Chapter 4

When he asked me out to breakfast I’d taken it to mean us strolling a few blocks from the hotel until we happened upon a food truck where we ordered hot dogs, which we’d wolf down in an outdoor café somewhere as we tried to make small talk, at least until we went our separate ways like two strangers who’d just had sex and did not know how to act around each other.

I did not expect Kane to come forward to rest a hand on my lower back as he guided us through the hotel with expertise that betrayed familiarity until we found ourselves at the entrance of a tastefully furnished saloon with pristine white walls and a coved ceiling.

Inside, customers dressed as they’d just stepped out of a Paris Fashion Week showing waited to have breakfast, and I knew without anyone saying so that in my burrowed overcoat and messy bed hair, I did not belong here, but more importantly, a single meal in this place could see me having to declare bankruptcy.

Kane stopped when he noticed I was no longer moving and shot me a curious glance as immobile; I gazed upon the tableau of peerless sophistication in front of me.

“I can’t afford to eat here,” I said in a small voice, stuffing my hands into my coat pockets so I wouldn’t twist them around each other.

“It’s not expensive,” he answered with a dismissive wave, and I shot him a disbelieving glare before nudging my head in the direction of a woman who picked at her breakfast of pancakes drizzled in chocolate cream and topped with strawberries.

“That looks pretty expensive to me.”

“You shouldn’t worry,” Kane said, barely sparing her a glance. “It’s my treat.”

I pulled away, shaking my head. “You can’t expect me to feel comfortable about this.”

“Why not?” he inquired, sounding genuinely puzzled by my logic, “I asked you out, and I can afford it.”

I considered him, no longer able to ignore the fact that he was obviously a very powerful figure. I’d put it off for as long as I could, ignoring the fact that we arrived at the hotel in a car manned by a chauffeur in the early hours of the morning and that the room we stayed in certainly appeared luxurious enough to entertain foreign dignitaries.

“I don’t want your charity,” I said, and the vehemence with which I spoke surprised us both as a tension-filled silence settled between the both of us.

“It’s not charity.” Kane repeated, “I asked you out.”

“I had a nice time,” I returned after a beat, having to suppress my sigh of frustration. “There’s absolutely no need to ruin it with a fight when we don’t even know each other all that well, so I’ll just find my way out, and we’ll call it a day.”

The way he looked at me made it clear what it was he was thinking, that I was blowing things out of proportion and just being dramatic, and while he may have been correct it irked me how completely my discomfort flew over his head.

Having said all I thought needed to be said, I prepared to walk away, but Kane’s hand reaching to curl around my arm stopped me in my tracks. Gently, he tilted my head up, so we were making eye contact, and I looked into his disconcerting gray irises, feeling my heart in my throat.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, and if I hadn’t heard the note of genuine contrition in his voice I would’ve thought he was being sarcastic.

“I don’t want to feel like I’m in your debt,” I admitted after a while, and he cocked his head to one side, waiting. “I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“But you do,” he said, and noticing how his words threw me off balance, he clarified. “You do remember that you spilled your drink all over me, right? Meaning you owe me.”

“But-but I got you a drink,” I protested weakly, and he grinned at me.

“Is that what it was?” he teased. “Here I was thinking you did that only because you wanted to have your wicked way with me.”

To be fair I had wanted to have my wicked way with him. However, that wasn’t the topic under scrutiny, but seeing an opportunity present itself as I tried to come up with some witty rejoinder, Kane led me into the saloon.

***

Seated in a private booth of our own, as I looked over a menu that boasted options from coconut crepes with maple ricotta and strawberries to caramelized onion frittatas, I felt like I was Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and was unable to contain the startled laugh that escaped me.

“You found what you want to eat?” Kane asked, and I shook my head.

“Everything looks so good. I can’t make up my mind.”

He leaned toward me and said in a tone of complete seriousness, “We could order one of each if that makes you happy.”

“No,” I said, eyes bugging, and quickly scanned my options before rattling out the first thing to catch my attention. Kane, on the other hand, didn’t even glimpse at the spread before rattling off his order to the waiter, who left but not before giving a bow.

It hadn’t skipped my attention, the peculiar fact that everything on the menu came without a price list, and I figured that those who frequented this saloon already understood that if you had to ask how much, then you probably couldn’t afford it.

Faced with the possibility of waiting in silence until our food arrived, I filled in the space with a mindless conversation that Kane punctuated. He seemed pretty surprised when I let slip that I was new to the city and even more so when I told him that Aurora was actually my real name.

