Set Up in SoHo (The Matchmaker Chronicles) (3 page)

“Yeah. But it’s not like I was trying to hurt you.” He actually sounded apologetic. As if in saying the last bit, he’d somehow make everything all right.

“Actually, I’m guessing I wasn’t really on your mind at all in the moment.” The first tears trickled down my cheeks, even as I struggled for composure. “So, was it just the once?” It was a stupid question, but you try being erudite when your boyfriend is telling you he’s been schtooping someone you loathe.

“No.” He shook his head. “But it’s more than just sex. At least, I think it is.”

Oh my God. Dillon hadn’t just cheated on me. He’d gone and fallen for the woman. My gut clenched as I rejected the notion. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not to me. I felt as if I’d blundered into some kind of alternate world. One where Bethany needed a matchmaker and Dillon had the hots for Diana Merreck. And lest you think I'm being judgmental, you have to understand that Diana’s all Hermes and pearls, while Dillon is three-hundred-dollar vodka and partying until dawn. Like old money and new money—they don’t mix.

“So what?” I said, fighting to breathe normally, to keep some semblance of calm. “You’re dumping me for Diana Merreck?” My heart had stopped beating altogether now. Although I suppose that’s impossible, since clearly I was still standing there listening to Dillon destroy my life.

“No. I mean, yes. Oh, God, Andi, I don’t know.” Again with the adorable confused look. Everything about him was so familiar. So much a part of me. And yet, it was as if I were listening to a total stranger. Someone I barely knew.

“Well, you can’t have it both ways.” The words came out on a strangled whisper, and I quickly downed the rest of my champagne in a vain attempt to find my balance.

“Why not?” he asked, his hair flopping onto his forehead again. To my credit, I resisted the urge to yank it out of his head. “You’ve always talked about our having a modern relationship.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean three-ways,” I hissed through clenched teeth, anger finally showing its wonderfully reinvigorating head. “If you think you’re going to have your cake and eat it, too, you’re out of your mind.”

“I see,” he said, looking defiant and apologetic all at the same time.

“So that’s it? Just like that it’s over?” I half expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell me I’d been punk’d. Dillon wasn’t seeing Diana Merreck. It was all just a big joke. With me falling for it lock, stock, and roasting pan.

“I don’t want it to be. But I can’t quit seeing her. I just can’t.”

So this wasn’t a joke. Or some godawful dream. It was real.

Dillon was seeing someone else. He was seeing Diana Merreck. I’d trusted him with my heart and he’d made a complete and utter fool of me.

It was over. Just like that. Right here. Right now. In the middle of a fucking party in front of everyone we knew.

“Fine,” I said, brushing angrily at my tears. I’d be damned if I’d let him be the one to cast the deathblow. “Then let’s just end it now.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, I turned and walked away with as much dignity as I could muster considering the circumstances and the fact that I was wearing four-inch heels. Okay, there was also the small matter of a little too much champagne. But hey, I was thankful for the insulation.

I swallowed my tears, smiled graciously at several well-wishers, ducked a conversation with a concerned-looking Vanessa, and even managed an air kiss for Kitty Wheeler. Which tells you right there how upset I was. Normally, I’d have avoided her like the plague. Besides being generally annoying, she’s Diana Merreck’s best friend.

Three minutes later and I was out on the sidewalk, hand extended for a cab. Except, of course, there wasn’t one in sight. So I turned and started walking, reaction setting in, my body shaking as the tears began to fall in earnest. I still couldn’t comprehend the enormity of what had happened. In less than two minutes my life had imploded, everything I’d believed to be true proving false.

Tears dripped off the end of my nose and I swiped at them, trying to keep my pain to myself. Fortunately, it wasn’t that difficult a task. In Manhattan, no one really gives a damn. Which meant my breakdown was going pretty much unnoticed, except for a guy in a box on an abandoned stoop.

“Hey, lady,” he called from his cardboard studio. “It can’t be that bad.”

I shook my head in answer, his words triggering the floodgates. Tears turned to sobs, and I closed my eyes, struggling for at least some semblance of composure. I could fall apart later. First, I had to get home.

I sucked in a breath, squared my shoulders, and moved forward, my foot landing on . . . nothing.

