Текст книги "Twisted Bond"

Автор книги: Emma Hart

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

I tug at the collar of his shirt, because hell, if he’s touching me that way, I wanna touch him like that, too. The material scrunches beneath my fingers, and when it’s up around his chest, I trail my hand down his front. It dips with every bump of muscle on his lightly sculpted body, and my whole body tingles. My pussy throbs with the potential of what could be lower—beneath those pants—and I slide my hand around his back as he inches his hand up mine and toward the strap of my bra.

His fingers wrap around it, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to click it open. Just waiting.

But that’s interrupted by a buzzing between our thighs.

He growls when he sits up and pulls his phone from his pocket. “What?” he snaps into it.

I cover my eyes with my hands, because did I just almost make it to second base with him? And would I have let him hit a home run?

Fuck yeah, I would have.

That man’s mouth is like… Fuck.

“On my way.” He shoves his phone into his pocket and looks at me, remnants of my pink lipstick on his stubble and his eyes as dark as ice blue can be. “You need to come with me.”

“Whatever it was, I didn’t do it,” I automatically say, scooting back and sitting up.

“Noelle, trust me, babe, you did fuckin’ do it. But that ain’t what that call was about.”

Don’t look down, Noelle. Whatever you do, don’t look down at his pants.

I look down. Holy shit. I really did do it. And now, I do really want to do it.

That is one majestic, hard cock. And it’s still inside his pants.

“Not helping,” he growls, which snaps my eyes back up to his.

I swallow.

“My cop instincts are fightin’ real hard with my male instincts right now.”

“Male instincts?” I ask, looking back down at his erection. Sweet baby fucking Jesus. “What are they?”

“They’re the ones tellin’ me to rip off your clothing, bend you over your coffee table, and fuck you until you can’t breathe.”

I inhale sharply. “Thought you hated me.”

He grabs my chin and pulls my face to him. “Trust me. I can make a fuck punishment as well as pleasurable.”

“Punish me and see where that gets you,” I whisper, meeting his eyes.

“Every time you speak, you just tempt me into pulling out a pair of handcuffs. You know that?”

“Don’t you have cop instinct to work on? I’m sure your urge to cuff me will still be there tomorrow morning.”

“You’re right. I do. And you’re still comin’ with me.”

“I told you,” I say as he stands and I sit up fully. “I didn’t do it.”

“No, but our murderer tried to. We’ve got a woman in the emergency room with hemlock poisoning.”

I follow Drake into the emergency room after a quick stop off at his house so he could grab his holster, “work” gun, and badge. Apparently, he hadn’t foreseen a poisoning when he’d come to my place earlier.

When he’s found out where we’re going from the receptionist, he drags me toward the private room where Trent and three other officers are. Trent raises his eyebrow at me, but I simply glare at him.

“She supposed to be here?” one of the other officers asks. I’ve never seen him before, and judging by his baby face, he’s a rookie. “Sheriff didn’t say nothin’ ’bout a woman meetin’ us here.”

“Hey!” I snap. “She could have her gun from her boot and a bullet between your eyes before you could reach for your own. She’d also hate to have to prove you right, so how about some respect?”

Drake’s lips twitch.

“She is my sister,” Trent says, addressing the young officer. “And she happens to be an ex-cop and the finest private investigator for a hundred miles. Show her some respect or you’ll be back on the beat rounds before you can apologize.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the rookie says immediately.

“Damn right you are,” I mutter, folding my arms.

“Try not to kill my staff, Ms. Bond,” Drake says.

Sure. I’m Ms. Bond now. “Noted, Detective.”

Trent coughs and draws me away from our staring match. “Drake. We have a Ms. Portia Robinson being admitted for hemlock poisoning. She only ingested a small amount of the poison and was able to call nine-one-one before it took full effect. She’s being treated right now and is expected to make a full recovery. We can go and see her soon.”

Drake looks at me. “You wanna question her?”

“Sure. Why not? I’m not a cop and supposed to be finishing my margarita at home, but hey!”

