“—and also Le Chateau.”
Now she shrieks. It’s a fairly professional-sounding shriek, but still. “Le Chateau is your competitor! Why would she mystery shop—oh…” She closes down to neutral as fast as she ramped up to livid. It’s impressive, and I’d appreciate it more if Declan weren’t shredding my heart.
Scribbling furiously, her next words come out like machine gun bullets. “By having the same person evaluate both high-end properties, you get an even sense of the failings and mastery in each.”
“Indeed. And we need someone who can hold their cover,” James says with a cordial tone that makes me question my sanity. Wasn’t he just being an ass**le? How am I supposed to keep track of the villain in here if he keeps changing his personality?
“I held my cover,” Amanda mutters. Greg gives her a dirty look. Amanda gives him double back. He blanches.
“Yes, you did,” James notes. “And after Shannon successfully finishes both properties, you can be the next evaluator in three months’ time. Your own mastery did not go unnoticed.”
“But you’re not really g*y, right?” Andrew blurts out, his eyes on Amanda’s br**sts.
Awkward.
James rolls his eyes. “My sons need to retake their sexual harassment training, I see.”
“It’s not sexual harassment,” Declan and I say in unison.
Oh, thank God. He understands. He understands! I close my eyes and inhale slowly, then open them to give him a big, friendly, warm, loving grin.
He stares back with green ice cubes.
Uh.
“The mess is unconventional, I’ll admit,” James adds, pushing contracts to Greg. “But Ms. Jacoby isn’t a known entity in the circles we inhabit—”
Translation: I’m a nobody, so he doesn’t have to worry that I’ll be recognized at a competitor’s luxury property even though Jessica has been tweeting about me to all the cyberspace rubberneckers in Boston.
“—and I trust the evaluations will give us valuable insight into gaining a competitive edge.”
“In other words, you’re giving me more responsibility, and expanding the contract with Consolidated Evalu-shop?” I ask, and this time it’s my eyes that are on Declan while asking James the question.
“Yes,” Declan answers me. Not James. “You’re very good at living a double life and are quick on your feet when it comes to lying.” He cuts his eyes away. “That will suit you well in business.”
No. No no no no no.
Amanda pivots and coughs, the strain getting to her. Andrew’s eyes ping between me, Declan, her chest, and his dad. Greg just looks constipated, eyebrows bunched like a caterpillar in heat as he reviews contracts that have been read so many times they might as well be the Bible.
“And,” James adds, stuffing folders into his briefcase, clearly done, “how’s business?”
The spear aimed from an icy stretch of glacier that is his heart right now hits its target with pinpoint precision. That’s what Jessica tweeted to Declan.
“May I speak with you in the hallway?” I hiss at him, grabbing his forearm. He turns into a marble statue, though emotion flickers in his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and his stiff muscles radiate mixed signals.
“If you wish.” He shakes off my hand, though not with an angry movement. More with a cold precision that somehow is worse.
“We’ll finish negotiations,” James says, eyes twinkling, as if he’s accomplished something. “And it’s good to see you walking around, Ms. Jacoby. Last I heard from Declan, you were bed bound.”
Another sex joke? Are you kidding me? My tongue loosens in my mouth, ready to lash him, when even the venerable James McCormick has the decency to turn red with embarrassment and backtrack.
“I meant your allergic reaction to the stings. That you were in the hospital. In a hospital bed,” he stammers. “My son was very worried.”
“Your son was the only reason I’m here,” I say gently. The amusement is gone from his expression, replaced by a kind of sad intrigue, his body uptight and loose at the same time as if it can’t make up its mind.
But control and authority prevail as his mask reappears and he turns away from me with a dismissive wave. “I’m glad Declan could do what he needed to do in a crisis. That proves he’s matured.”
Andrew’s neck snaps toward his dad, a red fury pouring into his skin so fast it seems he’ll burst. I turn toward Declan to find him in the threshold, one hand curled into a gripping claw on the door’s trim, close to snapping the wood in half.
What the hell is going on? This conversation suddenly has nothing to do with me and Declan, or with Twitterhead Coffin, or with my credit union shop. There’s a subtext here I don’t understand, and it stings.
Declan lets go of the door with a loud smack of his palm against the wood and slowly, with a little too much control, moves out. I can’t even admire the undulating grace of his anger or ask him why he and his dad are speaking in Angry Man Code, a language that seems designed to neuter the other man and stuff his balls down his throat.
But this isn’t just macho bullcrap. James’ comment about Declan and crises and maturing resonates somewhere inside Declan, but he’s wound so tight, and I’m skating on thin ice already.
There’s no way to be open and just ask what’s going on.
He spins around so abruptly that I stagger and fall against the wall, banging my hip on a piece of trim. “What do we need to discuss?”
How could the same man who told me I was beautiful, who put his mouth in places where only speculums have gone, look at me like I’m a gnat that should be swatted out of existence?
“Can we have coffee and talk?” I can’t think of what else to say.
He just blinks. No answer. I stare back, unyielding, even as my mind screams in childlike sadness. Something is broken, and it’s not just me. I didn’t break it. He’s not telling me something and it’s between us, without shape or form, taking up all the known room, and yet it has no name.
“Coffee?” He makes a strangled huffing sound. “How about at one of my stores?” His voice is acid. “I hear we’re testing a new peppermint mocha with wasabi syrup. Oh, wait—you would know better than I do.”
I actually flinch and pull back as if he’s slapped me. If he had, it would be easier. “I-I-I just want to talk. About the pretending to be g*y thing, and the Jessica Coffin thing, and—”