For 100 Nights (100 2)

“Yes. I’m . . . “ I shake my head, feeling dazed. Trapped.

Desperate to escape the trouble I knew would find me one day.

God, what am I going to do?

Abandoning my filled basket right where I stand, I hurry for the exit. I hear the store clerk calling after me in concern, but I don’t stop. I don’t slow my pace for an instant, not even once I’m outside in the bright afternoon sunlight.

As I hurry for the subway station a few blocks away, the traffic light stops me at the corner as cars rush by. At my feet is a large sewer grate, with vents wide enough to lose a heel.

Or a phone.

I glance down at my hand. My fingers are wrapped so tightly around my cell it’s a wonder the device hasn’t shattered.

I can’t outrun my past. I know that.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it any easier than I already have for my demons to catch me.

The traffic light changes to green.

I relax my grasp on my phone, then watch the grate swallow it before I step off the curb.

Chapter 7

I’m too keyed up to return to the big, empty penthouse right away. My stepbrother’s voice is on an endless loop in my head, his not-so-thinly-veiled threat looming over me like a dark ghost that I cannot shake.

Instead of taking the subway to the station closest to Nick’s building, I get off a couple of stops earlier and detour on a short walk to Central Park. Seated beneath the trees, surrounded by nearly 850 acres of nature and the sounds of children’s laughter drifting over to me from the nearby carousel, I can finally breathe again.

I hardly notice the time until the shadows start to lengthen and the packs of nannies and their young charges begin to thin out.

By the time I reach the Park Place building, it’s nearly sundown.

I hear Nick’s terse voice as soon as I step off the elevator into the penthouse. He appears in the vestibule, his phone at his ear. He looks haggard, still in his suit pants and black oxfords, his white shirt untucked and loosened at the top, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. His gaze sears me, stark with anger . . . and relief.

“Never mind, Tasha.” When he speaks now, his voice is low. Unnervingly level. “No. She just walked in.”

He ends the call, then, without saying a word to me, strides back into the sprawling apartment and sets his phone down

on the kitchen island countertop. I notice an open bottle of whisky there. Beside it is a glass with nearly two fingers of amber liquid in it. Nick downs it in one swallow.

“Where’ve you been?”

The calmness of his voice belies the displeasure I sense in every hard line of his body. Although we’re separated only by the open space of the large living room, I feel as if I’m still standing on the other side of the emotional wall he constructed between us this afternoon. I stare at the back of his dark head as I approach him.

“I had an appointment to look at an art studio sublet this afternoon.”

“So I hear. Tasha told me her aunt left you in East Harlem three hours ago.”

Had it been that long? “I decided to stop by the park for a while afterward.”

I tell myself I have no reason to feel guilty for going, yet as Nick pivots to face me now, it’s all I can do not to flinch. He is furious. I’ve only been at the receiving end of his anger once before—the night we nearly broke up because of my secrets. He had a similar look in his eyes then.

A look of suspicion.

Distrust.

“You just take off without saying anything? Jesus Christ, Avery. I didn’t even know you were interested in looking for a studio.”

My own temper flares now. “I didn’t realize I was required to tell you my every move. Or is that also part of your terms for our relationship? Do we even have a relationship, Nick?”