38. Chapter Thirty-eight

Bea, Shira, Clara, and I sat in a line of pedicure chairs, passing my phone down from person to person, each of us frowning at my inbox. In the past forty-eight hours, Grazing had gotten ten cancellations. All the bookings Bea had secured were still on our calendar, along with the ones who had contacted us through our website, but at least half of the bookings made by women I'd met at events this summer had been deleted right off our calendar like they'd never existed.

Clara stated what we were all thinking. "This isn't a coincidence."

"No. There are too many of them. It can't be," I agreed.

My heart lodged in my throat, panicked over what to do. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. My web design clients occasionally canceled, but never in droves. And our Grazing clients had been incredibly happy with our services. I really couldn't fathom what had gone wrong. And now, I had Bea counting on the income from Grazing since she'd quit High Bar. If we didn't rebook those empty slots, we were screwed—Bea more than me.

"Make any enemies lately?" Clara asked.

"I don't think so. Bea's the one more likely to make enemies."

Bea snickered. "I'd be insulted if it weren't true." She flicked the mini butcher knife earring in her earlobe. "However, I don't think it's me. My enemies are drunk guys who try to grab my tits and this rich guy I keep running into everywhere."

Clara leaned forward to look at Bea. "Rich guy? Is he stalking you?"

"Maybe. Does it even count as stalking if they're rich and handsome?"

"Yes," Shira said softly. "Do you need help?"

Bea waved her off. "I don't think he's the murder-y type. And to be fair, our run-ins could be a coincidence. They just happen often and tend to end in violence."

Shira's mouth dropped open in an O. "I'm intrigued by you."

Clara waved a hand in front of her. "Can we get back to the matter at hand? I'm due at a board meeting in forty minutes." She bent forward to talk to her nail lady. "I want creamy pink. Sheer as possible."

"No fun colors on your toes?" I asked.

Sighing, she leaned back in her massage chair. "Should I? I always get pink, and I have no one to show them to anyway."

"Nellie would get a kick out of a bright color," Shira said.

"Who's Nellie?" Bea asked.

"My two-year-old." Clara tapped her bottom lip with her finger. "Oh, all right. Nellie's into purple lately. Let's go bright purple."

"Yeah, girl," Bea drawled in her deadpan way. "Get it."

I wiggled my toes in the pedicure tub. "Maybe I'll skip black and go red this time."

Miles would be into it.

Bea twirled her finger. "It's like Girls Gone Wild, Spring Break in Cancun edition."

I shushed her. "Now that our colors are settled, can we talk about our business that's quickly slipping away?"

"I think you need to reexamine who might not be your biggest fan," Clara suggested.

"Nick the asshole," came from Bea.

I scrunched my nose. "Nick's scared of Whitney Mae. Besides, how would he know who had booked with us?"

"What about your ex?" Shira asked. "Is he angry?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard from Andy in a long time. His family mingles in the same crowd as a lot of our clients, but I think it being him is a longshot." I turned to Bea. "Are you sure we don't have a deluge of terrible Yelp reviews?"

"Nope. Plus, if we did, we'd have widespread cancellations." Bea arched a brow. "I think some rich bitch hates you."

"Why would anyone hate Daisy?" Shira asked.

I didn't know her well yet, but I already liked her. "Thanks, Shir, but rich bitches are notoriously not a fan of me."

"So, the field is wide," Clara quipped.

I slapped my throbbing forehead. "I don't know. Maybe it's a lot less wide than I want it to be."

With my shiny red toenails, I mulled over Bea's words. There was only one rich bitch who'd taken an instant dislike to me, and I hated to even think she was behind this. If I told Miles I suspected his mother was screwing with my business, would he believe me?

Dread pooled in my gut as I blindly clicked around on my computer with one hand and scratched behind Solomon's ears with the other. He was such a good, lazy boy. I'd never been a dog person, but I'd grown accustomed to Sol leaning on me, as if his own weight was too much effort for him to bear. He had spurts of hyperactivity, but for the most part, he liked to chill and nap, and he really liked taking leisurely walks with Reed.

My door swung open, and Miles strolled in like he owned the place. He'd all but moved in, so I didn't mind. I liked it very much actually. Eventually, my little bungalow wouldn't cut it, but since we could barely pry ourselves apart during the hours we spent together, we didn't need more space.

"Hello, Cupcake." He kicked off his shoes, raking his eyes over me.

"Hey, Spreadsheet."

He immediately frowned and strode over to me, gently shoving Sol out of the way so he could turn me in my chair and kneel between my knees. "What's wrong?"

I combed my fingers through his hair, sighing. "I have to ask your opinion on something, and I'm not sure how you're going to take it."