Nothing at all.

And, with an inverted jackknife worthy of an Olympian diver, I fell, butt first, into the abyss.

Chapter 2

Okay, not an abyss so much as a cellar.

I’ve lived my entire life in fear of falling through the hammered double doors that dot the sidewalks of Manhattan. When I was little I actually made quite a production of avoiding them. You know the drill—jumping over them. Running around them. Inching past the dubious ones, especially when the sidewalk was really crowded. But, as I got older, I realized that with a little prudence (and possibly a little less theatrics) I probably wasn’t going to wind up squashed at the bottom of a dank old cellar.

Apparently, I was wrong.

The place was damp and smelled of mold. Thankfully, I’d landed on something squishy. Although on second thought, this was New York—home of Son of Sam, the Gottis, and eleven hundred episodes of
Law & Order
. My mind shifted into nefarious gear and I shuddered, trying to push to my feet.

But my legs were having none of that, and I immediately collapsed again, pain coursing through my leg and chest, something sticky dripping down my face. My left heel had broken off and my dress had a rip that made Althea’s pronouncement of debauchery totally true. It was not only downright X-rated, it was impossible to repair. But, on the positive side, my shift in position had illuminated the source of my padded landing.

Cabbages—surrounded by crates of tomatoes, parsley, and what looked like turnips. I’d fallen into a vegetable market. Or, more likely, a bodega cellar.

So much for dead bodies.

“Are you all right down there?” A deep voice floated through the open doors above me. For a moment my mind played tricks on me, and my heart lurched, thinking that Dillon had come to find me. To rescue me (which was a ridiculous notion for any number of reasons, but I’ve always had a vivid imagination).

A dark head, clearly not Dillon’s, appeared in the opening. “Should I call an ambulance?”

The idea of making a further spectacle was abhorrent. I shifted again, this time moving more slowly, anticipating the discomfort, and was satisfied that although the motion did make me a little nauseated, the pain wasn’t completely unbearable. “No,” I said, pulling together the tattered remnants of my dress. “I think I can make it home. I only live a couple of blocks away.”

“Well, I’m coming down to make sure.”

Just what I needed—a witness to my debacle.

“No, really,” I called, “I can make it out. If you’ll just give me a hand?” But before I could manage to move a muscle, he’d climbed down the steps (a much more sensible mode of entry) and was kneeling beside me.

“What hurts?”

“My head. A little. And my chest. Well, more my side, really.”

He reached out gently to push my hair aside. “You’ve got a pretty nasty cut there.”

“That explains the sticky stuff,” I murmured. “I think I’d have preferred it be from a tomato or avocado or something.”

He frowned, his fingers probing around the wound. “How hard did you hit your head?”

“It’s a vegetable haven in here,” I said, by way of explanation, waving weakly at a pile of potatoes in a corner. “And not that hard. At least I don’t think so. Are you a doctor?”

“No.” He smiled at that, and I was surprised at how much the gesture softened his face. “Just your average Good Samaritan.”

I glanced up at the doorway, half expecting a crowd of faces. But the opening was empty.

“You said your chest hurts?” His hands moved down my shoulders, still palpating.

“I’m fine,” I said, pulling away. “Really.” Considering the situation, I was enjoying his ministrations entirely too much.

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that.” He smiled again, and I nodded, grateful for the moment to let someone else be in charge. My head was starting to throb, and to be honest, I felt a bit woozy.

“So what happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I was just walking and then boom, I landed here.”

“Drinking?”

I searched his face for judgment, and seeing none answered honestly. “A little champagne.” Okay—not so honestly. “But I needed it. I just broke up with my boyfriend.”

“I see,” he said, his words echoing Dillon’s.

“No, it’s not like that,” I hastened to add, not sure exactly why I wanted to explain myself. “He’d just confessed to cheating on me. At a party. In front of half of the Upper East Side.” Actually, I was making it sound worse. Go me.

“Well, that explains it all, then.” His laugh was warm and kind of gentle. It made me shiver. Or maybe it was the damp. Actually, it had to be the damp. The guy was a total stranger. I was just going into shock or something.

