“Are you two kids coming down for breakfast or what?” Effie shouted from downstairs.
My eyes widened. “She has quite the pair of lungs on her for an old bird.”
Caine tapped his ear. “She also has superhuman hearing, so I’d cool it with the ‘old bird’ comments.”
“Right.” I pressed my lips together and looked around the room at my discarded clothes. An uncomfortable thought hit me. “I have nothing appropriate to wear.”
In answer Caine wandered into his walk-in. He came out a few seconds later and thrust a Red Sox T-shirt at me.
I stared at it, aghast. “A T-shirt. You want me to wear a T-shirt.”
With an impatient huff Caine rolled it up and then none too gently yanked it over my head. “It’s just Effie.”
Annoyed, I pushed my arms through the sleeves and jerked it down over my body. With my being tall, it only reached the tops of my thighs. I shot him a look. “Are you kidding me?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, seemingly pleased with himself. “It’s very sexy.”
Ignoring the familiar thrill that shot through me at his appreciative gaze, I retorted, “Yeah, and that would be fine if I were just having breakfast with you. But I’m not. I’m having breakfast with your pseudograndmother.”
“And she’s the least grandmotherly person I know.”
“Not true,” I argued. “She bakes and cooks.”
“Well, if that’s the qualification, every top male chef in the city is a grandmother.” He shrugged and moved past me. “Come on, I’m starving.”
“Don’t you have a pair of sweatpants I could borrow?”
He glanced back over his shoulder at me, his eyes hungrily roaming over my legs. “Nope.”
There was no freaking way I was going down to breakfast with Effie half-naked! Knowing exactly what his game was, I put my hands on my waist and cocked my hip. “Do you really want to chance getting turned on in Effie’s company?”
He stopped with a grunt and faced me with an arrogant quirk of his right eyebrow. “I’m a grown man, Lexie. As gorgeous as you are I think I can control my libido for a few hours.”
I tapped my chin in mocking retrospection. “I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before …”
“Lex—”
“But if you’re sure you’ll be fine …” I shrugged and lowered myself onto the fat armchair in the corner of the room. I slowly crossed my legs and the T-shirt rode up to the tops of my thighs, almost to crotch level. “I mean it’s just a little skin. And if I have to bend down”—I stood back up to demonstrate and the shirt rode up, revealing my ass in the high-cut panties—“it certainly won’t remind you of the way you bent me over your bed last night and had your wicked—”
“Fine,” Caine snapped, a telltale flush visible on his cheekbones. “I’ll find you some damn sweatpants.”
I grinned at his back as he wandered back into the walk-in. “A wise decision, Mr. Carraway.”
“Lexie, good to see you, sweetheart,” Effie greeted me warmly as I walked toward her wearing the Red Sox T-shirt and sweatpants that were held up at the waist with one of Caine’s ties. She wrapped her strong arms around me, enveloping me in her familiar sweet scent of vanilla and sugar.
“You too.” I gave her a squeeze and stepped back, my eyes automatically going to the dining table. It was covered with food. There were pancakes, maple syrup, eggs over easy, bacon, muffins …
My belly suddenly let out a hungry little rumble.
“Effie, this looks amazing as always.” Caine kissed her papery cheek and then immediately homed in on the table.
As he settled in at the head of it, I shot Effie an amused smile. “I guess I should learn to cook.”
She grinned back at me. “Somehow I think you’re doing just fine without it, but if you want a teacher I could show you some of my recipes.”
“I’d love that.” I followed her to the table and we settled at either side of Caine, across from each other. Feeling suddenly ravenous, I dug in with as much enthusiasm as Caine did. Effie’s pancakes practically melted in my mouth, they were so fluffy, her bacon was crisp and full of flavor, and her eggs were just how I liked them. I dipped my toast into egg yolk. “Your husband must have been a very happy man, Effie.”
She swallowed a piece of bacon and nodded, her eyes glinting. “Oh, very. We had a good life together. A great life.”
“You met at the theater, right?”
“There’s more to it than that.” She smiled mysteriously.
I was curious, but I didn’t want to intrude where I wasn’t welcome. “That sounds intriguing.”
Effie’s whole face lit up. “You want to hear it?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Caine chuckled at Effie’s delight as she leaned over her plate and began her story. “It was 1960 and I was about to turn twenty-three. I was playing Maria in West Side Story. I was also completely infatuated with my asshole of a director, Albert Reis. Of course I didn’t think he was an asshole at the time.” She gave me a girlish smile. “I was sunk deep in my crush, but Reis wasn’t interested. So, one night after the show when this handsome, wealthy industrialist from my hometown stopped by my dressing room to pay his regards, I agreed to go on a date with him. Nicky was fun and sweet and he was a real gentleman with me, but I took him for granted. I kept him on a string, all the while hoping the enigmatic and artistic Reis would finally pay me some attention.
“I forgot Nicky got wealthy for a reason. He was smart—a perceptive cookie, my Nicky. He realized I was infatuated with Reis and he broke things off with me.” She appeared sheepish as she remembered the moment. “He was really mad at me. Told me to go to hell. I was shaken up by it. I didn’t want to hurt him … but I didn’t realize until he went back to Boston and was in all the society papers for philandering around that I was shaken up because I actually had feelings for him.”
My breakfast forgotten, I rested my chin on my hand and whispered, “So, what did you do?”
“I found out when his next trip to New York was and I cornered him at his favorite restaurant. I told him I wanted him back.”
“That was brave.”
“Maybe. It was also fruitless. Nicky told me he wasn’t some toy I could just set aside and then pick up as soon as another girl reached for it.”