“What did Dan want?” I ask, my eyes shifting stealthily from Ollie to her as she opens and closes the refrigerator with a lazy swing.
“Apparently one of the arts foundations I support is having a performance benefit tonight. He wants us to go.”
“What’s the show?” I ask.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t fully paying attention.King Lear, I think.”
“How uplifting,” Liam gibes.
I shoot him an unappreciative glare myself, and he smirks before looking down at his feet. I turn back to Juliette, and she’s watching the both of us with her ever-observant eyes. I don’t have time to dwell on it, though, because Ollie suddenly begins to nibble on the tip of my sneaker.
“You should take Roshni,” I blurt out. “She’d love to see a show, and I know she’s dying to experience the city.”
“I’ll take her to the next one. Isabelle is going to be there tonight, and I need all the reinforcements I can get.”
“Is she going because she wants to see you?”
Juliette pretends she doesn’t hear me as she strolls away from the kitchen and back into the living room. I turn to Liam, who says, “My mother is on the board of the London Fine Arts Society. I’ll be there tonight as well.”
“Of course,” Juliette mutters as she drops down onto the couch, “she’s on the board because when they offered the place to me, I turned them down.” There’s resentment in her voice, but I don’t play into it.
“Well, can you at least ask Dan for another ticket for Roshni? Then all three of us can go.”
“It’s sold out. I’ll take her with me to the Ashford gala next week. I’m looking forward to that one, and she’ll enjoy it more than you.”
I absently nod my head, still trying to figure a way out of tonight when I notice that the nipping at my feet has abruptly stopped. My eyes dart around the room in a panic just in time to watch as Ollie hops up onto the couch beside Juliette.
We’re all dead silent as she looks at Ollie, then straight ahead, then back to Ollie.
“I’m sorry,” she says to no one in particular, “but can someone please tell me why there’s a deeply adorable puppy on my couch that looks like he’s carrying every germ known to man?”
I spring into action, forcing a laugh and stepping forward.
“About that, he’s actually my maybe temporary, maybe not temporary dog, depending on whether or not I’m actually allowed to keep him. I was leaving the park, and he was scared and abandoned and hungry, so I took him. His name is Ollie.”
Juliette doesn’t look the least bit surprised, saying, “This would only happen to you.” Ollie moves closer to her side, and I’m stunned when she doesn’t shift away. Rather, she reaches out her hand, which Ollie begins to lick.
“I think he likes you,” I tell her.
“No onereallylikes me,” Juliette answers. “And as sweet as Ollie is, I’m afraid he can’t stay up here unless he’s potty-trained. On a scale of one to ten, how in love with him are you?”
Ollie and I gaze at each other, and I then gaze back at Juliette. “He just called me ‘momma’ telepathically.”
Juliette chuckles. “So I figured. Well, as luck would have it, you two can stay in the studio I own a few floors down.”
“You have another apartment in the building?” I ask, surprised.
“I do. It actually was my first London flat.”
“Really? Is that why you bought this place?”
“I suppose it was a slightly sentimental purchase, but it was mainly just a real estate investment.”
Amazing—I’ve been working with Juliette for five years and there’s still so much I don’t know about her. But then again, there’s plenty of things she doesn’t know about me either. I’m still considering it all when she gets up and goes to her desk drawer along the far wall, pulling out a key and tossing it to me. “I haven’t been down to the studio for years. It isn’t as nice as it is up here, but it has a certain sweetness. It’s apartment 2B.”
“Apartment 2B. 2B determined, got it.”
“If you’d like, I can show you the way,” Liam quickly offers.
