Gretchen sat eating a bowl of cereal in the tiny portion of the apartment designated as the kitchen. She was dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants. Unlike the night before, she now wore makeup and her hair was up in a ponytail. The oddly nak*d cat rubbed against the leg of her pants, begging for attention.
“Headed out this morning?” Brontë asked in a friendly voice.
“Yup.” Gretchen picked up her bowl and went to the sink. “Off to work.”
Brontë sat down at the small kitchen table. “Work? But I thought you were a ghostwriter.”
“I am. I have a friend who owns a coffee shop. I barista to supplement my income and help him out.”
Brontë smiled. “I wish your friend was hiring. I wouldn’t mind supplementing my own income.”
Gretchen snorted, dropping her spoon into the sink and placing her bowl on the floor. Igor ran over at it immediately and began to lap up the milk. “He’s always hiring. I have to warn you, though, he pays me off the books. He’d probably do the same for you.”
“I don’t mind. I need something to do.”
The other woman gave her a sympathetic look. “Trying to get your mind off your ex, huh?”
“Am I that obvious?”
“No, of course not,” Gretchen said. “I’m pretty good at figuring people out. Like I figured that since your eyes were all red and puffy from crying, you probably missed him.”
Brontë touched her face, blushing. “Gotcha. At any rate, if you’d like the company, I could use the money and the distraction.”
“Of course. Cooper’d love to have you. Do you have a white shirt to work in?”
“I think so.” It probably was Gucci or something equally expensive and ridiculous. She thought of Logan briefly. Wouldn’t he just hate that she was wearing the designer clothes he’d bought for her and serving drinks? “Give me ten minutes and I’ll get dressed.”
***
For a week straight, Logan had called the consultant that he’d left at the Kansas City diner. Every day, the answer was the same. Brontë hadn’t come back to work. She hadn’t called.
She certainly hadn’t called Logan. It was driving him crazy, too.
Logan rubbed a hand over his face wearily. He hadn’t slept as well without Brontë there. His empty bed just felt wrong, as if it were missing something vital. His apartment, too. He’d run across a stack of books she’d left in the library for him. Real books, not the fakes he’d had lining the shelves because he’d been too busy to bother. She’d cleared the false fronts out of one of his shelves and had begun to fill it with her favorites. He’d found a book on top of the stack with a yellow Post-it stuck to the dust jacket.
The Post-it had a smiley face on it. The book? Plato’s Collected Works.
Seeing that had made his chest ache. She’d clearly been thinking of him when she’d gone shopping. Thinking of him with love.
And he’d been the a**hole who doubted her. Even after everything they’d been through together on the island, he’d still not quite believed she liked him for him, not his money. When she’d gone, she’d left behind the necklace he’d bought her and taken only her clothes. He suspected that if she could have left those behind without going nak*d, she would have done that, too.
She truly didn’t want his money. Just him. Except now she didn’t want him at all. He felt like an ass. And he wanted her back, because he wanted to explain himself. To try to explain why he’d done something that was clearly so hurtful to her.
But she wasn’t anywhere.
Logan called his private investigator again. “Any leads?”
“Nothing. No tickets purchased at the airport. If she’s gone back to Kansas City, she hasn’t flown. Maybe she hitched a ride with a friend.”
But Brontë didn’t know anyone in the city other than him and his friends. Worry made him grit his teeth. If anything happened to her, he’d go mad.
He needed her back. She was the only thing that felt right in his life anymore.
***
One Week Later
“I am ready for the day to be over,” Brontë said with a smile at Cooper and Gretchen as she finished the whip on a soy mocha latte. “How’s our tip jar looking?”
Gretchen leaned over the counter and peered at the tip jar. “Fat enough to order a pizza tonight. We could watch some total chick movies. You in the mood?”
“I am,” Brontë said with a nod. “As long as it’s not Pretty Woman. Something New Yorky.”
“Maid in Manhattan?” Gretchen teased.
Brontë shot her a look. “Very funny.”
“Cloverfield?” suggested Cooper. “I have it on DVD. I could bring it over.”
“Not exactly a chick flick, Cooper,” Gretchen said, tossing a hand towel over her shoulder. “And you’re not exactly a chick.”
Cooper flushed at her tease, heading back to the counter when a new customer lined up. Brontë winced at the adoring look that Cooper cast at Gretchen before smiling at the customers. After a week of working at Cooper’s Cuppa, two things had become extremely obvious to her: one, that Cooper was one of the nicest guys she had ever met anywhere, and two, that he was carrying a major torch for Gretchen.
A torch that Gretchen seemed determined to ignore.
“How about 300?” Gretchen asked, pulling out a mug and drying it with her towel. “That’s practically a chick flick, considering it’s filled with oiled-up beefcake. It’s not New Yorky, but with all that man-meat, does it matter?”