"Just ask. My mind is already going to the worst-case scenario. You don't want to know the ugliness I've conjured in the last thirty seconds."

I tried to smile, but it was one of my lopsided ones that didn't feel right. I had to get this over with so Miles didn't spiral and I didn't burst.

"We had more cancellations today."

He exhaled. "Shit, really? A lot?"

"Yes. And while I was getting a pedicure with the girls, Bea suggested—"

Miles lifted my foot and growled. "You're wearing socks."

I tugged my foot out of his grip. "Those are a treat for after this hard talk."

The scowl I received would have burned me to the ground if I hadn't known this big, beautiful man was pissed I wouldn't show him my newly pedicured feet. As it was, I struggled not to giggle.

"Listen!" I tugged his hair. "Bea suggested, and I quote, ‘some rich bitch hates me' and is sabotaging Grazing. The only people canceling are other…um, rich bitches, and I couldn't help where my mind went—"

"My mother." His jaw rippled as he ground his molars. "My mother did this. She's pissed at me and taking it out on you."

Standing, he backed away. "Fuck, Daisy. I'm sorry. I don't—" He twisted left and right, looking around blindly. "I'll take care of it. I'm so fucking sorry."

I went to him, leaning my weight on his front the way Sol liked to do. "How will you take care of it?"

His arm banded around me, though he was still staring at nothing. "I'll have a talk with her. See what she wants to make it stop."

"No," I said with a firmness that surprised even me. Miles finally snapped out of his daze and stared down at me. I took his face in my hands. "That's exactly what she wants, isn't it? I'm not allowing you to continue that cycle with her."

"She can't fuck with you to get to me." He exhaled sharply. "I'm sorry, Cupcake."

"You keep saying that, but you have nothing to be sorry for. This isn't you, Miles. You're not responsible for what she does. And we don't know for sure it's her…"

"Nah, it's her. This is very much in her wheelhouse. I'm sure she's at the club, dripping poison in susceptible ears." He let go of me and took a few backward steps, threading his fingers behind his head. "Goddammit. I knew she was going to do something, but if I thought for a second she'd go after you—"

"If you even think about saying you wouldn't have been with me, I'll never make you another cupcake again."

He scowled at me. "I'm just trying to think of what's best for you. Do you think I want to be apart from you?"

"Yeah, I do, if you consider leaving me a solution." I walked right up to him and flicked the center of his forehead. "There, that stupid thought is now banished from your mind."

His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, then he rubbed his forehead. "That hurt. I didn't know you were so violent."

"Remember that the next time leaving me becomes a possibility."

"I never said I was going to leave you."

I wagged my finger at him. "I saw where your mind was going. Don't deny it."

His arm darted out to gather me against him. I kept going, climbing him like a tree until we were face to face, my legs locked around his waist.

"It wasn't a real thought, Daze. I fucking panicked for a second." He dropped his face to the crook of my neck, inhaling my scent. "I don't know what to do. For once, I can't think of how to plan my way out of this."

"I love you, Miles. Your mother isn't you, okay? You aren't responsible for her behavior." I squeezed him hard with all four limbs and stroked the back of his hair. "I've been thinking about this, and I've decided it's okay. Bea brought in her Millennial wine moms, and we've gotten a lot of attention through social media. It's just...I'd booked so many jobs so quickly, when they went away, it felt like I was losing everything. But the thing is, I don't need those rich bitches. I had to reframe how I saw this business growing, and that took me a minute, but I'm there. We just got started, and we're making a name for ourselves. It's happening."

His lips touched the curve of my neck, my jaw, my chin, then my mouth. "So, this summer, all the events, the whole fake dating thing, it was all pointless?"

"No, it wasn't pointless." I took his face in my hands. "The point was you and me. We never would have happened if we hadn't tricked ourselves into it."

His huff was hot against my lips. "My little storm cloud is looking on the bright side, huh?"

"You're wearing off on me, sunshine."

He closed his eyes, his head shaking slightly. "I can't believe she's doing this to you. I should be able to believe it, but I really can't."

His voice cracked with emotion, and my heart panged for him. Nothing about this was right, but I'd resolved to make the best of it for Miles' sake. I would never ask him to stop his mother's path of destruction. We just had to get out of the way so we didn't get trampled further.

"I'm sorry she let you down in such a massive way." I pecked the tip of his nose. "You have to know you're more important to me than any business, and that's an always thing."

"God, I love you, Daisy." He strode into the bedroom with me in his arms and sat on the edge of the bed. For a long moment, he studied my face, neck, chest, shoulders—all the places he could see with me plastered to him.

I stroked his hair, letting him look all he needed to. I wasn't going anywhere.