V: ok
Three buses were already scheduled for pickups at separate HRA facilities. Any delays would fuck up his delivery timeline commitments.
There was a knock on his office door.
“I’m going out,” Melissa said from the other side.
What the hell was she doing up so early? He looked at the time and realized it wasn’t early at all—it was almost ten o’clock.
“Shit,” he mumbled, then called out, “Hang on.” He pushed up from his chair, and dizziness swamped him. He flattened his hand on his desk until it passed and walked over to open the door. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” She spritzed some perfume on each side of her neck and dropped the tiny travel-size bottle into her purse.
Leonard got a long whiff of the scent and noticed it wasn’t the same one she always wore. Her hair was styled differently, too, and her outfit was more form-fitting than usual. Had she lost weight?
What the fuck?Was she screwing some other guy?
“Out where?” He was getting a little sick and damn tired of her forgetting she was still a married woman.
“Just … out.” As if to emphasize her statement, Melissa locked eyes with him as she snapped her purse shut. Then she gave himthelook, the one with an overly plucked eyebrow lifted, daring him to say more. “Is that all?”
“Yeah, that’s all.” Everything about her was pissing him off right now, so it was best to end this thrilling exchange.
“Have a nice day.” She flashed him an insincere smile, looped her purse strap over her shoulder, and left him standing there in the wake of her unfamiliar perfume.
A few minutes later, the door to the garage slammed shut.
“Fuck.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and felt the morning whiskers against his palms.
He couldn’t wait until the day he had enough money banked that he could cut her loose. Because their current arrangement was not working for him.
Leonard started out of his office, stopped, and went back to grab his phone off the desk. He managed to get to the kitchen without falling over, grabbed the bottle of aspirin, and dumped three tablets into his palm. He filled a glass with water from the fridge door, tossed the pills into his mouth, and drained the glass.
Hopefully, they would kick in quickly.
In the meantime, a bit of the hair of the dog might help.
He went to the bar cart in the corner of their formal dining room and grabbed the bottle of Tito’s vodka. Back in the kitchen, he poured the Tito’s and tomato juice in a tall glass, added a couple of drops of Tabasco sauce, a squirt of lemon juice, then he stabbed a celery stalk into the red liquid.
Leonard carried his Bloody Mary back to his bathroom, relieved the Cavanaugh broad was no longer a problem, the list was destroyed, and things were back to business as usual. Maybe now that pompous asshole, Pennington, would get off his damn back.
He stripped and stepped into his large walk-in shower with his Bloody Mary in hand. “Today’s going to be a great day.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
IfsomeonehadtoldCharlotte she would be sitting on a stool eating meatball stew with the man of her dreams, after experiencing some of the most toe-curling, emotionally intimate sex of her life, she would’ve called the men with the white coats. Yet, there she was at five o’clock in the morning, doing just that in nothing but her panties and his T-shirt.
Hawk’s phone vibrated on the counter. Cole’s name popped up, and he put him on speaker.
“Good morning,” Hawk said.
“Mornin’.” Cole sipped something in the background—probably coffee.
Charlotte and Hawk were able to grab at least a couple of hours of sleep. Cole and the rest of them had been up all night. Andi flew in from Washington state yesterday, shortly after Charlotte came to ELC’s office .
“How did it go?” Hawk grabbed the coffee carafe and refilled her mug, then topped off his own.
“Great. Though I doubt Kimball would agree.” Cole recounted Andi’sinteractionwith the man. “After seeing what happened to him, Helene Wagner was highly motivated to tell us what she knows. And it was a hell of a lot.”
