see her.
The sense of outrage wasn’t bad, actually. It distracted from how much she was low-key disgusted with herself for bolting from the room.
Retreat isn’t weakness.
Rhiannon curled her fingers around the arm of her makeup chair. She’d have to keep telling herself that.
Lakshmi dabbed powder over her nose. “It’s no big loss if she doesn’t show up today for the interview. With Helena killing it on her late-night talk show lately, it would be good for her to see you wrap an audience around your finger.”
Rhiannon didn’t pretend to play humble. When she was on, she was on and could easily wrap a crowd around her finger, even many of those people who might be poised to snub her on the basis of old rumors. “Yeah.”
“Except, of course, Annabelle is your white whale. Meeting her here would be a lot easier than camping out near her beach house.”
Rhiannon flinched, but she recovered as quickly as possible. Lakshmi was gently teasing her. She had no idea how little Rhiannon wanted to think of that weekend.
Katrina, Rhiannon’s best friend and business partner, and Lakshmi had both been skeptical about her plan to rent a place a few houses down from Annabelle’s beach home for a long weekend, but it had seemed like a great idea at the time. Despite Matchmaker’s L.A. headquarters, Annabelle was reportedly rarely in the city, Cayucos the closest she came when she ventured off her Northern California estate.
Rhiannon had killed two days playing spy, and by the third, with Annabelle’s house remaining dark and empty, she’d been climbing the walls in boredom. So she’d sat down with her own app, and, well, that night with Samson had been the result.
See me again.
He’d still been inside her when he’d whispered that in her ear. Dawn had been breaking, sending fingers of blue and pink over her rented bedroom walls. They’d wrecked all the bedding, the white ruffled duvet hanging off the bed, the pillows on the floor.
Normally she would have shuffled a man out after the first time they’d had sex or after she’d gotten off sufficiently, whichever came first. He’d lasted four times. Or had it been five? He’d merely had to kiss her or touch her, or look at her, and she’d dragged him back on top of her.
She blamed her dick-drunk brain for not shooting down his suggestion for another night immediately. Instead she’d skated her hands down his sweat-slick back. I’m heading home to L.A. in a couple of days.
Silly her, she’d held her breath, unsure of whether he’d say something that would mean she’d have to kick him out. Something long term, like L.A.’s not so far, even though a four-hour drive might as well be the moon as far as an Angeleno was concerned.
But he was smart and only replied, Then we have a couple days.
When he hadn’t shown the next night, she’d felt—
She gave herself a hard mental shake. Nah. She was done with feelings. Shove them down.
She’d spent last night tossing and turning, marveling over the coincidence—horror?—of Annabelle’s newest employee being her one-night stand, but it didn’t matter at the end of the day. Whatever freak chain of events had led to him now working for the company she hoped to buy was irrelevant. She only had to avoid him for the next two days. This was a big conference, and he was her competitor’s spokesman, not upper management. She’d be fine.
“Are we done?” Rhiannon asked.
Lakshmi finished painting her lips and stepped back. “Yeah.”
Rhiannon checked her face in the mirror and nodded in satisfaction. “Thanks. I look good.”
“As usual.”
Whoa. “Thanks.” Lakshmi must really be picking up on odd vibes from her if she was complimenting her this lavishly. Not that Lakshmi wasn’t kind, but Rhiannon wasn’t the type of woman who seemed like she needed complimenting.
Sweet. Kind. Loyal.
The funny thing was, Rhiannon could be sweet and kind, and she was loyal to death, if she loved a person. But no one would have ever described her as sweet, kind, and loyal. Because the world had decided long ago what a sweet, kind, and loyal woman looked like, and it wasn’t her.
Rhiannon carefully picked a piece of lint off her black hoodie. When she’d found herself heartbroken and alone four years ago, she’d made a promise to create an alternate universe for herself. One in which she didn’t spend hours and days and weeks and months losing time mourning people who treated her poorly. In the other universe, with her time reclaimed,