Page 26

A server arrived with a grilled octopus appetizer and set it between them, shattering the moment. Despite trying to hide it, Alex picked up on Charlotte’s dubious expression. To her credit, she tried the o ering without flinching, but Alex was sure she’d never eaten octopus before. Or at least not one that wasn’t breaded and fried.

“So, tell me more about this gardening thing,” Charlotte said after taking a drink of water. “Is it flowers and stu , or do you grow your own food like a doomsday prepper?”

The wine loosened Alex’s contained chuckle into a true laugh. “A bit of everything, I suppose.”

“I got into succulents once,” Charlotte admitted. “Do you know that you apparently have to try to kill them. I’m a natural black thumb,” she said with exaggerated pride.

Alex tipped her head to the side to show she was impressed. “They’re some of my favorites. I have a jade plant that’s nearly ten years old.”

Charlotte glared at her in mock ruefulness. “Show o ,”

she muttered before dropping the act. “I guess it doesn’t help that I don’t actually get any direct sunlight in my apartment,” she added with a smirk.

“That’ll do it,” Alex agreed, immediately curious about where she lived. She knew the address, of course, but it was a part of town she wasn’t familiar with. She couldn’t picture it.

As they ate dinner, they chatted casually about what Charlotte studied in college and how Alex had wanted to move to Miami since she was a little girl visiting her aunt.

The conversation flowed so easily, Alex nearly asked if she was dating anyone before remembering Charlotte was her employee. She switched from wine to water and never looked back.

Nearly two hours later, after co ee, dessert, and then co ee again, they said good night. It was the best date-not-date she’d been on in years. How pathetic .

When she slid into the driver’s seat of her SUV, the phone rang. For a split second she thought it was Charlotte and her heart leapt in her chest. It wasn’t.

“Where the hell have you been?” Stephanie asked, prompting Alex to glance at her phone for the first time in

hours. The reprieve had been nice, but unintentional. Her assistant had called a dozen times. “Mr. Prescott is blowing up my phone. Why did you reject him?”

“He didn’t pass,” she explained, trying to hold back her irritation. She didn’t like to be questioned, but she gave Stephanie some latitude.

“What happened?” Stephanie’s tone was back to normal.

She was always good at course correction.

Alex headed due west, cutting through several residential neighborhoods instead of taking the highway. “He wanted to choke a woman until she lost consciousness, and he was willing to pay quite a lot of money to do it.” Her lip curled as her mood soured.

She never kink-shamed anything consenting adults wanted to do but drew a hard line at physical injury. Plus, there had been something cold and cruel in his eyes when he described his fantasy. It caused the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. She was not risking anyone’s well-being for his pleasure. She only wished she could keep him from seeking out alternative means to carry it out. There were plenty of others in her field that would give him what he wanted. She considered calling in a favor to have him scared straight, but that could embolden his palpable disdain for women.

“Fucking creep.” Stephanie echoed Alex’s disgust. “I can’t believe Franklin vouched for him.”

“He probably didn’t know.” Franklin had been a longtime client. She’d grown to trust him enough to have weekend-long engagements out of town.

“I’m glad he showed himself for what he was, but what does that have to do with why you weren’t answering the phone?”

“If you must know, I was at dinner,” she revealed after a beat.

“Dinner? With who?” Stephanie’s voice was suddenly far away, as if she was holding the phone away from her mouth.

Alex guessed she was checking their synched calendar.

If Alex wasn’t in such a good mood, she’d remind her it was none of her business. “Charlotte.”

There was a long pause before Stephanie spoke again.

“Who the hell is Char— the accountant? Why?”

“I like getting to know all of my employees,” she o ered but knew Stephanie wasn’t going to buy it. She did usually treat new employees to a meal to get to know them, but it was lunch at the spa, not dinner alone.

“What are you doing?” Stephanie asked in a sober, direct tone.