The First Move Page 19

  “Which level?” He’d slept longer than he’d intended this morning and had only found time to brush his teeth, nothing else. For all he knew, she could smell him from across the table. Hell, he could smell himself and it wasn’t the smell of a man who’d been working hard. He smelled like a person who’d been sitting in the same spot in the same clothes for hours. Not hard work and movement, but stagnation.

  “Screw it.” He stood up and went around the table, lifting Rey from her seat and wrapping her in his arms. It was early enough that the coconut smell of her shampoo was heady. They could be on a Hawaiian island instead of in Chicago and his only responsibility could be rubbing coconut-scented sunscreen on her body. A man could dream.

  “Hey.” She pulled away from him, putting her hands on his face and looking into his eyes. “I’m really glad to see you.” Then she kissed him, an openmouthed, sexy, hot kiss in front of a roomful of strangers. I’m so glad I brushed my teeth was his last coherent thought before his mind went blank with pleasure.

  His stomach growling broke their kiss. When he pulled away from her to sit down, an old man was giving him the thumbs-up with an encouraging grin, which Miles returned.

  But life-changing kiss or not, he couldn’t do anything further until he turned in the proposal. Women liked employed men. His stomach growled again. He also needed to eat first. Even if he didn’t have to go back home to sit and stare at his computer, he wouldn’t be good for anything but a peck on the cheek if he didn’t get some food.

  “I didn’t know how long you had before you had to get back, and I got here first so...” She pushed a bagel and cup of coffee over to him. “It’s not what you ordered last time. I didn’t know when you’d get to eat again, so it’s more substantial.”

  “Thank you.” Under the wrapping was a sandwich with an egg, sausage and cheese. “I could kiss you again, but I’m going to eat this first.” His breakfast was warm and salty. He could love this woman forever.

  She took a sip of her coffee before she asked, “What’s wrong with your proposal?” She had foam from her coffee on her upper lip. If they weren’t in a bagel shop, if he didn’t have a proposal to turn in, he’d lick the milk off her. Since life didn’t bend to his wishes, he settled for leaning over the table and wiping the foam off with his thumb.

  “Everything,” he said.

  Her eyes widened when he licked the foam off his finger. The heat in her eyes matched his growing arousal, which only made him more frustrated with the work waiting for him at home. Before he could do anything else stupid, he took another bite of his sandwich. When he swallowed, he finished his answer.

  “The RFP is from a corporation, instead of the Defense Department, which changes our profit margins. The what-we’ll-do part of the proposal is done. It’s the how-much-this-is-going-to-cost part that is messing us up. Our accountant is running different scenarios for us right now. Whatever we do, it has to be finished by five.”

  With a twinkle in her eyes, she licked a bit of cream cheese off her finger. She was doing this on purpose, and he only had himself to blame. He’d started the licking torture. When the proposal was handed in, and he’d had at least eight consecutive hours of sleep, he was going to answer her challenge by licking the length of her elegant neck.

  “It’s a big contract?”

  “What?” He looked up from her neck to her face, where the corners of her mouth lifted in amusement. He really should pay attention to something other than the glow of her skin. “Oh, it wouldn’t be our biggest contract in terms of work, but the one we stand to make the most money off.”

  “Thanks for taking time out for breakfast.”

  “I’m getting more out of this date than just breakfast.” His work was interesting, and paid pretty well, but winning this contract could change their company from a small-time contractor to a major player in pattern-recognition programming and statistical software. This contract could lead to other contracts, to hiring more employees, to bigger offices. Breakfast with Rey, and a phone conversation this morning with Sarah, reminded him why no sleep, no dinner date with Rey and no sex was worth it. “Can we do something tomorrow?”

  “I’m volunteering at the Taste of Poland. I should be done and home by seven at the latest.”

  “Sarah’s coming over tomorrow night and we have plans for the evening. Sunday is our day together.” Dating was probably easier without a teenaged daughter. “You can come over and hang out with Sarah and me, though.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said with a smile. She smiled more now than he remembered from the wedding, or from high school, but her smiles were still generally tentative. Her open smile warmed him better than sitting in the sun on a hot Chicago day.

  They continued chatting while he finished his breakfast. Rey asked about Sarah’s school and he asked about the volunteering she was doing at the Taste of Poland. Nothing too personal, but also nothing related to his work, which he was well sick of.

  When he finished his bagel and coffee, he grabbed his phone off the table, kissed Rey goodbye and headed back home to more work and no Rey.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  RENIA REALLY WISHED the woman who was supposed to work the booth with her had shown up. She desperately needed to pee. She could probably leave the booth alone. The band playing was popular, so most people were listening to the music and not stopping at any booths. Or maybe the band was just loud and everyone had bowed to the inevitable fact of not being able to hear above their speakers, so why even try.

