Page 47

“Damn it.”

It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t be more than a minute behind the strange woman, and yet, here she was. Standing on the sidewalk looking like a damn fool.

Hugging her waist against the cold, she hurried backinside the warm building, ignoring the curious receptionist as she went straight back to her office.

She didn’t bother closing the door. Her mother would return in the next few minutes. Minutes she’d spend kicking herself in the ass for sitting like a fucking imbecile in her chair while she let a chance to win Bryce back walk away.

Until she dropped into her chair and saw the small business card on her blotter. She picked up the blank, black card and turned it over. Nothing. Not a single word. Nothing more than a scrap of waste. Maybe it fell out of her file when she was meaninglessly paging through it.

About to toss the thing in the trash, a gold mark caught her attention. She flipped the card back to the front, surprised to see a delicate, looping cursive scrawled cross a surface she could have sworn was blank a few seconds earlier.

Mi Amore. 8 p.m. tomorrow.

Kate blinked. When she opened her eyes, the note was gone, leaving the black paper bare.

“What the hell?”

She’d barely spoken the words when the card disappeared. She gasped, shoving away from the desk, heart pounding, eyes wide. Fingers gripped the arms of her chair, white knuckled and painful as she tried to calm herself.

“Nothing good could come of this. Nothing,” she whispered.

And yet…

She just experienced something she couldn’t explain away with logic.

Which meant maybe she didn’t need to hang on to logic to get Bryce back.

18

“Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something from me?” Mindy asked, lowering her gaze to the bag Bryce held out to her. She crossed her arms over her chest, quirked her lips and brows, and cocked her head in that Mindy-like way that silently saidnice try, buddy.Bryce chuckled, pushing the bag at her.

“Nope,” she said. “Not until you answer me.”

“Answer you? Sure. I don’t know why you feel like that.”

“Bryce, you know that’s not what I mean. You’ve been, I dunno,happy. Actually happy. You have a bounce in your step and a gleam in your eyes. Your smile is ridiculous and you leave here after your shifts like your damn head is stuck in the clouds. I had to actually embarrass myself by calling a goodbye to you yesterday because you left without a word.”

Bryce snorted, dropped the bag on the counter and pulled up the next set of scripts he needed to fill on the computer. Mindy groaned, knocking him in the arm with a hard fist.

“Dude, I’m not kidding! I’ve covered your ass and helped you through the worst times with that snobby fiancée of yours. The least you could do is let me in on the secret.”

Laughing, he said, “Okay, okay. But first, put this in the bin.”

Mindy thrusted out her hand, pinky raised. “Pinky swear.”

“Really?” he asked, arching a brow. She nodded once with a grunt. He rolled his eyes and curled his pinky around hers. “Okay. Pinky swear.”

“Good.”

He’d barely begun to look over the newest script when she returned in a huff, edging herself between him and the computer.

“So?”

“I’m happy.”

“Oh, really? I couldn’t tell. But why? What happened? Did Kate finally tumble off her pedestal?”

“Actually, I broke up with Kate. And found someone else.”