The boss-caliber walk out was worth the mud on her nice shoes.
Driving back to the city barefoot, her filthy heels in the trunk, Carmela couldn’t stop thinking about what Tim had said. Not just the gross objectification of another woman, but the mirror he’d held up to her.
Is that what I look like? A lecherous old fool drooling over a beautiful young woman?
The thought made her stomach churn painfully. She couldn’t think of anything more pathetic. As she got closer to the o ce, she drove slower as if that could really prolong the uncertainty of seeing Rhiannon again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you scheduled three more showings,”
Rhiannon said as she leaned against Carmela’s doorway.
“We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow.”
Carmela’s eyes were trained on her phone as she pretended to look very preoccupied. “Aren’t you up for it?”
Rhiannon laughed. “I was trying to subtly tell you it’s late and you should call it a night.”
“Yet you’re still here,” she replied, glancing up from her screen.
“Who else is going to tell you to go home! Even Liz is gone,” Rhiannon countered, inviting herself in and plopping down in the chair across from Carmela’s desk.
Carmela tried to keep her attention o Rhiannon’s smiling face. She failed. “I’ll go when I’m done. I have work to catch up on for other clients. We don’t all have the luxury of having just the one,” she said with a smirk.
“Ahh,” Rhiannon groaned as she clutched her chest.
“That one hurt, Carm,” she said, struggling to remove an imaginary knife from her heart.
It was so ridiculous it made Carmela chuckle against her will. “So dramatic,” she muttered while an unwanted warmth crept over her cheeks.
Rhiannon smiled back at her, openly proud to have amused her. Unable to tear herself away from her gaze, Carmela’s heart pounded in triple time while her palms were lined with sweat. When Rhiannon’s ringing phone shattered the moment, she was grateful for the break in the circuit.
“Thanks. I’ll be right there,” Rhiannon answered as she stood with her phone still to her ear.
Without so much as goodbye, Rhiannon disappeared. A moment later, the chime indicated she’d opened the front door and left.
“Well, good night to you too,” Carmela muttered to herself, trying not to inhale the Rhiannon-scented air as she stared at the empty chair. Not letting herself think too much about the flutter in her gut, she forced the image of Rhiannon’s face out of her mind and got back to work.
Before she could get very far into the email she was writing, the door chimed again. For a heart-stopping second, she froze. Had Rhiannon forgotten to close the door behind her? The smell of food wafted in the air, and Carmela relaxed her shoulders and stopped rummaging in her bag for the mace.
“What are you doing?” Carmela demanded when Rhiannon reappeared in her doorway carrying a paper bag.
“What does it look like?” she countered in apparent irritation before taking the liberty of moving a stack of papers to the corner of her desk and pulling out various containers of Chinese food.
For a second, Carmela was stunned at the spread, but she willed herself to play it cool and crossed one leg over the other as she leaned back in her chair. “And what exactly was your plan if I had agreed that it was a good time to call it a night and rest before the marathon tomorrow?”
“Ha!” she shrieked before tossing a packet of chopsticks at her. “There was no way you were going to listen to me or
admit defeat.” Rhiannon was still chuckling when she served herself noodles and vegetables and sat down.
“You know one day the world is going to squeeze all this confidence out of you,” Carmela said as she poured a pile of beef and broccoli onto a plate Rhiannon grabbed from the kitchen.
“Oh trust me,” she said, her mouth still full. “It’s tried.”
Carmela shook her head. In nearly forty years, she’d never met anyone quite like Rhiannon. “Thank you,” she said before taking a bite. “It was really thoughtful of you.”
“Consider it part of my atonement for having been such a little shit to you when we first crossed paths and