Made in Manhattan

“It’s the best place on earth,” he said without hesitation. “Also the best jazz on earth.”

“Hey.” She lifted a finger in mock warning. “Easy. New York holds that title.”

“You can’t say that if you’ve never even been to New Orleans.”

Violet raised her eyebrows in victory; he’d just walked right into the wrong side of his argument.

“She has you there,” Edith told Cain gleefully.

He slowly turned and gave his grandmother a pointed look, though there was a playful note to his glare that was almost touching.

Edith cleared her throat. “I think I’ll go have Alvin make me a cocktail.”

She set her hand fondly on Cain’s forearm as she passed, patting it once, and Violet’s heart squeezed when he placed his own upon it for a moment.

With Edith out of the room, Cain turned back to Violet. “You seriously want to do this?”

“Let’s just say I’m overdue for a vacation. And I’m really overdue for a little spontaneous living. But”—she nodded in the direction Edith had gone—“you do realize she’s playing us, right?”

Cain stepped toward her, sliding an arm around her waist and pressing his palm against her lower back to tug her forward. “Nobody makes me do anything I don’t want to do, Duchess.”

His head dipped down to hers, close enough so she could feel his breath on her lips, close enough to make her ache.

Then he released her and stepped back. “Go home and pack. Flight’s tomorrow morning at nine.”

Twenty

Violet sat in her first-class seat and tried desperately not to fidget. Or cry.

She pressed her palms together in her lap and stared hard at them as she ran the pad of her right thumb over her left nail. Then the pad of her left over her right nail.

And repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

The plane hit a patch of turbulence, and her fingers moved faster, pressing harder and harder, palms sweaty, heart racing.

“Duchess. What the hell are you doing?”

Her head snapped up, dismayed to see that Cain had quit whatever he was reading and was watching her.

“Sorry. I always think one of these days I’ll get better—”

The plane gave a sudden jolt to the left before righting again, but not before she panicked and reached out to grab the closest thing for stability: Cain’s forearm.

His expression softened in understanding. “Nervous flyer?”

She managed a jerky nod, not quite ready to remove her hand from his arm. And even though she was fairly certain her nails were gouging into his skin through the fabric of his thin sweater, he didn’t shake her off.

Cain reached up and hit the button to summon the flight attendant, who appeared seconds later with a smile. “You need something?”

“We changed our minds about those drinks,” Cain told the woman with a quick smile. “Two glasses of wine. One red, one white.”

“Of course.”

“It’s not even noon,” Violet said, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to get it together.

“I know what time it is.” He set his hand over hers, gently pressing down until her hand was flattened against him, her palm settling against the soft fabric of the blue sweater. She relaxed slightly at the calming pressure. Enough to open her eyes.

The flight attendant appeared with two glasses of wine, setting them both on Cain’s tray table.

He handed Violet the white. She took a small sip, then stared absently at the pale yellow liquid.

“I hate flying,” she said needlessly.

He said nothing, merely sipped his own wine and watched her.

She set her wine on his table, her hand going to her pearls. “Flying always takes me back to my parents’ death. It was a helicopter, not a plane, but when I’m a million feet in the air, it doesn’t seem to make a difference.”

“Tell me about them.”

Violet sipped the wine, feeling a bit steadier, happy for the distraction. “They were fun. Not lax—they expected me to mind my manners, do my homework, get good grades, and all that. But my house was always the one my friends wanted to go to after school. I took it for granted at the time, but looking back, I remember a lot of laughter. My parents seemed to genuinely love being married.” She stared out the window. “Sometimes I wonder if they loved being married more than they loved being parents.”

“You’ve mentioned they traveled a lot?”

Violet nodded. “They lived for it. They didn’t always leave me behind, but…” She shrugged. “I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s even before they died.”

Her hand lifted to her necklace.

His gaze dropped to her hand as it fiddled with the necklace. “The pearls. They were your mother’s?”

Violet nodded. “They were the most conservative thing about her. She wore them almost every day. Except when they went on one of their ‘adventures.’ That’s what they always called them. Not trips, not vacations. Adventures. She left her pearls with me. Told me to watch over them until she got back.” Her hand dropped. “And then one day she didn’t come back.”