Page 80 of The Love Destroyers

“He’ll never learn if life doesn’t teach him,” I point out, watching as someone else points Otis in the direction of the cafeteria and he disappear from view.

I was a dumb kid, high on what I thought was love and the possibility of power, andIhad to learn that way. There’s nothing quite like diving in the deep end and nearly drowning to teach a man the value of standing still. And yet…

I haven’t been standing still lately. I’ve been taking a different kind of stand, and even though most of this week could hardly be described as fun, I feel better than I have in a while. More motivated.

Sophie wiggles in her seat. “You’re probably right, but I don’t have it in myself to be the lesson that breaks someone.”

I get to thinking about that, my mind lost in the thickets of the past. My hand wrapped around his throat. Shaking…

My chest, bleeding…

I’m still lost there when the kid gets back, having acquired a soda for me but nothing for the cousin who wants to keep him gainfully employed.

He may not understand how to say no to powerful women, but he sure as shit doesn’t know how to repay kindness.

I’m about to tell him as much—because I’ve got no problem being someone’s hard lesson—when a hand touches my shoulder. I jolt, but the next instant I relax, because her scent has twined around me. It’s Emma. I know it from the capable touch of her hand as much as the scent from the closet earlier. It’s the first time she’s purposefully touched me since she watched me in the shower, and I can feel the knowledge of that shared moment ripple through the place where her flesh connects with my shirt.

“Who are you?” the kid asks with big eyes as I reach for the soda.

“I’m Emma Rosings Smith, Seamus’s lawyer,” she says sharply. “And I saw all of the footage from this evening. So did a lot of other people.”

Otis drops the soda can, and it punctures on impact, spraying me directly in the eye.

I kick it on reflex, and it scoots over to spray Sophie in the face.

A man who’s been sniffling into the same scrunched-up tissue since we arrived shouts, “Oh shit,” and I couldn’t agree more.

I get up too quickly, intent on picking that sucker up and throwing it away, and pain shoots through my side—nearly bad enough to trip me. Meanwhile, Emma stalks forward with stoic efficiency and picks up the punctured can, which is still spraying soda like a geyser, and walks it over to a trashcan.

I watch her, feeling a warm glow of appreciation, because she really is one hell of a woman. She could probably defuse a bomb.

I look for Otis, but he’s gone.

“He ran off,” Sophie says defeatedly as she pulls a wad of clean-looking napkins from her purse and starts padding at the soda spray on the floor. She has some on her sweater too, but I’m not surprised she’s more concerned about the filthy floor than her own sweater. “I suppose he’s not very good in stressful situations.”

“Let me help with that,” I say, trying to bend over without making my body feel like it’s being sawed in half.

“Absolutely not,” Emma tells me, joining us. Giving Sophie a coldly assessing look, she says, “You work at the brewery?”

“Was it the branded shirt that tipped you off?” I ask with a laugh, while Sophie sighs and says, “Yes. Or at least I do presently.”

Emma’s gaze catches on me. “Can I talk to you privately for a moment?”

“Anytime you please, sweetness.”

She gives me an annoyed look but hustles me up and then behind a tall, rounded white pillar. Tissue Guy gives the pillar an annoyed look but no one else, other than Sophie, seems interested.

“Are you going to take me somewhere you can put on a show for me?” I ask Emma in a whisper. “Because that woulddefinitelymake me feel better.”

She gives me a look meant to eviscerate me. I laugh—and then groan, because it hurts to laugh.

“Do you want to sue them?” she asks pointedly, glancing around the pillar and at Sophie, who has an unhappy look on her face as she pores over her phone. At a guess, she’s probably trying to convince Otis the cops won’t show up in the middle of the night to black bag him—a thought that instantly makes me want to convince him otherwise. For fun, and also because he deserves a little discomfort.

Discomfort is the kind of life lesson that sticks.

I shift my gaze back to Emma. “Yeah, no. The soda kid tried to tell Ellie not to climb the ladder, but she wouldn’t listen. Could he have stopped her? Probably, but he would have had to grab her, and thenshewould have sued him. Besides, we don’t want to make a big deal of this. My rib probably isn’t even broken. I vote that we leave.”

“You’re staying,” she says. “And we’ll discuss our next steps after we know how much damage was done.”

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