April swiveled her chair to face Lexi. “What is it?”
“Well, in case you didn’t already guess, she’s a lesbian. So naturally, I’ve heard things.” Ever the social butterfly, Lexi seemed to know every queer woman in the city. She always knew who was dating who, who was sleeping with who, and the latest in lesbian drama. “Vicki Blake has a reputation for being a player. And not in a good way.”
April held back a curse. Her initial instincts about Vicki were right. Although Lexi liked to gossip, she rarely spoke badly about anyone.
“She’s either out causing trouble with some girl on her arm, or she’s at Sapphire looking for someone to take home,” Lexi said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, obviously. But it’s the way she goes about it. She charms women with her money and sweet words, then ditches them when she gets bored. It’s like everywhere she goes, she leaves a trail of brokenhearted women in her wake.”
April knew it. She never should have gone home with Vicki. That whole act Vicki pulled about not giving April her number was probably so that she could disappear without a trace. Today was the day that April was supposed to see her again. If none of this had happened and April went to that club tonight like Vicki had told her to, would the Vicki even show up?
It didn’t matter. There was no way April was going to that club to meet Vicki. Not after all this.
Besides, even if Vicki had been telling the truth about seeing April again, she definitely would have changed her mind after the town hall meeting.
They were adversaries now, and Vicki knew it.
“I’m not surprised she works for a company like Oasis,” Lexi said. “And I’m not surprised she hasn’t kept her word.”
“I can’t believe her,” April said. “Was she lying about wanting to work out a solution? Was she just trying to get me to lay off her at that meeting?” April’s hands balled into fists on the desk. “If she doesn’t get back to me soon, I’m going to go down to her office and confront her myself. She can’t just make all these promises and then disappear!”
“Whoa, slow down,” Lexi said. “Whenever you get all fired up, your first instinct is to go nuclear. That’s not always the best idea.”
“I’m just thinking about the library,” April grumbled. “How else am I supposed to get her to listen to me? What else am I supposed to do?”
Lexi shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s why Eliza left you in charge, and not me.”
Eliza. Lexi’s words gave April an idea. She could pay Eliza a visit after work and ask for advice. Eliza had been the director of the library before April, and she had plenty of experience dealing with these kinds of issues. Eliza was both a mentor and a friend to April, and her cool demeanor meant that her perspective was always different from April’s.
“I’d love to stay and help you work this out, but I have plans later,” Lexi said.
“Let me guess,” April said. “These plans involve a woman?”
“They might.” Lexi gathered her things. “Hey, what happened with that woman you met at Sapphire? What was her name again?”
April’s face grew warm. “I didn’t say. It doesn’t matter. I’ve decided not to see her again.”
“Why not? Last week you were convinced sh
e was some sort of sex goddess.”
“I also said that we weren’t remotely compatible. It’s becoming more and more clear.”
“That’s too bad. Sorry it didn’t work out.” Lexi grabbed her coat from the back of her chair and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
April remained at her desk, intending to get a little more work done. But her mind kept drifting back to Vicki. She opened up her web browser. Maybe she could find some other way to contact Vicki about the library. For the past few days, she had resisted the temptation to look Vicki up, to try to find out something about the woman who had been driving her crazy all week. But this was for the library after all. It had nothing to do with April satisfying her personal curiosity.
She typed “Victoria Blake” into a search, not expecting much. It was a common enough name. But to April’s surprise, the whole first page of results appeared to be about Vicki.
That’s odd. Abandoning her quest to find Vicki’s contact information, April decided to dig. After all, it was important for her to know just who she was dealing with. She clicked through some articles about Vicki, most to do with her professional achievements. Several of them referred to her as the daughter of Harold Blake.
Naturally, that was a thread April had to follow. She searched for ‘Harold Blake’ and was met with even more results than she had gotten on Vicki. Harold Blake was the head of an international property development company that was worth billions and had been in his family for generations. Vicki’s family.
That explained Vicki’s fancy apartment, as well as Lexi’s accusation that Vicki threw her money around to get women. Although April hadn’t been seduced by Vicki’s money, she was just another woman taken in by Vicki’s charms.
It also explained Vicki’s arrogance. With a family like that, Vicki had probably lived a cushy, privileged life. No wonder she didn’t give a damn about the people of West Heights.
As April stared at the screen, something caught her eye. The page on Vicki’s father described Blake International as one of the biggest property development firms in the world. A company like Oasis had to be one of Blake International’s competitors.
Why, then, was Vicki working for Oasis?