A week later, Hogan stood in his living room, wondering why the hell he’d let Chloe arrange a dinner party for him. It was for Anabel, he reminded himself. This entire situation with Chloe had always been about winning back Anabel.
Despite his recent encounter with Chloe—which neither of them had spoken about again—that was still what he wanted. Wasn’t it? Of course it was. He’d spent almost half his life wanting Anabel. She was his Holy Grail. His impossible dream. A dream that was now very possible. All Hogan had to do was play his cards right. Starting now, with the evening ahead. If he could just keep his mind off making love to Chloe—or, rather, having sex with Chloe—and focus on Anabel.
He still wasn’t looking forward to the night ahead, but he was relieved there wasn’t going to be a large group coming. Chloe had only invited Anabel and three other couples, two of whom were friends of Anabel’s that Chloe had assured him it would be beneficial for him to know, and one of whom was Gus Fiver and his date.
Hogan realized he should have been the one to plan something, and he should have been the one who invited Anabel to whatever it was, and he should be in charge of it. He also realized it should just be him and Anabel, and not a bunch of other people, too.
So why hadn’t he done that? He’d been living in his grandfather’s house for a month now, plenty of time for him to figure out how things were done here and proceed accordingly where it came to pursuing the love of his life. But the only time he’d seen Anabel since ascending to his new social status had been the day she came over to try and lure Chloe back to work for her. He’d thought about asking her out a lot of times over the last few weeks. But he’d always hesitated. Because he wanted the occasion to be just right, he’d told himself, and he hadn’t figured out yet what just right was with Anabel these days.
Back when they were teenagers, they’d had fun walking along the boardwalk on Rockaway Beach or bowling a few sets at Jib Lanes or downing a couple of egg creams at Pop’s Diner. Nowadays, though... Call him crazy, but Hogan didn’t see the Anabel of today doing any of those things. He just didn’t know what the Anabel of today did like. And that was why he hadn’t asked her out.
Tonight he would find out what she liked and he would ask her out. Just the two of them. By summer, he promised himself again, they would be engaged. Then they would live happily ever after, just like in the books.
“You’re not wearing that, are you?”
Hogan spun around to see Chloe standing in the doorway, dressed from head to toe in stark chef’s whites. He’d barely seen her since last weekend. She’d sped in and out of the dining room so fast after serving him his meals that he’d hardly had a chance to say hello or thank her.
Tonight her jacket looked like it actually fit, and she’d traded her crazy printed pants for a pair of white ones that were as starched and pressed as the rest of her. Instead of the usual spray of hair erupting from the top of her head, she had it neatly twisted in two braids that fell over each shoulder. In place of bright red lipstick, she wore a shade of pink that was more subdued.
This must be what passed for formal attire for her. Even though she’d promised him the evening wasn’t going to be formal. He looked down at his own clothes, standard issue blue jeans, white shirt and a pair of Toms he got on sale. Everything was as plain and inoffensive as clothing got, and he couldn’t think of a single reason why Chloe would object to anything he had on.
“You said it was casual,” he reminded her.
“I said it was business casual.”
He shrugged. “Guys in business wear stuff like this all the time.”
“Not for business casual, they don’t.”
“What’s the difference?”
She eyed his outfit again. “Blue jeans, for one thing.” Before he could object, she hurried on, “Okay, maybe blue jeans would be okay for some business casual functions, but only if they’re dark wash, and only by certain designers.”
“Levi Strauss has been designing jeans since the nineteenth century,” Hogan pointed out.
Chloe crossed her arms over her midsection. “Yeah, and the ones you have on look like they were in his first collection.”
“It took me years to get these broken in the way I like.”
“You can’t wear them tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re not appropriate for—”
“Then what is appropriate?” he interrupted. He was really beginning to hate being rich. There were way too many rules.
She expelled a much put-upon sigh. “What about the clothes you wore to the wine-tasting that day? Those were okay.”
“That guy who bumped into me spilled some wine on my jacket, and it’s still at the cleaner’s.”
“But that was weeks ago.”
“I keep forgetting to pick it up. I never wear it.”
“Well, what else do you have?”
He looked at his clothes again. “A lot of stuff like this, but in different colors.”
“Show me.”
Hogan opened his mouth to object again. People would be showing up soon, and, dammit, what he had on was fine. But he didn’t want to argue with Chloe. These were the most words they’d exchanged in a week, and the air was already crackling with tension. So he made his way toward the stairs with her on his heels—at a safe distance. He told himself he was only changing his clothes because he wanted to look his best for Anabel, not like the kid from Queens she’d chosen someone else over. He wanted to look like a part of her tribe. Because he was a part of her tribe now. Why did he keep trying to fight it?
