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As I shut down my computer and closed up the office, my phone rang. I answered it without checking the caller ID and was greeted by the distinctly imperious — and annoying — voice of Greer, my older half-sister.
“Zel, it’s Greer. I’m coming to Seattle at the end of the month. I’ll stay with you and we’ll work through this mess you’ve made of your relationship.”
“What mess?”
“Mom told me everything. Don’t worry. I’m sure I can help.”
“Greer, Mom doesn’t know everything or you misunderstood her.” I rolled my eyes.Obviously. “There’s no mess to fix. I’m fine and I have a friend visiting. You don’t need to fly in.”
“I’m flying in for a convention, idiot. But I’ll come to your place rather than stay at the hotel.”
Jeez-us. Why was she like this?
“You’re worse than Mom. I don’t need to be babied. I’m fine. I dumped Tristan, not the other way around. And, I told you, I have a friend in town. Stay at the hotel and we can get together for tea.”
“Mm. So, I’ll see you Friday, October twenty-fifth. Don’t worry. We’ll fix everything. Bye.” She hung up.
I stared at the phone. “Fix?” Typical Greer. She never listened to the words coming out of anyone’s mouth. On the one hand, she was right about my relationship being a mess. On the other hand, she didn’t seem to understand that ending it was the only way to fix it.
My half-sister was five years my senior. Her dad was my mom’s second husband. (My dad was Mom’s third.) Mom was preggers with me when she and Prentice — Greer’s dad — got divorced. I got an overbearing sister who thought my business was hers and was convinced from Day One that I couldn’t take care of myself. Seriously. She even talked for me when I was a toddler, which slowed my language development. I had to go to speech therapy because my sister wanted to play mommy.
I tolerated Greer only because I didn’t have a choice in who got to be my sister. Fortunately, she lived in the Bay Area, so I only saw her a few times a year.
I sighed and glanced at the time. “Better go.” It’d take half-an-hour just to find parking in Ballard at this time of day. I rubbed Frank’s and Lulu’s bellies then clattered down the stairs to the garage.
At least I had Drew to look forward to.
4
HIS QUINTESSENTIAL WOMAN
Drew grinned,though he knew he shouldn’t.
Everything’s gone to shit with Tristan.
Those words meant pain for Zelda, but they answered his prayers. Not that he prayed much, but he’d been begging his guides, angels, gods, lucky fucking stars — whatever people wanted to call the mojo that kept lining up good shit in his life — to make Brick single while he was still young enough to seduce her.
Drew owned every audiobook Zelda Gordon and her pseudonym, Fannie Gordon, had ever recorded. He couldn’t get enough of her sultry voice. The first time he’d heard her — reading an incredibly shitty paranormal romance about gecko shifters, of all things — he’d creamed his jeans and known immediately that shehadto narrate his novels. No one else would do. No one else had a voice like hers, like velvet and steel.
They’d met in person at an audiobook conference in Los Angeles. Statuesque and curvaceous, Zelda was his quintessential woman. And the fact that the audiobook industry loved her, yet she remained humble and professional, only made her sexier. Her voice was icing on the feminine confection that Zelda Claudette Gordon was in Drew Katterman’s mind.
Drew wasn’t just smitten. He was head-over-heels, tongue-lolling, eye-popping infatuated with her.
But Zel had a boyfriend. Some douchebag named Tristan. And, despite what people believed about Drew, he wasn’t a home wrecker. And Zel? She was faithful to that undeserving fucker, faithful to a T.
Drew hired her to narrate all his books. He kept her very busy. He wrote faster and better because he wanted to hear her voice wrapped around his words. He wanted her working and well paid. He’d determined to be Zel’s employer and her friend, and to remain steadfast and stable until that boyfriend screwed up. Then, he’d move in and romance the ever-loving shit out of her.
He listened to Zelda’s chapters while he shaved, but stopped the recording halfway into the first chapter. What he heard wasn’t Zel’s usual fire. The read felt as flat and dry as Texas roadkill in July. He scowled. “Shit, babe, what’d that ass-hat do to you?”
Wearing only his pajama pants, Drew opened his travel bag and pulled out all his clothes. He laid them across the bed. Considering the tee shirts and pants he’d brought, he frowned. These were fine for meeting readers, but not good enough for impressing Zelda Gordon. The whiskey-brown wool car coat, dark wash jeans, and black monk strap shoes would work, but he needed a better shirt.
He glanced at his watch. Just enough time. Drew threw on everything, opting for his vintage Clash tee, and headed for a small men’s haberdasher a few blocks away.
Leon’s carried a limited but fine selection of clothing and smelled like a manly orange grove wearing new leather shoes. Ignoring the racks of neatly folded sweaters and the color-blocked shirts on hangers against the walls, Drew approached the gentleman behind the counter. “I’m a man with a purpose.”
The gent considered him over his horn rims. “Which is?”
“Romance. I’ve got a lunch date in forty-five minutes and I need something more impressive than the Clash.” He tugged on the hem of his tour shirt.
