Chloe awoke slowly to darkness. She hated waking up before the alarm went off at five, because she could never get back to sleep for that last little bit of much needed slumber. Invariably her brain began racing over the list of things she had to do that day, not stopping until she rose to get those things done. Strangely, though, this morning, her brain seemed to be sleepier than she was, because it wasn’t racing at all. There were no thoughts bouncing around about the intricacies of the asparagus-brie soufflé she planned for this morning’s breakfast. No reminders ricocheting here and there that her savory and marjoram plants were looking a little peaked, so she needed to feed them. No, there were only idle thoughts about—
Hogan. Oh, my God, she’d had sex with Hogan last night. Worse, she had woken up in his bed instead of her own. Now she would have to sneak out under cover of darkness before he woke up so she could get ready for work and make his breakfast, then figure out how to pretend like there was nothing different about this morning than any of the mornings that had preceded it and Just have a seat in the dining room, Hogan, and I’ll bring you your breakfast the way I always do, as if the two of us weren’t just a few hours ago joined in the most intimate way two people can be joined.
Oh, sure. Now her brain started working at light speed.
Thankfully, Mrs. Hennessey had weekends off, so Chloe didn’t have to worry about explaining herself to the housekeeper. Even if Mrs. Hennessey did remind her of her grandmother, who Chloe could just imagine looking at her right now and saying with much disappointment, “Mon petit doigt me dit...” which was the French equivalent of “A little bird told me,” a phrase Mémée never had to finish because as soon as she started to say it, Chloe would always break down in tears and confess whatever it was she’d done.
And now she’d really done it.
Panicked by all the new worries rioting in her head, Chloe turned over, hoping to not wake Hogan. But the other side of the bed was empty. She breathed a sigh of relief...for all of a nanosecond, because her gaze then fell on the illuminated numbers of the clock on the nightstand beyond.
It was almost nine thirty! She never slept until nine thirty! Even on her days off! Which today wasn’t!
By now she should have already finished cleaning up breakfast and should be sipping a cup of rose and lavender tea while she made a list for her afternoon shopping. She had completely missed Hogan’s breakfast this morning. Never in her life had she missed making a meal she was supposed to make for an employer. How could she have slept so late?
The answer to that question came immediately, of course. She had slept so late because she was up so late. And she was up so late because she and Hogan had been... Well. Suffice it to say Hogan was a very thorough lover. He’d been even more insatiable than she.
Heat swept over her at some of the images that wandered into her brain. Hogan hadn’t left an inch of her body untouched or untasted. And that last time they’d come together, when he’d turned her onto her knees and pressed her shoulders to the mattress, when he’d entered her more deeply than she’d ever felt entered before, when he threaded his fingers through her damp folds of flesh and curried them in time with the thrust of his shaft, then spilled himself hotly inside her...
Oh, God. She got hot all over again just thinking about it.
How could she have let this happen? She wished she could blame the wine. Or Hogan’s unrelenting magnetism. Or the romance of New York at night. Anything besides her own weakness. But she knew she had only herself to blame. She had let her guard down. She had opened herself up to Hogan. She had allowed herself to feel. And she had lost another part of herself as a result.
No, not lost, she realized. She had surrendered herself this time. She had given herself over to Hogan willingly. And she would never be able to get that part of herself back.
She’d barely been able to hold it together after Samuel died. She’d had to tie herself up tight, hide herself so well that nothing outside would ever get to her again. Because losing something—someone—again might very well be the end of her.
She tried looking at it a different way. Okay, so she and Hogan had sex. So what? She’d had sex before. It was just sex. She’d been physically attracted to Hogan since the minute she met him. He was a very attractive man. Last night she’d simply acted on that attraction. As had he. But it was just an attraction. Hogan was in love with Anabel. He’d been in love with Anabel for nearly half his life. And Chloe still loved her late husband. Just because she and Hogan had enjoyed a little—okay, a lot of—sex one night didn’t mean either of them felt any differently about each other today. It was sex. Not love.
So why did everything seem different?
