“Not bad.” I grab one and pop it open to discover a condom. Panic seizes me and I snap it closed.
“Trick or treat?” he asks.
I swallow. “Hard to say. Definitely not as good as yours.”
“You keep it.” He holds the fifty-dollar bill out to me. “It’s your birthday.”
“No way. You chose it.” When he scowls, I grab another prize and toss it to him. “Maybe you’ll like this more.” I drop the ball, holding the condom on the table nonchalantly while he opens the new one.
“That’s more like it,” he mutters and withdraws a rubber duck.
“It’s cute,” I protest.
Before I can grab another, Poppy glides towards us, smiling widely. “I can’t wait for you to see what I got you.”
“Come with me,” I beg Sterling as she hooks her arm through mine to lead me off.
He waves off my request, shoving the plastic ball in his pocket. “Go open your gifts. I’m not going anywhere.”
Why does he sound so resigned? I allow Poppy to lead me over to the gift table, daring a glance back just in time to see Sterling deposit one of his prize balls back into a jar. Poppy thrusts a package into my hands, and I slip into hostess mode. Not something I enjoy, but a trait that seems encoded in my DNA. The Southern woman’s curse. My gaze darts back to Sterling to see if he’s watching as I tear off the bow.
He’s standing with Cyrus, talking. Or rather, Cyrus is. At least he’s not alone. I relax and focus on the present, which turns out to be a Tiffany bracelet from Cyrus himself. Poppy gushes over the heart charm dangling from it.
“He’s so thoughtful,” she says meaningfully, and I wonder how much champagne she’s had to drink.
I look up to thank him, but he’s gone—along with Sterling.
Sterling
Present Day
Zeus acts like a puppy in the elevator, trying to jump up and lick me. I barely keep him off poor Percy, even if the old bellhop doesn’t seem to mind.
“He’s fine, Mr. Ford,” he reassures me as I haul Zeus off him.
“Sorry.” I gently grab Zeus’s collar and drop to one knee to keep him contained. “He’s had an exciting day. We’ve had company.”
“Company?” Percy asks with a knowing smile. “A pretty girl, maybe?”
Of course he met Adair. He only runs the elevators during the daytime hours when people come and go more frequently. I can’t keep a goofy grin off my face just thinking of her. I nod.
“She’s been coming around a bit,” he notes. “A little quiet this evening, but a looker. Will we be seeing Miss…”
“MacLaine,” I give him the name he’s fishing for. It’s a matter of professional curiosity, I know. He likes to know his passengers, but I spy the way his eyes widen slightly under his bushy eyebrows when he realizes who is visiting me.
“Will we be seeing more of Miss MacLaine in the future?” he asks smoothly. That’s Percy—a consummate professional. He’ll be discreet.
“I don’t know which one of us likes her more: me or the dog.”
“If the dog likes her, she’s good people,” Percy advises me.
“She introduced me to him.” I scratch Zeus’s ears.
“So, you brought them together, huh, boy?” Percy asks Zeus who responds with an enthusiastic bark.
“Something like that,” I murmur. The truth is that the dog did bring us together—back together.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe Miss MacLaine, too, if she comes back around. Shift’s over,” Percy says as we reach my floor. “You two will have to push your own buttons the rest of the evening if you’re coming and going again.”
I bite back a smile. There’s something about the old-fashioned way Percy views the world. It’s not often that I find that old Southern sensibility charming, but the thought of Percy waiting to deliver my lady caller to me during proper visiting hours is as sweet as Hennie’s iced tea. If only he knew that I plan on pushing as many of Adair’s buttons tonight as I can tonight. “I think I can handle that.”
Zeus races to our door as soon as we’re out of the elevator. We both know she’s there, waiting for us. The second we’re inside, we both stop dead as an eerie silence greets us. I toss my keys on the counter, bend to unhook the leash from Zeus’s collar, and look around. Nothing is out of place, but everything feels wrong.
“Adair?” I call. Zeus shoves his wet nose into my palm and whimpers at the sound of her name. My stomach drops and I tell myself he wants a treat. That’s all. Given how impatient I was on our walk—eager to get back to the woman I’d left in my bed—I can’t blame him. I snag one from the canister I keep in the kitchen and toss it to him.
But Zeus doesn’t go for it. That’s the second sign something is wrong. Instead, he lopes toward the bedroom, tongue lolling from his mouth, and lets out a howl.
Panic seizes me, and I can’t move. Déjà vu does that. It sticks you to a spot until dread forces you to move. I do that now as calmly as possible. “Lucky? You in there?”
She’s probably in the shower or fallen back asleep. There’s absolutely no reason to suspect anything is wrong. Other than the quiet house and worried dog—a dog that loves her as much as I do. I’m not stupid enough to believe that we’ve earned a happily ever after. There are things she doesn’t know about me—things I need to tell her.
When she was a mark—a line on my blacklist—I didn’t worry about that. Now?
Things are different now.
Now she’s on a different list. One I reserve for my makeshift family. It’s a list of people I’d die for. It’s a select group. I didn’t know until this moment that she’d not only made the cut, she’d worked her way up to the top.
I pause in the butler’s pantry, opening a cabinet and reach toward the back, sliding free a Glock 19. The safety’s already off. If I’m reaching for it, I don’t have time to mess around. I know that from experience. What I don’t know is what’s waiting for me in my bedroom.
But whatever I expect to find, it isn’t this. The bedroom is empty. There’s no running shower. No clothes on the floor. No trace of her except the unmade bed I’d left her in twenty minutes ago and the slight hint of magnolia lingering in the air. I want to believe she’s in the bathroom. I lower my gun, and not because I’m worried she’ll surprise me. I lower it because I know I’m alone. The room feels cold, like all the light and warmth has been sucked from it. She’s not here. I feel her absence as acutely as I would feel her presence. Something is missing. There’s a gaping hole in this place now. I carved a spot for her without knowing it. Her absence makes me see that.
The imprint of her body lingers on the sheets. I can still see where her head rested against the pillow minutes ago. For one chilling moment I wonder if someone took her. I wonder if I’ve dragged her into a world she knows nothing about. I wonder if someone else is crossing her off their list right now.
Then I see the pages.
Words ripped from a book like the heart the sight rips from my chest, scattered with its remains across the bed. I don’t need to check the book she’s tossed on the nightstand. I know which book it is. Of course, she knew where it was. Heat swells inside me as I cross to the piece of torn page she’s left in the spot she occupied when I left.