A Kiss in the Dark Read online

  She caught a glimpse of her black umbrella in the corner. It had apparently skittered there, where it rested, looking innocent as a nun.

  Brittany sighed. She’d ruined his dinner.

  She’d ruined their night. She’d been wrong in the taxi; the evening had gone even worse than her terrible, rotten day.

  But she wouldn’t give in to her impulse to sit down and cry. While there was a very real possibility that Ethan wouldn’t come back down, she couldn’t count on it.

  She had to right the foyer, return it to order. And do something about dinner.

  When she had cleaned up the mess, she went to check the kitchen pantry to see what it offered.

  She’d always dreamed of cooking for Ethan. A sensualist, she enjoyed the color, taste, smell and texture of food. In the evenings she unwound from her stressful job by cooking while channel surfing. Then she would read for an hour or two before going to sleep, for both work and pleasure.

  Francesca was seldom home, either off traveling for her job, or dating. Brittany seldom dated. She hated it; hated making small talk—and then the awkwardness about kissing at the door.

  Trouble was, she was a woman of very definite tastes and she knew her own mind; she was either very interested in someone, as was the case with Ethan, or she wasn’t interested at all. She wasn’t a flirt like Francesca, who had levels of interest in men that required fractions to define them.

  While putting together an impromptu meal, Brittany reviewed the anger and hurt Ethan’s behavior toward her had elicited since she’d answered his ad.

  She’d secretly hoped for romance, and would have settled for a flirtation.

  Instead, Ethan had been rude and unfeeling.

  No. Unfeeling wasn’t the right word. She could overlook his bad behavior because she could only guess at what he was feeling. The emotional pain he was going through had to be devastating.

  Before agreeing to take the job, she had questioned Dawson. Badgering him, she’d finally gotten him to admit what she suspected: there was a very real chance Ethan would never see again, and Ethan knew it—even if he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, not even himself.

  Because of that, Brittany could find it in her heart to continue; to take the abuse because she knew how much he was hurting.

  By the time Ethan came back downstairs, she had carried their dinner into the library.

  “What’s this?” Ethan asked, sniffing the air when he entered the room.

  “There’s been a slight shift in cultures, but it’s the best I could do with what I found on hand.”

  Ethan didn’t comment as she cut into the microwave corn bread, handing him a bite.

  “I was in the mood for Chinese,” he said, sampling the corn bread nonetheless.

  “Well, you’re getting Texas chili and corn bread. I’ve set a place on your desk.”

  “What’s Texas chili?” he asked, easing into the burgundy chair at his desk, and feeling for the spoon beside the bowl of chili steaming before him.

  “Francesca had a roommate from Texas who taught her how they eat chili there. Corn chips go in the bottom of the bowl, the chili is layered on the chips, then shredded cheese and chopped onions are sprinkled on top.”

  “Sounds like I’m not going to get much sleep tonight.”

  That would make them even, Brittany thought. She hadn’t slept a wink last night. Instead she’d lain awake, restlessly thinking of Ethan. Thinking about how she wanted to climb all over him. She had ten years of wanting him stored up inside, but she also wanted to read him the riot act. She wanted to tell him to straighten out; to grow up, and stop being a bear to everyone.

  But she’d decided to hold her tongue, and her desires. He’d hired her to read to him. If he wanted her opinion, he’d ask.

  Several bites into his chili, Ethan laid down his spoon. “Pretty tasty. You’re smart, beautiful, and you can cook. Maybe I should marry you, huh?”

  “Huh?”

  “Or are you engaged to that musician of yours?”

  “About my musician… There isn’t one,” Brittany said, deciding she didn’t want any lies between them.

  “You broke up?”

  “No. I made him up,” she said, taking her last bite of chili.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she stalled. She knew. It was because she wanted him to think of her as being model beautiful with musicians at her feet.

  “Why don’t I begin reading…” she suggested, picking up the play.

  BRITTANY FELL ASLEEP within minutes of her head hitting the pillow. Her lack of sleep the night before had taken its toll. She hadn’t been asleep long when the phone rang.

  She glanced at the digital clock on the VCR. It was past midnight. Her globe-trotting sister, Francesca, never knew what time it was. When she picked up the phone her sister’s voice confirmed she was right.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Brittany demanded.

  “Who cares, Britt. What I want to know is if Ethan Moss is as charming as you thought he’d be.”

  “Oh yeah, Ethan’s a real charmer, all right. How’s the shoot going?” she asked, not wanting to think about Ethan the terrible.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a fine-grained Caribbean beach. The pebbles here are murder to pose on.”

  “Ah, the hardships of being a supermodel,” Brittany mocked, not feeling very sympathetic at midnight with an early-morning editorial meeting looming.

  “It does have its compensations. Guess who I’m having dinner with at the Café de Paris tonight? The prince.”

  “What prince? And what are you doing in Monte Carlo? I thought you were in Nice.”

  “I’m here to have dinner with the prince.”

  “Oh. Wow! Really?” Now she was awake.

  “Really… But enough about me. I want to know how tonight went.” Francesca’s voice was full of hopeful suggestion.

