Bonus Epilogue
A Small Favor
Daniel found him half-dead, teetering on a bar stool, slumped over an uneaten tray of peanuts and a line of empty shot glasses. The air was fetid with the sour stench of spilled beer, spoiled citrus, and body odor, and the heat of the bar, while welcome, was uncomfortably stagnant.
Daniel stamped his feet on the entry mat, trying to encourage blood flow and warmth to prickle across his frozen skin. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim gloom of the unnamed bar. It was empty, except for Bernardo, himself, and a bearded, long-haired bartender, ignoring everything except the flickering TV in the corner.
Daniel had almost walked past this bar. It wasn’t a place that Bernardo Martin would frequent. At least, not the Bernardo that he knew.
That Bernardo had reveled in the finer things. He’d collected rare wine vintages, lost in shipwrecks, bought at auctions hundreds of years later. He’d eaten strawberries grown in the Alps, picked at peak ripeness, and then flown overnight to his home in Manhattan where he’d indulge in an alpine treat that never once touched the ground. For his sixteenth birthday, he’d been given a handmade, one of a kind, luxury Italian sportscar. At eighteen, he’d invited Daniel and all their friends for a month-long sail around the Mediterranean. On the boat, he’d brought along his private chefs, cleaning staff, more.
Even Daniel, who’d been surrounded by the idiosyncrasies of wealth from birth, sometimes laughed at Bernardo’s extravagances.
Which is why, when he’d walked past the narrow, dilapidated, hole-in-the-wall bar in the Lower East Side he nearly kept going. But then a gust of wind had yanked at his coat, a passing taxi splashed a spray of icy water over his legs, and he ducked inside the bar to escape the frigid wind.
Daniel clenched his fist, the cold still gripped him, but instead of fear it was anger that fueled him now. Bernardo was weaving unsteadily on the wooden barstool, as if he was on a boat, tossed about by frothing seas. He was in wrinkled, dirty clothes—jeans, a stained t-shirt. Daniel couldn’t see his face, but his hair was messy and his shoulders slumped, as if he’d been kicked in the ribs a few dozen times while he laid curled on the ground.
Life, it seemed, had walloped Bernardo Martin, and for some reason, he’d forgotten how to stand.
The bartender looked toward Daniel when he moved toward the bar, and Daniel held up his hand, two fingers raised.
“Coffee. Black. Two of them.”
At the sound of his voice, and his nearly imperceptible accent, Bernardo’s back stiffened. Ah, he recognized him then, even weeks into a self-destructive bender, with no end in sight.
Daniel slid onto the wooden stool next to Bernardo, and after noticing the dirty sheen of the bar, decided against resting his elbows on the wood.
Glancing from the corner of his eyes, he took in Bernardo’s bloodshot eyes, his weeks-old beard, unusual on a man usually meticulously groomed, and finally, a hollow-eyed desperation that made Daniel clench his jaw in anger.
Damn Bern’s family. They could go to hell. All of them. And so could his fiancée. Former fiancée. Whatever the hell she was.
Wasn’t it just Bern’s luck to fall in love with a girl, defy his family to marry her, then have her leave him the night before the wedding, making off with five million dollars’ worth of wedding gifts, and the ten million dollar yellow diamond crowning her engagement ring.
Nasty business.
Before the wedding, Bern had told Daniel his family had made him choose, the girl or them. He chose the girl. Of course, she turned out to be a confidence artist. But not even Daniel had caught on. How could anyone expect Bern to?
Bern ignored him, and hand shaking, reached forward and shot back the millimeter of liquid still remaining in one of the shot glasses.
Daniel was going to have to handle this very carefully. Bern’s pride burned as bright as a meteor. Even now. Especially now.
The bartender dropped two mugs of steaming coffee on the wooden bar. The black liquid sloshed over the edges and the liquid shone dark like an oil spill. From the smell, Daniel expected the coffee to taste like motor oil and stale grinds, but who was he to argue? He was still cold from hours searching in the sleet, and Bern needed something besides liquor in his blood.
Daniel took a sip, winced, then took another.
“I could be in Geneva,” he said finally, looking straight ahead at the rows of cheap liquor bottles lining the shelves on the mirrored bar wall. “Geneva. Where the coffee doesn’t taste like an oil spill on the East River. They don’t know how to make coffee in New York. Try it. You’ll see.”
“I’d rather not.” Bernardo stared at the chipped, dirty mug full of tin can coffee, and then scowled over at Daniel. He should’ve known Daniel would come looking for him. As soon as the door blew open and the cold gust of wind clawed over his back, he had a feeling that he’d been found out.