“Don’t sass me, Noelle,” he says. “I’ll have you arrested for impeding my investigation.”

“It’s hardly impeding your investigation when you won’t question her yourself,” I sigh. “But yes. I will talk to Portia. I happen to know her very well.”

“Hey,” he says to the other officers. “Go get a coffee or something from the cafeteria. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

They file out of the room.

As soon as the door shuts, Drake’s eyes focus on me. “You ‘know her very well’?”

I swallow and perch on the edge of the bed, fully aware of his and Trent’s eyes on me. “Yes.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Noelle. Don’t tell me she’s a case,” Trent says.

“She was a mistress,” I reply, looking out the small window that faces the parking lot. An ambulance comes speeding past it and out onto the main road. “Recent case. Maybe a month old. Kieron Vaquez wanted to know if his wife, Diana, was cheating on him with her boss. The irony is that Diana had hired us, too, and Kieron was the real cheater.”

“With Portia.”

“Yes. It was a cut-and-dried case.”

“Do they have anything to do with Lena or Daniel?” Drake asks.

Slowly, I bring my gaze from the window onto him. “That’s the funny thing, isn’t it? I don’t even think Portia knew either of them.”

Concern darkens my brother’s eyes, and Drake’s jaw tightens.

“Go and talk to her,” Drake orders. “Now.”

I hover outside Portia’s room. After speaking to several nurses and either pretending to be family or having Trent back me up as part of the HWPD, I finally got the correct directions to her room. And here I am.

Putting off going in to speak with her because I’m more than a little afraid of what I’m going to find when I walk into that room. Will she be in pain? Will she be partially paralyzed? Will she be sick for the rest of her life? Will she even want to talk about it?

Unfortunately, I’m not gonna find anything out by standing here like a goddamned lemon waiting to be made into lemonade. I’m only going to get the answers I need by walking through the door and asking the questions.

I take a deep breath and knock lightly on the door before pushing it open slightly. Peeking through the door, I see Portia lying on the bed, pale and tired but awake.

She turns her head and faces me. “Noelle,” she says quietly. “Come in.”

“How are you feelin’?” I ask stupidly, closing the door behind me.

“Like someone just tried to poison me.” She cracks the barest of smiles. “Say, could you ask the police if your hunk of a brother, Brody, could come question me? My day could use some brightening.”

I smile. “I would, except they’ve sent me in to ask you some. If you feel up to it right now, that is.”

“Sure. Don’t have anything else to do.”

“Great.” I sit in the chair next to her bed. “Talk me through your evening—from when you got home.”

“I got in from work, called my mom, then went into the kitchen. Paws—that’s my cat—had taken it upon himself to eat the salmon I’d set out to defrost for my dinner, so I decided to call for takeout.” She takes a moment, and I hold my breath. “I called up that new pizza place on the corner of Eleventh. You know… Fernando’s or something?”

“Sure, I know it.”

Nonna was complaining just last week that they couldn’t claim to be an Italian restaurant when the owners didn’t have a drop of Italian blood between them. That, and she was most aggrieved that a second, unneeded Italian restaurant had opened in town. She might be planning to run them out of town when she isn’t setting me up on dates.

“Well, I called, ordered, then poured a glass of wine and got changed.” Portia takes another moment to breathe, this time reaching for the small cup of water on the table.

I pass it to her and she smiles gratefully.

“What did you order? Just a pizza? Or maybe a salad?”

“Oh, just the pizza. I raid Mom’s veggie garden every week to get my salad items.”

My stomach twists. “So, you made your own salad?”

“Keep a small bowl in the fridge, always.”

“What did you eat first? The salad or the pizza?”

Portia closes her eyes. “I opened the pizza to let it cool for a moment. The crust is stupid hot on the fingers, you know? So I grabbed some salad and had a few bites.”

I swallow. “How’d you know somethin’ was wrong?”

“I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe, and my toes started to tingle. I’d only had a couple bites, so I called nine-one-one and, well, here I am. Just escaped a poisoning.”

