Sitting down on the stool in front of the foot spa and Mrs. Clark, she reached for a towel. “Have you picked your color, Mrs. Clark?”
The elderly woman smiled, causing the corners of her eyes to form deep creases. She held up a bottle of vibrant orange. “I’m going daring this time. It’s called Orange Dreamsicle.”
“Sounds perfect.” She gently lifted Mrs. Clark’s feet out of the foot spa and dried them with a towel.
“So you’re seeing that nice Scott Dixon next door, huh?”
Eva paused her hands and glanced over her shoulder at Mrs. Ferguson.
“Oh, she can’t hear us. Even if she didn’t have that fan-thing going in her ears, she’s as deaf as a mole rat is blind.” She leaned forward and rested her hand on Eva’s arm. “It’s just us, dear. You can tell me. I won’t say a word, I promise.”
Eva resisted the urge to make a pfsst noise.
Yeah, right. Mrs. Ferguson wouldn’t say a word … until she got home. Then she’d be on the horn to half the block.
“Mrs. Clark … ” But she wasn’t able to finish before the back door swung open and in walked the gossip-topic himself, all sexy and professional-looking in his long-sleeved white button-down, his gray trousers and his silver tie. But his eyes were what caused her to stand up and approach him. Real, deep-seated fear stared back at her.
“Well, now,” Mrs. Clark said behind her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him, ignoring Mrs. Clark.
He gripped her by the elbow and brought her back outside. “Not here.”
She poked her head back into the salon. “Just a moment, Mrs. Clark.”
“Take all the time you need, dear,” Mrs. Clark sang, her tone knowing and her eyes mischievous. If that woman had a cell phone, she’d probably be Tweeting about the fact that Scott had just shown up on Eva’s doorstep and hauled her outside.
But she couldn’t worry about that right now. What made her blood run cold was the lack of color in Scott’s face and the increasing look of panic in his eyes.
“He knows,” he said, once she shut the back door. “He knows. He came to the office today and confronted me and then Remy fired me.”
Her head began to shake, and she found herself muttering, “No, no, this can’t be happening.” Over and over again until Scott grabbed her by the shoulders and then drew her in tight to his chest. Holding her. Keeping her safe until she stopped shaking. “Breathe, baby. Breathe.”
She did as she was told.
Once she’d calmed down a bit, he held her by the shoulders but pulled away to look her in the eyes. “Eva, babe, listen to me.”
She blinked at him, but everything in her head was fuzzy.
“It’s going to be okay. I called Liam on my way home. We’re going to go to the police station this afternoon and submit all the evidence we have. Todd won’t be a threat for long.”
“He’ll just post bail or get one of his rich friends to post bail. Then he’ll be a threat again.” She was shaking her head again, her vision blurry, Scott’s face just a bunch of mottled shapes and colors in front of her. “One of Todd’s best friends is a cop down at the precinct. Todd will know what we’ve done before we even get into our cars. I need to leave. Go get the kids from school and leave town. Somewhere where he won’t find us. Otherwise, we’ll never be safe.”
Tears stung her eyes as the fear bled through her body, and she began to shake.
“Oh, baby.” He grabbed her and pulled her close. She trembled uncontrollably in his arms. “It’s okay, babe. It’s okay. He won’t hurt you. You or the boys. I won’t let him.” He rubbed her back and whispered shushing noises to soothe her, but they were of little comfort. “I’m going to call Remington Barker, the CEO of Dynamic Creative, and let him know what’s going on. His stupid maggot of a son is running the company into the ground, and whether I get my job back or not, Remington needs to know.”
Hiccupping a sob, she pulled out of his arms and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I need to call Celeste, have her pick the boys up from school and keep them. She lives next door to a retired police officer, and he’s aware of our situation.”
He nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.” His hands ran up and down her arms.
“Sh-should I call the police? They can’t all be under Todd’s thumb. Maybe I’ll talk to a good one, an honest one.”
His lips twisted in thought. “Let’s wait to hear from Liam.”
Her eyes drifted to the closed door. She needed to get back to her clients. “Okay.”
“I’m going to go call Remington, then I’ll come back over and sit with you so you’re not alone. We’ll wait until Liam calls, then we’ll meet him down at the police station. You can point out Todd’s lackey, and we’ll make sure we avoid him. Sound good?”
Inhaling deeply through her nose, she bobbed her head, her brain not really computing everything he’d said but doing its best to make sense of it all. “Okay.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, his scent and warmth a balm to help heal the slashes in her heart that the terrible news had created. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered against her lips.
All she could do was nod. “I … I need to get back inside.”
“Okay. I’ll go call Remington, then I’ll be back. I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”
She didn’t say another word but stepped back inside, her heart in her throat, her blood ice-cold and her stomach so small and twisted, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to keep anything down again.
Todd knew she was seeing Scott.
The man was a jealous, possessive psychopath.
He was coming for her.
“Well, I appreciate your call, Scott, I truly do,” Remington Barker said into the phone with a pained sigh. “Truth be told, I’ve had my own set of concerns about young Remy at the helm of Dynamic Creative. It was my baby, after all, and I thought that my baby would take it to the next level.” His tone turned disappointed. “A shame I was wrong, but such is life.”
“I’m not calling to beg for my job back, sir,” Scott said, sitting at his kitchen table and twiddling a pen around and around through his fingers. His nerves were teetering on the edge, and his stomach had formed a hollow pit. “I can find other jobs. But I respect you, sir. I respect what you’ve created, and I know that you wouldn’t want the reputation of your company sullied by the fact that you represented a lowlife like Todd Fletcher.”
“No, I wouldn’t. You’re completely right. Todd Fletcher needs to go.”
Straight to hell.
He’d debated telling Remington Barker about what they planned to take to the police, but in the end, he decided it was a good idea. Remington Barker had more integrity in one of his few remaining gray hairs than Todd Fletcher or Remy Barker had combined. Mr. Barker could be trusted with this information. And the sooner the company kicked Fletcher Holdings to the curb, the better. The last thing they needed was to get tied up in a scandal. And what Todd Fletcher had his greedy mitts saturated in was certainly scandal-worthy.