Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

LAINEY

When I was outside, a goat pooped on my foot, a chicken pecked my leg as if it were covered in seeds, and a donkey snapped its teeth in my general direction. But none of those things threw me much. I mean , of course Mrs. Rosings picked a shitty petting zoo to set up shop for the party. This, though…

The man I stole from is standing directly across from me in Mrs. Rosings's sitting room, standing next to Anthony as if they're best buds. Wearing a black suit as easily as he did jeans and a T-shirt, although his wavy, curly adjacent hair is as messy as it was the other night.

My first reaction is a hot, needy feeling, because damn, can this man fill out a suit. It's cut perfectly to his body—or maybe it's his body that's the true star of the show.

My second?

Fuckkkkk.

Yesterday afternoon, Cleo admitted the necklace had been Jake's all along. He'd brought her home from a bar, and she'd seen it laid out on his dresser.

So he's not a cheater. Not a thief. Just a guy with a suspiciously good fake necklace and bad taste in women.

On the one hand that's good news: I hated myself for being turned on by a dirty cheater. On the other…well, I'll have to figure out a way to return the necklace—ideally one that wouldn't end with me getting arrested.

But now he's here palling around with Anthony…

Is it possible he bought that replica necklace for Mrs. Rosings's son? Maybe it was supposed to be a gift for Nina since she won't get the real deal unless she plucks it off Mrs. Rosings's cold, dead neck?

It's also possible Anthony wants to pass it off as the real deal to Nina…or steal the real deal and swap it out with the convincing fake.

My brain feels like an overbaked pretzel.

From the intense way Jake's staring at me, he definitely recognizes me. His sour expression suggests he hasn't forgiven me for kissing him, grinding against his dick, and then stealing his necklace.

Or maybe it's the menses tea he resents me for.

Is he going to make a scene? I'm not worried he'll ruin Anthony and Nina's big party, because Mrs. Rosings and I already saw to that, but he could cause serious trouble for me.

"Lainey," a familiar voice says from beside me, and I turn to see Rosie, dressed in the same hideous outfit as me. "Are you checking out that guy?" she asks with a grin. "Don't think I didn't notice."

"No," I say tightly, watching as the various nicely dressed people gather at the door to visit a petting zoo full of animal shit and animals with an attitude problem. "But I want you to keep an eye on him. And Anthony and Nina."

She grins, a twinkle lighting up her eyes. "Abso-fucking-lutely." She's not whispering, not really, and a couple of the guests give her pearl-clutching looks. "Claire told me everything. This is the most exciting thing that's happened to me in Marshall since the trash guy came on the wrong day that one week."

I have to laugh, even though my nerves are prickling, the short hairs at the nape of my neck standing on end. "Marshall's not doing it for you?"

She sighs and jostles her tray, nearly upending the punch glasses filled with what smells like High-C and vodka. Knowing Mrs. Rosings's devotion to the bit, it probably is. "I have to move out, man. Living with my brother and Claire is…" She makes a face. "I'm really happy for them and all, but it's like living with two people on their honeymoon. The sounds they made last night were unreal. I had to bang on the wall."

Laughter bursts out of me. "Go, Claire. Why don't you come stay with me?"

My eyes find Jake again. He's watching me, his gaze hard, and when our eyes meet, he very deliberately joins the back of the line. Something tells me it's not because he has a burning desire to check out the petting zoo.

"No offense," Rosie says, "but you're still too close. I think I'll find a place with some other girls in Asheville."

I nod, barely listening to her now. My gaze is on Jake, and the look he's giving me leaves little doubt that we're about to have a conversation. He's decided not to carry on that conversation in front of everyone, which is good news, but I suspect it won't be pleasant.

Anthony doesn't join the line, not that I'm surprised. He's here, but he's not pleased to be. He's not the only one. I saw Nina outside just now, hiding out by the side of the house with a cigarette. Shaking her head every five seconds.

In my peripheral vision, I see Rosie smirking at me. "I'm going to have questions about this later, you know. Probably a lot of them."

