by Nancy Warren
Another couple of floors dropped away. “Me, too.” She heard the note of sadness in her tone. She was sorry she’d ever been so stupid as to think he was different from all the rest.
Three more floors to go and they’d be out of here. Come on.
“I think about you,” he said in a low voice. The intimacy in his tone felt like a caress sliding over her skin.
Floor two lit up. One more to go. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Look. I have a problem.”
“Who doesn’t?”
The elevator was back on the ground and so was she. Enough of her airy pipe dreams about love. She could rely on no one but herself, and the sooner she accepted that, the better.
She stepped out. He walked beside her. “I’m drawn to complicated women.”
“Then you should find some simple ones.”
“You don’t understand. I always fall for wounded doves.”
“So you’re a part-time vet?” She had no idea why she was acting this way, so snappish and snarky. Maybe Deborah’s meltdown had somehow affected her. But the truth was that Rafe made her feel snarky and rude.
They’d stepped out onto Sixth Street in the old warehouse district, which contained a lot of older buildings that had been done up as offices or funky condos.
They passed a Japanese restaurant and then a coffee bar. “Would you stop snapping at me and listen?”
If Deborah, a therapist with a dozen years of training, could lose it, Stephanie really didn’t see why she, a patient with problems of her own, should be polite to a man who had hurt her. “No. I don’t think I will.”
He took hold of her arm, not hard, but if she wanted to shake him off she’d have to make an issue of it. His fingers felt warm against her skin. She looked at him, and was pulled in by the intensity of his gaze. In spite of busy traffic and pedestrians stepping around them, it felt like they were alone. “I saw you and something happened to me. I felt this electricity or something zap between us. Didn’t you?”
She’d never forget that moment in all her life. She’d assumed it was because she was so emotionally screwed up that day that she hadn’t been thinking straight, and that was why seeing him for the first time had given her such an emotional punch. Now he was telling her he’d felt it too?
Exasperation was building within her. Talk was easy.
“Why didn’t you call? Or come by?” There it was. Out. The implication that she’d wanted him to, that she’d been waiting for him to indicate he wanted more from her than one night rolling around on her couch.
He was so rugged and scruffy and fierce looking, but sometimes in his eyes she caught a glimpse of such vulnerability that she wanted to soothe him. Even though he was the one who’d abandoned her.
“You know what I was talking to Deborah about?”
“Yes. You were hitting on her. As per your assignment from Chloe. I do the filing, remember? Also, Deb told me you asked her out. In fact, she was so loud I think she told all of Austin, so yes, I know what you were talking to Deborah about.”
He smiled at that, and his face softened so that she wanted to lean into him and believe things could be different. “I think your boss is smarter than she comes across.”
“Well, she’d have to be.”
He cracked a grin. “You don’t like her?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“The thing is, I do have a problem.”
“Really.” She said it with an edge of sarcasm, but the truth was she was amazed to see him at counseling for whatever reason. He’d seemed like the last man who would admit to weakness.
“I’m drawn to women with problems.”
“Show me a woman who doesn’t have problems and I’ll show you a kid who hasn’t hit puberty.”
He shook his head, impatient, so that his hair caught the light. “To women who need rescuing. That’s why I’ve been staying away from you. I think about you, and I want you, but—”
“But you’re staying away because you think I’m needy and desperate,” she finished for him.
“That’s not—”
If he’d hauled off and slugged her, she couldn’t have felt more flattened. “I’m going to make it easy for you. I don’t need you.” She shook her head. “I have a problem too. I always go for guys who use me and let me down. Looks like we both stayed true to our pattern.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
She wondered how many times in her life she’d heard that line. It was the motto of most of the men in her life. She should get T-shirts made that she could hand out as parting gifts.
“Go. Have a good life.” She made shooing motions with her hands. “I’m going to be fine.”
He looked as though there was more he wanted to say, but he didn’t. Simply stood there looking tough and vulnerable at the same time.
As she walked away, she realized with a start that she’d meant the words. Maybe she’d changed in some quiet but dramatic way in these last weeks. But she felt better than she had in a long time.
And she liked being single and in control of her own destiny. She liked it just fine.
Deborah wanted to floor it when she got her car on the road. Wanted to gun the engine and make the brakes squeal as she rounded corners. Because she recognized how unhealthy that urge was, she held herself to the speed limit with manic determination.
Normally, when she was going anywhere new, she printed out directions from the Internet, but today she’d been too angry to think. Fortunately, she had a street map in the car and it didn’t take her long to find the address of Chloe Flynt, The Breakup Artist.
She’d expected the office to be in some horrible back alley somewhere, but the business address turned out to be in a nice residential neighborhood not unlike Deborah’s own, which only annoyed her more. She pulled into the driveway, feeling aggressive enough to park behind the single vehicle already there. Chloe Flynt wasn’t going anywhere until they’d had a good talk.
