Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Armando
Hannah’s all discombobulated. I can’t decide if she’s still mad at me or just in a post-orgasmic brain-fuck. She moves restlessly around the shop, randomly stopping to stare at her products but not getting anything done. I suppose it could be a business-related brain-fuck.
The door opens, and a tall young woman with bleach-blonde ringlets and freckles across her nose breezes in. “Sorry I’m late.” She heads straight past the counter into the area where I’m lounging and drops her purse on the desk beside me. “Hi.”
Whatever softening effect Hannah’s had on me doesn’t apply to her. I’m suddenly cold and hard again, showing nothing, ready for anything. I don’t answer, other than to flick my brow in question.
It makes her nervous, and she backs out and cozies right up to Hannah. “What’s with Guido?” I hear her murmur.
Hannah shoots a frightened glance at me, and I instantly prickle with irritation although I can’t put my finger on why. I guess I don’t like seeing that look on Hannah’s face, even when I’m the cause of it. “That’s, ah, Armando,” Hannah answers. “He’s hanging out today.”
“Why?” the woman demands. I can’t tell if she works here or is just a friend. Possibly both.
“Armando, this is Josie,” Hannah says in a louder voice. “She works here.”
I glance at the clock. The shop opened at noon. It’s 1:45 now. What time was she supposed to be here?
“Oh my God, were you not able to make the rent?” Josie whispers.
Hannah flicks another worried glance my way. “Not quite, but it’s okay, I have things worked out for this month.”
“What does that mean?”
Hannah just shakes her head. “Can you handle the counter?”
Josie gives her a searching look, but when Hannah ignores it, she says, “Of course.”
Hannah buzzes past me and goes to her workbench.
She pulls out a vase and two spools of ribbon.
Now, she finally has focus. I realize she was waiting for someone to run the front desk, so she could get busy with the arrangements.
I probably could have kept an eye on things.
It’s telling that she didn’t ask me. I think she pretends to be more comfortable with me than she really is.
A stab of guilt shoots through me. The same shame I felt last night thinking she might believe she has to fuck me to stay alive.
Is she that good of an actress?
No. I don’t think so. She’s into it. Her body can’t lie. She’s not resisting me. Although…am I giving her much of a choice?
Hannah looks calm and confident, assembling buckets of flowers at her feet from the cooler.
Where she might be a deer in the headlights when it comes to her books, here at the workbench, she’s a goddamn wizard.
Her movements are swift and sure as she fills it with a perky bouquet of colorful flowers and wraps a red and white ribbon around a vase.
I don’t even know what kind they are—orchids maybe?
Something exotic and surprising. There’s nothing cliche about the arrangement.
And then it hits me. “Is that supposed to be a barber’s pole?”
She steps back, examining her work with a critical eye. “Yes.”
Genius. Her talent as a designer is fucking off the charts.
“Did Rocco ask for flowers?” Funny, I can’t see it.
“No. But he’s getting them. I was thinking about what you said.
About making new connections. You’re right—I don’t have any.
And the only one Mary Alice had that still works for me is Rocco’s.
So I figure I should keep that wheel greased.
From now on, Rocco’s going to have fresh flowers at his place with a stack of my cards beside them. ”
“Smart thinking.” I want to go over with her—watch how it goes down. I don’t know if it’s to protect her from the guys who might be over there or to stake my claim, but it doesn’t matter because I can’t.
Best way to protect Hannah is to never connect the two of us.
I gotta sit in the back of her shop like a fucking pansy, hiding from God knows who.
This is bullshit.
“You didn’t tell me you had a staff person coming in today.” I glance over at Josie who doesn’t seem to be doing anything other than picking at her manicured nail and yawning as she does so.
“Her schedule can be…fluid,” Hannah says, still focused on arranging.
She pulls another vase down and makes a bigger, showier arrangement in it. It’s two feet tall and stunning.
“Who’s that for?” I ask.
She nibbles her lip. “There’s a hotel a couple blocks from here.” She shrugs. “Maybe I’ll go introduce myself. You know, in case they need flowers for events. Or could recommend me to the event-planners.”
“That’s good.”
Maybe she will turn this place around.
“I’ll drive you after we get the van back. Circle around the block, so you don’t have to do valet.”
She gives me a withering look. “I wasn’t going to do valet. I’ve never done valet in my life. I was going to walk.”
I look at her wedge sandals. “Nah. I’ll drive you. You wouldn’t want the flowers to wilt. Just wait for the van...it’ll be done in a couple hours.”
She draws in a breath and lets it out slowly, like she’s nervous about this.
“You’re gonna be great. They’ll love you.”
“You think?”
I nod. “Positive.”
She steps a little closer to me, into my personal space. I only resist touching her until I realize that’s what she wants, and then I band an arm around her waist and draw her right up against me.
She tips her lovely face up. “I’m nervous.”
“Flowers, a woman who looks like you? With crazy talent and no diva bullshit? There’s no one in this city who wouldn’t want to work with you.
I guarantee it. It’s just gonna be about who they currently do business with and what their needs are.
Some connections may take longer to germinate, but they eventually will. ”
She blinks those curled lashes at me. “I want to believe you.”
“Don’t believe me, Flowers. Believe in you . That’s the only thing that will get you there.”
She draws herself up and squares her shoulders. “Who do you believe in?”
It’s a simple question. Should be an easy answer, but I feel like I’ve swallowed lead. “Nobody, Flowers. Not a Goddamn soul.”