Sleepless in Manhattan (10 page)

She thought he had no feelings for her.

She thought that, to him, she was nothing more than his friend’s little sister.

“I’ll do you a deal.” It was the only way to get Matt out of his office. “If she comes to me and asks for help, I’ll give it.”

Matt swore under his breath. “You know she won’t come to you for help.”

Jake gave what he hoped passed as a sympathetic shrug.

He was counting on it.

CHAPTER FIVE

Reach for the stars, and if they’re too far away, wear higher heels.

—Paige

P
AIGE
SAT
,
SLUMPED
at her favorite corner table at Romano’s, with Eva and Frankie, trying to formulate Plan C, since Plan A and B had crashed. It had been two weeks and they were nowhere.

The comforting smell of garlic and herbs wafted from the kitchen and through the open window she could see her brother talking on the phone to a client.

It was Friday night and dinner had been his suggestion, his treat, but his phone hadn’t stopped ringing from the moment he’d sat down.

Her phone, on the other hand, had been depressingly silent.

No one had taken her call, and no one had called back in response to the messages she’d left. This wasn’t what she’d imagined when she’d dreamed about starting her own business.

She promised herself that one day she was going to be successful enough to buy her brother a million dinners. Her phone would ring so often she’d have to hire someone to answer it. She hoped that day wasn’t too far in the distance.

“You’ve been rushing around all week.” Maria put heaped bowls of pasta in front of them, topped with her signature red sauce. “You need food.
Buon apetito
.”

“Soon we won’t be able to afford to eat,” Paige said gloomily. “We’ll be sniffing around the trash like stray cats.”

“Claws was a stray cat.” Frankie picked up her fork. “She eats like a queen most days.”

Maria patted her shoulder. “You can eat here every day. We love having you.”

Carlo, who happened to be passing, nodded agreement. “With you three girls in the window, business booms.”

Everyone’s business seemed to be booming but hers.

Paige glanced around the crowded restaurant. There wasn’t an empty seat in the place.

Normally just being in Romano’s lifted her mood. She loved the intricate metalwork of the tables and the photographs of Sicily on the wall. She knew each one in detail. There was the familiar snowcapped peak of Mount Etna, the pretty town of Taormina with its twisting medieval streets, a fishing boat bobbing on a sparkling blue sea.

Laughter and conversation echoed around the room.

Everyone was having a good time.

Everyone, that was, except the team from Urban Genie.

Paige was in charge of company morale and so far she was failing.

“It’s early days.” She made a superhuman effort to be positive. “There are plenty more businesses out there.”

Frankie glanced at her. “You’ve made one hundred and four calls and the only business we’ve been given is to pick up someone’s dry cleaning and arrange a cake for a woman’s ninetieth birthday.”

“Her name was Mitzy and she was adorable.” Eva twisted pasta around her fork, her appetite apparently unaffected by the pressures of their new venture. “Do you know she flew American military aircraft in the war?”

“No.” Paige frowned, distracted. “How would I know that? And how do
you
know that?”

“Because I spoke with her when I delivered the cake and we bonded. She showed me some amazing photographs, and then one of her grandsons turned up to visit and she asked me to stay for tea.”

Frankie paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “You stayed for tea?”

“Of course. It would have been rude to say no, and anyway she was interesting and he was pretty cute, in a slightly uptight banker sort of way. Mitzy is worried he’s single, but she’s even more worried about his brother. He’s a well-known writer. He lost his wife in an accident a few years ago around the holidays and since then he’s become virtually a recluse.” Eva’s eyes filled. “Isn’t that awful? I keep imagining him all alone in his big empty apartment. Money doesn’t matter, does it? It’s love that matters. It’s the only thing that’s important in the end.”

“Unless you don’t have a job.” Paige handed her a napkin. “And then money becomes pretty important. But I agree, it is awful. Can’t be easy to get over something like that.”

“He hasn’t. Mitzy is worried he never will and she’s tried everything to get him out there again. Poor man. I want to pick him up and hug him.”

“You don’t know him,” Frankie pointed out, “so technically you’d be assaulting a stranger. It’s a sad story, I agree, but I don’t understand how you can cry over a stranger.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so hard-hearted.” Eva blinked back the tears. “And after a few hours together, Mitzy didn’t feel like a stranger.”

