In the Land of Milk and Honey Read online

  J: Call me please

  “I’ll go call her. Wait here,” he whispered and kissed my forehead. I watched him leave and turned to find Daniel shooting daggers into his back. Sterling silver daggers, I imagine.

  I shifted in my seat uncomfortably disassembling my tiramisu with my fork until August returned. His forehead was creased with distress.

  “Mr. Baird, gentlemen, I must ask to be excused a little early tonight. It’s been a long day, I hope you understand,” he apologized. I was puzzled.

  “Of, course,” Daniel said fluidly, setting down his silverware, and August started pulling back my chair. Daniel stood and his eyes were on me when he said, “Tomorrow, then.”

  August took my hand, speaking words of agreement and apology, and rushed us out of the room.

  “What’s going on now?” I asked as we waited for the elevator.

  “Ian was arrested.”

  “What?!”

  “I’ll tell you everything on the drive back to the city. Let’s pack up and head out now. All that’s left tomorrow is the luncheon by the water, anyway. I’ll drive back alone in the morning.”

  In the room, I tugged an overcoat over my gown and stuffed all else into my suitcase. August was on the phone as he packed. It sounded like an attorney on the other end.

  “Ready?” he asked over the cell phone he’d cradled to his ear using his shoulder, his hands full with our luggage.

  “Yes,” I replied as I opened and closed drawers. “I just know I’ve left something, and I hate when that happens.”

  “What is it?” he asked, watching me separate bedding from the mattress.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered with a furrowed brow crouching to the floor to look under the bed. It was the same sensation as the night before when I thought I left something from my purse at the bar, but on a much grander scale. I patted the nonexistent pockets of the black gown, scrunching up my face.

  “Come on, Cinderella,” August decided. “If the resort finds your glass slipper, we’ll have it overnighted.”

  While he checked out, I waited out in the night breeze for our car. I kept feeling a pull, like I should go back and look for the thing I’d left or lost. Truly, I couldn’t wait to go back home to my son, to my life, but I just couldn’t get over the sensation, a nagging feeling. Like an inkling.

  “You’re leaving,” Daniel called out, surprised, which made two of us. He walked up next to me and hovered.

  “Would you mind keeping little pebbles in your pocket to throw on the ground as a warning before you appear?” He was not amused and I cleared my throat lightly. “Yes, we’re leaving.”

  “Where?” he demanded. He was so close and he smelled nice. Incredible actually. “Back to the city…but August returns tomorrow,” I replied slowly and shuffled a baby step back.

  “And you?” He raised an eyebrow, and it didn’t look like he was thinking about it when he stepped forward minutely, gaining back whatever distance I’d made.

  “No. You certainly do take your friendships seriously,” I mused nervously, tilting my flushed neck and face upwards to drink the cool air.

  He stared contemplatively back into the hotel lobby while I internally stomped down my sudden flare of overwhelming attraction.

  “This is goodbye, then,” Daniel said, his face still turned.

  I looked inside too, with good reason: paranoia. I wanted to make sure his Kate wasn’t on her way out to stab me in the eye with a dull spoon for his uncalled for attention, and my new uncalled-for reaction. I felt transparent. Being around him made me confused. I’m sure he affected many women this way, and he seemed aware of that fact. I suddenly remembered who he was and that this was probably his intent with me. The valet pulled up with our car and began loading our luggage. I steeled myself.

  “August will be great for you. You’re lucky to have him. And I hope you and Ms. Hearst have a lovely flight back to England,” I said truthfully, wishing they’d boarded hours ago, and extended my hand for a shake. “It was nice to meet you, Daniel.”

  His head snapped to face me when I finished my sentence, and I grew worried.

  “Say it again,” he said in a whisper, lifting his hand; stroking my bottom lip with his thumb.

  I felt panicked and faint.

  “I’m coming back,” Daniel declared decisively. The air that hit my lip felt like ice water when he dropped his hand. He strode back inside the hotel without another word.