  Besides, people didn’t come to the Taste of Poland to learn about the many businesses in Chicago run by Polish women. They came to listen to music, eat sausages and pierogies, and drink Polish beer. She could sneak away to the bathroom and be back before anyone noticed.

  “Hey, siostra.”

  She looked up to see her brother, Karl, standing at her booth, about as casual as he got for a late summer day in slim-fit chinos and a starched dress shirt. “Getting your ethnic on for a reason?”

  He gestured to the people, Poles and not, wandering around with beer and sausages. “Seems to fit the setting. I’m here to make friends.”

  “Great. Stay here so I can run to the bathroom.”

  “I’m not a woman, nor am I in business.”

  “You’re Polish, which is close enough right now.” She kissed his cheek and escaped to the bathroom before he could argue.

  When she returned, Karl was surrounded by more people at the booth than she’d had her entire shift. He really should’ve been a politician. He had an on switch somewhere in his brain. Flip it on and Karl smiled, shook hands and kissed babies. Flip it off and he looked stern and foreboding. Whether charmed or frightened, people told him their problems and confessed their sins. Only his family seemed to be immune.

  The person currently baring his soul to Karl was complaining about the many times he’d called the city about the rats in a nearby business, but the city had yet to issue a ticket. “I think the building is owned by some sanitation guy’s cousin.”

  “Call my office.” Karl was reassuring as he handed over a card for the inspector general’s office. “We can look into it. In the meantime, my sister is back to man her booth. You were getting information for your sister, right?”

  “Yeah. She’s been thinking of starting a brewery and wanted some mentorship. She’s been home-brewing for several years now.”

  “Okay.” Renia handed him a brochure on the organization and told him what ki
nd of services the nonprofit offered to women in business. As they talked, Karl stepped aside to answer his phone.

  “Sis,” Karl interrupted, “it’s Mom.”

  “Can I call her back?”

  Her brother had turned from smiling Karl to serious Karl. “I don’t think you’ll want to.”

  “Okay. Okay.” She excused herself from the conversation and took the phone from her brother. “Sorry, Mom. I’m volunteering at the Taste of Poland. What’s up?” She tried not to let her irritation show. Really, what could be so important it couldn’t wait until her shift was over?

  “Ashley’s here. At Healthy Food.”

  Renia grabbed for the metal chair and sat before she fell. Karl put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, even as he continued to talk with the people coming up to the booth.

  “But how can that be?” Why didn’t she come find me first? Why didn’t she call? This was some cruel joke. It had to be. “Are you sure it’s her?”

  “You don’t think I wouldn’t know my own grandchild, my only grandchild, when faced with her?”

  Her mom hadn’t even been present at Ashley’s birth. Renia had never shown her mother the photograph. “Could you just tell me for certain how you know?” I don’t want to get my hopes up.

  “Renuśka, she looks just like you. She should thank God she looks like you and not her father.”

  “I’m at the Copernicus Center. I don’t know what traffic looks like, but if I can get Karl to finish my shift, I’ll leave immediately.”

  The noise of the band, the buzz of people talking, the smells of the food, everything faded as Renia strained to understand the conversation happening on the other end of the phone. One muffled voice was clearly her mom’s, but all she could tell about the other voice was that it was female. She placed the palm of her hand over her other ear in case this was the last time she’d hear Ashley’s voice. She wanted to know every muffled cadence of it.

  “She says she can’t wait tonight.”

  Ashley had traveled to Chicago just to go to Healthy Food? Renia’s mom hadn’t even been there at her birth; it was Aunt Maria who’d been in the hospital.

  Renia needed to get away from this booth before the tears hit. She stood and stumbled away, not even looking to see if Karl was still there.

  It wasn’t until she nearly tripped over a troupe of girls in their dance costumes that she realized her mother was still talking.

  “I tried explaining that you could be here in an hour, but she said no. She, um, I guess she didn’t come to Healthy Food to be discovered, but to spy on me. She looks just like you at eighteen, and I knew immediately who she was.”

  Another day, when her heart wasn’t breaking so much, she’d think about this conversation rationally and try to understand what Ashley was feeling right now—what would cause her to spy on her grandmother. But at the moment, Renia just wanted to stomp her feet in frustration at the world for putting her daughter so close to her—but on the other side of the city. Or maybe she’d just sink into a puddle of tears. Her daughter was going to abandon her.

  Her mom was still talking.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that,” Renia said. “Could you repeat what you just said?”

  “I convinced her to come over tomorrow night for dinner, with you. Three generations of Milek women can get to know each other.”

  Three generations of Milek women sitting around her mother’s dining room table, not the homey kitchen one, but the large oak table with a lacy table runner and her grandmother’s china. Two generations of Milek women looking at the daughter they abandoned in a time of need and two generations of Milek women looking at the mother who abandoned them. Renia, caught in the middle, not knowing whether to look at her mother or her daughter.

  “What time?”