He took the stairs two at a time until he reached the fourth floor, not realizing until he got there how far behind Chloe was. He hadn’t meant to abandon her. He was just feeling a little impatient for some reason. When she drew within a few stairs of him, he headed for his bedroom and threw open the closet that was as big as the dining room in the house where he grew up. It had four rods—two on each side—for hanging shirts and suits and whatever, a low shelf on each side beneath those for shoes, and an entire wall of drawers on the opposite end. Every stitch of clothing Hogan owned didn’t even fill a quarter of it. The drawers were pretty much empty, too.
Mrs. Hennessey had started clearing out his grandfather’s suits and shoes before Hogan moved in and was in the process of donating them to a place that outfitted homeless guys and ex-cons for job interviews—something that probably had his grandfather spinning in his grave, an idea Hogan had to admit brought him a lot of gratification. But the housekeeper had left a few things on one side she thought might be of use to Hogan because he and his grandfather were about the same size. Hogan hadn’t even looked through them. He just couldn’t see himself decked out in the regalia of Wall Street, no matter how high he climbed on the social ladder.
Chloe hesitated outside the bedroom door for some reason, looking past Hogan at the room itself. The room that was furnished in Early Nineteenth Century Conspicuous Consumption, from the massive Oriental rug in shades of dark green, gold and rust to the leather sofa and chair in the sitting area, to the quartet of oil paintings of what looked like the same European village from four different angles, to the rows of model cars lining the fireplace mantel, to the mahogany bed and dressers more suited to a monarch than a mechanic.
Then he realized it wasn’t so much the room she was looking at. It was the bed. The bed that, this time last week, they were only a few hours away from occupying together, doing things with and to each other that Hogan had barely ever even fantasized about. Things he’d thought about a lot since. Things, truth be told, he wouldn’t mind doing again.
Except with Anabel next time, he quickly told himself. Weird, though, how whenever he thought about those things—usually when he was in bed on his back staring up at the ceiling—it was always Chloe, not Anabel, who was with him in his fantasies.
In an effort to take both their minds off that night, he said, “Yeah, I know, the room doesn’t suit me very well, does it? Even the model cars are all antiques worth thousands of dollars—I Googled them—and not the plastic Revell kind I made when I was a kid. I didn’t change anything, though, because I thought maybe I’d learn to like it. I haven’t. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like an outsider in this house.”
He hated the rancor he heard in his voice. Talk about first world problems. Oh, boo-hoo-hoo, his house was too big and too luxurious for his liking. Oh, no, he had millions of dollars’ worth of antiques and collectibles he didn’t know what to do with. How would he ever be able to deal with problems like that? Even so, being rich was nothing like he’d thought it would be.
“Then redecorate,” Chloe said tersely.
“Oh, sure,” he shot back. “God knows I have great taste, what with working under cars on a street filled with neon and bodegas and cement. Hell, apparently, I can’t even dress myself.”
She winced at the charge. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No. I—”
Instead of explaining herself, she made her way in Hogan’s direction, giving him a wide berth as she entered the closet.
“My stuff is on the left,” he told her. “The other side is what’s left of my grandfather’s things.”
He hadn’t been joking when he told her everything he had was like what he had on, only in different colors. He’d never been much of a clotheshorse, and he didn’t follow trends. When his old clothes wore out, he bought new ones, and when he found something he liked, he just bought it in a few different colors. He hadn’t altered his blue jeans choice since he first started wearing them, and when he’d started wearing them, he just bought what his old man wore. If it came down to a life-or-death situation, Hogan could probably name a fashion designer. Probably. He just didn’t put much thought into clothes, that was all.
Something that Chloe was obviously discovering, since she was pushing through his entire wardrobe at the speed of light and not finding a single thing to even hesitate over. When she reached the last shirt, she turned around and saw the drawers where he’d stowed his, um, drawers. Before he could stop her, she tugged open the one closest to her and thrust her hand inside, grabbing the first thing she came into contact with, which happened to be a pair of blue boxer-briefs. Not that Hogan cared if she saw his underwear, at least when he wasn’t wearing it. And, yeah, okay, he wouldn’t mind if she saw it while he was wearing it, either, which was something he probably shouldn’t be thinking about when he was anticipating the arrival of his newly possible dream. So he only leaned against the closet door and crossed his arms over his midsection.
Chloe, however, once she realized what she was holding, blushed. Actually blushed. Hogan didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman blush in his life. He’d never gone for the kind of woman who would blush. Especially over something like a guy’s underwear that he wasn’t even wearing.
