’re all alone.”

“Kim is right inside—”

“Kim and I broke up.”

“You’ve been sleeping together every night.”

“Sharing a room, that’s all.”

She leaned back. A part of her wanted to believe him. Another part—the part that was Ramona’s loyal sister and Jack Bari’s cynical sister-in-law—considered his words a crock. “Sharing a room? Is that what it’s called?”

“That’s all it is.” He kissed that tingly spot by her ear again, and she wanted to slap him—or slap herself for feeling that single seductive kiss throughout her entire her body. “Gina.” Another devastating kiss, and his thumb sketched a line toward her nipple, which was hard and burning. His light stroke was so wildly arousing, she moaned. “Just let me kiss you,” he said, his low voice rubbing her nerves the way his thumb rubbed her breast.

“You’re doing more than kissing me,” she pointed out, although she couldn’t find it in her to ask him to stop.

He grazed the hinge of her jaw, then kissed under her chin. Apparently, he wasn’t going to waste any more time justifying himself to her. He was just going to…
kiss
her.

Her thighs clenched again as his lips found the pulse point in her neck, as he nipped with his teeth. His other hand, the one not on her breast, skimmed up under her shirt and across her back, warm and comforting. She wondered if she should be touching him, too—not just hanging on to his shoulders for dear life but caressing him, tracing his sleek muscles, tasting the skin of his jaw and his brow and his naked chest. That skin would taste like her tears, she thought—and it would taste like Ethan.

She was right—it was crazy, totally insane. But she had to have just one taste.

When her mouth touched his shoulder he let out a muffled groan. That tight, helpless sound made her want to kiss him more, kiss every square inch of his body, including those parts that were currently clothed—yet it also reminded her of who she and Ethan were, where they were and where they’d be tomorrow. Bad enough that she’d never see him again. Far worse that, no matter how he explained it, he’d come to St. Thomas with a woman who was his maybe-almost-potential fiancée, who was presently asleep in the bedroom he was sharing with her. And Gina wasn’t going to be someone’s Other Woman. She simply wasn’t.

Drawing back from him caused a pain in her chest, so sharp she wondered whether she was suffering a heart attack. The fact that she was twenty-six years old, in excellent health, and she could actually feel the strong, steady beat of her heart was enough to convince her the pain lacked a physical source. It was disappointment,
regret, frustration and a hefty measure of anger directed at herself.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

He opened his eyes and sighed. She observed the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the gradual clearing of his eyes as they focused on her. His hair was mussed—had she done that?—and his erection still dug into the soft flesh of her bottom—
that
she’d take credit for—but like her, he was regaining control, coming down to earth, back to reality. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “Okay. You’re right.”

She wanted to thank him for supporting her decision, but this was one of those situations where the less said, the better. “I’ll go now,” she murmured.

His arms tightened around her for a moment, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. Then he relented, lowering his hands and shifting his knees so she could stand more easily. Her legs wobbled under her for a moment, her thighs and hips aching. He must have noticed her shakiness, because he sprang to his feet and held her again, his hands at her waist—outside her T-shirt, thank God—and his face close enough for his breath to touch her cheeks. “Are you all right?” he asked, just as he had when she’d first joined him on the terrace.

“I’m just fine,” she said, not caring if he believed her—or if she believed herself.

He sighed, leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Then he straightened, stared at her with wistful eyes, and whispered, “Good night, Gina.”

“Goodbye, Ethan,” she said, because she needed to hear the finality of it. Slipping free of his embrace, she crossed to the door and stepped inside, into the air-conditioned darkness of the apartment.
Goodbye, Ethan
,
she repeated silently as she moved away from him, down the hall to her room. She entered it, shut the door and pressed the button lock in the knob, not to keep him out but to keep her longing in.

“H
ELLO
?”

Bingo
. Ethan recognized the voice. He’d heard it once before, about two months ago, when he’d answered the telephone in St. Thomas one morning. The voice sounded similar enough to Gina Morante’s to cause pleasure to flash through him—unwarranted pleasure, because it
wasn’t
Gina’s voice. It was a bit higher, the New York accent a shade more muted.

