Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
It reminds me, too, of how Sawyer talked to me in bed. Confident. Capable. Commanding. Come here, Chloe. Turn around. Put your hands against the wall.
I shiver from the white-hot memories crashing into me, and I go with it, handing over a brush.
Sawyer takes it, climbs the step stool, and starts carefully painting the top corner.
Do not stare at him painting.
Do not ogle him as he stretches.
Do not gawk at the way his shirt rides up, exposing his lower abs.
I do all of it.
I’m caught mid-eye-fuck when his gaze turns, slow and deliberate, a cocky smile curving his lips. “Enjoying the view?”
I snap my eyes away as my cheeks heat. “Nope. Just checking out your…technique.”
“Do you approve?”
“It’ll do,” I rasp, because it’s way too warm in here.
When he climbs down and wipes his hands, he checks his watch. “I should…go.”
“Right,” I say, and he’s helped more than I’d expected. “Probably need to get back to your…computer, and your Zoom calls, and all your…boss stuff.”
He does seem like a computer guy—running spreadsheets, checking sales, crunching profit and loss.
His eyes shift. “I have…someplace to be.”
Huh. That someplace sounds…secretive? Or is it just me? “Okay,” I say.
He checks his watch again, nods like he’s agreeing with himself. “Yeah. I better take off.”
He doesn’t say goodbye. Just grabs his shirt, heads through the doggie daycare, and exits a minute later before anyone else notices.
That was a fast goodbye.
Probably has a hot date. It is a Thursday night, after all.
My jaw tightens at the thought—and stays tight as I finish painting the last corner alone.
* * *
As I clean up, I don’t think about his date. I think about the message Linus sent earlier this evening, letting me know the meeting with the producers will be sometime next week and to hang tight for details. I think about my new clients and the info I researched on them last night—they’ve both been cast in the new Webflix show that’s coming to town. I think about the skills I want to teach their dogs, if they don’t know them already.
And the whole time I don’t at all imagine Sawyer walking into Prohibition Spirit or Clementine’s Tapas Bar right now, striding up to the counter, planting a sensual kiss on the neck of some woman he met online.
And…crap.
I nearly crush the paintbrush handle.
Where is a calming app when you need it? But the universe hears my prayer, since my phone trills as I’m sealing the caps on the paint.
“Darling, you’ll never guess who I ran into,” my mom says when I pick up. She wastes no time when it comes to drama or gossip.
In the background, I can hear the tinkle of a piano. She’s probably still at the theater. “Sutton Foster? Jonathan Groff? Audra McDonald?”
She laughs. “A woman can dream. But close. I ran into that actress, Saffron Morgan.”
“Oh! She’s one of my new clients. Veronica referred her. I have a session with her next week,” I say. “With Ava Hartley too.”
I’ve been following both their careers for a while now. Saffron was born in Persia and moved with her family to Hollywood when her parents had an opportunity to practice entertainment law there. Ava grew up on a horse farm in Calgary and visited California for the first time in high school. They became friends when they met doing a play in Los Angeles.
“We had such a lovely chat. I told her all about my fundraiser, and she was thrilled to hear what we’ll be doing,” my mom says, then chatters on about how much Saffron loves the stage, and conversations with my mother about theater are always the perfect distraction.
Soon enough, I’m finished, and she says, “My cabaret club is here tonight. Want to join us and play piano?”
Cabaret clubs don’t help and then vanish. They don’t leave you with questions you’d rather not contemplate. They are what they are—part of my life. Fun, dependable, and mine.
I say yes.
13
BOSS TIME
SAWYER
One hundred and sixty-eight hours. That’s how long I’ve survived working with the stunning redhead who sometimes hates me, usually baits me, and nearly always taunts me.
I deserve a medal for resistance.
But I keep thoughts of Chloe to myself as my running shoes slap the pavement while the sun peeks above the horizon. It’s not like I’m going to gloat about my accomplishment in restraint to my running partner—Banks.
He knows Chloe, after all. He’s with her friend Ripley, so I won’t let on the role his girlfriend’s bestie plays in my late-night thoughts.
Banks and I reconnected when I moved here a few weeks ago. That mostly means trash-talking each other as we work out in the mornings, and today the workout includes a three-mile run, part of my triathlon prep.
I’m a few feet ahead of him and have been for two and a half miles, so I can’t resist goading him. As we pass sleepy homes and birds chirping pretty wake-up songs, I toss out, “Sucks being so out of shape, doesn’t it?”