Heartbreaker - Julie Kriss Page 0,54

of me wanted to get in a parting shot that was witty, devastating, and Hollywood-worthy. It was tempting.

But I should probably be thanking her. Without that devastating picture on her desktop, combined with her endless ability to annoy me, I wouldn’t have quit Morgan Financial. Without my burning, silly hatred for Helen, I would probably have worked there until I was sixty.

So instead of being nasty, I shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, I quit. Have a nice life,” and walked out.

On the busy street outside, I paused to text Holden, who I knew was on shift right now. Helen is my boss, I wrote. She has a photo of the two of you together on her desktop. She told me you’re dating her. I’m not sure what the truth is, and right now I don’t want to know.

Seconds later, my phone rang. I declined the call. As my phone rang again, I turned it off and headed for the subway and Bonnie’s dance studio on 91st Street.

Later, I’d deal with the fear, and my love life, and my maybe or maybe-not future with Holden.

But first, I was going to dance it out.

Twenty-Four

Holden

“I’m going to kill you.”

Eric looked up from his weight bench and his eyes went wide. He put down the weights he’d been lifting as he saw me coming toward him.

I grabbed him by the shirt, making him emit a strangled sound of terror, and lifted him off the bench.

“What the fuck!” he yelled.

“Mina won’t even talk to me!” I yelled back.

He tried to knee me in the balls, but I dodged him while keeping my grip and not letting him go. Two big hands grabbed mine and squeezed my wrists.

“Let him go,” Grim said.

I let Eric go and he dropped onto the bench like his knees didn’t work. Then he scrambled back. “What the hell did I do?”

“You duped me into that stupid double date,” I said.

Eric smoothed his T-shirt, then stood up and grabbed for his uniform shirt. One of the other guys on shift popped his head in from the kitchen. “What’s going on, man? I’m trying to make a sandwich between calls over here.”

“It’s under control,” Grim said. Then he looked at me. “What double date?”

“His first date with Rachel,” I said. “She wouldn’t go out with him alone, so she brought her cousin. Eric brought me. He told me it was a guys’ night out.”

“Ah, yeah,” Grim said, remembering. “The one I wasn’t invited to.”

“So what?” Eric said, frowning while keeping his distance from me.

“So, Rachel’s cousin is nuts,” I said. “She keeps asking me out and won’t take no for an answer. She got my number somehow and keeps calling and texting me.”

“Aw, all the girls like Holden,” Grim said. “Poor you.”

I glared at him, and when he saw the look on my face he backed off. “It turns out Rachel’s cousin, Helen, is Mina’s boss. She took a selfie of the two of us that night. And apparently she has it on her computer desktop at work, and she told Mina we’re dating.”

Both guys went still, taking this in.

“Hold up,” Grim said.

“Wait, what?” This was Eric. “Crazy Helen is Mina’s boss?”

I turned my glare back to him. “You call her Crazy Helen?”

Eric looked sheepish. “Rachel calls her that, yeah. Not to her face, though. Only behind her back. She isn’t really crazy. She’s just a bit… weird.”

I put my hands over my eyes and groaned. “That’s just fucking great. Well, thanks to you setting me up with Crazy Helen—which I didn’t ask you to—Mina thinks I’m cheating on her and she won’t answer my fucking calls.”

Grim whistled. “Man, that is a wild bit of bad luck. Like, the universe is out to get you kind of bad luck.”

“It isn’t bad luck.” I pointed at Eric. “It’s this dipshit.”

“Also true,” Grim said. He held up his hands, the voice of calm and reason. “Okay, okay. This is a crazy fucked-up situation. If Mina won’t talk to you, just go to her apartment. Do the boom box thing if you have to. Clear this up, man.”

“I tried that, but she wasn’t home. I also tried calling her office, and apparently she quit. She’s gone. No one knows where she is. I’ve texted her a dozen times, and she only sent me one answer: I don’t want to talk to you right now. That’s it.”

“But what does that mean?” Eric had buttoned his uniform shirt now and was tucking it in. “Does that mean she’ll