by J. Kenner
“Uh-huh.” She glances down, and when her teeth drag over her lower lip, it’s my turn to swallow.
“Gracie?”
She looks up, her eyes wide and full of anticipation. And I know right then that this is going to be a cake walk. And that I should be happy about that. Easy money, right? A job well done.
“Cayden?”
“I—I need to know what room you’re in.”
“Oh. Four-twenty. It’s that way,” she says, pointing vaguely to the right.
I take her hand and twine our fingers. Her skin is soft, and she holds on as if she trusts me. We walk to the room, and a wave of regret washes over me when we reach the door and she fumbles in her purse for her key.
She looks at me, then at the door. Then she licks her lips and looks down at the carpet before lifting her head and meeting my eyes to invite me inside.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and I actually have to rewind her words to make sure I heard her right. “I’m sorry,” she repeats, still holding the card.
“Sorry?”
“I—I was going to see if you wanted to come in for—um, you know. To talk. And whatever. But—but I just don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“No? Sounds like one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time.”
She laughs, and the sound squeezes my chest.
“I know—it’s only—well, you seem really nice, and I’ve enjoyed talking to you but…”
I step closer as she trails off, taking advantage of this sign of uncertainty. “Are you sure? I promise I don’t bite too hard.”
As I’d hoped, she laughs. But then she shakes her head. “I don’t know.” She taps the side of her eye and grins. “I’ve heard about you pirates.”
I match her grin, surprised and grateful that she acknowledged—even joked—about something that most girls would just politely not mention, even after a wild night in bed.
Her shoulders rise and fall. “Listen, I’m sorry if I—I mean, if you came up here expecting something more.”
“More than spending a few extra minutes with you? Believe me, you have nothing to apologize for.” I take her hand, then lift it to my mouth and press a gentle kiss to her fingertips. “Say goodnight, Gracie,” I say, and she laughs.
“Goodnight, Gracie,” she says. “And thanks.”
I nod, then turn and head back to the elevator. And though I never would have expected it, I’m actually relieved to be walking away with absolutely no proof whatsoever that Gracie Harmon is cheating on my client.
Chapter Four
I don’t usually feel at loose ends during a job, but I do tonight. And I’m honestly not sure if that’s because I don’t have any crystal clear information for Peterman or because I’m legitimately disappointed that Gracie didn’t invite me into her room.
Since I have a sneaking suspicion it’s the latter, I decide not to think about it. And since the best way not to think is to grab another drink, that’s what I do.
An hour later, it’s almost ten, I’ve finished nursing a bourbon, and I’ve cleared out all the emails on my phone. Absent another brilliant idea to pass the time, I’m about to summon an Uber, head south, then settle in on my couch with the latest Fast and Furious movie before giving in and crashing for the night.
I get as far as the hotel lobby before I change my mind. That’s when I remember that one of my favorite bands, Seven Percent, is doing a surprise performance at The Fix on Sixth, a local bar and eatery. A surprise because the Austin-based band has become huge over the last few years and an official announcement would draw more people than the place could hold. But their lead singer, Ares, wanted to swing back through town to visit a friend, and so the band decided to do one gig at the bar that gave them their start.
All of which I know only because Pierce, Connor, and I pop into The Fix frequently enough to be considered regulars, and the owner, Tyree, has become a friend.
Now, I head out through The Driskill’s main doors on Brazos, then turn left onto Sixth Street. I walk the few blocks until I’m across the street from The Fix, cross against the light, and hurry to the door. Even without an official announcement, the place is packed. I see Tyree in the back, but he’s busy and doesn’t see me. The bartender, Eric, gives me a shout-out, but since there are no open seats at the bar, I only wave in response as I try to scope out a table.
The band is already on the stage setting up and I’m cursing myself for waiting so long. There’s no place to sit, and I’m really not in the mood to stand in the crush that will surely gather right in front of the raised stage that fills the front of the bar.
“Cayden!”
