Off Limit: Claimed by My Ex-Fiancé's Stepdad novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Forty Buttons

Locked out of her home, Cleo moves into the top floor of Ward's townhouse, he undoes her wedding dress one button at a time, and the next morning Jude tells the whole company he won't take a cue from the help.

"Four hours," I said.

"Four hours," Ward said.

I gave him back his phone.

My thumb left a smudge on the glass.

"She sent that on a Sunday morning. To your office."

"She knows I'm always at the office."

"Were you going to do it?"

"No."

He said it the way he signs checks, one word and no flourish.

"I came by at eleven to tell you about it," he said. "You were laughing with the crew. I didn't."

"You should have."

"I know."

Behind us the stage door banged again.

Somebody's kid ran out, saw us, and ran back in.

My phone buzzed in the pocket of the dress.

I'd had the seamstress add pockets, because brides never get any.

It was a text from the doorman at Jude's building, with a photo.

Seven black garbage bags in the lobby, under the mirror by the mailboxes.

"Mr. Lytton said to put these down here," the doorman wrote. "I'm sorry, Ms. Seward. He changed the code on the elevator too."

I'd given up my rent-stabilized lease in Astoria for that apartment, after eleven years.

I laughed. It came out wrong.

Ward took the phone out of my hand and looked at the photo.

"Where's this?"

"Eighty-ninth and West End."

"My car's on 45th," he said. "Come on."

"I'm not getting in your car in a wedding dress."

"You're already wearing my jacket."

He had a point. I hate when people have a point.

The doorman helped us load the bags into the back of his car.

One of them split.

My headset and a box of glow tape rolled into the gutter.

Ward picked them up and wiped them on his shirt.

"Where to?" he said when we were inside.

"Joanie's. Astoria."

"Joanie has a wife, a one-bedroom and a cat that hates you."

"How do you know that?"

"She tells me things in the elevator. She thinks I'm a priest."

I almost smiled.

"I have a house on Bank Street with four floors and one man in it," he said. "The top floor has its own bathroom and a lock."

"That's Jude's house."

"It's my house. Jude hasn't slept there in nine years."

I looked out at the traffic.

A man on the corner was staring at my veil.

"I pay rent," I said.

"Fine."

"A dollar a night."

"That's below market."

"And you eat what I cook. You can't cook. Everybody knows you can't cook."

"Who says?"

"The whole crew. You burned popcorn in the production office."

"Once."

"Twice. The fire alarm went off during a sitzprobe."

He drove for a block without answering.

"A dollar a night," he said. "Deal."

"Good. The help pays her own way."

"You're not the help."

"I'm allowed to say it. Nobody else is."

The house on Bank Street was red brick with black shutters, a stoop and a bare tree in front.

He carried six bags up four flights.

I carried one, and the dress.

The top floor was one long room under a slanted ceiling.

There was a white bed, a desk by the window, and a radiator that knocked.

He set the last bag down and stood in the doorway.

"Towels are in the hall closet," he said. "I'll be downstairs."

"Ward."

He stopped.

I turned around and showed him my back.

"Forty buttons," I said. "Silk loops. I can't reach past my shoulder blades. Lenore was supposed to do it."

The radiator knocked.

For a second he didn't move.

I watched him in the dark window glass.

Then he crossed the room.

His fingers found the top button at the nape of my neck.

He was slow about it.

The loop slipped free. Then the next.

Cool air touched my spine, an inch at a time.

He didn't talk.

His breathing got louder.

At the tenth button his knuckle brushed my bare skin, and I felt it all the way down.

At the twentieth I stopped breathing on purpose so he wouldn't hear me.

"You can go faster," I said.

"No," he said. "I can't."

The dress loosened.

I held it to my chest with both arms.

His hands moved lower, past the place where a bra strap would be.

I wasn't wearing one, because the dress had boning.

He knew it. I heard him swallow.

Thirty-five. Thirty-six.

His fingertips rested in the small of my back, warm, flat, not moving.

Thirty-nine.

He stopped at the last one.

I waited for it.

My whole back was open to him down to the curve.

He stepped away.

"You can get that one," he said. His voice was rough. "Good night, Cleo."

The door closed behind him.

I stood there holding my wedding dress against my chest, shaking, and not from the cold.

At eleven I went down to the kitchen in a sweatshirt from one of the bags.

It was dark except for the light over the stove.

He'd left a plate of crackers and cheese on the table with a note in block capitals: "I DIDN'T COOK THIS."

I sat down and opened my email.

Ward had forwarded me Bettina's email with no comment.

I hit reply all.

"See you at nine," I wrote, and sent it.

At 8:58 Monday morning I was at the sign-in board by the stage door, initialing the call sheet.

The whole company was crowding the hallway with their coffee.

Jude came in last, in sunglasses, and stopped in the middle of them.

"Just so everyone knows," he said loudly. "I'm not taking a single cue from the help."

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