And torture by means of genital mutilation to the death.

“Thanks, Portia. I’ll let Detective Nash and my brothers know everything you just told me.” I pat her hand. “Is there anyone you want me to call?”

“Your brother.” Her lips quirk despite her eyes still being shut.

“I’ll see what I can do.” In my next life. “Thanks for speaking with me. I’ll leave you to rest.”

“Thanks, Noelle. And do me a favor?”

“Which is?” I ask, my fingers on the door handle.

“Find the motherfucker who tried to kill me.”

“That’s the plan.” I walk through the door and close it behind me, leaning back on it and shutting my eyes.

Victim number three: someone I once tailed as she screwed one of the mayor’s right-hand men behind his wife’s back. Someone who is connected to me because they were a mistress. Someone not connected to Lena and Daniel in the slightest.

Which means I, and I alone, am the single connecting factor for these murders.

Sure, I suspected it. Maybe I even knew it in my gut. From the very beginning, I was connected to this case deeper than just investigating. But now, to know one hundred percent that I’m in the middle… It’s terrifying.

I’m more than a little scared. I’m terrified to be alone and terrified to be with anyone in case anyone else gets hurt.

What if the next victim isn’t someone I once watched? What if the next victim is one of my friends? My family? Me?

A shudder racks my body. It feels as though a thousand ants are crawling across my skin as the thought that I could be next washes over me. That maybe I was always the target. I inhale desperately through my nose as my lungs constrict and my throat feels dangerously tight.

No.

I won’t succumb to this fear. I won’t let this panic take over, because I am a strong woman, dammit. I won’t let this fear overrule my determination to find the person behind all of this, even if that means I’m walking into a potentially dangerous situation. It happens all the time in movies and everything is okay.

Yeah, yeah. My life isn’t a movie, but it’s a comforting-ass thought right now, so I’m going with it.

I’ll be like Scarlett Johansson in Avengers. Tied to a chair and about to be knocked off—then I’ll come whoop some ass like the badass I supposedly am.

Except I’ll probably shoot someone instead of whooping ass. Because, you know. I’m Southern. That’s what I do.

“Noelle?” Drake’s voice cuts through my comfortingly random musings, bringing me out of my head and back into the here and now.

I push off the wall and meet his eyes. They’re soft and concerned, yet they’re edged with pure, hard determination, and the contrasting combination seems to make his irises glow in a bright burst of color in the otherwise bland hospital hallway. The power of his gaze is entrancing, and my cheeks are burning beneath his concerned scrutiny, but I can’t look away.

“Noelle?” he prompts, stepping closer to me.

I run my fingers through my hair and repeat everything Portia just told me, including the difference in the way she was almost killed.

“Okay. I’ll have someone go over to her place and dust it for fingerprints.”

“’Kay. I’m going home to bed.” I walk past him, wrapping my arms around myself.

“Hey,” he calls when I’m by the door. “What did you say her connection to the other victims is?”

I pause, glancing at him over my shoulder. “I didn’t.”

“What is it?” His eyes narrow into suspicious slits, and his usually plump lips thin.

After swallowing hard, I reply simply, “Me.”

“You have got to be freakin’ kiddin’ me.”

Bek winces. “No.”

I press the heels of my palms into my eyes and take a deep breath. “A lost cat? Who they’re not even sure belongs to them?”

She shrugs and puts the file down. “They said the cat has been coming around for six months. Their daughter started feeding it, so it kept coming back. Even named it Tabby.”

“Original,” I mutter, opening the file and flicking through it.

“They haven’t seen it for a little over a week and she’s worried.”

I run my eyes down the first page. “They seriously hired us to find a cat based on a seven-year-old’s worries? Why can’t they just buy her a goddamned kitten? Or get one from the rescue center in Austin?”

Bek shrugs. “Apparently, the mom hates cats.”

“Yet here I am, holding a check signed by her, to find a fucking cat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ma’am me again and I’ll break your nose,” I say automatically, slipping the check into the file and holding it out. “No. This is utterly ridiculous. I did not start this agency to find a cat that doesn’t even belong to the owners.”