"I'd expect nothing less."

I walk away from Rosie to spread the good word about the petting zoo to the guests who might not have heard me in the cavernous room. Or were trying to politely ignore me. I'm guessing that was most of them because no one seems particularly happy to see me coming, and one woman makes for the door, grabs a glass of champagne from Rosie, and downs it on her way out of the room to parts unknown.

"Aren't you going to join your friend, darling?" I hear Mrs. Rosings ask Anthony, who's standing by the fireplace, looking up at the urns as he sips from his cup. It hits me that it must have been strange for him, growing up beneath the shadow of his father's urn.

I pause in rounding up the stragglers. I have to wonder what Adrien Smith was like…what any of Mrs. Rosings's husbands were like. She's such a strong, independent woman, it's hard to imagine her tied to anyone until death do us part. The people in this town have taken to calling her the black widow, because she's been celestially parted with three of her husbands. Of course, it goes without saying that the people who say that are dicks.

"No thanks," Anthony says. "I'd rather stand here by myself and slowly get drunk. But it looks like you've convinced plenty of other people to go along with your plan."

Mrs. Rosings smiles as if she's won something. She's always trying to entice some sort of reaction out of Anthony. She's like one of those kids who doesn't care if it's good attention or bad so long as its hers.

"Emma's not coming to the party, I take it?" he asks flatly.

"She told me maybe."

He laughs humorlessly and tightens his hand around his drink. "Which we both know means no."

His mother sniffs. "She's exactly the sort of person who will show up the moment people start making assumptions."

"You mean she's exactly like you," he says, his tone making it perfectly obvious he doesn't mean it as a compliment to either of them.

This is interesting. I'd either love or hate to meet a mini Mrs. Rosings, but—

Mrs. Rosings gives me a significant look and nods toward the line of people at the door. The guests seem to be getting impatient, shifting their weight from foot to foot and murmuring to each other like kids waiting to leave for a school field trip.

Duly noted.

I head to the door before turning around and facing the group. "Let's go, friends. An animal adventure awaits you." It's a mark of skill that I manage to say it with a straight face.

I start to lead the circuitous way to the front door, deeply aware of the group following me. Especially aware of one person. I glance over my shoulder, not surprised to see Jake has made his way toward the front of the group.

He's conducting small talk with one of Mrs. Rosings's relatives, but I can feel his eyes burning into me. I turn back around, but I'm still aware of him in a primal way, from the short hairs along the slope of my neck to the tips of my toes. I can picture him in that suit, his fox on fire tattoo completely hidden by a button-down shirt and jacket. But I know it's there. I can feel him. It's as if a hot, stalking predator is breathing down my neck, and a strong hand might at any point wrap around my hip and pull me back against him, pinning me to him, and—

There is something deeply wrong with you, Lainey. This man is a therapist. The most he'd do is talk you to death.

Mrs. Rosings falls into step beside me, perfectly unaware that the man who's several feet behind us wants to rip my world apart. She's silent as we leave the house, pausing only to give Nina, still stationed in front of the shrubberies with a cigarette, such a scathing look it should burn her.

Could I have warned Nina that we were about to come past her?

Obviously, but she really seemed to need that cigarette.

Finally, we circle the last side of the mammoth house and reach the playpen set up in the backyard, overseen by a woman with wild white and blonde hair and a cane. "Ah, they're here!" she says, presumably to the animals. The goat who pooped on my shoe earlier, requiring an extensive clean-up operation in the bathroom, lifts its head hopefully.

Mrs. Rosings leans in toward me and says, "A word, Elaine."

Then she turns to face the guests, giving them an enigmatic smile. "We have half an hour to enjoy the petting zoo. Please try to contain your excitement. I'm told the donkey bites."

With that, she tugs me aside, toward the thick, almost impenetrable shrubberies lining all four sides of Smith House. Casting a quick glance back at the guests, most of whom are gathered outside of the playpen, perfunctorily patting goat heads and tittering nervously under their breath, she says in an undertone, "I need you to talk to Anthony's friend. Find out why he invited him at the last minute."

