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I frown. “That I sent you on?”
“You told me to find out everything I could about Gabriel Sinclair. So I did. I’ve been to New York. Oklahoma. New Mexico. I’ve researched his entire family tree. He was adopted by his aunt and uncle. His dad’s dead, but I went to the graveyard. Mom’s dead too. Died of a drug overdose twenty years ago. I have both obituaries. And get this: his name isn’t even—”
“Wait, you didallthis?” Documents, photos. Her handwritten notes are spread all over my table. “I meant like…Google stalk him for an hour.”
She blinks at me. “But you could do that yourself.”
Yeah. I really could’ve. I pinch the bridge of my nose while Lea’s cup fills with coffee. “You couldn’t tell Dominic Fontana from Gabriel Sinclair, but you put together this entire dossier on the man?”
Lea sighs in irritation. “They’re tall, muscle-y white dudes with dark hair. They look the same. And this is research, not picking him out of a police lineup. It’s easy.”
“You should be a private investigator.”
“Thinking about a career change,” she says, sounding cheerful at the thought. “This was a lot of fun. All the expenses went on the card, of course, but I’ll email you the itemized receipts.”
Shit. I’m going to have to pay for this. I don’t even want it.
“Is this everything?” I ask cautiously. “You don’t have any other copies?”
Lea frowns. “No. Do you want me to make a copy?”
I shake my head and make a mental note to buy a cheap paper shredder. “You signed an NDA when I did. That covers everything you found on Gabe.” It probably doesn’t. I don’t know shit about contracts. Lea could find out in two seconds.
She pauses, realization raising her eyebrows in surprise. “You like him.”
“Yeah,” I admit, looking at the flowers. “I do.”
“Then anything I found on him is safe with me.”
The relief I feel in that is huge. Lea is good on her word and can keep a secret—she’s kept several of mine for years.
After she leaves, I gather up all her research and stuff it into a drawer on my desk. I’ll deal with it later. Right now, I need to face Jessie.
I’ve been to Timothy’s West Hollywood house once. My cousin and Nic have always been inseparable, so of course they’ve been roommates off and on for years. I learned from my past mistake, so the time I stopped by this house, I didn’t try to sneak into Nic’s bedroom. I knocked at the door. Unfortunately, my information was wrong—Nic was away filming on location, not Timothy.
My cousin made it very clear I wasn’t good enough for his friend. He offered me money to stay away. I was young and a bit desperate, so I took it and promised twelve months.
Timothy called me when the twelve months were up. I demanded more. He paid. But I didn’t try to avoid Nic. I went to parties and clubs, the places he sometimes went. Our paths crossed occasionally, but my flirting went over his head and he always slipped away. And when Nic married Addison, Timothy told me he was done paying me.
Unfortunately, Addison was a better protector of Nic’s virtue than Timothy was. I couldn’t get near him. The man went to work, then went home. Anytime he went anywhere else, Addison was on his arm. And she saw right through me.
Jessie isn’t like Addison. “Nic is in New York,” she mentions so casually I stumble on my way out to the patio by the pool, expecting her to be watching me and assessing what kind of threat I pose.
She’s not, and neither is Lauren. We sit at a table in the shade and Lauren pours us all a glass of white wine. I don’t know Lauren all that well—she’s a few years younger than me, and while I’ve seen her at various Foley weddings and funerals, I’ve never spoken more than a few words to her. She always seemed shy, and a bit reserved. Her hair is a soft strawberry blonde and freckles dust her cheeks, but her blue eyes are friendly where in the past they’ve been cautious.
“So,” Jessie says brightly. “Gabriel Sinclair?”
Are we about to have girl talk? I take a sip of the wine. “Yup.”
Jessie rolls her eyes. “Come on. You hooked up at my wedding. I deserve some details.”
Relief hits me like the first sip of wine, going straight to my head. She doesn’t know I was there to seduce Nic. Neither does Lauren, judging by the way she eagerly leans forward.
For whatever reason, Timothy hasn’t told his twin. A little voice in the back of my head urges me to tell her, to come clean and maybe this nauseous feeling in my stomach will go away.
I can’t tell her. It’s nice, drinking wine and talking. It starts awkward, but soon the three of us are talking like we’ve been friends forever. I’m not going to risk this by telling her the truth.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and Timothy will keep his mouth shut and I can have some kind of friendship with Jessie. Lauren too. Her boyfriend, she informs me, is Gabe’s personal trainer.
