Page 63 of Love Her

“Oh,” I said, letting my demeanor fall. “I’m so…sorry.”

Tammy pressed a gentle hand to her chest. “I didn’t really know her, but the whole office was in mourning when I stepped up. She was really loved.”

And that was something I could agree with—because Rhaim wouldn’t have gone to the cemetery every Sunday for five years if he hadn’t.

“I wish I hadn’t brought it up then,” I said, blowing air through pursed lips. “But the reason I did was this—I read all those pages, about all those couples, on the eves of the most beautiful day of their lives…and, while I used to dream about things like that, now I realize, I don’t care so much about the ceremony itself. I just want all the things on the other side.”

“Oh my gosh,” Tammy said—turning her recording app back on. “Can you repeat that?”

“Certainly,” I said, and did, and then she pressed for more.

“Like…kids?”

“Oh—oh no,” I said, shaking my head quickly. “Senator St. Clair already has two amazing boys that we’re both proud of to death,” I said, knowing that when Wes or Zane read it, it would be like a shiv between their ribs. “And I think he’s going to be too busy in the legislature to manage a toddler.”

“Well!” Tammy said, definitively turning her phone off. “I think we have it—was there anything else you’d like to add?”

“No, thank you. But you’re welcome to ask me questions up until the column prints!”

“You mean tomorrow?” she laughed. “Your fiancée didn’t really give us too much time!”

“His job is important to him,” I said, then gave her a conspiratorial wink. “And my job is keeping him happy.”

I was walking backto my driver’s car when my phone beeped—and I wondered which of the surrounding buildings Arnold had set up his surveillance on. It was all too easy to imagine him somewhere, looking through a sniper scope, reading my lips and shouting, “Use more adverbs!” into the wind.

So I didn’t pull it out until I was settled in the backseat—and what I found was one of my old appointments on a different calendar from the IPO.

Corvo was having a board meeting.

Without me.

My fingers clenched around my phone.

I wasn’t on the board yet, so of course they were—but no doubt the room was full of men, patting themselves on the back for doing fuck-all for the company, other than throw wads of money at each other and sound good, whereas hereIwas, suffering for it, paying in humiliation, agony, and tears.

“Go to Corvo.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and the driver hung a left hand turn.

33

RHAIM

Sable asking for an in-person meeting was the first sign that shit was real. The fact that she didn’t want lunch on me, just wanted to meet with me in her car, was the second.

“Mr. Selvaggio, where are you going?” Mrs. Armstrong asked, as I walked through her office.

“I have a small emergency I need to take care of. I might be a bit late for the board meeting.”

Her face said Nero wouldn’t-like-that—and hopefully my face said, he-can-go-fuck-himself.

I walked out of Corvo with determination, my shoulders squared in a way that didn’t invite casual conversation, and the second I was outside I dove right, and right again at the corner while texting—and found Sable waving at me from across the street, inside a Matte Black Rivian R1S. She looked like she belonged inside the thing, too, she was wearing much different clothing from her usual casual fair—a tight black T-shirt, her hair was in a low knot, and her lips were painted a color of red that could be called Heart’s Blood.

“I’ve never seen you in make-up before,” I said, getting into her passenger side.

“Again, you’re not my only client,” she said, smirking, and rolling her eyes.

“But probably your best paying—and—this is what you spend my money on?” I said, looking around her vehicle.

“It’s sexyandeconomical,” she said, patting the dash, before handing me a USB. “So—here’s the thing—I got into Zane’s phone. I figured out who his dealer was, it wasn’t very hard. But then, you know me, I dug deeper, and—I didn’t want to email you a felony.”

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