Page 20 of Love Me Tomorrow

“It is,” Savannah and I say simultaneously.

Maybe I’m caught in a weak moment—teasing Jordan with her by my side, like we used to—but I meet Savannah’s gaze and hold it. One second. Two. The moment lingers, wrapping me up in memories of her visiting Inked for lunch breaks and doing paperwork in my office late at night while she brought her own to work on . . . Until it segues once more into cold, hard reality.

She dumped me.

I moved on.

Maybe Jordan is right—the awkwardness levels are practically toxic.

In silence, we trudge down the hallway until I’m elbowing open my office door and standing off to the side to let her in. I catch another whiff of that sultry perfume of hers as she slips around me, giving me a wide birth. I grit my teeth. Watch with narrowed eyes as she carefully takes the seat closest to the exit and sets her purse on my desk. Given our past, it’s all too easy to imagine us the way we used to be: laughing, splitting a pizza, badly singing to whatever song came on the radio as we worked.

I don’t bother with sitting down now.

Resting my ass against the corner of the desk, I link my arms over my chest. Small talk has never been my forte, so I don’t start with it now. “ERRG paid off Mike.”

Her brow furrows. “Do you hear yourself? You’re making it sound like we’re the mafia or something. We didn’tpayhim off—”

“What do you call it when a man agrees to sell off his pride and joy in exchange for sipping piña coladas on a beach in Aruba?”

“It’s called giving an elderly man the chance to pay off his debts and stillenjoy the rest of his life however he sees fit.” Unzipping her monstrosity of a purse, she pulls out a stack of folders and drops them unceremoniously on my desk. “Mike was ready to move on. It was a mutually beneficial deal.”

“What about the souvenir shop?”

“Bankrupt and about to be put on the market,” she says easily, riffling through her papers.

I stare down at her, unconvinced. It took three stints in jail—all within the same year, when I was twenty—for me to learn to trust my gut. As a kid, I was too damn gullible. Too easy to trust, too naïve to know any better. Despite the fact that I come from a long line of cops, my parents did what they could to keep Gage and me sheltered. Dad told us all the good things about his job, leaving out all of the bad. When it all got too much for her, Mom left him and covered up her heartache with smiles and hugs. Then she took us with her to Hackberry, Louisiana.

Population: under fifteen hundred.

Number of ways we could get into trouble: zero.

Maybe things would have turned out differently if I’d stayed out in southwest Louisiana. But I didn’t, and life always manages to find you no matter how far you run.

And if I’m looking on the bright side, then I’d say jail has a pretty good success rate at stripping your innocence. Forces you to harden up or find yourself isolated in a place where teaming up means survival and walking the solitary beat guarantees nothing but trouble. By the time the judge dismissed my case after Edgar Rose’s accusation, I wasn’t the same kid my mom used to send to pick up milk from the corner store or the same teenager who shyly asked Maryanne to prom, knowing that she liked Gage more, though he didn’t even know her name.

Over the years, I’ve learned to stay on my toes and anticipate the inconceivable. Right now, my gut is hollering at me to not trust a thing coming out of Savannah’s sexy, pouty mouth.

Wanting to throw her off-kilter—to see that fake-as-shit poker face crumble—I set my hand over hers to still her anxious shuffling. “And me?” I ask, my voice low.

Her lips part on a sharp breath, but she doesn’t move her hand out from under mine. “What about you?”

I lean down, slouching my shoulders so that we’re at eye level. “Let’s not play this game, Rose.”

“I’m not—”

“Your dad bought the souvenir shop,” I tell her, flattening my hand on hers so that her fingers are pinned to that precious folder she’s gripping like no tomorrow. Her startled gaze leaps to mine. “It was being sold, and he picked it up before anyone else could put in an offer. Yeah, you told me that. But the daiquiri shop . . .”

When I purposely trail off, her hand flexes beneath mine. “I told you, Mike was ready to move on to his next adventure.”

“Daddy dearest doesn’t do anythin’ out of the kindness of his heart, baby.” The endearment isn’t necessarily considered one here in New Orleans. It’s a word bandied about by cashiers and cabbies and even sweet-tempered librarians to kids in strollers all the way to the elderly pushing their walkers. But Savannah’s eyes . . . Christ, they fuckingburnwhen the word slips from my tongue, and my damn cock twitches in my jeans. My head might know that we’re done with her, and my heart has finally gotten the memo, but my dick is clearly not one to fall in line.Traitor. Releasing a tight exhalation that does nothing to relieve the ache behind my zipper, I add, “Which means it’s not escapin’ my notice that ERRG now owns the entire block.”

“Almostthe entire block,” Savannah retorts, tugging at her hand so that I let her go. If I wasn’t watching so closely, I’d have missed the way she swallows, hard, and straightens her shoulders as if she’s going to war—against me. “He doesn’t own Inked.”

“Yet.” I keep my tone soft, cool. Cross my ankles, one over the other, and settle in like I’ve got all the time in the world to hash this shit out with her. “Did he send you to me, Rose? Tell you all the ways you need to convince me to roll over and play dead, just like Mike?”

“Owen—”

“Answer the question, Savannah. He wants Inked next.” Our gazes clash, mine angry and resolute and hers bleak but hopeful. “Yes . . . or no?”

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