“Works for me,” Brontë said. “Want to invite Audrey?”
Gretchen shook her head. “She can’t. A certain someone is keeping her busy on a secret project.”
“Oh?” Brontë feigned casualness, even though her heart sped up at the thought. “What sort of project?”
The redhead said nothing, just continued to wipe mugs dry.
“Gretchen?”
“Don’t get too excited. It’s just business reports. Apparently her boss is skipping a lot of meetings lately, so she has to listen to recordings and recap them for him so he doesn’t miss out on anything.” She gave Brontë a pointed look. “Don’t read too much into that.”
“I won’t,” Brontë promised, but her mind was already racing. Why was Logan missing meetings? Was he all right? She squelched the rising worry and forced herself to focus. “So, a movie tonight?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Gretchen said. “I want to stop somewhere first and pick up a donation.”
“Donation?”
“Yeah. I pick up used books and take them in to a local retirement home.”
“Oh, Gretchen, that’s so sweet.”
Gretchen waved a hand, dismissing Brontë’s compliment. “Not so sweet. I started doing it when I kept getting so many author copies of my ghostwritten books. I didn’t want them, so I donated them to my nana’s nursing home. I didn’t realize when I first went that so few of the elderly get out, so I bring them books. I can’t imagine sitting around all day staring at the wall.”
Brontë smiled. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I love the idea and I want to help.”
“Good, because Audrey bailed on me. She’s working late, which means you and I get to go and pick up a few boxes from an estate sale. Someone told her there were two boxes to pick up and she volunteered us to go in her place.”
An order popped up on the screen, and Brontë moved to the blender to prepare the drink. “Your sister’s very dedicated to her job.”
“Eh. She likes working for that soulless bastard.”
Brontë bristled a little at Gretchen’s dismissive tone. “He’s not a soulless bastard.”
“Says the now proud owner of a diner,” Gretchen teased.
Brontë flushed, turning the blender on so she wouldn’t have to hear more about it. Perhaps she shouldn’t have shared so much of her story with Gretchen. The woman was fun to live with, and funny, but she had a caustic sense of humor and absolutely zero patience for anything related to Logan Hawkings. He kept Audrey hopping, apparently, and Gretchen resented it.
Brontë handed the blended drink to a customer with a smile, struggling to hide her heartache. After a few days, the pain had dulled into an ever-present ache that triggered tears at the slightest thought of Logan. Unfortunately for her, almost everything seemed to inspire thoughts of Logan. She and Gretchen had gone out for drinks the night before, and when someone at the bar had ordered a hurricane, she’d nearly burst into tears.
The girls working the evening shift came in to Cooper’s Cuppa, and Brontë and Gretchen left the counter, heading to the back room to take off their aprons and count out their tips. As Brontë stuffed her apron into her locker, Gretchen pulled out her phone and checked her text messages, then sighed. “I have the address for Audrey’s pickup. You ready to haul some books a few blocks? She says it’s two boxes.”
Brontë pretended to flex her muscles. “Ready.”
“Let’s go, then. The place should be empty. Audrey says the key’s under the mat.”
***
Hunter strolled through the empty, silent town house, regarding it with an eye long-used to appraising at a glance. He mentally sized up the asking price, tallying all the things that would make it a prize—the luxurious décor, the reputation of the prior owner, the fact that it was a historical building, and the number one thing that always made his interest perk: location. The Upper East Side was a great one.
This town house, he knew, would command several million on the market . . . provided he bothered to put it up for sale. It was a lovely gem of a home, and one of the Brotherhood might be interested in it. Griffin, perhaps, he thought, examining the Victorian wainscoting. An elegant townhouse would be something he’d be in the market for. Reese wanted it for a director friend of his, but Brotherhood came first. He’d probably offer to Griffin to see if he was interested, and if not, talk to Reese’s friend.
Hunter stopped and cocked his head, listening. Someone had entered the town house.
At the sound of voices, he paused in the foyer of the enormous home. Out of habit, he moved into a shadowy alcove, lest they catch him unawares and stop to stare at him. Even after years of being a scarred, ugly bastard, he was still bothered by the expressions people made at the sight of his face. It was easier to just blend in with the shadows until they were gone. He waited, his ears straining to determine who was there. The only people he’d expected to stop by were Logan’s assistant, who’d insisted on picking up some of his books for a donation, and the movers who’d come to clean out the rest of what was left in the house.
He’d thought the place would be empty, so it would be a perfect time for him to inspect it. He hadn’t realized someone else would be coming in, much less two women.
There was a shuffle of footsteps, and then the sound of a box thumping onto the ground.