“You didn’t start it to find a murderer, either.”

“And your point is?” Very good—that’s what.

“You’re currently looking for a murderer.”

I stare at her flatly and wave the folder. “My answer is still no.”

She takes it and holds it to her chest. “So, you’re going to crush a poor little girl’s heart because this wasn’t the investigation included in ‘Bond. P.I.’? What if the cat was homeless and they became his new family? What if he’s stuck somewhere, injured? Or run over?”

“Or back with his real owner,” I add drily.

“She still deserves to know.” She sniffs, turning away. “Remember when Coffee ran away? Your cocker spaniel? You enlisted everyone in town to find the dog that had crept beneath your mom’s new deck.”

She moves toward the door. One step, two, three…

“Aw, screw you, you ho.” I sigh. “Fine. Take the damn case. Look for the damn cat. On the side. Do you understand? A missing cat is not our flippin’ priority!”

Bek turns, grins, and flounces over to deposit the check on my desk. I snatch it up the second it hits the wood and stuff it in my drawer with the two checks Mike brought to me this morning. My best friend opens my office door and shoots me the kind of smile that reeks with smugness over her successful manipulation of my emotions.

Bitch.

“You’re the best boss ever.”

“Yeah, whatever. Get out.” I wave my hand at her, but I’m grinning.

She responds by blowing me a kiss, and I just about manage to hold my laughter in until she’s shut my door. Damn her. I can’t seem to say no to her.

Besides, she’s right. I tantrummed the mother of all tantrums when Coffee went missing and enlisted the help of everyone from Rosie at the café to the mayor. Luckily, I was a pretty cute kid, so no one was mad when we found her beneath the deck.

That and everyone’s scared as heck of Nonna.

Wise people.

I get up and grab the sheets for my new file from the printer. When Mike brought me a new infidelity case this morning with the offer to handle it, I all but snatched it out of his hand and set Marsh to finding me all the information I need.

It’s dangerous. I know. I shouldn’t be taking any cases right now, but once Dean reminded me that he was the lead guy on Portia’s case, my brain justified it as okay. Justified it as I’m not fully connected to her case and her attempted murder in a bullshit form of denial. I’m going with it though. Because, if I don’t, I might crawl under my covers and never come out again.

So here I am, slipping my new Louboutins on—it was a freak yet calming purchase at full price. Don’t judge me—ready to go find me a cheating bastard husband.

Sounds like a damn good day to me.

Ignore that the Louboutin website is still an open tab on my phone browser. And so is Neimans. And possibly Victoria’s Secret.

Evidently, I shop when I’m stressed.

With my mind on that cute, lacy, pink underwear set I saw on the VS homepage this morning before I left my house, I grab my keys, purse, and phone and make my way out to the parking lot.

“Shall I hold your messages?” Grecia asks, glancing up from her romance novel.

Do my staff members actually work around here? “Please. And if you have nothing to do, the basement could use some organizing.” I smile sweetly.

She closes her phone. “Okay, but you bring back cupcakes.”

“Like that was ever in question,” I reply, walking out the door and wistfully wondering whether or not this case will take me into Austin so I have a legit excuse to drive to Gigi’s. Although, given the fact that I had to suck it in to button my favorite light-blue jeans this morning, I should probably use that as the reason not to.

I sigh and get in my car, double-checking that my little, blue gun is tucked into its hiding place in my purse. A feeling of safety washes over me when I see the Tiffany-blue handle peeking out at me.

The fact that I could kill someone in a second is oddly comforting. And slightly disturbing. Both that I could kill someone and find it comforting.

Perhaps I should close down the VS tab and open up a Google search for “psychologists in Holly Woods.” You know, after I’ve purchased the cute underwear.

My priorities are pretty fucked.

I can’t help but think that my priorities fit in real well with the rest of my life right about now.

“Hello,” I say, catching my phone on the first ring.

