Page 100 of The Marriage Narrative
“He’s still there.” Freddie dutifully had the phone clutched in their hand. “Coco stayed out front to work the bar.”
Jordan’s jaw flexed. “Wait here.”
The kitchen also had a secret side door. He walked up behind the man, who he knew had been waiting for him. Thehein question was dressed in a nondescript T-shirt, jeans, and baseball hat.
“You need to leave.”
The man flinched, eyes going wide before relaxing with recognition. “Alfie.” He stood up and extended his hand. “I’ve been waiting. Levi Potter—I’m with Makeshift Photography.”
Hearing his name made him angrier. He felt it like a live wire,seething hot and erratic as he spoke through clenched teeth. “Get out of my store.”
Levi’s hand dropped back to his side. “I was hoping you’d be more like your sister. She works with us. Guessing I was wrong about that.”
“Do you walk into her meetings and take stealth photos of her staff without permission? Or is that a special consideration you made just for little old me?”
No one at his stores had consented to being filmed.
“Guess we’ll never know.” Levi shrugged as if he wasn’t in the wrong. “Maybe next time you’ll answer my company’s emails to avoid miscommunication tiffs like this.”
“How did you even find me?”
“We have our ways, but I will say it surprisingly wasn’t hard. Almost as if someone wanted us to find you.” Levi cocked his head to the side and tapped his chin. “That does seem to keep happening for some reason. I wonder why?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’ve declared yourself a threat to my employees. You post a single one of the pictures taken today and I will sue you straight out of business. If you come in here again, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“You have thirty seconds before my patience runs out.”
“That’s too bad.” Levi sat his business card down on the table before walking out.
Jordan ripped it up and threw it in the trash before approaching his employees. “If he comes back or if anyone else shows up taking pictures, code red immediately.”
“Did you know him?” Coco asked.
“No.” He ran a hand down his face.
Jordan had thought establishing a pattern of never being in-store would prevent shit like this from happening prematurely.Coco and Phil knew he was a Zaffre. They’d been working on a team training of what to expect and do once the new season began airing. They were supposed to have more time.
“You want to close early?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”
“It’s only a couple of hours. I’m fine if they are.”
“Take a vote. I trust your judgment.” He checked the time. “Let’s move the training up to first thing Friday morning. All hands. Mandatory attendance. Call me if you need anything in the meantime.”
Jordan spent theentire drive to Zinnia’s house making sure he wasn’t being followed. He took several wrong turns, doubled back, parked two blocks away, walked through a side street, hopped the fence into her neighbor’s backyard and then into hers.
Was he being more than a little paranoid? Maybe. But he had no idea how far the leak had spread or how deep anyone had dug into his background. If no one knew about Zinnia yet, he wasn’t going to risk leading them straight to her.
He reported the incident and his mom immediately scheduled a call to discuss “logistics.” They’d almost made it the full thirty days without even having to think aboutZaffre Hours. So much for that.
Jordan had given his all to making sure their sabbatical was everything Zinnia wanted, and it’d been incredible so far. Maybe not perfect, but damn close.
They started with the basics: grocery shopping, standing lunch dates, and sleepovers.
Now they were moving into merging territory: official department store family photos (withBeta Carotene), financial planning with an advisor, and hard launching to almost everyone they knew (excludingher parents). His Tantivy teams loved her, andshe was meeting his friends that weekend. He’d already met hers during murder mystery book club brunch.
Never had his life felt so…whole. Going from hyper-independent and severely in denial to having a wife unafraid to call out his bullshit understandably changed him. She was a sun goddess, powered by sincerity, challenging him to stay, asking him to believe her, to trust her, to love—
