by Nancy Warren
She ran for the door, bursting into the reception area to see a sight that sent her anger into dangerous territory. For there in her waiting room was Rafael Escobar, and he looked very cozy with her next client, Stephanie Baxter.
She didn’t care that the waiting room was not a very private place—that Jordan, Carly the receptionist, and a guy currently delivering coffee supplies could all hear her. She screeched, “What is going on here?”
Stephanie jumped and blushed scarlet. Rafe turned slowly to look at her. He might think he gave nothing away, but he was wrong. His body language said it for him—the way he moved protectively toward Stephanie as though he could shield her from Deb.
She flapped the business card. “You took that job, didn’t you, Stephanie? With this breakup woman?”
Guilt was written all over the little shoplifter’s face. She nodded glumly.
Her hot gaze flipped back and forth between them like a madwoman’s. “You two are lovers.”
“Deborah, I didn’t know—”
“Why is your appointment written on the back of The Breakup Artist’s business card?” She heard her own words bouncing around the reception area like exploding bullets. She didn’t even give them time to answer. “How dare you!” she yelled, feeling all those years of careful restraint incinerate around her. She shook the card at the pair of them. “You set me up. You deliberately made a fool of me. I want to know what the hell is going on and I want to know now!”
She’d always been terrified that someday she’d turn out to be her parents’ daughter. Now she was. And spectacularly so.
Stephanie stepped forward, as though she wanted to soothe the therapist. Oh, it was all so wrong. Her world was completely upside down. She stopped her patient with a hand gesture that was intended to mean stop but looked more like a heil Hitler salute. A shaky one at that. “Do you know that your lover just asked me out?”
Jordan stuck his head out of his office door at that moment. Stared at her, and then at Rafe. He stood in his doorway as though uncertain whether to come forward or to dive back and retreat. “Deborah, would you like to sit down?” he said to her in his level, compassionate therapist’s voice.
“Maybe you should butt out,” she snapped.
What was the matter with her? She should apologize to poor Jordan. This wasn’t his fault. But screw it. She didn’t feel like apologizing. Everything was a mess. Suddenly, she saw that her carefully ordered life was a façade.
“Tell me what is going on this minute!” she yelled to the two of them.
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said. “I can’t.”
She turned on Stephanie. “You brought this card in to me weeks ago. You said this woman offered you a job.”
Stephanie looked miserable, but she nodded.
There was a moment of potent silence. Carly the receptionist had stopped clacking on her keyboard, the coffee guy had abandoned the break room to stand in the doorway, staring, and Jordan could have been a stone statue for all the noise he made. She could hear the hum of the air conditioning, it was so quiet.
“Did you take that job?”
Stephanie glanced at Rafe, then at the floor. “Yeah.”
“I’m asking you again, what is going on here?”
“It’s nothing to do with Stephanie.”
As a calming device, Rafe’s interference was not successful. “Okay, if you won’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll go and ask Ms. Chloe Flynt myself.”
“Wait!” Stephanie said. “Don’t you want to think about this?”
“No,” she said, stalking back into her office for her purse.
Stephanie, usually so mild-mannered, followed her. “But what about my appointment?”
“It’s canceled.”
“You know what you always say about conflict. It’s clearer when not clouded by anger.” Stephanie grabbed the book she was still holding and started to flip pages. “Look, you could read your chapter on anger.”
“I’m too mad!” Deborah yelled.
“Don’t you think you should take a moment to think this through?”
“No.”
She stomped past Stephanie and back through the outer office. A nervous young woman was just coming through the door. Jordan’s newest client. The woman needed some backbone, was the first thing she noticed. She was creeping through the doorway as though she should apologize for inconveniencing it, the way Stephanie used to.
She’d reached the outer door. Stephanie stopped her with a hand on her sleeve. “Please, Deborah, let’s do one of your pro and con lists.”
“Fuck the pro and con list,” she said, and slammed the door behind her.
Chapter 19
Stunned silence filled the reception area after Deborah’s dramatic exit. “Did she just say what I think she said?” Carly asked the room in general.
“I’m going after her,” Stephanie said. “I can’t leave Chloe all alone to face her.”
Rafe shook his head. “You ask me, Chloe’s got this one coming.”
“She was only doing her job.”
“You interfere in people’s personal lives, you’re going to get into some messy stuff.”
“But Deborah is never messy.”
“Today she is.”
Jordan suddenly came to life. He ran into his own office and emerged with his jacket on and car keys in hand. “Carly, please reschedule all my appointments for this afternoon.” He glanced at the nervous young woman who’d just walked in. “I’m really sorry, but I have an emergency.” He strode to the door and then turned back. “Oh, and you’d better cancel all of Deb’s appointments too.”
“I think you people need more decaf,” said the coffee guy, shaking his head and dragging his now empty delivery cart behind him.
Rafe was still standing there, looking at Stephanie in a way that make her want to kick him very hard and at the same time, throw herself into his arms. Altogether a confusing mix of emotions. “I should get back to work,” she said stiffly.