“Noella!” Nonna’s voice booms around my tiny TT, and I wince. “I have-a you a date!”

Despite my best efforts, I can’t hide my groans.

“No! Listen, bella,” she implores. “He is-a cop in Austin! He no-a scared of your gun!”

“Hmm,” I reply. “You realize it’s not my gun he should be scared of, but me?”

She laughs. “You no-a scary! His name is-a Giorgio. He take-a you for dinner tonight!”

“Wait, what?” I break a little too hard at the intersection. “Are you being serious?”

“Si! He take-a you to Giovanni’s! The real-a Italiano restaurant!”

“Nonna, what if I had plans for tonight? You know I’m busy with work right now.” I pull away and take a right. “I don’t have time for your crazy dates.”

“He is-a very nice! Respectable. You will go!”

I clench my jaw. “Fine. Fine, I’ll go. I’m not promising that I’ll be nice!”

She mumbles something in Italian before sighing dramatically. “Is-a best I get,” she finishes. “Seven! You be there!” Then she hangs up on me.

“Cazzo,” I mutter, pulling up across the street from my guy’s office building. Which just so happens to be next to Melanie Lyons’s little bookstore and coffee shop. Damn, she makes the best carrot cake in town. And sitting here in my car would be suspicious, right?

Oy vey. Looks like I’m going to have go in. What a darn shame.

“Noelle!” Behind the counter, Melanie looks up from her book and shoots me a dazzling smile. God only knows how she’s never married. With her long, Barbie-blond hair and the closest-proportioned body you’ll get to the doll, she’s more worthy of a Hollywood movie than a Holly Woods coffee and bookshop. “How are you, honey?”

Did I mention she’s also illegally sweet? Yeah.

“I’m good. How are you?” I smile. “Ohh.” I pause, sniffing. “Is that—?”

“Mom just made a fresh carrot cake,” she confirms, a knowing twinkle in her eye. “I’m guessin’ you’re here to work.”

“I am.” I perch on one of the stools she keeps to the side of the counter. “Can I have a vanilla latte and carrot cake?”

“Regular?”

“Uh…I should probably go for no-fat with the cake.” I grin.

She smiles knowingly. “Brody was in here yesterday and almost bought you carrot cake. Just before he went to the hospital.” She froths the milk and raises her voice. “Poor Portia! Do y’all know who did it?”

I rest my chin in my hand and shake my head, my eyes on the building on the other side of the street “No. I have next to no leads, and if the cops have any, they ain’t sharin’ ’em.”

“Bummer.” She sighs. Melanie Lyons is also known as the Holly Woods Gossip Queen, and her store the Gossip HQ. “Hey, did you speak to her secret boyfriend yet?”

I drag my eyes from the realtor building and toward Melanie. “Her whatty-what, now?”

She giggles. “Secret boyfriend. She comes in here every day on the way down to that fancy-ass boutique of hers—ain’t nobody got time for that designer business in this town, I tell you—and she’s been real happy lately.” She leans forward just as I tuck my designer shoes beneath my stool. “So the other day, I ask her why she’s all happy, and she tells me she’s got herself a boy toy. Or, to be exact, a toy boy. But she wouldn’t tell me who. Like I can’t keep a secret or something.’” Her eyes glitter with her own laughter.

I smirk. “I wonder why,” I say, taking my coffee. “How long has she been seeing him?”

“Who knows, honey? Could be a week, could be a month. How she kept that secret is beyond me. I got eyes all over this town keepin’ tabs on them there relationships.”

“Hmm. Hold that thought.” I pull my phone from my purse and bring my call log up. My finger hovers over Drake’s name for a second before I scroll to Brody, then Trent, then ultimately end up tapping Drake’s name. Dammit.

“Detective Nash,” he answers curtly.

“Ms. Bond,” I say sickeningly sweetly. “I have some information for you.”

“It better be good,” he replies more softly this time.

“Portia has a secret boyfriend.”

“Come again?”

“Portia has a secret boyfriend.”

