Page 18 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

Trouble with breathing. Sensations of vertigo. Heart failure. A complete breakdown of the pulmonary system. WebMD was happy to supply me with any number of worst-case scenarios, most of which were accompanied by optimistic advertisements for male enhancement pills.

The toast popped up, almost scaring me out of my wits. I yelped, but Arthur was either too far away to hear or accustomed to women screaming helplessly in his kitchen. I plunked a bag of chamomile into the hot water and arranged neat triangles of toast onto a plate before carrying them back to the living room.

He didn’t look happy to see me.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he accused as I set the breakfast things down on the coffee table. I handed him the cup of tea, wincing when his hands shook so hard they caused the hot liquid to slosh everywhere.

“I know.”

“I could have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

“I know.”

“This tea isn’t the right temperature. Herbal should always be brewed at a full boil.”

“I know.”

I could tell that my monosyllabic responses were irritating him, but I was afraid that my voice might crack if I said too much. He was so overwhelmingly exhausted that it hurt to look at him.

I sat down on the chair opposite the couch and clutched my hands between my knees, waiting until he’d taken a sip of the tea and a bite of toast before I spoke.

“It would mean a lot to me if you’d let me stay,” I said, holding his gaze steady. “I know I have no right to ask it of you, and I understand if you want me to go away, but I’d like to keep you company. Just for a little while. Just until I know you’re settled.”

His own gaze wavered before mine. “I suppose you think I owe you this.”

It took me a moment to register his meaning. “Because of those terrible things you said to me at the library?”

As the sensations of that day came rushing back, I felt a thick, cloying feeling settle in the back of my throat. I could breathe, but speech was impossible. Luckily, it didn’t matter, because Arthur sighed and set his tea down. He passed his hand over his eyes.

“You’d be right,” he said. “Blast you.”

I took that as permission to stay in place—a thing I did so quietly and so long that it wasn’t until I heard the gentle sounds of his snoring that I realize he’d fallen asleep.

“That settles it,” I murmured as I gave in and slipped the blanket over his knees. I had no idea how long he was likely to nap, but I had a few hours until my shift started.

Besides, there was plenty to keep me occupied until he woke up. Arthur’s personal library might have been in desperate need of someone to organize it, but there was no shortage of books to choose from—including the Marquis de Sade.

As I settled in to read the trials and tribulations of various maidens unfortunate enough to have been born in the eighteenth century, I couldn’t help but relax. If it weren’t for the grouchy old man I was terrified would stop breathing in his sleep, a quiet morning with a good book was as close to paradise as I’d probably ever get.

6

“Ohmigod, Sloane. You’re here. You’re alive.”

The second I walked through the door to the library, Mateo fell on my neck like an albatross.

“Do you haveanyidea what you’ve put us through?” he demanded as he dragged me inside. Despite my new Mateo scarf, the cold, overly conditioned air caused goose bumps to break out over my skin. “No—don’t answer that. Don’t answer anything until you’ve secured legal counsel. Octavia’s furious.”

“I know I’m late, but—”

“Thereshe is.” Octavia turned to face me from behind the checkout counter. Furious or not, her expression was inscrutable. The expression of the woman next to her, however, was as easy to read as, well, a book.

“Sloane, you had us worried sick!” Rachel Marcowitz took one look at me and instantly burst into tears. “Brett stopped by your apartment this morning, but you weren’t there. So we called and called, but there was no answer. And then…”

She cast a wild look around the library, where I noticed no fewer than half a dozen of my fellow employees had gathered as though attending a funeral. Even Ian from IT was here, and he almost never came up from the basement for air.

“Mateo, please call the police and notify them that we’ve found our missing person,” Octavia said in a tone so dangerously flat that it made my goose bumps stand out even more. “Pull the flyers from the printer and make sure they end up in recycling.”

“Police?” I echoed, bewildered. “Flyers? Guys, it’s not even noon. I’m only like an hour late.”