Lianne’s right. She always is. My head housekeeper has worked for me since I started making enough money to pay someone to wash my laundry. She keeps the place spotless but also dishes out the occasional slice of tough love. She takes care of me: makes sure there’s food in my fridge if I’m working late, and pretends not to know who I am if any former debtor with a vengeance comes a’ knockin’. But I take care of her, too. Apartment, car, kid’s college tuition. Private medical care for the cancer she had last year.
Whatever she needs.
I guess she’s like the mom I never got to have, and I owe her a lot for that.
“Anything else, Prince Charming?” she asks, one foot already out the door.
I swallow my wine and wave her off. “No, see you in the morning— ”
I cut my goodbye short at the sound of a key turning in the front door.
“Hi, Violet!” Lianne greets her warmly. I turn my attention back to my laptop, finding myself stabbing at random keys as if I’m busy.
Their voices float through the hallway as she makes small talk, before Lianne says her final goodbyes and shuts the front door behind her.
And then suddenly, she’s a slender figure in the doorway.
Oh, shit.
Every time I see her, it’s like I’ve spotted her for the first time. My heart skips half a beat, and I neck the rest of my wine to try to drown the electricity bubbling in the pit of my stomach.
“Hello,” I greet her. Act casual, Don.
Her hair is pulled back into a pony, her thick curls fighting to escape the band. She puts her hands on her hourglass hips, and I try not to stare at the buttons of her blouse stretching across her chest.
She’d be beautiful, as always. If it wasn’t for the deep scowl contorting her face.
“What?” I snap? The electricity dies in an instant and I’m immediately on the defense.
“Why didn’t you tell me you have a kid?”
I sigh and reach for the bottle. Just by the sharpness of her tone, I know I’ll need another glass of wine for this.
“I didn’t think it was important.”
That wasn’t the right answer. I can tell by the way her caramel eyes bulge out of her head. So I brace myself for impact. “You didn’t think letting your wife know that you have a daughter was important, Donnacha?”
She spits my name out of her mouth like it’s rotten.
“You’re not really my wife, Violet.” I say evenly, trying to keep level-headed, but it’s getting harder with every tick of the clock.
My words fluster her, and I can see the heat prickling in her cheeks. “And thank god for that,” she hisses back. “I couldn’t stand being really married to a man like you.”
“A man like me, huh?” I growl. “And what exactly is a man like me?”
“A moody, miserable, bastard that doesn’t know how to even make small talk,” she snaps back like it’s instinctive. Like those words have been on the tip of her tongue since she moved in.
I take my time with my reply, and it shifts the power back into my hands. To the backdrop of her angry breathing, I take a sip of wine and close my laptop, before pulling myself to my feet.
And suddenly, she’s right there. So close that I could touch her without extending my arms. I can smell her vanilla and coconut scent. I can see the anger in her eyes. I resist the urge to reach out and stroke her butter-soft face.
“That’s what you think about me, huh?” I murmur, my breath rippling the curls at her forehead like a wave.
“It is,” she responds, weakly.
“Well then,” I pick up my laptop and brush past her shoulder, feeling the warmth from her skin through my sweater. “I guess it’s going to be a tough year for you, wifey.”
16
Violet
“Please,” I manage, desperation clawing at my throat as I watch my whole career go up in flames. “There must be something I can do.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Washington, I really am. But if at least 50% of the fees aren’t paid before the start of the semester, we have to withdraw the offer. And the semester starts in two days.”
Vice President of Nursing at PACE University, Mr. Baldwin looks over his spectacles at me, sympathy brimming at his eyes.
“So I really can’t continue into the second semester?”
He shakes his head. “Not unless you can come up with the money in forty-eight hours.”
I blink back the tears, focusing on the stuffed teddy on the windowsill behind him. Just like that, my dreams of becoming a nurse are over.
Working two jobs wasn’t enough to claw together the funds I needed, and deep down, I knew that. But I never genuinely believed that they would just kick me out. I just assumed there was a safety net in place — a payment plan, a loan, anything — that would let me continue.
But as the old man slides a brown envelope across the desk towards me, I realize how naive I’ve been.
My legs feel like jelly as I leave his office, and I have to hold on to a chair to steady myself.
Dammit. It’s so hard to stay optimistic when life keeps throwing me curve balls like this.
Despite my best efforts to remain positive, I can’t help but think: Will I ever catch a break?
Walking back to the Upper East Side, I feel like I’m in a trance. The cold air doesn’t bother me, even though my teeth chatter loudly as I push pass the busy locals rushing from meeting to meeting.
It feels like everyone around me, with their suits and briefcases, have their life together. Everyone apart from me.
Now I’m pushing thirty, working two jobs and still broke.
Oh yeah, and I’m married to a crime lord.
And another nail in the coffin? It’s not my first marriage to a crime lord.
Despite my best efforts to squash his smug smirk from popping up in my head, I can’t help but think of Johnny. Since we met, every wrong path I’ve taken, every roadblock I’ve hit, has been because of him.
His debt led me to sell my father’s vineyard. It’s got me kicked out of nursing school.
Oh, yeah — and now I’m married to a miserable stranger to pay off the rest of his debts.
Frustrated tears begin to roll down my cheeks. They’re hot against my icy skin, and my fingers are too numb to take out of my pockets and wipe them away.
The occasional businessman pushing past me gives me a quick glance, before turning back to their iPhones. Probably deciding that a woman walking through New York City in the middle of the day crying hysterically is an issue best left alone.
And I am issue best left alone. There’s nothing anyone could say to me right now that will be able to lift me out of my funk.
Come on, Violet, I tell myself, thinking back to my dad’s favorite saying: Keep your face to the sun, and you won’t see the shadows.
I look up the sky, full of heavy clouds. There’s no sun to be seen today.
But I still try to see the best in the situation, racking my brain to focus on the positives.
Now that I won’t be heading back to school, I’ll have time to pick up more shifts in the week. More shifts mean more money. I’ll even have the time to find another job, maybe something still within the healthcare industry.
My breathing slows as a small light flickers inside of my gloomy mind. There’s always hope.