Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(66)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3

I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Claire said, staring into the full-length mirror in her bedroom, glaring at her reflection. “I thought my blind-date days were behind me.”

“I can’t believe I’m sitting on the bed where you did it with my ex-boyfriend,” Naomi said, giving a little bounce on the light blue duvet.

Claire gave her a look in the mirror. “Seriously?”

“Oh, come on,” Naomi said. “How can we not joke about it? He wasn’t even good, was he?”

“Naomi!”

“What! He wasn’t! Unless it was just me . . .”

Claire reached out and grabbed a mascara wand off the dresser, stepping closer to the mirror to add another coat, before muttering, “It wasn’t just you.”

“Yes! Knew it,” Naomi said, flopping back on the bed. “Come to think of it, I don’t know why I stuck with him so long. He just seemed like the right kind of guy, you know? Nice. Pulled out chairs. Educated. Polite.”

“Yes, I’m aware. I married him,” Claire said, applying the mascara lightly along her bottom lashes.

“Right.”

Claire turned toward Naomi. “If I do this, will you tell me what’s going on with Oliver? I’m between TV shows, I need a couple to ’ship, and I’ve decided you guys are it.”

“Well, sorry, babe, you’ll have to find someone else. There’s nothing to tell.”

“But he kissed you. Twice.”

“Yes, and we agreed that it was better if we were just friends.”

Claire lifted her eyebrows.

“Okay fine . . . I freaked out after his dad called me ‘the help,’ and I had this moment of horror that we were turning into our parents, and I was going to end up on the streets like my mom . . .”

“Whoa, honey,” Claire said, coming to the bed and sitting beside her. “What?”

“I know.” Naomi pressed her fingers to her temples. “It was a real B-list movie moment, let me tell you. I took a step back, figuring I’d get my act together. But in the meantime, he realized he didn’t want someone like his fiancée—”

“Oliver’s engaged?”

“Ex-fiancée. She ditched him when she learned just how rough things were going to get with Walter, and now he’s, like, protecting himself, and his dad probably. And I get it, because Alzheimer’s is the worst, and—”

“Okay, slow down,” Claire said, pressing a hand to Naomi’s knee. “Let’s just back up a minute. What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” Naomi said on a sigh, pulling her legs up onto the bed and resting her elbows on her denim-clad knees. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Well, what did you want at the start of all this?”

“Don’t you have a date to go on?” Naomi asked grumpily.

“I’ve got time for this,” Claire said, glancing at the watch Naomi had given her a few weeks earlier. “Why did you move into the building?”

“Because I promised my mom I’d make the Cunninghams face what they did to us.”

“And have you?”

Naomi wrinkled her nose. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Walter isn’t well enough to understand any of that. And Oliver . . .”

“And Oliver?” Claire nudged patiently when Naomi broke off.

“He’s not the same,” Naomi said, fiddling with an errant string on Claire’s duvet. “He’s not like I remember.”

“Of course not,” Claire said, in a zero-BS tone. “He was ten, Naomi. Most little boys are awful at ten. Girls, too. And no disrespect to your mother, but I don’t know that it worked in your best interest to be poisoning your ears about the Cunninghams all these years. Yes, his dad did an awful thing. Oliver, too. But it was twenty years ago. Maybe it’s time to let it go, even if your mom never could. Like you said, you’re not going to get what you want from Walter. And ask yourself what you’re going to get out of it if you continue to hold it over Oliver’s head.”

“So you don’t think I should tell him?”

“Oh, no. You should definitely tell him,” Claire said.

Naomi wrinkled her nose. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

“Because I’m very wise.”

“You are, but you’re also going to be late,” Naomi said, reaching out and twisting Claire’s watch toward her so she could see the time.

“What are we thinking for lipstick? Neutral? Bright?”

Claire shrugged indifferently. “You picked the guy. What do you think?”

Naomi tapped her fingers against her cheek as she thought it over. Her contribution to their trio’s dating pact was a perfectly nice broker she’d gone out with a time or two, and had zero chemistry with. He’d lost his wife several years ago in a car accident, so Naomi figured he’d be respectful of Claire’s need to take it slow.

“I still can’t believe I’m going out on a date this soon after losing my husband. People will think the worst of me.”

“People don’t have to know. And besides, your husband was a cheating snake. Regardless of what happened to him, he doesn’t deserve your loyalty,” Naomi said, climbing off the bed. She was about to go into Claire’s bathroom to assess the lipstick options.