Complications Read Free Page A

year my mother died.”
    God, why couldn’t he just go ? “What’s that got to do with me?”
    “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” He shrugged, looking away for a moment, and now Ally saw the weariness—and the loneliness—beneath his veneer of casual indifference. “But I’d hate to see you tumble down the same rabbit hole I ended up in.”
    She didn’t know what to say to that, but she had to say something. “It’s not so bad. I’ve got a roof over my head and all the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I can eat. It’s sweet of you to want to help, but I haven’t reached the point of utter desperation yet.”
    “All right. But I’d count it as a favor if you’d have dinner with me this evening.”
    She hesitated, until he fixed her with an intense blue gaze that turned everything from her knees down to water. “Why?”
    “Because I’d rather not go home tonight and drink myself into a stupor again. Think you can help me with that?”
    A hundred lame excuses swirled in her brain, but when he flashed her that mischievous smirk that had made her want to smack him so many times in the past, her last scrap of resistance dissolved. “Okay, okay, you win. But it can’t be one of your fancy five-star eateries. I don’t have anything appropriate to wear.”
    “I know just the place. Pick you up at seven?”
    “Seven it is.”
    Eric still insisted on his driver carrying her packages in for her. This time she didn’t kick up a fuss, though her cheeks flushed hot when Eric caught a glimpse of the rumpled bedding piled on the couch.
    She peered out the front window as the limo drove away, a tiny anxious flutter settling in the pit of her stomach. Accepting Eric’s invitation was probably a very bad idea, but it was too late to change her mind now.

Chapter Two
    Eric decided to leave the limo behind tonight, and drove his sapphire-blue Jag XKE to pick up Ally for their dinner date. She must have been keeping a lookout for him, because she emerged from the building a few seconds after he pulled up, flashing him her trademark toothy grin. He climbed out of the car and opened the passenger’s side door for her, grinning right back.
    “Do I look okay?” She twirled to give him a prime view of her stylish black wool pencil skirt and matching cardigan, with a white
    V-neck blouse underneath. She wore her hair up tonight in a neat classic French twist. Pearls at her throat and earlobes completed the ensemble. “It’s my job interview outfit,” she added with an apologetic shrug. “Nothing else was clean.”
    “You look enchanting,” he replied with utmost sincerity, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Hope you’re hungry.”
    “Starving. I worked straight through without stopping for lunch.” She gave the car a once-over, letting out a whistle. “What’s with the extra-fancy wheels?”
    “I felt like driving tonight.” Eric circled around to the driver’s side. “C’mon, let’s go eat before one of us passes out.”
    He cut across town on 40th Street, then headed straight up Amsterdam, pulling up in front of an old haunt from their college days with a familiar red, white and green flashing neon sign. The l in “Alfredo’s” was burned out, but aside from that, it looked virtually the same as it had a decade earlier.
    Ally crowed with delight. “Oh my God, I haven’t been here in ages! I didn’t even know they were still open.”
    “Neither did I, until I cracked open the phone book this afternoon. Shall we go see if that double-pepperoni pizza’s still as good as we remember?”
    “ Hell , yes!”
    The restaurant hadn’t changed much on the inside either, except the rickety old TV over the bar was now replaced by a thirty-two-inch plasma screen. Same old cocktail tables in front, booths covered in red-and-white checkered tablecloths in back. The drippy red candles stuck in old wine bottles struck a hokey yet heartwarming chord.
    “Talk about stepping into the way-back