Chapter 1 #2
Not as a family.
As for me personally, the only people who care who I am and where I made my own small fortune are in apiology or the food packaging industry. Which is exactly how I like it.
“No arguing,” the redhead says when she catches me watching her while the bartender runs her card. “I have too many more good deeds to do today.”
Kombucha forgotten. I like this mystery better.
Dangerous spot, to like the mystery of a woman. The last time, it ended with a hellacious divorce that most of my family still hasn’t forgiven me for.
“How’s a woman like you come to dabble in ruining reputations?” I ask.
She squeezes her eyes shut. “You don’t want that story.”
“Seems like something a wife would share.” Not that mine ever did. I found out what she’d been doing online after our separation.
The redhead laughs, but it’s a sad laugh.
Did I imagine the sparkle?
“I really thought that woman would demand to see our rings,” she says.
“I’m allergic to anything on my fingers, and yours is being upgraded.”
“Quick work making a cover story. But the minute you say allergic to anything on my fingers , every woman in a ten-state radius will know you’re allergic to commitment .”
“We’re in Hawaii. No state radii.”
“It extends beyond the ocean and wraps back around the other side of the world. Also, did you just say radii ? That’s adorable. Mathematician?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
“It’s a deal, Mr. Mathematician.”
“Excellent. And your industry is…?”
“Reputation ruination. We’ve covered this.”
“Unique profession, reputation ruination. Is it your side job, or is that your nine-to-five? Is it a work-from-home thing? Or do you have an office? I know a person or two who could use those services.” I add a smile even though I’m dead serious.
If my new life mission is to be the superhero Super Vengeance Man , I could use a sidekick who can ruin the reputations of people who deserve it.
She sigh-groans. “Look, you seem like a nice person?—”
“Ah, and here comes the blow-off.” I’m actually smiling out of instinct instead of forcing it now. Feels good.
“This isn’t about you,” the redhead says. “It’s about me using gossip improperly.”
“Go on.”
“No.”
“Look, I can take a no. This isn’t me not taking a no. This is me observing that you look sad and you’re still sitting here. You did me a favor. Seem like a good wing woman. Just saying, if you need to get something off your chest, I’m here.”
“Nothing good ever comes of gossiping.”
I lift my brows.
And she sigh-groans again. “That’s such a lie.
Lots of good comes from gossiping. Do you know how many of my friends I saved from not just bad relationships, but potentially dangerous relationships because of gossip?
How many people I’ve saved from getting into the wrong job?
The number of family reunions that weren’t even mine that I saved with a well-placed you should consider bringing something else because potato salad is your fiancé’s aunt’s thing and if you tread on that, she’ll leave her dogs to his sister instead of him and you know how much he loves Fluffy and Sparky ?
When you know everything there is to know about your community, you can use your knowledge for good.
You don’t have to just use it for evil.”
“Saving someone from being disinherited over potato salad seems like a good use of gossip.”
“I’m off gossip.”
“Those poor dogs. I hope they’re happy with second-rate parents.” Huh. I’m being funny .
She chances a look at me, a hint of an actual smile twisting her curvy lips and a little sparkle coming back into her green eyes.
Confirmed.
I am being funny.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
She shakes her head.
“I’ll go first. Hi. I’m Duke. Lovely to meet you.”
“You’re Duke .”
“Don’t I look like a Duke?”
She bursts out laughing, which does a funny thing in my chest area that I actively ignore no matter how much I want to like it. “No.”
I fake a gasp of horror. “You gossip and mock my name?”
“It’s just so ironic, since my name is Duchess.”
It’s my turn to laugh.
Actually laugh.
Who am I, and what’s happening to me?
She props an elbow on the bar and settles her head in her hand, watching me while she swings one leg. “Are you a gossip?”
“I’m a hermit-in-training.”
She gestures around the open-air bar. “Clearly, that’s working out well for you.”
“This is me being the bigger person and not burdening you with gossip about my life.”
She studies me as though she’s trying to decide which of those statements I’m serious about.
Both.
I might’ve given her a fake name, but I would absolutely be a hermit, and I had no intention of being the bigger person at any point today, so it’s quite remarkable, really.
“You didn’t need a save, did you?” She drops her head in her hands and groans. “I can’t even do good deeds right today.”
“No, no, I did. And lucky me, my savior is fascinating.”
The bartender returns with her credit card and a glass of water. She glances back at the kombucha flirt while she tucks her card away before I can get a glimpse of the name on it, clearly trying to decide if her good deed is done or not.
“You like fried calamari?” I ask her.
“No,” she says, “but thank you.”
“Shrimp cocktail? Poke? Sashimi? She’s still watching us, by the way.”
Apparently one laugh is all I’m getting. Her smile has ghosted her once again. “You’re entirely too good for me tonight. Please. Drink your drinks. I’m not here. Thank you, stranger in a bar who’s being far kinder than I deserve?—”
“I’m Duke ,” I interrupt. “We’re not strangers anymore.”