“You just ended up with a free hour in your day. Why don’t we take a walk?”
“Chloe might need me.”
“What those two gals need to do, they can do better alone.”
She had a strong feeling he was right. “I’ve never seen Deborah so angry.”
“Nobody likes to be screwed around with.”
“No,” she said, giving him a pointed look, “they don’t.”
She picked up her bag and headed out. Rafe was right behind her, but there was nothing she could do about that. It was a free country.
She punched the elevator button and the doors opened almost immediately. Unfortunately, there was no one else inside. She’d thought Rafe was heading for the stairwell, but instead he followed her into the elevator. The doors slid shut and she concentrated all her attention on watching the floor numbers light up as they slid downward.
Five floors passed before her eyes. She felt him near her, felt his energy. She felt him shift. “I’m sorry,” he blurted suddenly.
Another couple of floors dropped away. “Me, too.” She heard the note of sadness in her tone. She was sorry she’d ever been so stupid as to think he was different from all the rest.
Three more floors to go and they’d be out of here. Come on.
“I think about you,” he said in a low voice. The intimacy in his tone felt like a caress sliding over her skin.
Floor two lit up. One more to go. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Look. I have a problem.”
“Who doesn’t?”
The elevator was back on the ground and so was she. Enough of her airy pipe dreams about love. She could rely on no one but herself, and the sooner she accepted that, the better.
She stepped out. He walked beside her. “I’m drawn to complicated women.”
“Then you should find some simple ones.”
“You don’t understand. I always fall for wounded doves.”
“So you’re a part-time vet?” She had
no idea why she was acting this way, so snappish and snarky. Maybe Deborah’s meltdown had somehow affected her. But the truth was that Rafe made her feel snarky and rude.
They’d stepped out onto Sixth Street in the old warehouse district, which contained a lot of older buildings that had been done up as offices or funky condos.
They passed a Japanese restaurant and then a coffee bar. “Would you stop snapping at me and listen?”
If Deborah, a therapist with a dozen years of training, could lose it, Stephanie really didn’t see why she, a patient with problems of her own, should be polite to a man who had hurt her. “No. I don’t think I will.”
He took hold of her arm, not hard, but if she wanted to shake him off she’d have to make an issue of it. His fingers felt warm against her skin. She looked at him, and was pulled in by the intensity of his gaze. In spite of busy traffic and pedestrians stepping around them, it felt like they were alone. “I saw you and something happened to me. I felt this electricity or something zap between us. Didn’t you?”
She’d never forget that moment in all her life. She’d assumed it was because she was so emotionally screwed up that day that she hadn’t been thinking straight, and that was why seeing him for the first time had given her such an emotional punch. Now he was telling her he’d felt it too?
Exasperation was building within her. Talk was easy.
“Why didn’t you call? Or come by?” There it was. Out. The implication that she’d wanted him to, that she’d been waiting for him to indicate he wanted more from her than one night rolling around on her couch.
He was so rugged and scruffy and fierce looking, but sometimes in his eyes she caught a glimpse of such vulnerability that she wanted to soothe him. Even though he was the one who’d abandoned her.
“You know what I was talking to Deborah about?”
“Yes. You were hitting on her. As per your assignment from Chloe. I do the filing, remember? Also, Deb told me you asked her out. In fact, she was so loud I think she told all of Austin, so yes, I know what you were talking to Deborah about.”
He smiled at that, and his face softened so that she wanted to lean into him and believe things could be different. “I think your boss is smarter than she comes across.”
“Well, she’d have to be.”
He cracked a grin. “You don’t like her?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“The thing is, I do have a problem.”
“Really.” She said it with an edge of sarcasm, but the truth was she was amazed to see him at counseling for whatever reason. He’d seemed like the last man who would admit to weakness.
“I’m drawn to women with problems.”
“Show me a woman who doesn’t have problems and I’ll show you a kid who hasn’t hit puberty.”
He shook his head, impatient, so that his hair caught the light. “To women who need rescuing. That’s why I’ve been staying away from you. I think about you, and I want you, but—”
“But you’re staying away because you think I’m needy and desperate,” she finished for him.
“That’s not—”
If he’d hauled off and slugged her, she couldn’t have felt more flattened. “I’m going to make it easy for you. I don’t need you.” She shook her head. “I have a problem too. I always go for guys who use me and let me down. Looks like we both stayed true to our pattern.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
She wondered how many times in her life she’d heard that line. It was the motto of most of the men in her life. She should get T-shirts made that she could hand out as parting gifts.
“Go. Have a good life.” She made shooing motions with her hands. “I’m going to be fine.”
He looked as though there was more he wanted to say, but he didn’t. Simply stood there looking tough and vulnerable at the same time.
As she walked away, she realized with a start that she’d meant the words. Maybe she’d changed in some quiet but dramatic way in these last weeks. But she felt better than she had in a long time.
And she liked being single and in control of her own destiny. She liked it just fine.
