Liam Wolf didn’t answermy call or respond to any of the three text messages I sent to him since leaving Wren’s studio. I could have waited until tomorrow to get in touch with him, but that comes with a risk.
The risk is that if he reaches out to Wren tonight, he won’t have a full understanding of where his relationship stands.
It’s not my job to give the envelope to him before the clock strikes midnight, but he seems like a decent guy. He deserves to know that Wren wrote him a note when she refused the flowers.
Running my fingers over the screen of my phone, I find what I’m looking for with a quick online search.
Liam’s a grief counselor.
He works in a building on West 54thStreet.
I plug in the numbers for his office phone.
By the third ring I expect it to go to voicemail, but a female voice answers. “Dehaven Center. Good evening. How may I help you?”
Stepping back from the street, I settle in a spot under the awning of a closed deli. It’s not as though I’d need to shout over the noise of the traffic whizzing past, but this conversation feels like it deserves a modicum of respect.
“I need to speak to Liam Wolf.”
I hope that I can convince him to meet me back at Wild Lilac so I can give him the envelope and his credit card. The flowers technically belong to him, so the choice of what to do with them is in his hands.
“Mr. Wolf is unavailable. May I take a message?”
“I have something that belongs to him,” I explain to the woman on the other end of the call. “It’s imperative that I give it to him tonight.”
“Do you know where our office is located?” she chirps back in a happy tone.
Even though she can’t see me, I nod. “I do.”
“If you’d like, you can swing by and drop off whatever it is,” she pauses. “I’ll be sure it gets to him before he leaves for the day.”
This is an answer to my prayer.
I won’t have to be the bearer of bad news. I can dump everything in the lap of the woman I’m talking to.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I say before ending the call.
This delivery debacle is almost over. After a quick stop at Liam’s office, I’ll be home free.
CHAPTER THREE
Athena
“Oh, no.”Audrey, the woman sitting behind the reception desk at Dehaven Center, shakes her head. “Are you saying that you tried to give these to his girlfriend, and she refused them?”
I nod. I explained the situation to her twice. The first time I could tell she wasn’t paying attention. Her focus was on the screen of the phone in her hands.
When I plopped the enormous bouquet on her desk, she took notice, so I repeated my story word-for-word a second time.
“I thought Wren was the woman of his dreams,” she mutters under her breath. “Why would she do this?”
I shrug as if the question was directed at me even though I know she’s lost in thought.
I shove a hand into the front pocket of my jeans and tug out Liam’s credit card. “He forgot this at my shop. Can you see to it that he gets this too?”
Her gaze floats over the card before it lands back on the envelope. “You said that she wrote him a note?”
I watch as she flips the envelope over. Her fingernail skims over the small piece of blue tape.