"You hadn't met him before?" I ask, angling my head to better study her. She's in one of her kaftans with her white hair curled at the ends. Her makeup is so expert it looks like she's not wearing any.

"No," she replies, her lips pressing into a flat, disapproving line. "Anthony stopped bringing his friends around when he was a teenager, after I caught them smoking marijuana and forced them to weed the grounds."

My first thought is goddamn, this place has at least ten acres.

My second is that it doesn't necessarily mean anything that Mrs. Rosings has never met him. I'm guessing Anthony doesn't like parading around his pals. She's probably just asking me to talk to him because she's one of the most suspicious women I've ever met.

Suits me. I have to talk to him anyway.

"I'll do it," I say bravely, as if I'm taking one for the team.

I take a couple of steps toward the playpen. It looks like Jake was the only person brave enough to step inside of it, and he's cuddling a baby goat in his arms as if it's a newborn. Another glance confirms that every woman present, from Mrs. Rosings's cousin Jennifer to an awkward teenager, someone's niece or cousin twice-removed, is staring at him with heart eyes.

I don't blame them—it's sexy as hell—but it doesn't do it for me, because there's no question he purposefully did it for the attention.

I shouldn't be disappointed. This man hates me and is possibly involved in a scheme against my boss. We were never going to be friends, but showboating is one quality I absolutely can't stand in a man. It instantly takes me back to Todd, who never did anything without considering what kind of reaction it would get.

"Jake," I say from the front of the makeshift pen.

He gives me an incredulous look—like he can't believe I have the cajones to approach him after I lied to him and stole his necklace.

I figure I should make some sort of public excuse for pulling him aside, even if Mrs. Rosings herself ordered me to do it, so I clear my throat and say, "Your car's going to get towed unless you move it."

He sets down the baby goat to a chorus of sickening coos.

I smile at the enraptured women as Jake picks his way out of the pen—and feel a little smug when he steps in a pile of shit left by one of the adorable little creatures.

He shuts the pen behind him, rubs his shoe aggressively against the grass, and then starts walking toward the front of the house. I fall in beside him, easily keeping pace. He doesn't say anything until we round the corner of the house. Then my breath leaves my lungs when his big, warm hand envelops my wrist, and he tugs me past the thick, leafy bushes—his grip insistent but not punishing—and backs me into the stone siding, planting a hand on either side of my body and leaning down toward me.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asks gruffly, his gaze fixed on me. His hazel eyes are galaxies of brown, green, and gold, surrounded by long lashes, presided over by dark, serious eyebrows. His fingers are so close to my arms, they're brushing my flesh, his body essentially pinning me to the stone. There's less than an inch between me and his hot, hard chest.

My breath is coming out in ragged puffs, but not because I'm scared. I should be scared. I don't know this man. I don't think I even like this man. But the truth is, I'm deeply, deeply turned on. I can feel his breath against my face, his hair brushing my forehead as he bends over me. And I can remember what it felt like to have his tongue in my mouth, one hand lost in my hair and the other wrapped around my hip like he had a right to it. His hard dick captured against me—a feeling so delicious, I rocked into it again and again even though I thought he was a cheater, a man who'd broken Cleo's heart.

Clearly, the vibrator's not cutting it anymore.

I swallow those unwelcome reactions down and take a moment to consider what I should tell him, deciding to go with the truth. Mostly.

"I'm Mrs. Rosings's assistant," I say, keeping my voice strong though quiet, for his ears only.

"Why did you come to my apartment?" he asks, leaning in closer, his heat burning me. "I know you don't live in the building."

"How?" I ask with interest, and to my surprise he actually answers.

"I went door to door saying I was selling Girl Scout cookies for my niece."

"But it's October. They usually sell their cookies in January."