It’d been three weeks since Marcine left him, twenty-two days, five hours, eighteen minutes, and who-cares-how-many-seconds. The bar spun and shifted around him, wobbling and tilting so that the world was a fuzzed out blur. He’d been in the blur since he realized what Marcine had done, what he’d done, and what his family had done.
He, Bernardo Martin, had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. A pretty face and a girl who pretended to love him. His family had decided that his choice—her over them—would stand, even now that she was gone.
What was he now?
A dupe.
A fool.
“You’re pathetic,” Daniel said.
That worked too. He was pathetic.
But Bernardo snarled at him. “How’s your dad?”
Daniel flinched, but instead of punching him, or swearing like Bernardo wanted him to, Daniel shook his head, and did something worse—he gripped Bernardo’s arm and said, “You’re better than this.”“No,” Bernardo said, sorry that he’d brought Daniel’s recently dead father into his hurt, “I’m not.”
He reached forward and took a long, scalding drink of the coffee. It was terrible, just like Daniel said. But the bitter liquid kicked something awake inside him. A part of him blinked, as if it was wondering if he’d finally decided to wake up, face the world.
“Why are you here?” Bernardo finally asked, looking at his long-time friend.
“Stupid question,” Daniel said, shrugging. His golden hair was wet, the shoulders of his coat soaked. He must’ve been out in the rain for hours, looking for him.
Bernardo weaved a bit on the stool, still unsteady, even with the coffee working through his veins.
“I don’t have anything left,” he said, and then blinked in surprise that he’d admitted that out loud.
Daniel’s eyes caught his in the mirror. Bernardo’s mouth quirked in a split-second smile. They’d been friends for years, since they were at school together. They were as unalike as two friends could be. Bernardo was known for his closed-off reticence. Sometimes he was called a cold, emotionless bastard, and sometimes, in more polite circles, stand-offish. It was hard, nearly impossible really, for most to crack the hard, thick shell around him. Whereas Daniel was warm, friends with everyone, open and gregarious. Everyone liked Daniel. Not many people liked Bernardo. Still, their unusual friendship lasted for years. Probably because Daniel was stubborn and wouldn’t leave Bernardo be, and Bernardo, for all his protests as a kid, didn’t want Daniel to leave him be.
So it wasn’t surprising that it was Daniel who found him when no one else had.
Maybe Daniel was the only one that even looked. Which, Bernardo decided, was not as depressing a thought as it should be.
“Nothing left?” Daniel asked.
Bernardo shrugged. The bartender had moved back to the corner, ignoring customers and dirty glasses in favor of the TV turned to low volume.
“My pride’s gone,” Bernardo said, “No Marcine.” Her name was a sour taste in his mouth. “No job. No apartment. Got kicked out last month. My parents. Lovely people.” He wobbled on his stool. “No future, anyway.”
Daniel nodded, took another sip of the terrible coffee. “I’d offer you a job in Geneva—”
“No.”
“But I know you won’t take it.”
“You have problems enough,” Bernardo said.
The two of them, barely into their twenties, had mountains of trouble between them. The difference was, Daniel hadn’t invited his problems into his life.
“Well,” Daniel said, “it looks like you’ve fallen from the top and hit rock bottom.”
“Are you here to rub it in?” Bernardo asked. “Delight in my misery? Laugh at Bernardo Martin, once great, now pathetic.”
“Give it up. No one likes a whiner.”
Bernardo gripped the bar. Steadied himself. “My fiancée emptied my bank accounts. Stole nearly twenty million in assets. My family has cut me off. I am…”
He laughed then, a gravelly, aching laugh that was unfamiliar and unexpected. But it felt unbelievably good.
“I’m whining,” he said.
Daniel nodded. “Yes. Do you want to get something to eat?”
Bernardo was suddenly hungry. He hadn’t really eaten for—what?—days? “A steak. You’re going to buy me a steak.”
Daniel put his arm around Bernardo’s shoulder, nearly knocking him off the stool.
“You’re an idiot,” Bernardo said.
Daniel grinned at him, a quick flash. “I’m going to feed you a steak. Then I’m going to loan you enough money to get you back on your feet. And you aren’t going to argue about it.”
“Really?” Bernardo tried to lift an eyebrow. Failed.
“Really.”
“I never accept favors,” Bernardo made a point of saying.
“It’s a small favor.”
Bernardo thought about this, about the fact that sometimes small favors were greater than the biggest favor in the universe.
“I’ll owe you,” he said.
“You won’t owe me anything.”
“Even if I pay you back every cent, I’ll still owe you my gratitude. That would last a lifetime.”
Daniel studied him, carefully measuring his words. “You won’t even owe me your gratitude. We’re friends. Right?”
