Romeo, Romeo Page 24

  Nick came home and vacuumed the living room. He'd had a miserable day at work, trying to figure out what to say to Rosalie.

  He considered kidnapping her. He could get her in his car with Dave and come clean going eighty miles an hour down the Long Island Expressway. But with his luck, they'd get stuck in Friday traffic, and he wouldn't put it past Rosalie to get out and tell him to go screw himself. No, that wasn't a good plan. Even if she did calm down by the time they got to the beach house, the glitz of the Hamptons might be too much of a shock.

  Maybe he should take her to his brownstone. At least it was close to what she knew. No. He didn't want to look like he was trying to buy forgiveness, and his place was a little over-the-top. He should never have let what's-her-name decorate it. Sure, he'd hired her to decorate before he slept with her, but as soon as they'd started sleeping together, she acted as if she were decorating her future home. At least she had good taste. Expensive, but good. Now, instead of a home, he lived in a showplace. Not that he spent much time there.

  He looked around Rosalie's apartment. Here, he felt comfortable, at home. That settled it. He'd stay put and talk to her. He'd tell her everything, and if he lived through the aftermath, maybe she'd forgive him. Then they could… what? He didn't know. Keep doing whatever it was they were doing.

  Dave kicked his food bowl. The poor guy was hungry. Nick looked at his watch. Shit, it was six-thirty. No wonder Dave complained. Nick fed the dog and checked the answering machine and his cell phone for messages. Nothing.

  He went to vacuum the bedroom and saw the disaster. Rosalie had come home and gone out again. She usually left him a note or told him what was going on, but for some reason, she hadn't.

  He settled in to wait for her. She was always home by eight.

  Nick put away the clothes Rosalie threw on the bed and started cleaning the bathroom. He checked his watch. It was almost nine.

  Worry set in. He chided himself about it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. He called her cell phone and left a message on her voice mail.

  Nick opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. He took the bottle opener out of the drawer and his favorite mug out of the freezer and poured the beer before making himself a sandwich. He ate his sandwich at the counter and began cleaning the kitchen. After a few minutes, Dave whined, went through the living room, and lay down beside the door. Even the dog knew something was wrong.

  It was ten when Nick started fighting panic. He'd run out of things to clean. If something had happened to Rosalie, no one would know to call him. He went to her desk where she kept her address book and thought about calling her parents, but what would he say? “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Ronaldi, it's Dominick Romeo. Yeah, that's me, the one who got your son arrested. Well, I've been seeing your daughter, and she's missing. Do you know where she is?” That would go over real well.

  He'd call her friends, except for one problem. He didn't know any of her friends. How could he have been with her for so long and never have met her friends? The only one she had spoken of was Gina. That was it. He'd call Gina. Gina knew him.

  Nick didn't know Gina's last name, so he went through every name in Rosalie's address book until he came to Gina's. He felt three times a fool when he dialed the number, but it was either that or start calling hospitals.

  “Hello?” barked the man who answered. Man, if his voice matched his body, Nick wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley.

  “Hello. I'm sorry to bother you so late, but is Gina there?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Dominick Romeo. I'm a friend of Rosalie Ronaldi's. Is Gina there?”

  “Yeah, hang on.” Nick heard him knock on a door, then the sound of a hand going over the mouthpiece.

  “Hello?”

  “Gina?”

  “Yeah, who's this?”

  “Gina, it's Nick. I'm sorry to call so late, but Lee isn't home, and she's always home by now. I'm worried about her. Do you know where she is?”

  “Did you try her cell phone?”

  “Christ, Gina, of course I tried her cell. Voice mail picks up. She always leaves a note when she goes out. She didn't leave one tonight. She didn't call to say she'd be late.”

  “Okay, calm down. She probably went out with friends or something. Did you try her parents?”

  “No. I don't know them, and I don't know any of her friends. You're the only one I've met. Did she say anything to you at work about having plans?”

