Page 63 of You'll Never Know
“Rachel, what are you doing?”
“Yeah, come on, bitch! Get your ass over here!”
“Oh my god, give me a minute!” she hissed over her shoulder.
The bartender returned with her martini and set it on a napkin.
“I’ll get that,” Reed said to the man.
Rachel smiled. “And a gentleman, too.”
“Already paid for,” the bartender said.
Reed knew this. He’d seen another one of the women open a tab.
“The next one, then,” he said, winking at Rachel.
She reached over and smacked his chest. “How cute are you? So, tell me more about this big job of yours, city boy.”
Reed started to, spilling terms likejust-in-time inventoryandsupply chain management, rattling on about cost efficiencies—shit he’d picked up listening to the businessmen around the hotel—when he realized her eyes were glazing. She hadn’treallywanted to hear more about him. Why would she? She just wanted to talk about herself. Itpissed him off, but he was the one in control here, even if she didn’t know it.
He stopped, leaned in, and brushed his knee against hers. “It’s boring stuff. Not nearly as fun as candles.” He couldn’t believe he’d just said that, but it did the trick.
She came back to life. “Oh, it’s more than candles.”
So much more. She made handbags and coffee mugs and a bunch of other tacky crap she sold on Etsy to soccer moms and suburban housewives. Daddy had given her the seed money and—voila!—the business simply took off like a rocket. Of course, it had—everything handed to her on a silver fucking platter.
It made Reed’s blood boil, not that she could tell. Ever since the bullshit with Taylor, he’d clamped down on his emotions. There were times she still haunted him even now, times he lost himself in memories of her and what could have been. But he’d never let them linger long before he squashed them. He’d cried for a week after the abortion, actually fucking cried, breaking into tears like some sad-sack little bitch at inopportune moments until he finally got it together. And when he did, he swore he’d be damned if he ever let a woman gain that kind of control over him again. Hell no. That was pathetic. Those days were through.
He turned his attention back to Rachel, who was still droning on about her stupid candles. It was clear she’d never worked a single day in her life. Notreally.Etsy didn’t count as work. She’d never had to scrub dirty toilets like Reed had or begged for change at an intersection just to afford her next meal. She’d never had to dig a ditch with her bare hands while standing waist-deep in slop.
No, for Rachel, things simply worked out.
“Girl, c’mon, we’re going dancing!” Three of the bridesmaids had wandered over, one of them already tugging Rachel by the arm.
“Wait,” she said, shaking free to grab a pen and a napkin. She wrote something on it and passed it his way. Reed couldn’t help butnotice the diamond sparkling on her finger as he took it. “I gotta go,” she said. “Call me, okay?”
An idea bloomed as he stared at the phone number. Reed would call her. Hedefinitelywould.
It was time something worked out for him.
Chapter 33
BAILEY
Jenson Investigations is located on the fourth floor of an office building that was once cutting edge but now swims with plastic surgeons and billboard lawyers hungry for car wreck insurance cases. Zane’s office matches his business card: efficient and organized. Minimally decorated. Decidedly male. A couch rests next to an accent wall painted in a cool gray tone. A black-and-white portrait of Mount Rainier draped in a blanket of mist keeps watch over a glass coffee table layered in magazines.TimeandLifeandForbes. No celebrity gossip. NoPeopleorUs.
The couch is where I’m seated now. Zane is stationed across from me in a white leather armchair, looking at me in much the same way Ben did yesterday evening when I filled him in on the details of my plan—eyes wide, eyebrows arched. His reaction is more muted than Ben’s, though, a momentary flicker of surprise before his face returns to normal.
“It’s not possible,” Zane says.
“Why not?”
“This guy’s a pro. He’ll see you coming from a mile away.”
“Not if you help me.”
A shadow of a smile curls over his lips. “I’m not the one who hasto sleep with him.”
