Playing Dirty. Susan Andersen

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СКАЧАТЬ carpenter from the remodel, inside the mansion. Henry tripped the alarm, but Maperton killed him before help could arrive. It was assumed the construction worker had been retrieving the jewelry from where he’d hidden it, but if so, it was never recovered.

      Jane smiled crookedly. “I always got the impression, whenever Miss A referred to Henry, that he was a lot more to her than just a factotum or man of business or whatever the heck he was supposed to be.”

      Poppy shrugged. “We all did. What’s your point?”

      “Damned if I know, except that I can see the story playing out in a documentary.” Jane hooked her hair behind her ears. “And I hate to admit it, but it would be nice to have the financial burden taken off our shoulders for a while. But Miss A was one of a kind—so, unless Gallari’s scored Streep to play her, I can’t imagine the actress who could do her justice.”

      “I’d like to talk to you about something that’s related to the Miss A part, but first I should probably tell you—” okay, this is the tricky part “—that I, um, agreed to work for him next week, then for an additional six weeks during the actual production, which starts around the first of the year.”

      “Are you out of your freaking mind?” Poppy kept her voice low to prevent two nearby little girls eating the frosting off their cupcakes from overhearing, but her tone held a fierce edge.

      “Maybe.” Tough to take offense when she’d been asking herself the same thing way too frequently since walking away from Cade last night. “Probably, even. My first impulse when he approached me was the same ole, same ole—to either spit in his eye or gouge them both out.”

      Straightening her shoulders, she looked from one friend’s face to the other. “But that’s just a knee-jerk reflex.”

      “One that totally works for me,” Jane interjected in a dry tone.

      Ava shook her head. “He’s old news, Janie. I am so over him. But you know how dicked up my finances have been the past year.” Her lips tilted wryly. “So when he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse as the production company’s personal concierge—I didn’t.”

      Watching her with concern-filled eyes, neither Janie nor Poppy smiled back and Ava sighed. “What? You think I’m too fragile to handle it?”

      “No, of course not,” Jane said. “But I don’t trust that bastard as far as I can throw him. We were there the last time he got up close and personal with you and had to watch you struggle to put yourself back together.”

      “It was a piece-by-piece process,” Poppy agreed, “that took way too long and too much glue before it held together. And then you had to handle most of it on your own because of him screwing up our after-graduation plans—”

      Yeah, getting shipped off to the fat farm didn’t help hasten the process, she thought wryly. Which, okay, was more her mother’s fault than Cade’s. But screw that—the truth was, if she hadn’t been so flattened by his betrayal, something her mother hadn’t even seemed to notice, she would have dug in until she’d won that battle. So, for all intents and purposes, it was his fault.

      She tuned back in to hear Poppy continue, “So I suppose that I, at least, am a little afraid for you. You worked like a demon to build yourself back up, and I just don’t want to see all your hard work go down the drain because of Buttface Gallari.”

      “Neither do I. And I won’t let it. I will never forgive him, Poppy—ever. But I’m through running away from him. Because you’re right, I did work too hard building myself back up to keep doing that. I’m not surprised you might have reservations about my ability to handle myself—”

      “I don’t! You’ll go down in the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar annals for your counterattack on Gallari during the worst moment of your life. You more than proved you can handle yourself.”

      “Since then, though, I’ve been more reactive than proactive whenever I’ve run into him. So maybe I feel I have something to prove—to myself, if no one else. It doesn’t help that I looked in the mirror this morning and had a ‘fat’ moment.”

      “Dammit, Av,” Jane said. “When are you going to let those go? You’ve been a size twelve for twelve years.”

      “Which you like to remind me would be a size fourteen if I’d buy my clothing at the less spendy stores where most women shop.” She knew her friend was only teasing when she said that, but she couldn’t honestly deny Jane was right.

      “Please.” The brunette made a rude noise. “You know I only say that because I’m jealous you have big boobs. I wanna have big girl boobs some day.” She gestured at Ava’s emerald-green cashmere sweater and the black pencil skirt she’d tucked it into. “Look at you!”

      She glanced down at herself. “I know. Does this make me look rotund?”

      “Oh, for God’s sake, Spencer, snap out of it!” Poppy gave her a get-over-yourself glare. “As Janie said, you’ve maintained your killer bod for pretty much your entire adult life. And you know men trip all over themselves when you walk by. It’s not because you’re fat, girlfriend.”

      “Okay. Sorry.” She shook out her hands and picked up her coffee cup—then merely held it for a moment as she gave her friends a rueful smile. “I backslid for a minute there. Jeez. I’ve been down Insecurity Road so many times it likely has a butt-shaped rut etched in it. But I’m good now.”

      “It’s that damn Gallari, showing up out of the blue and shaking you up.”

      She shrugged. Seeing him again had contributed for sure, but it was really the telephone conversation she’d had with her mother earlier in which Jacqueline had made her usual crack about Ava’s weight. Why was her mom always so sure that she could do better, diet herself thinner? Never mind that she was a busty, hippy, big-boned girl who could starve herself into an early grave and still not die a sylphlike woman.

      Well, she mostly knew her worth. She also knew she’d earned it for more than shedding thirty-nine pounds.

      She knocked back a sip of coffee, set her cup on the table and, hands flat on either side of the mug, leaned into them in her intense need to make her friends understand why she’d agreed to do the last thing they’d expect from her. “Look, I’m not exactly raring to play personal concierge to Cade myself. But it’s work I can do with my eyes closed and he’ll pay me a weekly bundle for it, plus a huge bonus if the documentary comes in on time and on budget.”

      “Even if he’s on the up-and-up, how on earth are you gonna deal with seeing him day in and day out?”

      “By being the biggest professional you’ve ever seen. By reminding myself that if all goes well, I can finally pay off that frickin’ balloon payment that’s been hanging over my head.”

      Remembering a discussion with Cade last night that she had almost enjoyed, she flashed her dimples at her friends. “One of the things I’m genuinely excited about is an agreement I made to talk with Cade and his scriptwriter about Miss A to get her part as authentic as possible. So tell me what you guys would like to see included about her.”

      After an enthusiastic conversation about their mentor, Ava looked at her watch and pushed back from the table. “I know this is a bombshell and I’m sorry to drop it on your heads and run, but I’m meeting Cade again this evening at my lawyer’s to go over the fine points in my contract and discuss СКАЧАТЬ