What If I Never (Necklace Trilogy 1)

“Yes, please,” I say, thinking a drink will help check my nerves. “But it won’t take much to get me drunk, so just a very little bit of whatever you suggest.”

“I have wine, whiskey, and the leftovers of a batch of lemon drops my sister made last weekend.”

I love that he’s so close to his sister, I really do, and of course, that he was with her last weekend, not some other woman. Or maybe he did both, at different times. I don’t want to think about it. “Will Bella mind?”

“She’ll make more,” he says. “She lives right around the corner and is always dropping by to cook. I’ll grab the drinks.” He motions to the apartment. “Look around if you want.”

He heads into the kitchen and while I’d love to look around more, for now, I’m drawn to the window view, and I ease in closer for the full effect. The city lights sparkle in the darkness, drawing me in, hypnotizing me. I stare out at the city I grew up in and love so very much. I’m not sure how I left. I’m not sure how I’ll leave again. Dash turns on a country music station, and the room is filled with Lady A’s “What If I Never Get Over You.”

It’s supposed to hurt, it’s a broken heart

I touch the window just as the chorus continues with: What if I never get over you

I didn’t have that issue with Brandon. I was over him the minute I knew the kind of man he truly was, which was probably because on some level I already knew. And because I wasn’t really in love. I think I always knew that as well. I’d wanted to come home after it all blew up, but it had felt like I was running away. I didn’t realize then, what I do now—there are ways to run that have nothing to do with location. Curling into oneself is isolation. And isolation is its own form of running.

“Do you have a view in New York?” Dash asks, rejoining me.

“Of a wall,” I laugh, glancing over at him. “I make good money, but a box-sized place in the right building, with no view, is still high-end for me.” That’s when I realize he’s holding a carafe and two glasses by the stems.

“Let me take the glasses,” I offer, and he allows me to scoop them up but then, for a moment, that stretches miles it seems. we just stare at each other, heat radiating between us.

“We make a good team,” he says softly.

Team.

I try not to read into those words, as if they represent something with longevity, a partnership that lasts. Nothing about tonight is about anything but tonight. “Yes,” I say softly, and he lifts his chin behind my back, indicating a direction.

To his bedroom, I know.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I’d like to say that my bravado is like a fine wine, exploding with various flavors and tastes. But it’s more like a cheap wine that hurts so bad going down, you might as well drink it as a shot. I did that once in college. I shared an entire bottle of cheap wine with a friend. I threw up the next day. As Dash and I walk toward his bedroom, I’ve got the bad wine bravado going on.

I enter the bedroom first, stepping inside his private space, his room, and I find the designer ceiling flows through the entire apartment, as do the views. There’s a king-sized bed, with a built-in dark wooden bookshelf and headboard, and a fireplace on the opposite wall of the footboard.

Beyond the bed, is a step-up to a seating area facing the window and a fireplace that is built into the windows. I wonder if that’s actually safe because it’s easier than wondering what comes next.

“It’s cold in here,” Dash says. “Let’s go to the couch by the fireplace and I’ll power it up.”

Relief at this location suggestion is instant, and now instead of the safety of the fireplace, I wonder if he knows the bed, his bed, is a whole lot more intimidating than the couch. His bed actually intimidates me more than his résumé of success. I think it comes back to just what I said in the elevator, how he handles his success which appears to be as if it’s no success at all.

We pass the bed, with a few vivid images of him naked and on top of me, or vice versa, do a seedy number in my head. Meanwhile, we reach the couch and I primly sit down, knees together and everything. He sits, too, but not so properly. His knee presses to mine, heat in the connection, so much heat that I feel in every part of my body.

Mostly because I need something to do with my hands, I slide my purse off my body, and set it on the couch while he hits a remote and the possibly dangerous fireplace flares to life. With another button, the room fills with country music again. This time it’s Jimmie Allen’s “Best Shot.” I can’t even decipher the words at this point. I’m just not capable.