  I almost shouted to him that August and I couldn’t wait for him to return, but it seemed pointless. It was like talking to a steel wall anyway. A dashing, nice smelling, disappearing, engaged steel wall.

  We left a few minutes after. Daniel never returned.

  On the drive into city, August debriefed me. Ian had belatedly joined Jill and Tristan for dinner. Apparently, at the restaurant, Jill was followed into the ladies room by Nathan, who’d been there boozing with friends. Once he’d cornered her, he locked them in, alone, and started aggressively trying to rekindle their flame. She shoved him away, he dropped his drink, and then he snapped. Nathan grabbed her throat and slammed her into a wall.

  She told me she later she’d tried to cover the marks out of embarrassment and told the boys she wanted to go somewhere else. She didn’t want to make a scene. While they waited outside for Jill’s driver, Ian went back in to use the bathroom and something happened between him and Nathan. They both got taken to the station downtown. For Jill’s sake, Ian didn’t tell them the officers the real reason behind the fisticuffs.

  “Man, I just knew you were gonna be pissed,” Ian huffed, shuffling his feet. I’d pulled him aside before Sunday night dinner.

  “I’m just disappointed, Ian. How could you be so irresponsible to start a fight when Tristan was with you?” I scolded. I’d understood what happened, but I wasn’t happy about it.

  “Slow down, mama, I didn’t start it, and Tristan doesn’t know a thing. You didn’t see the look on Jill’s face when she got back to that table. She was out of it,” he explained, scraping his fingers through his short hair. That gave me pause. Jill was tough as nails.

  “It broke my fuckin’ heart, too. I had to do something,” he continued. “I saw him watching her like an owl from the bar before it happened. I should have warned her. I should have known. I swear, I just went back in to intimidate him but then he took a swing,” he laughed heartily and shook his head like it was cute. Ian was a gentle giant, but also a sleeping giant—the kind you don’t want to wake under the wrong circumstances.

  “What exactly did you do?”

  “Well,” he began guiltily, “I, uh, smashed his head into a picture frame on the bar wall.”

  “Ian!”

  “Bree, with the way you’re lookin’ at me right now, I wanna be sorry for it, but the truth is, I’m not.” He shrugged, like it couldn’t be helped. “He deserved worse. Think about what would have happened if I wasn’t there and Jill took little man to the bathroom with her?”

  “I’d kill him,” I hissed.

  Ian chuckled.

  “How did you manage to get arrested with all your connections? And Nathan’s, too?”

  “That’s the funny part; we both have strings. He was pulling his to get me thrown in jail, and I was pulling mine to get him arrested. I guess we both forgot to cover our own asses,” he said, smiling undeterred.

  “Funny.”

  “It’ll be fine, Bree. It’ll probably help my image. Everyone thinks I’ve gone soft hanging out with a bunch of girls,” he nudged me. I gave him my best “mom glare” in return.

  ~o~

  And these are the things that have interrupted my sleep and inspired disturbing dreams at night.

  Early Monday morning after the trip…

  I could see each individual blade of grass as my head was turned, resting my cheek against the lush cushion of the Great Lawn. Violet was lying beside me laughing at the sky, and I seemed to be laughing, too. Everything was in slow motion because when I blinked,
it went dark for seconds. I turned my head upwards, and I felt each blade crush underneath me as I rotated to face the ultra-bright sun. I cupped my hands above my brow as something golden slowly began to eclipse the sun, completely blocking it.

  It was a smiling Tristan standing over me, all honey and brandy, surrounded by fluffy white clouds and a crystalline blue sky. I smiled, but then concern took over. His eyes were hazel, like mine. It was wrong. I tried to speak, but nothing came out as I watched them change. So slowly, they transformed to a unique multicolor hazel, like Violet’s. Then lightening to a crystal sky blue, like August, then the aqua of the Caribbean Sea like Jill’s, then they deepened to the sea blue of Ian’s. I began to feel relief when the fresh green apple with delicate slivers of topaz that were his own eyes finally began to appear, but as the colors bled, staining his irides they began to deepen in to something much darker…and then I screamed for it to stop.