“Well, I don’t think anything’s broken,” he pronounced, sitting back on his heels. “What do you say we get you out of here?” I nodded as he slipped his arms underneath mine and lifted me upward. For a moment the world spun like crazy, then it cleared and I actually managed to stand on my own two feet. “Thanks,” I said, clutching my dress. There wasn’t much material in the first place, and thanks to some pretty provocative rippage it was not easy to stay covered.

“Here,” he said, slipping out of his jacket. “Take my coat.” Well, blow me over with a feather. Chivalry is alive and well and living in a bodega cellar. Who knew?

“But I’ll get blood all over it.”

“So I’ll get it cleaned.” He shrugged. I slid in my arms as he held the jacket for me, grateful for the warmth. “How about I follow you up the steps?”

The “steps” were actually more of a ladder, and the idea of him following behind me (even though I was wearing his jacket) felt pornographic somehow. So I hesitated, standing on my one good heel, staring upward.

“It’ll be fine,” he soothed, as if talking to a child. “I won’t follow that closely. I promise.”

Embarrassment flooded my face and I looked again to see if he was laughing at me. But he wasn’t. Just waiting patiently. “Sorry. Guess I’m not thinking very clearly.”

Holding a hand to my hemline, I managed to climb up and out, relieved to find that no one I knew was standing on the sidewalk. There were a few curious stares, but as I said, this was Manhattan, and frankly, my falling into a cellar didn’t rank as Gawker material. Although my minor celebrity might have elevated things a bit had the odd paparazzi happened by.

Fortunately, they had not.

My savior emerged into the light and I was surprised to see that his suit was, in fact, a tux. An expensive one at that.

“Oh my God,” I said with a wash of guilt. “This is Armani.”

“No worries. You clearly need it more than I do,” he said, laughter coloring his voice as he took in my ragtag appearance. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call for help?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Honestly, I can make it from here. It’s just a little way.” In truth, I wasn’t completely sure I could make it anywhere. But if I went to the hospital, they’d surely call Althea, and considering all that had happened, I simply wasn’t up to a confrontation.

“How about I call someone?” he suggested, reading my mind. I shook my head again, ignoring the pain. “I’d rather not make this any more public than necessary.”

“But you’re hurt. And you need someone to look after you.”

“I’ve been looking after myself for a long time. Honestly. I can deal.”

“Well, at least let me walk you,” he said, offering his arm. Which I took gratefully. The world was starting to spin again.

“Thank you,” I said, struggling to smile. “I really don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

“I suspect you’d have managed just fine.”

I nodded my agreement, although it was an empty gesture, as I was having definite trouble just putting one foot in front of the other. We walked a couple of tentative steps, and then, without warning, I felt my knees turn to complete Jell-O.

His arms tightened around me as I opened my mouth to apologize, but my tongue clearly wasn’t in the mood to cooperate. Instead, my entire body sagged against him, my nose buried in the Egyptian cotton of his shirt as the world faded into a hazy shade of blue-black velvet.

The next thing I knew, I was lying in the ER listening to a screamer in the cubicle on the left and a woman behind the curtain on the right who clearly hadn’t been happy about anything since sometime in 1966.

I had a vague memory of an ambulance and a rush of hospital personnel. Although, oddly, my clearest recollection was that my stranger had been there the whole time. Holding my hand, if my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. Of course, I probably hadn’t given him much choice.

Anyway, apparently I was on my own now. Not even a doctor in sight. My purse had disappeared, along with my dress and his jacket. I gingerly felt along my hairline, my fingers encountering a gauze bandage just above my right eye.

“You had to have stitches.” My aunt waltzed into the cubicle on a cloud of Opium, and I found myself wishing it were the real thing. “Seven along your hairline and five more under one rib. You’re lucky you didn’t break anything. But apparently you lost a lot of blood.”

“That would explain the fainting.”

“Yes, but not much else.” Althea settled on the edge of the bed, her face lined with concern.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

“I got a phone call from a total stranger.” She said it as if it were the most egregious of sins. “He had your cell phone, and apparently you have me on speed dial.”

Stupid mistake.

“Sorry. Couldn’t be helped. I was unconscious.” I tried for an irritated frown, but only succeeded in a grimace of pain. “Is he still here?” There was no doubt in my mind who she was talking about. And just at the moment I really wanted to see him—to thank him, of course.