“I’m sorry?”
The woman rubbed at her cropped blond hair as she nodded in the direction of the cottage. “Him? We all look after him, the poor guy. Beau won’t tell us who he is, but he must be someone important. He’s always so generous, and he treats us all real good. Such a sad case, really.”
“Yes. It is very sad.”
“Well, I’ll head out. You want me to let Beau know we’re all set?”
“Ah …”
“I’ll take care of next week, then.”
“No,” Sutton heard herself say. “He told me … the man said he wanted me again?”
“Oh, okay, no problem. I’ll pass that word along.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Maybe this was some kind of a bizarre fever dream?
As Sutton resumed her search for the right lever, the prostitute leaned back down. “Are you looking for reverse?”
“Ah, yes, yes, I am.”
“It’s that one right there. Move it up for reverse. All the way down is drive, and you push in the end for park.”
“Thank you. It’s hard.”
“One of my regulars has this exact car. It’s a real beauty! Drive safe.”
Making a noncommittal noise, Sutton backed her way around carefully, very aware that the other woman was standing oh, so close with that brunette wig in her hand.
Heading off to the main road, she decided this had to be the result of her having contracted the flu and taken to her bed. Any moment she was going to wake up …
Really.
She was.
Holy shit, how did all that just happen?
TWENTY-EIGHT
The day of the Derby dawned bright and clear, although, as Lizzie drove in to work, there could have been thunder and lightning, torrential flooding, and hurricane winds, and she would still have smiled the entire ride to Charlemont.
Lane and she had played rock, paper, scissors to decide who went in first, and in spite of the fact that he had won three times in a row, they’d decided she should leave before him. One, she had a lot to do, and two, he had been in no hurry to go anywhere.
Every time she blinked, she saw him laying back in her sheets, his naked chest on display, his very naked lower body hidden underneath.
She had never felt so rested after having had little to no sleep all night long.
Passing by the main entrance to Easterly, she had to shake her head. You never knew where you were going to end up, did you.
So much for the whole “friends” only thing.
Coming around to the staff road, she promptly had to hit her brakes and join a long line of delivery trucks and cars. She was relieved to see so many of the former in light of the problem they’d had with the rental company, but nervous about how Lane and his family would pay for all the additional help considering the latter.
When she finally got to the parking lot, she had to squeeze the Yaris into a spot in the back. There were about a hundred waiters and waitresses coming to staff the party, and their vehicles all had to go somewhere. In another hour? The lower road was going to be lined with pickup trucks and motorcycles and twelve kinds of sedans.
Getting out, she hooked up with the parade of people trooping to the house on the back path. Nobody was saying anything, and that was fine with her. In her head, she was working her punch list and prioritizing the things she wanted to do before the floodgates opened and over six hundred of the most important people in town for the races came through Easterly’s front door.
Number one on her list?
Greta.
She had to somehow fix things with Greta because they were going to have to work as a team in order to survive the next four hours.
As she saw the conservatory looming on the far side of the garden, she braced herself. Her partner had to be in there already, was no doubt picking over all of the bouquets, making sure that not a single wilted petal or leaf marred the perfect presentations before they were taken out to the tables.
She’d probably been here since 6:45.
Just as Lizzie should have been.
And would have been, except for that whole Lane-in-her-bed thing.
“I’m a grown woman,” she told herself. “I say who, I say when, I say …”
Great. She was quoting Pretty Woman.
The problem was, if her business partner asked her why she was late, things were going to go from really bad to totally worse. She was a horrible liar, and all the tomato red that was going to hit her face before she could stutter out a non-answer was going to give her away like a billboard.
I SPENT ALL NIGHT BONING LANE BALDWINE.
Or whatever German phrase came close to that.
Squaring her shoulders, Lizzie hiked her bag up a little higher on her shoulder and marched over to the double doors.
As she opened them and stepped into the fragrant, thick air of the conservatory, she decided to lead with—