I’ve heard of the Hudson’s Helps Gala. Ten thousand dollars a ticket, and they donate the proceeds to a cluster of charities. My jaw drops. “You want me to be your date?”
Isabella is watching with way too much interest. She cups her hand to her mouth and moves it up and down in a blowjob motion. I evil-eye her. Didn’t she say something about having to get ready for work?
Blake bares his teeth in a shark’s smile. “I’ll try not to make it too painful for you.”
Isabella mimes spanking, with great sweeps of her arm and splayed-out fingers. Oh my God, I am going to murder her. My cheeks blaze with heat, and I clap both my hands over my mouth so I don’t laugh. Blake whirls around to see what I’m looking at, but by the time he’s turned around, she’s chatting animatedly with Edna and Clarita.
He turns back and looks quizzically at me. “You okay there, Little Red Riding Hoodlum?”
“Oh, har de har. Yes, Big Bad Wolf of Wall Street, I’m just ducky.”
I hold up the contract, quickly scanning it. Who am I even kidding? At the salary he’s offering, it could say “Required to give birth to a litter of kittens” and I’d sign.
Which I do. Then I hand it to Henry, who tucks it in his briefcase.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at eight a.m. You did see the part in the contract where if you arrive to work more than five minutes late, you’re fired?”
I manage a pained smile. “Hard to miss.”
I’m going to have to put on my sneakers every morning and set out early enough that I arrive by 7 a.m. I’ll walk rather than take the subway, because with my luck, the subway will break down. I am not giving myself another chance to Winona this. I’ll change into my work shoes when I get there. On the bright side, that will give me time to get a head start on whatever tasks His Dark Majesty piles onto me for the day.
“Aha! I knew there was a dog in this building!” An accusing voice slices through the air. Oh, hell. It’s our landlord, Quinton, barreling through the crowd and pointing triumphantly at Isabella and Xena. Xena, who gets along with everybody, bares her teeth at him and flattens her ears.
Isabella looks at me in alarm. Desperate, I point to Blake. “It’s his. She’s just holding the dog for him. Like someone holding drugs for a dealer, except drugs aren’t legal and dogs are. Anyway, it’s his dog, that’s my point.”
Xena’s fate hangs in the balance. I stare at the most heartless man I’ve ever met and wait for him to drop the axe.
Blake nods at Quinton and manages a pained smile. “Yep. Sure is.”
I let out my breath in a whoosh of relief.
“Yeah, we’re super-close friends,” Isabella says drily. “Like this.” She holds up her hand with two fingers wrapped around each other. “I’m best buds with Blakey-poo here.” Blake’s face twitches at the nickname. “I dogsit for him all the time.”
“Oh, hello, sir, I didn’t notice you here, sorry.” Quinton snaps to attention, and his voice suddenly goes all obsequious. Ha. I knew Blake knew my landlord. Quinton just practically confessed to opening the door for Blake to deliver that stink-pizza to my apartment.
“Take Rover, will you?” Blake says to Henry, who obligingly accepts the leash from Isabella. He walks Xena out of the parking lot, towards the limo that’s double parked and waiting for them at the curb.
“Rover? She’s a girl,” my landlord says suspiciously.
“Why are you checking out his dog’s private parts, you perv?” Isabella demands as Henry climbs into the back of the car.
Quinton’s face flushes a dull red. “I… You…you know this building doesn’t allow dogs!” he splutters. He shoots me an angry look. “And I know she’s your dog. I don’t know what you two girls are up to, but I’m not going to lose my job over some mutt.” He stomps off, muttering to himself.
I wait until he’s gone before I turn back to Blake. “Come back in half an hour with Xena, and we’ll smuggle her in through the back door.”
Blake pulls a cell phone from his pocket and hands it to me. “I will be calling you in half an hour on the dot to return your dog. This is your work phone – again. You need to have this phone with you 24/7. And you need to answer within five rings when I call. It’s in your contract. Violate the contract, your job goes bye-bye. Any questions?”
Is Blakedroid powered by batteries, or is it fueled entirely by spite and bile?
“I take your baffled silence as a no?” he says impatiently.
My roiling emotions swell up inside me. I shouldn’t push my luck, shouldn’t ask questions, but when have I ever taken the sensible course?
“I’m just trying to understand you. You’re giving me whiplash. I mean, you practically bit Thérèse’s head off for hiring me, then you invited me to have lunch with you that same day, then you fired me. Now you’re hiring me back, and acting like you want to fire me again at the same time. But you covered for me with the landlord just now.”
His dark brows draw together. He’s even handsome when he scowls. There’s something scary-sexy about it.
There’s also something wrong with me. “Scary-sexy”? Who thinks like that?
“I invited you to lunch because I was already in the cafeteria and I thought I’d make an attempt to be civil. And I fired you because you’re a walking vortex of chaos.”
“Oh, whatever,” I snap, stung. “I’ve been called worse things by better people.” I turn to flounce off.
Of course, he has to ruin my dramatic exit.
“Winona?” he calls out.
“Yes?” I pause and twist around.
“Don’t make me regret this any more than I already am.”
Chapter Fourteen
Blake
“Tell me where the paintings are,” I say to my sister in a low voice that’s meant to be threatening. I throw in a scary scowl.
The lunchtime din of Norfolk’s buzzes in the background. We’re waiting to be seated for lunch. Tamara is wearing headphones, listening to a story on her tablet with a frown of intense concentration. The Sunni Sunni Rangers are rescuing a puppy or something.
Alice smiles back at me blithely, unafraid.
I short-sheeted her bed last night. I snuck plastic spiders into her coffee at breakfast this morning and put chili powder in her pancakes. She just won’t break.
She pretends to zip her lips shut and throw away the key.
“Come on!” I growl. This is getting annoying. “They’re my actual property, Alice.”
She shrugs. “The house is half mine. The paintings are half mine. Would you like half of each painting back? And should I cut them vertically or horizontally?”
“I think you know the answer to that question. It involves four-letter words that I don’t want to say in case Tamara is secretly listening to us.” I glance at Tamara, who’s glowering at the screen, muttering encouragement to the rangers.
“Nothing would surprise me. My child’s an evil genius. And I’ll only tell you where they are if you promise not to put them back in the dining room.”
“Nope,” I say stubbornly.