  “No, but she acted a little strange.”

  “Define 'strange.'“

  “She left early, and she didn't say where she was going. Did you two have a fight or something?”

  “No. Things have been tense, but she seemed fine.”

  'Tense? Why tense? Nick, I told you what I'd do to you if you ever hurt her, remember?”

  “Gina, I don't have time for threats. Are you going to help me find her or not?”

  Gina said something in Spanish and then schooled her tone. “I'll call Rosalie's sister on her cell. I think I have the number somewhere. I'll call you back.”

  'Thanks, Gina. I'm at home.”

  “Whose home? Yours or Rosalie's?”

  “Rosalie's.”

  Nick hung up and waited.

  At midnight, Nick sat on the sofa, imagining Rosalie dead. He could hardly breathe. Gina had called him back after talking to Annabelle and Rosalie's parents, and he knew no more than before.

  Nick had called every hospital in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but none had a record of anyone fitting Rosalie's description. Gina called every half hour, and every time the phone rang, he answered, thinking it was Rosalie. Every time it wasn't, he felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. The minutes dragged like hours, the hours like weeks.

  A little after three, Dave barked. Nick heard the snick of the lock, then Rosalie walked in. She didn't see him at first. She tottered in as if she were walking barefoot over broken glass, throwing her coat in the vicinity of the couch and her handbag on the table. When she flipped the light on, she saw him. He heard her gasp.

  She'd been out with God knows who, while he'd been calling hospitals, picturing her floating in the East River, dreading the phone ringing, and praying it would. She was alive, thank God. Relief rolled over him, and then anger filled the void. He wanted to kill her for putting him through eight hours of hell. He wanted to hold her and never let her go. He wanted to handcuff her to him, so he'd never again have to wonder where the hell she was. Oh, yeah, and he wanted to punch something.

  He rose, his body feeling as if Rosalie had thrown him out of a speeding truck and backed over him a few times for good measure. He went to the closet, got his jacket, and passed her on the way to the door.

  “Nick.” She reached out and touched his arm.

  One look, that's all it took. She dropped her hand to her side and stepped back. Nick walked out without a word.

  He stood on the sidewalk, fighting for breath. He hadn't known a body could hurt so much without being hit by a bus or shot. Pulling his cell phone off his belt, he punched in Gina's number. Hell, he'd called her so many times that night, he'd memorized it.

  “Nick?”

  “Yeah, she's home.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She's fine, as far as I could tell.”

  “Where the hell was she?”

  “She didn't say.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “No.”

  “Let me talk to her.” “I can't. I left.”

  “Where are you going to go at three in the morning?” “Home, I guess.” Christ, he'd just left his home. His home was with Rosalie. “Nick, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I'm fine. I wanted to let you know she's okay. I've got to go.” He hit the end button.

  Nick walked. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't care. All he knew was if he was still moving, it meant he was still alive.

  Nick looked as if she'd stabbed him, and then he looked… gone. She'd b
arely made it to the bathroom before tossing her cookies. The phone rang; the answering machine answered. She heard Gina's voice. She didn't care.

  Rosalie's meeting with Mr. Lassiter had been illuminating. She hadn't known what to think, so she spent the rest of the night sitting in a pub and trying to make sense of what she'd learned. She had no trouble believing the story of Nick in Juvenile Hall—it explained the bad boy persona he wore so easily. Rosalie knew about Nick's mother and grandmother, but the news about his father… well. He'd never mentioned a father or the lack thereof. After spending time with Mr. Lassiter, Rosalie had no problem seeing a young Dominick Romeo looking up to the man, but she did have trouble believing that Nick was ever a rival or jealous of Jack Jr. No, there was more to the story than that—not that she'd probably ever hear the truth.

  Rosalie picked herself up off the cold tile floor, rinsed her face, and brushed her teeth. Damn it, why did she have to fall in love with Nick? Nick, who lived with her but wouldn't tell her his last name. Nick, who lay next to her night after night but was a world away. Nick, the guy she'd made a deal with and was stupid enough to fall for while she'd been busy having an affair.

