The One in My Heart by Sherry Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

this?”
    “They were hoping the separation would do the trick. But the day I turned eighteen, I walked out of Eton and flew to California, where she was based.”
    “And your parents just let you go?”
    “No, they chased me to Berkeley and it was ugly. But since I was already eighteen they couldn’t do anything. Eventually they left.” His voice turned somber. “I haven’t seen them since—except once, at O’Hare. I don’t think they saw me.”
    “Is that why you moved back here, so you could be part of the tribe again?”
    He glanced at a painting we were passing, which happened to be a family portrait, three rosy children clambering over an elegant, serene mother. “If I said yes, it would be the first time I admitted it to anyone.”
    A strange thrill shot through me. “That’s a yes, then.”
    He didn’t answer immediately—I was reminded of the night we met, those few heartbeats during which he stood by his car, motionless, as if he’d acted without thinking the matter through, and must pause to reassess the situation.
    “Yes,” he finally said.
    My breath caught—did it mean anything that I was the first one to hear it? “You do know that you can ring their doorbell anytime and say, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad, I’ve missed you’?”
    “I could. But that would require courage and maturity. Much easier to go on wallowing in indecision.”
    “The new pinnacle of modern manhood.”
    This made him laugh.
    That great laughter, those green eyes…I simmered with a sharp emotion that I didn’t recognize at first.
    Possessiveness.
    “Sir, ma’am,” an attendant called to us, “the museum is closing in fifteen minutes and we need to clear the galleries.”
    “Would you like a drink at my place?” Bennett asked as we made our way out.
    My stomach flipped. Was this an invitation to sex? “Where do you live?”
    “At Seven Forty.”
    Manhattan’s most prestigious apartment buildings were known by their street numbers, and few were as storied as 740 Park Avenue, where Jackie Kennedy had lived as a young girl. “You couldn’t have bought something on Central Park West? It just had to be Seven Forty?”
    “Of course. That was how I informed my parents I was moving back to the city.”
    When an apartment at 740 changed hands, it made news, at least among a certain subset of Manhattanites. Even if Bennett’s parents didn’t pay attention, they’d have friends who did.
    Outside the museum I stopped. If he was determined to have dinner with Zelda and me, that was fine. But I shouldn’t spend any more time alone with him.
    In fantasy, he was perfect. In reality, he could only be trouble.
    “I have something I’d like to discuss with you,” he said as I mustered the will to decline his invitation. “Something that is unrelated, or only tangentially related, to my inability to save myself for marriage whenever you are around.”
    “What is it?”
    “Let’s just say I’ve been cultivating Zelda for the same reason.”
    I spent a moment pulling on my gloves, wondering whether I could at least postpone the inevitable for some time. Anything that concerned Zelda would eventually concern me, but did I have to deal with it tonight?
    “I promise I’ll behave myself in the kitchen,” he cajoled. “There will be absolutely no copulatory acts against counters or cabinets.”
    A very, very narrow promise—outside his kitchen I would be fair game. I shook my head. “Lead the way, then.”
    He’d worn me down at last.

Chapter 4

    740 PARK AVENUE WAS LESS than ten blocks from the Met. An unassuming entrance led into a foyer that had an Art Deco touch, to give it a glimmer of hipness back in 1929 without making the genteel folks of Park Avenue feel that they were being contaminated by too much of what was going on in Central Park West.
    A private elevator ferried us directly to the penthouse. The elevator door opened and I stepped into an entry hall that could have been used as a movie set for The Age of