Which means he doesn’t have a job.
I didn’t bother answering her. We both knew what I’d done. Bruno jumped onto my lap and head-butted my chin. I stroked his silky fur from head to tail, and he purred loudly in response. I looked at my phone for the hundredth time since Rafe had left, but no word from him. What did I expect? He was probably home scouring the want ads, or maybe asking Grace for a recommendation, or telling his buddies about the stupid client who’d gotten him fired.
I shook my head. If I wanted to stay in town, I needed to focus on work.Think about your job. Think about Angela and the Congressman and collecting that fat paycheck when you convince them to break up. If I’d ruined my chances with Rafe, the sacrifice needed to be worthwhile. Once I finished my first job, I’d figure out a way to get him back.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through my photos. I hadn’t even looked at the ones I’d taken of Angela cozying up to her mystery visitor at the gallery. Of course, I’d been busy cozying up to my own visitor the other night.
For a long few seconds I got lost in the memory of Rafe’s mouth on my skin, his hands finding their way along my body. My mood darkened again. I didn’t want Dean the dairy farmer. I wanted Rafe, the dark, smoldering protector with a thousand secrets.
I had far too many photos on my phone, I realized after a few seconds of scrolling. Still, it didn’t take long to find the most recent ones. I’d managed to get six of the happy couple at the art gallery, and I zoomed in, ready to crop and filter until I had the perfect blackmail photo.
Except I didn’t have anything remotely usable.
In two of them, I’d cut off Angela’s head.
Two others were impossible blurry, as if someone had jostled my arm the moment I took the pictures.
In one she was looking away, talking to someone else.
And in the last her back was turned entirely.
I burst into tears.Are you kidding me?The careful plans I’d made, the sneaky way I’d positioned myself to catch her in the act of flirting, were all for naught. I was never going to break up this affair. I’d be the first of Grace’s mistress dispellers to fail. And I’d driven away an amazing bodyguard – no, an amazingman– in the process.
I stuck my phone under a couch cushion and turned on the TV. Outside, rain had started to fall, which matched my mood perfectly. A lonely night, dark and damp and hopeless, and here I sat. Yet again I was utterly on my own, and utterly a failure at everything that mattered.
13
The good thingabout pet ownership is those little buggers force you to get up in the morning even if you don’t want to. Sometime around dawn, Bruno jumped onto my bed and started meowing. He had a very predictable routine. He’d start at the foot of the bed and give a couple of plaintive cries. If that didn’t work he’d stroll his way up, his cries growing louder until he got to my shoulder. If his vocal announcements didn’t wake me, he’d pat my forehead with his paw.
“I’m up!” I rubbed my eyes as Bruno sat there and stared at me. “Fine. It’s breakfast time. You win.”
I could swear he strutted down the stairs ahead of me. I was still wearing the sports bra and pajama bottoms I’d put on between talk shows last night. My hair stuck to my face. I was pretty sure I hadn’t brushed my teeth, but at least I hadn’t drunk myself into a stupor. Actually, I was too poor right now to have any alcohol in the house.
I needed to figure out a plan. Talking to Angela hadn’t worked. Trying to frame her in a possible affair hadn’t worked. So what now? I dug out the guidebook Grace had given me during my training. I could try introducing her to someone single, but the only guy who came to mind, other than Charlie, was Steven Gillespie, and I wasn’t sure we knew each other well enough for me to suggest a blind date. Actually, I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t call the authorities on me if I dialed his number.
I brewed some coffee and toasted a bagel as Bruno wound himself around my ankles. “Yes, buddy, I know you’re happy. At least one of us is.” I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and grimaced. I needed a shower and a change of clothes. Also a change of scenery. Sitting here staring at the same four walls wasn’t getting the job done.
I forced down the bagel and coffee, then pulled open the front curtains. At least the rain had stopped. It was a gorgeous spring morning, with everything in bloom. I took a deep breath. I could do this. Ihadto do this. The other option was telling my parents I’d failed at my dream of becoming a lawyer.
“Not gonna happen,” I told Bruno, who meowed up at me in agreement. I took that as a vote of confidence and held onto it through my shower, blow drying my hair, and finding something to wear that wasn’t yoga clothes. I pulled on a black tee, jeans and sneakers, along with a floppy hat and an army-green cargo coat Penny had loaned me a hundred years ago. I pulled back my hair and put on some extra makeup. When I checked my reflection, I almost didn’t look like myself.
Good.
Maybe if I looked and acted less like Victoria Dare, law school dropout and part-time bartender, I’d stand a better chance of actually becoming Tori Dare, Mistress Dispeller Extraordinaire.
Outside, I slipped on a pair of aviator sunglasses and did my best not to look at the empty spot by the curb. No Cadillac. No Harley. No Rafe.
My heart hurt.
I wondered when my new bodyguard might show up, but then again, it might take Grace a little while to find a replacement. I started to walk, avoiding the art gallery, the yoga studio, the coffee shop. I cut down a side street, then another, until I emerged onto a block I’d never seen before. A few private homes, a few empty buildings, and a lot of boarded-over windows and gritty driveways that had seen better days. I took another turn, pulling in air, feeling a stretch and burn in my legs as I walked on.
I don’t know how long I wandered. Finally I found myself on an industrial block with office buildings, steel and smoky glass as far as the eye could see. At the end sat a small bakery, and as I walked toward it I realized the sign read Jive Hive.
“I leave for ten minutes to get coffee and this is what I come back to.”
Of course. This was the place Rafe got his night-time coffee. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the memory wash over me, the night he’d caught me sneaking out, the night he’d carried me from the bar when I fell and twisted my ankle.
The night that everything began.
