Page 11 of Dirty Work

“Nice try, but I’m not letting you get off that easily. There’s too much room for ambiguity and misinterpretation in a text. Face-to-face communication is best.”

“Who says he’s even there?” Brie does. According to her, her brother practically lives at the club, so the odds are pretty strong he’s there now. Not that I’m admitting that to Mia.

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take. Besides, the Yankees are losing, and I’m in the mood for something more than cheap prosecco and stale nachos.” She waves a hand at the half-eaten basket of chips on the table.

I look down at my outfit. Mia, as always, is fine and fresh and totally fierce in a little black dress that’s far from standard and five-inch, fire-engine red heels that match her purse and jewelry. But there’s no way my nacho-stained tank top, skinny jeans and flip-flops are getting past the bouncer manning the velvet rope.

“I’m not dressed for the club scene.” It’s my half-assed, last-ditch effort to get out of this, but if I know Mia, she’ll have some solution at her fingertips. The girl is a never-ending fount of can-do. I don’t think the wordnois in her vocabulary.

She doesn’t disappoint.

“My place is closest. We can stop there first.” She pulls two twenties from her purse and plunks them down on the table to cover our tab, waving off my protest. “You can borrow my Armani shift dress. You know, the navy one with the beaded-fringe hem.”

I palm my breasts, which are at least two cup sizes bigger than hers. “Like anything in your closet can contain these puppies.”

“It’s very forgiving. And a little cleavage will make your apology go over that much smoother.”

More like a lot of cleavage, but it’s clear there’s no point arguing with the force of nature that is Mia Hadid. I hand over her phone, the battle lost. The best I can hope for now is that by some miracle workaholic Jake has come to his senses and taken a night off. Or if he hasn’t, he’s too busy to deal with an insignificant errand girl with a tendency to hump and run, and I can convince Mia it’s socially acceptable to revert to my original text message plan.

I push my chair back and stand, snatching my wristlet from the table. “Fine. You can dress me up and take me out on one condition.”

She lets out a high-pitched squee, but I hold a hand up to stop her.

“Not so fast, Henry Higgins. You haven’t heard the condition yet.”

She frowns, creasing her perfect, normally wrinkle-free forehead. “Henry Higgins?”

“You know, fromMy Fair Lady.” She’s still staring at me like I have two heads, so I go on. “It’s a musical. Based on the playPygmalion. He takes a lowly flower girl and turns her into a lady.”

“Figures. You and your show tunes.” She grimaces, but I know she’s not serious. She’s been my date to the theater more times than I can count in place of my Broadway-boycotting ex-boyfriend. “So what’s the condition?”

“By twelve o’clock I’m home and snug in bed.”

“But it’s almost eleven now,” she says, twisting her wrist to check the diamond-studded Patek Philippe she bought herself at Tiffany when she made partner last month. I brace myself for the flood of regret, the deluge of could-have-been-me’s, but they don’t come. All the confirmation I need that I made the right decision walking away. As if I needed more proof that my life is ten thousand times better as the owner of a boutique concierge service than it was as an overworked, overstressed attorney.

I link my arm through Mia’s and steer her toward the door. “Then we’d better get going. Because at midnight this lady turns back into an errand girl.”

CHAPTER SIX

Jake

“YOUCANGOHOME,you know.” Connor’s voice comes from over my shoulder as I stare at the bank of computer screens that dominates my enormous chrome-and-glass executive desk. “You don’t have to be at the club every waking hour.”

“I could say the same thing to you,” I shoot back, tapping a button on my keyboard to flip from one security camera to another. It’s been a fairly uneventful night so far, but that could change at the drop of a hat. Or a beer bottle. It doesn’t take much to set tempers flaring, especially when alcohol is involved.

Connor rests his butt on my desk and waves a manila folder in my face. “I had to get the quarterly payroll taxes done. I was heading down the hall to drop them on Diane’s desk so she can double-check my math in the morning when I saw your light on. What’s your excuse?”

“Just keeping an eye out for trouble.” I switch screens again. “It’s a full moon. And the city’s in the middle of a heat wave, with no end in sight. All the crazies will be out tonight.”

“We have people for that. I believe they’re called bouncers.”

“I know that. I hired them.”

“Then what are you really doing here?” Connor folds his arms across his chest and cocks his head to give me the hairy eyeball. “Afraid to go back to your empty apartment now that your sister’s gone?”

“Are you kidding? The man cave’s all mine again. I can walk around buck naked. Leave the toilet seat up. Drink milk straight from the carton.” Not that I do any of that stuff. Much.

“Even assuming I buy what you’re shoveling, that doesn’t tell me why you’re still here.”