“I’ve already mailed you the ticket. Just go. You don’t know what’s going to happen. And if Byron bores you, just think of his net worth. If that fails, look around. There will be other men.”
Totally not helping.
“I have faith in you. You’re still very pretty,” she says. “I gave you good genes. You look younger than most women your age.”
My age. I’m only twenty-eight! “So you’re saying I look like jailbait?” And after telling me last time not even Botox could help my breasts?
“Doesn’t hurt. Quite a few men go for that…”
Oh my God. I’m not going to bother with the gallery opening, but I make a noise in the back of my throat, loud enough for Mom to hear. She’ll interpret it however she wants, which is fine by me. “I gotta go. I have to work.” I need to watch more Netflix and forget you talked about Viagra and kissing men not even half your age.
“Fine, fine,” she says. “I’ll check in with you later.”
Please, don’t. Once we hang up, I turn off Terminator 3 because it has too much plot for me to handle right now. I start a mindlessly violent action flick to erase the last few minutes with Mom. Within the first three minutes, four bombs go off, at least seven cars explode and tons of extras are dramatically blasted into the sides of buildings. Bullets fly and more extras go down clutching their stomachs or with geysers of blood bursting from their heads. Other than screams, there’s zero dialogue.
Perfect.
There are knocks on my door. I decide to ignore them. It’s barely two o’clock, and I haven’t placed a single Amazon order in the last four days. And I’m not going to find the One True Path because some random stranger at my door just happens to know something the rest of humanity has missed.
But Champ has other ideas. He goes over and wags his tail, standing expectantly at the door.
Something bad slithers down my spine. Is Wyatt on the other side? If so, why? Shouldn’t he be working, making Sweet Darlings even richer?
I sit up, wishing I’d at least powdered my face. Then irritation surges. Why should I care how I look to Wyatt? It’s not like I’m trying to impress him.
But maybe it’s Annie. I push myself off the couch and walk over to look through the peephole. It’s Vi.
I open the door. Champ tries to rush out and sniff her, but I grab his collar.
“Shouldn’t you be in school right now?” I ask.
“We got out early.” She glances at Champ with a small smile. “Oh my God! I didn’t know you had a dog! He’s so cute!”
Champ wags his tail as though he understands and agrees with her.
“What’s his name?” she says, trying to walk into my apartment.
I shift my body subtly to block her. I haven’t forgotten her elaborate babysitter lie. And she’s not going to skip school to play with my pet. “His name is Champ, and we’re not talking about my dog. I haven’t heard anything about school letting out early today.”
Her sitter isn’t scheduled to come until four. I know because I set the appointment up. It’s part of the package deal of working for Wyatt, mainly because I don’t think Melanie would remember to take care of that kind of detail, and it’s the kind of minor thing I’d deal with if I were doing it for Salazar. But neither Wyatt nor Melanie told me about this so I could have Rachel come early.
“If you snuck out of school, I’m taking you back.”
“It’s a short day. You can check if you want.”
I don’t think she’s fibbing, but then, what do I know about kids and their school schedules? Hell, I fibbed when I didn’t feel like going. I ask Vi for the school’s name, and she gives it to me. Still blocking the door, I go to the homepage and log in using Vi’s last name and zip code. Sure enough, her class got out at one thirty because of some emergency plumbing check. The notice is dated yesterday.
I curse under my breath. “Did you tell your dad?” I ask, just to be sure that I’m not the one who screwed up with the sitter scheduling. My professional pride is shivering with horror at the possibility.
She shrugs. “Yeah, but he probably forgot. He’s busy.”
I thought Wyatt cared about his daughter. He seemed pretty upset when he found Vi at my place without her sitter, but maybe I was mistaken. My estimation of him drops. The validation that he’s just as bad a human as I remembered should give me some satisfaction, but it’s just disappointing. Vi doesn’t need to suffer because of him.
“Come on in,” I say, since I can’t have her hanging out in the hall on her own. Again. But I will have a very stern conversation with Wyatt about this.
“Thanks.”
She steps into the apartment. Champ starts licking her fingers, and she pats him. He looks at her with absolute adoration. Based on his expression, you’d think Vi had a halo around her head and her hands were made of crispy bacon.