“Didn’t see anythin’ in her house.”

“Hence the secret part of my sentence.” I roll my eyes. “Y’all checked her phone records yet?”

“Are you questionin’ my competency, Ms. Bond?”

“Not at all, Detective. Have you?”

His breathing is all I hear for a few seconds before he says, “No. I’ll get Brody on it.”

“You do that.” A grin spreads across my face.

“Is that everything?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great. And aren’t you supposed to be working instead of sitting in a bookstore?”

“I am working,” I argue, looking out the door and catching the end flash of a cop car. “Aren’t you supposed to be working and not stalking me?”

“I am workin’. And my stalkin’ you keeps getting interrupted, remember?”

I shudder at the memory of his mouth on mine and his body over mine and his hands splaying across my skin and… “Goodbye, Detective.” I hang up, unwilling to go down that street.

If I hafta go on Nonna’s dumbass date tonight, I do not want to think about getting naked and doing the horizontal tango with one Detective Drake Nash.

“Mel?” I ask, turning my attention to her. “What do you know about Barry Quentin?”

“The realtor across the street?” She leans in, grinning widely. “I know he’s a cheating son of a motherfucker. Seen him leaving the office with some black-haired woman for the last couple weeks.”

I open my file. “How many times?”

“Twice a week, maybe? Always at the end of the day. I’d bet she’s his assistant.”

Ugh. That old gem. Can’t cheaters be original these days? Come on, man. Screw the cleaner or something. Who wouldn’t want to get hot and heavy in the company bathroom? Secretaries are so overrated. I always feel like a total fraud when I have to tell someone their other half is doing their bitch.

Sigh.

“Any idea who she is?”

“It’ll cost you a date with Brody for me to find out.”

“I could look online, you know.”

“I know. But I’ll also find out who Portia’s secret boyfriend is…” she trails off, leaning forward and smiling sweetly.

I shake my head, but I’m smiling, too. “Now, Mel, put those weapons away. You know I don’t swing that way,” I tease, and she sighs dramatically and tugs up her shirt. “I’ll do it, but I need the names before I set you up, okay?”

Her smile brightens. “Okay!”

Good thing I know that Brody has had a crush on Mel since he was fourteen.

“You call me when you know anything,” I tell her. “And what time do they leave?”

“Six thirty, give or take a few minutes,” she answers.

Shoot. My date is at seven. But if I get dressed before I leave and go to the restaurant straight from here… “Thanks, Mel.”

“I’ll call you!”

I know she will.

This is ridiculous.

“I’m not going,” I say to my mirror.

“You are!” Bek’s voice crackles through the speakerphone. “Come on, Noelle. You haven’t been on a date in months.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Using your gun as a reason for not dating is unacceptable.”

“No, it’s a real thing,” I argue, pulling yet another dress over my head and throwing it on my bed. “Because it’s better than the whole ‘I have nothing to wear’ excuse that all the women in the world use.”

“How can you have nothing to wear? Your closet is bigger than my living room.”

“Shut up,” I mutter, grabbing the phone and walking into my closet. “If I wear red, I’ll have to wear my new Louboutins, and that’ll make me look like I like expensive things. But if I wear that blue dress with the cut-out panel on the back with those cute nude heels I got from Macy’s last summer, maybe I’ll look cheap. But then again, if I wear that black off-the-shoulder dress you made me buy two years ago that I haven’t worn yet, I can wear any shoes with it. But there’s also that pale-pink one with the pleated skirt that makes my complexion look good, and those Prada heels I bought just after Christmas will go so well with those.”

“Noelle, hon, never go on a date again.”

I groan and lean against the doorframe. “See? This is why I don’t date. Why I can’t date. There’s no such thing as too many shoes or clothes until you have to impress a man.”

My best friend laughs. And laughs. And laughs. “Since when did you care about impressing a man?”

I purse my lips, staring at the pretty, red bodycon dress that’s been sitting in my closet for six months, unworn. She’s right—when did I? I dress for me. I buy pretty things because I like pretty things. They make me feel good. Expensive shoes make me feel sexy. Nice dresses make me feel feminine.