Deborah wanted to floor it when she got her car on the road. Wanted to gun the engine and make the brakes squeal as she rounded corners. Because she recognized how unhealthy that urge was, she held herself to the speed limit with manic determination.
Normally, when she was going anywhere new, she printed out directions from the Internet, but today she’d been too angry to think. Fortunately, she had a street map in the car and it didn’t take her long to find the address of Chloe Flynt, The Breakup Artist.
She’d expected the office to be in some horrible back alley somewhere, but the business address turned out to be in a nice residential neighborhood not unlike Deborah’s own, which only annoyed her more. She pulled into the driveway, feeling aggressive enough to park behind the single vehicle already there. Chloe Flynt wasn’t going anywhere until they’d had a good talk.
She got out of her car, locked it, and stomped up the stairs to the porch. She banged on the door and hit the doorbell at the same time. It was a technique she’d seen in movies, one she’d never, ever performed herself in real life. But she felt like a different woman, the red-hot anger coursing through her vaporizing her usual behavior and manners. One tiny part of Deb’s brain was observing her behavior with clinical interest, as though she might later write a paper on the subject.
When the door didn’t immediately open, she banged on it again and held her finger on the doorbell.
When the door finally opened, she found herself face to face with a young and very beautiful woman. She didn’t realize she’d expected some bitter old harpy. “Are you Chloe Flynt? The Breakup Artist?” she demanded in a loud voice.
“Yes,” the woman shouted. She pointed to where Deborah’s finger was still depressing the button. “You can stop ringing the doorbell now.”
“Oh. Of course.” She removed her finger and the sudden quiet was mildly shocking.
“Did you have an appointment?”
The calm, easy way she spoke refueled Deb’s fury. The woman wasn’t even American, she was British, which seemed to add insult to injury. As though she’d flown thousands of miles for the pleasure of ruining Deb’s practice. “No. I do not have an appointment. My name is Deborah Beaumont.”
It was obvious that the young woman knew who she was, because she said, “Oh, are you?” and then looked her up and down with interest. Chloe looked over her shoulder as though expecting someone else to be with her. “What can I do for you?”
“I believe you know Rafael Escobar.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Also, Stephanie Baxter.”
Chloe frowned. “How do you know Stephanie?”
“Please don’t play games with me, Ms. Flynt.” She tapped her foot against the porch, neatly painted taupe. “Rafe Escobar asked me out.”
“Did he?” The young Brit looked quite pleased. “Are you going?”
“Of course not. I want to know why you planted him in my office. I want to know how you dare take money to ruin people’s lives. I want to know why you would play such a cruel trick on someone you don’t even know. I want—”
“What I want is a nice cup of tea. My mother always says there’s nothing like tea to make an awkward conversation easier. Well, until the drinks trolley comes out. Please come in.”
“Tea? This is not a social call.”
The woman looked more amused than terrified. “I had gathered that, yes.”
But she walked off into the house and Deb was left with the option of standing on the porch, leaving, or following her in. She followed.
The house was amazingly neat and orderly, the kitchen spotless. “I can make you a coffee if you’d prefer.”
“No, thank you. Tea is fine.” She felt foolish trying to hold onto her fury while this woman calmly put the kettle on to boil and drew out a teapot, some fancy-looking tea, and china cups.
“Why did you send Rafe to me? Why did you tell him to ask me out?”
There was a pause. The Englishwoman first warmed the blue teapot with a little of the boiling water, then spooned tea out of a can that had a coat of arms on it and into the pot, then poured more boiling water over the leaves. The smooth, confident tea-making, where she’d instinctively followed the proper procedure, gave Deborah a tiny measure of calm.
“I’m afraid that, just like yours, my business requires confidentiality.” She brought the teapot over to the table and then carried over the two pure white cups and saucers. “However, I will just say that Rafe’s asking you out is a complete surprise to me.” She smiled. “I suspect he likes you.”
“But when I went out to give him back my book and confront him about you—”
“I’m really rather surprised that he told you about me.”
She shook her head with impatience. “He didn’t. He was using your business card as a bookmark. He’d forgotten the book, so I went to return it to him. That’s when I saw the card. Then when I got outside to the waiting area, he was talking to Stephanie. They had that look about them of people who know each other well.”
“Yes. That surprised me, too. Stephanie is my assistant, and I promise you I have no clue what she was doing in your office.”
Deb felt as though she’d been slapped. She, who prided herself on her professionalism, had all but blabbed that this person’s employee was one of her clients.
“Do you take milk and sugar? Or lemon?”
“No. Nothing, thank you.”
Chloe poured a stream of fragrant dark tea into the cup, saying, “I’m glad to have a chance to meet you. I read your book, you know. I’m not sure we’re so very different. We just work on different ends of the relationship spectrum.”
No, no, no. They were nothing alike. “You scare me,” Deb said. “You think everything’s so easy. ‘Breaking up is hard to do. We can help,’” she intoned in a fake British accent. “But it’s not easy. I spent twelve years in university learning how to help people—and a big part of that is finding a healthy relationship.”