At first, I’m not even sure I’ve heard my name; the din is so intense it might just be my imagination. But I turn anyway, looking for the source.
And that’s when I see her—Gracie.
I have absolutely no idea what she’s doing there, especially since I saw her to her room over an hour ago. But there she is, like a gorgeous guardian angel, watching over me and offering me the empty seat at her small table.
I make my way that direction, telling myself that my increasingly good mood is because I don’t have to stand during the performance. And that I have a second bite at my investigative answer.
The real reason, of course, is that I’m happy to see her. But I’m not going to think about that.
“Admit it,” I say. “You’re following me.”
“I think that’s my line,” she counters. “What are you doing here?”
“I was about to head home, and then I remembered that Seven Percent was playing tonight. They’re a favorite of mine.”
“Mine, too,” she says. “But how did you know?”
I swivel in my chair, then point toward Tyree. “Friends with the owner. You didn’t know? Why are you here?” Had she ditched me so she could go out and find someone else to cozy up to? The idea leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I quickly dismiss it. After all, she’d been sitting here alone.
“I ordered room service,” she says. “French fries and coffee. And I started talking to the waiter. He’s bummed about working tonight and missing the show.” She takes a sip of her beer. “I feel no guilt, but if I see him tomorrow, I won’t rub it in. It’ll be hard, though. I’m a total groupie. I saw them a couple of years ago when they opened for Next Levyl.”
“Lucky you,” I say. “I missed that one. Although I’ve met him, you know. Levyl, I mean.”
Her eyes widen and she sits back. “You are totally yanking my chain.”
“Nope, I swear. He’s a friend of a friend.” Technically, he’s the ex-boyfriend of Pierce’s sister-in-law, movie star Delilah Stuart, but I don’t mention that part.
“I try not to be a huge celebrity watcher,” she says, “but it really irritated me the way Delilah dumped him for Garreth Todd.”
I should let it go. I know that. But Del’s a sweet girl, and I just can’t stay quiet. “They’re friends, you know. And in her defense, Garreth seduced her.”
She stares at me, her eyes narrowed as she props her chin on her fist. “She’s the friend. The one you just mentioned. You’re friends with Delilah Stuart.”
“That’s not something I usually advertise,” I tell her honestly. But there’s something about this woman that has my brain working at only half-power. I feel charmed. Bewitched. And if it weren’t for the fact that she’s a subject and Peterman is paying me, that wouldn’t be a bad feeling at all.
Under the circumstances, it’s more than a little inconvenient.
I’m saved from thinking any more about it when Reece, one of Tyree’s partners, climbs on stage, grabs the mike, and introduces the band. Within minutes, the room’s hopping, and the music is far too loud for conversation.
And after a few songs and a few Loaded Coronas—a specialty of The Fix that consists of a Corona with the neck filled with rum—I’m feeling pretty good. So much so that when Gracie leans over and shoulder bumps me, whisper-yelling that the song they’re playing i
s her absolute favorite, I don’t even think about the fact that my job tonight was to try and seduce her. I’m just having a good time.
In the course of the show, we polish off two Loaded Coronas each, and by the time the band makes its final encore, I’m pretty sure I’ll never hear out of my right ear again—it was too close to Gracie’s squeals.
“Sorry about that,” she teases. “Right ear, left eye. I figured you needed some sort of symmetry.”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” I say dryly. “I seem to be deaf in that ear.”
She rolls her eyes, then smiles at me. “I’m glad I bumped into you. This was fun.”
“Agreed.”
“And don’t worry. I won’t bug you or mention the Delilah-Levyl thing to anyone. Believe me, I know what it’s like to be talked about all over the Internet. A much smaller scale, granted, but still.”
“Do you? How?”
I know the answer, of course. But since I’m not supposed to know she’s a model with a decent following on social media, I have to play ignorant.
She wrinkles her nose. “You know what? I have drunk way too much. I shouldn’t have said anything. Can we just rewind and pretend I didn’t run off at the mouth?”
