The Mercenary Next Door (Rogues and Rescuers #2) - Lucy Leroux Page 0,38

began to walk backward toward the door. “Not today, maybe, but I’ll be back. Now that I know this place exists and has goodies like this, I won’t be able to stay away.” He threw another toothpaste commercial-worthy grin at her. “Of course, I’ll have to jog here or else there’s no shot of me getting a date with you, not unless you’re willing to roll me around.”

He backed out the doors, ducking out of view. Laila was shaking her head in amused disbelief when he poked his head back in. “But I will be back,” he called before waving and disappearing.

Chapter Sixteen

Four months later

“I can’t believe you’re thinking of saying no!” Rosamie said, holding up a mustard-yellow dress under her chin. She turned Laila to face the mirror nailed to their door room wall.

“Why are you always trying to get me into a shade of yellow?” Laila made a beeline for the black cocktail dress.

“Because you’re an autumn with gold undertones. Yellow should be your signature color. And stop trying to change the subject,” Rosamie chided.

“She’s right,” Jasmine, their other friend, said from the bed in between checking Rosamie’s many different eye-shadow palettes for coordinating shades. “Your super-hot, super-rich boyfriend just asked you to move in with him. Yet, for some reason, you’re hesitating.”

“Do you want me to move out that badly?” Laila pretended to pout.

“Of course not.” Rosamie leaned back, critically examining the dress draped across her front. “But we’re talking about Joseph Dubey here. The only acceptable excuse for not moving in with him is temporary insanity. That or you just discovered he’s an ax murderer.”

“Neither is the case,” Laila replied. “Unless you mean he is insane—because I have doubts about him being in his right mind. We haven’t been together long enough for him to ask me to move in.”

Just thinking about her life lately made her head spin. Laila barely recognized it. It was as if the last few months had happened to someone else.

Joseph Dubey had come back to the store as promised—or rather threatened—a few days after their first meeting. He became a regular, stopping in three or four times a week.

Every time he came in, Joseph did his determined best to get her to go out with him. But given what had just happened with Mason, she was suspicious of his regard.

Then Laila’s cell phone contract expired. She’d never been able to get the phone to turn back on after she dropped it in the stairwell. But given the constraints on her budget, she hadn’t been able to afford to replace it out of pocket. Instead, she’d used her computer to message her friends, going so far as to take it with her to work to stay in touch. She called her mother’s care home from the breakroom phone at Gardullo’s.

The minute her old contract was up, she had gone to the mall to sign up for a new one. After shopping around for the best plan, she decided to switch to a different carrier, one that offered a better smartphone for free with a new contract. She had planned to keep her old phone number, but she could not transfer it to the new carrier because they didn’t have an interconnection agreement with the previous one.

The assistant at the shop had generously let her put her old sim card in a compatible phone to check if there had been any calls or texts that she’d missed while her phone had been inactive.

Laila had held her breath while she scanned the logs…but there had been nothing. Just a few messages from the phone company itself, reminders to pay her bill, and a few special offers, but that was it.

Nothing from Mason.

A little secret piece of her had died at that moment. Whatever stubborn ember of hope still glowed in her heart had been smothered.

She’d thrown the broken phone and obsolete sim card in the trash on the way out. Then she took the bus back to her dorm, heading straight to bed despite the fact it was only mid-afternoon.

She woke before dawn the next day, resolving never to think about Mason Lang ever again. The next time Joseph had come to the store and asked her out, she’d said yes.

It had started as an act of defiance, a little screw-you to the memory of Mason’s smile. But Joseph had proven to be a surprise. To begin with, he was far more mature than she’d initially given him credit for. It may have