Lissa grinned, reached in the breast pocket of her blue silk shirt and detached what, at first look, seemed to be only a button on the shirt pocket. But it wasn’t. It was a camera, cleverly attached to a tiny video recorder inside the pocket.
“Surprise,” she chirped, waggling the recorder at Raoul.
He went white. “You bitch!”
She smiled. Hit a button. A picture appeared on the little screen, accompanied by Raoul’s voice. Lissa let the video run for a few seconds before stopping it. “Here we go,” she said happily.
“You should have dropped to your knees like a stone. Being made executive chef at a restaurant like this was worth whatever price I chose to put on it.”
“Including fellating you.”
“Absolutely including fellating me…”
Click! Lissa stopped the recording. Wonderful! John’s jaw had fallen almost to his knees.
“That recording isn’t worth a damn,” Raoul said. “You can’t use it in a court of law.”
“How about in the court of public opinion?” Lissa said sweetly. She dropped the tiny device into her purse, patted the maître d’ on the arm and strolled through the door, up the stairs, through the kitchen, where she smiled at everyone, and out into the street.
“Oh, man,” she said. “Oh, man,” and she did a little circle dance.
Nobody looked at her.
You could get away with that kind of thing in only two places she could think of. One was here, where bizarre behavior was close to the norm. The other was Manhattan, where people didn’t make eye contact with each other, let alone with the crazies.
On the other hand, talking to yourself and dancing on the street would probably win you some stares in Clarke’s Falls, Montana…
And, damn, what was she doing, thinking about that?
Montana and everything about it was history.
So was Raoul and, by extension, the other men she’d permitted to walk all over her. Was it because she’d never felt as if she’d met her father’s expectations? Was it because being ditched by Tommy Suarez in kindergarten had marked her for life?
Lissa laughed.
It didn’t matter.
What did matter was that falling for good-looking hunks, for actors, was over. Her future stretched ahead, bright and shiny, and someplace out there, her Mr. Nice Guy was waiting.
By tonight, the true story about Raoul and her would be in every kitchen in town.
By morning, she’d have her choice of jobs.
As for Raoul…
That deserved another little circle dance.
His name would only evoke laughter.
* * *
Her apartment was airless after all the time away from it.
She shut the door, turned what seemed like dozens of locks—it was a different world than the one she’d known in Montana, and what did that matter?
She was back where she belonged, and glad of it.
Just as she began opening windows, her cell phone rang. She plucked it from her purse, glanced at the screen and rolled her eyes.