Page 75 of Taming Tesla

“Tell me what?” I say, setting my glass down carefully.

He pulls a skillet off the rack hanging above his head and sets it on the stove. Turns on the burner and adds a drizzle of olive oil. “Aside from the money Con squeezed out of her dad, he also made the old man agree that Sara would move back to Chicago,” he says, dropping fresh, chopped veggies into the sizzling skillet, giving them a practiced flip in the pan while he seasons them with salt and pepper. “She’s not allowed in Boston—like, for forever.”

“Good,” I say. If I never see Sara Howard again, it’ll be too soon.

I don’t ask about James. I don’t have to. I receive monthly updates about him through my victim advocate. After the attack, he was arrested and charged with stalking, extortion, felony assault and unlawful imprisonment. He was arraigned from his hospital bed, after which he spent nearly a month recuperating from the beating Patrick gave. After his release from the hospital, he took a plea. In exchange for a guilty plea, the DA dropped everything but the assault charge. Even that got knocked down to a misdemeanor. He was given six-month in jail. With good behavior, he was out by Christmas.

Even though I know he’s out and wandering around Boston, I’m not worried. James will never bother me again. He knows what happens when you mess with a Gilroy.

“What about Lisa?”

“I’m not sure.” He shrugs. “Once the lawsuit was dropped she disappeared.”

“You didn’t press charges?” I say, confused. “She almost ruined your life?”

He shakes his head. “She was James’s puppet,” he says, brow furrowed slightly, attention focused on the veggies he’s sautéing. “Besides—I carry some of the blame for what happened. I never should’ve…” He looks at me, his expression heavy and hard to read. “What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have used her like that. She had a right to be angry.”

“If you carry some of the blame then so do I,” I tell him. “If I hadn’t—” I look down at the glass of wine in my hands. “I never meant to hurt you.”

When I finally force myself to look up, I find him watching me. Waiting. “We hurt each other, Cari,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching, the movement too fast and small to be called a smile. “I don’t think either of us planned what happened—I know I didn’t.”

Planned? No. I didn’t plan any of it. Knowing that doesn’t change the way I feel. Instead of arguing, I let it sit for a while, watching Patrick pull the steaks off the grill, letting them rest while he finishes the veggies. “Can I ask you a question?” I finally say, taking another sip of wine.

He gives me a grin, a wicked flash of teeth and dimples that sends a flurry of butterflies through my stomach. “You already know why they call me Boogey Nights.”

Heat erupts across my chest. I remembered that night. The way I felt when I realized the answer to my own question. Flustered. Nervous. Not unlike how I’m feeling now. “Is that a yes?” I say, amazed at how together I sound.

He laughs, not at all buying my calm, cool and collected act. All he has to do is look at me to know how much he rattled me. “You can ask me anything you want.”

“Where did you learn to cook?”

“That’s it?” he says, pulling a pair of plates from the rack next to the stove. “I give you free rein to ask me whatever you want and that’s what you want to know?”

“Yup.” I slide off the counter and take the plates from him, holding them while he transfers a steak and vegetables to each of them. “For starters.”

“Okay,” he drawls, shaking his head. “I worked summers at Benny’s.” Grabbing our wine, he leads me through the kitchen to the dining area. “Started out as a busboy when I was thirteen, just a few days a week.” He sets our glasses down and pulls out a chair before taking one of the plates from me. “By the time I was fifteen, I was in the kitchen full-time.”

I set my plate down before sitting, letting him push me in. “Did you like it?”

“Kept me in breakfast burritos,” he says, laughing. “Anything else?”

“How much money did your uncle give you?” I watch him round the table, looking closely. Waiting to see his shoulder stiffen or his face to twitch. I don’t really care. I’m more interested in his reaction to the question than the answer itself. Eleven months ago, the thought of his uncle passing his own sons over to make him his sole heir was enough to send him into a tailspin.

“One-hundred sixty million,” he says, cutting into his steak while the sum rolls off his tongue. No tailspin. No wincing or side-stepping. “Give or take. A good chunk of it is tied up in real estate.” He forks a bite into his mouth and chews. He shrugs, looks almost bored. “Some of it’s tied up in a few projects I’m finishing up.”

One-hundred sixty million. The sum makes me dizzy, makes the zeros parked in my bank account seem like pocket change. “Wha—” I think about Patrick’s uncle—his faded bowling shirts and work-callused hands. “How?”

He laughs at my obvious stupor. “Depends on who you ask,” he tells me. “If you ask my dad, our great-grandfather came over from Ireland, already a rich man. The way Uncle Paddy tells it, he wasn’t exactly begging in the streets… but bootlegging during Prohibition is what made him rich. Then he bought and sold half of Boston. That made him stupid rich.”

“One-hundred sixty million…” I look around the apartment, shaking my head. “That’s a lot of responsibility, Patrick.” Responsibility. Pressure. Expectation. I want to ask him how he’s taking it. How he’s holding up, but I don’t. He seems to be holding up just fine.

Catching my expression, he laughs. “I don’t want to talk about money. Ask me something else.”

I nod, as eager to leave the subject behind as he is. “Okay...” I cut into my own steak, noting it’s cooked a perfect medium rare. “Why didn’t you call me?”

He shrugs. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t know.” His counter-question catches me off guard. “I guess I was afraid you were angry with me for leaving after…”

“I was.” A look passes over his face, too quick for me to catch it. “But you did the right thing.” He shakes his head. “You needed to go, and I needed to let you,” he says, cocking his head, stabbing his fork into the pile of vegetables on his plate. “Ask me something else.”

“Alright…” I tap my finger against my lips like I’m thinking, but I already know what I’m going to ask him. It’s something I’ve wondered since this whole thing started. “Where did the dirty talk come from?” I ask, and he laughs, the broccoli speared on the end of his fork stalls, halfway to his mouth, his ears going bright red—a sure-fire sign that he’s embarrassed. As embarrassed as he is, he recovers quickly.

“I don’t know,” he tells me, pushing food into his mouth, chewing slowly while he considers the question. “I’ve never done it before you.” He cocks his head and laughs. “I never did a lot of shit before you…” He takes a long sip of wine before setting his glass down. “My sex life has always been neat. Tidy.” He shoots me a crooked smile. “Predictable.” Hearing the word, I groan, and he laughs, sitting back in his chair. “But, you do things to me.” He looks at me, and suddenly I can’t breathe. “Make me want things. Make me someone I don’t understand. Can’t control. Can’t predict. I’ve spent the last eleven months getting to know him.”

Him. The other Patrick. The Patrick nobody knows but me. The wolf he hides beneath his good deeds and nice guy smile.

“And?” The word comes out soft, pitched low. “What did you learn about him?”

“And...” Patrick’s mouth twitches. “as it turns out, he’s not such a bad guy after all.”

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