Page 17 of Cursed to Love (Cursed to Love #1)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Friday, November 8

S he was enjoying her coffee while Emmie ate her breakfast and Paige couldn’t wipe the smile off her face, nor did she want to. She’d woken up with a lightness and joy she hadn’t felt in a long time. Even when freeing herself from Craig’s control, she hadn’t felt as good. The debt and uncertainty hanging over her head at the time likely had something to do with it.

Now she had a safe place for her and Emmie to live, time to pay off her debts, and a growing friendship. It being Friday—the start of the weekend—also helped to broaden her smile.

She mentally went through her schedule for the day. Her morning would be busy, but since her afternoon was wide open… Maybe she could treat herself. The last time she’d bought herself something sexy had been years ago. Some new lingerie sounded like a good idea to start off the weekend.

Even while living at home, she’d always been careful with her money, working to pay for tuition and books and anything else she needed. Since what she made during the summer didn’t always last throughout the year, she’d always had to spend wisely.

That hadn’t changed much when she moved in with Craig. As a splurge for their honeymoon, she had picked up a few sexy bra and panty sets and a few negligées that made her feel beautiful. Craig hadn’t said much about them, more interested in getting to the act and pleasing himself.

Yet another red flag she should have seen, but she pushed that thought aside. Water under the bridge and all that. Quickly running through the years in her mind, she realized that the lingerie she’d bought for her honeymoon was the last time she’d bought some.

Lingerie shopping it was. Red looked good against her light olive skin, so maybe she’d look for a red set. But black was always considered sexy. Or maybe Blake would appreciate virginal and innocent white.

She snorted softly and covered her mouth. Virginal and innocent she wasn’t, but that didn’t mean her lingerie couldn’t be.

“Mommy, can I have some more?”

Emmie’s question pulled her out of her thoughts of sexy panties. Leaning against the counter, her coffee mug in her hand, Paige had zoned out.

Still smiling, she looked at her daughter. Only a small amount of some cereal-colored milk remained in her bowl. “Instead of more cereal, how about some fruit? We have bananas and oranges.”

“Banana.”

Paige raised her eyebrows and waited.

Emmie giggled. “Please.”

“You bet.” She grabbed a banana out of the bowl on the counter behind her, peeled it, and handed it to Emmie. She took the banana and barely got a “thank you” out, before shoving it in her mouth.

She sat at the small table Blake had bought for the kitchen, because he hadn’t liked the idea of Emmie being out in the dining room by herself while they were in the kitchen getting their coffee or making lunches. Paige hadn’t liked it either but had worried about saying something.

The kitchen ran almost the length of the back of the house, so it was longer than it was wide, but Blake had found a table that fit. One evening a few days after she and Emmie moved in, Blake walked in the house with the table. To him it had been no big deal. He’d seen a problem and fixed it. But, like everything else he did to make them feel at home, it had felt like a big deal to her.

“Good morning,” Blake said as he walked into the kitchen.

“Morning,” Emmie said at a level loud enough for the neighbors to hear, drowning out Paige’s own greeting.

He chuckled and came over to them. Standing beside Paige, his hand casually brushed her hip.

“It’s Friday,” he said in a deep voice, raspier than usual.

The sound of his voice sent a shiver coursing through her. “It is.” She had to clear her throat after almost croaking out the words.

“What are you going to do today, Emmie? Climb a mountain? Traverse a jungle? Solve the world’s problems?”

Emmie giggled. “You’re silly, Blake. I’m going to daycare ,” she said, dragging out the word as if Blake had never heard it before.

“Daycare is good. I hope you have fun,” he said to Emmie and then leaned closer to Paige. “Your mom and I are going to have fun later,” he whispered so only Paige could hear.

He turned away from the table and wiggled his eyebrows at her as he walked around her other side to the coffee machine. His hand once more purposely trailed along her hip, and she couldn’t hold back a shiver.

That joy she’d woken up with expanded.

She listened to Emmie natter on about what she was going to do at daycare and about it being reading day. On Fridays someone from the community came in to read to them and she was excited.

“Blake, can you come read to us?” Emmie asked.