Frankie dropped her fork. “A few
hours
? Delivering that cake was supposed to take no more than forty minutes. How long were you there?”

“I didn’t really check the time.” Eva looked vague. “It was probably closer to four hours by the time we’d had tea and I’d taken her dog for a walk.”

“Four hours?” Paige blinked. “You could have charged her for that time, Ev.”

“It wouldn’t have seemed right after she made me such a delicious tea. It’s not as if it made me late for another job. We don’t
have
any other jobs. And she was interesting.” Eva paused. “She reminded me of Grandma.”

Hearing the wobble in her voice, Paige gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s fine, Ev. It’s not as if we’re exactly busy doing other things.”

“It’s not the time that bothers me,” Frankie said, “it’s the fact that these people were strangers. They could have been knife-wielding psychopaths. Do you have no sense of self-preservation or caution?” Frankie shook her head and Eva looked at her patiently.

“In my experience most people are pretty nice.”

“Then your experience is limited.” Frankie retrieved her fork and stabbed it into her pasta. “I hope your faith in human nature is never shaken.”

“So do I, because that would be truly horrible.” Eva took a sip of her drink. “By the way, Mitzy’s grandson—the one I met today, not the one who never leaves his apartment—is CEO of a private bank on Wall Street so I gave him our card.”

Paige stared at her. “Seriously?”

Frankie reached for more garlic bread. “She tells us this
after
she’s given us Mitzy’s life history.” She took a bite and glanced at Eva. “You didn’t maybe think that would be the information that would interest us most?”

“Everything about humans interests me. I don’t know if I ever told you that the woman in the room next to my grandma was—”

“Ev—” Paige interrupted her “—you were telling us about Mitzy’s grandson. The rich one who owns a bank. You gave him our card, and—?”

“And nothing. He took it and put it in his wallet.”

“Did he say he might call? Can you call him? Follow up?”

“No. I didn’t ask for his number and I don’t know the name of the company. Don’t look at me like that.” Eva’s rounded cheeks were tinted pink. “I hate asking for business. I am not a salesperson. What if they say yes because they feel pressured? Or worse, what if they say no? That would be so awkward for both of us.”

“I’ve had one hundred and four ‘awkwards’ over the past two weeks,” Paige said wearily. “I’m an expert. Did you find out anything about him?”

“He’s allergic to strawberries and he was the first person in his family to go to college. He’s very successful. Mitzy is so proud of him. And he wished us luck.”

“Luck.” Paige felt a rush of despair. Was she the only one who was worried about their fledgling business?

Maybe these things
did
take time but they didn’t have time.

“I had no idea it would be this hard. The internet is full of tales of success, people who started businesses while at college, got crowdfunding and sold their company for billions of dollars. I can’t even persuade people to pick up the phone and talk to me.”

“I’ve already told you, you should talk to my Jake.” Maria put more garlic bread in the center of the table. “Ask him to make some introductions. He knows everyone worth knowing in Manhattan. Paige, eat something. You will fade to nothing, girl.”

Maria walked away to serve a customer and Paige stared at her plate.

She was not going to reach out to Jake.

She was never, ever going to make herself vulnerable around him again.

“I still have a few people to call and I’m making a new list tomorrow. I’m going to widen the net.”

“Maria has a point. Jake could reel you in a big fish with one cast of his rod.” Frankie looked at her strangely. “Why not ask? You’re not afraid to call any of those strangers on your list. Why not Jake, who you’ve known forever?”

“Because—” She groped for an excuse that would sound believable. “Because this is our company.”

“So? People network and make recommendations all the time. It’s how business is done. What’s the difference?”

“Is this to do with what happened when you were a teenager?” Eva’s eyes narrowed. “Because if it’s the whole ‘he saw me naked’ thing that’s getting in the way—”

“It isn’t!”

“I was going to say, then you should forget it. Jake has seen plenty of women naked since then.”

“Is that supposed to make her feel better?” Frankie looked at Eva with exasperation. “She doesn’t want to hear that, Ev.”

“Why not? It’s not as if she’s in love with him.” Eva paused and looked at Paige. “Are you?”

