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limo’s mirrored interior. Asking for help suggests weakness, and it’s been a long time since I felt like a vulnerable, defenseless kid.
Even longer since I’ve admitted to sinking feet first into that emotional pit labeled “hopeless.”
I close my eyes. I am not anywhere close to that pit now. Not yet.
Hell, it was only one picture …
One image attached to a career-ending threat from my girlfriend.
Ex-girlfriend.
I have a rule about sleeping with people who blackmail me. Or at least I do now.
Pull yourself together, Gavin. You can fix this, dammit.
“Help me, please.”
I practice my opening line again, the one I plan to deliver the minute I see Kayla Greene’s face. I’ve known her since kindergarten. My best friend is the only one who will let me in and hear me out in the middle of the night, but a sincere “please” will go a long way to winning her sympathy.
Not that I need a shoulder to cry on. I’m still too far away from the “hopeless” pit to be that fuc—freaking—I mentally catch myself—vulnerable. Curse words turn Kayla into a thin-lipped second grade teacher. She actually was a teacher once upon a time at a public elementary school on the Upper West Side. She loved those second graders, even the ones who tried her patience day after day. But her ex convinced her to give up the job she loved when the bastard finished his medical residency and they got married.
Yeah, I fucking hate the guy. I can’t drop the curse words when thinking about him.
But that’s firmly behind us now.
Suddenly the left front wheel hits a pothole you’d expect to find on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I hear Samuel cursing from behind the wheel. He wasn’t planning on a midnight drive to the country.
“We’re almost there,” I assure my driver. “Turn left at the stop sign. You’ll see a big red barn. The driveway is on the other side.”
Samuel has never been to my country house deep in the woods, or to Kayla’s place near the road. I usually drive myself. But I was in a rush tonight. Plus, crashing my BMW on the Palisades Parkway wasn’t how I planned to put an end to Alexandra’s blackmail threat.
The limo slows and lurches to the right as Samuel navigates the turn. I can see the stone farmhouse up ahead. Lights glow from the kitchen windows.
Thank God. Kayla is more likely to listen to my pleas for help if she’s awake.
The side door leading to the kitchen swings open. I spot a figure running across the grass. It’s her. I would recognize that long, wild black hair anywhere. The bright summer moon illuminates the outline of an animal in her arms.
I let out a laugh, because when isn’t Kayla cuddling a lonely puppy or kitten? When we were kids, she brought home stay cats, dogs, and once, a lost goat. Her mother enrolled her in 4-H so she could play with farm animals.
The limo grinds to stop on the gravel drive. I reach for the door and my fingers freeze on the handle. Kayla rushes through the headlight beams, and I see bright red splotches on her face.
My stomach turns over. What are the chances my best friend was sitting at home covered in blood in the middle of the night? Unless one of her rescue pups bit her …
I fling the door open. “What the hell, Kay?”
Bloody hell.
Literal blood. I was right about those red splotches. Then a sixty-pound mass of fur and misery lands on my lap. I instinctively wrap my arms around the pup and draw her close. And great, now I’m cradling the bloody dog against my thousand-dollar suit.
The fury of hell isn’t far behind. Kayla scrambles into the car and slams the door closed behind her. “Help me!” she cries.
Dismissing the fact that she’s stolen my plea for help, I turn my attention to the yellow Labrador mix in my arms. “Where to?”
“Vet,” she barks, as the limo lurches into reverse.
Samuel’s caught enough to know that we’re going somewhere. Now.
“Her office, not the hospital,” she continues. “I called, and she’s expecting me. I was getting ready to carry Luna to the car when you pulled up.”
