Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(42)

Winter shifted, stretching his legs. He removed his hat, scratched his head. Put his hat back on. Took it off again.

Oh, he knew. Of course he knew.

“I mean, what could Sook-Yin and I have possibly talked about?” Aida said, crossing her legs. “The weather? Poetry? Politics? Oh, wait. I know. How about the fact that she’s a prostitute, and you’re her favorite customer?”

“Shit.”

“Yes, shit. That’s what I thought, too, especially when she was going on about how she could make you smile—”

“Aida—”

“So there are others? This is routine for you?”

He groaned in angry frustration. “This is not routine. Sook-Yin was the only one.”

Was that worse or better? Aida honestly didn’t know. “She did brag about how special she was and seemed to know you quite well. She even asked me if I was the ‘new wife,’ because apparently there’s an old wife that nobody told me about.”

Winter said nothing. Just stared ahead at the canvas shade as the car began rolling out of Ju’s garage.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“She’s dead,” he said without looking at her. “There’s nothing to tell.”

Aida rocked her foot and opened the side shade to stare outside. “I asked you about the house and you growled at me,” she said in a much calmer voice than she thought she was capable of at that moment. “You could’ve told me. I told you things about me. I’ve told you secrets about my job—about the lancet. About my plans for the future. How many lovers I’ve had. I told you all these things, and you couldn’t be bothered—”

“This is a business relationship. I am paying you to do a job.”

Her mouth fell open. “Then why was your hand up my skirt yesterday?”

“You attacked me!”

“I did not!”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, maybe I did attack you a little bit,” she said in frustration. “But I’ll tell you what. It’s one or the other. Either you pay me and I advise you about spiritual matters, or you don’t. Because if you think I’m going to take money from you when you’re kissing me and holding me, you can think again. I’m not a whore.”

“I’ve never thought of you that way,” he said in a low, angry voice. “Never.”

“You don’t have to think of me in any way at all. Why would you? I’m just a low-class spirit medium you picked up in a speakeasy.”

“My father was an immigrant fisherman. I make my living by breaking the law. If you’re low-class, so am I, and—Jesus, Aida.”

She swiped below her eyes. “These are angry tears, not sad tears. I’m not crying over you. How could I cry over someone I don’t even know?”

The question hung in the air for a moment before he spoke again. “Just because I haven’t told you my life’s story doesn’t mean you don’t know me.”

“I don’t know you as well as Sook-Yin, apparently. You could have at least warned me before you took me there.”

“I haven’t seen her for months. I told Ju I didn’t want her there today—I told him.”

She stared out the window. “It was humiliating.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Me, either.” She tugged the tassel of the privacy shade and lifted it. Wide-eyed, Bo stared back at her in the rearview mirror. She looked away.

Winter pulled the shade down. “I was lonely. Is that what you want to hear? I’m not proud of it. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly prime husband material.”

“Boo-hoo, you have a scar. You’re easily the most handsome man I’ve ever met in my life, and you’re rich and influential. If you’d stop scowling and quit being so damn defensive—”

He stuck a finger in front of her face. “You can’t begin to imagine what I’ve been through. I lost everything in one day. Everything.”

A wave of pity crashed over her, subduing her indignant anger. She couldn’t bear to look at him. “I’m not judging you about Sook-Yin. I’m just hurt that you didn’t tell me about any of it. About your wife.”

“I don’t like to talk about her.”

“It’s fine. You don’t owe me anything. I made assumptions I shouldn’t have.”

She raised the shade.

They sat in silence for several seconds. He lowered the shade again.

“All right. I’ll tell you everything. What do you want to know?”

“I . . . I want to know about your wife.”

He hesitated. “Her name was Paulina. Her family was from Nob Hill. Lost their fortune after the earthquake. My mother encouraged the marriage to distract me from getting caught up in the bootlegging with my father. She thought it would bring us a certain status that the money alone didn’t. We were married for a year.”

Aida waited for more. It was slow to come.

“The summer of 1925, when one of Paulina’s relatives invited us to a charity dinner at the Elks Club, my parents accompanied us. My father’s mental health was not stable. He was having manic episodes when he wasn’t himself.”

Oh . . . Ju’s comment about Winter having all his marbles. Aida didn’t know what to say.