Veronica kissed her head.
“Get some sleep.” She tickled Lyra’s arms and the girl giggled but quickly started to calm. Her eyelids grew heavy while she watched Veronica pick up the costume from the floor.
“Alexa, play the lullaby mix,” Veronica asked the smart speaker in Lyra’s room. Almost immediately, the device began to play soothing sweet music.
As Veronica stepped outside her daughter’s door, she heard Lyra speak to the device.
“Alexa, can you bring me a daddy?”
* * *
“I’m sorry, I cannot order a daddy,” the device replied.
Veronica sucked in a breath as pain squeezed her chest. Ever since Lyra had learned that you could order things from the device, she tried over and over to ask it for a father.
That was the one thing Veronica couldn’t give her, no matter how much she wanted to. Her heart was permanently broken.
Veronica walked into the laundry room feeling numb. She put the tiny Elsa costume into the washing machine with the rest of her load before she turned it on before she went into her own bedroom and collapsed on her bed, exhausted.
Across from her was a dresser with a collection of photos in frames. The one in the middle held her attention. It showed a man with a hand on the woman’s rounded belly, his lips pressed in a kiss against the sun dress covered shape of an unborn child. Lyra.
“I miss you, Parker,” she whispered. “I miss you so much.”
But no matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t hide the photos of him. Sometimes the pain of what she lost was the only thing that kept her grounded. Someday maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much, but right now she had to be strong for Lyra.
Veronica changed into a loose t-shirt and boxers and climbed into bed with a heavy sigh. She reached for the bedside lamp and killed the light.
Thad strolled into the lobby of the Gold Circle hotel. It was full of life, glittering with 1920s art deco design and accompanied by an energetic night scene. A crowd of people left one of the remodeled ballrooms where their exclusive concert had been playing tonight. He slipped through the crowd, moving against the tide of people as he had every night since he and his father had reopened the old hotel in downtown Chicago.
Once inside the elevators, he swiped his keycard for access to the penthouse suite. The doors opened to a three thousand square-foot apartment. He tossed his keys, wallet, and keycard on the gray granite kitchen countertop before he removed his coat. Normally, the empty rooms of his home bothered him, but the feeling was worse tonight.
His mind was still buzzing from his moment in the spotlight. He could still feel the electricity that crawled along his senses as he sang, and soon, his thoughts turned toward the little, elegant brownstone house itself. If he had to guess, it was worth around three million, with a lease on the first floor for the coffee shop and a lease on the residential property upstairs.
Thad closed his eyes and leaned back against the kitchen counter, picturing the brownstone’s first-floor interior. It was just the sort of thing he was looking for. While he loved living in the Gold Circle hotel, he wanted a space away from downtown so he could make this suite his perfect bachelor pad. It would always be ready for a night of seduction, and he wouldn’t have to worry that a woman would get too attached when she knew it was just a crash pad for the night. The last thing he wanted was to give the women he dated the wrong impression; he had no plans to settle down anytime soon.
He’d been featured in last month’s GQ and ever since, he couldn’t set foot outside the hotel during the day without getting mobbed by at least a handful of women. Instead, he resorted to going out mostly at night, making him feel like a damned vampire. He was glad the real estate offices of Worthington Enterprises were only a block away, otherwise he would have had a hell of a time getting to work.
He and his driver, Simon, had a carefully planned routine. In the mornings, Simon would text Thad that he was outside, and Thad would go down and get straight into the car. Any delays meant a chance to be recognized from the billboards all over town with his face on them. His butler, Winston, also helped him handle anything else he might need, including sneaking in and out of the hotel.
Thad found his cellphone and dialed his personal assistant, Brandon. The kid was twenty-two, smart as a whip, a hard worker, and on call 24/7.
“Hey, Mr. Worthington!” he answered enthusiastically despite the late hour.
“Brandon, I’m going to text you an address. When you get into the office tomorrow, find out who owns it and what its current value is.”
“Sure thing,” Brandon replied.
“Thanks.” Thad hung up and crossed the kitchen into his large living room. His guitar sat in stand by the fireplace. He picked it up and sat down on the couch, the weight of the instrument giving him an immediate sense of peace. He brushed his fingertips over the strings and listened to the vibrations ripple through the quiet apartment. After a moment, he started to play the “The Sound of Silence.” He let the words move through him as though they had a soul of their own.
Tonight he’d conquered his only fear: singing in public. Something about letting people hear his voice, knowing they could judge him for it, had always terrified him. Thad wasn’t used to fear. He lived with confidence. Money, power, and connections, combined with good looks, had given him just about every advantage in the world.
But tonight, he’d put himself on the line in a way he’d never done before. It had felt so good and seemed to leave him in a different sort of headspace. For the first time in a long time, he’d felt connected to something, not separated from it.
It had to be the brownstone; that house had some sort of energy that called to him. He could feel himself becoming fixated.
He continued to sing and play, letting his usually smooth voice turn almost ragged with desperation near the end.
As the last notes faded into silence, he thought again of that cozy little building and how he was going to own it, no matter what it cost him.
2
Thad pushed through the misted glass doors and entered the main lobby of their company. He was instantly greeted by his assistant. “Mr. Worthington, you’re early!”
Thad gave his usual reply. “I’m always early.”
The offices of Worthington Enterprises were sleek and modern, with a touch of antique gilding, a faded memory of the roaring twenties. Its design was tempered by the modern age and was a style Thad very much loved.
He’d gone through a period in college where he’d been obsessed with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Perhaps it was a bit of hubris, to be obsessed with a mysterious billionaire literary figure, but Gatsby had been his idol.
It wasn’t because of what people usually thought when they read the book. Gatsby was a tragic figure, not a hero, and what drew Thad to him was knowing the man had lived his whole life with one vision: winning the heart of a woman he could never truly have. He’d built up a glittering, powerful empire, only to have it crumble just as he foolishly believed he held the woman of his dreams in his arms forever.
There was something to the irony of getting what a person truly wanted, only to lose everything else. In a way, he identified with it. He shoved thoughts of Gatsby aside and focused on his assistant.