Bernardo nodded, his throat suddenly ached, so he stood abruptly, steadying himself. In the mirror he could see that he looked the same as ever. Well, not precisely the same. His hair was a mess, his beard grown in and unkempt, his clothing wrinkled and dirty. But his expression, that was the same.
Cold. Closed-off. Lacking emotion.
Except, in the reflection of his eyes, he could see what looked like gratitude, and hope.
He wouldn’t forget this. Not ever.
He was sorry to admit that he’d begged Marcine not to leave him. Even after he’d found out she’d played him, for a while, he’d still wanted her back. He’d begged his parents to give him a second chance. They hadn’t.
But here was Daniel. Who knows how he’d found him. Who knows how’d he’d heard about the trouble. He was here. Giving him a chance.
Bernardo decided, from here on out, he’d always give people their second chance. He’d be the fairy godfather of second chances.
“I’m going to start an online news site,” he decided, walking toward the exit, his head clearing, his hunger returning.
“Sounds about right,” Daniel said, thinking of Bernardo’s family, and how he’d been raised since infancy to be a media mogul.
Daniel smiled over at Bernardo. There was color in Bernardo’s cheeks again, and a light in his eyes. His friend was coming back to life.
“You good?” Daniel asked, pushing the bar door open and bracing against the sleet and cold. But the rain had stopped, the muted gray sky was slowly shifting to a softly persistent blue. Soon, the sun would be out, melting the ice and drying the puddles.
Bernardo smiled back. “I will be.”
Daniel knew, without a doubt, that his friend was going to be alright. Better even than alright.
They went in search of dinner.
Times Square Subway Station
Later that year
“You looking for a Rolex?”
Bernardo glanced over at the woman. He’d noticed her earlier. Of course he’d noticed her. He wasn’t dead. But he was surprised when she spoke to him. Then what she said filtered through the cloud that had descended on his brain when he heard the husky promise in her voice.
A Rolex.
From a woman in the subway, in Times Square.
A Rolex.
Right.
She opened her long, camel-colored, Burberry—but not Burberry—trench coat, and there on the inside was pinned rows of shining gold watches. For a second, a millisecond, he was struck dumb by the peach color of her silk blouse, the delicate creamy color of her collarbone, and the fresh, peaches and cream scent that rolled off her and chased away the overpowering concrete and metal subway scent.
They were on one of the busiest platforms. People knocked about them, a tangle of elbows and shoulders shoving past. A train approached across the way, it’s hissing rushing noise nearly drowning out the announcements overhead. Hot, humid wind rushed past, chasing away her peaches and cream scent.
At the top of the metal stairs, a brass band played a swing number. The fluorescent lights crashed over them. The platform was so overwhelmingly busy, crowded, exposed. Yet suddenly, Bernardo felt as if he and this woman were enclosed in a quiet, starlit glade, the night sky vast, swirling around them. It was the kind of feeling, the kind of night where you make a wish.
He’d never seen a woman that was so beautiful. Never in his life. Being a Martin, he’d known a lot of beautiful women. But not like this.
She glowed. She was incandescent in the darkened, underground platform, surrounded by dirt, concrete, and impatience. He only noticed that at first. The way she lit up everything around him.
But then he noticed other things about her. The smooth blonde of her hair. He could imagine the soft, silken feel of it between his fingers. The delicate roundness of her shoulders. Her flawless complexion. The bow of her pink, gorgeous—he wanted to kiss her—lips. The guilelessness of her eyes. The curve of her breasts. The rise of her hips, a perfect place to rest his hands. Everything about her was perfect. If she wanted she could easily land a modeling contract. Star in the movies. Win a thousand beauty pageants. He was pulled under by her in an instant.
Bernardo hadn’t wanted a woman since Marcine. Sometimes, at night, while he tossed and turned in bed, alone, unable to sleep, he’d wondered if he’d ever want another woman again.
Yet here he was, struck dumb, heart pounding, aching for the woman in front of him.
You’re going to marry her. The thought flew into his mind and he immediately rejected it.
He wouldn’t.
She was watching him, batting her eyelashes, giving him an innocent, guileless smile.
He hated himself at that moment.
This woman was a confidence artist. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. She was just like Marcine. And he wanted her.
He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted Marcine.
More than he’d ever wanted anything.
“No,” he said, sweat prickling on the back of his neck. Suddenly he was glad that his face never showed emotions. If it had, she’d know that she held him in the palm of her hand.
“You look like the kind of man who needs a Rolex. I have the perfect piece. Genuine 24 karat gold. Sapphire face. Diamonds. Self-winding. Waterproof. I shouldn’t, I usually don’t…” she looked at him from under her long eyelashes, bit her bottom lip, and God help him he nearly fell to his knees, “I could give it to you for only two hundred dollars.”
