Page 28 of The Love Destroyers

“A contest she didn’t enter,” Nicole says with a grin as she reaches up to adjust her beanie, tucking all of the pink underneath it. “Some people have all the luck, am I right?”

Shock spirals through me and sends shivers down my spine. My body seems to lurch within my skin at the thought of them here, in this place that’s my home even if it doesn’t always feel like it. They’re supposed to be in Charlotte, a part of my other life. If I had my choice, I’d never see either of them again. Ever.

But I’ve spent weeks hiding, and it hasn’t helped, so when I speak, the word that comes out of my dry mouth is “When?”

Something like approval crosses Seamus’s eyes. “They’re getting here next Friday, Leap Day, and they’ll be staying at the Grove Park Inn. I’m playing their chauffeur so they can get drunk at all the breweries, and Nicole’s arranged for some other surprises. She’s going to pose as Ellie’s personal assistant. She and Damien have also been corresponding with her as the contest supervisors, Nicky and Dan.”

I breathe in and out slowly, trying to process this surprise. It makes me feel out of control again, because all of this has been done without my input. But if they’d told me, would I have agreed? I’ve been so lost, so broken. I’ve needed a push…

Another shiver runs down my spine as I turn toward Nicole. “What are you going to do?”

“Our goal is to get you access to his computer and phones.” The plural suggests she’s been watching him enough to know he has two—one for work, one for personal use. “We’ll plant a doctored safe in the room so we can easily open it.”

My pulse races, but I try to moderate my response. “If he’s smart, he’s covered his tracks by now. It wouldn’t make sense for him to bring something incriminating with him.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s half as smart as he thinks he is,” Nicole says with a grin, her eyes gleaming. “I’ll bet he has all of his passwords saved to his computer like ninety percent of theold people I meet. Besides, if we lure them here, we have the home court advantage. And we can’t risk trying to sneak you into his office. If you break the court order here, it could be written off as an accident. You live here, they don’t. You can say you didn’t know about their little vacation. Having them in our space makes sense.”

Excitement tries to flare inside of me, but logic suggests Jeffrey would have deleted anything remotely incriminating. I say so and add, “He’d be a fool not to. So what would we even be looking for?”

She taps her forehead. “I’m counting on you to know it when you see it. That’s why we need you. Could Damien and I take care of this on our own? In our sleep. But you get the premium plus package, which includes having the satisfaction of personally taking part in his downfall. Plus, we want to have a little fun at their expense. Call it an asshole tax.”

More excitement flares through me, threatening to take over every other emotion. “Why would they stay if they’re having a shitty trip?”

She shrugs a shoulder carelessly. “I have a plan for that. It’s gonna be like the Hotel California. They can check in, but they won’t ever be able to leave.”

My first thought: ominous. My second thought: I like it.

“I figure we’ll break them up while we’re at it,” she says. “Leave him a shell of a man. Damien and I have already started sowing the seeds. Adding her favorite pop songs to his playlists. Sending her disgusting chocolates. Yesterday, we screwed up his calendar so he missed a business meeting. That doesn’t have anything to do with Ellie, I guess, but I’m pretty proud of our tech guy. Hopefully, it was an important meeting.”

“But why are you doing this?” I ask, truly blown away. My gaze moves to Seamus, who’s watching me with a dark gaze. “Why go to all this trouble?”

“It’s like I told you,” Nicole says, “Ireallyenjoy bringing down assholes. It’s my favorite hobby to make men like Jeffrey squirm. Can you honestly tell me you don’t want to see that happen?”

“No,” I admit, pulling gloves out of my pocket because I need something to do with my hands. “I want him to go down in flames.”

But I’m also terrified I’ll swing and miss.

Again.

I don’t like failing. No Rosings or Smith ever has.

“So do I,” she says. “Also, your mother hired me.”

“She did what?” I ask, dropping the gloves. Seamus immediately bends over to grab them. “How did she even know about Jeffrey?”

“She knew you’d had an affair with your boss, and he’d canned you after he started sleeping with a client. That, plus your obsession with interior decorating was enough to worry her. She asked me to look into it and take care of it, whatever it took. Lucky me, I already knew the whole story, so half of my work was done for me.”

I feel something quake inside of me. All this time, I thought I was doing a good job of keeping my problems to myself, and my mother already knew everything. Probably for weeks, maybe longer. I’m guessing my brother did too.

It’s quite possible every person up in that apartment knows.

It feels like another sign that I’ve completely lost control of my life, which doesn’t feel great, and yet…

Being intrusive and overbearing is my mother’s love language—her way of solving problems. I can’t altogether blame her. I would be the same way if someone I loved was suffering.

It probably drove my mom crazy, watching me bustle around the house when she knew I was turning my back on the ruins ofmy old life. Letting it fester. She wanted to fix things for me, and she’d gone to a lot of effort to do so.

The truth is that I'mrelieved.

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