“There are socks and T-shirts in the other drawers,” he told her, hoping to spare her any more embarrassment. Not that there was anything that embarrassing about socks and T-shirts. Unless maybe it was the fact that he’d had some of them, probably, since high school. “But I’m thinking you probably wouldn’t approve of a T-shirt for business casual, either.”
She stuffed his underwear back where she found it and slammed the drawer shut. Then she looked at the clothes hanging opposite his. “Those belonged to your grandfather?”
“Yeah,” Hogan told her. “Mrs. Hennessey is in the middle of donating all his stuff to charity.”
Chloe made her way to the rows of shirts, pants and jackets lined up neatly opposite his own and began to give them the quick whoosh-whoosh-whoosh she’d given his. She was nearly to the end when she withdrew a vest and gave it a quick perusal.
“Here,” she said, thrusting it at Hogan with one hand as she began to sift through a collection of neckties with the other.
He accepted it from her automatically, giving it more thorough consideration than she had. The front was made of a lightweight wool charcoal, and it had intricately carved black buttons he was going to go out on a limb and guess weren’t plastic. The back was made out of what looked like a silk, gray-on-gray paisley. It was a nice enough vest, but he wasn’t really the vest-wearing type.
In case she wasn’t reading his mind, though, he said, “I’m not really the vest-wearing ty—”
“And put this on, too,” she interrupted, extending a necktie toward him.
It, too, looked as if it was made of silk and was decorated with a sedate print in blues, greens and grays that complemented the vest well. It was nice enough, but Hogan wasn’t really the tie-wearing type, either.
“I’m not really the tie-wearing ty—”
“You are tonight,” Chloe assured him before he could even finish protesting.
As if wanting to prove that herself, she snatched the vest from its hanger, leaving the latter dangling from Hogan’s fingers. Before he knew it, she was maneuvering one opening of the vest over both of those and up his arm then circling to his other side to bring the vest over his other arm. Then she flipped up the collar of his shirt, looped the tie around his neck and began to tie it.
She fumbled with the task at first, as if she couldn’t remember how to tie a man’s tie—that made two of them—but by her third effort, she seemed to be recovering. She was standing closer to him than she’d been in a week. Close enough that Hogan could see tiny flecks of blue in her green eyes and feel the heat of her body mingling with his. He could smell her distinctive scent, a mix of soap and fresh herbs and something else that was uniquely Chloe Merlin. He was close enough that, if he wanted to, he could dip his head to hers and kiss her.
Not surprisingly, Hogan realized he did want to kiss her. He wanted to do a lot more than kiss her, but he’d start there and see what developed.
“There,” Chloe said, bringing his attention back to the matter at hand.
Which, Hogan reminded himself, was about getting ready for dinner with the woman he was supposed to be planning to make his wife. He shouldn’t be trying to figure out his feelings for Chloe. He didn’t have feelings for Chloe. Not the kind he had for Anabel.
Chloe gave the necktie one final pat then looked up at Hogan. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she took a giant step backward. “I need to get back to the kitchen,” she said breathlessly.
Then she was speeding past him, out of the closet and out of his room. But not, he realized as he watched her go, out of his thoughts. Which was where she should be heading fastest.
* * *
Hogan was surprised at how much fun he had entertaining near-strangers in his still-strange-to-him home. The wife of one couple who was friends of Anabel’s had been in the cab with her the night Hogan met her, so they shared some history there. The other couple who knew her was affable and chatty. Gus Fiver and his date both shared Hogan’s love of American-made muscle cars, so there was some lively conversation there. And Anabel...
Yeah. Anabel. Anabel was great. But the longer the night went on, the more Hogan realized neither of them were the people who met on Jamaica Avenue a decade and a half ago. She was still beautiful. Still smart. Still fierce. But she wasn’t the seventeen-year-old girl who flipped off a cabbie in the middle of Queens any more than Hogan was the seventeen-year-old kid who’d fallen for her.
All he could conjure up was a fondness for a girl he knew at a time in his life when the world was its most romantic. And he was reasonably sure Anabel felt the same way about him. They talked like old friends. They joked like old friends. But there were no sparks arcing between them. No longing looks. No flirtation.
It was great to see her again. He wouldn’t mind bumping into her from time to time in the future. But his fifteen-year-long fantasy of joining his life to hers forever evaporated before Chloe even brought in the second course. Which looked like some kind of soup.
“Bisque des tomates et de la citrouille,” she announced as she ladled the first helping into the bowl in front of Anabel.