“No,” she croaked. “Definitely not.”

“Right. It’s an embarrassing incident in your past, nothing more. You should forget it.”

“She’s trying to,” Frankie muttered, and Paige took a deep breath.

“It has nothing to do with that. He’s probably forgotten it ever happened.”

But she knew he hadn’t forgotten.

He was wary around her. Careful. As if he saw her as a potential threat.

Which was mortifying.

As a result she was also careful. She hadn’t touched him since that night.

But the other night
he’d
touched
her
, and for a moment she’d thought—

She stared down at her hand, still able to feel the warm strength of his fingers closing over hers.

Then she shook her head impatiently. Those thoughts were
exactly
the reason she kept her distance.

It had been comfort. Nothing more.

“I’m not asking Jake. There are plenty more calls I can make. Something will turn up.”

Unfortunately the “something” was Jake himself.

The door to the restaurant opened and Paige automatically glanced toward it, as if something in her was programmed to sense his presence the moment he walked into a room. Tonight he was wearing a button-down shirt with jeans, but he turned as many heads as he did when he was wearing a suit.

And he turned hers. She had time to register the lift of her heart and the lightness of her mood before his gaze met hers.

She could tell from the faint narrowing of his eyes that he hadn’t been expecting to see her there, and for a moment she was eighteen again, offering him everything and seeing the shock on his face.

In her dreams she’d imagined him being overcome by lust. Instead, he’d been kind and the kindness had simply added to the humiliation of his rejection.

Kindness had to be the cruelest response of all to wild teenage love. It was a soft, gentle emotion. A direct contrast to her extreme, out-of-control feelings.

His gaze held hers, his focus on her alone, and she felt her heart beat a little faster. She felt as if she were floating. Flying higher and higher. This was the first time she’d seen him since that night on the terrace when they’d spoken alone. He’d touched her hand. He’d—

Jake opened the door a little wider and a woman walked past him into the restaurant.

Her blond hair fell to her waist and she was so slender she looked as if a gust of wind would blow her over.

The floating, flying feeling died. Paige’s mood plummeted, like a paraglider losing a thermal.

She felt an uncomfortable twist of pain. The same thing happened every time she saw Jake with a woman.

“I was enjoying my pasta but suddenly I feel horribly fat.” Eva pushed her plate away. “What happened to Trudi? I liked Trudi. At least she had a body.”

“Trudi was a few months ago.” Trudi. Tracey. Tina. They all merged, but what it meant was that Jake Romano was taken.

By every woman in Manhattan, or so it seemed.

Paige hated it. She hated noticing. Most of all she hated that she still cared.

She needed to get a life.

She needed to get a man.

Maria was back at their table, this time serving them house salads. “That woman with Jake looks as if she needs a good meal.” Clucking her disapproval, she put the plates in front of them. “He brings a different girl in here every month. He needs to change his ways or he’ll never meet the right woman.”

Paige picked up her fork.

She was pretty sure she knew why Jake didn’t want a real relationship and it had nothing to do with meeting the right woman.

It had to do with his mother. His birth mother.

He’d talked about it once, when he’d spent all night sitting by her hospital bed. Something about the sterile darkness had made him open up.

It was a conversation she’d never forgotten.

She put her fork down, appetite gone, watching as he strolled across the restaurant toward them. He lifted a hand in greeting to his uncle, who was heading for the kitchen, and paused to kiss Maria. He said something in Italian that Paige didn’t catch but she saw Maria’s expression soften.

Frankie gave her a sympathetic look. “Hard to be irritated with a guy who is so fiercely protective of his mother. Here—” She topped up Paige’s glass. “Drink some more wine.”

Paige took a sip. Frankie was right. With other people Jake was impatient and direct to the point of brutal. With his mother he was infinitely patient.

His date was hovering, and he turned and beckoned her over.

“It’s our lucky night. They’re joining us.” Frankie topped up her own glass. “Oh well, look on the bright side.”

“There’s a bright side?”

“Yes. That girl hasn’t eaten for a decade. There is no chance she will steal our food.”

Jake paused by the table, the woman’s hand in his. “Company meeting? How’s it going?”

Paige kept her eyes on her plate.