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No one did. They were all too busy wondering what had happened to Daria, and Bea certainly wasn’t going to tell them. She wasn’t going to say that Daria had taken money from a client and then gone.

“I’d stay out of Luke’s way,” Josh was saying.

“We should stop gossiping,” said Lex, finally piping up.

“You’re the psychologist,” Josh said. “What do you think went on there?”

“I think it’s none of our business.”

Bea looked at her and she thought how out of her depth Lex looked. Like she was a child pretending to be an adult. Like she really shouldn’t be in charge of a program like this.

And then there was Josh. Lovely but with a prison record.

And Celine who… who could cook like an angel and yet was making buffet meals for a cut-rate anger retreat.

And Daria. A meditation teacher capable of fleecing a woman out of thousands and disappearing.

And finally, finally, Luke. Suspiciously handsome and more angry than his clients and just a little scary.

“You’re no fun,” Josh was complaining to Lex. “You’ve got no psychological insights at all?”

“I’ve got professional standards,” Lex said, standing up. “And I won’t speculate about things I know nothing about. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

She left and then Celine went to start cleaning up the kitchenand Josh followed to start sweeping the hall. And Bea was left alone.

She felt like she’d had an entire week in just a couple of hours. So much had changed in just a short time.

Maybe she shouldn’t feel this way, maybe she should be more careful, maybe Liz had a point. Yet Bea couldn’t help but think that something instrumental had happened, something that made her life better and more interesting and more complicated all at the same time.

Alli was beautiful, there was that. But there was more. Alli was angry. Alli was occasionally frightening. She was also not the big, bad, scary wolf she pretended to be, Bea was quite sure of that.

She was quite sure that there were depths to Alli that she couldn’t even begin to understand. She was also sure that something about Alli changed the way she behaved. Something about her made Bea herself more spiky, more confident, more able to snap back. Something about Alli gave her strength.

She sighed and got up, it was time to go to work. And at some point during the day, she was going to have to confront Alli.

She just hoped that Alli wasn’t going to be unreasonable about all this.

Chapter Twenty

Alli’s heart was beating through her shirt. She had no idea why she’d just done that. It had happened, like she was being controlled by something other than herself. It scared her in a way, and yet at the same time there was a tiny ball of peace in her stomach. Things made sense and didn’t make sense and she didn’t know what to do about that.

Probably, almost certainly, she shouldn’t have kissed Bea like that. She shouldn’t have just grabbed her and thrown her against the wall and pressed herself against her. Even though she thought it might have been impossible not to do those things. Even though the very thought of those things made her feel hot and breathless.

Still, it had been inappropriate.

She shouldn’t have done it.

She was confused enough about it that by the time she was sitting opposite Lex, it was pretty much all she could think about.

“Have you lost your temper since the last time we met?” Lex asked.

“Huh?” Alli tore herself from her thoughts.

“I said, have you lost your temper since the last time we met?” asked Lex patiently.

Alli cocked an eyebrow. “What do you think? I’m at a stupid anger management program, aren’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean that you’ve been angry,” said Lex. “The program might be working.”