And he didn’t know if Mollie was even at this particular party on this particular night. She could be at Leonardo Pascarelli’s practicing her flute, or working up copy for her astronaut-turned-pianist client.
He shut his eyes, his gut twisting, his mind flooding with the memory of a sweet, airy tune she’d played after they’d made love their last time, when she’d had no idea what was coming, when he refused even to fathom that what they’d had that week was anything that could last.
Two more minutes, he decided, and he was heading home.
He watched a dark, gleaming Jaguar roll through the gates ahead of the crowd. No, this wasn’t his territory. The car stopped, the driver checking for oncoming traffic. He caught the toss of pale blond hair of the woman behind the wheel, then, as she turned in his direction, her face. The mouth, the straight nose, the high cheekbones.
His stomach knotted.
Mollie.
So Croc hadn’t been kidding. She was in south Florida.
Jeremiah remembered eyes that were a clear blue with flecks of ice white, intelligent, cool, yet sparkling when she laughed. He stiffened, willing away the sudden surge of regret. Whatever had existed between Mollie and himself had been meant to last only a week.
The Jaguar turned up the street and sped off.
Jeremiah returned to his truck and quickly checked his watch. He would stand there for five minutes before he permitted himself to leave. Otherwise he might run into the Jaguar and be tempted to follow it.
In precisely four minutes and forty-two seconds, a police car arrived with lights flashing and went through the gates of the Greenaway Club.
Jeremiah gave a low whistle. He got on his phone and called the paper, had the desk check into why the Boca Raton police had just arrived at the Greenaway Club. He would hold. He stood outside his truck and waited, impatient, phone stuck to his ear, until he got his answer.
It looked as if a jewel thief had struck a dessert concert at the Greenaway.
“Well, well, well,” Jeremiah said under his breath as he tossed the phone back into his truck. “Croc, my friend, you could be on to something.”
And whatever it was, Mollie Lavender just could be in the thick of it.
2
Mollie flung herself out of bed fifteen minutes before her alarm was set to go off at six and staggered to the bathroom in the guest quarters above Leonardo Pascarelli’s garage. The master suite all by itself was bigger than her entire apartment in Boston. She splashed her face with cold water and stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Dark circles, puffy eyelids, little red lines in the whites of her eyes. Nope. She wasn’t in her twenties anymore.
“Hell’s bells,” she groaned. “What a night.”
She stumbled back into the bedroom, with its warm, soothing colors, and made herself pull on shorts, a tank top, and running shoes. A run along the beach would help put her long night of tossing and turning and bad dreams—very bad dreams—behind her.
She had one nightmare about living in south Florida, even about visiting south Florida, and last night, long before she’d fallen asleep, it had come true.
She’d run into Jeremiah Tabak.
Taking deep breaths, she did an abbreviated series of stretches before heading into the kitchen and downing a perfunctory glass of orange juice. She was shaky and jumpy, and she tried to tell herself that Tabak hadn’t necessarily seen her leaving the Greenaway or, if he had, recognized her. And it was nuts to think he’d had her staked out. That was pure paranoia, the stuff of 3 A.M. sweats. She and Jeremiah operated in completely different circles and knew virtually no one in common—and why on earth would he care about a new publicist specializing in arts and entertainment?
Damned if he’d care about an ex-lover. He’d need more reason than that to track her down.
The first light of morning streamed through the windows of her cheery, honey-colored kitchen, making rational thought at least slightly less elusive than it had been during the night. Then, she’d easily manufactured a dozen reasons—none of them good—why Jeremiah Tabak of the Miami Tribune would hunt her down.
She’d left the charity dessert concert early to make several calls to the West Coast and clean up her e-mail. After just five months in business, she had a college intern working for her ten hours a week but still couldn’t afford full-time help. That meant she typed, filed, answered the phone, did all the bank and post office runs, swept the floors, and made the coffee—in addition to strategizing, brainstorming, applying her experience and energy on behalf of her clients, all of whom had made a leap of faith in hiring her.
She had, therefore, to be deliberate about her use of time. But spotting Jeremiah at the Greenaway had done her in for the evening. She’d recognized him instantly, her visceral reaction alone enough to convince her she hadn’t made a mistake.