All the Secrets We Keep (Quarry Book 2) Read online

  “Yeah, yeah.” He nodded, focused on his phone, but he did give her a glance. “Meeting a . . . friend.”

  “I see.” Theresa watched the server set the check on the table, midway between them, but she didn’t reach for it. Picking up the tab or even offering to pay her part of it had been a long-ingrained habit, but she’d also had her share of business meetings in which she’d allowed herself to be treated.

  And dates, too.

  Ilya hadn’t reached for the check at once, but when he slipped his phone into his pocket, he noticed the small faux-leather binder with the receipt sticking up. His eyes met hers for almost the first time the entire night as he took it and flipped it open to scan the numbers. “I got this.”

  Yes, you do, Theresa thought somewhat coldly, forcing a distance she didn’t really feel but wanted to. He must’ve seen something in her expression, because Ilya frowned as he pulled out a wad of cash and tucked it into the binder. His brow furrowed for a moment before he smoothed his face.

  “So, I’ll see you tomorrow at three?” he asked. “Should we drive together?”

  She frowned, thinking about being forced to spend what was now looking like it could be an awkward twenty minutes in the car together. “I have some errands I need to run in the morning, so no. I’ll meet you there.”

  She didn’t imagine the look of relief on his face, and it stung. She had time to back out of this, even though it had taken a lot of effort and thought on her part to commit to it in the first place. She could change her mind. Right now. Watching Ilya check his phone again, his smile grim but still a smile for someone other than her, Theresa thought ahead to the time they’d have to spend together. How uncomfortable it could become, if they let it.

  She wasn’t going to let it.

  She wasn’t going in on the diner with Ilya because she wanted him. She wanted work. Success. A career. She wanted to be part of something she believed in, something that would bring her joy the way cooking had always done.

  “This might be a stupid idea,” she said aloud. “It’s going to be a lot of work and frustration. It won’t be easy at all.”

  “I know,” Ilya said.

  They both got up. He didn’t try to hug her, and she was glad of that. Whatever was going to happen now, she told herself, it was going to be strictly business. She could handle that.

  She took a detour to the restroom before leaving, and by the time she got out, Ilya had already settled at the bar next to a tall blonde who was laughing at something he’d said. Watching them, Theresa’s stomach twisted. She lifted her chin.

  Next to them both, she paused, aware of how the Styrofoam box of leftover cheesecake was shaking in her hand. “See you tomorrow, Ilya.”

  The blonde assessed her with a glance and must’ve found no threat. “Hi, I’m Amber.”

  “Theresa. Three o’clock,” she added, looking at him even though he was definitely not looking at her.

  She didn’t look back when she left, although the temptation to was strong. Outside the front doors of the restaurant, Theresa dumped the leftover container into the trash. She no longer had an appetite for dessert.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ilya wasn’t late to the meeting with the lawyer, although waking up this morning had been hell. He’d tried to get drunk last night and hadn’t been able to stomach more than a single glass of whiskey. He’d tried to get laid, too—something that should’ve been even easier than getting hammered. When it came right down to it, though, Amber’s blatant invitation had left him unsettled instead of turned on.

  “Let’s go back to your place,” she’d offered first, and Ilya had told her they could not. His mother was there, and his brother. It would’ve been weird, he said. By the way she wrinkled her nose, he could tell that Amber agreed. She made another offer. “My place?”

  At that point, after a few hours of his hand on the small of her back, her shoulder, his fingers trailing down her bare arm to settle on her wrist, a casual tug of that spiraling lock of hair tumbling so artfully over her breast . . . after all that, he was sure that he could take her into the backseat of his car, if he wanted. In the past, he would’ve wanted. Earlier tonight, he’d thought he wanted.

  But now Ilya didn’t want.

  Not Amber, anyway. It wasn’t her fault. She was as beautiful and charming and funny as he remembered from the last time they’d hooked up. He still liked her well enough, especially since he knew that whatever happened between them tonight was unlikely to lead to desperate-sounding texts or calls. Amber wasn’t the sort of girl who would ever show up on his doorstep with her makeup smeared all over her face, asking him why he couldn’t just love her.

  It would’ve been sex, not too plain, and if he managed to be good at it, not very simple, but also far from complicated. Instead, he found himself alone in his own bed before two in the morning, his head clear from the blur of alcohol but nowhere near unjumbled in his thoughts. Sleep had come only when the first light filtered through his window, and he’d woken only an hour or so before it was time for the meeting.

  He’d made it, though. Shaved, showered, even wearing a suit. It felt right, even though the last time he’d put this suit on had been to attend Babulya’s funeral. It was the only one he owned. He’d never had a suit-wearing job.

  “It’s not like Theresa to be late.” Rita looked pointedly at her gold watch. “Are you sure she’s coming?”

  “She said she would be.” Ilya’s palms itched with sweat, and so did the back of his neck. Rita didn’t seem to think much of him, which irritated him, since he was getting ready to write a check for a lot of money, a nice portion of which would go to her if this all went through.

  Rita looked at her watch again with a frown. “It’s my understanding that you’ll be the one making the offer? Theresa’s not actually going to be on the paperwork for the offer, per the agreement between the two of you? That one is separate. You could get started on signing.”

  “Yeah, but I’d really like to wait for her.” Ilya flashed the woman his best, most charming smile, but it didn’t seem to work. Probably because he looked like hammered shit, as evidenced by the mirror this morning that had shown off the glints of gray at his temples and the bags under his eyes.

  “I have another appointment at four. If she’s not here soon, I’m going to have to ask that we get started.” Rita tapped the thick folder of papers with her very expensive pen. She managed a smile. It didn’t seem very sincere.

  He was saved from further comment because Theresa came through the door. She took the seat next to his without the apology for being late that Rita was clearly expecting. Ilya wanted to kiss her for that reason alone.

  “Are we ready?” Theresa smiled at him. “Let’s do this.”

  It took a good twenty minutes of listening to Rita drone on while he signed page after page and then wrote the check, but while Ilya had thought he’d feel some kind of anxiety about that amount of money he was both offering to spend and what he was putting down as a deposit, all he felt was anticipation. The good kind: the sort that had him grinning and finding it hard to sit still. After hands were shaken all around, Rita packed up her files with the check, escorted him and Theresa out to the front of the office, and that was it.

  “Signed, sealed, and soon to be delivered,” he said. “And in three days we’ll know if we have it or not, just like an STD test.”

  Theresa recoiled with a grimace. “Oh, brother.”

  “Sorry. Too crude?” She’d parked beside him, he saw, and the two of them walked toward their cars.

  “I’ve had STD testing,” she told him smoothly. “It can take longer than three days.”

  Ilya had also made that awkward, anxious visit to the clinic once or twice, though he’d been lucky enough for it to be a false alarm. “Sorry. I was trying to make a joke.”

  Theresa unlocked her car door. “Chlamydia is not a flower, according to the pamphlet they gave me. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve not found