I’d known it. I’d fucking known she hadn’t taken off for a few days the way the police had insisted. But this was one thing I’d never wanted to be right about.
My chest filled with flames and every fevered muscle in my body screamed with visceral rage. I cracked my neck and flexed my hand open and shut on the steering wheel, desperately trying to keep my tone gentle. “Did you tell the police? They should be out searching for this motherfucker.”
“I’ve tried, but they won’t listen to me. They keep asking for details and I don’t have any. I don’t know who he was or what he looked like. I don’t know where he took me or how he got me there. I just know it happened. I’m pretty sure they think I’m making it up too, but I swear on my life I’m telling the truth!” She was on the edge of hysterics, and with her next words, she took me right over the cliff with her. “What if they won’t listen? What if he comes back for me? I don’t even know why he let me go.”
“No!” I said entirely too sharply. I bit the inside of my mouth so hard that it drew blood and then lowered my voice. “That’s not going to happen, babe. You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be okay.” It was a bald-faced lie. Nothing would ever be the same again. But I would never, never stop trying to make it the truth. “I’m on my way. We’ll figure everything out, I swear.”
“I love you,” she choked out.
“I know, Sally. I love you too.”
Remi
“Technically, yes, it’s a three-bedroom. But the bonus room can easily be converted into a fourth if you need more space.”
The young couple looked at each other, so much love in their eyes that cartoon hearts might as well have been floating over their heads.
“I think this is the one,” the woman told her husband.
“Yeah?”
She nodded eagerly, her brown hair brushing her shoulders.
Looking back at me, he said, “Okay, then. We’ll have our agent draw up an offer.”
“Great. I look forward to it.” I smiled.
He smiled too. His wife giggled and buried her face in his chest.
They were cute. I really hoped their offer came in higher than the other four sitting in my email, but I said none of that.
With his arm around her shoulders, he was already on his phone as they trotted down the front steps.
Ah, young love.
Sighing, I turned around and scanned the empty space. It had been a busy open house, but things had finally slowed down. I had another two hours before I was supposed to meet Bowen for our date, but I needed to tidy up, put away the snacks I’d brought, and then head back to my office so I could go through the offers first.
“Knock, knock,” a familiar baritone said.
I spun to the door, a smile already spreading across my face. “Hey…” More words were supposed to follow that one, but that was before Bowen Michaels walked in wearing a fitted black V-neck T-shirt that hugged his defined chest and a pair of jeans that hung low on his tapered hips.
He was gorgeous in a suit.
He was sexy in a button-down and slacks.
He was downright edible in a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
But casual, easy-breezy Bowen no doubt left a trail of gaping, flush-faced women in his wake. I was nothing but his latest victim.
Though I might have had it worse than most since he was holding a stunning Swiss cheese plant that had to be at least half as tall as he was.
Like icing on the sex cake, the side of his mouth hiked. “You busy?”
Instinctively, I smoothed the top of my hair. “Not anymore. What are you doing here?”
He looked at the green tree, which was in a rich-amber pot propped on his hip. “I wanted to bring you flowers for our date, but I’m still recovering from the embarrassment of giving you the world’s smallest cactus.”
Touching my fingers to my lips, I stifled a laugh. “Don’t hate on Quincy.”
“No hate, but I definitely learned that bigger is better when it comes to buying you foliage.”
“Just so you know, ‘bigger is better’ applies to practically everything when it comes to women.”
He shook his head, his smile stretching wide. “I also learned that Sharon at Peachtree Plants might be a hundred and six, but she has no shame in pinching a man’s rear end if she finds it aesthetically pleasing and the mood strikes her. I was in no way prepared for plant people, Remi.”
All the hands in the world wouldn’t have been enough to stifle my laughter that time. “Well, she isn’t wrong. You do have a particularly aesthetically pleasing backside. I may have checked it out a time or two myself.”