  “Not great, exactly.” Brittany rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her sleep-fogged memory.

  “Why? What happened? Maybe it was just the first date jinx. I do hope you wore something sexy,” she coaxed naughtily.

  “It wasn’t a date,” Brittany reminded her. “Anyway, for starters, I left my open umbrella to dry in the foyer.”

  “Where else would you leave it?”

  “Not where a blind man could trip over it.”

  “Oh, was he hurt?”

  “Only his pride, I think.”

  “Oh dear, that’s the worst injury for a man.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So anyway, how did it go after that?”

  “He hated my perfume.”

  “Change perfumes. I wish I’d been there to help you get ready.”

  “Well, I can’t help it if I didn’t major in dating in college like you did.”

  “I did not major in dating. I majored in—ah, okay, so I did major in dating.”

  “And then Ethan didn’t like the dinner I made him. Actually he liked it okay, I guess. It just wasn’t what he wanted.”

  “Baby sister, get a clue. You don’t have to major in dating to know men never know what they want. You have to tell them.”

  “To top the evening off, he didn’t like what I read to him,” Brittany finished on a roll.

  “So read him something else. You’re an editor. Pick something you’re sure will hold his interest. Read him that scrapbook of press clippings you keep about him.”

  “Francesca, that’s my private scrapbook! How did you—”

  “Oh, there’s the door. It must be the coach and six the prince sent to fetch me. I’ve got to quickly find my glass slippers— Bye.”

  Left with the dial tone, Brittany hung up the phone and lay in bed trying to imagine what it would be like to be beautiful enough to attract a polo player… and a prince.

  3

  SATURDAY MORNING while brushing her teeth, Brittany wondered how much she wanted a gorgeous Be
ngal kitten. Maybe she should spend her money on a nose job if she really wanted a prince or a polo player.

  Bits of conversation as well as reading consumed her evenings with Ethan. She was surprised to find his blindness a liberating experience, making her chatty instead of shy.

  While she adored her sister, Brittany had always lived in the shadow of Francesca’s great beauty. Everyone noticed Francesca first. They not only noticed Francesca first, but they were so entranced they never looked past her—to see Brittany.

  There’d been no way to compete, and so Brittany hadn’t tried. She hadn’t explored her own possibilities. Instead, she’d retreated to the fantasy world inside her books.

  She’d tried to convince herself that Ethan Moss was nothing more than a young girl’s fancy—a schoolgirl crush she’d grown past. But seeing him again, suffering as he was, brought long-buried feelings back to the surface.

  Apart from Ethan’s boorish behavior, which she excused because of his accident, Brittany found being in the company of such a vital, attractive man intoxicating. Especially when she imagined he found her beautiful and interesting.

  For the first time in her life she had, in fact, taken to thinking of herself as beautiful. It was only when she was confronted with a mirror, as she was at the moment, that she was dissatisfied.

  She decided to act on that dissatisfaction and used Francesca’s name to get an appointment at Stephen Knoll’s Madison Avenue salon. There she got a sleek new haircut, and an apricot color wash. Going for broke, she also used their makeup services, winding up with what she needed to accomplish softly defined matte lips, and smoky eyes.

  Even her assistant complimented her when she arrived for work on Monday.

  “Where did you get that suit? It’s gorgeous!” But then, being Sandy, she pricked, “Did your sister send it to you?”

  “No, I went a little crazy this weekend.” The navy crepe suit had a long, pencil-slim skirt with a center slit, which took some getting used to. “Between this suit and my hair, my charge card is still smoking.”

  “Who is he?” Sandy prompted.

  “He?”

  “Come on, all this must be for some guy, right?”

  Brittany decided she owed it to Sandy to torture her a little. “No. I just thought I’d start dressing for success. Are those my messages?”

  Flipping through the slips Sandy handed her, she pulled one out. “Here, you can handle this one, Sandy. I know what she wants. Messenger her an advance reading copy of the new Susann Batson book.”

  When Sandy left her office, Brittany settled back in her chair.

  Would Ethan notice a difference in her? Of course he couldn’t see her, but she felt more confident. A week had already passed without his acknowledging her as a woman. She had just three weeks left in which to make her dreams come true. Maybe tonight…

  “I’M BORED.”

  Brittany set down the play she was reading to Ethan.

  “Do you want me to read something else?”

  “No. Nothing interests me.”

  Brittany didn’t know if it was her growing confidence from her new look, or the realization that perhaps Ethan wasn’t being a jerk because he was blind; that maybe he’d been a jerk all along. Whatever, she was tired of tiptoeing around his peevishness.

  “Perhaps we could go to the park,” she retorted. “Toss around a Frisbee or something.”

  “Frisbee! How in the hell am I supposed to toss around a Frisbee? I can’t see.”

  “We could put some of my perfume you don’t like on the Frisbee, then you’d be able to catch it.”

  “So, you think my being blind is funny, do you?”

  “No, I think we should talk about it, instead of letting it be the nine-hundred-pound pink elephant we pretend isn’t there. Don’t you think it’s time we talked about it?”

  “No.”