When Blake didn’t answer, Paige turned around to look at him. “Did you hear her?” she asked.

Blake stood in front of the coffee machine, looking down at it, his hands braced on the counter. He wouldn’t even look at her.

“Blake?”

“Mommy, can Blake come to daycare to read to us?”

Paige turned back to her daughter. “I’m not sure, sweetie. Blake is thinking right now, so we’ll get ready to go. You can ask him again tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” Emmie scrambled down from her chair.

“Go upstairs and wash your hands and brush your teeth. I’ll be up in a minute to help you.”

“Okay,” Emmie said again and raced out of the room.

When Paige heard her footsteps on the stairs, she turned back to Blake. “Blake, what’s wrong? Can you please answer me?”

She bent around him to get a look at his face. His eyes were closed but his breathing was normal.

It was like when she showed him the strip mall—he just tuned out. During one of their game nights, she’d asked him about it and confessed she had begun to worry he was having a seizure.

Blake had just brushed it off, saying he had been deep in thought.

She kept her eyes on him. “Don’t ignore me, Blake. I lived with that once, and I won’t do it again.”

With everything she’d told him about Craig and after how loving Blake had been last night, she couldn’t believe he was doing this.

When he still didn’t say anything, she left the kitchen. If he didn’t want to read at daycare or something else was bothering him, he should just say so. But he could keep his moods because she wasn’t going to have any part of them. Last night everything between them had been fantastic, and even this morning he seemed happy.

She didn’t know what had suddenly come over him, but she refused to live in another house where she was ignored or she had to worry about everything she said or did.

Upstairs, Paige got Emmie ready for daycare and left her in her room with a book for a few minutes while she prepared herself for work.

When they came back downstairs, Paige went into the kitchen to check on Blake while Emmie sat on the floor in the foyer to put on her shoes. Blake wasn’t there, and he wasn’t in the basement either. He’d just left.

Paige felt the telltale burning in her throat, but she blinked back tears. Blake could do whatever he wanted, but that didn’t mean Paige had to stick around to take it. Instead of lingerie shopping that afternoon she would be inquiring about the apartment she’d seen.

* * *

Blake wiggled his eyebrows at Paige and purposely trailed his hand along her hip as he walked around her. Her shiver made him grin as he put a pod in the coffee machine. He could have sworn his fingers still tingled from their casual contact with her, and that was through her clothes.

Tonight, there wouldn’t be any clothing. Excitement coursed through him like he was a teenager about to go on his first date. Sleep hadn’t come easily the night before because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Paige. He hoped the day ahead flew by.

“Blake, can you come read to us?” Emmie asked him.

When he’d sworn off falling in love and getting married, any possibility of having kids had dropped from his plans for his future. Making that realization had almost crushed him as much as his heartbreak had. But now, as long as he could guard his heart against Emmie too—in case things didn’t work out with Paige and she left with her daughter—he could have a child in his life.

He looked down at the coffee machine to make sure it was brewing and was about to turn toward Emmie when the now familiar tension came over him.

His hands dropped to the counter—no longer under his control—as his body, stiff as a two-by-four, fell forward, braced on his outstretched arms. He struggled to break free of the confines, needing to answer Emmie, but like the times before, his efforts were futile.

Images swam in his mind, and his eyes fell closed.

Paige’s voice came to him as if from far away, her words muffled.

The smell of smoke and body odor hit him first, then the melancholy soulfulness and passionate vocals of a woman singing jazz. He didn’t recognize the song, but she reminded him of Nina Simone and the hours he and Paige spent listening to her.

When his vision focused, cigarette and cigar smoke drifted through the room like a visible presence. The singer stood on the stage, crooning into an old-fashioned ribbon microphone perched on a pole. Her lips were painted bright red, the color a perfect match to the long chain of beads around her neck that swung as she moved her hips.

If something in the curse hadn’t told him he was in a Chicago speakeasy in 1928, at the very least the decade would have been evident by the singer’s sleeveless, gauzy dress. She looked like she belonged in any TV show or movie he’d seen set in that era.

Other women in similar dresses and men in three-piece suits swayed together on the dance floor and lounged against the bar. Some sat at small tables scattered throughout, a drink or a cigarette in their hand.