"So you can imagine how hard it will be for me to fulfill their orders," he says flatly, with no sign of amusement. Just his body, leaning into mine, those hands so close they're touching but not holding me. My space, his. My breath, his. "Who. Are. You?"

I swallow. I could lie to him, but if I do, he'll be able to find out the truth. He knows who I work for, and from there it would be easy enough to track down the rest of the truth. Better for it to come from me. "In my free time I run a business called the Love Fixers. We help people who've been screwed over in love. Deleting photos from social media, sending glitter bombs, that kind of thing."

"So you're a woman with a grudge." My mouth falls open in indignation, but before I can deliver a scathing remark, he says, "What does this have to do with me?"

"Cleo," I say quickly.

"Who's Cleo?"

I raise my eyebrows. "You bring so many women home you don't even remember their names?"

I'm not saying he deserves to be stolen from or to have his apartment ransacked, but honestly.

He swears and dips his head again, his hair brushing a path on my skin—ticklish and tempting. "You must be talking about Chloe."

"No, her name's definitely Cleo."

"I was drunk," he says, his tone defensive, his hand flexing against the wall.

"You brought a drunk woman home with you?"

"I said I was drunk…she seemed sober. It was… I was having a bad night, and I overdid it."

Well, that does put a spin on things. Again, I'm thrown by how thoroughly Cleo reeled me in. I've been taught how to twist people's impressions to my advantage my entire life, and still I was hoodwinked by the need to believe what I wanted to believe—that she was an innocent who'd been taken advantage of by a man.

Because I might not be an innocent, but I was taken advantage of, and it still hurts. It's a splinter I carry around in my heart, and I've started to think it'll always be there, as much a part of me as my hair.

"Sorry," I say, pausing, then add, "Anyway…she told me she'd broken up with you because you were a cheater, but you kept her heirloom necklace. She hired me to look for it. Showed me a photo of you and everything. I didn't realize it was a copy of the Heart of the Mountain, honest to God. I didn't even know what the Heart of the Mountain was until yesterday."

"I don't let people take photos of me."

"You looked pretty hammered. Maybe you don't remember."

He gives me a flat look. "You expect me to believe that bullshit story?"

"It's not bullshit," I insist. "I did a background check on her and you before I accepted. I had no reason to think she was lying. She is who she said she was… I had no way of knowing she was using us to steal from you."

"A legitimate business wouldn't steal anything."

"You're not wrong."

He sighs, his hand brushing the wall as if he can't not move. "Why didn't you recognize the necklace? Didn't you see it here?" He nods to the stone wall behind us, his hair brushing me again. Each time it does, it sends little bursts of sensation across my skin.

"No," I admit. "Mrs. Rosings only decided to put it on display yesterday. I guess Nina's been asking about it, but to be totally honest, I only listen to about half of the things Mrs. Rosings says." Silence hangs between us for a moment, and I add, "I'm sorry. My business partner said this was like a training wheels mission for me, but I overstepped."

He swears and lets one of his hands drop. Takes a step back so he's no longer pinning me.

Something is seriously wrong with me, because I'm disappointed.

Then his gaze narrows on me again. "What about the cat? Did you really pick up someone else's cat?"

"She wasn't mine," I admit. "That was a ruse to meet you, but she's mine now. Your neighbor with the menses tea recognized her. I guess some dickhead abandoned her in the apartment building after he moved, and she's been a stray ever since." I wince. "Sorry about your pillow…and all the clothes I threw around."

He nods slowly. "It could have been worse. At least I didn't walk in and find everything covered in blood."

Surprised laugher escapes me before I manage to put a lid on it. Shrugging, I say, "Men and periods. Besides, I really did have my period, so it wasn't entirely a lie."

"Did the menses tea help?"

My eyebrows lift. "I didn't try it. It was from a stranger. I don't trust strangers."

If he sees irony in this, he doesn't say so. His mouth just lifts slightly at the corner—a half smile. "I'm starting to see things your way. Did you get the glue trap off the cat?"

I nod. "They had to fully sedate her."

