“Who do you think he was?” Poppy asks, popping another truffle into her mouth.
“Who?” I blink at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“The guy Sterling didn’t want to run into in the lobby,” she says.
If we’re going to talk about Sterling, I might as well have some chocolate. It will soften the blow. I hold out a palm and she places a truffle in it. I pretend I’m not enjoying it. “I don’t know.” Whoever he was, Sterling totally freaked out when he saw him.
“Do you think he’s in trouble?” she asks.
One of the best things about Poppy is her beautiful naiveté. Poppy is innocent. She sees the good in everyone. This also means she overlooks the bad. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Sterling is involved in some questionable businesses. There’s no way he could’ve made the kind of money he’s flashing without doing a little dirty work. Somehow, this seems never to have occurred to Poppy.
“I think he is in trouble,” I say. “Which means trouble is going to follow him until he leaves town.”
“Don’t be pessimistic,” Kai advises.
I pull up the edge of a cucumber slice to make sure I aim my glare at him.
Poppy senses my anxiety and switches the subject. “Have you thought any more about what patterns you want to use?”
In the time it took Elsi to arrive, she called down to the front desk and had the house interior designer drop off fabric samples. If I had half her determination, I might be running MacLaine Media.
“Honestly, I don’t care.” I drop into a chair, wishing it would swallow me up and give me a break from my new life.
“You were so excited to have your own place,” she reminds me.
“I know.” I hold a throw pillow to my chest. “It just doesn’t seem important now.”
“That will happen when you’re lovesick,” Kai says. He strolls over, adjusting his hotel robe and sits next to me on the bed.
“Love–what?” I splutter.
“You know what he said. What about these?” She asks and I flip up the cumber slices to see her rifling through a stack of fabrics before pulling two and setting them side-by-side. She peers down at them, seeing some special difference that eludes me.
“Those are fine,” I say dismissively, and return the cucumbers to their mission. I’m not sure this place can ever feel like home. It’s somehow both full of my mother and lifeless at the same time.
Poppy plucks the cucumbers off and tosses them on the table. I hear Elsi cluck with disapproval from the bathroom, but Poppy ignores her.. “This is your first place. I don’t want fine. I want spectacular. When Sterling comes banging down your door , I want to know that he’s going to find a strong, confident, worldly woman.”
“You have an apartment of your own,” I say to her, “I don’t know how you can manage to be here all the time.”
“I’m not talking about me.” She huffs and drops onto the foot of the bed. “You told him that you didn’t want a man to control you anymore. Show him that. But don’t let everyone make choices for you, either. Pick one.” She points to the samples.
I’m not entirely certain this proves what she thinks it does, but I can’t argue with her logic. I can’t keep saying I want a life of my own without making any progress towards it, without working on making my own choices. I grab a stack, toss aside her choices, and rifle through until I land on a bottle-green velvet. “This one.”
Poppy raises one perfectly lined eyebrow. “Oh.”
I can’t tell what she thinks of my choice, but honestly it doesn’t matter.
“I love it,” I tell her.
“Excellent. Now let’s decide on—” she is cut off by the ring of the suite’s phone.
“Let’s see what excuse he came up with for today,” I grumble as I accept the call from the front desk. Part of taking control means not avoiding my problems either. I listened to the messages he left but avoided answering. That ends now.“Hello?”
“I’m so glad you answered,” he says in a rush.
“Oh yeah?” I lounge back in the chair and check my watch. Actually, he’s calling a little later today. Probably part of his plan.
“It’s Zeus,” he says.
I sit bolt upright. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. He’s acting oddly,” Sterling says, his voice coated with worry. “I can barely get him to go out on a walk.”
“What?” I knew his adopted dog for months before Sterling adopted him from the shelter, so I know exactly how odd that is. Zeus loves his walks.
“Look, I know you’re avoiding me, but could you could come over here and see what you think? You know him better than I do,” he says.
“I’m on my way.” I don’t bother to say goodbye. I wipe the creamy mask off my face and begin searching for my purse. “I need to go.”
“How did he finally hook you?” Kai’s tone sparkles with laughter.
“Something is wrong with Zeus,” I explain to them. I grab a pair of jeans and a shirt from the dresser drawer and dash into the bathroom to get dressed.
“I hope everything will be okay,” Poppy calls after me as I run toward the door.
“Me, too,” I say as I leave.
I can almost swear I hear her whisper to Kai as the door swings closed, “He used the dog. Brilliant.”
Poppy’s theory has me thinking. By the time I arrive at Twelve and South, I’m sure she’s right. I’m already prepping my lecture for him on using an innocent animal when I reach the penthouse. Sterling opens the door before I can knock. “He’s in here.”
He doesn’t bother to linger. He barely looks at me. Instead, he heads straight back to the living room. Sterling disappears, and a few steps later I realize he has laid down on the floor next to the dog, his
