But tonight—the first time his entire family would be reunited at Le Chateau since the wedding? Tonight felt a little weird for him. étienne was married to Kate. Jax was engaged to Gard. Even Mad, who returned this morning from a week in London with her new boyfriend, Cort Ambler, seemed to have her eyes on settling down. That left J.C. still free as a bird, fucking whomever he wanted and committing to none. Is that what he wanted forever?
He was thirty-four years old, and he’d never—not in almost twenty years of adulthood—had a mature, loving, committed relationship. He hadn’t allowed it. And at this point, he didn’t even know if he’d be able to figure out how.
So fuck it. There was no point thinking about it.
He sighed, standing up from his desk and flicking off the light as he left his office and closed the door behind him. In the dim light of the gallery, he moved slowly, checking out the paintings and sculptures, allowing his guard to fall, allowing warmth and wonder to fill his heart. His eyes followed bold contours and sought out subtle shading in a Picasso original. He stopped under a mobile made from Swarovski crystals and let a rainbow of twinkle lights shower him like a blessing. Shifting his gaze to a colorful Kandinsky, he felt the joy of the childlike technicolor brushstrokes as he continued toward the door. But as he did every night, he stopped by the Andrew Atroshenko portrait of a ballerina he’d tucked securely into a dark nook by the door about a month ago and stared.
The angles of her body—of the arm raised over her head, of one leg flexed almost perfectly behind her, of the flat plane of her chest in a loose-fitting, corseted, white satin bodice—made his body tighten and his eyes widen. She was exquisite. Sublime. She was nowhere near the most expensive piece in his gallery, but she was among the most precious to J.C., filling him with an almost painful melancholy as he bid adieu to her every night.
“You shouldn’t have called her a bitch,” he muttered to himself softly before turning quickly away, punching his code in the security pad and closing the front door behind him.
***
“Neil!” called Libitz, rising from her desk with a grin to embrace her boyfriend, whom she’d been dating for a little over three weeks.
Neil Leibowitz, to whom her mother had introduced her at a cocktail party almost a year ago, had gently pursued Libitz for months, calling her every four to six weeks to ask if she’d join him for dinner, a concert in the park, a Mets game, or a movie. Each time he made a different suggestion, and each time Libitz politely refused. But when he called her on the Sunday night she returned from Kate’s wedding, she’d suddenly accepted his invitation, making them both stutter in surprise.
“W-wait! Did you just say yes?”
“I guess I did.”
“Did you mean to?”
No. Not really. She had no idea where the word “yes” had come from, but she decided to roll with it. “Yes, I’d love to go to a winetasting with you, Neil.”
“Libitz,” he’d said, laughter thick in his Brooklyn-accented voice, “if I’d-a known a winetasting would make you say yes, I would’ve suggested it last October!”
She’d laughed politely, though if he’d asked her a moment before, she couldn’t have actually told him what sort of date she’d finally accept. Something within her just felt desperate to do something, to go somewhere, to move on, to say yes to someone.
As he entered her office, kissed her cheek, and gathered her in his arms, Libitz closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Per usual, Neil smelled comfortingly of vanilla, which was, he claimed, part of his charm. His grandfather and father had started their family-run company, Baked Kosher of New York, back in the 1960s, and fifty years later, Neil and his brother, Aaron, who’d attended NYU’s Stern School of Business together, were being groomed to take it over.
It was a successful business that supplied fresh-baked challah to bakeries all over New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, in addition to temples and synagogues that ordered the loaves in dozens for Shabbat fellowship dinners. And Neil’s position as vice-president of operations afforded him an extremely comfortable lifestyle: a Crown Heights townhouse with four bedrooms and a private garden and a house in the Hamptons he co-owned with Aaron. He never arrived to pick her up without a huge bouquet of fresh flowers and, of course, a loaf of freshly baked bread—one for her and one for her parents.
Her grandmother called Neil a “mensch,” which, translated from Yiddish, meant she thought he was a good man—a “catch” for her only daughter—and Libitz supposed he was. He was a grown-up (unlike some people from recent memory). He was also polite and earnest, serious and focused—the sort of man who’d be a good provider and loyal husband. He’d take their sons to see the Mets on summer Saturdays and take Libitz to Paris for their anniversaries. Life would be comfortable and safe with Neil.
And then, one day, after Mahjongg at his mother’s house with the girls, you’ll pick up a gun and blow your brains out from sheer boredom.