She had to get out of Hogan’s room and back to her own so she could regroup and figure out what to do. She was fumbling for a lamp on the nightstand when the bedroom door opened, throwing a rectangle of light onto the floor and revealing Hogan standing before it. He was wearing jeans and nothing else, and his hair was still mussed from the previous night’s activities. He was carrying a tray topped with a coffeepot and a plate whose contents she couldn’t determine.
“You’re awake,” he said by way of a greeting, his voice soft and sweet and full of affection.
Chloe’s stomach pitched to hear it. Affection wasn’t allowed. Affection had no place in a physical reaction. No place in sex. No place in Chloe’s life anywhere.
“Um, yeah,” she said, pulling the covers up over her still-naked body. “I’m sorry I overslept. I can have your breakfast ready in—”
“I made breakfast,” he interrupted.
Well, that certainly wasn’t going to look good on her résumé, Chloe thought. Mostly because she was afraid to think anything else. Like how nice it was of Hogan to make breakfast. Or how sweet and earnest he sounded when he told her he had. Or the warm, fuzzy sensation that swept through her midsection when he said it.
“I mean, it’s not as good as what you would have made,” he continued when she didn’t respond. “But I didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping pretty soundly.”
And still, she had no idea what to say.
Hogan made his way silently into the dim room. He strode first to the window and, balancing the tray in one hand, tugged open the curtains until a wide slice of sunlight spilled through. Then he smiled, scrambling Chloe’s thoughts even more than they already were. When she didn’t smile back—she couldn’t, because she was still so confused by the turn of events—his smile fell. He rallied it again, but it wasn’t quite the same.
When he set the tray at the foot of the bed, she saw that, in addition to the coffee, it held sugar and cream, along with a modest assortment of not-particularly-expertly-cut fruit, an array of not-quite-done to far-too-done slices of toast, some cheese left over from last night and a crockery pot of butter.
“I wasn’t sure how you like your coffee,” he said. “But I found cream in the fridge, so I brought that. And some sugar, just in case.”
When Chloe still didn’t reply, he climbed back into bed with her. But since it was a king-size, he was nearly as far away from her as he would have been in Queens. Even so, she tugged the covers up even higher, despite the fact that she had already pulled them as high as they would go without completely cocooning herself. Hogan noticed the gesture and looked away, focusing on the breakfast he’d made for them.
“It’s weird,” he said. Which could have referred to a lot of things. Thankfully, he quickly clarified, “You know what I like for every meal, but I don’t even know what you like to have for breakfast. I don’t even know how you take your coffee.”
“I don’t drink coffee, actually,” she finally said.
He looked back at her. “You don’t?”
She shook her head.
“Then why is there cream in the fridge?”
“There’s always cream in the fridge when you cook French.”
“Oh. Well. Then what do you drink instead of coffee?”
“Tea.”
“If you tell me where it is, I could fix you—”
“No, that’s okay.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
“So...what kind of tea?”
“Dragon tea. From Paris.”
“Ah.”
“But you can get it at Dean and DeLuca.”
“Gotcha.”
“I don’t put cream in it, either.”
“Okay.”
“Or sugar.”
“Noted.”
The conversation—such as it was—halted there. Chloe looked at Hogan. Hogan looked at Chloe. She fought the urge to tug up the sheet again. He mostly just sat there looking gorgeous and recently tumbled. She told herself to eat something, reminded herself that it was the height of rudeness to decline food someone had prepared for you. But her stomach was so tied in knots, she feared anything she tried to put in it would just come right back up again.
Before she knew what she was doing, she said, “Hogan, about last night...” Unfortunately, the cliché was as far as she got before she realized she didn’t know what else to say. She tried again. “What happened last night was...” At that, at least, she couldn’t prevent the smile that curled her lips. “Well, it was wonderful,” she admitted.
“I thought so, too.”
Oh, she really should have talked faster. She really didn’t need to hear that he had enjoyed it, too. Not that she didn’t already know he’d enjoyed it. Especially considering how eagerly he’d—
Um, never mind.