  He swiveled in his burgundy chair so that his back was to her.

  Brittany knew from her talk with Dawson that Ethan needed to face the possibility that his blindness might be permanent. She had an idea that might be a step in that direction.

  ‘You know, I think it’s time you left your prison,” she said, moving to stand beside him. “Time for a scavenger hunt.” It was time she stopped humoring him.

  “Are you nuts? I hired you to read to me, not be social director on a cruise ship. First it’s the Frisbee and now a scavenger hunt—”

  “I’ll find, you identify,” she interrupted, determined to hold her ground. “Unless you think you can’t do it. Unless you really do want me to feel sorry for you. Come on, think of it as a goof.”

  “I don’t recall you being so annoying when I hired you.”

  “Are you coming or do I quit?” She prayed he didn’t call her bluff.

  “Maybe I’ll just fire you,” he replied.

  “I wouldn’t try, if I were you.” She was both excited and nervous. Excited to be going one-on-one with Ethan, nervous that she would lose on her one chance.

  “Are you threatening me?” He didn’t like to be challenged.

  “No, but Dawson will. He’ll probably kill you if he has to put up with you again in the evenings, as well.”

  “You’re right, he will.” His anger dissipated.

  “So, are you coming with me?”

  “Doesn’t look like I have a choice,” he said, rising.

  The evening breeze teased the budding trees as Brittany hailed a taxi for them. She closed her eyes for a second, to see what Ethan did—nothing but a black void. Opening her eyes, she shook off her sympathy and guided him inside the cab. Following him into the back seat, she instructed the driver to take them to 605 Third Avenue near Thirty-ninth Street.

  She settled back next to Ethan. “Give me your wallet,” she demanded.

  “What? Now you’re mugging me?”

  “No. You’re paying.”

  Frowning, he handed over his wallet. “Are you at least going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “No. No clues.”

  When they arrived at their destination, Brittany paid the driver from Ethan’s wallet, and they climbed out of the taxi.

  “Just take my arm as though you were a gentleman,” she instructed when the taxi pulled away. Brittany then led them inside the Daily Grind where they joined the jostling line at the gray enameled counter.

  “Two short, regular, singles,” Brittany called out when she got the barista’s attention.

  Beside her Ethan was quiet. When the barista slid their order to her, she handed one container to Ethan, paid, and then they moved toward the door.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, noting he looked a little pale.

  “Yeah, it’s just been a while since I’ve … Well, I haven’t been out in public since …” He shrugged.

  “Don’t you feel more alive?”

  “If tense is alive, then yeah.”

  “You’ll start relaxing,” she promised him.

  He lifted the container to his lips, tasting the brew.

  “Identify,” she instructed.

  “Well, it’s not something that’s going to help me relax, that’s for sure.”

  “What is it?”

  He took another taste. “Espresso … a full city roast.”

  “Very good.”

  “Do I win a prize?”

  “The game has just begun. You get five points.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  “You could take your shades off, you know,” she ventured.

  “That’s not negotiable.”

  “Then I take away three points.”

  “I’m heartbroken,” he said sardonically.

  “Okay, wise guy, it’s your turn.”

  “My turn?” he asked nervously when she coaxed him outside.

  “I hailed the last taxi, you hail this one.” The Lighthouse for the Partially Sighted literature had told her not to coddle him.

  “I can’t
hail a taxi.”

  “How do you know, if you don’t try?”

  “You didn’t say anything about hailing cabs when we started out on this harebrained adventure of yours,” he grumbled.

  “You didn’t ask. Now go ahead and try.”

  “No.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t have thought a polo player would be such a chicken.”

  “I’m not chicken. I’m just not certifiable like you. All right, you want me to hail us a taxi? I’ll just stand out here in traffic and when one hits me, you can get in,” he yelled, stepping down from the curb and waving his hand above his head.

  A cab pulled up and braked.

  “See how easy that was,” she told him, grabbing his arm and dragging him into the taxi.

  “You’re going to get me killed, do you know that?” he said, sliding across the seat so she could enter.

  “No, I’m going to make you live,” she countered, giving the driver instructions to take them to Fifth Avenue.

  “Give me back my wallet,” Ethan demanded.

  “What?”

  “Fifth Avenue means Saks, which can only mean one thing—a shopping spree.”

  “Don’t be a grouch. I promise I won’t buy anything. We’re only going to look.”

  “Brittany, do you really expect me to believe there’s a woman alive who can go into Saks with a man’s wallet and not buy anything? I’m blind, not stupid.”

  “You’re safe, okay? I had a shopping spree this past weekend.”

  “Oh? What did you buy?”

  “A suit.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s a great suit.”

  “A bikini?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  What had he meant by that? Brittany wondered, as the taxi neared their destination. They passed a mass of red and yellow flowers in the median, brightening the dusk. She’d started to point them out to Ethan, then stopped herself just in time, remembering he couldn’t see them to enjoy them.

  She felt a jab of sadness for him.

  It was then that she allowed herself to wonder if she could cope even as well as he if she were in his position. She shook off a shudder, unable to think of not being able to read.