Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
When he disappeared, Mika turned right to Tom.
“I’m on the third floor. Cadence is on the fourth. It’s a lot of stairs, but the kitchen, dining and family rooms are on the second floor.”
“I won two consecutive grand slams, an additional three career grand slams, and I played senior tennis competitively until I hit age fifty. I haven’t quit playing, I just quit competing. I can carry some bags up a couple of flights of stairs.”
His tone was light, but not light enough.
He knew this when she asked, “Are you annoyed?”
“Your PA doesn’t like me.”
“My PA likes one person on this earth. Cadence. He likes me sometimes, most of the time he tolerates me. He’s married, and sometimes he behaves like he doesn’t even like his husband.”
Tom just stared at her.
“In other words, he’s a New Yorker,” she concluded.
“Right,” Tom replied.
“He’s very good at his job. I practically never have to deal with the outside world unless I want to, he’s that good at it. And that job for him includes hiding that he’d throw himself in front of a train if that meant pushing me out of the path of it.”
Tom relaxed. “Right.”
“And this mood you’re in isn’t about the voicemail you listened to in the car?” She took a breath before she added, “Or the picture?”
He forced himself to relax further. “You were married and very much in love at one point in your life. You lost him. If I had difficulty dealing with that fact, I’d be an ass, considering I had the same before you, and she walked in on us eating blueberry pancakes after a night of sex.”
Her lips quirked.
“So it’s about the voicemail,” she noted.
“The voicemail was Paloma sharing she was more than mildly unhappy I blocked her. And she used a different number to leave it.”
No lip quirk, Mika now appeared concerned. “Okay, she’s toeing the line of stalker territory with that.”
This seemed to be a leap.
“How so?” he asked.
“She used a different number because she thought you might pick up. Blocked callers can leave voicemails. It’ll just note it’s from a blocked number. If she was okay leaving a voicemail, she could use her own phone.”
“Since she left a message, it’s obvious she wanted me to hear what she had to say.”
“Tom, she threatened Roland with exposing his infidelity to a journalist.”
“Okay. But she’d say what about me?”
“Whatever she wanted to say.”
“And that journalist wouldn’t print it unless they could verify it.”
“It depends on what journalist you’re talking about.”
Tom shook his head. “Honey, if you think I give that first fuck what some woman in middle America who buys gossip rags thinks of me, I need to do a much better job of letting you get to know me.”
That made her out-and-out smile.
He wasn’t finished.
“Genny and I broke up or had huge troubles in our marriage multiple times before it actually happened. She slept with her co-stars. I slept with her co-stars. Sasha is Corey’s love child. You name it, it’s been said, all of it lies, all of it someone out there believes. When your life isn’t fascinating enough, you seek something fascinating. And it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You need for it to be true, so you make it true in your head. If I gave even that first shit, I’d have been a broken man a long time ago.”
“As you know,” she began, “I’ve become an object of fascination of late, and I’m not even close to being done saying what I have to say or expressing what I need to express. The way it’s jumbled up in my head, demanding to be released, I won’t stop until I’m eighty.”
“Georgia O’Keeffe had to quit painting on her own due to macular degeneration when she was eighty-four and wrote her autobiography after that. When you have something to say, and you have talent, you should say it, I don’t give a fuck what your age. And if you get attention because of it, in your case, good. Because it’s deserved.”
Her head ticked.
But her mouth declared, “I really like you a whole lot, Dr. Thomas Pierce.”
Tom stood with this beautiful woman who was in his life, in this beautiful room she’d built over the decades, and he was not talking shit when he said, “I can guarantee you I like you a whole lot more.”
“Impossible,” she whispered.
“Care to wager?” he offered.
She didn’t, he knew.
Because instead, she kissed him.
CHAPTER 16
THE INVESTIGATOR AND THE JOURNALIST
Tom
Tom opened his eyes, saw Mika’s hair and felt suffocated.
He lifted a hand and pushed aside the thick cat tail that was lying across his lips and interfering with his nostrils.
It flicked back into place.
He was afraid to turn his head because he knew he’d have a cat’s ass in his face if he did.
Instead, he felt his way.