Fuck my life! The motherfucking jig was definitely motherfucking up.
“It’s complicated, Polly,” I said, defeated. Damn it, I needed a cigarette and a shot of Patrón.
“Noah.” Her voice was much lower, and she gave me this pitying look as she took a seat in front of me again. “You bought her, didn’t you?”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and just looked at her. She obviously took that as an affirmative.
“I’m not going to ask you why, because I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that one already. But Lanie … she’s a good girl. Why would she do something like that?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “We agreed not to discuss it.”
“Well, don’t you think you should find out?” she asked incredulously, flailing her hands in the air. “Just because you can’t discuss it with her doesn’t mean you can’t do some digging on your own. Jesus Christ, Noah. Use the head on top of your shoulders instead of the one between your legs. Who knows what sort of trouble she might be in?”
She was walking a very thin line with the way she was talking to me, but if anyone could get away with that shit, it was Polly. She was just too cheery and cute to go all ballistic on. It would be like attacking a fourth-grader.
Plus she was right. And if I hadn’t been so distracted lately, I would’ve done exactly what she’d suggested. Delaine had this way of making me forget who I was. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the connections to find out more about her, possibly even the reason she’d agreed to that contract in the first place. Maybe part of me only wanted to live in the fantasy world I’d created with her.
I mean, it didn’t change anything. I’d bought her fair and square. But if she was in trouble, maybe I could help her out. After all, a large part of what I did at Scarlet Lotus was managing our charitable donations. My mother would’ve helped her. She wouldn’t have purchased her or taken her virginity, and she probably would’ve killed me if she’d known I had, but nonetheless …
“So?” Polly asked, obviously waiting on a response from me.
I sighed. “I’ll do some digging,” I relented. “Now will you please go away and stop bothering me, you little pissant?”
“Sure thing,” she said, back to her normal cheerful tone as she practically skipped toward the door. “I was about to go over and visit with Lanie anyway. I’m sure she can use the girl time.”
“Don’t bring this up with her, Polly. I mean it.”
“Okay, okay,” she said with her hands raised in surrender.
“And you’re fucking fired, by the way.”
She rolled her eyes, knowing it was a lie, and said, “Mmm, okay. I dropped your laundry off at the dry cleaner’s. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”
As soon as she was gone, I picked up the container of my uneaten lunch and chucked it in the trash. I slammed my fist down on the desk in frustration, mostly aimed at myself. I should’ve been smarter about this. I should’ve been a little less selfish, a little less perverted—a little less hard up.
I opened the contacts list on my computer and found the number I was looking for. Brett Sherman was a ruthless private investigator who I’d hired when things turned sour with Julie. I thought for sure she’d try to pull some stunt and blackmail me or something, so I’d commissioned him to do some digging to get the dirt on her before she could even try. I’d used him on occasion since then. The fucker charged an arm and a leg, but the work he did was worth every inflated penny.
I dialed the number and was pleasantly surprised when he answered on the first ring.
“Brett Sherman.”
“Brett, Noah Crawford,” I greeted him.
“Mr. Crawford! What can I do ya for?” He was obviously happy to hear from me.
“I need you to find out everything you can on a lady by the name of Delaine Talbot from Hillsboro, Illinois,” I said. “Do you need anything else?”
“An age would be nice.”
I felt even more disgusted with myself because I’d violated her in so many ways, with plans to violate her in even more ways in the future, and I didn’t even know the answer to that simple little question.
“Early twenties,” I guessed.
“That should be enough to go on. I’ll call you by the end of the week,” he said, and hung up the phone abruptly.
Sherman didn’t have the manners for pleasantries, but I was fine with that because I knew he’d go right to work the second the call ended.
“Noah!” David barged into my office, un-fucking-announced and un-motherfucking-invited.
“What do you want?” I said in a voice that conveyed that I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his shit.
“Do I have to want something to come have a chitty-chat with my friend?” he asked with an arrogant grin as he sat down in a chair and propped his feet on my desk.
“You and I haven’t been friends for a long time, David. And I doubt we ever really were.” I leaned across the desk and knocked his feet down. And I was none too nice about it, either.
“Oh, don’t be that way, Noah,” he said with a mock pout. “You don’t still have your panties in a twist over that Janet girl, do you?”
“Julie, and fuck you.”
“No, fuck you,” he said as if he was insulted. “I can’t believe you let a chick come between us, man. Whatever happened to bros before hos?”