Page 40 of The Love Bandits

You know what? Maybe I’m lucky not to have a mother.

She mustn’t have planned the electricity outage, but she doesn’t seem upset about it.

Maybe she’s in on it, whispers the suspicious-as-fuck voice in my head.Maybe this is about claiming insurance money.

It feels notable that there’s no sign of Nina. Why? She wasn’t with Anthony. Maybe she’s in the bathroom or Mrs. Rosings drove her to drink straight from a bottle of champagne in the kitchen. Regardless, it’s interesting that she’s not here.

“Does this happen often?” I ask, hoping to figure out a polite way to ask about the whereabouts of the future daughter-in-law she hates.

“No,” Mrs. Rosings says. “But every time it does, it seems to be in the middle of a dinner party. Who knows why.”

The look on her face suggests she knows perfectly well, however.

“Well, I have to leave, Mrs. Rosings,” Elaine says. “It’s an emergency.”

Mrs. Rosings’s gaze flicks up to my face, pausing there, before returning to Elaine. “Oh, it mayfeellike an emergency, Elaine, but it never it is. Still, you can go. I find I’m rather tired.”

“Have you seen Nina?” I ask. “Anthony was looking for her.”

A lie, sure, but if she mentioned it to Anthony, he’d think nothing of it.

“Oh, I’ve seen her all right,” Mrs. Rosings says with a sniff. “She made a big fuss about the power outage, not that I’m surprised.”

That could be the behavior of an innocent woman, or a guilty one wanting to be considered above suspicion.

“Goodnight,” Elaine says. “I’ll check in tomorrow to see if you need anything.”

Mrs. Rosings response is to laugh. “If you’re going to make bad decisions,dear, make sure you give yourself time to enjoy them.”

She’s obviously making insinuations about what’s going to happen tonight. Elaine must have decided it’s best to play along with the pretense, given both her boss and my best buddy Anthony believe it, because she takes my hand and hustles me out of the foyer. She’s still barefoot—and the gravel has to hurt, but she walks out as if she’s the Queen of England. Once we’re outside in the cool night air, she drops my hand like it burned her.

“What do we think, did she do it herself?” I ask in an undertone.

She doesn’t respond, just leads me out of the gate and down the block, then around a corner, stopping in front of a shitty Ford Fiesta.

“I figured you’d have something sporty.”

She spears me with a look as she unlocks the car with her fob. “I can’t afford a sports car.”

She says it with plenty of attitude, and I can’t help myself. I ask, “How much did you get paid for stealing my necklace?”

“You’re seriously getting onmycase about stealing?” she asks, lifting her eyebrows.

“Just wondering how much I’m worth.”

“I had to blow it all on getting Professor X anesthesia. Doyouhave a sporty car?”

“I don’t have a car at all,” I say, taking this in. Elaine is a woman who would assume risk for a stranger and wrack up debt for a cat someone else abandoned. That should make her an easy mark, but it would be a mistake to take her for one. I already know Elaine has a backbone of steel. “Jake Jeffries has a shitty sedan I paid cash for at one of those lots where they screw everyone over.”

“Are you talking this much because you’re nervous?” She tucks her inky hair behind her ear, and I remember the brush of it against my neck when she jumped onto my back. A pulseof heat shoots down to my dick at the thought of her hot weight pressed to my back, her foot near my dick. Her red-painted lips at my ear…

“Should I be?” I ask pointedly, pushing the thoughts away. “Are you just a vigilante when it comes to other people’s shitty boyfriends, or do you take offense to thieves too?”

“I take offense,” she says tightly. “But no, I’m not going to hurt you. My friends won’t hurt you either.”

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that,” I say, preparing to climb into the passenger side of the vehicle.

“Stop,” she tells me.

---