  The phone rang again. She ran to pick it up. “Nick?”

  “No. It's Gina.”

  “Oh.”

  “She says, 'Oh.' I've been worried sick since ten o'clock, and she says, 'Oh.'“

  Rosalie ignored the cursing and the mention of her name in the same sentence with the devil and something else she didn't understand, but figured it couldn't be good.

  “Do you have any idea how frantic Nick was? Do you know what you did to him? He was calling hospitals, chica. He thought you were dead. How could you do that to him?”

  “Well, it wasn't as if he was totally innocent. He lied to me.”

  “Yeah, and you knew it all along. Before it was okay, but now it's a federal offense?” “Oh, God, Gina. I fucked up.”

  “You sure did. Now what are you going to do about it?” “What can I do? I tried to stop him before he left, but the look in his eyes…” “Rosalie, are you crying?”

  “I love him, Gina. My timing is impeccable. I figure out I'm in love, right after I break the rules. The rules I made. How stupid can I be?”

  “Pretty stupid.”

  “I wanted to beg him to stay. I started to, but then… he looked at me. He's gone, and I don't think he's ever coming back.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I found out all this history with Mr. Lassiter. Nick worked for him since he was a kid. He kept his whole life from me. I got scared. He'd been acting strange, distancing himself. I thought he was—”

  “You thought he was about to dump you, so you dumped him first.”

  “I'm always the one who does the distancing.”

  “Well, bully for you, you did it again. See if that keeps you warm at night. Use your head, Rosalie. Call him, say you're sorry, tell him how you feel.”

  “I can't. We made a deal, Gina.”

  “Then you're right, he won't be coming back. You and that stupid deal. The two of you deserve each other. I'm going to bed. I'll see you on Monday.”

  The sound of beeping signaled her to disconnect the call. She had a feeling she wouldn't be getting any “poor baby's” from Gina over this breakup, either.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You shoudl put some Preparation H on the bags under your eyes. You look like hell.”

  She'd already tried the Preparation H trick. God forbid, Gina found out she was commenting on the results. Rosalie kept her voice even. “Good morning, Gina. And how was your weekend?”

  “Better than yours, I see. So, when did you finally stop crying?”

  “I did not cry.” Bawled was more like it. She didn't think she'd ever cried herself to sleep, woken up, and done it again before. And she knew for a fact, she'd never done it for an entire weekend.

  “Have you heard from Nick?”

  “No.” Rosalie didn't think Gina meant listening to the messages he'd left on her cell. They went from curious, to concerned, to worried, to frantic. She couldn't help herself. She'd listened to them over and over all weekend, just to hear his voice.

  “When are you going to call and tell him you love him?”

  “Never. Don't you get it? We made a deal. It's against the rules to… to…”

  “Fall in love? Care about each other? Or maybe, it's against the rules to be human and screw up. At the very least, you should call and tell him you're sorry for scaring the living piss out of him.”

  “I can't.” Rosalie double-timed it to her office and slammed the door. At least she'd made it before she embarrassed herself… well, okay, before she embarrassed herself further. She sat on the leather couch and willed her tears to disappear. If she started crying again, who knew when she'd stop.

  It was two o'clock, and Rosalie wasn't hungry. Gina had buzzed her an hour earlier, saying she was going to lunch. She could have asked Gina to pick something up for her, but she couldn't look at food without getting sick. She'd never felt like this. She hurt all over. She couldn't eat. She couldn't sleep. Every time she dozed off, she'd awaken falling off Nick's side of the damn bed.

  Even Dave was upset. He'd walked around the house all weekend with a pair of Nick's boxers in his mouth, whining. He'd hardly eaten, and he'd spent most of his time staring out the window, looking for Nick and ignoring her.

