Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss

Fourteen

Andie

The ownerof Newtown Brewing was Ginny Newtown, because it was a family business. Ginny was fortyish, with graying brown hair tied into a high ponytail and dangly, beaded earrings that looked fashionable and awesome. She was brightly dressed in a white blouse and bright orange knee-length skirt. And she wasn’t hitting on me, as far as I could tell.

“So you’re Terry’s ex-wife, huh?” she said as we sat down in her office. She crossed her toned legs and looked me up and down. She was obviously acquainted with Terry, and whatever had happened with him, she wasn’t impressed.

I was still raw from what Damon had told me in the parking lot. Terry had been cheating on me for God knew how long, with God knew how many women. I’d suspected it; it was the reason I’d stopped sleeping with my husband. But that didn’t make it any easier to hear it confirmed out loud. It seemed that Terry still had the power to make me feel hurt.

Weirdly, the first thing I’d thought was I’m going to need a blood test done. Terry and I hadn’t had sex in a long time, but who knew what he had given me?

Everything about this was humiliating.

I looked at Ginny, at how attractive she was, and blurted the words: “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him.”

She frowned, but it was a look of concern, not of guilt. “Honey, no,” she said. Then she turned to Damon, who was sitting in the chair next to me. She looked him up and down, too, a twinkle of interest in her eyes. “Are you the bodyguard?”

“Sort of,” he replied.

“Leave the room for a little bit, will you? This is girl talk.”

I thought he’d give her attitude, like he usually gave me, but instead something seemed to pass between the two of them. Then Damon shrugged. “Okay,” he said, getting up. “I guess I’ll go smell vats of beer for a while.”

“One of the guys will give you a sample if you want,” Ginny said as he walked to the door.

“I’m on the clock,” he said, and left.

When the door closed behind him, Ginny looked at me. “What’s with that guy?” she asked. “I mean, he’s hot. Don’t get me wrong. If that’s why you bring him everywhere, then I’m all for it. But I get the feeling it’s something else.”

She said it with such empathy. And I didn’t have any women to talk to, because I was an only child and my mother died when I was ten. And everything was too much. To my complete horror, I started to cry.

If Ginny was surprised or embarrassed, she didn’t show it. She leaned over, opened a drawer in her desk, and took out a small travel pack of Kleenex, the kind you take with you on a plane. “I always keep these handy,” she explained as she passed them to me. “I’ve had plenty of days when I’ve cried in this office. I just don’t let on.”

For some reason that just made me cry harder. I wedged a few Kleenex from the package and mopped my eyes, then blew my nose.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to her. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“No? Well, I do,” Ginny said. “You’ve been married to a complete bastard for a lot of years, that’s what. And then he dumped you and you’re happy and sad and mad about it all at once. And you have a bar to run. It’s a lot.”

“It is!” It was so cathartic to hear someone say it out loud. “It really is! I think I’m going crazy.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Ginny shrugged. “But you didn’t answer my question. What’s with Hottie Bodyguard? Is he guarding your body or what? Because in my opinion, he should be.”

I laughed as I mopped the last of my tears. “I hired him for security. There have been break-ins at the Wild, and some of the crowd there can be rough. Hottie—I mean, Damon is former DEA. He’s going to overhaul the bar security for me.”

“Fine, so why do you bring him to your meetings?”

For a second, I completely forgot that he’d originally wanted to come to my meetings so he could get a better feel for how the business was run. “It makes me feel better to have him here,” I said instead, which I suddenly realized was the truth. “The last guy I met with was a creep who tried to hit on me. No one tries to bother me when Damon is around.”

“Yeah, I guess they don’t!” Ginny barked a laugh. “He’s hot, but he’s also scary as shit. It’s a good idea, actually. This business is mostly men, and most of those men are horny garbage, especially with a divorced woman who is vulnerable and good-looking. They’ll probably see you as fresh meat.”

So there was someone else who thought I was attractive, even though she possibly wasn’t a lesbian. It was starting to get through my head that Terry was lying all these years when he’d treated me like no sane man would ever look at me. When he’d treated me like I wasn’t the least bit sexy or beautiful.

“You think I’m vulnerable?” I asked Ginny.

“Oh, honey. You’re practically bleeding all over the floor in here. It’s probably why Hottie Bodyguard has such a soft spot for you.”

“I don’t think he has a soft spot for me,” I said, thinking of the conversation we’d had in my office, and then in the car.

“If you say so.” Ginny shrugged again, the motion making her earrings move and click. “Maybe you pay him enough to stick around.”

