Pimpernel

by Sheralyn Pratt

  Some girls might want a knight in shining armor, but Claire would stick with a man who helped her stay sane. Perfect roommates like Daniel and hot professors like Ryan were exactly her type.

  So what if Ryan was forty-two and she was twenty-five? Things like age didn’t matter in the end. From what Claire could tell, it might just take three or four decades for a man to settle into the type of person she could allow herself to trust. In the end, she could either date older men or wait until she got older to date them. The result would remain the same. Young, impulsive guys weren’t for her. Steady, intelligent, settled men were.

  “Human Ambien,” she mused. “Is that so bad?”

  “Yes,” Daniel said emphatically.

  She shook her head. “I disagree. It can be nice to be with a guy who makes the drama go away.”

  “Fine,” Daniel said, flaring his eyes in dramatic disbelief. “Tell Professor Hottie he’s your Ambien, and watch how fast he doesn’t kiss you.” He gestured to the door. “Or if Nicky-poo moves too fast for you tomorrow and you don’t want to pucker up, just throw that one right out there.” He puckered his lips, kissing the air. “Oh, Nicky. You’re my Ambien.”

  Okay. Maybe he had a point.

  Daniel took a sip of his water, eyeing her as he did so.

  “What?” she said as the soundtrack changed from Brahms to Beethoven in the background.

  “I’m just realizing that you don’t need a Professor Hottie. You need a Professor Higgins.” He looked her up and down. “All this time I thought you were just waiting to get back to your Hampton crowd so you could date the Richie Riches, but you really are clueless, aren’t you? Even in the Hamptons. You don’t know how to flirt or date, which means you don’t think you’re too cool for Nick. You just genuinely don’t know what to do with him…or the professor.”

  Her face felt like it was on fire, and Daniel definitely noticed.

  He stabbed a finger her direction. “Name of the last man you kissed. Go!”

  Claire’s mouth pinched shut as her eyes dropped.

  Daniel set his water down in shock, moving around the counter to stand next to her. “You’re kidding! Are you kidding? You’ve never kissed a guy?” His eyebrow raised quizzically. “Or a girl?”

  That last one got her to shake her head. “No.”

  His face looked like he’d just watched a supermodel trip on a runway. “Honey…no! You’re twenty-five. What’s wrong with the boys in New York?” His head tilted thoughtfully. “Are they all on my team? Should I move there?”

  Only Daniel could make her laugh at the peak of embarrassment. Even so, she couldn’t meet his eyes as she replied. “It just hasn’t come up, okay?”

  He tsked his tongue at her. “That, my dear, is impossible. You’re a doll! Well, you kind of dress like a forty-year-old doll but straight guys barely see that stuff. At least one boy must have tried to lean in on you at some point. Or maybe a dozen have, but you just turned and ran?”

  Claire’s face officially felt like a blazing torch.

  “Be honest,” he said, leaning against the counter and watching her. “Tell Dr. Daniel everything so he can write the best prescription.”

  Again, she laughed. “A guy or two might have leaned in and tried, but I just…”

  “Freaked?” he offered. “Bailed?”

  She wanted to find an answer that rang of less cowardice, but that was basically what it came down to. She’d never kissed anyone because she’d always been too scared. There were so many what ifs attached to a kiss, and Claire’s mind hadn’t been ready to wrap around any of them.

  So she’d just avoided kissing at all.

  “Well,” Daniel said like a man on a mission. “We’re just going to have to find someone for you to lock lips with, aren’t we?”

  “Please, no,” Claire whimpered.

  He arched a brow. “Or are you planning on Professor Hottie being your first and using that as an excuse not to look around in the meantime?”

  When her face flushed yet again, he interpreted it correctly.

  “I see. All your eggs in the professor basket, hmm?” He picked up his water again and headed to his room. “Poor Nicky-poo. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

  Chapter 10

  A chat window popped up on Jack’s computer.

  Margot: You’re going on a date?