  I woke to the sound of my own whimpering in a cold sweat, twisted in my sheets, my hands fisting the pillows. I took a deep breath and rolled on to my side to face the view of the city skyline. The stress of everything that happened since that first argument with Violet one week ago was affecting my sleep. I was a person always in motion and it couldn’t trouble me in my waking hours, but like a silent assailant, it crept into my slumber.

  Things were getting a little crazy.

  A few hours after my rude awakening, I was doing the normal Monday morning drill with Claire behind the front desk at my showroom. As we finished up payables, we flipped through the day’s papers and Ian was right; he was in The Post for his shenanigans, being toasted as the “Boston Brawler”. Nathan was well known, too, so it made for a good story. I let out a dry laugh when I read a quote from an “anonymous source”.

  “Nathan and Ian go way back. They’re from the same Harvard fraternity. It was just a little brotherly roughhousing and they involved the police as a prank. I’m sure they’ll be laughing about it over drinks for years to come.”

  This was clearly from Nathan’s camp, who didn’t want him exposed for the woman beater he is. Just thinking it in my head made me want to run him over with a city bus. A small picture that was mildly humorous accompanied the article. A smiling Ian in the front seat of a cop car with a doughnut hanging out of his teeth, one arm around the laughing cop in the driver’s seat and the other arm extended out the unrolled window, giving the photographer a big thumbs-up. In the back, behind the wire mesh, was Nathan. Bloodied, with his arms pinned behind him, and smiling weakly for the camera.

  Jill didn’t seem eager to discuss the incident, though she spent the rest of the weekend at my house watching movies in her PJs. She even crawled in my bed with me when I got home Saturday night.

  I hadn’t had a lot of time to think about my strange interaction with Daniel. August was right; he was a hard read, and I wondered if anyone knew the real him beneath the subterfuge. He was certainly a man who knew his way in life, but there were moments that made me wonder. I wasn’t sorry I’d met him because he was fascinating but probably safest to know from a distance.

  I wasn’t proud of my reaction towards him at all. It was not a point of pride. For a few brief moments, it was like I was in someone else’s body. I don’t respond to men in that way and definitely not to that degree. I never have. I admire handsome people but it never connects. I don’t chase those connections nor do I seek to.

  The other factor that helped me rationalize my response towards Daniel was that I’d never been away from my son for that long, which I vowed never to do again. Maybe my pent-up estrogen overtook my mommy mode sensibilities. Mix that in with an excruciatingly handsome man’s advances, mood lighting, and the fact that he stuck up for me, and voila: a recipe for lus—ugh. I can’t even say it. I can’t admit to myself I was that attracted to an engaged man; I felt like a harlot. And Daniel Baird? That type normally put me off completely.

  “Bree!”

  “What?”

  “Your cell? It’s buzzing like crazy,” Claire looked up from her kitschy glasses. She and Ari were the most adorable couple. A young Woody Allen and an academic Betty Page. Well, except for the tattoos.

  “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere,” I said, grasping my phone.

  “No kidding,” she murmured and rolled her eyes.

  “Hello,” I answered, giving Claire a look.

  “Bree! Turn on the news!” Ian bellowed.

  “Claire, turn on the TV,” I said as I muffled the phone. “What’s up?”

  “My primetime debut, that’s all! One of those media gossip cameras caught me leaving the slammer Saturday night, and the local station’s been running it all morning,” he said, enthusiastically. “The phones at my office are ringing off the hook!”

  “Ian, I’m glad you were there, but I think I’m still torn between giving you a trophy and wringing your neck,” I replied as Claire flicked on the flat screen that hung in the corner.

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s why you need to watch. Put it on…five. Channel five,” he said excitedly, and I mouthed ‘five’ to Claire.

  Indeed, there was Ian in all his macho glory exiting a police station in an Italian wool three-piece suit, fiery red hair trimmed neat, laughing and exchanging cell numbers with his new police officer friends.

  “This is so gratuitous,” I said, dropping my head in my hands.

