Kate Hoffmann - A Fare To Remember

“I’m fine,” Sabina insisted, sending him a sultry smile. “My headache is gone.”

“You still look a little pale. You really should go home and rest. I’ll go get my car.”

She opened her mouth, as if to protest, but thought better of it. A tiny frown worried her brow. “You’re probably right. I still do feel a bit dizzy.” She quickly stood up and grabbed her purse. “You don’t have to drive me. I can get a cab.”

“Don’t be silly,” Alec said. “I’m parked just a few blocks from here. It will only take me a minute to go get my car.”

Sabina shook her head. “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself home.”

Alec sensed the anger in her voice and decided to let the argument go. “All right.” He grabbed her hand before she had a chance to leave and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll call you.”

“Fine,” she said.

With that, she turned and walked out. At the last minute, Alec decided to stop her, but then he heard the front door slam and he thought better of it. If she stayed any longer, he’d forget that he was a nice guy deep inside. He’d forget that there was a reason he couldn’t spend the rest of his evening kissing her and undressing her and making love to her.

He strolled into the foyer and watched through the beveled glass of the door as she descended the front steps. If he looked at the situation objectively, she was just a woman. A beautiful woman, but a woman all the same. Hell, Manhattan was full of them-models, actresses, socialites, heiresses. Up until now, he’d had his choice.

But suddenly he didn’t want his choice. Only one woman interested him and that was Sabina Amanar. Maybe that was the Gypsy curse, to want something that you knew you could never have.

Alec wandered back to the kitchen. His briefcase sat on the counter where he’d dropped it that afternoon. He opened it and pulled out the Lupescu file, then spread the papers out on the granite-covered island.

Acquisition of the Lupescu property had been a crusade of sorts for his father. Simon Harnett didn’t like to lose. For him, business was like war. There were those who agreed with him, his troops, as he liked to call them. And then there were those who opposed him…the enemy.

If Alec opposed him now, then his tenure as president and chief operating officer of Harnett Property Development would come to a quick end. And why was he even contemplating that move? He’d only just met Sabina. He was acting as if he’d fallen in love with her at first sight.

Alec stared down at the papers scattered in front of him. It had been so easy when the building was just a building and not the people who inhabited it. But the five-story on Christopher Street was Sabina’s childhood home, not just a mass of bricks and mortar. She pinned her future on the shop.

If he bought the building, all that would be gone. At the least, they’d gut the interior, and at most, they’d tear the building down and build a new one. “This is why my father said you never get personally involved.”

That’s how Simon Harnett had turned the business from property management into development. His grandfather had begun his company before the war with two apartment buildings. He’d gradually purchased more, using an uncanny knack for buying buildings a few years before the neighborhood experienced a renaissance.

If his grandfather were still alive, Alec knew he wouldn’t approve of this move. Ruta was given the building as a gift, and to take that gift back would somehow break a promise between the Gypsy and George Harnett. And if his father was still running the business, he’d say there was no room for sentimentality.

Alec and his father had shared a fractious relationship. In truth, Alec never expected to work in the family business. His sister, Cassie, was much better suited for the job. But Cassie had married five years ago and was more interested in her growing family than the cutthroat business of Manhattan property development.

So a temporary job had become permanent. And after his father’s heart attack last year, Alec had become the man in charge. Though Simon still spent most days in the office, he’d given up the stressful job of property acquisition to concentrate on project management, the job Alec had done since he’d graduated from NYU ten years before.

Hell, what twist of fate had brought Sabina into his life? If he’d left just a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later that morning, he never would have run into her. And he never would have touched her face or run his fingers along her arm. And that current would have never passed between them. And then he could have ruthlessly done his job.

“Yeah,” he muttered. Turning from the counter, Alec retrieved a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet above the sink and poured a healthy measure into a glass. “You’re ruthless, all right. You take one look into those violet eyes and turn into a freaking marshmallow.”

He tossed down the Scotch in one quick gulp, then poured himself another. A new plan was in order. A strategy to deal with unexpected feelings. He grabbed the bottle and headed upstairs to the den. The Yankees were playing. He’d watch the game, get a little drunk and try to convince himself that he had absolutely no attraction whatsoever to Sabina Amanar.