  Jack: Affirmative. That tells us she doesn’t have any meetings scheduled tomorrow. You and Ren can take the night off.

  Margot: You must be kidding. I finally got my hands on more of her family’s information. I know we don’t like blackmail, but it might be time to start looking at it as an option.

  Jack felt indignant at the thought. Blackmail was a weak man’s tactic.

  Send all the new stuff to Kali, he typed. We’ll try that Hail Mary first.

  She didn’t respond for several moments.

  Margot: Fine. I’ll send it on.

  Hmmm. The F-word. Margot’s aversion to the woman apparently didn’t depend on whether Ren was in the room or not.

  Margot: Enjoy your GROUP date.

  Jack: Take the night off. Boss’s orders.

  Margot: I’ll take a night off when the job is done and payment is in the bank. Later.

  Jack: Later.

  Chapter 11

  Nick watched Claire and Daniel like they were crazy people when they cleaned the entire kitchen before sitting down for dinner the next evening. He said nothing, though, as he waited for them to join him at the table.

  Claire tried to make conversation with Nick, but it was Daniel who kept the conversation rolling throughout dinner. Apparently gay and straight men alike could eat and talk about spiders at the same time.

  Claire could not.

  When it came time to do dishes, Claire clung to the task like a lifeline.

  “No,” Nick argued. “Tonight’s on me, and you already did most of the dishes before dinner. I can do what’s left.”

  “You cooked,” Claire said with a big smile. “And it was delicious. Division of labor is fair. Take a seat. I’ll be done with this before you know it.”

  “Okay,” Nick said as Daniel flung himself onto the couch.

  “So full,” Daniel moaned against a throw pillow. “If I ate like that every day, I’d lose my girlish figure.”

  Nick shook his head and seemed to be hiding a smile as he looked at Claire. “How about you? Are you full? You barely ate anything.”

  “Definitely,” she said, hoping Nick didn’t know the difference between a fake smile and a real one. “It was delicious.”

  “I’ll tell my grandma,” Nick said, leaning against the counter between them. “It’s her recipe. She’ll be glad it impressed.”

  Nick watched her clean for a few uncomfortable moments. Claire searched for something to say.

  “Um, can I get you something to drink?” she offered. “Or some artisan chocolate I picked up?”

  Daniel’s hand shot up from the other side of the couch while the rest of him remained in its food-coma state. “Yes to both, please. Water for me.”

  She looked at Nick. “And you?”

  “Sure. Sounds good.” Then his eyes moved around the apartment, assessing it. “No wonder your place is so clean.”

  Claire froze. “Why do you say that?”

  He gestured to the sink. “That’s the sixth time I’ve seen you wash the sink since you got here.”

  Part of Claire felt defensive and the other part felt embarrassed at the observation. “I clean it when it’s dirty.”

  “No joke,” Nick teased. “When I walked in here tonight, my first thought was that your apartment feels cleaner than my lab at school. After seeing how you two treat this place, I think it might actually be.”

  “I thank my stars every day,” Daniel announced from the couch. “Claire is the blue moon of roommates. Never leaves anything lying around and always cleans up after herself. Wouldn’t trade her for the world.”

  “Well, I would think some man is g
oing to steal her away from you some day, so I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” Nick said, smiling Claire’s way. She did her best to smile back before doubling down on the dishes.

  “They’ll have to pass my inspection first,” Daniel said. “And trust me, it won’t be easy.”

  “Oh, I think Claire can choose for herself,” Nick said, sending her a wink.

  Was there a correct response for that? All Claire knew was that the gesture made her want to disappear into her room for the rest of the night. Would that be too weird? Yes, it would be weird, but too weird? Could she get away with it?

  Probably not.

  Rather than running, Claire focused on loading all of the pots and utensils Nick had brought over into bags so he could carry them all back in one trip.

  “Where are you originally from, Nick?” Daniel asked while sending her a look that made it clear he thought she should be the one asking the questions.

