Page 51 of Crazy in Love

Mr. Jeffreys was a money man for the mafia and had been for years. He used multiple aliases—probably why Faith couldn’t find him—and Nick wanted to be one hundred percent certain he had the right guy before breaking the news to Faith. She’d taken enough hits lately. Finding out her biological father was a felon could wait.

“So, we gonna talk about last night?”

He assumed she meant the L-word bomb she’d dropped on him by the bathrooms. “You know Tess will kill us if we start something.”

“Who says Tess has to find out?” she said coyly.

“I’m not the one who tells her everything.”

“That’s true.” She frowned. “That’s me. I do that. Well, I’m just putting it out there. Do what you want with the information.”

And with that, she grabbed her coffee and left, taking all the air—including his breath—out of the room with her. Oh man, he was already in trouble.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Okay, but Irene.” Faith inhaled deeply. “You understand how that isn’t good for business. You may only ‘borrow’ five dollars a day, but you work five days a week. That’s a hundred dollars a month. Twelve hundred a year.”

“Doesn’t seem like that much.”

“But if I could buy and resell books with that twelve hundred, the store could earn thousands. So you see, it’s not just the five dollars you’re taking now, it’s the profit we could make spending that five somewhere else.”

Irene huffed. “Your mom and I had an understanding.”

“Was that aspokenunderstanding? Did you actually ask for permission, and she granted it?”

“We were such good friends. I didn’t feel the need to formalize it.”

There was probably a half-truth in there somewhere. Knowing her mother, she probably did know what Irene was doing but was too nice to put the kibosh on it.

“That’s what I thought,” Faith said. “You understand it’s got to stop, right?”

“Well, I never.” Irene threw her nose in the air. “I’m going home to think this over. I may have to reevaluate my position here.”

“I’d hate to lose you. But do what you feel you must.” Faith refused to be blackmailed just because she and her mom had been friends.

Irene grabbed her coat and her stolen coffee and stormed out. Faith guessed it would only take one afternoon with her husband to bring her back.

Until then, Faith would have to fill in. She was behind the counter, working the cash register, when Nick came in. Tiger jumped up next to her as if angling for a better view.

“Oh, sure. Now you show up. Where were you for that last convo?” she muttered to the cat as Nick approached.

“Long time no see,” she said. It had only been an hour since she left him at the coffee shop. She hesitated to read too much into why he might be here already, but it couldn’t be abadsign.

“My surgery’s next week,” he said. “Gotta stock up on books, since I’ll be back in bed for a while.”

Oh, yeah. That made sense. So he wasn’t here to ask her out or declare his reciprocal “like” for her. Bummer.

“You workin’ the counter today?”

“By default,” she said. “I had a chat with Irene—told her Page Turners could no longer support her coffee habit—and she left early to ‘reevaluate her situation.’”

“She thinks she should be able tokeeptaking money?”

“Claimed there was an unspoken agreement between her and my mom.” Faith put unspoken in air quotes. “And to be honest, my mom probably did know, but she wouldn’t have the heart to say anything. Jesse wasn’t actually wrong about her being a pushover.”

“What will you do if she doesn’t come back?”

Faith shrugged. “Hire someone new, I guess. You have a lot of free time. You need a job?”

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