Page 87 of Happily Never After

“I’m taking dancing lessons to surprise Karen,” Brad said. “What are you doing here?”

He sounded pissed.

“We were—uh—” Mindy stammered.

“Spying on you,” Claire confessed. “To make sure you weren’t a cheater or a crime lord or a serial killer.” Brad was a reasonable man. Honesty was the best policy. Surely he would understand.

“I’ll leave you to chat,” Topaz said. She sashayed out of the room in a sparkly gold cocktail dress. She must have been at least sixty.

Brad went red from the center of his bulbous nose to the tips of his sticky-out ears. “Never once in all my years has someone I’ve hired treated me with this level of distrust.”

Well, shit. This was not going as expected. She should have lied and told him she was there to do hot yoga. In a wig.

“Brad, I’m so sorry.” She pulled her foot out from under Mindy’s neck and stood. Her elbow stung. “You have to understand, what I went through with Barney has really impacted my ability to trust people. I just had to be sure that you were a good guy.”

“Did I give you any reason to believe that I’m not a good guy?” He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. Power emanated from him. In this moment, it was easy to see what a force of nature he must be in a conference room.

“No, not at all,” she said with her hands held out. “But I’ve thought that before and almost lost my life. I didn’t mean to offend you. For the sake of the business and for me as a human being, I can’t lead another woman into the arms of a murderer. That day is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. You understand, don’t you?”

“I don’t, Claire. Luke knows me. You trust him. He trusts me. Why is that not enough for you? Why do you have to sneak around and spy on me? Is this how you treat people? You know, other planners reached out to me, but I said no. I wanted a Claire Hartley original.”

“I’m so sorry, I?—”

Brad lifted one hand, and Claire clammed up.

“I need to think,” he said. “I don’t know if I can work with someone who treats their clients like they’re guilty. You work for me, remember? For now, anyway.” He sighed and turned away from them, ran a hand through what hair he had left. A second later he turned back, looking slightly more composed. “Come tothe office tomorrow morning. We’ll discuss if I’m still using your services then.”

Claire bit her lip. Fuckity fuck fuck. She had finally done it. She had let her paranoia and obsession with safety destroy a relationship with a client.

“We understand,” Mindy said, gripping Claire’s arm and steering her out of the room.

The fluorescent lights in the hallway wobbled through the tears that stung Claire’s eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. Not here, not in this stupid overpriced gym where people paid a small fortune to throw tires around. Not because of some guy namedBrad.

They stepped out into the early evening—perfect weather, of course. Reality hurtled out of the sky like a meteor. She had just paid $120 to destroy her relationship with a client.

“I screwed up, Min.” She stared at a scatter of cotton candy clouds and blinked her tears away.

Mindy patted Claire on the back. “We both screwed up. I thought we were doing Karen a favor. How can you know two people are really in love unless you know they’re not two-faced, lying, cheating assholes? It’s part of our process. Why is he so upset about it if he doesn’t have something to hide?”

Claire’s breath hitched. After an incredibly long Sunday, everything had finally been perfect. Every vendor confirmed, every piece of décor acquired. It was the longest, most frustrating proposal she had ever arranged. It was going to be stunning, the shining jewel on the crown of her career. And now it might be gone forever.

“Not everyone’s a bad guy, Min. I don’t know when I started feeling like that. I didn’t stalk Tyler to make sure he wasn’t pretending to have mobility issues. I didn’t follow Aaron home to make sure there weren’t dead bodies hung on meat hooks nextto Jane’s paintings in their storage shed. And Brad’s right. Luke trusts him. Why don’t I trust him?”

“It’s okay. We can find another client.”

She whirled around. “Another client? This was supposed to be our inaugural West Coast proposal. Everything is hanging on this. If Brad doesn’t keep us on, the shelter is screwed. The business is screwed. We’re screwed. The amount of money lost in deposits alone?—”

Her vision was going dark. She kicked the tire of Luke’s car, then groaned and got on her knees. After a few deep breaths, her vision stopped swimming. Nothing sharp behind the tires. She stood and peered into the back seat. Rinse, repeat.

“And we have nothing to fall back on because ESA burned our fricken warehouse down. It’s going to take months to replace everything, and we’ll have to outsource everything—linens, décor, greenery, sound equipment, lighting—and it’ll be so much more expensive.”

She sat on the ground and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’ve ruined everything. I pissed off the wrong person and my car was blown up. My mother was almost abducted. An international mob of hitmen are trying to kill me. All because I friend-zoned Barney almost a decade ago and my deadbeat biological father was tasked with taking them down. Now Brad will write something awful on Yelp, we’ll lose all our clients, we won’t be able to pay the loan back, we’ll go bankrupt, and Luke will leave me and I’ll have to move back in with you. Oh, and let’s not forget I’ll be sending a bunch of innocent dogs to their death.”

“Claire,” Mindy said calmly. She put a hand on Claire’s shoulder. “Just breathe, okay? Even if Brad does fire us, it’s not the end of the world. Actually, if he does fire us, I’m going to burnhisoffice down. If he can’t understand why you take extrasteps to make sure your clients are good people, he’s not the kind of client we want anyway.”

“Right.” She wrenched the car door so hard that it squealed. “I won’t say ‘fuck that guy’ just yet because he has a point, but if he fires us, I will unleash holy hell on this town.”

“And I’ll be right there with you.” Mindy turned the car on and shifted into gear. “We won’t be allowed back here ever again.”

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