And if that didn’t work, he’d resign from his job and go sell houses in Brooklyn.

“HE WAS IN MY CAB. I’m sure it was him,” Mario said. “I picked him up a few months ago in SoHo and he was talking on his cell phone. I remember him because I thought he might be a good match for Mrs. Methune’s youngest daughter, Lydia. It was definitely Alec Harnett.”

Ruta leaned forward and braced her arms on the back of the cab’s front seat. She peered through the small Plexiglas window. “And you dropped him off in front of my shop?”

Mario nodded. “That’s where he wanted to go-Ruta’s. I drove around the block and I saw him go inside.”

Ruta shook her head. “Simon Harnett hasn’t had any luck with me and now he sends his son to do his dirty work? I’m sure Bina told him exactly what I would have said. No! Her first loyalty is to her family.”

“Maybe she’s too loyal?” Mario asked, his brow arching. He met Ruta’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

“And what are you trying to tell me now? Do not speak in riddles. We have been friends for far too long.”

Mario pulled the cab over to the curb in front of Ruta’s shop, then twisted around in his seat. For a woman who claimed to be psychic, she wasn’t very good at reading her own granddaughter. “What life is this for a pretty young lady?” Mario asked. “This city is made for romance, and Sabina spends her weekends working on your accounts and sewing pretty dresses that she never gets to wear.”

“I have introduced her to many young men. What more can I do? In the old country, she would have been married years ago, with babies at her feet. I have made charms, I have given her potions. Nothing seems to work.”

“Romance is a bit more difficult these days,” Mario said.

Ruta pointed to the photos on the dash of the cab. “Your pictures say differently. Do you think you can do better for Sabina? If you can, then I give you permission to try.”

Mario chuckled. “And what if you don’t approve of this young man I choose?”

“You are my friend, Mario. I trust you to drive me around this city safely. I will trust that you can find a good man for my Bina.”

“I already have a good man in mind.”

Ruta reached into her pocketbook and withdrew a ten dollar bill. “Then you do your magic. And I will begin to save for the wedding, yes?”

“Yes,” Mario said. He flipped off the light on the top of the cab, then jumped out and circled around to Ruta’s door. “But I want one promise from you,” he said as he helped Ruta out. “You will not interfere with Sabina’s romantic life. No predictions, no warnings, no visions. And no curses.”

“It is against my natural instincts. I must look out for the girl now that her parents are gone.” She sighed. “But I suppose I can make that promise.”

Mario gave Ruta a quick peck on the check. “Why don’t you and I have a cup of tea at that nice little coffee shop around the corner? And when I’m done, you can read the leaves. I’m thinking of making a…change in my life.”

“A change?” Ruta slipped her arm through his and walked with him down the sidewalk. “I sense this has to do with Iris. I had a vision of Iris last night while I was watching Letterman. I saw her in a beautiful white gown with a lovely diamond ring on her finger.”

“You did, did you?” Mario chuckled softly. “You always see my future much more clearly than I do, Ruta. And did you happen to see how and when I proposed to Iris?”

“No,” Ruta replied. “But I am sure if we put our heads together we can figure that out on our own. The important thing is that she will say yes.”

“And you’re sure of that?”

“As sure as I can be. But I can always mix up a little potion to dispense with any reservations she might have. And you can do your part by finding a ring with a very large diamond.”

Mario gave Ruta’s hand a squeeze. If only it were so simple. Now that he’d made the decision to propose to Iris, all he could think about were the reasons she might refuse him. Maybe a potion was the answer. After all, what could it hurt?

“IT DIDN’T WORK,” Sabina muttered as she walked through the bead curtain into the shop. She set the small brown bottle on the counter in front of Chloe.

Chloe took a sip of her quadruple espresso and stared at the bottle. Sometime between last night and this morning her hair had gone from pink to blue and she’d pierced her other nostril. Sabina shook her head in bewilderment. Chloe was strange, but she was the best employee they’d ever had.

“How much did you give him?” she asked, holding the bottle up to the light.