“Oh. Um, okay.”
“Shannon, Dixon, and I agree that you and I have prepared enough. We're ready for you to contact Cedric and express your boyfriend's interest in brokering a deal for Rhapsodie's secrets.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Please work up a sample text message to Cedric tomorrow and forward it to me for approval before sending.” He retreated down the stairs.
Her footsteps followed.
He opened the door to the alley, glancing back to give her a nod. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Bemused, Gemma watched the door shut behind him. Her lips curved upward slowly, smug satisfaction burning within her like a pilot light.
Her perfume had profoundly impacted Jude Camden. For the first time, his astonishing control had fractured. She'd taken his big, fit, masculine body and that privileged upbringing and that incredible brain power honed by the best education America offered. And she’d turned it all to putty in her hands through the power of her fragrance.
Verbal instruction could only give him the tiniest peek behind the curtain of perfume making. But absorbing a perfume into your lungs? Letting it affect you emotionally? That was a far, far better lesson. In her studio just now she'd paired the right person with the right fragrance. Hope and Spice had made himfeel, and perfume's ability to make people feel was precisely the thing that drove her passion for her profession.
She went into motion, doing what she mentally referred to as “putting the shop to bed” for the night.
Each of her fragrances was somebody’s favorite. You never could predict for sure which one was going to stir a person's soul. But in this case, her money had been on Hope and Spice, which was why she'd saved it for last. When men smelled her artistic interpretation of attraction in liquid form, they tended to like it. And even mighty Jude was not immune.
Jude Camden. So ironed and correct and polished. It was almost impossible to shake him, but it turned out that she liked him shaken. Even though he was FBI and off-limits, she liked him in general lately.
From now on, she knew exactly which fragrance she'd wear every single time she was around him.
* * *
The following morning Gemma followed through on Jude's request that she formulate a text to Cedric.
Gemma
How's this? “I just finished talking to my boyfriend about you and he's very interested and eager to meet with you and discuss business.”
It was a Saturday and despite that they'd only communicated on weekdays up until now, his reply came in quickly.
Jude
I'm good with that. You have our permission to send it. Just remember to delete the quote marks.
She opened a message to Cedric, typed the approved text to him, then paused before sending. She eyed the half-eaten poppyseed muffin and coffee on her kitchen island.
This text might set her cousin's demise in motion. It definitely would, at the very least, set the operation with Jude in motion.
Cedric deserved incarceration, for more reasons than his willingness to betray Rhapsodie for money. It wasn’t that she regretted the choices that had led her here. She was still clear on her reasons and she stood behind them. It was just . . . The act of sending this text had weight. She couldn't do this and expect zero consequences. With this text she'd push over the first domino in a line of dominos that would take Cedric, Jude, and herself who-knows-where.
She bent her head and prayed, asking God to use this operation for good, for the cause of justice. When she finished, she checked and double-checked her text to ensure she was sending it to the right person and that she'd phrased it exactly the way Jude had approved. Then, heart pounding, she sent it. “Lord God, have mercy,” she whispered.
She let her blood pressure and breath steady, then texted one word to Jude.
Gemma
Sent
Jude
Kindly contact me as soon as you hear back.