In every other episode, there had only been one or two people for Blake to focus on. Now, with a room full of dozens of people, he could have been sent to watch any of them. He chose to focus on the singer and wait.

Watching wasn’t a hardship. It was almost difficult not to focus on her as her voice was captivating. As the first song ended, her eyes drifted around the room and stopped for only a second, maybe two, on a young man sitting at a table in the front.

Blake walked between the tables and side-stepped dancers to get closer to the front of the room. Standing at the side of the dance floor, he could see both the singer and the young man, moving his head from one side to the next, like at a tennis match, to see their expressions.

The woman stared ahead as she sang, sometimes closing her eyes, but every couple of minutes, she would look around the room. Her gaze landed on the young man every time.

By the end of the third song, Blake knew the singer and young man were who he’d been sent to see.

The woman finished her set and thanked the audience, telling them she’d be back after a short break.

A band started up as the woman left the stage from the side. She weaved through the tables and stopped to chat with patrons, as if she had no destination in mind, but her eyes continued to stray to the young man.

When she reached his table, she leaned her hip against it, like she’d done with some others.

The man stood and gestured toward a spare chair. “Vivian, I’d be honored if you would sit for a moment.”

She gave a delicate shrug. “I have a moment.”

He pulled out the chair for her.

“You’ve been here every night,” she said.

“I can’t stay away.”

“Is there a favorite song you’re hoping to hear?”

He leaned forward. “Only the one you dedicate to me.”

Vivian laughed. “And why should I dedicate a song to you? What makes you so special?”

“I’m not, but I’d like to be to you.”

Her eyes widened.

“My name is Charles.”

The smoke in the room disappeared as the air shifted. Blake took in a large breath of the fresh air. He stood in a park at dusk, blossoms on the trees still visible in the fading light.

Charles and Vivian sat on a park bench only a short distance in front of Blake. They were dressed similarly to how they’d been in the speakeasy, but now they both wore hats, and Vivian had a shawl draped around her shoulders.

“In New York?” he asked, not sounding pleased.

“Yes, can you believe it?” She lightly clapped her palms together, almost bouncing on the bench. “An offer to perform on a real stage, with real audiences…”

“What about us?”

She looked out into the park, not meeting his eyes. “Ah… you… you could come with me.”

“You know I can’t. My parents are depending on me, and I have the business. Can’t you find something here?”

Vivian shot off the bench and whirled to face him. “Charles, this could be the big break I’ve been looking for. I thought you loved me and wanted me to reach for my dreams.”

Charles stood. “I do love you. I don’t want to hold you back, but I don’t want you to leave either.”

Silence hung heavy between them for several minutes.

“I’ve got to take this, but I’ll keep in touch,” she finally whispered.

When the air shifted again, Blake found himself on a train platform.

He looked around, not seeing Vivian and Charles at first. Walking around a family lugging suitcases, he spotted them up ahead. They stood facing each other, but not touching, a suitcase at Vivian’s feet.

“This is it? You’re really going to walk away from our love?”

Vivian sniffed and brought a handkerchief up to the corner of her eye. “How can you say that?”

“It feels like you are. You’re picking your career over me.”

Vivian straightened her shoulders. “Isn’t that what you’re doing, Charles? Staying here for the family business?”

“And my family. I can support us here.”

Vivian bent down and picked up her suitcase. “I love you, but if I don’t go, I’ll always wonder what could have been.”

“I’d rather have you wondering and looking here, at my side, than not have you at all,” he said, desperation in his tone.

“I love you, Charles, but sometimes love isn’t enough.”

“What would be enough?”

“Fulfilling my dreams.” Vivian leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his lips before turning away and boarding the train.

Charles didn’t move.

When the train whistle sounded, the air around Blake shifted again. Knowing he was going to see misery and heartache he didn’t want to watch, but he didn’t have a choice, and like watching a car wreck, he couldn’t turn away. Every episode showed him that love only ended in heartbreak and he knew this one wouldn’t be any different.

