“A woman named Sylvie Bane.”
Shock punches me in the gut. “Sylvie hired you?”
“Said it was for your birthday. I had no idea you were seeing somebody, or I would’ve insisted on meeting somewhere else to, you know, avoid awkwardness. Discretion is really impor—”
I put my hand up to stop the flow of unnecessary details. “Are you sure it was her?” Sylvie is cheap as hell. And what are the chances that she picked a guy out of one of the sites I looked at? It wasn’t the first one that popped up when I did a Google search.
“Yeah. I mean, she was calling herself ‘Tasha’ in her emails, but the PayPal details said Sylvie, so I figured that’s her real name.”
Sylvie tried to frame Tasha? I feel steam coming out of every pore on my body!
He adds, “That’s what you wanted to know, right?”
I’m going to shoot an arrow right in my cousin’s ass! I point at him. “Okay, you need to go. Before I lose my temper and decide to kill you right along with Sylvie.”
He puts his hands up. “Okay, fine, don’t get crazy here. I’m not the bad guy. I was just hired to—”
“Shut up and get out!”
He starts to walk backward. “But what about my money? I drove—”
“Get your fucking money from the person who hired you!” I scream as all the blood in my body rushes toward my head, and my vision’s turning hazy, dark red. A vein must’ve popped in my forehead because every muscle in my face throbs, and I can’t stop myself from shaking.
Blanching, he turns and rushes out. I’m right behind him, a murderous rage burning in my gut. I slam the door shut. As I hop into my car to drive to Sylvie’s house, I notice something yellow and pink in my peripheral vision and stop.
That hair, that cleavage. No matter what she wears, I can always tell.
Fucking Sylvie!
“You!” I say, shoving a finger in her face.
“Don’t you dare point at me!” she says, swatting my hand.
I swat her hand back. “Were you watching the show?”
“No!” Her denial is overly swift and shrill. “I was in the neighborhood! I was just wondering what was going on!”
“Were you?” I put my hands on my hips. “Your man-whore hooker confessed to everything!”
“No, he didn’t!”
A thought strikes me. “Were you hanging around because you were looking for things to steal and sell?”
She flinches. “What?”
“Bet you did,” I say, noticing a new necklace and earrings on her. “Devlin’s been complaining that his stuff is missing.”
“You probably misplaced it!” she screams, like being as loud as possible can cover up the fact that she’s lying. “Besides, don’t change the subject and start getting mad at me! I was just showing Devlin what a cheating whore you really are!”
Unbelievable. She has to stoop this low, go this far to ruin what happiness I have. It’s all I can do to not reach out and claw her eyes out. “By hiring an escort?”
“It’s not like he’s the first! You hired one before!” She’s all smug satisfaction.
What the hell? Tasha’s the only one who knows about that, and she’d never tell anybody. “Uh-huh. And how would you know that?” I ask, my voice low and tight.
“Becau—” She abruptly shuts her mouth.
“You looked through my emails, didn’t you?” If she came into my house to steal Devlin’s things, she could also snoop through my laptop, which I leave password-free when I’m not traveling. She’s that awful.