Chapter Thirteen
Riley
Riley sat in his truck waiting for Adeline, but he wasn’t overly confident that she would show. At two minutes after seven, he cut the engine and headed inside because whether she showed or not, he still needed coffee.
Keke’s had two lines, one for those waiting for a seat and one for those waiting to place their order to go. He had just taken a step toward the to-go line when the door chimed and Adeline walked in. The woman looked freaking radiant. It was like one of those stupid chick-flick movies that his sister would watch when they were kids. The morning sun was casting a beam on Adeline, and it brought out the reddish hints to her hair. For some reason, he found red highlights almost as sexy as the skirt suit Adeline was wearing.
Riley shifted and told his cock to behave because sometimes that bastard had a mind of its own. “You’re here?”
“You did say seven, right?” Adeline looked down at the Apple watch on her wrist. “It is exactly seven. Want to get a table?”
“Sure.” Riley held out one arm and allowed Adeline to go before him as the two moved to a back booth and then stayed standing until Adeline was seated. “Sorry that I had you meet me here so early, but I have a hectic afternoon.”
“With Gerda?” Adeline said under her breath, but Riley heard it anyway. The abrupt hang up last night all made sense. She wasn’t an ice queen, she was jealous, or at least she was like him; she felt something, that electricity between them, and she was fighting it.
“Well, no, I won’t see Gerda until later when I get home.”
“Oh, she lives with you?”
“Yes, she’s lived with me for five years.”
“And you haven’t married her?” Adeline threw her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. That’s none of my business.”
“Umm, no, Gerda’s nice to have around and all, but she isn’t someone you marry.” He hated himself just a bit, a very little bit, for yanking Adeline’s chain, but it was the most fun he’d had in a while. To be honest, he’d had more fun since meeting Adeline, first at the WaWa, then the country club and now this. He was going to hell, he was sure of it, but at least he was having fun getting theret.
“Anyway, let’s get to business.” Adeline was practically seething. “Here.” She pulled a folder from her bag and tossed it onto the table.
Riley flipped through it. “Your dossier? Impressive.”
“Wow, womanizer knows what a dossier is.” Once again, Adeline’s words were semi-muffled because she said them through clenched teeth. Riley lost it and started laughing. “What’s so funny?” Riley didn’t answer her because he was still laughing. “That is rude.”
“Oh and calling someone a womanizer isn’t?” He was still laughing when the server walked over to grab their order.
“Two black coffees?” Riley laughed as he ordered and then turned to Adeline. “Would you like some breakfast as well?”
Adeline turned to the server. “Make sure to bring lots of cream and sugar with those coffees, especially for his. Plus, I’ll have one of your croissants with a side of fruit please.”
Riley fought to hold back his smirk. He liked Adeline Morgan, and he liked her attitude even more. When the waitress walked off to place their order, he pulled out his phone and flipped through his photos until he found the perfect one. It was of him and Gerda on his boat out fishing. Gerda had her life vest on and was looking over the side of the boat, waiting for him to pull the line in. “Adeline, I think you have the wrong impression of me.”
“And what impression is that? That you are like all other men?”
“Yeah . . . that one.”
“What gives you that idea?”
Riley handed his phone over to Adeline, and she looked at the screen. “Cute dog.”
“Yep. Her name is Gerda.”
Adeline jerked her head up and then swung her eyes back to the screen. “Gerda is your dog?”
Riley nodded just as the waitress set the drinks and food onto their table.
“Anything else?”
“No, you can just leave the bill with me.” Riley held out his hand but didn’t look up as their server dropped the slip into his open palm before walking away. “Now that we have that cleared, can we move on?”
Adeline took a sip of coffee and then nodded.
“How long have the four of you worked—” Riley spoke at the same moment as Adeline.
“Just you and Loren—sorry, you go first.”
“No you.”
Adeline shook her head and shoved a large wad of croissant into her mouth prohibiting her from talking. Riley smiled. “Okay, I was just going to ask how long the four of you have worked together?”
“We actually met in college.”
“What got you into the private investigating? Was it a family business?”
“Not a family business and it’s sort of a long story.”
“I have some time still.” Riley didn’t really, but dammit if he could get the blasted woman to open up, even just a little
“I find that admirable. But how do you find clients? Loren wouldn’t tell me, she just had a card.”
“That’s how. Because of how involved we get, we can only take on a limited number of clients, so our business is purely based on referrals.” Adeline held up one finger to let Riley know to hold that thought and stood from the booth. “Hey, chica.”
Just that easily, Riley watched as the ice shield melted and a kind and gentle side of her appeared. She hugged the other woman, who was obviously a motorcycle deputy.
“Piper, this is Riley. Riley, this a good friend of ours and beloved helper to our cause, Piper.” Riley stood and shook Piper’s hand and then smiled as the newcomer gave Adeline a questioning look.
Adeline waved her off. “Yeah, he knows. Have time to sit?” Adeline scooted into the booth and made way for Piper.
“No, gotta run, but I saw you sitting over here and wanted to drop this off. Sunday sent me a text and asked me to look into a tag for her. Here’s the info.” Piper flipped open a small spiral notepad and pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Thank you.”