No matter. He’d dialed the right number and gotten through. Finally.

He’d already tried every possible spelling of Morante he could imagine—Meranti, Maranty and a dozen other varieties. His Internet phone directory had produced a surprisingly paltry number of Morantes of any spelling residing in Manhattan, and none of them had a first initial of
G
or
J
. Why hadn’t he thought to ask Gina how she spelled her name? Why couldn’t her name have been Mary Jones? He supposed Jones could be spelled “Joans” or “Jowens,” though.

In any case, none of the assorted Morante numbers had belonged to Gina.

So he’d decided to track down Alicia, instead. He remembered that she lived in White Plains and that her last name was Barry. Or at least he’d thought it was Barry. He’d just learned, thanks to hearing Gina’s sister’s voice through his telephone’s receiver, that the
name was actually Bari; he’d tried that spelling after striking out with all the Barrys in White Plains.

“Hello?” she repeated, jarring him from his victorious thoughts.

He acknowledged that he was a long way from victory. All he’d done was track down Gina’s sister. Whether the woman would grant him access to Gina was an entirely new challenge.

She might not, but Alicia would. He and Alicia had—well,
bonded
might be too strong a word, but they’d certainly gotten to be pals during their week in St. Thomas. They’d snorkeled together. They’d discussed iguanas. They’d built the Brooklyn Bridge out of sand. Alicia had told him about her father’s girlfriend.

And the wronged wife was waiting on the other end of the line for him to speak. “Yes, hi,” he said quickly, reining in his vagrant thoughts. “My name is Ethan Parnell. I’m wondering, is Alicia there?”

“Alicia? You want to talk to Alicia?” Her tone seethed, on the verge of boiling. “Who the hell are you?”

He was a grown man, a total stranger, phoning and asking to speak to a seven-year-old girl. Of course her mother was suspicious. “I’m—”

“Mommy, is it for me?” Alicia chirped in the background.

“Hush, honey. Go review the page in your spelling workbook.”

“Is it for me?” Alicia asked again, her voice full of sunshine. She might have cried herself to sleep her last night at Palm Point, but she sounded happy enough now. Had her father seen the light, sent his girlfriend packing and returned to his family? If he hadn’t, had her mother
and Gina done a phenomenal job of reassuring her that she was still loved and her home was still a safe place?

And when exactly had Ethan become so fascinated by the domestic travails of a spunky little girl?

“I met Alicia in St. Thomas,” he said before Gina’s sister could lambaste him. “She and Gina wound up accidentally booked into a time-share condo the same week I was there.”

“You shared a time-share,” the woman said, her suspicion now layered with skepticism.

“Didn’t Gina tell you?” He thought of reminding her that he’d answered her call that one morning, but decided to let her search her memory without his assistance.

A long silence ensued. He lifted his gaze from the phone on his desk; sending invisible
trust me
vibes through the wire wasn’t going to work. His office was small but tasteful, the furniture blond oak, the area rug a hand-tied Persian, one wall consumed by bookshelves, another by a window that overlooked a small park and a third wall decorated with framed posters and photographs of sites the Gage Foundation had helped to preserve. The door in the fourth wall was firmly closed. He didn’t want his secretary eavesdropping on this particular call.

“Who is it?” Alicia shouted in the distance. “Can I talk to them?”

Gina’s sister relented. “Okay, so she mentioned something about that,” she said, her inflection uncannily similar to Gina’s.

What was the sister’s name? Mona, perhaps, or Rona…Her sister’s name was quite possibly the only thing about Gina that Ethan didn’t remember. Everything else about her was etched into his memory, from
her coal-black hair to her elegant toes, from her sarcastic wit to her rousing laugh, from her tears to her kisses. Since returning home from St. Thomas, he hadn’t lived a day without thinking about her, wondering about her, remembering those few crazed minutes on the terrace their last night, when he’d believed he would have done anything,
anything
to have her.

Maybe they’d both succumbed to vacation madness that night, some sort of tropical fever. Maybe he’d been suffering a bizarre reaction to his breakup with Kim. Or maybe, as the song went, it was just one of those things. He’d never know—unless he saw Gina again.