She got out of her car, locked it, and stomped up the stairs to the porch. She banged on the door and hit the doorbell at the same time. It was a technique she’d seen in movies, one she’d never, ever performed herself in real life. But she felt like a different woman, the red-hot anger coursing through her vaporizing her usual behavior and manners. One tiny part of Deb’s brain was observing her behavior with clinical interest, as though she might later write a paper on the subject.
When the door didn’t immediately open, she banged on it again and held her finger on the doorbell.
When the door finally opened, she found herself face to face with a young and very beautiful woman. She didn’t realize she’d expected some bitter old harpy. “Are you Chloe Flynt? The Breakup Artist?” she demanded in a loud voice.
“Yes,” the woman shouted. She pointed to where Deborah’s finger was still depressing the button. “You can stop ringing the doorbell now.”
“Oh. Of course.” She removed her finger and the sudden quiet was mildly shocking.
“Did you have an appointment?”
The calm, easy way she spoke refueled Deb’s fury. The woman wasn’t even American, she was British, which seemed to add insult to injury. As though she’d flown thousands of miles for the pleasure of ruining Deb’s practice. “No. I do not have an appointment. My name is Deborah Beaumont.”
It was obvious that the young woman knew who she was, because she said, “Oh, are you?” and then looked her up and down with interest. Chloe looked over her shoulder as though expecting someone else to be with her. “What can I do for you?”
“I believe you know Rafael Escobar.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Also, Stephanie Baxter.”
Chloe frowned. “How do you know Stephanie?”
“Please don’t play games with me, Ms. Flynt.” She tapped her foot against the porch, neatly painted taupe. “Rafe Escobar asked me out.”
“Did he?” The young Brit looked quite pleased. “Are you going?”<
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“Of course not. I want to know why you planted him in my office. I want to know how you dare take money to ruin people’s lives. I want to know why you would play such a cruel trick on someone you don’t even know. I want—”
“What I want is a nice cup of tea. My mother always says there’s nothing like tea to make an awkward conversation easier. Well, until the drinks trolley comes out. Please come in.”
“Tea? This is not a social call.”
The woman looked more amused than terrified. “I had gathered that, yes.”
But she walked off into the house and Deb was left with the option of standing on the porch, leaving, or following her in. She followed.
The house was amazingly neat and orderly, the kitchen spotless. “I can make you a coffee if you’d prefer.”
“No, thank you. Tea is fine.” She felt foolish trying to hold onto her fury while this woman calmly put the kettle on to boil and drew out a teapot, some fancy-looking tea, and china cups.
“Why did you send Rafe to me? Why did you tell him to ask me out?”
There was a pause. The Englishwoman first warmed the blue teapot with a little of the boiling water, then spooned tea out of a can that had a coat of arms on it and into the pot, then poured more boiling water over the leaves. The smooth, confident tea-making, where she’d instinctively followed the proper procedure, gave Deborah a tiny measure of calm.
“I’m afraid that, just like yours, my business requires confidentiality.” She brought the teapot over to the table and then carried over the two pure white cups and saucers. “However, I will just say that Rafe’s asking you out is a complete surprise to me.” She smiled. “I suspect he likes you.”
“But when I went out to give him back my book and confront him about you—”
“I’m really rather surprised that he told you about me.”
She shook her head with impatience. “He didn’t. He was using your business card as a bookmark. He’d forgotten the book, so I went to return it to him. That’s when I saw the card. Then when I got outside to the waiting area, he was talking to Stephanie. They had that look about them of people who know each other well.”
“Yes. That surprised me, too. Stephanie is my assistant, and I promise you I have no clue what she was doing in your office.”
Deb felt as though she’d been slapped. She, who prided herself on her professionalism, had all but blabbed that this person’s employee was one of her clients.
“Do you take milk and sugar? Or lemon?”
“No. Nothing, thank you.”
Chloe poured a stream of fragrant dark tea into the cup, saying, “I’m glad to have a chance to meet you. I read your book, you know. I’m not sure we’re so very different. We just work on different ends of the relationship spectrum.”
No, no, no. They were nothing alike. “You scare me,” Deb said. “You think everything’s so easy. ‘Breaking up is hard to do. We can help,’” she intoned in a fake British accent. “But it’s not easy. I spent twelve years in university learning how to help people—and a big part of that is finding a healthy relationship.”
“Do you have one yourself?”
Deb was momentarily thrown. “Do I have what?”
“A healthy relationship, as you call it.”
“Yes, of course, I—” Suddenly, the headache that she’d barely kept at bay with analgesics bounced into painful, throbbing life. She saw, with the clarity that had been eluding her for months, that in fact her relationship was far from healthy. In fact, it was barely on life support.
How had she not noticed? She and Jordan hadn’t had any true intimacy in months. They barely spoke outside of work. With the publication of the book, and their growing workloads—also courtesy of the book—they rarely saw each other outside of the long hours they spent at the office.
She supposed she’d fooled herself into believing that they were spending most of their time together, but in truth they were colleagues in business, not partners in life.
