Page 74 of Sheltered By Love

She pulls off her glasses, holds up her phone, takes a few shots, then pushes the glass door to the entrance open.

Her eyes meet mine and she gives me a dazzlingly white smile. “Wow! This place is even cuter than I thought!”

Her perfume is so strong that I have to breathe through my mouth as she sits at a table.

After a brief introduction, I hand her the coffee menu. She scans it briefly, then tosses it on the table. “Look. Before we get started. I want to apologize. I was a bitch to you on the phone,” she says.

That was not how I’d expected to start this meeting.

“It’s all forgotten,” I say.

“No. I want to explain. I was having a bad day. Okay, more like a bad week. The diamond I’m talking about, my grandma left it to me in her will with the proviso I get it made into something I actually want to wear, and now everyone in the family has gone nuts.”

She’s talking so rapidly and moving her hands so fast as she speaks I have to wonder if she’d be better off with decaf.

“They’re making all kinds of demands, saying I don’t deserve to have it, and…:”

She sniffs. “It’s gotten to the point I’m not even sure I want the stupid thing anymore. You know?”

I wish I knew. I also wish we would get to the topic at hand. I have a lot of clearing up to do at home.

So far, I haven’t gotten a word in, and when Jaxson appears at the table, her eyes nearly pop out of her head.

“Espresso for me,” she says.

“I’ll have a pot of Earl Grey for one, thank you,” I say.

He smiles at us both and then turns to walk away. Riley emits a low rumbling sound as she appraises his backside.

“He is gorgeous. Are they all like that? No wonder you wanted to live here,” she says.

“Well, there are more men than women,” I say.

Her eyes widen. “Wait a sec, is this the place they do that party? What’s it called, Love in the Bay, or something like that.”

I don’t know the official name, so I shrug. “I only found out yesterday it was happening. Apparently, all the tickets are sold out.”

Riley shakes her blond tresses. “Damn. I’ll have to come next year. I’ve heard things get wild,” she says.

“They do?”

“Oh yeah,” she says.

I nearly groan aloud. “Maybe we should talk about the design?”

We manage to do that for all of five minutes before Jaxson comes back with our drinks and sets her off again.

None of it is helped when a beer delivery arrives and he has to pick up and haul kegs of beer on his shoulder, straining every one of his sizable muscles.

When he disappears behind the bar, Riley fans herself. “I need to be somewhere else but I’m happy with your design. The security you have at home looks tight. And if that’s the kind of muscle you know, no one is going to mess with you, right?”

I try to sound confident. “Right.”

She drains her coffee, pulls out a twenty-dollar bill, and slaps it on the table before getting to her feet.

“I’ll be in touch,” she says.

Before I can celebrate, she breezes out the door, leaving me in clouds of expensive perfume.

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