Page 102 of To Tango, with Desire

I was beginning to see a new side to Zane. And I was surprised that beneath all that reserve was a romantic. Sometimes, if I was busy working late, he would show up at the store with takeaway food, sitting and watching me as he ate, feeding me bites of salmon or pasta in between my hectic schedule.

Other times, he would send me flowers or shower me with gifts when I came home.

And yet at the back of my mind, the encounter with Chloe had left me on edge. Despite Zane’s reassurances, I knew that Chloe wasn’t the type of woman to back down. She wanted Zane. That was blatantly obvious.

Would she try to contact him again? He said he was ignoring her, not wasting his time with someone like that, but I still felt sick thinking about it. Taking a deep breath, I resolved to put it out of my head and focus on work. I opened today’s mail and then stopped short.

What the fuck?

There’d been an after-hours noise complaint from a neighboring business. I reread the letter from my landlord and wanted to scream.

I’d recently bought a second serger so that Deidre and I could get things finished at a quicker rate. Sure, we’d had to work late in the evenings for a few weeks, but I didn’t think that anyone would mind. Whoever was living in the apartments over the shop next door must have nothing better to do with their time than complain. It wasn’t like we’d been working until midnight.

I didn’t want to deal with this right now, but it frustrated me that I would have to tiptoe around neighbors in the evenings. With clients increasing daily, I was getting most of my work completed at night. And I hated having to do it at home.

I needed to talk to Zane.

After I punched in his number, he picked up on the second ring. “Amira?”

“Sorry to bother you at work, but I just got this notice and I need to vent. Are you free for lunch?”

I could hear Zane shifting. “Uh, no. I’m not.”

I stopped pacing. “Are you okay? You sound . . . different.”

“Fine. Just dealing with some things. I have a lunch meeting.”

“Oh, okay.”

“What’s happened?”

I explained to him the letter of complaint and how I would need to shift my schedule to accommodate. “I mean, I can’t just stop doing what I need to do. I have so many clients and I—”

“You need to expand.”

I stared at the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

“What?”

“That back room is too tiny for you and Deidre, and you said you need to hire a few more seamstresses to manage all the orders. You’re working yourself to the bone. It’s time to expand.”

“I can’t afford to, Zane.”

“Leave it to me.”

“I don’t want you handling this.”

“Let’s talk over dinner then.”

I sighed, knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere with him over the phone.

“Okay. Hey, you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes. Put that letter out of your mind. I’ll talk to you at home.”

I hung up, staring at my phone. Something was off. I was becoming accustomed to his tone, his mannerisms, and he sounded stressed. The strain in his voice was clear.

The idea popped into my head and try as I might, I couldn’t quite shake it. I pulled up my calendar on my phone.