“I’m trying to reach Gina,” he said. “I couldn’t find her phone number anywhere—”

“Don’t you think she’d have given it to you if she wanted to hear from you?”

“I…” He faltered. Why hadn’t he asked for her number before she’d disappeared from his life? “I don’t think it occurred to either of us,” he said, then considered that answer and decided it was reasonably true. “Things were hectic at the end.” More than reasonably true. Those deep, hungry kisses, that desperate groping, the tears, the touches…
Hectic
summed it up. “I don’t intend to bother her,” he assured the sister. “We were all thrown together for a week, and a friendship developed. I just want to say hi, that’s all.”

Another pause. The sister took her time mulling things over. Finally she sighed. “You said your name was Ethan?”

“Ethan!” Alicia shrieked, her voice blasting through the phone line. “Is it Ethan, Mommy? I wanna talk to him!”

Bless you, Alicia
, he mouthed. He recalled her solemnly informing him, that day at Trunk Bay Beach, that
Gina didn’t have a boyfriend, and a smile tugged at his mouth. She’d been in his corner right from the start. “Can I say a quick hello to Alicia?” he asked in his gentlest, least threatening voice.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Can I talk to Ethan?” Alicia bellowed from her end.

Two against one; Alicia’s mother didn’t stand a chance. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “Just for a minute.”

Alicia let out a whoop, and then he heard the rattle of the phone changing hands. “Ethan? It’s me!”

“Hey, Alley Cat,” he greeted her, loving her even more because she was so damn enthusiastic. “How are you?”

“I’m great. I’m in second grade now,” Alicia bragged. “My teacher let me tell the class about snorkeling. I drew a picture of a snorkel on the blackboard, and I talked about the fish and the coral and those water flowers—an-enemies?”

“Anemones,” he corrected her.

“Uh-huh. And my best friend, Caitlin, is in my class.”

“That’s nice.”

“And I see my daddy twice a week. He buys me ice cream. My mom thinks that’s not healthy, but Aunt Gina let me eat ice cream in St. Thomas. With butterscotch sauce.”

He inhaled slowly, hoping to drain any unruly emotion out of his voice before asking, “How’s Aunt Gina?”

“She’s great! She’s got shoes in Fashion Week!”

Ethan had no idea what that meant, but Alicia made it sound like the best possible news. “Wow! That’s terrific!”

“Now she’s working on something new. She said the new shoes she’s making are going to look like fish. I bet they’re weird.”

“No kidding.” She’d hide those beautiful feet of hers in shoes that looked like
fish?

“Finish up now, Alicia,” her mother said. Monica, perhaps? Ethan remembered her name having three syllables. “It’s time to say goodbye.”

“Will you call me again?” Alicia asked into the phone.

“If your mother lets me.”

“Can I see you?”

“I’d like that. I’d like to see your aunt, too. Do you think she’d like to see me?” He cringed as the words rushed out. Did he sound too eager? Would Alicia think he was only using her to get to Gina?

“I don’t know. She’s very busy with Fashion Week.”

“I’m sure she is. And you’re busy with school, and I’m busy with work. But it would still be fun for us all to see each other, don’t you think?”

“Say goodbye, Alicia,” Gina’s sister commanded.

“I gotta go. I’ve got
spelling
,” she groaned, as if it were some sort of disease.

“Great talking to you, Ali. Please put your mother back on, okay?”

“Okay. Goodbye!”

He heard more rattling as the phone changed hands again, and then Alicia’s mother’s voice: “So. You’re happy now?”

“No, I’m not happy. I mean, yes, I’m happy, but I’d be happier if you gave me Gina’s phone number.”

“Forget it. I’m not giving it to you.”

“How about her work number?” She worked for a public company, didn’t she? A place where Fashion
Week people could get shoes that looked like fish. If only he knew the name of her shoe company, he’d have phoned her there and not wasted hours telephoning all the Barrys and Baris in White Plains.