He didn’t need to see more to know it was true and that he had to continue to guard his heart with Paige. He just wasn’t so sure he was doing such a good job anymore.

Blake was in an upscale lounge in New York City in 1954. Vivian sang on a small stage in a subdued black dress this time, but there was no mistaking her voice—powerful and passionate.

He let his gaze wander amongst the tables but didn’t see a lone man at any of them. Maybe he would only see Vivian. A sense of déjà vu settled over him as he wove his way through the tables to get closer to the stage.

“Are you going to talk to her?” a woman asked.

Blake looked to see who the woman was speaking to. Surprised to see her with Charles, Blake walked a few steps closer to them.

“I’m not sure,” Charles said as Vivian finished her set and thanked the crowd.

Charles and the woman both watched as Vivian stepped off the side of the stage and made her way through the tables, stopping to talk as she’d done at the speakeasy.

“Charles?” she asked when she spotted him and the woman.

Charles stood and offered his hand. “Hello, Vivian. You sounded lovely as always.”

Vivian hesitated for a moment before shaking his hand. “Thank you. I…” She gave a nervous laugh. “It’s just such a shock to see you after all these years. How are you?”

“I’m good. Really good, actually.” Charles turned and extended his hand to the woman. She grasped it and stood, coming alongside him. “Vivian, I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Evelyn.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Vivian said, but Blake sensed she spoke more from habit than pleasure.

“Charles and I are just in the city for the weekend, but when we discovered you were performing here, I just had to come. He’s spoken so highly of you over the years. You have an amazing voice.”

“Thank you,” Vivian said, sounding surprised.

“How have you been? Are you married? Children?” Charles asked.

Vivian let out another laugh that sounded more forced than jovial. “No, no husband or kids. I’m married to my career.”

“Well, it was really good to see you and hear you perform again,” Charles said. “Will you be doing another set?”

“Yes, in a bit. Speaking of which… I should go get ready. Ah… it was lovely seeing you as well, Charles. And it was a pleasure to meet you, Evelyn.”

When Vivian walked away, Evelyn and Charles watched her go before he pulled out his wife’s chair for her.

Evelyn put her hand on top of her husband’s. “You okay?”

He turned his hand over and clasped his fingers with hers. “Yes. It was good to see Vivian, and I hope she found her dream.” Charles leaned over and gave his wife a feather-like kiss on the lips. When he pulled back, love shone in his eyes as he looked at her. “I loved Vivian at one time, but she chose a different path. Would she and I have stayed together if she hadn’t left? I don’t know. But I do know that the day I met you became the best day of my life. I fall more in love with you every day and I will love you until I take my last breath.”

The shift of the air brought with it a stench of garbage so powerful Blake’s eyes watered. He heard what sounded like a woman crying before the scene came into focus.

He stood in a back alley, bags of garbage stacked along the wall of a brick building. Vivian leaned in a door frame, wiping away her tears with a tissue.

“Hey, sweetie, you okay?” a woman asked from where she walked over from another doorway in the alley and took a drag on her cigarette.

“Oh. Hi, Lucy. I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m just taking a smoke break. The kitchen’s been busy tonight.”

“That’s good, I guess. I’m… uh… just on a break too.”

The woman tossed her cigarette on the ground and used the toe of her shoe to put it out. “You okay?” she asked Vivian again.

“Yeah, just ran into an old flame. It took me by surprise, is all. When I saw him with his wife, I realized that could have been me.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

Vivian shrugged. “At the time, I thought chasing my dream was the most important thing, but it can’t love me and hold me during the night, ya know?”

“You have regrets?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve learned something in the last twenty-five years… love is enough.”

When the air shifted, Blake felt the stiffness leave his body. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know he was in his kitchen. He could smell his coffee and the vanilla of Paige’s lingering scent.

Emmie’s giggle reached him from upstairs, but he couldn’t face them—he didn’t know how to explain what had happened. And even if he did, Vivian’s last words were like an earworm because they wouldn’t leave his mind. Like she said, maybe love was enough, but what happened if that love left you?

He poured his lukewarm coffee down the sink and headed out. Maybe the day at work would bring some clarity. If it didn’t, he didn’t know what would come next.