Page 79 of Sexy

I nod. “OK, well, thanks.” I head off for the elevators, barely registering her answer of, “No problem,” and push the button when I get there, anxious to see what’s in the box Katie left.

It can’t be good. Well, it can, in a way. But ultimately, everything about this request I had her do for me will turn to shit.

I tap my foot as I wait for the elevator to take me up to fifteen, and then get out and find my keycard in my back pocket as I walk down the hall. When I get to the door, I pass it over the lock and the light flashes green at me.

I push the door open.

Tiffy Preston is sitting on my couch with a stack of papers in her hand.

My mind races as I figure out what might be on those papers. “What the fuck are you doing in my room?”

“Your room?” She laughs. “This is the hotel’s room. And I’m the legal representative of the hotel. So this room, Fletcher Novak, belongs to me. You don’t even pay for it.”

“You better have a damn good explanation for this, Tiffy. I’m not even joking. And those papers in your hands, they had better belong to you, or I’m going to be one pissed-off guy.”

“You think you have the right to be pissed off? Ha!” She looks down at the papers in her hand and begins reading. “‘Dear Sexy Man’”—she snorts—“‘I have a problem with a girl. She’s rich and I’m not. She comes from a very prominent family and I work for her father. It’s difficult to relate to her, and I’m sure she feels the same way about me. But there is something there that makes me want to try harder. What can I do to close this money gap? Signed, Rich Man, Poor Man.’” She shakes the letter in her hand. “What is this?” Her voice rises a little at the end of that sentence, making me cringe. “Why do you have these letters?” She flips through the pile, dozens of them in her hands. “I’ve read them all, Fletcher. The one from Self-Loathing in Saratoga where the guy complains about how his girlfriend has such a low opinion of herself, she can’t see that he really loves her? What is that?”

I clear my throat, unwilling to say nothing, but not sure how I can soften the blow. In the end, I decide I can’t. So I just tell it like it is. “I’ve been using our conversations to write the letters.”

“Obviously,” Tiffy snaps. “Are you this… this… Sexy Man? Do you write that column?”

I nod. “I am. I do.”

“And you make those letters up?” It’s an accusation. One she already knows the answer to, she just wants confirmation.

“Come on, Tiffy. The whole world is scripted. You know this.”

“You know what? Yesterday I almost thought that I had misjudged you. That I was pegging you unfairly. That I came here with an expectation that you deserved to be fired. Because you have this smooth voice. And your words are like candy. Soothing and sweet. But you’re poison, Fletcher Novak. Nothing but poison.”

I give her a sidelong glance. “How would you know?” I growl. “You have no idea who I am.”

“I have an idea,” she snaps back. “Cole sent me to the spa today to relax. Because he had meetings all day and we weren’t going to meet until dinner.”

I cringe at the dinner part, just like I did this morning. She’s finally wrangled him into a date. Got just what she wanted.

“But I wasn’t into it, so I left and went up to the restaurant. And do you know who I saw up there?”

“I can guess,” I say evenly, letting out a breath of air.

She stares at me for a moment, looking like she might explode. But then she lifts her chin and steels herself for the next confrontation. “You set up your client with my possibility.”

I shake my head no.

“You liar,” she seethes. “You liar. I saw you today too.”

“Saw me where?”

Tiffy crosses her arms cross her chest. “That mansion you have up in Incline Village? What the hell was that? You’re rich? You’re married?”

“You had me followed?”

“I followed you myself. I saw you with your… wife, lover, girlfriend… whatever she’s called in your sick world. And your daughter. Do they know what you do, Fletcher?”

“She knows,” I say, leaving Shelly out of it. “And she knows why.”

“So she’s OK with you whoring yourself out? Taking home girls, fucking them on the roof, stringing them along so—”

“I never strung you along. You’re the one who got up and walked out on me this morning.”