“Ooo, Chloe, I love your tomato pumpkin bisque,” Anabel said, leaning closer to inhale the aroma. “Thyme and basil for sure, but I swear she puts lavender in it, too.” She looked at Chloe and feigned irritation. “She won’t tell me, though. Damn her.”
Chloe murmured her thanks but still didn’t give Anabel the information she wanted. Then she circled the table with speed and grace, filling the bowls of everyone present before winding up at Hogan’s spot. When she went to ladle up some soup for him, though, her grace and speed deserted her. Not only did she have trouble spooning up a decent amount, but when she finally did, she spilled a little on the tablecloth.
“I am so sorry,” she said as she yanked a linen cloth from over her arm to dab at the stain.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hogan told her. “It’ll wash out.”
“That’s not the point. I shouldn’t have done it.”
He was about to tell her it was fine, but noticed her hand was shaking as she tried to clean up what she’d done. When he looked at her face, he saw that her cheeks were flushed the same way they’d been in the closet, when she was handling his underwear. Must be hot in the kitchen, he decided.
“It’s okay,” he said again. Then, to his guests—because he wanted to take their attention off Chloe—he added, “Dig in.”
Everyone did, but when Hogan looked at Anabel, she had a funny expression on her face. She wasn’t looking at him, though. She wasn’t even looking at the soup she professed to love. She was looking at Chloe. After a moment her gaze fell on Hogan.
“Your soup’s going to get cold,” he told her.
She smiled cryptically. “Not with the heat in this room, it won’t.”
Hogan narrowed his eyes. Funny, but he’d been thinking it was kind of cool in here.
The soup was, like everything Chloe made, delicious. As were the three courses that followed it. Everyone was stuffed by the time they were finished with dessert, a pile of pastries filled with cream and dripping with chocolate sauce that Anabel said was her most favorite thing Chloe made. In fact, every course that came out, Anabel had claimed was her most favorite thing Chloe made. Clearly, Chloe was doing her best to help Hogan woo the woman he had mistakenly thought was the love of his life. He wasn’t sure how he was going to break it to her that all her hard work had been for nothing.
“We should have coffee on the roof,” Anabel declared after the last of the dishes were cleared away.
Everyone agreed that they should take advantage of what the weather guys were saying would be the last of the pleasantly cool evenings for a while in the face of some inclement, more November-worthy weather to come. Hogan ducked into the kitchen long enough to tell Chloe their plans then led his guests up to the roof garden.
The view was the same as it was a week ago, but somehow the flowers looked duller, the white lights overhead seemed dimmer and the cityscape was less glittery. Must be smoggier tonight. He and his guests made their way to the sitting area just as Chloe appeared from downstairs. For a moment Hogan waited for her to join them in conversation, and only remembered she was working when she crossed to open the dumbwaiter. From it, she removed a tray with a coffeepot and cups, and little bowls filled with sugar, cream, chocolate shavings and some other stuff that looked like spices. Evidently, even after-dinner coffee was different when you were rich.
As Chloe brought the tray toward the group, Anabel drew alongside Hogan and hooked her arm through his affectionately. He smiled down at her when she did, because it was so like what she had done when they were kids. That was where the similarity in the gesture ended, however, because her smile in return wasn’t one of the sly, flirtatious ones she’d always offered him when they were teenagers, but a mild, friendly one instead. Even so, she steered him away from his guests as Chloe began to pour the coffee, guiding him toward the part of the roof that was darkest, where the lights of the city could be viewed more easily. He didn’t blame her. It was a really nice view. Once there, she leaned her hip against the balustrade and unlooped her arm from his. But she took both of his hands in hers and met his gaze intently.
“So how are you adjusting to Park Avenue life?” she asked, her voice low enough that it was clear she meant the question for him alone.
“I admit it’s not what I thought it would be,” he replied just as quietly. “But I guess I’ll get used to it. Eventually.”
He looked over at his other guests to make sure he wasn’t being a neglectful host, but they were all engaged in conversation. Except for Chloe, who was busying herself getting everything set out on the table to her liking. And also sneaking peeks at Hogan and Anabel.
She was more concerned about the success of the evening than he’d been. He wished there was some way to signal her not to worry, that the evening had been a huge success, because he knew now the plans he’d made for the future weren’t going to work out the way he’d imagined, and that was totally okay.
“I know it’s a lot different from Queens,” Anabel said, bringing his attention back to her. She was still holding his hands, but she dropped one to place her palm gently against his chest. “But Queens will always be here in your heart. No one says you have to leave it behind.” She smiled. “In fact, I, for one, would be pretty mad at you if you did leave Queens behind. You wouldn’t be Hogan anymore if you did.”
