Page 76 of Cozen

After all, the deadline for the Astors was now almost up. Five more weeks.

She knew enough about the Astor family to know that if she wasn’t successful in returning Pearl’s ring, it was not going to end well for her.

The ringing of the cell phone broke Cozen from her thoughts. Reaching above her head, she snatched the device where she had tossed it to the big pillow when she got home. She was smart enough to check the caller ID before answering.

Good thing, too.

An Astor number stared back at Cozen. She chewed on her bottom lip, and glanced at the number in the left-hand corner of the screen. It showed a seven. Seven times they had called her in a couple of days. Seven times she had ignored them.

Cozen knew that didn’t bode well for her, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She had nothing good or new to tell them, and she had a feeling Pearl would not be amicable to allowing Cozen more time on this job.

She gave six months.

She was going to do it in six months.

Cozen tossed the phone back to the pillow, and buried her head into the blankets. She let the call ring until it stopped completely, and heard the beep that said there was a voice mail left behind. She would delete that later without even listening to it, too.

What did they want other than to make demands, or yell at her? Threaten her, maybe? All that could wait.

It wasn’t just Sargon she needed to get out of her head. She needed to keep her mind clear. She was not adding angry Astors with their crazy demands to the mix, too.

Cozen would deal with them later.

Maybe.

Smooth, almost too-hot rocks rolled over the muscles in Cozen’s back. From her shoulders down to the spot where a thin sheet rested over her ass to hide her nakedness, the hot rock massage took away the stress lingering in her body.

Hot rocks was a preference for her. That, and a damn good deep tissue massage. She also didn’t mind the occasional soak in mud, or a stint in the steam room for long enough to draw the toxins out of her body. Whatever could remove the tension from her body, and take the stress from her mind, she was game to try it.

Cozen almost always came back to hot rocks, though.

“Your muscles are very tight,” the woman said.

She hadn’t even gotten the masseuse’s name.

“Mmm,” Cozen muttered into the hole on the massage table. “A lot going on lately.”

“This will help.”

Obviously.

That’s why she came to the spa. Sometimes, Cozen just needed a single day to recharge her body and mind. That’s what today was dedicated to. Herself, basically. Self-care was just as important as physical care.

Maybe that had been her problem.

She neglected herself.

All too often when doing a job, Cozen became lost in the person—the persona—she took on for a spell. This time, she was the waitress with a job that put her in high heels for a ridiculous amount of hours. A woman who lived in a tiny Manhattan apartment with barely any furniture. She had no friends, no social life, and very little to show for all of it.

But that was who she was.

This time.

In the process, she lost who she actually was until she could get back to that woman. Sometimes in the midst of a job, she needed to be reminded that she was someone else, and she would be getting back to that person soon enough.

The hot rocks rolled over the lines of her shoulders once more, and Cozen couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped from her lax lips even if she tried. The masseuse even laughed lightly at the steady stream of soft air Cozen didn’t try to hide.

“Yeah, that’s … good,” Cozen settled on saying.