  “Chillchillchill, here comes the good part,” he shushed me as he watched simultaneously.

  “Mr. Foley! Mr. Foley!”

  “Hey, thanks for coming out, guys!”

  Ian said as he waved and swaggered towards a waiting black Escalade. I laughed as I heard him say over the phone “Man, I look good!”

  “So, why’d you attack Nathan Hill?”

  Ian stopped and pointed a thick finger into the lens, cocking one brow impossibly high and looking like a pro wrestling villain.

  “He knows. And now he knows what the consequences are.”

  “Wow! Wow! We heard he’s pretty messed up. Are you worried about public reaction at all?”

  “Not in the least!” Ian said confidently, beaming a megawatt smile as he opened the door and went to jump in the truck. But then he stopped and frowned.

  He muttered a bleeped curse and turned back to the camera.

  “Bree, don’t freak out on me. I’ll tell ya about it later, mama.” He winked and hopped in the truck, taking off with screeching wheels. Claire started cracking up.

  “See? Aren’t you proud of me now?” he asked happily.

  “Yes. That was riveting, Ian,” I responded with a chuckle as Claire flipped through channels.

  We were still chatting when Claire caught a channel with a familiar face. I grabbed her hand.

  “Stop right there,” I said quickly. Ian said something but I shushed him.

  “Daniel H. Baird II has made some radical changes this morning to his BarclayBaird Corporation, and he’s with us now to discuss it further.”

  Daniel looked as handsome as ever, clean cut in a pristine navy blazer and dark blue shirt, sitting in a studio set against the backdrop of the city. Claire and I both craned closer to the screen as she declared that he was hot. What an understatement.

  “What response do you have to Angus Fitch’s statement this morning regarding his firing and the fact that you’re denying him the fifteen million dollar severance package that was in his contract?”

  “He violated our behavioral clause, and I have it on good authority that his actions were not an isolated incident. The board agrees,” he answered in a strong, unwavering voice.

  Shit.

  “And what about the rest of the firings? You cleared out most of Fitch’s upper level management. These are recognizable names; Steve Holtz, Morris Wert….”

  Oh, no—not August.

  “Mr. Holtz’s departure is amicable. Mr. Wert, unfortunately, is a different matter. He’s under investigation with internal review and not the type of character we want associated with our firm.”


  Blacklisted on national TV—a kiss of death. No firm would hire castoffs like that.

  “I would like to make an announcement, if you don’t mind, Maria. Effective today, I will be heading up the company from offices in New York.”

  I was stunned. Maria Esposito—the Barbara Walters of financial news—looked stupefied.

  “Mr. Baird, why have you decided to be headquartered to New York instead of London?” Maria quizzed, looking baffled.

  “We are moving in a new direction,” he said directly in his powerful but enticing voice, not cracking his hard demeanor.

  “Well this is all very big news, Mr. Baird, thank you for sharing that here,” she said, clearly grateful for the scoop.

  “You are very welcome, Maria,” he replied smoothly, and Maria needed a few seconds to collect herself.

  “Okay, well, what is your response to allegations that you made promises during the negotiations to retain most of management? That there was an implied agreement? Mr. Fitch is alleging that he and many others were told, ‘Not to worry’ by you, when they asked about maintaining some kind of position within the company. Mr. Fitch said this morning he had an unspoken agreement to sit on the board and that he is shaken’ by his dismissal.”

  “They shouldn’t worry. Worry is a useless emotion. And an unspoken agreement is no agreement at all. It’s the nature of the beast,” he explained calmly.

  “Don’t you think that’s a little deceptive, Mr. Baird?” Daniel looked reflective for a while before speaking.

  “You know, Maria, a very dear friend recently told me I was the kind of man who ‘spoke softly and carried a big stick,’” he paused and looked directly into the camera as a smile crept in the corner of his mouth. “I believe they underestimated the size of the stick.”

  I dropped the phone.

  “Good gracious,” Claire panted. Maria blushed furiously and stared down at her note cards.