Picking up the tab was nothing if he could deliver what Clay needed.
Cam wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin, then set down his fork and knife for a break from the food. “I’ll put you out of your misery. My guys found him. All those stories Liam was telling about real estate in the Bahamas? You were onto something.”
Clay’s eyes lit up, and a spark of anticipation ran through him. Could it be this simple? That he’d been found, coincidentally, in the very place where Liam had randomly been asked to buy a condo? “He’s in the Bahamas?”
Cam scoffed, and waved a big hand. “No. That’d be too easy. What world do you live in? The land of coincidence? He’s not in the Bahamas, but you were right to put all those clues together from what this f**ker did. He’s taking pictures of homes.”
“Exactly what he was doing when he was in San Francisco,” Clay added, raising an eyebrow in question.
Clay had supplied Cam with the clues, tracking down every last one Julia had ever told him about her ex. He’d shot homes for realtors. His niche behind the camera was making rooms look much bigger, and Dillon had told Julia on their first date that someday he’d be sipping a drink in the Bahamas. Clay had added up those details, alongside Liam’s unexpected recon work, and Charlie’s brief comment at the cafe on Sunday, and went with a hunch that Dillon might be in the islands snapping shots for scams.
Cam tapped his nose with his index finger. “Bingo. Because here’s the thing about men like that who run scams. They tend to fall back on old habits. They do what works. Whether it’s taking pictures, or conning money. And he seems to have gotten in good with some of the scam artists on a certain island, trying to hustle money selling time-share condos that don’t really exist. His job is to take the pictures of the one good condo, make them look majestic, and the other guys peddle the properties that don’t really exist.”
“But where is he?” Clay asked, because that was all that mattered, and he damn near wanted to cross his fingers with hope, but he wasn’t a finger crosser. He was a man who knew the law, and knew that when you ran afoul of it there were certain islands where it was better or worse for you to be.
He hoped to hell that Dillon was in one of those countries that would be worse for Dillon.
“Can you say Montego Bay? Because if you can, I’ve got the address for where Dillon Whittaker is living now,” Cam said, and slapped a piece of paper on the table.
Clay grinned, a pure, wicked grin broke across his face as he picked up paper. “God bless Jamaica and its fine extradition laws with the United States of America. Looks like someone is going to need to pay the taxman.”
Taxes were a bitch.
* * *
“So what’s your verdict?”
“Uncross your legs,” Gayle said.
“I hardly think uncrossing my legs is the answer to all my romantic woes,” Julia said after telling her stylist most of the details of her situation.
Gayle winked at her in the mirror as Julia followed orders. “I don’t know, sweetie. Kinda sounds like uncrossing your legs has been working pretty well for you with this guy.”
Julia laughed. “Fine, you got me on that.”
“Champion race horse in the sack, right?”
She covered her mouth with her hand daintily, pretending to be shocked. “Did I say that?”
“No. But it sure as hell sounds like it, from the stories you’ve told me about his prowess.”
“Prowess doesn’t even begin to cover it. But that’s not what we’re talking about. I need to know what you think I should do next. A woman can’t make this kind of decision without consulting her stylist.”
“Don’t consult me,” Gayle said, brandishing her silver scissors playfully in the mirror.
“Consult the scissors?”
Gayle shook her head. “Ask the ink,” she said, and tapped her bare arm with the silver scissors, pointing to the cursive letters on her arm spelling out I want to be adored. Julia had always admired the tattoo, even more so because Gayle’s wish for love had come true. Julia leaned in close to the tattoo and whispered, as if offering a plaintive plea to an oracle. “Ink, what should I do?”
“Allow me to translate for the ink,” Gayle said as she resumed snipping hair. “Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you forgive him?”
When phrased like that, the answer seemed patently obvious. “Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.
“And most of all, does he adore you?”
Julia tried to suppress a smile, as if she could hold in all that she felt by not admitting the pure and honest truth. But she blurted it out anyway. “So much.”
Gayle gave her an approving nod. “One more question. Do you have any idea how devastated I will be to no longer do your hair if you move to New York? Fortunately, I still go there every few months to cut Jane Black’s hair,” she said, mentioning the Grammy-winning rock singer.
“Name-dropper.”
“I’ll see if I can squeeze you in after Ms. Black.”
“Watch it. I’m going to be famous now, too. You’ll have to start calling me Ms. Purple Snow Globe.”
“You do know that sounds like the name of a vibrator, right?”
“Which makes it an even better name for a drink. Because when you drink one, it makes you feel like a vibrator does,” Julia said, and cracked herself up, along with her stylist.
“That should be the marketing slogan. But you don’t need a vibrator with your champion racehorse.”
“If I take him back,” Julia added, emphasizing that one word. If. Because she had promised herself a week to make this decision.
Gayle rolled her eyes. “A woman’s stylist always knows.”
* * *
All night Julia was tempted to text Clay. To let him know what happened with Farrell Spirits. To tell him which way she was leaning. But she also knew she needed to give this a week. The time apart was less about him, and more about her. It was about what she wanted in life, but more so, what she needed. As the days had passed with necessary silence, her heart had become clearer. She trusted him. She’d become sure of that. The question remained, though–did she trust herself? Did she have enough faith in her own gut to make the right choice when it came to men? When it came to love?
As she settled into bed, she glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It blared one-thirty in garish red. Tomorrow would be Saturday, and her self-imposed Clay exile was nearing an end. Only twenty-four more hours until she gave him her answer.