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“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
She walked to my door. “I’ll see you later?”
I’d been planning on leaving when she walked in, so I stood. “Actually, I’m getting out of here on time tonight. I need to get ready for a charity event.”
“Oh, that’s what I meant. I’m leaving to get ready now, too. If I don’t hurry, Will will be at my house before I am.”
I froze. That motherfucker. He’d asked her out after all.
• • •
I was in the middle of a conversation with Erin Foster, the woman who ran the Home Start program we were raising money for tonight, when Evie and Will walked in. The event had started more than an hour ago, with no sign of either one of them, so I’d started to think Will had put her up to saying she was coming to screw with me—not that it made any sense, but neither did the way I felt whenever I thought of the two of them together.
Evie and Will stood together at the bar, waiting for a drink. I watched from a distance as Will scanned the room. When he found me, a diabolical smirk raised the corners of his lips, and his hand moved to Evie’s back. She had on a red dress with a low-cut back, so his fingers touched bare skin. I stared with so much intensity, anyone watching might think I was trying to do some sort of Jedi mind trick on him.
“Merrick?” Erin said. She turned to look over her shoulder, in the direction I was staring. “Is everything okay?”
I blinked a few times and shook my head. “Yeah, sorry. I was just… I apologize. What were you saying?”
“I was telling you about our new initiative. We’ve been having a lot of success asking our corporate sponsors and partners to add a giving page to their website. We provide all the copy, graphics, and HTML, so it’s a pretty simple add for your webmaster. It shows your clients that your company is socially conscious, and it gives us a chance to tell potential donors who we are and what we do. We’ve had one financial management partner add a giving page, and also put a little button on the home page where their clients signed in. It made for one of our highest capital-contribution months, even though we never reached out directly to anyone. Do you think that’s something Crawford Investments might be able to do for us?”
I nodded. “Sure. I’ll talk to my IT person and let you know how we can set it up.”
Erin silently clapped her hands. “Thank you!”
My eyes wandered back to the bar. Will and Evie were now talking to a banker I’d met a few times. She was facing me, though looking at Tom or Tim or Tucker—whatever the hell his name was. I couldn’t tear my eyes away long enough to figure it out. The front of her dress had a V neck that hugged her curves. She was definitely showing more skin than she did around the office, yet she still looked classy and elegant. When she leaned forward to shake the hand of someone who walked over, a hint of her thigh popped out of the high slit in her dress. Fuck. She had great legs.
I thought I’d been discreet, but when I peeled my eyes away from Evie and returned my attention to Erin, she was grinning. “She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”
I attempted to play dumb, raising my drink to my lips. “Who?”
“The woman in the red dress you haven’t been able to take your eyes off.”
I looked around as if I had to figure out who she was referring to. I may have oversold it. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She smiled. “Mmm-hmm.” She pointed to Will and Evie. “Well, I guess you’re about to figure it out, seeing as she’s heading this way.”
Sure enough, Will and Evie were halfway across the room, walking straight toward us. Will still had that shit-eating grin stuck on his face.
“What’s up, boss?” He bounced heel to toe.
I offered a curt nod to each of them. “Will. Evie.”
“I don’t think we’ve met.” Erin extended a hand to Evie. “I’m Erin Foster. I run Home Start.”
Evie shook her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you. Will was just telling me all about your program on the way here. My mom was a victim of DV, and we relied on a lot of temporary housing over the years. Helping survivors find something permanent like you do, where they can plant roots, is so important.”
“Absolutely. Making people safe for the short term is understandably the priority of most DV nonprofits. But we focus on what comes after that. Abuse survivors who own their own homes are ninety-three percent more likely not to go back. So, our goal is to make it easier for women to buy homes by providing down-payment assistance and low-interest loans from partner banks.”
“That’s amazing. I’m not sure what I could do to help, but I’m available.”
“Are you a broker?”
Evie shook her head. “No, actually. I’m a therapist.”
“Oh my gosh. I need to introduce you to Genie. She runs a group that helps people make the transition to living alone in their new homes. I’m absolutely positive she needs you.”
Evie smiled. “Okay.”