  “Boise,” he said, aiming the answer at Claire. “Great town, just too isolated for me.”

  “Sure,” Daniel said, voice heavy with sarcasm. “Unlike Vegas.”

  “Touché,” Nick smiled, still looking at her. “Vegas is isolated, too, but it makes up for its remoteness with size and opportunity. I love the speed things move here. Everyone’s a mover and a shaker.”

  Or a criminal, Claire added mentally. “How long have you been here?”

  “Two years,” Nick said. “And I’ll be here at least six more months before I leave for Peru to do a three-month research opportunity.”

  “That sounds great,” Claire said with as much enthusiasm as she could at the thought of spending three months with spiders found in tropical rain forests.

  “Are you going to bring home an arch enemy for Voldemort on this next trip? Name him Harry?” Daniel asked, cracking the top on his water bottle.

  Nick shrugged, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm. “We’ll see.”

  Hoping she’d done enough talking, Claire focused on cutting the chocolate in a way she could actually eat it. The chocolate was meant to be broken and eaten in shards, but the thought of turning the pristine bar into randomly sized pieces left Claire feeling stressed. She pulled out a knife.

  “So Claire,” Nick said, thwarting her hopes to play spectator for the next little bit. “Is Daniel your first male roommate?”

  She nodded her head as she marked symmetrical cut lines on the chocolate. “Daniel is my first roommate, period.”

  “Really? How did that happen?”

  “The apartment I was supposed to move into wasn’t ready in time,” she said, still measuring out the chocolate. “I stayed in a hotel the first night, but it wasn’t for me. So I checked the boards at school, and voila.” She gestured around the apartment. “Landed here.”

  “Lucky break,” Nick said. “I wasn’t so lucky with my roommate. He doesn’t know what a trash can is.”

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said, and she was. She wouldn’t last an hour with someone like that.

  As it was, she lasted another hour with Nick, making pleasant conversation before handing him three bags of pots and showing him the door at 9:30.

  No kiss. The bags of dishes draped over his arms had served as a sufficient mood killer.

  When the door was finally shut, Daniel draped his arm around her. “See that? Not rocket science. Nothing scary. Just meeting a person and learning his story. Easy peasy.”

  She smiled up at Daniel, giving him a side hug. “With you around making 90% of the conversation? Yes. It’s easy.”

  “Without me around, too.”

  She shook her head. “No. Without you, I wouldn’t have made it through dinner. I just never know what to say.”

  “Say whatever comes to mind.”

  Claire shook her head. That couldn’t be a good idea. “I think what goes through your mind and what goes through mine are two very different things.”

  “That’s part of the fun! Who wants to talk to themselves?”

  Not Claire. But that exact fact was what made her fairly certain no one else would be interested in her thoughts either.

  “Besides,” Daniel added. “It’s an insider tip that a great way to tell how much someone likes you is to see how long they’ll talk to you about stupid things just for an excuse to stay close.” He pointed to the door. “You could have talked about anything all night and Nicky-poo would have hung on every word.”

  That couldn’t be right. Nick and Daniel had done all the talking. “He doesn’t like me,” Claire said. “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “But he knows enough to know he wants to know more,” he said, poking her nose like she was a child. “That’s how any relationship starts.”

  “I see,” she said with mock solemnity. “Does this mean you’re giving Nick your seal of approval and I can marry him now?”

  “Heavens, no!” Daniel said on a gasp. “You two don’t even live in the same ballpark when it comes to quality. But that doesn’t mean you can’t practice a few pitches on each other, if you know what I mean.”

  Claire kind of hoped she didn’t know what he meant.

  “Baby steps,” he said, releasing her. “Today was a safe, platonic date. But tomorrow?” He puckered his lips, kissing the air between them.

  “Stop,” she said, going for a light slap but missing when he scampered away toward his room. “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s exactly like that,” Daniel teased from the entrance of the hall. “One day your curiosity will be stronger than your desire to run, and you’ll take the plunge and wonder why you waited so long. Mark my words!”