“That depends. Are we negotiating?”
Her brows rise. “Are we?”
“Have another drink with me, and I’ll forget whatever you want me to forget.” I cup her chin and hold her head still so that I’m looking deep into her eyes. Ocean eyes. The kind I could float away in. And, yeah, I think I’m a little wasted, too.
I give myself a mental shake, freeing myself from that sensual, hypnotic gaze. “If that’s what you want,” I continue, “we can even forget tonight. We can just push it into its own little safe space, where anything can happen because there are no memories, no reminders. No souvenirs. Just tonight, and then nothing but fairy dust scattered on the wind.”
Her lips part, and I see her swallow. I’m still holding her chin, and I can feel the pulse in her neck, the increased tempo. There’s desire here; I feel it, too. I want her to say yes—I want to taste those lips—and at the same time I’m silently begging her to say no.
She sits back, and I reluctantly release her chin. “I—I think I’ve already had too much to drink,” she says. “The way you describe it, that little island sounds almost appealing.”
“What’s not appealing about a secret?” I ask, because that’s the role I’m here to play, and at the end of the day, I’m going to do my job even if sometimes I hate the things I find out. “Something just between you and me? Something nobody else will ever know?”
She picks at the label on her Corona. “Nobody forgets on command.”
“Who said anything about command?” I say, this time trying a teasing tone. I take the bottle from her and hold it up. “These babies will handle the forgetting for us.”
She laughs, and it’s one of the best sounds ever. “You might actually be right about that. And … well, I’ll admit it’s tempting. But I should go. I have a job booked tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep.”
“I doubt that,” I say. “I think you’d look beautiful even with no sleep at all.” It’s more bait, of course, but the truth is I’d love to test the theory. Love to see how she looks with her face free of make-up and her hair tousled from sleep. Or from not sleeping, for that matter.
“You’re sweet,” she says, though of course I’m really, really not. “But this time it really is good night.”
“Blow to your ego, huh?” I wince as Peterman’s deep voice booms out through the speakerphone. I’m sprawled on my office couch, a cold-pack I’d grabbed from the First Aid kit over my eyes. I’ve got the mother of all hangovers—apparently bourbon, beer, and rum do not a happy combination make—and right now all I really want to do is beg my client to whisper.
“I tell you I think she’s cheating on me,” he continues, his voice like a mallet on my brain, “and you figured she’d jump right into the sack with you. Sorry, my man. Give the girl some credit.”
I wince. It’s barely eight in the morning, and I’m only in the office now because we have a status meeting at nine, and Peterman wanted an early morning update before he goes into depositions. I know it’s not his fault, but I’m in a foul mood, having stayed out far too late and imbibed far too much with the girl to whom I’m apparently not giving enough credit.
“Look,” I say. “I’m giving her credit for not picking up an interested guy in a bar. It’s a report, not a wrap-up. And my ego isn’t part of the equation. I hit on her pretty hard last night,” I tell him. “Even walked her to her door. I made it more than clear that I’d scratch any itch she might have. I got nada.”
He makes a disbelieving noise. I haven’t met the man yet, but I looked him up online. He’s a big guy, probably wrestled in high school. He’s a lawyer with one of the bigger firms in town. The kind with a small army of fungible law grads, some of whom love the law and aspire to become Johnny Cochran or the next attorney general, but most of whom just want the respectable paycheck.
Based on the limited amount of information I found doing a quick search, I’m thinking that Peterman falls into the latter category. As far as I can tell, he’s the kind of lawyer who spends a lot of time reviewing documents and handling the kind of depositions that have to be done, but aren’t going to make-or-break a case.
Normally, I don’t sign clients sight-unseen without a referral, but he’d been frantic when he called. Said he’d been on his way to the airport for depositions in Dallas. He’d had to go back to the office, and that’s when he saw Gracie with another man. That was two days ago, and it’s been eating on him. Especially when he learned from a mutual friend that she was holed up at The Driskill.