I guess that’s the thing about being a confident, independent woman. Everything you do is for you.

I like being me.

“Okay. I’m going to wear the red dress with my new Louboutins, and if he thinks I look expensive, then he probably can’t afford me, right?”

“There’s my best friend. She got buried beneath some Mean Girl shit right there.”

I laugh, pulling the dress from the hanger and tossing it over my shoulder. “Okay, Rebekah, I’m going on this godforsaken date. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow—”

“You’re shacked up with a hot Italian-Texan cop and I should let you sleep in. Got it.”

“I don’t sexytime on the first date!”

“What about that guy you slept with just after you came home?”

“You mean when you dragged me to Vegas? Oh, Bek, what happens in Vegas stays there. In the Holly Woods dimension, I didn’t sleep with the red-hot dancer from the bar, okay?”

“Sure. If that’s what you wanna believe, girl. I’ll go with it.” She laughs, and I do, too. “I’m going. Be good. Get pics of the cheating husband. Stay out of hot cop’s pants.”

“Yes, boss,” I say sarcastically.

We say goodbye, and I throw my phone onto my bed. I give my closet one last glance before grabbing my sparkly, black clutch from the shelf and slamming the door to the damn thing.

A man must have created walk-in closets. No one else would employ that level of torture on a woman once she’s filled it.

With my hair still wet and knotted on top of my head, I glance at the clock and note that I have all of forty-five minutes to get ready before I have to go spy on Mr. Quentin and his Black-Haired Bimbo. Cazzo. I tug the dress over my head, covering my sexy, black lingerie, and smooth it down my thighs.

I twirl in front of the mirror. Damn. My butt looks kinda good in this baby.

I should wear it more often. Although I’m not sure the knee-length, tight fabric would be conductive to climbing trees to spy on sex trysts.

I blow-dry my hair with one hand and apply my foundation with the other. Overall, it’s kind of awkward, so I drop the blow-dryer before I apply my mascara. I’m blessed with thick, dark lashes that are naturally curly, but hey.

Mascara is a girl’s best friend.

After wine and cupcakes.

And shoes.

Speaking of shoes… I put my Louboutins on and stare at myself in the mirror. I was right. This looks too expensive. Like I’m trying. Which I am, but I’m not.

Jesus.

I sit on the edge of my bed and push my hair from my face, looking at myself in the mirror. What’s my real issue with this date? Because Nonna did it? Because it’s one of her harebrained schemes to have me married by the age of thirty? Because I don’t have time for it because of work? I have paychecks to sign and files to look through and cases to approve and a murderer to find.

Or is it because the person I’m going on a date with isn’t the person I want it to be?

I resist the urge to slap my cheek to knock some sense into me. The person I want it to be? Is that supposed to be Drake? Sure thing—the man makes my body come alive like a fucking box of fireworks in the middle of a bonfire, but I can’t stand him. I want to wring his neck with my heels and shoot my cute little Glock into his foot in a repeat of my sixteen-year-old self.

So why the hell am I not comfortable with this date?

If this were multiple choice, I’d tick off all of the above. And scribble out the last before filling it in and scribbling it out and filling it and scribbling it out…

I stand, grab my favorite red lipstick—recently recovered from one of my Chucks—and apply it smoothly. Any more thinking and I’m going to be canceling with a phantom stomach bug or something. Which, come to think of it, doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Although, if I just suffer through this one date, Nonna will get off my back for at least two weeks.

And, oh God, those two weeks would be worth it…

I snatch my keys from the counter, shove my wallet into my clutch with my phone, and make my way out to my car before I change my mind.

I can’t shake the terrible feeling I have about this date, but that probably comes from Nonna’s track record. She, unfortunately, believes that any man who is Italian will be a good enough husband. Now I know my generation is a touch shallower than hers, but come on. I want to be attracted to and turned on by a man.

Anyone who brings me cupcakes is a bonus.