LITMIR.BIZ

      Late that afternoon, Dimi walked through the lobby of North Beach on autopilot as she closed shop for the day, for once not enjoying the gorgeous view of the lush green hills of the Santa Ynez Mountains or the scalloped coastline, or the fact that the tarmac had three planes on it, which meant paying customers.

      She was too wigged out about Bo’s return, about Sally’s vanishing act, about the deed…She could hardly even breathe.

      All this worry was bad for her. It made her hair lank, made her stomach hurt. Made her feel like she was playing catch with steak knives.

      She blew out her candles, shut down her computer. The café was still hopping but that was Char’s deal, so she went into the employee break room for her things and found the lights still on.

      Danny stood there, playing darts by himself. He wore board shorts, a loose tank, and no shoes. He threw his last dart, his lower lip between his teeth as he concentrated, and when the dart hit double thirteen, he turned to her and smiled, teeth flashing white, his eyes looking startlingly blue in his tanned face. “Play me.”

      “Can’t.” God, couldn’t he see she felt so on edge, so tense she thought she might shatter at the slightest provocation?

      “Come on, I’m on a roll,” he coaxed. “And you look like you could use a little fun.”

      Fun. Yeah, she needed fun. Mindless fun, and not the platonic kind she always had with Danny, but the kind of fun she could get only with a man who didn’t know her, who couldn’t look into her eyes and see the pain, or if they did, wouldn’t comment on it.

      Danny wasn’t that guy. He knew her too well, knew all her dark secrets. In fact, even now his smile faded, and he looked at her in that way he had of seeing right into her. If she turned away, he’d just pull her back around.

      So she lifted her chin, stalked to the board in her pink miniskirt and polka-dotted halter top, and grabbed a set of darts. Tossing him a long, level look, she managed a smile. “What are we playing for?”

      For a beat, his eyes darkened. Then he shrugged it off and smiled that easy smile, making her wonder if she was seeing things. “Name it.”

      “Such power,” she teased.

      “Name it,” he said again, softly now.

      She would—except he couldn’t give it to her. She wanted oblivion, faceless oblivion. “Winner gets breakfast for the rest of the week,” she said. “Delivered right to their—”

      “Bed?”

      She laughed. “Desk.”

      He turned to get his own darts, not showing his face for a long moment. “Deal,” he finally said, turning around. “You first.”

      Suited her. She threw a dart, and unbelievably, missed the board entirely. This was so shocking, she just stood there staring at the dart still quivering in the wall.

      Danny, knowing she was usually unbeatable, pulled her around to face him. “Okay, talk to me.”

      She stared up into his familiar face and felt her throat tighten. God, she was so sick of herself. “I’m good.”

      “Dimi—”

      “No, really. I’m fantastic, actually.”

      “You’re so full of shit your eyes are brown.”

      “Fine, things are out of control, all right?” She backed away. “I’m out of control!”

      “Why?”

      She couldn’t explain, couldn’t tell him Bo had the deed and the world she and Mel had created might have never even existed. “It’s complicated.”

      “Most things are, Deem.”

      “Look, all I know is that tea isn’t working, crystals aren’t working, nothing’s working.”

      He touched her jaw. “How about breathing? Have you tried that?”

      He wasn’t teasing her, he was serious and she could have loved him for that alone. She gulped in air and shot him a wry glance. “I am now.”

      “Good.” He kissed her cheek. “Keep doing that.” For a moment he stayed close, his tall, lean body supporting hers. “You can tell me, you know. You can tell me anything.”

      Not this, she couldn’t. “Danny. Don’t you ever get tired of feeling sorry for me?”

      “I don’t feel sorry for you. You’re too ornery to feel sorry for.”

      “Good.” She went to the line, gripping her darts with new determination. “Prepare to lose.” Backing up the words, she threw.

      Double twenty.

      Her game was back.

      Or so he let her think for a few minutes, before he proceeded to kick it into gear and beat her by three points.

      “I could use breakfast now,” he said, putting the darts away.

      “It’s dinnertime.”

      “So?”

      She just rolled her eyes and headed to the door before he could say anything else, before he could see her tension had really only mounted…

      It was her own fault. She’d gotten complacent. She’d fallen into a false sense of security, and she’d forgotten the pretense. She was good at forgetting. She’d spent most of her childhood forgetting about her father’s wandering ways, her mother’s drugs…

      What if it all fell apart again, her entire world? If she lost this job, what would happen to her? She had no talent for anything other than sleeping with men, and even there she hadn’t been all that successful or she’d have a diamond ring and a minivan by now.

      Nibbling on a nail, she made her way through Sunshine Café, which was still suitably filled. A handful of women sat at one table. They’d flown in on a private jet owned by the husband of one of the women. Dressed in designer gear, they looked like a million bucks, all with expensive bags at their feet, most likely filled with the afternoon’s shopping spoils. They probably had perfect lives, beautiful homes, complete with minivans.

      At another table sat a couple. The man was in his sixties and now retired, but he had been a Hollywood movie star for years, and had developed an expensive plane habit that North Beach was all too happy to satisfy. The woman dripped bling.

      It was the third table to catch her interest: five men, ranging from twentysomething into their forties, rowdy and noisy, all toasting themselves over one deal or another.

      Maybe they’d gone to the track and had won big. Maybe they were in town for a convention. Dimi didn’t know, but all that really mattered was that they stopped talking as she walked past them and up to Char’s counter.

      She could almost hear the collective male sigh and smiled inwardly as she waved at Al. “A beer,” she said, needing a drink bad and wishing they had the hard stuff. “Make it two,” she decided.

      “Hey, Sexy. Is this seat taken?”

      Dimi looked up into a tall, dark, and gorgeous stranger’s face—one of the rowdy men behind

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