Page 35 of Love Her

Without stabbing him, I mean?

That made me snicker.

No promises.

I could almost feel him laughing on the other side.

Get to bed, little girl. I have work to do—but I want to see you tucked in.

I set my phone down and went to brush my teeth, take a pill, and put on PJs, before coming back, to settle myself down inside my bed with all of my surrounding nightlights still on. Then I picked my phone back up.

He waited until I was looking at it again before sending what I knew would be my final messages of the night.

Good night, Lia.

I still remember the way you taste.

19

RHAIM

“You do realize you’re human, right?” Sable asked, her voice coming in over my other phone. “Earth-to-Rhaim?” she continued, when I didn’t immediately respond.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, blowing her off.

“Food is a thing, Rhaim. For most of humanity. So is sleep.”

“And yet coffee exists,” I muttered, and she snorted.

Sable’d given me her idea for bugging one of the St. Clair twins not long after I’d left Isabelle’s apartment—I got the impression she’d stayed up the rest of the night working on it—and what she’d come up with was a luxury vape pen.

I was intrigued—and I knew it’d definitely make it in the door.

As to whether or not one of St. Clair’s boys would be stupid enough to use it, or one of their maids dispose of it, however, who could say.

I’d sent it as part of a massive “congratulations on your engagement!” floral arrangement and gift basket, anonymously, only they didn’t know that. His people would just assume the taggot lost, and surely considering how many lobbyists had their hands in St. Clair’s pockets, it wouldn’t be worth worrying about.

What I hadn’t counted on was the sheer volume of gifts he would receive. I could see several other large flower arrangements through the windows—was this what socially adjusted rich people did? Have their secretaries send increasingly obnoxious amounts of flowers back and forth? Had I missed that day, in mafia cotillion?

I sipped on my Vietnamese coffee and prepared to wait all night.

“Anything?” Sable asked.

“Not yet.”

She groaned. “I put a lot of work into that, Rhaim.”

“I know. You billed me for it,” I muttered, then decided to toss her a bone. “Lia’s going to see him tomorrow with Trevia—they’re going to sign the pre-nup.”

I heard her suck in air through her teeth on the far side of the phone. “And how do you feel about that?”

“Like sticking my thumbs in his eyesockets and spinning them around. Which is why I’m not invited. You dig up any other dirt on him?”

Sable made an unhappy sound. We’d already gone through his list forty times, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to hear it again, and we had to do something to kill the time. “A DUI, a groping—just one reported, but you know how sexual harassment is, if one’s been reported, there’s surely more—and the embezzlement bullet that he seemed to dodge.”

My fingers tightened around the coffee I held. If Senator St. Clair groped Lia, I would cut off his hand and feed him his fingers.

“And his twins?”

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