New York Billionaires Series

I push back the curtain and peer out. To my amazement, he’s telling the truth. Carter’s standing outside Pierce’s brownstone, leaning against the stoop.

“Why,” I say, “are you wearing a tux?”

Down on the street, Carter runs a hand over the snugly fitted suit. It makes him look sharper, his edges clean and his form tall. “White knights need their armor,” he says. “I was at an event before. Come on, kid. Let me buy you dinner.”

I can’t stop myself from grinning down at him, so out of place amongst the regularly dressed passersby. “All right. I’ll be downstairs in a minute!”

I pull on my thick puffer coat and stick my feet in a pair of sneakers. We’ll look like the world’s most mismatched couple… which we are. At least it’s a truthful representation.

I close the front door behind me. “Hey.”

“Hello,” he says. His mouth pulls into a smile as he looks me over. “Cold?”

“I don’t know how you aren’t. Are you wearing thermals beneath that suit?”

He puts a hand over his chest. “A gentleman never reveals his secrets.”

I make a show of looking around. “There’s a gentleman here?”

“Ouch,” he says. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Good. I know a place.” He nods up the street and I fall into step next to him, shoving my hands into my pockets. I can’t stop smiling. He’d shown up, just to hang out, had he?

For all the reasons why we shouldn’t be friends, I can’t help wanting to spend time with him. Somehow everything he says is intriguing. He could be talking about laundry detergent or the national debt, and he’d make it interesting.

Maybe it’s his voice or his turns of phrase.

Maybe it’s just him.

“Didn’t you say you just came from a dinner?” I ask. “Now you want to eat again?”

“I did, but calling it dinner is an insult to the institution itself. The only thing they served was tiny quiches.”

“Ouch.” I look over at him, the strong line of his jaw, the crisp suit. “But you went anyway? What was it?”

He lifts a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Something I’d accepted a long time ago and couldn’t get out of. It was a networking thing at the British Chamber of Commerce.”

“Must be tough being so popular. How do you sort through all the invitations?”

“It’s a problem,” he says solemnly. “My apartment regularly floods with them.”

“Poor rich businessman.”

“We’re a struggling minority.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m grinning. “You never answered my text about sending the newsroom into a panic today.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes. Coming down unannounced and declaring you want to get to know the department better? Every single person there was thinking they’d be fired.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Well, not you.”

“Not me,” I say. “Well, I couldn’t be quite sure, but I suspected you weren’t there to lay us all off. You didn’t have your serious face on.”

“My serious face?”

“Well, now it seems a bit silly, saying it out loud.” I pull the sleeves of my jacket down to cover my hands. “But I saw what you looked like when you gave the speech during the all-hands meeting. You didn’t wear that expression today, you know. The one where you’re bracing yourself against blowback.”

We walk the length from one lamppost to another in silence.

“You’re observant,” he says.

“It’s a good trait in a reporter.”

“I’m sure. So you weren’t scared today, at any rate, seeing as you can apparently read my intentions from my face. How did people react after I left?”

I shrug. “People didn’t know what to make of it. Most people assumed, and I think correctly, although let me know if I’m wrong, that it was a good sign. Was it? Does this mean you’re considering giving Investigative more resources?”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“Never.”

Carter doesn’t reply. He stops outside a restaurant instead. “Have you ever eaten here?”

I peer through the windows. The place is Italian and kitschy, with a painted mural of the Colosseum on one of the walls. The tables have red plastic tablecloths.

“Nope,” I say.

He pushes the door open. “Come on. They have the best pizza in Queens.”

I don’t move right away. I stare at him instead, tall and with a pressed tuxedo on, holding the door open for me. “Volare” plays softly from the speakers.

Carter’s eyes are steady. “Audrey?”

I step past him into the warm restaurant. We’re greeted by a smiling hostess in her mid-fifties and ushered into a booth in the back. Her gaze lingers on Carter.

Probably wondering what a man dressed like him is doing in a place like this.

“You’ve been here before?” I ask.Property © NôvelDrama.Org.

“Might’ve been, yes.” He pushes the menu across the table at me. “Their calzone is delicious.”

I open the menu without reading any of the items. Just when I think I have him figured out, he changes. But nothing about our friendship is normal. Why should I expect him to be?

“They have passable house wine as well,” he says. “But I think the beer is a safer bet.”