Page 2 of Bad Guys Need Love Too

Unfortunately, he hadn’t found evidence of infidelity or anything else he could send to Lark (anonymously, of course) to convince her to ditch the dirtbag. And by all accounts, Neal did seem to genuinely love her.

Which meant that Ren wouldn’t frame him for espionage and get him sent to Guantanamo for the rest of his life. Yet.

But since he couldn’t rule him out as a suspect in the hit on Lark, he needed to get into that house and place a new camera. Immediately. Even though both of them were there.

He let out a deep sigh and tugged on his stolen City of Waterford hat.

It was showtime.

CHAPTER 2

She had to break up with Neal.

It was a sad fact that Lark Shaw was a people pleaser who hated conflict. Her parentslovedNeal. They’d been over the moon when he proposed. And Neal was a decent, hardworking, handsome guy. Any woman would be thrilled to have him.

Any woman but her.

The problem with Neal was that there was no spark between them. No zing. NoI’ll-die-if-I-can’t-have-you-nowpassion…as evidenced by the fact that they hadn’t had sex in months. The worst part of that, though? She didn’t even miss it.

It wasn’t like they’d ever hadgoodsex.

Which was why she had to break up with him. Soon.

“Doodlebug,” Neal sing-song’d as he let himself into her house.

Her cringe was multi-leveled. First of all, she hated that stupid nickname. It’d been fine when she was eighteen. But now? No thirty-two-year-old woman should be called “doodlebug.”

Secondly, she’d asked him repeatedly not to let himself into her house. She had been raised to be polite, and walking into someone’s house unannounced was flat-out rude. She always knocked when she went tohisapartment, even though she had a key.

Plus, if she was being honest, she was halfway convinced that if she wandered into his home unannounced, she’d find him jacking off on the couch midday to weird porn. There was just no coming back from something like that.

“I’m in here,” she said as she loaded her lunch plate into the dishwasher.

Neal strode in like he owned the place and dropped a perfunctory kiss on her cheek. Almost like a kiss he’d give his mom or grandmother. It made her cringe even harder.

“There’s a partner dinner on Friday.” He grabbed one of her smoothies—the ones she meal prepped for herself every Sunday and had limited quantities of—and took a swig, downing half of it in one go.

She tried to ignore the burning in her chest that was most assuredly resentment and asked, “A dinner with clients?”

He belched, then put the mostly empty bottle back in the fridge. Her left eye twitched. “No, just the partners and their wives to celebrate landing the Billings account. I’ll pick you up at 7.”

A frown line creased its way across her brow. She’d never had frown lines before. Great. Now the man was aging her prematurely. Shehadto break up with him. “I work that night,” she reminded him. “You know Sherry has her book club Fridays at 6. And I have to get the final arrangements done for theLipinski wedding. I probably won’t get out of there until 10 or so.”

Neal rolled his eyes. “I figured the old bat could missonebook club. It’s her shop, after all. You’re just an employee.”

Thejustin that sentence was doing a lot of heavy lifting. It usually did, because this was nothing new. Neal hated that he was a fancy lawyer and she wasjusta florist. She’d tried to explain to him numerous times over the years that she enjoyed her work at the flower shop. She was great at it, and Sherry was a wonderful, motherly woman who she adored.

She just didn’t have big career aspirations like Neal. Was it really such a crime to havejust a jobinstead of acareer? Lark didn’t think so. She’d never found a career path she’d been passionate about, so why force it?

Her lottery winnings from several years ago allowed her to pretty much do whatever she wanted for the rest of her life, so long as she didn’t live extravagantly. She’d paid off her parent’s house, then boughtherhouse and remodeled it to restore it to its original glory and did some repairs to her Land Rover. But other than that, the rest was split among some low-risk investments. Her monthly expenses were so low she could live off the interest of her winnings for the rest of her life.

Neal, of course, assumed she’d move into his trendy downtown apartment when they got married. She’d rather die than live in that soulless, beige-walled, ultra-modern, chrome-wrapped nightmare.

Although, at this point, she’d rather die than marry Neal.

“I can’t take the night off,” she said through clenched teeth. “You’ll have to go without me.”

He let out a sigh like she was the most exasperating creature on the planet. “Can’t you do thisonething for me? Just this once, Doodlebug? It’s important.”

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