“You crashed Doc’s funeral?” he repeated in disbelief. A chill tore through him. “All this time, acting like you were some sort of friend of the family.”
“I never acted like that, Mick. I never led anyone on.”
“Does Mrs. B know this?”
“No.”
“So you swoop into funerals to prey on the heirs, is that what it is? Trying to catch them at their most vulnerable moment so you can make a profit off of it?”
“No. It’s not like that. If they’re not in a position to sell, I would never think of pressuring them.”
Seeing her eyes well up with tears, Mick fought the urge to reach out and console her. He was a fool.
Her lip quivered. “You don’t know what it’s like—trying to get started in this business. I haven’t had to do it since I started meeting people with all this volunteer work I’ve been doing.”
Another devastating thought occurred to him. “My God, that’s why you volunteered for her, isn’t it? For Mrs. B? Gave all your time for the hospital fundraiser? It was just to get on her good side. To stay in her life just in case she wanted to sell her damn house. And all this time I thought it was because you had a good heart.”
“It isn’t,” Lacey started, then her gaze dropped. “No, it is,” she corrected.
“So is that why you slept with me, Lacey? Is that why you’re here right now? Just circling around Mrs. B’s scope of friends like some sort of vulture until she wants to sell?”
“No!” Lacey shouted, slamming her napkin down on the table and darting out of the room in tears.
Mick’s face was a furnace. He felt the curious eyes of the people around him in the restaurant. Let them look, he thought gravely. He didn’t give a damn if they pulled up a chair.
Betrayal swelling inside him with each passing minute, he sat at the table alone until the waiter approached asking if he wanted dessert.
“Definitely not,” he grumbled. “We’ll be leaving as soon as she gets back from the restroom. Could you bring me the check, please?”
The waiter nodded, darting a somewhat confused look in the direction of the lobby. He returned minutes later. “Excuse me sir, but I felt I should tell you, the lady you were with left in a cab several minutes ago.”
Perfect. Just perfect.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Open this door, you goddamn son of a bitch!”
After a nearly sleepless night, someone banging relentlessly on his door wasn’t the best way to wake up.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Open this door, Mick, or I’ll kick it in!”
Mick groaned at the recognition of Maeve’s pissed-off voice likely waking up the entire row of townhomes along the parade field. His head throbbing, he threw the window open. “Shut up, Maeve, or the Marines at the gate will blow your head off.”
She stood glaring, hands on her hips. “I’ll just duck and let them kill you instead, you bastard.”
Mick looked up and down the street to see how much attention she was attracting. He rolled his eyes and waved feebly at a Captain down the road staring at their scene as he hesitated to get into his car.
He charged downstairs to let her in. There was no other option short of calling the MPs.
He flung open the door. “I’m a bastard? I’m sorry, but I’m not really sure exactly what I did wrong here.”
“You made the most devoted, caring person I have ever known cry her eyes out last night.”
Mick fought the faint tug on his heart. As furious as he was, he couldn’t bury the feelings he had for Lacey. “Well, I’m so damn sorry if I was a little taken aback when I learned that my girlfriend preys on the elderly for profit. I teach ethics, for God’s sake, and meanwhile Lacey is trying to cash in on the most vulnerable people she can find. Even Mrs. B. When was she planning on telling me this? After I was old and grey and she tried to sell my house?”
“She tried to tell you. You told her that you didn’t want to know what goes on during her work day.”
“Never. Never did she try to tell me.”
“Oh, yes, she did. When you jumped to the conclusion that Lacey was trying to sell Edith’s house.”
Mick sputtered an instant remembering, and then rallied his defenses. “And I see now that I was right.”
“You are not right,” Maeve fumed, grabbing a nearby mug and sending it crashing into the ground full force.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Maeve?”
“I’m from the South. When we get mad, we throw things.”
“Not in this house,” Mick spewed back.
“Lacey never pressured her to sell her house. Ask Edith. Go ahead. If anything, she changed her mind, just like she did me.”