She wandered the rest of the floor, calling his name with no answer. Before heading back upstairs, she peeked in the garage. His car was gone. How strange.

With a mixture of confusion and disappointment, she returned to his office, the room she felt the most comfortable in. She curled up in the armchair by the window and sipped her coffee as she debated what Blake’s absence meant. There were really only a couple of options to debate. Either he’d left because something had come up, an emergency of some sort, like he’d run out of creamer—in which case, he would have left a note or would return shortly.

But she hadn’t seen a note and it had been nearly thirty minutes now since she’d awoken, which was past the return shortly window. And she’d found creamer for her coffee with no problem.

Which led to the other possibility—the awful, terrible option that made her stomach churn and her heart ache just thinking about it: Blake wasn’t there because he didn’t want to be. Because he didn’t want to see her.

That was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Even if their night hadn’t been as incredible for him as it had been for her—a notion that caused a lump to form in her throat—even if it had just been another night in the life of Blake Donovan, he wouldn’t be so rude or heartless to simply walk out on her. Would he?

No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’d come too far in their time together. She didn’t even have a ride—he knew that. There was no way he’d leave her stranded. No way would he abandon all his social graces, no matter how miserable an occasion her visit might have been. She couldn’t believe that about him.

Then she spotted the files on his desk—the date files that she’d brought with her the night before. When she’d left them there, they were still wrapped in their elastic band. Now they were spread out, a couple of them open. He’d looked at them that very morning, he had to have.

She stood and crossed over to his desk, a ball of dread forming in her gut. Without touching anything, she circled to sit in Blake’s chair, to see things exactly as he saw them last. The topmost open file belonged to Jane Osborne, name circled. That didn’t mean anything, of course. Maybe he was thinking about canceling his date with her or looking up her phone number or a million different reasons.

Under Jane’s file, though, was the restaurant file. Menton’s profile sheet was on top. The reservation number was circled in black pen. That hadn’t been there yesterday. Blake must have done it that morning. It was so obvious. Oh, God. Blake was planning to take Jane to Menton’s—the nicest restaurant in all of Boston.

Andy’s heart sank.

When she’d met Jane all those weeks ago, Andy had been ecstatic. She’d found the perfect candidate for Blake in Jane. She had the right hair, the right eyes, the right background, the right personality. Finding her had been kismet.

Now it felt less like kismet and more like karma.

For all the shitty things she’d done working for Max Ellis, this was her reward. She now had to sit back and watch as the man she loved continued to date another woman—a woman who was perfectly picked for him by none other than herself.

A tear trickled down Andy’s cheek. Another threatened, but she held it in and forced herself to calm down, to breathe and think it through. It might not be what it looked like. After their night together, Blake wouldn’t treat her this way. It was a lot to assume based on two open files. There was probably another explanation. She simply had to talk to him and find out.

Using his desk phone, she dialed his cell. There was no answer. Where the hell would he be at eight thirty in the morning? If he’d seen his house number come up, he may have avoided it realizing it was her. But then he probably would have simply dismissed the call and it would have gone straight to voice mail.

She was overthinking. She couldn’t know anything without talking to him.

Deciding she’d give him the benefit of the doubt until they spoke—well, as much benefit as she could muster—Andy headed back to the bedroom to get her clothes. She dressed and grabbed her phone off the nightstand, spotting the twenties that had fallen to the floor earlier. Suddenly it occurred to her that the money hadn’t been there the night before when she’d reached for the remote. Had it?

No, she did not remember seeing it.

Did that mean…? Was it…? She couldn’t formulate the thought into words, the idea was so putrid. Still, she had to take this at face value. And face value said that Blake had left her money. On the bedside table. For sex. Like she was a hooker.

Her vision went red. He hadn’t even treated her as good as a hooker—a hooker would have been paid more than forty fucking dollars. They’d been through this before, with a near-disastrous outcome. They’d agreed to never talk about pay for sex again. Was leaving it on the nightstand his way of sneaking around that agreement? Or now that all the rules had been broken, was this also off the table?

God, this better be something different from what it looked like, because if it wasn’t she might very well do something drastic. Something that made burning Ellis’s files look like model employee behavior in comparison.

Hands shaking with fury and heart still bruised from Blake’s absence, she used the remaining battery in her dying cell phone to call a cab. She briefly considered hugging Puppy good-bye—she had fallen just as hard for the little guy—but he had gone back to chewing on whatever bit of debris had his attention earlier.

With a soft, “Bye, Puppy,” she went outside to wait, locking the door behind her. She didn’t trust her restraint enough to be left alone in the Donovan mansion, and it wouldn’t be fair to act without hearing Blake’s side. Besides, Lacy would kick her ass if she got hit with another lawsuit. At this point, the latter was a bit more motivating than the former.

Chapter Nineteen

By the time Andy got home, showered and cleaned up, and then to the office, it was nearly eleven. She’d never been that late for work before. As she rode the elevator up, she considered feeling guilty about her tardiness. That idea was quickly smothered by the other emotions waging war inside her—rage, jealousy, hurt, betrayal. She kept reminding herself that she didn’t know the whole story yet, but it did little to calm her. She was on the warpath and God help anyone who got in her way.

She entered the office with guns blazing, ready to accuse and blame. But Blake wasn’t at his desk. His computer wasn’t even on. Had he not even come in?

Immediately, she stormed back out to interrogate the secretary. “Where’s Blake?”

“He has meetings all morning, Ms. Dawson,” she answered. “He’ll be in this afternoon.”

“Dammit.” She cursed again under her breath when she realized her first swear had been out loud. “Fine. Just … fine.” There was no use taking her disappointment out on Sarah. It wasn’t her fault that Blake was absent or an ass.

The phone rang and Sarah excused herself to answer it. Andy was about to turn back to the office when a delivery woman approached the desk carrying a beautiful bouquet of red roses.

Her breath hitched. Blake isn’t an ass after all! He’d gotten her flowers. Roses, which were commonplace and lacking in character, but it was the thought that counted. It didn’t exactly make up for waking up alone or for being paid like a pro. Still, it was promising.

She felt her face glowing as she accepted the vase from the girl. Then she set them down on Sarah’s desk so she could sign the handheld tablet. She wished the girl a nice day and turned to admire the flowers.

“Ah,” Sarah exclaimed as she hung up her phone. “The flowers for Ms. Osborne arrived.”

Andy’s heart skipped a beat. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” She must have misheard. Sarah didn’t know the name of the candidates Blake took out. At least, Andy hadn’t thought she did.