I’d been completely wrapped up in my thoughts, not paying attention to my surroundings. I rarely felt unsafe in my neighborhood, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t crime. “Sorry, I don’t smoke,” I said over my shoulder.
“Wait up.”
I quickened my stride as the footsteps bore down on me.
“Hang on—” Fishy fingers grasped at my elbow. With an adrenaline spike, I yanked away to run, but the man grabbed my arm and jerked me back into a cloud reeking of alcohol and stale cigarettes. “I told you to wait, bitch.”
Having my head in the clouds one moment and my elbow in an unforgiving grip the next, shock immobilized me. “Wh-what do you want?” I asked.
He whirled me around to a face I didn’t recognize. Dark-haired and blurry-eyed, he wasn’t much taller than me and swam in an oversized sweatshirt and sagging jeans.
“The name Lou Alvarez mean anything to you?” he slurred.
What?He was clearly on something and thought I was someone else. My heart skipped, panic closing in with the way he restrained me. I struggled to free myself. “Let go of me.”
He leaned in and put his cheek to mine. “You smell like flowers.”
With my free hand, I smacked my handbag into the side of his head. He cursed, and his hold on my elbow tightened so hard that my knees buckled.
As I sank to the sidewalk, he bared his teeth at me, his misty eyes clearing. “I’m here about my brother Lou.”
“I don’t know who that is.” I labored for breath as pain radiated up my arm. “I swear.”
He pulled me to my feet. “Get up.”
I flinched. “You have the wrong person.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “But since Bill’s not here, you’ll do. You’re his wife, right? Olivia?”
At the sound of my name, the street lamp behind him got blindingly bright. Everything around us sharpened. This wasn’t an accident? “Who the hell are you?”
“You tell your husband if he doesn’t get my brother out of prison—”
“That’s not what Bill does.”
“He better find a way, and fast.” He released me with an emphatic push. “Or my friends and me will pay him a visit.”
I backed away, watching him. When it became evident he wasn’t going to follow, I ran to my building. Once in my apartment, I bolted the lock and leaned against the door, exhaling my relief.
The nameLou Alvarezdidn’t ring any bells. Before Bill’s current position at a private law firm, he’d been a prosecutor. Back then, he’d sent criminals to jail. Now, he mostly kept them out of it. But as far as I knew, he didn’t spring prisoners free.
I dug my cell phone out of my handbag to call him. With my thumb hovering over Bill’s name, I paused. David should’ve been the last thing on my mind, but since he’d dominated my thoughts up until five minutes ago, he felt like a secret. One I was keeping from Bill.
This had nothing to do with David, though.
I had to call my husband.
I stared at the screen until it went black. My heart pounded. Too shaken up to control my thoughts, they fixated on David. I wanted to be back in his presence, trapped by his body. Or had he been shielding me from the world?
I imagined him at home, wherever home was, replaying our conversation in his mind. One moment he’d had me in a corner, asking for more time—and the next he’d been gone. What had stolen him away? Or who?
Did he assign her a drink order, too? Make her feel like she belonged to him with just a glance? Did she make it easy for him when I had made it hard?
No—I hadn’t made it anything. That implied he had a chance when he didn’t. He and I, we weren’t easy, hard, or anything in between. We were impossible. Non-existent.
I didn’t exist to him nor him to me, and I had no plans to ever see him again. And as it turned out—I had bigger problems than the fleeting attention of a persistent bachelor.
6
