it suddenly hit her. She’d never mentioned Starbucks to him yesterday, and as far as she knew, this was the first time he’d been in her car in days. “How’d you know I had Starbucks yesterday?”
“Your rewards card.” He stared straight ahead as he drove. “Gal at the place when I got it said, if I registered the card, you’d get points and whatnot every time you used it. I get a thank-you email now every time you use it.”
Danica eyed him suspiciously. He’d never told her he’d registered her card, and she’d had it for months now. No wonder she hadn’t been able to register it when she tried. She’d chalked it up as a glitch. When they’d asked her for her phone number and it came up, she just figured it had gone through after the first time she tried registering it. Before she could comment further, he hit her with an even more unnerving question. “What else did you do today?”
Gulping, she wouldn’t panic. No way could he know about her other stop. She shrugged. “After work, I went back to your place—”
“Our place.” He turned to her, lifting a brow.
Danica forced a smile. “Our place.” She knew full well she’d never get used to saying that. “I took a shower and got ready to go meet you.”
“What were you doing in Boyle Heights an hour before you had to meet me out here?”
Her heart nearly stopped at the question. How the hell did he know she’d been out there? Was he spying on her? Did he know she’d stopped at Bad Boy’s Auto Shop? They came to a stop and he glanced at her. Likely noticing her questioning expression, he went on, “I got an email from Starbucks when you were there giving me the time and location you were at.”
As the relief drained, she came up with her answer. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. I saw some shoes I liked for work out there a few weeks ago. Comfortable ones. I got paid today, so I thought I’d stop and grab them on the way to Crudos, but they didn’t have them anymore.”
Again, true story. Different day. She was only glad the memory of doing so came to her quickly so she could use the story. Ironically, lying to Ted didn’t feel nearly as wrong as lying to Nine and trying to lie to Orlando had. Danica still didn’t know what to make of her inability to lie to him. It was probably just her nerves. All she knew was she’d have to get past it. There was so much he couldn’t know, so she’d have to work on it. Ted glanced down at the heels she wore tonight. “Did you get those there? I’ve never seen those on you.”
Danica glanced down at her shoes, refraining from rolling her eyes. “No. I’ve had these for a long time.”
“I’ve never seen them on you.”
“Haven’t worn them in a while.” She glanced out the window, this time all out rolling her eyes again. “Probably never wore them in front of you.”
Of course, his anal ass would keep tabs of everything about her. Right down to every pair of shoes she owned. Delia had tried to warn her he was controlling, but Danica had shrugged it off as him just being an alpha male like the ones in all those romance novels she read. But she knew better now. If it weren’t for her pride, she would’ve already done what she’d been considering doing for months now: crawl back to her sister’s with her tail between her legs and ask for forgiveness and that she let her move back in. For now, she was stuck with Ted but not for long. Now that she may have not one but two new jobs, she just might be able to afford renting a room somewhere else. But if Ted got any worse before that, she was sucking it up and showing up at Delia’s doorstep.
They pulled into the driveway of Ted’s home. “Well, I’m glad you’re pulling out of the funk you’ve been in for too long. Finally, you’re over it, and we can move on already. “
Just like that, her insides ignited, and the angry tears blurred her eyes. She almost let it go. What point would it make? He obviously didn’t give two fucks about how she felt about this. The reminder of what she’d been going through, and all alone because her heartless boyfriend was