Page 8 of Keep Him Like Secrets

She must have been a complete heartbreaker in her twenties because she was still a knockout now, with her long black hair, bright blue eyes, and tall, lean frame.

She had a man who’d seen what he had, and stuck a ring on her finger on their fifth date.

Now, Teresa was a no-nonsense mother of three teen sons with a thick Long Island accent. She was brass, opinionated, sarcastic, and not afraid to stand up to me. And when you were rich and influential enough, that was rare to come by. I liked having someone in my inner circle who could call me on my shit, tell me I was being a dick, or confirm that I was right when I got a weird vibe off a potential client or business partner.

I let out a snorting laugh at her as she pulled off her gray suit jacket and draped it around the back of her chair.

“So what do you know about her?”

“Well, contrary to your beliefs, I am not the FBI. I didn’t run a background check on her.”

“A name would be nice,” I said as she sat back down and pressed the butt of her pen on the desk, making it pop.

“Her name is Saff Amato.”

“Saff? That’s her full name?”

“It’s what was on the paperwork for the building. Shall I call her assistant back and ask for a copy of her driver’s license or birth certificate?” she teased in that deadpan voice I’d grown to appreciate over the years. “Knowing you like I do,” she said, tapping at her clacky keyboard with her acrylic nails that made the sound even clackier, “I did try to do a quick search of her online and on social media. I got nothing.”

“Nothing? Who, under the age of eighty, has no digital footprint?”

“You,” Teresa said, raising one of those dark, arched brows of hers.

“Fair enough.”

“And even if she is eighty, so what? Experience recommends a person. Look at my Marty.”

Marty, Teresa’s husband, was twelve years her senior. He’d been a rough-and-tough union ironworker at the time they’d met and for many years afterward. Until he had a hard fall that fucked up his back. After that, the two of them switched roles—with Marty at home with the kids and housework, and Teresa doing the corporate thing.

It was a flip that seemed to suit them best, with Teresa loving her job and Marty developing a strange obsession with how to load the dishwasher and what materials to put together in the washing machine.

“Me? I just shoved it all in,” she’d told me once, shrugging a shoulder. “Clean is clean. But I appreciate a man who knows how to wash the delicates, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, how’s that bird-watching camera you got him for your anniversary treating him?”

“Get this,” Teresa said, throwing out a hand. “He started uploading the videos to the damn app the kids are all using? What the hell was it called? Doesn’t matter. Anyways, he’s racking up millions of views. Now he’s suddenly making money off of those silly little bird videos and is talking about treating me to a trip to Italy. Can you believe it?”

“I believe you deserve that trip.”

“But just not when this project needs so much oversight, right?” she asked, eyes bright.

“You know me too well.”

“Well enough to know you are going to need something to eat before that meeting, or you’re gonna be an asshole. So I’m gonna run to snag you a turkey club from that deli ‘round the corner. Want anything else? And don’t you dare say a coffee. You got that ridiculously expensive shit you import right over there,” she said as she collected her purse and phone, waving one hand toward the coffee machine.

For a second, I could see her at home, saying something like that to one of her boys.No, we’re not ordering in. I got a lasagna in the fridge. What am I, made of money?

“You’re a saint among women, Teresa,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Show your appreciation in diamonds, not words.”

With that, she was off, leaving nothing behind but a whiff of that amber scent of her perfume.

I had to admit as I made my way over toward the coffee machine that my stomach actually was objecting to its emptiness. And, somehow, a turkey club was exactly what I was craving.

If I believed in that kind of thing, I’d think Teresa was psychic.

Because by the time I had the food in my stomach—and maybe two more coffees in my bloodstream—I was feeling a lot more optimistic about the Brooklyn club.

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