“Congratulations on not totally screwing up your relationship with Cole. I take it you’ve come to thank me?”
“Thank you for engineering me into a position where I had to talk to a man I’d been avoiding?”
“Exactly.”
“Even when it was clear I didn’t want to go?”
“It worked out okay, right? You like Cole, and he likes you back. The weirdo,” I added under my breath.
“So you think it’s okay to push an unwilling woman into a man’s arms just as long as she secretly likes him?”
“Absolutely.” I glanced at the crackers. “Those are a joke, right?”
“Yes, they’re a joke.”
Phew. “Well, Chase will be back with breakfast soon.”
“You don’t have time to eat breakfast.”
“Sure I do. I cancelled the second half of my massage.”
How did people find massages relaxing? Having someone’s hands all over you, poking and prodding… Okay, so the kinks in my shoulders felt better for a day or two, but any benefit was outweighed by the yuck factor.
“You’ll be using that time to pack.”
“Pack? What for? I’m staying here for another week unless—” Unless Jez found me, which was an irrelevant issue now. “Never mind.”
“We’re going to California.”
“What? No. I’m going to Napoli next.”
As a teenager, I’d spent months wondering where my next meal was coming from, so was it really a surprise that I made food a priority now that I had the means to do so? No one made pizza like the Italians.
“Guess again.”
“I don’t have to guess again. All I have to do is call the charter company and tell them I need a jet to Italy.”
Yes, I freelanced for Jez’s team of psycho-bitches, but I was perfectly capable of working remotely, and they were based in Nevada anyway. And I hated California. My parents lived there, and in a state of forty million people, I still dreaded the thought of accidentally running into my plastic-fantastic mom. Although time had helped to ease that fear. Would Eliana Rockwell even recognise me these days? I hadn’t seen her since I was thirteen.
Jez made a noise like a game show buzzer. “Nah-ah.”
“Yeah-ah.”
That grin made me twitchy. Jez was one of my oldest friends, and I knew what her cunning smirk meant. It meant she was about to fuck somebody over, and I was the only person in the room. Uh-oh.
“Nolan’s laptop broke, and I volunteered your services to fix it.” Jez glanced at her watch. “He’s expecting you for breakfast, which means you need to pack and get to the airport.”
“What?”
“The airport. It’s the place where airplanes take off. Unless you’re planning to swim across the Atlantic, but you don’t like getting your face wet, so…”
Yes, whatever. I was still hung up on the “Nolan” part.
Nolan.
There was only one Nolan in my life, or rather, out of my life. Nolan de Luca, our former roommate, my teenage crush, and the man I’d never be able to face again without dying of embarrassment. Or reliving the past I’d rather forget.
Ruby’s broken body lying in the tower.