She made herself say the rest of what she had hoped to get in before he told her he’d enjoyed last night, too, in case he said more, especially something about how eagerly he’d—
“But it never should have happened,” she made herself say.
This time Hogan was the one to not say anything in response. So Chloe made an effort to explain. “I was feeling a little raw last night, talking about Samuel and things I haven’t talked about to anyone for a long time. Add to that the wine and the night and New York and...” She stopped herself before adding and you and hurried on, “Things just happened that shouldn’t have happened. That wouldn’t have happened under normal circumstances. That won’t happen again. You’re my employer, and I’m your employee. I think we can both agree that we should keep it at that.”
When he continued to remain silent, she added, “I just want you to know that I’m not assuming anything will come of it. I don’t want you to think I’m under the impression that this—” here, she gestured quickly between the two of them “—changes that. I know it doesn’t.”
And still, Hogan said nothing. He only studied her thoughtfully, as if he was trying to figure it all out the same way she was.
Good luck with that, Chloe thought. Then again, maybe he wasn’t as confused as she was. Maybe he’d awoken this morning feeling perfectly philosophical about last night. Guys were able to do that better than girls were, right? To compartmentalize things into brain boxes that kept them neatly separate from other things? Sex in one box and love in another. The present moment in one box and future years in another. He probably wasn’t expecting anything more to come of last night, either, and he’d just been sitting here waiting for her to reassure him that that was how she felt, too.
So she told him in no uncertain terms—guys liked it when girls talked to them in no uncertain terms, right?—to make it perfectly clear, “I just want you to know that I don’t have any expectations from this. Or from you. I know what happened between us won’t go any further and that it will never happen again. I know you still love Anabel.”
“And you still love Samuel,” he finally said.
“Yes. I do.”
He nodded. But his expression revealed nothing of what he might actually be feeling. Not that she wanted him to feel anything. The same way she wasn’t feeling anything. She wasn’t.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “About all of it. What happened last night happened. But it was no big deal.”
Well, she didn’t say that. Jeez. Oh, wait. Yes, she did. At least, she’d been thinking it before Hogan came in with breakfast. Looking and sounding all sweet and earnest and being so gorgeous and recently tumbled. Okay, then. It was no big deal. They were both on the same page.
She looked at the breakfast he’d prepared. She had thought getting everything about last night out in the open the way they had would make her feel better. But her stomach was still a tumble of nerves.
Even so, she forced a smile and asked, “Could you pass the toast, please?”
Hogan smiled back, but his, too, looked forced. “Sure.”
He pulled up the tray from the foot of the bed until it was between them, and Chloe leaned over to reach for the plate of toast. But the sheet began to slip the moment she did, so she quickly sat up again, jerking it back into place.
“I should let you get dressed,” Hogan said, rising from bed.
“But aren’t you going to have any breakfast?”
“I had some coffee while I was making it. That’ll hold me for a while. You go ahead.” He started to back toward the door. “I have some things I need to do today anyway.”
“Okay.”
“And, listen, I’m pretty sure I won’t be here for dinner tonight, so don’t go to any trouble for me.”
“But I was going to make blanquette de veau. From my grandmother’s recipe.”
“Maybe another time.”
Before she could say anything else—not that she had any idea what to say—he mumbled a quick “See ya,” and was out the door, leaving Chloe alone.
Which was how she liked to be. She’d kept herself alone for six years now. Six years, nine months, one week and... And how many days? She had to think for a minute. Two. Six years, nine months, one week and two days, to be precise. Alone was the only way she could be if she hoped to maintain her sanity. Especially after losing her mind the way she had last night.
* * *
She was right. It shouldn’t have happened.
As Hogan bent over the hood of Benny Choi’s ’72 Mustang convertible, he repeated Chloe’s assertion in his head again. Maybe if he repeated it enough times, he’d start believing himself. Chloe had been spot-on when she said last night was a mistake. It had been a mistake. An incredibly erotic, unbelievably satisfying mistake, but a mistake all the same.