  Nick had finally hit rock bottom, or at least, he hoped he had. He went to the office, packed up Dave's dog toys, bones, and bed, and tossed them in Rosalie's Volkswagen before he returned it to her place.

  There he was, for the entire world to see, driving around in a Barbie mobile, and he couldn't care less.

  Going back to the apartment and packing his belongings would likely kill him. He'd sat around all weekend, trying to figure out how to put things back together with Rosalie, but when it came down to it, he had no options. He'd made a deal with her—no strings and no commitments. It would last until one or both stopped having a good time. Obviously, she'd learned the truth, and she'd moved on. If she hadn't, she would have called him, yelled at him, hit him, something that showed she cared and wanted him to come back. Right?

  He parked the yellow Beetle in front of the brown-stone and found Dave looking at him through the window. Something white hung from his mouth. God, Nick missed that dog. That morning, when he'd gone to the office without Dave, Lois had looked at him as if he'd kicked her. She'd gotten up and hurried out of the door. If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn she was about to cry. Christ. As if he didn't feel bad enough, he had to be responsible for making the Rock of Gibraltar cry.

  Nick got out of Rosalie's car, gathered Dave's things, and brought them into the apartment. Dave jumped on Nick and greeted him as though he'd been gone a lifetime. Damn, Nick was going to miss the big guy, but that was only a miniscule fraction of the hole left in his life by Rosalie. Nick carried in the empty bags he'd brought from his place and started packing. He took his hanging clothes and put them in a garment bag, emptied his drawers into a suitcase, and packed his shaving kit. He dumped the drawer of his bedside table into another bag, tossed in the book he'd been reading, and searched the rest of the apartment, gathering his things. Nick decided to leave the vacuum and food processor he'd bought for the apartment. Not that he thought Rosalie would ever use them, but Nick knew he'd never be able to see them without thinking about Rosalie and Dave. Life was hard enough; he didn't need any more reminders of all he'd lost. Dave followed him around the apartment with what Nick realized was a pair of his boxers. He tried to take them away, but Dave wouldn't let go.

  “You drop my drawers, or I'm not taking you for a walk.”

  Dave dropped them, but only to go out. When they returned, he picked them right back up again and settled into the corner where Nick had placed Dave's bed.

  “Look, buddy. I have to go. You take good care of your mom for me. Okay?”

  Nick set Rosalie's car keys on the kitch
en counter, right beside the set of apartment keys he'd been carrying. He took one last look around, grabbed his bags, and stepped into the hall, letting the door slam shut behind him. There. He couldn't go back inside if he wanted to. And by God, he wanted to. He saw Dave watching him drive away in the Mustang he'd left parked in front of Rosalie's apartment when he took his middle of the night walkabout.

  Home, sweet home. Nick parked in front of his brown-stone. He knew it wasn't far enough away from Rosalie, but then, he doubted Alaska would be. He put his car in drive and headed for the Long Island Expressway.

  He called Lois. “I'm going away for a few days. I've got my cell if you need me. Oh, and if you hear from Lee, call me right away. Okay?”

  “Where are you going, Nick?”

  “I'm going to the beach house for awhile. I need to get out of town.”

  “You didn't dognap Dave, did you?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “If you had, Lee would come after you, and maybe you'd both get your heads on straight and work things out.”

  “Lois—”

  “Don't you 'Lois' me, Dominick Romeo. I've watched you date and dump a plethora of women over the last ten years. You never had feelings for any of them until Rosalie. If you're not smart enough to recognize love when it runs over you and fight for it, well then, you don't deserve it. So go to the beach house and lick your wounds. But let me tell you something, Nick, wounds that deep don't ever heal.”

  “She left me, Lo. She doesn't want me.”

  “Are you sure of that? Did you ask her? Did you talk to her at all?”

  “I've got to go. I'll call you in a few days.”

  “Stop at the grocery store before you start drinking. You'll be in no shape to drive afterward, and I'm not driving all the way out there to feed you.”