“I need some revenge, but I can’t think of anything good.” I drum my fingers on the countertop. “He said, ‘I love you’ to mess with me, and I don’t know what I can say back to shut him up. He wouldn’t care if I said, ‘I love you, too,’ since…” I rub my forehead. “He never cares about anything I do anyway, except when he’s just bored.” The last part comes out in a pitiful resigned sigh. “And why did he put his face on my vision board anyway? It’s like…he wants to be a permanent part of my future, but we both know that isn’t true. There can’t be anyourfuture when it only lasts until he needs to go photograph some cheetahs in Zambia or wherever.”
I hate Noah for stirring the tiny, romantic part of me that had stupidly fantasized that he could be the one to marry and have children with. It took so much effort and heartbreak to quash the illusion a year ago. He doesn’t get to simply pop back into my life whenever he wants and disrupt my emotional harmonyjust because. I can’t give that much control over my life to someone who constantly lies.
Señor Mittens gives me a judgmental look. Bet he doesn’t let anything shake him. He’s a simple cat, clear on his likes and dislikes.
Suddenly, he starts retching. I jump with alarm, but before I can panic, a glob of hair lands on the counter.
“Eww! That’ssupergross, Señor Mittens! I told you no puking hairballs on the kitchen counter.”
He hacks a couple more times and then looks away disdainfully.
“What isupwith everyone today?” I mutter. Reggie, Floyd, Lorcan, Noah, Joey and now Señor Mittens…
I grab a paper towel to clean up the hairball, and my cat makes a sound somewhere between purr and growl. Then it strikes me. Except for that first time, he’s never thrown a hairball up on the kitchen counter. Ever since I told him not to, he takes care to cough them up in the bathroom.
I study my cat closely. He’s a feline of habit. Is he sick?
His bright eyes stare back at me. Smugly. If he could speak, he’d say, “You may thank me.”
My gaze drops to the hairball. “You want me to throw it at Noah the next time he shows his face?”
Señor Mittens smacks the counter with his paw, the way he did when he was trying to tell me Noah filched my croissants. Then he stretches, extending his claws, and moves his head from side to side.
Okay, so apparently that would be ano. But he’s trying to tell mesomething…
An idea pops into my head. Depending on what Noah’s done with my croissants it may not work, but what do I have to lose? It’s better than tossing and turning all night, fuming about what happened.
I change into a black sleeveless turtleneck and my darkest blue jeans, grab some supplies—and the hairball, carefully wadded up in a paper towel—and drive to Noah’s Malibu mansion. Thankfully, traffic’s light at this hour. I guess even L.A. has to sleep sometime.
His place is a beachfront property, highly prized, so I doubt he’s sold it in the last fourteen months. And he obviously doesn’t need money. Besides, unless I’m mistaken, his brothers are loaded. He can always borrow money from them if he needs to buy another Bugatti.
I stop my red Tacoma in front of the security pad. It’s the same as before. It sits there, silently mocking me.
The last time I was here, it was to celebrate him selling an entire set of cheetah photos he took to a private collector at an art auction. I even baked him a special cake. It was super cute, with chocolate cheetahs and a swirly “Congrats to My Special Guy” in the center.
Just thinking about it makes me want to writhe in shame. This is why we can’t do nice things.
I glare at the pad and punch in 0729. It’s the date we met. Noah told me he chose it for his security code because that’s when he foundthe one. I fell for that line so bad, it was like an elephant through a plate glass skylight.
The gates open, and I stare in shock.The code still works.
Well, July twenty-ninth must also be the day his doctor cured his gout. Or erectile dysfunction.
Spotlights dot the driveway. I do my best not to notice how nothing has changed in the garden with its vines and little shrubs. The landscape might have stayed the same, but that’s not true for me and Noah.
I park my truck a few yards away from the main structure and get out with my supplies. The door to the mansion is shut tight, and I inhale. There’s another security pad inside by the entrance. That one is—or was—0412. My birthday.
“The day you came into the world,” Noah said, then gave me a smile that made my belly flip.
I’d never experienced that until I met him.
Smooth talking asshole. I input the code. The light turns green, and inside my heart blossoms a tiny bit of hope—which I immediately shoot dead with a bazooka.
He’s just been too lazy to change the code. If I really meant that much, he wouldn’t have left the way he did or broken so many promises.
There’s enough moonlight coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the ocean for me to move around with ease. The soft soles of my tennis shoes make no sound on the marble floor. I pad toward the kitchen and flick on the light. The first floor is the same—the wide open space with the foosball table and the giant picture of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. It’s weird that for a wildlife photographer obsessed with cheetahs, he doesn’t have pictures of them plastered everywhere. But then he’s a guy, so maybe he likes to look at a woman more than furry animals. And of course not justanywoman but a sex symbol, the kind with a soft, voluptuous body and full breasts—the exact opposite of me.
A desk with an old-fashioned typewriter on it stands in one corner of the living room in front of a massive window that looks out onto the beach. Noah did say he was working on a novel, which according to Joey hasn’t been finished yet.