She was still in love with her husband. First love was a potent cocktail. Nothing could cure a hangover from that. Hell, Hogan knew that firsthand, since he was still punch-drunk in love with Anabel fifteen years after the fact. Right? Of course right. What happened between him and Chloe last night was just a byproduct of the feelings they had for other people, feelings they’d both had bottled up for too long. Chloe had been missing her husband last night. Hogan had been missing Anabel. So they’d turned to each other for comfort.
Stuff like that happened all the time. It really was no big deal. Now that they had it out of their systems, they could go back to being in love with the people they’d loved half their lives.
Except that Chloe couldn’t go back to her husband. Not the way Hogan could go back to Anabel.
“Thanks for coming in to work, Hogan,” Benny said when Hogan dropped the hood of his car into place. “Now that your dad’s gone, you’re the only guy I trust with my baby.”
Benny and Hogan’s father had been friends since grade school. With what was left of Hogan’s mother’s family living solidly in the Midwest, Benny was the closest thing to an uncle Hogan had here in town. He was thinning on top, thickening around the middle and wore the standard issue blue uniform of the New York transit worker, having just ended his shift.
“No problem, Benny,” Hogan assured him. “Feels good to come in. I’ve been missing the work.”
“Hah,” the other man said. “If I came into the kind of money you did, I wouldn’t even be in New York. I’d be cruising around the Caribbean. Then I’d be cruising around Mexico. Then Alaska. Then... I don’t even know after that. But I sure as hell wouldn’t have my head stuck under Benny Choi’s Mach One, I can tell you that.”
Hogan grinned. “To each his own.”
They moved into Hogan’s office so he could prepare Benny’s bill. Which seemed kind of ridiculous since Hogan wasn’t doing this for a living anymore, so there was no need to charge anyone for parts or labor. With the money he had, he could buy a whole fleet of Dempsey’s Garages and still have money left over. He knew better than to tell Benny the work was on the house, though. Benny, like everyone else in Hogan’s old neighborhood, always paid his way. Even so, he knocked off twenty percent and, when Benny noticed the discrepancy, called it his new “friends and family” rate.
Hogan sat in his office for a long time after Benny left, listening to the clamor of metal against metal as the other mechanics worked, inhaling the savory aroma of lubricant, remembering the heft of every tool. He couldn’t give this up. A lot of people would think he was crazy for wanting to keep working in light of his financial windfall, but he didn’t care. Hogan had been working in this garage for nearly two decades, most of it by his father’s side. It was the only place he’d ever felt like himself. At least it had been until last night, when he and Chloe had—
A fleet of Dempsey’s Garages, he thought again, pushing away thoughts of things that would never happen again. He actually kind of liked the sound of that. There were a lot of independent garages struggling in this economy. He could buy them up, put the money into them that they needed to be competitive, keep everyone employed who wanted to stay employed and give everything and everyone a new purpose. He could start here in the city and move outward into the state. Then maybe into another state. Then another. And another. This place would be his flagship, the shop where he came in to work every day.
And it would be a lot of work, an enterprise that ambitious. But Hogan always thrived on work. Being away from it was why he’d been at such loose ends since moving uptown. Why he’d felt so dissatisfied. Why his life felt like something was missing.
And that was another thing. He didn’t have to live uptown. He could sell his grandfather’s house. It didn’t feel like home anyway, and it was way too big for one person. Of course, Hogan wouldn’t be one person for much longer. He’d have Anabel. And, with any luck, at some point, a few rug rats to keep tabs on. Still, the Lenox Hill town house was just too much. It didn’t suit Hogan. He and Anabel could find something else that they both liked. She probably wouldn’t want to move downtown, though. Still, they could compromise somewhere.
The more Hogan thought about his new plans, the more he liked them. Funny, though, how the ones for the garage gelled in his brain a lot faster and way better than the ones for Anabel did. But that was just because he was sitting here in the garage right now, surrounded by all the things he needed for making plans like that. Anabel was still out there, waiting for him to make contact. But he’d be seeing her next weekend, thanks to Chloe’s dinner party plans. Yeah, Hogan was this close to having everything he’d ever wanted.
Thanks to Chloe.