“Oh, you are a piece of work,” Caleb spat and turned heel. He stormed out of the restaurant, slamming the door outwards as if a force of nature had flung it open.
She walked home, thinking. First, her junior media planner. Now Caleb.What happened?
Crazy possibilities ran through her imagination. Caleb spoke in the past tense, yet his rage was viscerally present. For the first time in months, uncertainty mingled with the bitter taste in her mouth when she thought of Phoenix.
The image of his business card, stark and white, came into focus. Her thumbs flew over her screen, as she texted a number her subconscious hadn’t forgotten. “Phoenix, I saw Caleb tonight. Are you okay?”
The same silence that marked the prior five months stretched over the next day.
Spurred by a growing uneasiness, she called Phoenix’s office. A woman answered, her tone tight and efficient, explaining that she could transfer Orchid to voicemail. There, his recorded baritone reminded her of his easy laugh, late nights together at his agency, and his ever-present kindness.
A feeling swept over her. One she didn’t want to admit to herself.Still? She hung up the phone.
Snowdriftssealed Phoenix in his building as tight as his misconceptions sealed his thinking into the same derailed track.Hell of a winter.
“Did you see Orchid?” Phoenix asked without preamble when his brother answered his call. Seeing her name appear on his phone had tightened his chest, as if it’d only been last week since they’d kissed and said goodbye at the airport.
“Yeah. Seems to have amnesia. Played dumb over your accident.”
“How’d she look?”
Saying Orchid’s name nudged him off-kilter so he couldn’t even react to the hard edge in Caleb’s voice.
“Fine, I guess. What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“I mean, that bitch never even came to see you in the hospital.”
“Yeah, because I nevertold herI was in the hospital.”
“What? Why not?”
“Aw, c’mon, there was no way we were going to work. She can’t even look at a scratch, and I’ve got a little more than a scratch,” he said, glancing at the blunt end of his arm and picturing her look of disgust as his coat slipped off where his hand should be. He felt as sick at her reaction as she seemed to feel about his injury.
Caleb grunted, his fury dissipating. “Is that really your call to make?”
“Maybe not. But I saw her over the holidays and she was pretty repulsed by me so, yeah, there’s no way this could’ve worked. Now she keeps trying to reach me. First time in five months.”
“So, what’re you gonna do?”
“I dunno. What would you do?”
“You gotta decide.”
He thought of solid, dependable Rina. And her complete acceptance of him.
“What’s to decide? I’m not even single.”
One message from a woman, even someone as talented, smart and beautiful as Orchid, had no power to change that.
CHAPTER 38
DEATH LETTER
Liv
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 5