“My mom’s a physicist,” I expounded. “She met my dad on a ski resort in Alaska when she traveled then for some field study about the northern lights, and there you have it: Aurora – though everyone calls me Rory.”

“I like it,” Kane admitted, but before he could say more, we were interrupted by the arrival of our respective orders, and without preamble, I dug in, letting out an exclamation of bliss as soon as I took my first bite, and my taste buds started to sing out in relish.

“This,” I said, and Kane admonished me to eat without speaking, though a smile played at the corner of his mouth.

I obliged happily enough, stopping for long enough to tell the waiter that I would be taking home an order of two Norwegian custard buns before returning to the task of stuffing myself like a Thanksgiving turkey.

By the time I came up for air, I felt full to bursting and sat back with a contented sigh, making a decision that as soon as I got back to the flat Paula and I shared, my first order of business would be making a beeline for my bed and sleeping.

I looked up at Kane, who ate with the same single-minded ferocity he’d used to make love to me.

This man had given me orgasms, fed me, and it wasn’t a stretch to say that at that very moment, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

His phone rang, and he leaned over his plate of pumpkin rolls to check the caller ID before holding up a finger to excuse himself as he dabbed his mouth with a napkin and got up.

I’d caught a flash of a woman’s name that began with an ‘I,’ and I scolded myself at the sudden surge of hurt I felt come upon me. It could’ve been his mother or sister or even personal assistant. None of it mattered anyway. It wasn’t my business, and I’d do good to remember that.

From my seat, I watched Kane, the leonine grace of his movements as he paced to and fro at the entrance of the saloon.

I was shit at reading lips, and even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have tried to intrude on his privacy, so I occupied myself with finishing up the rest of my meal until he returned, sliding into the seat he’d vacated.

I knew that something was wrong by the carefully blank slate his face had turned into, and I asked if everything was alright, to which he gave a dismissive wave.

“Yes,” he said, and then he frowned. “Actually, something just came up, and I’m afraid we’ll have to cut this short.”

I could feel a sharp s**** of panic start up from somewhere deep inside me at his announcement and how cold he’d delivered it as if we hadn’t just spent the past half hour getting to know each other.

“Oh,” was all I came up with, and he gave a curt nod.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “No, no. It’s okay. If anything, I’m sorry I took up so much of your time.”

Kane said nothing in reply to this and, instead, abruptly began the process of gathering his stuff together. He got up, towering over my seat, for his shadow cast a pall.

“You can stay for as long as you want,” he informed me. “Order anything, the tabs on me. There’s a car ready to take you home, so as soon as you’re ready, just let Thomas know” – he pointed at a goateed man in a leather jacket at the corner of the room who gave a small wave – “and he’ll take care of the rest.”

“I could take a cab,” I cut in as a sensation as I stumbled into a desert full of sinking sand snaking its way through me, and I tried to keep up with the rapid progression of events.

But apparently, Kane found my words undeserving of a reply as, with a final nod at me, he turned and was gone just as quickly as he entered my life.

The food turned to ash in my mouth, and the hurt coiled through me as I sat alone in my private booth with Kane’s food in front of me, mocking. For a split second, I considered a version of events where I chased after him, caught up, and stabbed him in the back with a fork.

But these images dissipated, and with them, any appetite which may have remained. I got up and noticed Thomas mirror my actions, and strolled to the counter, where I retrieved my credit card to pay for the buns. But this was met with resistance by the cashier, who informed me that my bill had already been covered.

I was reeling from shock and more than a little bit of hurt and found that I had no willpower to cause a scene, and as Thomas approached me, I told him to wait, that I would like to head to the bathroom first and freshen up.

He gave a nod of assent, eyes boring into me as if he could read my mind, which must have been pretty obvious considering that I took the buns with me. But he remained motionless, and I made my way out of the saloon.

Assured that I’d fallen out of his line of sight after a few minutes of walking, I rounded a corner, asking directions until I got to the lobby, where I made my quiet exit out of the hotel.

I realized I didn’t even know what it was called and looked at words proudly displayed on a plaque beside one of the revolving doors. It read: THE WILDER, Est. 1978 – and for a second, I asked myself why the name sounded so familiar, but after a long moment in which I came up with nothing, I shrugged to myself, chalking the entire thing up to the beginnings of a headache that had started up around my temples.

Without a word, I turned and let myself dissolve into the crowd, feeling the sharp sting of humiliation, though it lessened considerably as soon as it dawned on me that this was the longest stretch of time I’d gone since the break up without thinking about David. The thought brought a smile to my face.

I could not have known what I had waiting in store for me.