Page 37 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)
I didn’t think it was right she didn’t tell him what was really going on, but it wasn’t my place to make that decision.
But most of all, I dreaded what would happen when she had to go back for the next round of chemo. The first was so bad it seemed likely to kill her before the cancer did.
“Perfectly normal,” said Doc Halloran every time I called him in a panic. “It’s a sign the medicine is working, Bianca. Just let it take its course.”
It’s so irritating when someone stays calm while the world is ending.
In between all that I worked in a frenzy to get ready for Jackson’s charity benefit. I met with the coordinators, ordered all the meat, produce, and alcohol, and added extra shifts at the restaurant to start the food prep.
And I avoided Trace’s calls.
Twice he called the house. Both times I saw the number and let it ring, flipping the bird at the phone. When the answering machine came on, he hung up with a heavy sigh, like I was being unreasonable.
I gave Mama a pass on account of her being sick, but there was no way I was gonna listen to a single word he had to say. I knew for a fact he was only calling because I’d given him the brush-off. Our time together had proven to me in a hundred ways that Trace was the kind of man who only wanted what he couldn’t have. Rejection heightened his interest. His appetite was whetted by the chase. If I’d shown the least bit of tenderness when we’d run into each other on the street, he would’ve gone on with his life without giving me a second thought, as he’d been doing for the past two years.
In hindsight, I should’ve told him I was still madly in love with him and watched the smoke rise from the rubber burns the soles of his shoes left on the sidewalk as he fled. But my heart was still too bruised to play that game. Instead I started carrying pepper spray in my pocketbook in case I saw him again. I had enough on my plate. I didn’t need a lying, cheating, born-again BS artist to contend with.
“So we’re all set with the canapés and cocktails,” said Claudia, briskly ticking off a box on the list on the clipboard she held in her perfectly manicured hands. “The musicians are warming up on the lawn. In thirty minutes I’ll light all the candles, and fifteen minutes after that the guests are scheduled to start arriving.”
She looked up at me and adjusted her stylish black eyeglasses. “Do you need anything from me at this point?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m all set here.”
“Good.” Claudia looked at her watch. “I’ll check in with you again in fifty minutes. If you need me, I’m on my headset. The number’s—”
“On the schedule,” I finished. “I know.”
The coordinator Jackson had hired to oversee the event was a sleek-haired brunette, lanky as a giraffe and the most efficient person I’d ever met. She had everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to keep to her exacting schedule, which counted time in precise five-minute increments. Though she was perfectly pleasant, I got the impression she’d turn into a screaming meemie if her schedule wasn’t followed.
As of now we were two minutes behind, and her left eyelid had already begun to twitch.
“Ladies. How’re we doing?”
Jackson stood in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at Claudia and me. It was the first time I’d seen him since I’d arrived at his house early this morning to start the setup.
“Everything’s under control,” I said. “Claudia’s doing a great job.”
She smiled tightly and adjusted her glasses again. I felt her gratitude for my small show of support. It was obvious how intimidated she was by Jackson. She could barely look him in the eye, probably because he was wearing a scowl as black as his outfit.
But I was used to that by now. I didn’t let it alarm me.
I asked him, “Is that what you’re going to wear?”
Jackson looked down at himself, then looked up at me with his brows drawn down over his eyes.
Seeing his murderous expression, Claudia ran out of the kitchen like her pants were on fire. “Fifty minutes, Bianca!” she called over her shoulder, then disappeared through the French doors.
Jackson didn’t seem to notice she’d left. He demanded, “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
I shrugged. “Nothing, if you want people to think you’ve been living under a bridge.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. I tried to ignore how that made the muscles in his biceps bulge.
He said, “You must be mistaking me for someone who cares what people think.”
Propping my hands on my hips, I examined his untucked T-shirt, wrinkled jeans, and scuffed boots, his unshaven jaw, and his hair that appeared to have last seen a comb when he walked by one that had fallen out of someone’s pocket into the street.
I said, “Lord knows I’m no style maven, and I dress for comfort more than anything else, but your guests deserve the best version of you, Mr. Boudreaux. I’m sorry to say this isn’t it.”
