Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(67)

Claire studied her hands, not looking up as she spoke. “Naomi. Do you think . . . do you think . . . am I silly?”

Naomi turned back. “You’re a lot of things, Claire, but not silly.”

“I don’t mean like . . . fluff. I mean silly for thinking that I get a redo. A second chance.”

“At marriage?” Naomi asked.

Claire hesitated, then nodded.

“Of course not. I don’t believe in soul mates. Or at least, I believe we each have lots of soul mates. You’ll find someone so much better for you than Brayden.”

Claire twisted her bracelet and didn’t meet Naomi’s eyes.

“What else?” Naomi nudged.

“What if I don’t want it?”

“Don’t want . . .”

“Any of it. Love. Relationships. Hell, I’m not even sure I miss sex. What if I’m thirty-four years old and done with that part of my life?”

“If you want to be, then you can be,” Naomi said, going to her friend and squeezing her hand. “But until you decide . . . maybe keep your options open?”

Claire lifted her head, gave a tentative smile. “Okay. I’ll try, if . . . you tell Oliver Cunningham who you really are.”

“Pass.”

“Fine. But you at least have to stop seeing Dylan, Naomi. Oliver deserves better.”

Naomi frowned. “What are you talking about? I haven’t seen him since that tepid date, and all of the TV stuff’s been handled over email.”

“But I saw him at your place. The other day when I texted, I was right by your building, asking if you were around and wanted to grab a cup of coffee. You said you were at your new office building, which sounds amazing by the way—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Naomi rolled her finger to move the conversation along. “About Dylan . . .”

“Right! Well, I’m pretty sure it was him. He was talking to an older guy. I thought at first maybe it was Oliver’s dad, but then my head exploded at the thought of one of your boyfriends chatting up the other boyfriend’s dad . . .”

Claire chirped on, oblivious to the slightly queasy feeling that had overtaken Naomi.

“Are you sure it was him?” she interrupted. “Dylan?”

“Well, now that you mentioned it, I sort of waved, and he didn’t wave back but just walked away. So maybe it wasn’t him.”

Or maybe he didn’t want anyone to know he was there.

Naomi reached for her phone. “Give me one sec, ’kay?”

With one arm wrapped around her stomach, the other holding her phone to her ear, Naomi wandered into Claire’s guest room as she waited for Dylan to pick up. She made it only about a foot into the room, it was so full of stuff. Naomi flinched when she realized it was Brayden’s stuff, heaped carelessly across the bed, thrown angrily into boxes.

She flinched again when a man who reminded her far too much of Brayden picked up the phone. “Naomi! Hi! I’ve got to say, I was pretty sure you’d decided to brush me off,” he said with a little laugh.

“Is that why you were at my apartment building?”

She didn’t bother asking if. Her gut told her that he had been there—and that it had been Walter he’d been talking to.

“Ah—” His nervous laughter gave him away. “I stopped by when I was in the neighborhood.”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “And just decided to chat up my neighbors?”

“Is that a crime?” His voice was defensive. A bit like a petulant teen who’d gotten caught smoking. Or in this case, gotten caught snooping.

She inhaled a long breath and then let it out slowly. “You figured it out.”

Dylan gave an irritated sigh. “That you currently live in the same building where your mom worked as a housekeeper? Yeah, our researchers figured that out about five minutes after that meeting with you and your Jersey Shore assistant.”

His tone was snide, and she closed her eyes, wondering how she could have been so blind. Still, she clung to hope . . .

“But you told them to back off. At that meeting . . .”

“Because I didn’t want your filtered version of what happened. I wanted what actually happened. Look, I know it sucks, but good TV happens in the messy stuff. Plus, you signed the contract.”

“Yeah?” she asked sweetly to mask the anger that was building at his betrayal. “And did you find what you were looking for?”

“No,” he admitted after a beat. “I couldn’t get into the building, and the only person who came out was this crackpot old man who didn’t know a person from a lamppost . . .”

Naomi’s gaze went white with rage.

“How do I get a new producer?” she asked, interrupting his petty rambling.

“What?”

“A new producer for Max. How do I get one?”

He gave an incredulous laugh. “You can’t be serious. What sort of self-righteous—”

“I don’t work or associate with people who stab me in the back. I’ll have my lawyer take care of it.” She hung up before he could say another word.

She closed her eyes and set a fist to her forehead, making a conscious effort to slow her breathing despite the sheer anger rolling through her.

“Everything okay?” Claire asked softly from the doorway.