She has incredibly expressive eyes.
They’re emeralds in a sea green bay simultaneously telling me she knows I’m lying about my name, that if I was Duke I’d pull out my driver’s license and prove it, and also that exchanging even fake names is too much of a relationship for her.
“Truly, you don’t want anything to do with me,” she insists again.
“I’m failing to understand what someone who saves dogs from awful futures and relationships from splitting over potato salad could have done that’s so terrible that you have to decline the best of what Hawaii has to offer in appetizers.”
Her gaze wavers. “Do you have siblings?”
I grimace, then grab my phone—which is still vibrating with text messages—and shut the damn thing off before shoving it in my pocket.
“Siblings of your heart then?” she presses, obviously not missing what’s going on with my phone. “Someone you love so much that you’d do anything for them?”
Zen springs to mind immediately. My brother’s eldest child doesn’t fit the family mold. Mimi, my grandmother, is such a close second that she might not have been second at all.
How a woman as fascinating and kind as Mimi birthed such an ungrateful and unpleasant man as my father is beyond me.
I tend to blame my grandfather.
And I used to include Vince, my business partner, as my family, but he launched himself firmly into the former friend category when he lied to me about what I was signing. He’s single-handedly responsible for sending me into my villain era and no longer deserves my time.
“Thought so,” Duchess says softly. “Have you ever hurt them so badly you weren’t sure they’d forgive you, or that you could forgive yourself, because you forgot the rules?”
Dangerous question. “Is there a person on Earth who doesn’t have regrets?”
“I just—I don’t want to know what I know anymore. I want it all gone. Permanently erased from my brain.”
“You know where they keep the bodies?” I stage-whisper.
“No. But I know where they water down the drinks and who’s running the fake ID scam for seniors who want an elderly discount before they honestly qualify and why you should never, ever, ever get a muffin from the bake sale at Winter Fest.”
“Why shouldn’t you get a muffin?”
“Because Mrs. Pineapple beats the batter too much and thinks lavender doesn’t make them taste like chewy soap.” She claps a hand over her mouth, but keeps talking. “I have to go. I really, really do.”
“ Mrs. Pineapple? ”
“Thank you for that being all that you’ll remember of what I just said. Is your admirer gone yet?”
“Nope. Still watching us. Probably really curious why we haven’t gotten any food yet. We should be starving after our afternoon activities. You’ll have to sit here and actually have dinner with me.”
If her lips weren’t trying to tip up despite the grief in her eyes, I’d leave her alone.
But she did me a solid.
I’m intrigued, and I feel like I owe her.
“Or we could get out of here,” I say.
Her gaze shifts to the flight of kombucha still in front of me.
“Doing good deeds is a much better partner activity.” I rise off my stool and offer her my hand.
“And we’ll look like horny honeymooners, and my admirer will fully get the hint.
Whereas I’ll be completely and totally at her mercy if she thinks we’re having a fight.
You basically have to come with me. At least until she can’t see us anymore.
Wouldn’t it be horrible if we happened to do one of your five million good deeds together along the way? ”
Her eyes almost light up with amusement. Almost, but not quite. “You are trouble .”
“Not generally. This has to be you.” While she’s clearly struggling, I’m smiling broadly.
Odd sensation. My cheeks will probably hurt tomorrow.
But there’s nothing in the world I want more right now than to see where a night of doing good deeds with a woman who’s having a bad day and trying to do better will take me.
She looks at my hand, then tilts her head to look up at me. Despite how far she’s craning her neck, she hits me with straight-on eye contact with those fascinating green eyes that makes goosebumps break out on my skin again.
Spontaneity and I are distant acquaintances. We get along fine on the rare instance when we’re thrown together—see also, I wasn’t planning on buying a mountain café, but the opportunity presented itself with the best of timing—but neither of us go out of our way to see each other.
Nothing else about today has gone as planned.
I’m leaning into the unexpected and salvaging what I can.
Considering I intend to ruin Chandler Sullivan’s life the minute I set foot in his hometown, it wouldn’t be bad for me to do a few good deeds myself.
No matter how much he deserves it.
“The last time I took someone with me for a string of good deeds, four chickens terrorized the grocery store for a full weekend and the town council asked me to refrain from participating in Random Acts of Kindness Day ever again,” Duchess says.
I don’t even know her real name, and I am all-in on spending the rest of my time in Hawaii with this woman.
“I’ve officially been warned. And I’ve had a shitty day that should be balanced with good karma as well.
Would it count as a good deed if you took me out on your string of good deeds so that I can have fun and improve the world too? ”
She hesitates for another long breath.
But then she slips off the stool, going back to being even shorter, and she takes my hand.
Electricity jolts through my entire body.
I don’t know who she is. I don’t know why she’s having a bad day. I don’t know how much I’ll regret this tomorrow.
“Punishment comes in all forms,” she mutters to herself.
Oh, yes.
This will be a night to remember.