Bernardo closed his hand, flexed his fingers, and tried to bring himself out of the desire to buy all the “Rolexes” in her coat, just so she’d keep talking to him. Smiling at him.
Idiot.
The woman put a finger in her hair, circled a golden lock, and fluttered her eyelashes again. Was she pretending? Faking empty-headedness? Why?
A train came. The mass of people shoved forward, exchanging places with the mass of people shoving out of the opened doors. Neither Bernardo or the woman moved.
Up the stairs, down the tunnel, the brass band played its swing songs for money. The music disappeared under the rushing wind and noise of the departing train.
The platform filled with people again, and Bernardo said, “What’s your name?”
The woman blink, dropped her hand from her hair. She gave him a skeptical, too-smart once over, then adopted her guileless façade again. “Hayley. What’s yours?”
“Bernardo,” he said, then added, “if those are Rolexes, then I’m President of the United States.”
Hayley gasped, put a manicured hand to her chest. “I only deal in genuine products of the highest caliber—”
“Save it,” he said.
He didn’t know why he was still standing next to the woman. She was a scammer. A confidence artist. A Marcine.
But for some reason, he couldn’t walk away. His feet wouldn’t move. Not even if he begged them.
So for a second, he let himself wonder what it would be like to kiss this woman. To spread his hands through the silken fall of her hair, taste the softness of her lips, and tell her that she made the world light up for him.
Then, he kicked himself, shut his heart away and said, “You know…what you’re doing is illegal.”
She blinked. Twirled a finger through her hair again. Then said, “Illegal? Like, not allowed?”
He repressed a smile. “Right. Is that difficult to understand?”
“Oh I don’t know. I got a permit and I was just showing you my Fauxlexes.”
“Fauxlexes?”
“Isn’t that what I called them? That’s what they are. Gen-u-ine Fauxlexes. Highest quality.”
A laugh bubbled in his chest. She wasn’t anything like Marcine. She wasn’t.
He looked at her more closely. Saw things he didn’t notice before. The cuffs of her coat were scuffed. Her pants were thin from too many washings. Her shoes were over-polished and long past the time when they should’ve been thrown out.
This woman, this funny, canny, intelligent woman was pushing Fauxlexes in the subway. There was a story here. As someone who dealt in stories, he could see one when it was right in front of him.
“I’m not going to buy your Fauxlex.”
She shrugged that off, pivoted. “How about a Prada…Nada,” she corrected, “for your wife.”
“I’m not married,” he said.
“An i-pad, i-…” she hesitated then smiled, “i-rad for your office.”
He shook his head no.
Her stomach growled then, loud enough to hear over the brass band, the subway cars, and the overhead announcements. Her cheeks flushed pink then she lifted her chin.
“Well, alrighty then, Bernardo.” She extended his name, rolled it off her tongue like she enjoyed playing with it.
If he hadn’t been played by Marcine, maybe he would’ve asked this woman out to dinner. Maybe, like that whisper in his head claimed, he would’ve married her.
But that wasn’t in his future.
“If you aren’t going to buy one of my esteemed products,” she said off-handedly, glancing around the platform, probably scooping out her next mark, “then maybe you’d give me a job. Girl’s gotta eat.”
Bernardo blinked. Stared at Hayley.
“Not that kind of job,” she narrowed her eyes, bristling.
Bernardo held up a hand. “Can you write?” he asked. “Research? Tell the truth? Always do your best?”
But where had that come from? Was he actually considering hiring her?
Yes, he decided. Yes, he was.
He had a skeleton staff. His media empire was the smallest of kingdoms. In reality it was a day and a prayer away from bankruptcy. Only his tight-fistedness, his iron will, and Daniel’s one-time generosity kept him from losing everything.
But from the beginning he’d kept that promise he’d made himself. Everyone who worked for him needed a second chance.
Looking at Hayley, here was a woman who deserved a second chance. Even if it was a second chance proving to him that she was nothing like Marcine.
Maybe not every confidence artist was out there to rip him apart from the inside out.
“Of course I can write,” she said, fluffing her hair, “And research. I read Cosmo every day, don’t I? And I research my products. Gen-u-ine, that’s what they are. What kind of job are you offering?”
When he told her, he was surprised, almost shocked when she agreed.
A sports writer.
She’d be his sports writer.
No, not his.
The Exposé’s.
She wasn’t his at all.
And so, he took one last look at the fullness of her lips, let his heart take one last beat hoping for her, then he locked the longing away. She wasn’t for him.
They shook hands.
“Welcome to The Exposé,” he said.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him, a beautiful, heart-thudding, gorgeous smile.
Life had come along, he realized, and once again, knocked him over the head. He only hoped that he’d survive it.
