am my services, and as long as these two hands are attached to my two arms, I’m not for sale.”
Rudy hobbled back into the office and sat down again, gently. His breathing had increased, and he looked unsettled, but his arrogance had defined the moment. If she could physically kick him out of her office and onto the street and watch him hit the pavement with a thud, she would at least feel as though they were once and for all even.
But she couldn’t.
He was taller than she had remembered, and maturity had thickened his body. Not that he was fat, he had merely turned into a man, with deep-brown eyes, darker than she remembered, and thick black hair, blacker than she remembered. It’s not that she hadn’t seen him on TV and on magazine covers, or cereal boxes over the years, but to see him up close again was just different. He actually looked even more handsome in person, and that bad-boy arrogance she thought was just for the media was actually real.
Too bad.
“Look, I know I’m vulnerable right now, and you can hold out for any amount of money you want, but I have my limits.”
“I don’t want your money.”
He chuckled. “Of course you do. Everybody does, but I’ve gotten used to the greed factor.”
“I think you need to leave now.”
“Come on, Cate. It’s me, Rudy.” His determination didn’t waver. “What? You’re still mad about what happened seven years ago?”
“Ten. It was ten years ago. And do you honestly think I gave you a second thought?”
“Good, then why won’t you treat me? Isn’t there some kind of law about therapists and patients? Some kind of code you people live by? How can you turn me away?”
“I don’t know. How can I? I must have rocks for brains. Or maybe I just don’t like you and your full-of-yourself self.”
“Excuse me?”
“There is no excuse. Please leave, which is something you’re good at.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at her with a look of confusion on his face.
She stood up.
He stood, albeit slowly.
“I’m sorry you feel this way, Cate. I could have used your magic touch.”
His words brought back the memory of the night he proposed, which only made her more angry.
“What a crock! That line’s stale. Don’t you have a new one?”
“I never should have come back here. I knew you’d be like this. You never could just accept things.”
“Accept things! So, I should have just accepted the fact that you walked out on me?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Like I had a choice? It was my once-in-a-lifetime chance. You wouldn’t have come with me.”
Her anger welled up with his words. “You never asked.”
“Asked you to do what? Give up your scholarship to UCLA and come follow me around to some training camp? Yeah, that would’ve worked out. Not likely.” His face softened and he took a step toward her. “Cate, I—”
“Just go,” she said, her voice shaking. “This debate is far too stressful, and I’ve been working on calm. I’m sure you can get all the therapy you need back in Rudyworld.”
“Yeah. Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be over at my parents’ old brownstone. I’m going to hang around for a while. Get it fixed up. Feel free to drop by anytime.”
He hobbled out of her office while she stood waiting to hear the front door on the Wellness Center close so she could sit down and scream.
THE BROWNSTONE where Rudy had spent his teenage years with his mom and dad had all but been deserted. His parents, Betty and Sam, now lived in Florida, complements of Rudy, and journeyed back to Chicago only when they had to, which in the past five years had been only once, when old man Barcio died. Tony Barcio had been their landlord and good friend. Rudy had bought the place as soon as it came on the market. He really didn’t know why he bought it, but at the time it had seemed like the right thing to do for his mom and dad, or maybe just for himself.
Now as he sat alone in the empty house, he wondered what the hell he was doing. Why had he persisted in returning to his old neighborhood?
There were some pictures hanging on the walls. Pictures of his mom and dad in Florida, a couple aunts and uncles, a picture of himself wearing his gold medals, but there was one picture that really threw him a curve ball. It was a picture of his cousin, Pete.
Rudy had always admired Pete because he actually knew what he wanted to be from the time he was a little boy, a wooden-furniture craftsman. Rudy only knew one thing—escape—and he would do whatever it took to achieve it. Marrying Cate had meant putting down roots and building a life together. When that reality had finally taken hold, he’d freaked and run to the nearest exit.
His excellent freestyle skiing ability bought him a ticket with one of the best moguls coaches in the country. After he achieved what he wanted there, he went into the restaurant business. Lately his restaurants were starting to bore him. He could never stay in one place, or with one thing, for too long. Even his house in Malibu had lost its appeal, but he didn’t know where to escape to this time, or to what, exactly.
Pete had stayed right where he grew up, a small town in Wisconsin, had four kids, his own business and according to the picture on the wall, a pretty little wife.
Rudy had his own business, three gold Olympic medals, enough money to last him his entire lifetime and a silver-framed picture of Allison Devine, Hollywood’s latest ingenue, on his desk. The woman who had, in fact, pushed him right out of that lift.
Pete was happy.
Rudy was happy…yeah, right.
Now, as he sat in his dad’s green recliner in the living room waiting for the house to get to a more livable temperature, he pondered whether it had been a smart move to let his driver leave. After the cold shoulder he had received from Cate, which he certainly deserved, he hadn’t been able to think straight. And to make matters worse, he was freezing and hungry, and his cell phone had gone completely dead, but he hurt too much to get up to try to find the charger.
The brownstone was a dusty, spider-infested, cold, dark mess and unless there was some major work on it ASAP it was totally uninhabitable. All the furniture, what there was of it, was covered in sheets that had long ago lost their protective power. Cobwebs hung in every corner. What wasn’t covered had a thick blanket of dust and grime. The walls were a lovely shade of soot.
At least the heat worked and the place had electricity, two things that Rudy had kept on.
The doorbell rang.
“Come in,” he yelled. “It’s open.”
“Hellooo,” a high-pitched, female voice echoed throughout the house as the front door creaked open. “Betty? Sam? Is that