  “She can come over at six. I’ll make cabbage rolls for you. Maybe Tilly and Karl can come?”

  “No. They can meet her some other time, maybe.” She didn’t want to share her daughter. Was that so wrong?

  “Renuśka,” her mom said hesitantly, “please don’t forget that Ashley’s my family, too. Whatever relationship develops between the two of you.”

  * * *

  MILES WAS RESTED and clean. The proposal was in, so worrying was futile. He’d even gone running and lifted weights, reminding his muscles they had more responsibility than keeping him upright as he sat at the computer. Tonight and tomorrow were for Sarah, and he’d devote all of next week to Rey. But today was for him.

  Relaxing in his favorite chair with his iPad on his lap and notepad next to him for scribbles, he might appear to be working. He had even written charts and calculations based on what he learned from his iPad, but all his work was aimed at getting the best NFL fantasy team possible this year. Last year, with luck and some key player injuries, Sarah had beaten the pants off him. She’d beaten the pants off everyone in the league. She was his daughter, and he loved her, but she was old enough he didn’t have to pretend to be happy when she won.

  A couple clicks and he was checking out defensive linemen. He wanted someone who could take the ball away, either through forced fumbles or interceptions, but not a player with lots of penalties. Last year, his star defensive player had been suspended for a couple games after spitting on an opposing player.

  Losing stung, but coming in dead last had been rotten. This year, he was going to be so far ahead in the league that his back would be a distant memory to all the family members huffing and puffing behind him.

  He smiled at his ridiculous thoughts. Last year may have been the first year he’d been last, but he’d never won the family fantasy league. Ever. It was the family’s favorite joke around the Thanksgiving table with the Lions playing in the background. Miles applied all the statistics and mathematics he knew to pick out his players and he still couldn’t win. Of course, his fancy math couldn’t predict one player spitting on another.

  Miles looked at a couple players’ stats, made some notes and ranked his choices. Not this year. This year, none of his players would spit on another player.

  Thinking about large, sweaty men wasn’t enough to keep his mind fully engaged. These days, only Rey fully occupied his mind. If he was thinking about something else, she was still in the back of his mind, waiting patiently while drinking her coffee. Right now, she was smirking at his inability to win at fantasy football. The doorbell rang. Miles put on his jeans, still on the floor in his office from where they’d landed yesterday the moment he’d gotten home. Like all men who worked from home, he did his best thinking in his boxers. Putting on pants had been a nod to the sensibilities of the bagel shop and Rey.

  Rey stood at his front door, her eyes rimmed in red and her face blotchy with dried tears.

  “Are you okay? I thought you were at the Taste of Poland most of the day.”

  “I missed her again.” Her voice cracked and she was holding herself tight with emotion, but she didn’t have the creepy wrapped-in-plastic lack of emotion she’d exhibited immediately after hanging up on her daughter. He pulled her into his arms, no longer afraid this Rey would break.

  When she was done crying, she followed him into the kitchen and accepted a cup of tea.

  “Ashley went to Healthy Food today. She wouldn’t wait there, not even for me to leave the booth and drive down. I could barely finish my shift.” She folded her arms on the counter and rested her forehead on them.

  “That’s it? Ashley comes to Chicago, has Polish buf
fet and leaves?” Rey shouldn’t have hung up on her daughter, but Ashley teasing her like this seemed unnecessarily cruel.

  Rey looked up and gave him a wan smile. “I get to meet her before she leaves. We’re having dinner at my mom’s house tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” God was playing a cruel joke to take two women who get along except for one thing and make them plan a dinner party around that one thing.

  “Can you come?”

  “Sunday’s my day with Sarah.”

  * * *

  RIGHT, RENIA thought. He had his own daughter—the daughter he’d married a woman he wasn’t in love with for. She grasped onto Sarah, and his sense of responsibility. “She can come. My mom will make a lot of food—too much for only the three of us. She’ll love meeting you, and Sarah.”

  “I don’t want to just serve as distraction from an uncomfortable situation. I especially don’t want to put Sarah in that position. If you want me there for me, I’ll come. If you want Sarah there for Sarah, I’ll bring her.”

  Renia took a drink of her tea. It soothed her nerves, but also gave her the chance to think about what Miles was actually asking. Not did she need him there, but did she want him there?

  She was asking him to be with her while she met her daughter and to meet her mother. This wasn’t about sex and pleasure. You don’t have to have a relationship to have sex. You do have to have a relationship to take a man, and his daughter, home to meet your mother. To provide emotional support while you saw your daughter for the first time since she was an infant and you handed her to strangers to care for.

  He was asking her to make an emotional commitment to him and their relationship, which was nothing she’d ever done before. Not in high school, when unsatisfying sex was another way to deaden her emotions. Not as an adult, when she’d found herself with men who let her push and push until she was so disgusted by their weakness that she left them writhing on the floor, or they’d just left on their own.