“Impossible,” I whispered.
“He’s even got a scar on his eyebrow,” Sarah sighed. “I’m weak for eyebrow scars. You know, where the hair splits.”
So was I, normally. It was a thing. I leaned in. He had a scar on his upper lip, too. A cleft palate scar, I thought.
I closed my eyes, my chest twisting. I set the phone down, grasping my beer with both hands to hide their trembling. I wouldn’t make him human. I refused.
“David is obsessed with him.” Cher’s husband taught computer science at the local college.
“Besides the computer stuff,” she said, “he has some big medical charity.”
Cher’s voice faded as I found myself once more dragged back to that moment in his house, the way he caught the flashlight I tried to throw at him a second time, without even blinking.
The way those eyes wouldn’t let go of me. They were relentless. Overpowering.
Mean. Cruel. Rich.
“…experimenting with computer treatments for Alzheimer’s, I think,” Cher said to Sarah.
Sarah must have asked about the foundation. “Totally beyond anything anyone’s done before.”
I was sweating. Copiously. I took a swig of beer, then another.
“You okay, Winona?” Cher was smirking now. She’d caught on to how rattled I was.
“Perfectly fine,” I lied.
“I could ask Dave more about him, if you’re interested?”
“Why would I be interested?” I said. My voice was a hair too loud, a bit too shrill.
Cher’s Cheshire Cat smile widened. “I know I say this a thousand times a day, Winona. But youaresingle. Embarrassingly so.”
My jaw nearly hit the table. I snapped it shut instantly.
“Sweet Jesus in the garden, Cher,” I hissed, setting my beer on the table hard enough it made a loudthunk, beer sloshing onto my hand. “First of all. I have never met a man I despised more. Second of all, the man despised me right back. Third of all, I fixed a pipe in his house. He paid me. An ungodly sum, mind you. But the deal is done.”
Cher blanched. “Winona, I didn’t mean?—”
I held up a hand, embarrassed at how vitriolic my voice had been. This was Cher’s normal M. O. She just had no idea how strongly I felt about men like Mitchell Harrington.
She certainly had no idea how much he’d affected me.
She held both hands up. Sarah looked awash with guilt, too.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry. I get it. Handsome billionaire. Mysterious circumstances. Me, chronically single.”
“Exactly,” Cher said, her tone slightly wounded. “It’s just fun.”
But it wasn’t fun. Not for me.
Just then, my phone buzzed in the center of the table. The screen readDISPATCH.
I didn’t need to answer it, but hell if I wasn’t going to be saved by the bell. I grabbed the phone off the table and stood up. “Excuse me.”
“You’re off the clock,” Cher reminded me.
“I’ll be right back.”
