The One In My Heart

“Let me…” I grimaced. “Let me think about it.”


Bennett exhaled audibly. “Take your time. But while you think about it, can you make me your plus-one at Charlotte Devonport’s wedding?”

Charlotte Devonport was marrying my second cousin Sam in three weeks. “Are you related to her?”

“She’s my mom’s goddaughter. So my parents will be there, most likely.”

“And I just ditch Zelda? She was going to be my date.”

“You don’t give my evil genius enough credit. She’ll be receiving a ticket to a private concert Annie Lennox is giving in town that night as part of a fund-raiser.”

Zelda was a huge Annie Lennox fan. She wouldn’t turn down such an opportunity.

“In which case you can tell people that I’m a last-minute replacement for Zelda,” Bennett went on, “somebody you asked on a whim.”

I truly hadn’t given his evil genius enough credit. “And you’ll pretend, until you arrive at the wedding, that you had no idea who the bride was.”

“Unless that claim seems too preposterous. In which case I’ll say that I had some inkling who might be there, but since I didn’t want to miss a chance to hang out with you…”

My heart pinched. If only he meant it. If only it wasn’t a Manhattan-size pretense. “You should ask a woman who’s more likely to take that six-month gig. Showing up at the wedding with me and then somewhere else two weeks later with another girlfriend might not give the impression you want.”

“I’ll decide who I want. You just say yes or no.”

And he wanted me, even if it wasn’t in the way I’d like to be wanted.

What’s the harm? asked a part of me. It’s just a wedding.

And this is just drinks at his place, retorted a different part of me. Look at everything that’s happened since you stepped into this apartment. Shut it down now. You can’t leave the door open for this man. Next thing you know, he’ll have taken over your entire life.

“Please,” he said, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear him, “I’m asking this as a favor.”

Had he been looking at me, backed by the full force of his personality, I would have said no. But his gaze was somewhere in the middle of the table, that of a proud man who had run out of options.

“All right,” I heard myself say, “we can go to the wedding together. Just the wedding.”

Several seconds passed before his gaze lifted. I couldn’t read his expression, except to know that he didn’t seem glad, or even relieved.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “You don’t know what it means to me.”





Chapter 5





IT WAS EARLY STILL WHEN we got up from dinner, but Bennett had to go to work—he was taking a night shift for a colleague who’d fractured an elbow skiing. After we put away the dishes, he grabbed the messenger bag I’d seen in his car, and we left together.

A cab was waiting for us downstairs. We got in and Bennett gave the exact address of my house. “The cab dropped Zelda off first the other day, after our lunch,” he explained when I raised a brow.

There was no more vulnerability to be seen on his part, as if that despondent moment at the table had never happened.

“And how’s Zelda, by the way?” he asked, all smooth amiability. “How’s Turkey?”

“She loves Turkey, but she’s already finished with the Turkish portion of the trip. Now she’s in England, visiting her godmother.”

“Ah, Mrs. Asquith. I miss her, the old battle-ax. Haven’t seen her in a couple of years.”

“That’s right,” I recalled with some surprise. “Zelda mentioned that the two of you are thick as thieves.”

“She was—and is—a tremendous gossip, Mrs. Asquith. In fact, she used to tell me stories about Zelda, about how this man she really adored left her when he realized how serious her condition was.”

This casual revelation flabbergasted me: Zelda had never mentioned such a man. “What else do you know about him?”

“He’s a successful TV producer. Very low-key. Married forever to the same woman.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“No, but I remember Mrs. Asquith telling me once that I’d just missed him. So they are on visiting terms—or they were, fifteen years ago.” He glanced at me. “I guess this is news to you?”

I hesitated. “Yeah.”

We were before the light at 5th and 79th, waiting to turn onto the transverse to cross Central Park. I stared at the grille that separated us from the cabdriver, trying to come to grips with this unknown side of Zelda.

She had long joked that my father married her only because of her bloodline, and she him because he was her ticket to America. I used to have this image of them sitting across from each other, Zelda smoking one cigarette after another—she quit only five years ago—while he jotted down the terms of their marriage with his Montblanc fountain pen.

Seemed like the sort of thing people did in the eighties.