His lips twitch up at both corners this time. "I'll bet. She's a hellcat just like you. Do you have the necklace?"

The tension has leaked out of him and he's less angry now. He seems almost relieved. So maybe it's time for me to ask some questions of my own. I won't give him the necklace before I do.

"Why did you have it?" I ask, studying him. "You're friends with Anthony. This isn't a coincidence."

"It's not," he agrees. "It's a gift for Nina. Anthony knew his mother would never give her the real necklace, and I know a guy who's good at making copies of famous jewelry. He asked me to get it for him, but I'd appreciate it if you don't tell Nina or Mrs. Rosings yet. It's supposed to be a surprise."

It's a reasonable explanation, delivered in a believable way. I'd thought of the possibility myself in the seconds after I first saw him in the drawing room. But something feels off. It's too clean, too neat. And I find myself asking, "How'd you meet Anthony?"

"I found his wallet outside of the gym," he says, giving me his nice-guy look. "I returned it, and he said he'd buy me a drink. We clicked."

My brain is probably broken, but I can't shake the thought that there's another layer to what's going on, one I'm not seeing. It says he's lying.

Maybe I just don't want to believe that I wronged a completely nice, normal guy. I narrow my gaze at him. "Why would a therapist know a guy who makes replica necklaces?"

He raises his eyebrows. "We went to college together. Duke. Want to see my diploma?"

I already did a background search on him, as he knows, so I know that's where he went to college. But I nod, because yes, I do actually want to see Jake Jeffries's diploma.

My gut insists on it.

" You're questioning me ?" he asks, his voice turning gruff and a bit husky, like he maybe gets off on that even if he doesn't think much of me.

"Yes," I say, that thought giving me the strength to push his other hand away from my body. "Yes. You have to admit the whole thing's a little…convenient."

"You stole from me," he says tightly. "Doesn't seem very convenient for me."

"And now you know who I am and where I work. Feel free to turn me in."

I'm bluffing. If he turns me in, I'd be in trouble. Nicole would be in trouble. But my gut won't shut up. With the necklace displayed in that case, protected only by a motion sensor and an elderly guard who's not even in the house, I don't feel good about handing over the fake tonight. Obviously, I'll give it back—it's his, and Nicole thinks it's worth something, but…not tonight.

Not until the Heart of the Mountain is tucked away safely, and not just in Adrien Smith's urn.

My heart beating fast, I step away from the side of the house and say, "If you want me to give it back, all you have to do is show me that diploma."

"Cute," he says, his tone suggesting I'm anything but. He's closed down again. "Do you know how easy it is to falsify that kind of documentation? You should, if you've decided to fuck around in people's lives. Then again, I guess it doesn't matter, since you've been robbing people based on hearsay."

"You'll be comforted to know you're the first. But you can have it back as soon as you show me that diploma."

"What does where I went to college have to do with anything?" he asks, his voice shifting to a let's be reasonable tone. He's right—I'm not being reasonable. But I'm not going to relent either. Not until I know the real necklace is safe.

"Call me a college snob," I say, stopping at the edge of the closest shrub.

"Elaine," he says, his voice throbbing with intent, and the sound of my own name shakes through me in a way that frankly stuns me.

I glance back, and he shakes his head, his mouth lifted in that half smile, and says, "Is that even your name?"

"Yes, but my friends call me Lainey."

"You need to return what you took from me, Elaine . This isn't a game." He gives me a fake-as-hell smile. "The games don't start until after dinner."

Maybe it's not a game, but it shouldn't be urgent, either. The look on his face, though—it suggests the necklace is a matter of life or death. Why?

Is this about impressing Anthony?

That might make sense if he were some kind of business contact, but Jake's supposedly a therapist. His business and the real estate business shouldn't intersect.

That's why I can't give him the necklace tonight. There are too many unanswered questions.

I'm still mulling everything over when footsteps approach us from the house. I have no reason to conceal myself, but instead of leaving, I retreat toward him, slipping back behind the shrubbery.