Then, just as quickly as she appeared, Piper left, and Adeline returned to her normal, standoffish behavior that she seemed to reserve for him.
“Stop. Whatever questions you have brewing in that head of yours, let’s hold off on them, we need to focus on one thing at a time. Right now, it is coming up with our backstory so we have something to talk about when asked how we met, or how long we’ve been together, and what I do for a living.” Pulling out her trusty notepad, Adeline flipped to a clean sheet of paper to take notes. “Is it just you and Loren? Any other siblings?”
“Nope, just the two of us.”
“You two seem close.”
“We are, but my family was always very close. Our dad left, couldn’t take it.”
“Couldn’t take what?”
“My grandparents were hard workers and believed that everyone should be hard workers whether you needed to or not. My dad didn’t agree. He was more of the mindset that once you could stop working, you should. He was lazy. He didn’t like my grandparents riding his ass. We lived with my grandparents and they had no problem telling my dad to get a job and support his family. Gramps was always circling job openings in the papers for him, whether it be at IHOP or construction, but my dad kept saying that he went to school for business and wanted something in his field. That didn’t sit well in our house. We all want something, but sometimes, we have to do things that we don’t like until we can get what we want, it’s called paying our dues.”
“Tell me to mind my own business if you want to, but if your dad wasn’t a fan of working and your grandfather drove a truck . . .”
“How did we end up with family money?”
Adeline nodded as she shoved a large piece of flaky croissant into her mouth.
“My grandparents invested every penny they had in land and penny stock.”
“Penny stock? L
ike what?”
“Tupperware and Darden Restaurants.” Riley’s face turned slightly red with embarrassment as he announced these, not because his family was wise enough to invest, but because he didn’t want to sound as if he was bragging.
“But it takes some serious capital to develop shopping and medical plazas?” Adeline sounded like she was genuinely interested, so Riley decided to tell her even more.
“For over one hundred years the Thomas family has lived in Central Florida. Some people said they were stupid for investing so much of their money into property, especially when they were buying swamp land. But people stopped laughing when a man named Walt bought a large portion of their land to build a theme park dedicated to a mouse. It sort of set me up to do whatever I wanted to do.”
Adeline choked on the croissant she’d just popped into her mouth. “I guess so.”
“Okay . . . going on . . .” Adeline smiled. “I’m really admiring your family right now. I think that I’d like your grandparents. They sound like awesome people.”
“They were.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“My grandparents came across hard, but they doled out love by the buckets. My mom was diagnosed with renal cell cancer my senior year of high school, Loren was in sixth grade. My mom held on for four years, but her death was hard on all of us, especially my grandparents. I’d never seen them break down. I think we are naturally programmed to adjust to the loss of a parent because it is the way of life. But for parents, I don’t think they are programmed to deal with losing a child. We lost Grams almost two years later to the date, and Gramps was devastated, he wanted to go after that. He was gone less than a year later.” Riley felt it, he hadn’t noticed it while he’d been lost in his memories, but at some point, Adeline had reached out and wrapped her hand around his. “Enough about me, what about you?”
“All of my stuff is in that dossier, let me ask a few more. Where do you live? What exactly do you do? And is Gerda your only pet?”
“I live out toward Lake Nona, and I own my own home. Yes, she’s my only pet, but don’t call her that, she thinks she is a human. And as for a job, I’m a contractor. Basically, I buy land and then develop it for various projects. Sometimes, it’s shopping centers, and sometimes, it’s residential. If it is going to be a shopping area, then I work with architects, landscapers, and surveyors to get it going. Basically, I’m the money man, the idea guy.” Riley took a sip of coffee. “By the way, I think your idea of using my goal to get the land rezoned was genius. Sounds bad, but in the end, he might actually do me a favor.”
“That’s a good thing, right? By the way, when was your last girlfriend?” Adeline blushed, realizing that her question sounded very intrusive. “So we can establish a timeline, you know, for how long we’ve been dating. I don’t want to say two months and then find out that last month you were with another woman and Greg totally knew that.”
“Greg knows very little about me. I go over there to see my sister and niece about twice a week, and he’s almost never there. But, to answer the question, I haven’t had a girlfriend in a while, so two months will be fine.”
Riley was playing it cool, but it had been almost two years since he and Sarah had broken up. She was sweet but had higher aspirations than Riley did.
“Got it.” Adeline wrote it down in her notepad. “I find that it’s better to stay as close to the truth as possible, so I use my real name, but when people ask me what I do for a living, I just tell them that I work at an outreach program. You would be shocked to know how many people change the topic as quickly as they can after that. As far as background, don’t worry, I have all the credentials to back up my story, including an established website, thanks to Sunday.”
“You four really cover all the bases, huh?”
Adeline leaned in. “You have no idea. Sunday is downright scary sometimes.” She chuckled. “Okay, we got this. Thank you for meeting me.”