“I don’t pay him anything. Not yet, anyway. This is kind of a trial thing.”

She stared at me, and then she said, “That guy out there,” she pointed to the door, “has DEA skills, and he’s working for you for free? Are you banging him?”

“No!” My face flushed.

“But you want to. Right? Does he know that?”

“My husband only left two weeks ago.” Why was I even having this conversation? Nothing about today was happening like it was supposed to. I dug into my messenger bag and pulled out my trusty papers, trying to get back on track. “I booked this meeting today to talk about your invoices.”

Ginny only glanced at the papers I was holding. “It’s simple,” she said. “Terry didn’t pay his bills unless we threatened to sue him. Every time. He’s an asshole, I’d bet my grandma’s inheritance that he was into something dirty, and yes, he tried to fuck me numerous times. I turned him down. You’re well rid of him, honey. You can do a lot better.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to process all of that. I fixated on one small part of what she’d said. “You think Terry was into something dirty?”

“You get a feeling about some people, you know?” Ginny said. “I had a feeling about Terry. But I have no proof. Just my gut.”

Yeah, well, I’d lived with Terry for years, and it had taken me this long to catch on. Apparently, my gut wasn’t as well-honed as Ginny’s was.

Or maybe I’d preferred to keep my eyes closed and my ears plugged. Because that was safer.

I didn’t want to think about that, about what it meant. If I had kept my head in the sand all of those years, I certainly was paying for it now. “I’m going to make payments on the invoices,” I said. “I’m a bookkeeper by trade, so it won’t take me long to straighten out the finances. Then we’ll start making regular payments on the balance we owe. I’m asking that you don’t cut deliveries off in the meantime. I’m going to make it right, I swear. You’ll get everything you’re owed.”

Ginny seemed to think about that, and finally she nodded. “I believe you. We’ll keep delivering in good faith for now. Send what you can, when you can, and we’ll work it out. Oh, and no cash.”

I blinked. “Cash?”

“Yeah. Terry and his cash.” She shook her head. “What kind of business does he think I run? This has been my family business for two generations, going on three. I’m not interested in a bag of cash from God knows where to pay my invoices. Just write a check like a normal business. That’s all I ask.”

“Okay,” I said, putting my papers away as a trickle of relief started somewhere in my belly. This was a problem, but I was dealing with it. I could solve it. And I could do it on my own, without help. “I can do that.”

“Back to Hottie Bodyguard.” Ginny uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Let me give you a little advice.”

“Advice for what?” I asked.

“How to get him into bed.”

I stared at her, my mind blank of words.

“That’s what you want, right?” She waved a hand. “Of course it is. All those years with Terry? You need to get laid by someone proper. That man is proper.” She pointed at the door again. “It won’t be easy, though. Men like that never are. When they’re tough to crack, they’re usually dynamite in bed. Totally worth it.” She nodded, as if this was a two-way conversation, when in fact I was so embarrassed I could barely breathe. “My suggestion is to start a bit of a fight with him. Nothing too serious, you know, just a spat. Get him going. Provoke him, make him a little bit mad. It will make the sex that much hotter. And the make-up sex?” She whistled. “Lord, you’ll need a fire extinguisher.”

“I don’t want fire extinguisher sex,” I managed to croak.

“Sure you do, honey. We all do, it’s just that not all of us get the opportunity. If you can’t get him to fight with you, find some other way to get his blood up. Challenge him to something physical.” She snapped her fingers as she got an idea. “I know. Ask him to give you self-defense lessons. Then he has to put his hands on you, try to pin you to the ground. Oh, that’s good. He’ll bang you for sure. Maybe right there on the floor.”

“Stop,” I said. I was tempted to put my hands over my ears, like Miles used to do when he was a toddler and he didn’t want to hear me tell him to go to bed. “He doesn’t—You have the wrong idea. Damon isn’t interested in me like that. We’ve only known each other for a few days.”

Ginny smiled. “A few days is long enough for a man to decide he wants to fuck you. A few minutes is long enough.”

“I know, but I’m not his type.” I couldn’t believe I was talking about this. “I’m not confident and sexy like you are. I mean, maybe I could be those things, but not yet. Right now I’m a mom, I’m a mess, I’m almost divorced, and I’m close to broke. I’ve been married for a million years to a man who didn’t appreciate me, and I have no idea how to seduce someone, let alone Damon. I don’t even own any sexy underwear. You’re teaching the Ph.D., and I’m still in the 101 class.”

