No such luck. The sun continued to mock her with its cheery glow and comforting warmth. She was not comforted. She had sweaty boobs and nothing to wear.
Fuck the sun.
As they were about ready to call it for the day and go find her car, Celeste’s hand on her arm and sudden death grip halted them where they walked, causing grunts and grumbles from the people behind them. “Hold up,” her sister said, hope in her tone. “Look!” She pointed with her coffee-cup hand to the mannequin that was being dressed in the window by a shopkeeper.
Eva’s heart began to pound in her chest. It was perfect.
Celeste released her arm and yanked open the shop door. “Strip that mannequin!” she ordered.
Eva rolled her eyes as she followed her sister inside. Celeste always had a flair for the dramatic.
So after allowing her sister and the shopgirl to play Barbie with her, Eva handed over her credit card and walked out of the store with a whole new outfit that she was sure was going to make Scott’s jaw drop (and maybe later that night, his pants too?).
But even after she tugged on the dark gray tapered pants that hugged her in all the right places and made her ass look like a million bucks, she couldn’t hide the unease that trembled through her. The black belt cinched around the waist of her goldenrod silk sleeveless blouse never quelled the nerves either. Not even the Raspberry Rebel lip tint she slathered on in the hallway mirror helped with her confidence.
She was completely ill-equipped to go on a first date. Even if she’d already slept with the man, this was still their first date. It’d been over a decade since she’d been on a first date, and even then, she couldn’t be sure she’d done very well.
“You’ve already established that you’re sexually compatible and he has a kid who gets along with your kids,” Celeste said, holding a glass of wine in her hand and leaning her slender frame against the wall as she watched a shaky-handed Eva slip into a pair of leopard print peep-toe pumps—a purchase that Celeste had insisted she make that morning. “I don’t understand why you’re so nervous. You’ve gotten through all the tough stuff. The rest is now gravy.”
Gravy …
Well, gravy or not, she was a sweaty, hot and frazzled mess by the time she got her butt into the cab and headed back downtown to meet Scott. There was no backing out now. He’d texted her when she was just a few blocks away saying he was still in his work meeting but hoped it wasn’t going to run much longer. Then he’d followed that message up with a bunch of kissy-face emojis.
Was all this nervousness for naught?
He really was a sweet guy. Maybe she just needed to take a few deep, grounding breaths before she went in. She paid the cab driver and stepped out in front of the bar. The big, carved wooden sign to the new Seattle hotspot hung over the heavy double oak doors: PRIME SPORTS BAR AND GRILL. Not only did it have close to a dozen televisions hung throughout, broadcasting various sports games, but it was a popular place for business lunches, ladies’ nights and everyone’s favorite—music bingo.
The world of advertising didn’t interest her at all, but her curiosity was no less piqued when Scott mentioned this whale of a client he had not only landed but was in charge of keeping happy. Who could be so important that they needed to have their ass kissed by someone like Scott? He seemed like the kind of guy who should be getting his ass kissed, not doing the lip service.
Scott’s Tacoma was parked out front in one of the few, coveted street parking spots, which prompted her to wonder if they were going to stick around Prime for drinks or head somewhere quieter and more intimate, perhaps with a dark corner where the only light came from candles or dimly lit sconces.
She double-checked her lipstick in the tinted windows of Scott’s vehicle, tucked her hair behind her ears and then glanced through the big window into the restaurant in search of her hot date.
She had no intention of disrupting his business meeting, but it would be cool to see if she recognized his important client. Maybe the guy’s face was on a billboard or something. Perhaps a bus bench or a television commercial.
Ducking behind a column that held up a streetlight just outside, she scanned the interior of the restaurant, looking for a sexy man with dark hair and a slightly crooked nose.
She spotted him, and the smile that cracked on her face made the heat in her cheeks travel south.
Only she didn’t just see Scott and his handsome smile or the twinkle in his dark eyes. It was who he was sitting with, who he was laughing with.
The blood pumping through her veins slowly went from sizzling with desire and anticipation to ice-cold with fear.
She was frozen in place, with concrete in her feet, stone in her gut and a frigid fist violently squeezing her heart. She couldn’t breathe. She. Could. Not. Breathe.
It was Todd.
Scott was smiling, Scott was laughing, Scott was joking with Todd.
With her ex.
The ex who had broken her down so much, she was still picking up the pieces of her soul. He had pulverized the entire entity of who she was into such minuscule fragments, there were small gaps and chips that would never be filled as she struggled each day to tape and glue the shards of herself back together. Todd had destroyed who she was as a person, a woman, a wife, a mother, and a friend. He’d alienated her from her family and friends. Now all she could do was hope that the pieces she did find, the pieces she managed to stick back together, would eventually be enough. Be whole enough to feel somewhat human, somewhat normal, somewhat like her old self.
He was demon in the flesh who haunted her day and night, and even though she had a restraining order against him, she knew that Todd didn’t really give a flying fuck about that kind of thing. If he wanted to hurt her, he could, and he would. Todd was above the law. He always had been.
With the little bit of energy she had left, she spun herself around and out of sight of the window, plastering her back against the cool concrete column, her chest now heaving, struggling to draw in each much-needed breath as the fist around her heart and the anvil on her lungs began to squeeze and press down even harder.
Maybe her eyes were just playing tricks on her.
That couldn’t be Todd.
Not with Scott. Not her Scott.
She knew if things between her and Scott progressed further that eventually one day he might meet her evil ex. She’d just hoped that she would have been able to control the environment in which they met. But like this … no. Never.
Todd was Scott’s client.
Todd was Scott’s boss.
This couldn’t be happening. She had to check again. Maybe she’d actually fallen while getting out of the cab, hit her head on the curb and was currently in a coma in the hospital, dreaming about her demonic ex laughing like old pals with her new boyfriend—or whatever Scott was.
Or maybe it was just a man who looked like Todd. He was, after all, tall, dark and handsome—but so were a lot of men. So was Scott. Only unlike Scott, who seemed to be kind and decent and handsome beneath the skin, Todd was nothing but pure garbage once you pulled back the gossamer-thin veil of humanity he presented to the world.
Hesitation filled her movements as she peered back around the column into the restaurant again.
Please don’t let it be Todd. Anybody but Todd. Satan himself would be better than Todd.
Son of a bitch.
Her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. And she was almost certain she wasn’t in a coma.