But the fuzzy black and white…thingshe wore looked like a child’s costume.Except it was overlarge and swamped her perfect figure under about an inch-thick fake fur.
“What the hell is that?”
She looked down at her outfit.“It’s a honey badger.As in?—”
I stopped her before she got both of us sidetracked.“What do you have to show me?”
She handed over a piece of paper and slouched over the side of the couch.“It was tucked in my suitcase.”
“From Italy?”
“It wasn’t there in Italy.When I came home, I had the driver dump the bags in the lobby.But he couldn’t get in, so he tucked them behind the fence.”
This woman was too stupid to live.I unfolded the paper.
I breathed out a stream of air and tried to remind myself why the hell I was here.
She stared at me with her chin propped on her fists.“Well?”
I turned the paper in my hands.Johnny had signed his name to the death threat.“Is this his handwriting?”
Ellie’s hopeful face fell.“Yeah.”
I re-read the misspelled and grammar-less scribbles.
Pay me the 50k u owe me for the pre-nup, or your ded.
“Fifty grand?”
Ellie disappeared behind the arm of the couch.Only the little round ears of her hood peeked out.“I sent him a pre-nup contract the day of the wedding.In it, if we stayed married a year, he’d get fifty thousand.But that’s it.”
“Then you don’t owe.You didn’t marry his dumb ass.”
“Tell him that.”
I leaned a little to get a glimpse of her, but all I could see was the stupid cartoon face sewn onto the hood.“Get off the floor.”
“But I like it down here.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her head cleared the lip of the sofa arm.Her blond hair stuck out of the hood in disarray because she’d shoved it on too quickly to straighten the mess.“Don’t tell me what I like.”
Was that a dare?“Chiacchiere served with chocolate lattes—light on the chocolate, lemon creme tarts, strawberry vodka, and?—”
“Shut up.”
“—bad boys who can’t spell for shit.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Can you spell?”
“In four languages, sweetheart.”Although my German was questionable.
“Don’t call me that.”