  “Oh, I’ll mark them. And I’m sure they apply to other people. I just wouldn’t hold your breath when it comes to me.”

  His bright blue eyes gleamed from across the room. “Stick with me, hon. Nick might not be your cup of tea, but we’ll find someone to inspire your lips to reach out and touch someone.”

  Claire’s thoughts turned to Monday and Ryan’s hearing. “I hope you’re right,” she muttered before they both disappeared into their rooms for the night.

  Chapter 12

  It had barely been a day since Jack had sent Kali a week’s worth of work, but he was already impatient for results. He knew revisiting the files himself was futile, but it made him feel like he was doing something so that’s what he’d been doing for the past two hours.

  As expected, he had nothing to show for it.

  The lush carpet absorbed most of the sound of Margot’s steps as she approached the office Jack had hijacked for the night, but he still heard her coming.

  “Hey, boss,” she said softly when she was directly behind him.

  Jack took a slow breath and leaned away from his laptop. “Hey, person who only calls me boss when she has bad news.”

  Margot’s painted lips pressed together as she pinched back the first thing she wanted to say. “I don’t have bad news, but I do have a question.”

  “Lay it on me,” he said, swiveling in his chair to face her.

  In usual Margot style, she studied his body language before choosing her words. “Claire grew up on the east coast,” she began.

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  “Her family has a home in the Hamptons.”

  “Yes.”

  “They vacation in Europe.”

  “None of this is new information, Margot,” Jack said. “Where are you heading?”

  “Claire comes from a family of snobs that consider everything west of New York a slum,” she said, pulling up a chair and sitting next to him. “Up until a year ago her mother had never spent more than twenty-fours west of the Mississippi.”

  Jack saw where she was going, and the implications hit him like a wall of ice. She was right. It was plain as day and had been laid out in front of them the entire time they’d been looking to Claire’s background.

  Margot kept going. “It could be argued that Claire chose a college in the west to put some distance between herself and her parents, who would have
certainly preferred she attend an east coast college or even somewhere like Oxford. She certainly meets admission requirements, and yet—”

  “She came to UNLV,” Jack finished for her.

  Margot studied his reaction for a moment before finishing. “We know that Eastman is the one who lured her here, but Claire has lived here for three years. In those first two years her mother visited exactly once. The two of them are not close, and there’s nothing to indicate that they ever have been. So why did Claire’s mom move here a year ago?”

  If the tickle on the back of Jack’s neck was any indication, Margot was onto something.

  She brought her tablet up and took ownership of Jack’s screen so she could drop a file on the desktop. “The single visit Natasha Ramsey made before moving to Vegas was for Claire’s Master’s degree ceremony. Here’s a picture from the occasion.”

  She selected a file and brought it full screen. It had been taken in the auditorium and showed three people: Claire, her mother, and Professor Eastman. In that order.

  “Look who’s standing in the middle,” Margot said.

  Claire’s mom.

  All logic would put Claire in the middle of the shot. It was Claire’s special day, and she was the one who knew both of the other parties in the picture. People who just met usually didn’t push the person of the hour to the side and drape their arms around each other instead.

  “Taking center stage could be simple narcissism on the mother’s part,” Jack said. “She gravitates to the spotlight.”

  “Could be,” Margot said with a poker face. “But two weeks after this picture was taken, Natasha Ramsey moved to her version of the slums. Why?”

  Jack nodded. “You’re right. It’s a question that has to be answered.”

  Margot nodded, standing again. “For the record, I don’t think Claire has a clue.”

  Jack hoped not. Because if Claire’s fingerprints were anywhere on the other side of the door Margot was about to open, there would be no saving her.

  “Do it,” he said.

  “Already started,” she replied, perching on the edge of the desk with a thoughtful look on her face. “Claire’s family has a lot of secrets, Jack.”