Page 119 of Hunting Pretty

“If you don’t stop investigating…” He hesitated, his eyes searching mine, filled with something I couldn’t quite name. “I’ll leave.”

His words were a gut punch, stealing the air from my lungs.

He meant it.

AVA

What did it say about me that I was in Paris with Lisa on an impromptu girls’ weekend and I wasstilllooking into the shadows for my stalker.

Lisa waved the latest Birkin at me and I was staring at the darkened doorway across the Rue Saint-Honoré.

I barely felt the soft silk Hermes scarves that the sales assistant laid in my fingers. I was too busy peering between the passing cars for a skeleton mask.

Even the diamonds at Cartier weren’t shiny enough to keep my attention on them. I kept glancing to the corner across the intersection, a perfect place to watch me from.

Buthewasn’t there.

Lisa nudged me, causing me to drop the glittering tennis bracelet onto the velvet display box. “Stop it, Ava. He’s gone.”

I’d broken down on Ebony’s Gulfstream 280 on the way here and finally told Lisa about my stalker.

She spluttered into her Moet, coughing, and pounded at her chest.

The stewardess poked her head in from the service station, but I waved her off.

I dabbed at the spilled champagne on Lisa’s Chanel trench. “Oh no, you’re going to have to dry-clean this straightaway or it’ll be ruined.”

She shoved my hands away. “Oh no, you can’t drop a bomb like ‘I have a stalker and PS he’s hot and we’re kinda fucking’ and try to change the subject to laundry.”

She snatched the bottle of Moet from the ice bucket and took a long swig from it before scooting forward on the cream leather seat. “Spill, woman. I wantallthe details.”

She’d surprised me by just listening, eyes wide, not saying a word, barely moving except to hand me the Moet when I got to the part about him ‘breaking up’ with me.

Was that what happened?

I thought he was bluffing when he threatened to leave if I didn’t stop investigating. But the lilies stopped appearing every morning. And I didn’tfeelhim around me the way I usually did.

Back in the Paris Cartier store, my heart squeezed.

No, he couldn’t be gone. Really?

The ground felt unstable under my feet. I hadn’t realized how reassured I’d felt with his presence always around me.

I turned to Lisa and forced a brave smile. “He’s really gone, hasn’t he?”

Lisa’s pretty features dropped and she pulled me in for a side hug. “I’m sorry, hon.”

I was too aware that the sharp-nosed and impeccably dressed sales assistant was peering at me closely.

“Bad breakup,” I told her.

She nodded with empathy, her perfectly manicured nail fluttering on her crisp Chanel suit, her French accent soft and musical. “Nothing heals ze broken heart like diamonds,mon ami.”

I couldn’t help but glance again through the front glass window to the empty corner across the street. I certainly hoped so.

Lisa did her best to keep me from dwelling on him. And I faked being the carefree rich girl as best I could.

When we returned to our multiroom suite at the Ritz, Lisa and I posed in front of the full-length gilded mirror.

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