Dawn’s mouth hung open. Maybe I was laying it on too thick.
“Look,” I said. “I thought this might work out, but…I see now that it won’t. Sorry to waste your time.” I snatched the application from the hands of a very relieved Jason.
On my way to the door, I heard Dawn’s scandalized whisper. “What’s wrong with her?”
Dark curiosity slowed my step.
“No wonder she doesn’t have a job,” I heard Jason say. “She’s probably on drugs.”
Outside I threw the crumpled application into a trash can. Hell, if sweetly rebellious Dawn thought I was a stoner, so what? Better that than the truth. Those years hadn’t been empty. They’d been full of things not to discuss in polite company. Nothing to qualify me for participating in the real world. He was right not to hire me. Why did I even care?
Chapter Two
Back in the car, I looked at my phone and flipped to the number I never called. My thumb hovered over the Call button. If I told him I had tried to get a real job, would he laugh? No, but he’d pity me when he learned why I failed.
I put the phone down and drove home.
In the lobby of my apartment building, the doorman Evan sat behind the security desk, looking spiffy in his uniform. He always broke my heart just to look at him, perpetually deflated. He needed a sweet-faced woman to dote on him, to do dirty things to his skinny body and fill him up with pride. He brightened when he saw me.
“Hi there, Shelly.”
“Hey, Ev. How’s the view?” I could have been talking about the city vista through the large bay windows. But I knew he would check me out. And he did.
“It’s great.” He blushed. “I mean good. How are you?”
I’ve been bad, Mr. Thomas. You should punish me. Today, the script hovered on the tip of my tongue. “A rough day,” I said.
Concern lit his face. “Can I do something to help?”
I could imagine it. I would ask for a hug and then wriggle closer, put my breath against his neck and my breasts against his chest. Then he’d be in the back office with his pants around his ankles, having an afternoon he would never forget.
I really was bad to imagine it, but my skin was still raw and his admiration was a balm. What would it feel like to be that girl even for an afternoon? “I’ll be fine. I’ve got to run.”
“Okay.”
He drew the word out, stalling. Maybe he sensed how close he had come to rapture. It wasn’t worth the price. I wished I could tell him. Even for free.
“But if you need anything…”
“I’ll call you,” I lied.
I leaned against the satin-covered wall as the elevator took me up. The glass bubbles that held the security cameras reflected my progress down the hallway. I keyed the combination into the keypad and pushed open the heavy door, pretending not to mind that this felt more like a gilded prison than a home—at least it was safe.
Once inside, I breathed out a sigh of relief and threw my keys on the kitchen bar.
A flash of black caught my eye. I turned, but a large body already held me in its bruising grip. The second asshole flanked me from the other side, though it would only have taken one to subdue me. None, really, considering who else would be in the room.
“How have you been, sweetheart?” came the voice from my nightmares.
I had mastered this. For years, I had trained for this moment, to respond coolly, act casually. But not now, not so soon after the humiliation at the bookstore. Henri’s gravelly voice rubbed salt into my wounds. At one time he’d been my savior. Now he was just a pimp.
He strolled out of the shadows, his pale, strong face impassive. High cheekbones and white-blond hair spoke of a Nordic ancestry, though his accent was slight. As usual, he wore a three-piece suit, all in black except the vest and tie in matching teal.
How did he get in? How did he know where I lived? He shouldn’t even have been searching for me. I had quit the life, and he had agreed at the time, but that had been a lie. The question of how was superfluous, because here he was. The question of why was too obvious to bear; I made him an awful lot of money. Now I saw. His return was inevitable, like trying to keep the ocean off the beach. Maybe for a time it would leave, but it would always come back.
Thick fingers cut into my arms, but I flipped my hair out of my face in a charade of unconcern. “I went shopping.”
Henri gave me a detached perusal, inspecting his wares. “You look like a secretary.”
“I’m a professional,” I managed drily. And it was true, just not of the business variety. A hundred men in Chicago’s upper echelon could attest to what a pro I was. “What are you doing here?”