Seduce Me - J. Kenner Page 0,17
eye, and I know she’s thinking the same thing that I am—this girl would be way better off having lunch with us and blowing Jay off.
But right now, that’s not something we can say to Marcy.
“What about dinner?” I suggest, though the thought of canceling on Damien makes me sad. Still, the thought of not helping Marcy makes me even sadder. And I would hate myself if I sent her back to her boyfriend without knowing exactly how she got those bruises—and how I can help this girl who was so nice to me in school.
“Oh,” she says. “Um, that would be nice. But we’re supposed to have dinner tonight after he finishes at seven.”
“Maybe he could join us,” I say. “It would be fun to meet your fiancé.”
“Um. Sure. I guess.”
I’m about to lock her into that plan, when I hear a man’s voice bellowing, “Marcy!” down the promenade. The sound arrives first, but the man storms up immediately after. He’s a big guy, solid muscle. The kind of man who looks good in his youth, then starts to fall apart. I predict jowls in just a few years.
“Jesus H. Christ, Marcy, what the fuck are you doing? I’ve only got forty-five minutes for lunch. What the hell part of ‘at the beginning of the shopping area’ didn’t you understand?”
I glance down the promenade. We’re only four storefronts from the beginning.
“I’m sorry, Jay. I’m really sorry.”
I’m not sure how it’s possible, but she seems even smaller.
“It’s just that I bumped into friends from Texas.”
“Hey,” he says, barely looking at Jamie and me. He grabs her arm. “Let’s go.”
“We were hoping you could join us for dinner,” I blurt. “You and Marcy with my husband and me.”
He blinks at me. “We got plans.”
“That’s a shame. I just figured with you in tech sales we could maybe mix business with pleasure.”
His eyes narrow. “You here for the trade show?”
“No, but my husband owns the hotel. He has a lot of business interests. And I do a lot of app work myself.” I extend my hand, though I’m loath to touch him. “Nikki Stark,” I say. “My husband is Damien Stark.”
As I had hoped, the name works on Jay like a magic potion. He practically has dollar signs in his eyes.
“Oh, yeah. We’d love it, wouldn’t we, Marce?”
“Sure,” she says dutifully.
“That’s great,” I say. “Marcy’s coming with me and Jamie to the spa at three, so we’ll work out the time and place then.”
Marcy’s eyes go wide, and Jay doesn’t look too happy. “Spa?”
“She mentioned you’re working the trade show today,” Jamie says. “We don’t want her to be stuck all alone. It’ll be fun. A girls’ pampering session before y’all do the wedding thing. Congratulations, by the way.”
“Thanks.” He glances at Marcy. She smiles at him. Fortunately, she looks neither confused nor freaked out. “We should go to lunch,” he says.
“Three o’clock,” I say again. “At the reception counter for the spa. It’s on the second floor, the other side of the atrium from the restaurant.”
“Okay,” Marcy says softly. She shifts her purse so that she is holding it against her chest. “I’ll be there,” she adds, and I understand what she hasn’t said out loud—that she’s coming because she feels like she owes me.
Which means that if I want to keep her listening to me after she arrives, I need to figure out pretty quickly what I want to say.
As soon as they’ve disappeared down the walkway, Jamie turns to me. “What the fuck?”
“She stole a vase,” I say, then I tell her the whole sordid story. “You saw the bruises?”
Jamie frowns, her expression turning dark. “I saw. Guy’s a prick.” She drags her fingers through her hair. “I always really liked Marcy. What should we do?”
“Talk to her,” I say. I draw a deep breath. “Talk, and hope she tells us the truth. Then maybe we can help her.”
“You think she’s actually going to show up at three?”
“I hope so,” I say. “Because if not, we’ll have to cancel our appointment to track her down. And I really want a massage and a manicure.”
—
Despite the fact that I totally do want a manicure, I decide to ditch the mani-pedi experience in favor of Mission Marcy.
Jamie and I both want to get Marcy talking, and I just don’t expect that to happen if we’re in front of three strangers working on our hands and feet.
Instead, we opt for massages to loosen us up, and then plan to spend the next