“Thank you for meeting me so early. I’ll remember next time that you aren’t a morning person.” Adeline looked sheepish, but they both knew that he’d spoken truth. “Is your address in this file folder?” Riley opened it and flipped to scan the papers.
“Yes,” Adeline answered. “I live downtown.”
“Well, the cocktail party is at the Bohemian, why don’t I pick you up at six thirty? We can have a drink beforehand.”
“Sounds good.” Adeline stood, and Riley quickly pulled a few twenties from his wallet. He was leaving a generous amount on the table, but he didn’t want to wait, he wanted to walk out with Adeline. Hurrying to catch up with her, he walked in sync with her steps to her car.
“There’s that car, I bet it belongs to some kid who doesn’t know how to listen to his music . . .”
“Below eighty-five decibels,” they both said the last part in unison.
“Listen, Adeline, I am sorry for the way we met. I’m not usually such a . . .”
“Dick?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re forgiven. Don’t be too hard on yourself, though. I shock the shit out of most people, especially when they actually get a good look at me. Somehow the skirt fools them into thinking that I’d be driving an Audi. But, shhh . . .I’m more badass than they know.” Adeline unlocked her car. Before she got in, Riley moved in closer and brushed her hair back. He tucked it behind her ear. “Yes, totally badass.” Then he did something that he’d been wanting to do, he kissed her. Not deep or invasive but sweet and fast. Just enough to make Adeline want more and to remember the feel of his lips the rest of the day.
Chapter Fourteen
Adeline
It didn’t matter that five years separated Adeline and Sunday, or that Melanie and Olivia fell somewhere closer in age to Sunday than they did her. When it came to things like this, they were all little girls.
“Wear this one.” Melanie pulled out Adeline’s black Tom Ford evening gown with the illusion panel from her closet. “It will have Riley groveling at your feet.”
“Yes, that one is gorgeous on you,” Sunday agreed as she twisted Adeline’s hair up into an elegant chignon.
Melanie turned the gown around so everyone could see it. “Made in China?” Melanie lifted the tag. “Have you ever wondered if clothes in China say made around the corner?”
“No. You want to know what I wonder about?” Sunday pointed to the bag of chips sitting on the vanity that they were all picking from. “How can Doritos have a date”—she pointed to the expiration—“and the rest of us don’t?” Sunday shoved a chip in her mouth before picking up a bobby pin and shoving it into Adeline’s hair. “Or why can’t, just once, a bag say, serving size: you’re good boo, eat as much you want?”
“What are you complaining about Sunday, I’m the chunkiest one out of all of us?” Adeline looked at herself in the mirror, not for the first time feeling a little self-conscious.
“Anyway, onto other topics, I slipped a few condoms into your purse, just in case.” Olivia winked.
“Just in case I grow a dick?” Adeline couldn’t help herself.
“No, just in case he isn’t prepared and you two can’t wait until you get somewhere to buy some.”
Adeline shook her head. “There are so many things wrong with that statement. I’m just going to let it go.”
They were busy trying to get Adeline ready for the party and all she could do was think about that kiss from the other day. For three days, it had been at the forefront of her mind. She’d wanted more, she’d wanted to wrap her hands around the back of his neck and pull him closer. God, she was such a hussy. Adeline laughed because that was one thing she definitely wasn’t, so thinking it was absurd. She’d met several women her age that already had three, four, or even five kids. Unfortunately, a few weren’t sure who the correct baby-daddies were. Adeline swore right then and there that if she could match her shoes to her outfit then, damn it, she better always be able to match her babies to their daddy—even if that meant abstinence at times.
/> “Did Olivia tell you what she did today?” Sunday tapped Olivia’s arm with the hairbrush, teasing Adeline about something that she’d clearly missed. “Go ahead, tell her. I think that we should all use it as a standard line.”
“Just tell me,” Adeline groaned, but Melanie was already laughing.
“Some lady called the office and immediately started in on our prices, asking us how much it would be if she just wanted proof her husband was cheating but didn’t want to divorce him.”
“Good god, did you tell her that we weren’t her husband’s babysitter? Hell, I’d charge her more just for being an idiot.”
“No, I told her that if she really wanted to know, she could find out for free.”
Adeline was curious, but at the same time, she was scared about what Olivia was going to say next because Sunday and Melanie were cackling.
“I told her to take his cell phone from him, run to the bathroom, and lock the door, if he chases after her and tries to get it, then he’s cheating. If he doesn’t care, then he’s a good man.”
Adeline had to hold her fingers under her eyes to keep her mascara from smearing as she laughed.
“You better hurry.” Sunday stepped away from Adeline and put the hairbrush down, clearly finished with her masterpiece. “Ignore Livi, Riley is a client just as much as Loren is, and you’re there to get cozy with Greg. We need to find that missing piece, something is fucking missing, and it is driving me nuts.”
“You mean something other than that he’s having an affair with a married woman, who he’s known since college and started a business with back at said college, and is selling his wife’s land without his wife’s knowledge to said company for a fraction of its value then turning around and selling it to the city for an enormous profit? You mean besides that?” Olivia was clearly perturbed.
Roadster (Iron Ladies Book 1) Page 10
