Don’t Love, Don’t Lose

Chapter 4

Anthony was a little impatient.

All right, he was more than a little impatient. His potential new insider and designer was late.

Maybe he should have told Della to handle it, but it had seemed important that he take the meeting himself. At least, Della had insisted that if he wanted to hire local and get their influence on his side, he needed to be present and make it clear that he didn’t want to take the neighborhood and rip its soul out. Apparently, somebody – he could guess who – had put the word out that he was out to do just that.

It was so far from the truth that it had angered him. The anger had spurred him to agree to meet the woman who, Della claimed, could fix that particular problem for him. She was apparently an artist who specialized in making sure that her spaces were practical and beautiful. It sounded like a great idea to Anthony, too.

But how was she going to live up to the hype when she couldn’t even be on time? She was ten minutes late. Ten minutes was a long time for him. He did not like it when his time was not respected.

He had his tablet out and was working, but that didn’t seem enough. He looked up, impatience building, and saw her.

She was, possibly, the most elegant woman he had ever seen. She was tall, dark, and slim. Her hair was very short, cropped close to her skull, and she had the face to pull it off. It was the kind of bone structure that made artists and photographers weep, he supposed, because they’d need real genius to show the beauty and delicacy of it. The eyes were large and dark – brown, with flecks of gold, he realized, when she turned around and her eyes caught the light streaming in through the glass-paned window of the café where Della said his designer had insisted they meet.

The cool grey coat would’ve been dull on anybody else. On her, it just made her glow.

Her eyes fixed on him, and she walked forward, careful not to bump her bag – a laptop inside, and not the light tablet he preferred, something with real power, he figured – on anybody as she walked.

She looked like she should be graceful, and she was, except when she stubbed her toe on a table leg hard enough to make him wince. She didn’t seem to notice it much. Maybe it happened too often to her. She only stopped to apologize, and he could see that her gracious apology had made the young man whose frothy coffee she had almost knocked over feel like he had been graced by a queen.

She was a queen.

She stopped at his table, and without waiting for an invitation, shrugged out of her coat, draped it over the back of the chair, and sat down.

He didn’t mind because the cream blouse and tight red skirt were very appealing on her. She was a beautiful woman, the kind of beautiful woman who wore that loveliness lightly.

“I’m Jasmine Turner. You’re Anthony Malone. You’re expecting me.”

They were all statements. So the queen didn’t lack for confidence, either. Why would she, when she looked like that? She could have all the world kneel before her if she wanted.

It annoyed him, for some reason.

“I was expecting you ten minutes ago.”

Was that embarrassment? She covered it quickly enough, but he did think it was.

“I apologize. I was held up by my cat.”

Had he really hard that correctly?

“Your cat?”

“I unexpectedly acquired a cat and I have not yet gotten used to her schedule. I apologize that it interfered with yours. I will try to be brief now.”

Anthony sat back and considered the woman who was already taking her laptop out. It definitely was not a tablet.

“All right. Be brief, then. Tell me what you can do.”

She got her spectacle case out and put her glasses on.

That tug was as strong as it was unexpected. He had never particularly liked women in glasses, but something about this woman in glasses was definitely doing it for him.

Stop it, Malone, he told himself sternly. He was there on business. This was not a date, despite the coffee shop.

He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted something to eat or drink. He had ordered a cappuccino for himself, and it was passable, but…

“I can find your mole.”

Anthony forgot everything about cappuccinos and sat up straight.

“You can what?”

Jasmine Turner looked at him over her glasses – why was that so appealing? – as if she was wondering if he was particularly slow or it was just a bad day. That part wasn’t very appealing.

“I can find your mole. I’m sure Aunt Della told you that I can. She usually assumes I can do everything, but I can’t do everything. Sometimes I disappoint her. But this time, I won’t. I can find your mole. I’ve got the basic program ready, but it will need modifications depending on details I need from you. But generally, I’ll be able to track emails, and most activity on the devices on which I can run it. That should be a simple enough way to catch your mole unless they’re particularly smart. Using a flip phone, or a landline, is one of the smarter ways of doing this, but landlines aren’t so easy to come by anymore, and flip phones stand out now. If that’s done, we’ll have to find another way and I don’t know how my skill set could help you.”

Anthony tried to recall those deep breathing lessons from when he got his scuba diving certification. He definitely needed to calm down.

Jennifer was supposed to have vetted Della Simone! Had she broken all her confidentiality agreements and told her – her niece, he gathered – all about something that was supposed to be a bigger secret than the resting place of the Holy Grail?

He needed more than deep breathing exercises. He wanted a cigarette, though he had quit about a decade and a half ago.

“I’m sorry, but am I to gather that you are not an interior designer with a major in architecture, who is also an important part of the community?”

Jasmine looked at Anthony incredulously. It was a pity that such an attractive man – and his photos hadn’t done him justice, he was an extremely attractive man, he emanated the kind of raw power that would make women gravitate towards him and Jasmine was not immune to such elemental attraction, either – was so stupid.

“Aunt Della has all my details. Do you think I graduated from MIT as an interior designer? Somebody who wastes an architecture degree by doing only interior design with somebody else’s work?”

“Your Aunt Della might have all your details, but the appointment she set up was for me to meet an interior designer to handle my new property.”

His clipped tone made it amply clear that he was angry. Very angry, she realized, as she noticed the iron self-control in those startlingly blue eyes.

Oh, he was angry, and if she didn’t manage to find a way to defuse the situation, he might take it out on Aunt Della.

What on earth had her aunt been playing at?

She took a deep breath and tried to sort it out in her head.

“Aunt Della told me that you were being undercut suspiciously by a competitor, and that some paperwork had gone missing – paperwork that could have derailed a big deal if you hadn’t noticed it. I’d guess that she was worried, because she worries about people, and she knew I could help. So she set up a meeting, using a little… subterfuge.”

“And you expect me to believe that you didn’t know about this little ‘subterfuge’?”

She could see the quotes around the word.

She soldiered on, nonetheless.