Page 40 of Killer Body

“I’m a bastard.”

“You’re a good man.” He starts the car, revs it, drowning out the rest of my words.

I wait until we are almost out of the parking lot, then try it again.

“Want me to tell you how I know you’re a good man?”

The scowl that never really goes away deepens. “Your choice, Rikki.”

“Becauseyoumakemewant to be better.”

He turns, and we look at each other in a way we never have before—not when we feared each other, not when we clung to each other, not even when we, by mutual, unspoken agreement, pretended our one evening together didn’t matter the moment he became my boss.

“You’re just fine the way you are.”

Then he shoots out onto the street with such ferocity that I’m not sure that what I thought I felt and saw were real at all, or just what I needed at that moment. But that’s more than I can allow myself to contemplate now. What matters—all I can allow to matter—rests in this folder in my hands.

And I know, after the coffee I don’t need and the Hamilton fix I do—I know what has to happen next. I only hope I can pull it off.

TEN

Rochelle

She lay on the table, glad that this was one procedure for which she could remain dressed.

“Could you move up a little higher, toward the pillow?”

Rochelle sighed. Damn. Even the aesthetician was giving her directions.

An actress without a part; that’s what she was.Blondes fade fast, baby.That’s what Jesse always said.

Rochelle scootched her ass up along the narrow table, careful to keep the source of the scootching out of view.

“I love, love, love this place,” she said. “No one in Hollywood loves anything anymore. Now we have to love, love, love it.” She expected a laugh, at least a chuckle. Maybe even a tad of something that resembled respect. Didn’t get zip.

“Enough,” the woman said. “Now can you slide down just a bit?”

“Is this brain surgery, or what?”

“Sorry.” The woman flushed, and Rochelle could tell she didn’t like it. So, let her. She wasn’t dealing with just anyone.

“Close your eyes, please.”

She did as she was told, focusing for a moment on the aesthetician’s lack of expression, her curly red hair. There was a tightness to her lips she hadn’t noticed before, though. Rochelle was way too old for attitude, but this was the land of attitude. Getting worse all the time.

“Your eyes, Miss McArthur. You need to close them.”

“Okay, okay.”

Maybe she should have waited a day, gotten in with the girl who did her hair. But Bobbo was calling the shots, and Bobbo made it clear they’d better be ready for the interview by Friday. She couldn’t do it with granny-gray eyebrows.

“Is it going to hurt? Just tell me if it is.”

“Of course not.”

“My husband says it does.”

“Is he one of our clients?”