the best way to lure him away from another woman, get him in her bed and he’d forget all about that bitch. Hopefully, she’d get him so worked up again, he’d forget the whole condom thing and she’d get pregnant for real.
Emma ran in the back door and Jimmy followed, carrying their empty plates.
“Marti is speaking alien. It’s so cool.”
“She’s speaking French, munchkin.” Jimmy dropped their plates in the dishwasher. “Ready to go, boss. We gotta get this little one to school.”
“Yeah. Why is she speaking French?” He couldn’t help but ask.
“She received a call, said it was for work. Why?”
“No reason.” Every reason.
Why was she doing business in French? Who did she know in France? Is that where she’d go when she left at the end of the week? He’d been up all night thinking about her leaving and remembering making love to her in the pouring rain. He’d gone to her room late last night. The lights shown under the door. He wondered what she was working on that kept her up so late. Question after question, and now she’d said she wouldn’t answer any of them for him. She’d remain a mystery and everything he didn’t know about her would haunt him the rest of his life. Everything he did know about her would haunt him. She would haunt him.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
* * *
COMPLETELY DRAINED AFTER her first morning at home with Cameron, Shelly, and Emma. She handled several business calls, went into her office at Fairchild Industries to exchange the paperwork she’d finished for the paperwork she needed to complete. She shot off several emails on the Fairchild/Merrick land deal and ended her afternoon in the city at her publisher’s office. The two new books were going to press. The publisher had gotten the advanced copies Marti requested. She had them gift wrapped along with another surprise for Emma.
She had almost everything in place for her to leave at first light on Saturday. Cameron would be married in the afternoon, and she’d be long gone.
The Decadence restaurant lunch crowd must have thinned out at this late hour. She took a seat at the bar and gulped down a glass of water. Elizabeth came out of the kitchen with a huge smile on her face.
“I told the staff to tell me if you came in. I called Jenna upstairs, she’s on her way down.”
“Um, why?”
“Because we haven’t seen you in quite a while and we were wondering how things are going. Cameron is a bear. Jenna threatened to fire him if he keeps yelling at people and drifting off into space half the day. His assistant is about ready to poison him. Lucky for him, he eats here every day.”
“Lucky for him is right. I, on the other hand, plan on killing him the first chance I get and think I can get away with it. Your husband’s an FBI agent. Maybe he can give me some pointers on how to kill someone and not get caught.”
Elizabeth laughed. “That bad, huh. We heard about him and Shelly moving in with you. That really sucks.”
“You don’t know the half of it. She catalogues the value of everything in the house. ‘Oh my, just look at this vase. Hand painted in Venice, it must be worth a thousand dollars,’” she mimicked Shelly’s annoying voice.
“You’re kidding. Sam mentioned when she was on your sailboat she did the same thing.”
“Yes, very annoying.”
“I can imagine. We all know she’s after Cameron for his money. Now that George left him a fortune, well, I can imagine she’s thinking she can sleep on a fourteen-karat gold bed.”
“How about we just dump a molten load over her head and put her in the garden?”
“She’d scare away all the birds.” Elizabeth put a hand on Marti’s shoulder. “Are you okay? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look so hot.”
“It’s been a long couple of weeks.” She picked up the bag at her feet and handed it to Elizabeth. “I brought this in because I need a favor. It’s important, and I’d rather Cameron not know about it.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“It’s the dress I had made for Emma for the benefit on Friday night.”
“Which you’ll be going to, right?” Jenna asked from behind them.
“I promised Emma I would be there, and I will. How’s it going by the way?”
“Are you kidding? The day I talked to you I got a call from the curator for the Fairchild Collection. They’re lending me eight paintings to display.