“That will never happen,” he assured her. “But it’s still weird to think that, technically, this is the life I was born to.”
She tipped her head to one side. “You have something on your cheek,” she said.
Again? Hogan wanted to say. First the engine grease with Chloe, now part of his dinner with Anabel. Before he had a chance to swipe whatever it was away, Anabel lifted her other hand to cup it over his jaw, stroking her thumb softly over his cheekbone.
“Coffee?”
He and Anabel both jumped at the arrival of Chloe, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Anabel looked guilty as she dropped her hand to her side, though Hogan had no idea what she had to feel guilty about. Chloe looked first at Hogan, then at Anabel, then at Hogan again. When neither of them replied, she extended one cup toward Anabel.
“I made yours with cinnamon and chocolate,” she said. Then she paraphrased the words Anabel had been saying all night. “I know it’s your most favorite.”
Hogan wasn’t sure, but the way she emphasized those last two words sounded a little sarcastic.
“And, Hogan, yours is plain,” Chloe continued. “Just the way I know you like it.”
That, too, sounded a little sarcastic. Or maybe caustic. He wasn’t sure. There was definitely something off about Chloe at the moment, though. In fact, there’d been something off about Chloe all night. Not just the soup-spilling when she’d ladled up his, but every course seemed to have had something go wrong, and always with Hogan’s share of it. His coq au vin had been missing the vin, his salade Niçoise had been a nice salad, but there had hardly been any of it on his plate, his cheese course had looked like it was arranged by a five-year-old, and his cream puff dessert had been light on the cream, heavy on the puff.
He understood that, as the host, he was obligated to take whichever plates weren’t up to standards, and he was fine with that. But that was just it—Chloe was always up to standards. She never put anything on the table that wasn’t perfect. Until tonight.
Hogan and Anabel both took their coffee and murmured their thanks, but Chloe didn’t move away. She only kept looking at them expectantly. So Hogan, at least, sipped from his cup and nodded.
“Tastes great,” he said. “Thanks again.”
Anabel, too, sampled hers, and smiled her approval. But Chloe still didn’t leave.
So Hogan said, “Thanks, Chloe.”
“You’re welcome,” Chloe replied. And still didn’t leave.
Hogan looked at Anabel to see if maybe she knew why Chloe was still hanging around, but she only sipped her coffee and gazed at him with what he could only think were laughing eyes.
“So your coffee is all right?” Chloe asked Anabel.
“It’s delicious,” Anabel told her. “As you said. My most favorite. Somehow, tonight, it’s even better than usual.” She hesitated for the briefest moment then added, “Must be the company.”
Even in the dim light, Hogan could see two bright spots of pink appear on Chloe’s cheeks. Her lips thinned, her eyes narrowed and her entire body went ramrod straight.
“I’m so happy,” she said in the same crisp voice. Then she looked at Hogan. “For both of you.”
Then she spun on her heels and went back to his other guests. Once there, however, she turned again to study Hogan and Anabel. A lot.
“What the hell was that about?” Hogan asked Anabel.
She chuckled. “You really have no idea, do you?”
He shook his head. “No. Is it some woman thing?”
Now Anabel smiled. “Kind of.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“Probably.”
Oh, yeah. This was the Anabel Hogan remembered. Cagey and evasive and having fun at his expense. Now that he was starting to remember her without the rosy sheen of nostalgia, he guessed she really could be kind of obnoxious at times when they were teenagers. Not that he hadn’t been kind of obnoxious himself. He guessed teenagers in general were just kind of annoying. Especially when their hormones were in overdrive.
He studied Anabel again, but she just sipped her coffee and looked amused. “You’re not going to tell me what’s going on with Chloe, are you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Just tell me if whatever it is is permanent, or if she’ll eventually come around and things can get back to normal.”
She smiled again. “Hogan, I think I can safely say your life is never going to be normal again.”
“I know, right? This money thing is always going to be ridiculous.”
“I didn’t mean the money part.”
“Then what did you mean?”
She threw him another cryptic smile. “My work here is done.” As if to punctuate the statement, she pushed herself up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek then told him, “Tonight was really lovely, Hogan. And illuminating.”
Well, on that, at least, they could agree.
“Thank you for inviting me,” she added. “But I should probably go.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
“No, don’t leave your guests. I can find my own way.” She looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding. “In fact, I’m really looking forward to finding my own way in life for once.”
She walked back toward the others. He heard her say her goodbyes and thank Chloe one last time, then she turned to wave to Hogan. As he lifted a hand in return, she strode through the door to, well, find her own way. Leaving Hogan to find his own way, too.
He just wished he knew where to go from here.