“That’s not really the issue here,” she managed to say.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been to university for twelve years.” Chloe laughed lightly. “I didn’t make it through the first twelve months, but I have had a lot of relationships. Most of them rotten. And I’ve been involved in a lot of them with my friends. I think if one person’s unhappy enough to end the relationship, then it needs to end. What do you think?”
“I think I really need a painkiller. I’ve got a bad headache.”
“Just a sec. I’ll see what I can find.” Chloe dropped a hand on her shoulder as she went by. “Drink up your tea.”
She did as she was told. It was nice for a change to have somebody else looking after her. For so long she’d been the one dispensing advice and comfort, tissues and support.
Chloe returned with a bottle and shook out two pills.
“Thank you,” Deb said.
The doorbell rang.
“Lord, it’s like Paddington Station around here today,” Chloe said, and went back to the front of the house. Deb tried to gather her wits and wondered vaguely what she’d hoped to accomplish by coming here, when she heard a very familiar voice from the doorway. “Is Dr. Beaumont here?”
“Yes. In the kitchen. This way.”
Jordan’s voice was so dear to her, she realized as she waited for him to come and get her. How had she let herself become so distant? What must he think of her after her horrid outburst?
She saw him coming toward her with concern written all over his face. He was dear, and sweet, and the one who was always there. But she couldn’t pretend anymore, not for him, not for her patients, and most certainly not for herself.
“Oh, Jordan,” she cried. “I’m such a mess.”
He folded her in his arms. “No, you’re not.”
She nodded, emphatically. “I am. I made a horrible fool of myself at the office. In front of clients. I’ll never be able to show my face again.”
“Sure you will. You’re human.”
She lifted her head so that she could see his face. He was smiling down at her with more intimacy than they’d shared in months. “You’re not angry?”
“Frankly, I’m delighted. It makes the rest of us feel better when you show yourself to be less than perfect once in a while.”
She hugged him. Hard. Like she’d never let him go. “I need to get back. I have patients.”
“No. Carly canceled them all.”
“Oh, good. But you—”
“She canceled mine too. Come on. Let’s get you home.”
“My car—”
“Rafe will drive it back for you,” Chloe chimed in. “It’s the least he can do.”
She nodded. “Thank you. Please tell him the braking system can be a little touchy, and—”
“Go!” she was commanded.
She went.
Chapter 20
“Now what?” Chloe said aloud as the doorbell chimed again. She opened the door. “I rather thought you’d show up,” she said to Rafe.
“I thought I should come by in case anybody needed CPR.”
She held the door open so he could enter. “You didn’t exactly rush over here, did you?”
“I had some other things I had to do.” He looked at her from under his brows, his hands shoved in his pockets. “I feel like an asshole. I used your business card as a bookmark. That’s how Deborah made the connection.”
“One can only hope that the rest of your undercover work is more… what is the word I’m looking for?”
“Less likely to get me killed?”
“Something like that.”
“I screwed up. I owe you. So, if you want me to do another one of these gigs, I’ll do it.”
She laughed. “You really are a very sweet man, you know.” Impulsively, she kissed him on the cheek. “Oddly enough, I think the slip-up was the best thing that could have happened.”
“Yeah?”
“The colleague/boyfriend/whatever she calls him
rushed to her side and I rather think the fact that for once she was the one falling apart and in a mess made him see her as someone who needs him. A lot of men like that, you know.”
He scowled at her, and when he scowled, it was like a black cloud blocking the sun, so she stepped back. “Anyway, all’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare says. At least, I hope it’s Shakespeare. Stephanie will correct me if I got it wrong.”
The thundercloud over Rafe’s head seemed to darken when she mentioned Stephanie’s name, and then it hit her that Deborah had seen them together earlier today. Presumably the business he had to take care of had involved Stephanie, and, based on the dark cloud above him, it hadn’t gone well.
“I shan’t need you for any more breakups, but I do have a final task for you if you’d be so good. I need you to help me return Deborah’s car to her. She left her keys and the address. Jordan drove her home.”
“Least I can do,” he said.
Since she thought the same thing, she didn’t argue. “I’ll drive the car and you can follow me, then drop me back on your bike.”
“I didn’t bring a second helmet. Don’t worry about it. I can grab a cab back.”
Since she suspected a miserable Stephanie would be the next person through her door, she sent Rafe off alone and went back to the kitchen to put the kettle back on.
Deborah hadn’t felt like this in years. It was as though an alien had taken over her body. Needs and primal forces were coursing through her. Emotions she’d controlled for years seemed to have slipped their leashes.
Jordan drove carefully, as he always did. She watched his hands on the wheel, perfectly positioned at ten to two. They were such nice hands. As steady and reliable as he was himself. He hadn’t asked her where she wanted to go; he seemed to assume she wanted to go home. He didn’t talk much. He appeared completely preoccupied with his thoughts. But when she reached over and touched his hand, he turned his over and gripped hers.
“I have to tell you something,” she whispered in a voice she didn’t even recognize as hers.