working for free.
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this, Elliott!”
Marie. Long blond hair came instantly to mind. Followed by those eyes. So filled with emotion. Always.
When he’d first met her, more than three months ago, the compassion he could read in those eyes—compassion for Liam, the man he’d been sent to investigate and protect her against—stabbed him in a way he’d never forget.
He’d wanted her to look at him that way.
And more, he’d wanted to make certain that no one, ever, caused her open heart to close up, to wall off in pain. He’d sworn to himself that he’d never let anyone hurt her.
Absurd.
He had no control over Marie’s heart. Who she gave it to. Or what they did with it.
He was just an overly large guy her mother had hired to protect her.
The door he was watching opened. Hand going immediately to the ignition, Elliott straightened. Lord knew where Miss High and Mighty would insist he take her next—as if he were her driver. His job was to see that she arrived safely.
Two couples emerged. Neither of the women was Sailor Harcourt.
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this, Elliott...”
She’d been leaning over the counter of her coffee shop, those big brown eyes warm and soft—and trained on him. It was as if the emotion that welled up inside her had overflowed onto him, into him. He’d glanced down quickly, breaking contact. She was completely off-limits.
“Liam’s a great guy. I trust him with my life. It’s just...one of the reasons we were always just friends was because Gabi and I know all the nitty-gritty about him. He’s always come to us to as his ‘confessors,’ he said. He likes women. A lot. He told us he’d be with one woman and get feelings for another. He was younger then and he’s done nothing at all, that I know of, to warrant my fears, but until Gabi and he got together he hadn’t seemed to change his inability to stay interested in one woman. And they’ve only been married a month, and already he’s out to dinner with this editor woman of his...”
She’d thought the fact that they were alone in the shop had been a stroke of luck. An opportunity to talk to someone impartial so that she didn’t make a big deal out of nothing. She’d thought that he just happened to show up to her popular coffee shop during a brief late-afternoon lull. In actuality he’d been watching the place for half an hour. As he did at some point every single day.
Either by stopping in for coffee. Or simply observing.
“The worst part is, I know I’m being paranoid, but I just can’t stop myself...”
When he’d noticed her alone in the shop—her morning-to-midday-shift full-time employees gone and her late-afternoon shifter unusually late for some reason—he was unable to stop himself from getting out of his vehicle parked across the street and going in.
“It’s just, you know, I told you about my dad...”
That first month he’d been around, she’d made a derogatory comment about Liam’s father, implying that scaggy dads were something the three friends had in common, which had given him an opening to ask about something that made him curious—Marie’s father. Barbara’s ex-husband. When she’d sent over the paperwork required by Tanner Security Services, the woman indicated that she was divorced. She’d given him no idea why she was so mistrusting of Marie’s wealthy college friend, but he’d figured it had something to do with personal experience.
What Marie had told him only solidified that supposition.
Marie’s father had been unfaithful to Barbara. Marie had been seven the first time. Barbara had forgiven him twice. The third time, when Marie was twelve, she’d changed the locks and filed for divorce. According to Marie, the man had spent the next five years earning his way back into their hearts and home. He was devoted, dedicated and 100 percent faithful to them and their family. Barbara, who’d loved only him since they’d first met in high school, had finally taken him back. And during the summer after Marie’s freshman year of college, when Marie and Gabrielle were at Marie’s parents’ home for a visit, they’d caught her father cheating again.
Barbara, who’d nearly had a breakdown, had been in counseling ever since.
The backlit LED on the dashboard clock was too bright, garish in the darkness, shedding light where he’d rather not have it shed. Who cared if it was eleven-thirty? Sailor was known to party until dawn. Might as well be at the elite nightclub as anywhere else. Better there, really. Less hassle.
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this, Elliott, but I fell for a lot of the same lines my father gave my mother the first time I fell in love.” Marie’s words from that afternoon came back to him. His gut clenched again as it had then. The closest he came to expressing intense emotion.
She’d said she’d fallen in love. That there had already been a first time for her (completely expected considering the fact that she’d passed her thirtieth birthday) and he’d tensed up like a kid. For a split second there he’d been overcome.
With jealousy.
* * *
MARIE MEASURED VINEGAR, poured it into the carafe. Added water. Poured the mixture into the water dispenser of the first of twelve professional-grade silver coffeemakers, flipped the button to make coffee and moved on to maker number two. One by one she filled carafes with the vinegar mixture, poured it into the dispensers and hit Brew.
Then, with all the blinds drawn so that she wasn’t on display like a fish in a bowl, she stood there and watched twelve pots drip.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
After midnight on a Saturday wasn’t a good time to be calling anyone. So she was cleaning the water dispensers. It was a job that had to be done. At least once every three months.
Beat sitting upstairs alone in her apartment feeling sorry for herself.
She’d had a date. Of sorts. Dinner and the theater with Burton. A safe, completely boring man she’d met three years before during the intermission at Phantom of the Opera. Gabi had been going to go with her, but she’d had a custody emergency with a client. Unwilling to waste her ticket, or to miss one of her favorite shows of all time, she’d gone to the theater alone. Burton had been sitting a couple of rows back. He was a season ticket holder, as well. His companion had been his mother until she passed away.
Not wanting him to sit by himself, she’d invited him to join her.
Eventually they’d fallen into the habit of going to the theater together.
She was never going to fall in love with him. He was never going to expect her to marry him. The relationship suited her just fine.
Pot number one was full. Dumping it in the sink, Marie filled the carafe with clean water and dumped it back into the dispenser, hitting Brew again. And down the line she went. For all twelve coffeemakers.
And then another time.
Twelve-thirty.