What can I say? I sympathized with the guy. And since he didn’t want the full-on surveillance right away, I agreed to the Plan B seduction attempt, telling him we’d regroup once he got back in town. Which, as it happens, will be tomorrow, and we’ve got a ten o’clock meeting on the books.
Meanwhile, he signed the retainer agreement, used a Visa gift card to pay our invoice, something a lot of our investigatory clients do to avoid a paper trail, and forwarded all the pertinent details about Gracie from his personal gmail account—his name, followed by a string of numbers that probably meant something to him. Like the address of the house he grew up in.
Like most clients, he asked that I not contact him at work, and that’s fine. But I did have Kerrie call and ask to speak to him, just as a gut check. His secretary explained that he was in depositions in Dallas, but offered to leave a message. Kerrie told her not to bother, then reported to me that Peterman’s story checked out.
“Look,” I say now. “She’s at a hotel because of the work on her house. And the man you saw her with could just be a friend or a colleague. She seems like a nice girl, and she didn’t take the bait. Maybe you don’t need me. Maybe you just need to take her out to a nice dinner and have a long talk.”
I honestly can’t believe I’m saying that. Me, the guy who never discounts a potential cuckold’s suspicions of infidelity. But I’m just not feeling it here.
“No. No way. I know what I saw, and I saw my girl on a date.”
Who am I to argue with a man scorned? “Fair enough. Let’s start surveillance. We can go over the details tomorrow after we meet.”
“Wait a sec, back up. She chatted you up, right? Made you think you might get lucky?”
I can’t deny it.
“Well, there you go,” he says. “And I bet she never once told you she had a boyfriend, much less a fiancé.”
Once again, I have to agree. “She wasn’t wearing a ring, either.”
“That’s on me. I’m giving her my grannie’s ring, and it’s still with the jeweler being sized and cleaned.”
“All right. At least we know she’s not taking it off and hiding it in her purse every time she goes to a bar.”
“Look,” he says. “I told you that I think my Gracie’s c
heating on me. I didn’t say she was a slut. You flirted with her in a bar, but that’s not going anywhere. My girl has more class than that.”
If he’s so certain that Gracie’s meeting other men and going out on secret dates while he travels, then I have to debate that whole class thing. Still, I understand his fear.
Frankly, it probably would have been easier on me if Vivien had given in to one afternoon of passion with some anonymous guy she picked up in a bar. But that’s not what happened. I’d caught her in bed with her teaching assistant. A guy with whom she discussed the recurring themes in Dumas’ novels while sipping red wine and outlining the next week’s lectures. They’d had a “thing,” she told me later. A connection.
Damn right there’d been a connection, and it wasn’t the kind I’d seen with Ted and Mona. No, Vivien had connected to her grad student in a decidedly X-rated kind of way. And I’d had the distinct displeasure of witnessing that connection with my own two eyes.
“Fair enough,” I say. “She has to leave the hotel. I’ll catch her in a restaurant, a bookstore. Maybe a vintage thrift store.”
“Right,” he says. “She likes that vintage junk.”
I frown, but shake it off. “Point being, I’ll find a way to start up a conversation today, do some flirting.”
“Right. Okay. She’s got a photo shoot,” he says. “All day today. It’s a whatchacalit. A stock photo shoot.”
“Do you know where?”
“Of course. It’s at the agency she works with. Moreno-Franklin. Over in East Austin. One of those revitalized artsy areas.”
“I’ll find it,” I say. “And I’ll either figure a way in or I’ll figure something else out. Either way, I’ll give you a full report tomorrow.” I pull out my phone and check my calendar. “Ten o’clock. My office. That still work for you?”
“I’ll be there.” I hear his deep sigh. “It’s a pisser of a situation. On the one hand, I want her to jump all over you, because then I’ll know I was right. On the other, she’s my sweet Gracie. And I want so badly to be wrong.”