Yet another long silence ensued while the sister weighed her options. “All right, look,” she finally said. “If I hear anything about you pestering her, or stalking her—”

“I’m not going to—”

“Or anything that makes me regret giving you her number at work, I’m going to have the cops on you so fast you’ll get whiplash just from their locking you into handcuffs. I can do that, you know. My brother is a cop.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. I don’t want you bothering her.”

“I know you mean it, and I won’t bother her.” Was she this shrewish all the time? Not that he condoned her husband’s infidelity, but there were two sides to every story. Maybe the guy had had his reasons for seeking another woman.

“Because if you do bother her—”

“Right. Your brother.”

She fell silent again. Had she heard the impatience in his tone? Was she going to punish him for it? He waited anxiously. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s her work number.”

He jotted the digits down and disavowed the nasty thoughts he’d had about her. She wasn’t a shrew. She was a saint. He adored Mona-Rona-Monica, whatever her name was. He worshiped her.

He thanked her three times, then decided he was coming across as too obsequious and ended the call. Staring at the phone number he’d scrawled onto his memo pad,
he smiled. Alicia’s mother might have been right when she’d said that if Gina had wanted to hear from him, she would have given him her number herself. Possessing her work number offered no guarantees that she’d talk to him, let alone agree to see him. But it was a start.

F
ORTUNATELY
, chaos didn’t faze Gina. The main design room of Bruno Castiglio Shoes—a cavernous, brightly lit space in a Seventh Avenue postwar, cluttered with drafting tables, rolls of paper, mock-ups and prototypes of shoes, cartons of samples and boxes of swatches—existed in a permanent state of chaos. Bruno stood near his worktable at the far end of the room, yammering into his telephone. When he was under pressure, his voice rose and became more staccato. As preparations for New York City’s Fashion Week raced toward their final stages, he’d come to sound as shrill and rapid as a jackhammer chewing up concrete at a construction site.

In the past, Gina wouldn’t have minded. After her trip to St. Thomas, however, she’d lost some of her tolerance for noise. Her week there had given her a taste for tranquillity. Sometimes, when she was walking to work, the din of traffic—blaring horns, wheezing buses, pedestrians babbling into cell phones and the ubiquitous clamor of jackhammers at some construction site or other—actually annoyed her. It never had before.

Not that she’d be able to survive on a full diet of island life. One week hadn’t been long enough for her to grow weary of the balmy winds, the soothing surge and ebb of the sea, the brilliance of the stars in a night sky devoid of smog and light pollution. Two weeks in paradise, though, and she would have been tearing at her
hair. She
was
an island girl, as long as the island was Manhattan.

But she missed St. Thomas. She missed the salty ocean fragrance, the lush heat, the freedom to do nothing but play in the sand and the high-quality time she’d had with Alicia. St. Thomas haunted her. Over the past few weeks, she’d been working on designs for shoes constructed of iridescent fabrics, some silver, some bluish, some white, like the fish she’d seen while snorkeling.

She was probably fixated on the place because it had been a vacation—a long overdue one, arriving at a time when she’d needed a break from the daily hustle-bustle of her life. Her dreams were filled with St. Thomas because Alicia had been such a sweetie and the beach had been so clean and soft and warm. There was nothing more to it than that.

The abrupt ring of the phone occupying the corner of her drafting table jolted her. The company had three phone lines, and in the days leading up to Fashion Week, Bruno usually tied up all three single-handedly. Right now, apparently, he’d left one line open. She lifted the receiver. “Yes?”

Meg, the administrative assistant who worked in the relative peace of a tiny office adjacent to the design room, said, “Gina? It’s for you. Personal, I think, but he wouldn’t give his name.”

“Wonderful,” she groaned. A legitimate personal call would have reached her via her cell phone. This must be some weirdo who’d tracked her down through her job. Whom had she met recently? She hadn’t been doing much partying or club hopping in the past few weeks. She’d been too tired, what with all the demands of Fashion Week. At least, that was the best excuse she’d come
up with for why she’d been lately spending most of her evenings by herself, quietly.

She did have a plan for tonight, at least. She was taking Carole out for a belated thank-you dinner. She’d wanted to do something special to repay her friend for the use of the time-share at Palm Point, but Carole’s recent schedule had been as crazy as her own.