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I know I only feel conflicted and upside down because Chef Ryan doesn’t have all the information. I know Calvin is all kinds of bad news. If I had any doubt, I would only need to look at the web he has already spun around my life in the short time I’ve known him. Everywhere I look there’s his silk. Given just a little more time, there’d be so much I wouldn’t be able to see through it.
Nodding, more sure than I was a moment ago, I let go of the discomfort that resulted in knowing someone was disapproving of me and go to my computer so I can get on with my day—and my life without Calvin Cutler in it.
Chapter Twenty Two
Calvin
All day I watch Hallie try to rub me out of her life like a wine stain on a silk shirt.
After Chef Ryan leaves, she gathers up everything I’ve bought her. She drapes the gown over her couch in its garment bag, boxes up the rest in an empty Amazon prime box. She deliberates over the necklace I left her at Charity’s wedding. I’m not immediately sure why, but she grabs her phone and texts for a minute before grabbing the jewelry box and tossing it in the box as well.
Out of curiosity, I open the side drawer on my desk and check my clone of her phone to see what she said. Apparently, she hadn’t firmly determined whether or not the necklace was from me, so she decided to ask Charity if it was a gift from her. When Charity replied, “What are you talking about?” Hallie sent back a “never mind” and a “feel better soon!” and then decided to get rid of it.
A fair reaction, I suppose.
I wait for her to take the box outside to throw it in her trash so I can send Hollis to retrieve it for me—I’m sure she’ll regret the rash move later and want her things back—but it never happens. She boxes it all up and stares at it, but then she seems to get frustrated and walks away.
Next on her to-do list is to make phone calls about getting her door locks replaced immediately—today, if possible. She calls several different places, but none have availability for today. A couple went to voice mail, so she left messages.
Seeing an opportunity, I grab my phone and text Arson’s burner phone to request that he “call her back” to schedule an appointment to change her locks. I tell him it needs to be today and dirt cheap so she goes with him. He shoots back a colorful response, but assures me it will get done.
Assurances are nice, but I don’t feel at ease about it until her phone rings and she begins lighting up at all the good news. What? There’s availability to come today?Andyou’ll charge me less than half of anyone else I’ve called?
Moments after she hangs up, Arson sends me a message saying it’s done and he’ll send a guy around in an hour or so.
“Make sure it’s someone you trust beyond a shadow of a doubt,” I text back. “I don’t want anyone else having a key to her place.”
“Would you feel better if I went myself?”
“Yes,” I answer immediately.
“Price is doubled in that case.”
That’s an irrelevant detail and he knows it, so I don’t bother responding.
Since Hallie seems to be in the bathroom and I don’t have cameras installed there to watch her, I decide to get some actual work done. I don’t have any meetings today, but I take a call, make a call, respond to some emails, and then movement from the monitor catches my attention again.
Hallie has emerged from the bathroom, dressed and ready for the day. Half of her hair is pulled back and secured with a barrette while the rest is left down. She’s wearing a silver metallic skirt reminiscent of a go-go dancer with a loose-fitting light pink sweater. The material looks so soft my fingers itch to touch it. I envision her being here when she steps out of my bathroom dressed and ready for today. Close enough that I can reach out and run a hand down her arm. Slide it around her waist and yank her back into me so I can feel more of her body as I nuzzle my face into her neck and inhale her intoxicatingly feminine scent.
In my vision of how that moment would go if she were here, she smiles.
On the video monitor where she’s all alone, she doesn’t.
She slips on a pair of low heels the same muted pink as her top and checks the time before apparently deciding she has time for lunch before Arson gets there.
It should at least bore me watching her eat. I should be able to content myself that it’s unlikely she’ll do anything exciting in that short stretch of time. It should beeasynot to watch.
It isn’t.
I don’t know why I can’t stop watching her, but when the smaller window in the top corner of my screen registers a bald, tattooed man at her door, tension gathers in my shoulders.
Maybe I wanted to watch and make sure everything went smoothly. Doesn’t make sense, though. I trust Arson—as much as anyone can trust a professional criminal, anyway—but I still find myself tense as she opens the door with a big warm smile to greet him.
Jealousy pinches me. Ridiculous fucking jealousy—she’s only greeting him so happily because she thinks she’s establishing some boundary against me and he’s there to help, but her smiles belong to me, goddammit, and I don’t want her giving any to him.
I guess it doesn’t help that Arson is a good-looking man that radiates danger, that he’s the kind of man women tend to find appealing, and sweet misguided Hallie thinks she’s allowed to go out on dates with men who aren’t me.
It’s adorable how she doesn’t realize she’s mine yet.