“Okay.” Ginny tapped her nails on the desk. “Just think about it, okay? Because if I know anything about men, then he’s thinking about it already.”

* * *

I was composedby the time I came out of Ginny’s office, where Damon was waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall and scrolling on his phone. He looked up at me, raising his brows. “Everything go okay?”

“Yes.” I walked past him, heading down the hall toward the exit. I tried not to let on that I currently had a mental image of him banging me on the floor. “Let’s go.”

His hand touched my arm, and I stopped. Damon had never touched me before; we hadn’t even shaken hands when we made our agreement. It was as if he had decided I had a bubble around me that he wouldn’t break. Maybe that bubble was named Terry. Or maybe it was just me.

But he was touching me now, and even through the sleeve of my blouse, I felt the heat of it on my skin. Although his grip was gentle, I couldn’t have kept walking if my life depended on it.

“Andie, look at me,” he said.

I forced myself to turn. His gray eyes were fixed on me, their expression serious. He was so close that I caught his scent.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to tell you that stuff.”

I let out a soft breath, still unable to move. “It’s okay. I asked.”

“You did, but I’m still sorry. Are you going to be all right?”

The usual responses rose to my lips. Of course. I’m fine. I’m just fine. But I found that I couldn’t say them, considering I’d sobbed in Ginny’s office not thirty minutes ago.

“I’ll get through,” I said. “I suspected it, to be honest. Still, it wasn’t fun to hear. I think… I think I need a little help.”

Damon’s eyes never left mine. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his voice soft.

I nodded.

He pulled away, his expression slowly closing down. The moment was over. He dropped his hand from my arm, and we started walking toward the exit again.

I could still feel the heat of his hand on me. Now I was really picturing him banging me on the floor. I reminded myself that it was completely inappropriate, and I cleared my throat. “We owe Newtown a lot of money,” I said, changing the subject, “but Ginny and I worked out terms. She’s going to keep delivering if I start making payments.”

“That’s good,” Damon said as we walked into the parking lot. The soft sincerity was gone from his voice, as if I’d imagined it, and his tone was all business. “I wandered around while you were in there, and this place gets the thumbs up from me. It seems like a legit family business.” We stopped next to my car and he patted his pockets, then ran a hand through his hair, tension in every line of his body.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, putting my sunglasses on so I could look at him while he couldn’t read my expression. He was wearing jeans and a black tee with his leather coat. A perfectly normal outfit for a man to wear, but lordy. Since that frank conversation with Ginny, I could admit that I really liked looking at him.

He blew out a breath, then took my car keys from his pocket. “I really want a cigarette,” he admitted. “No big deal.”

I stared at him in shock. “You mean you actually did it? You quit smoking because I told you to?”

I knew the answer already, I realized. If Damon had been smoking, I would be able to smell it, especially when we were so close together in the car. But he didn’t smell like cigarettes today, just like clean laundry and some kind of pheromone that apparently turned me into a woman who called him Hottie Bodyguard behind his back.

He shrugged in answer to my question. “It was time to do it,” he said. “You were right. I already gave up drinking and drugs, and then I survived getting shot twice. It seems pretty stupid to kill myself after all that.” He smiled and ran another hand through his dark blond hair, mussing it a little. “I put one of those patches on. See?” He shrugged off one shoulder of his coat and pulled up the sleeve of his black tee, showing me the patch on his shoulder.

“Um,” I said, because I was temporarily transfixed by the smooth, taut skin of his biceps and the ink on it. “Is that an octopus?”

“Yeah.” Damon angled his arm so I could see it better. Sure enough, he had a tattoo of an octopus on his biceps, the tentacles waving across his skin. “You like it?”

“I do. Are you a diver?”

“Not even close. I was drunk that night and I don’t even remember getting it. Luckily, I think it’s cool. It could have been a lot worse.” He pulled his sleeve back down and shrugged his jacket back on, and inside I drooped with disappointment. “Anyway, I’m definitely off the cigarettes. It’s making me crazy though, even with the patch. And if my smokes are still in your purse, it’s possible I’ll steal them off you, so please throw them out.”

“What?” It took me a second to remember that when I’d so rudely told Damon to quit smoking, I’d put his cigarettes in my purse. I hadn’t taken them out, but—

Wait a minute.

I opened my purse and looked inside. Nope, there were definitely no cigarettes in there. I hadn’t taken them out, and neither had Damon.

It couldn’t be. Could it?

“What?” Damon asked, looking at my stricken expression.

“Shit,” I said. “I think my son stole your cigarettes.”