Blue Dahlia

cut. Canali, if she wasn’t mistaken. At least that had been his designer of the moment when she’d been footing the bills.
    “I don’t see why you’re still upset, Roz, honey. Unless there are still feelings inside you for me.”
    “Oh, there are, Bryce, there are. Disgust being paramount. Go away before I call a cop and have you arrested for being a personal annoyance.”
    “I’d just like another chance to—”
    She stopped then. “That will never happen in this lifetime, or a thousand others. Be grateful you’re able to walk the streets in your expensive shoes, Bryce, and that you’re wearing a tailored suit instead of a prison jumpsuit.”
    “There’s no cause to talk to me that way. You got what you wanted, Roz. You cut me off without a dime.”
    “Would that include the fifteen thousand, six hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents you transferred out of my account the week before I kicked your sorry ass out of my house? Oh, I knew about that one, too,” she said when his face went carefully blank. “But I let that one go, because I decided I deserved to pay something for my own stupidity. Now you go on, and you stay out of my way, you stay out of my sight, and you stay out of my hearing, or I promise you, you’ll regret it.”
    She clipped down the sidewalk, and even the “Frigid bitch” he hurled at her back didn’t break her stride.
    But she was shaking. By the time she’d reached the right address her knees and hands were trembling. She hated that she’d allowed him to upset her. Hated that the sight of him brought any reaction at all, even if it was rage.
    Because there was shame along with it.
    She’d taken him into her heart and her home. She’d let herself be charmed and seduced—and lied to and deceived. He’d stolen more than her money, she knew. He’d stolen her pride. And it was a shock to the system to realize, after all this time, that she didn’t quite have it back. Not all of it.
    She blessed the cool inside the building and rode the elevator to the third floor.
    She was too frazzled and annoyed to fuss with her hair or check her makeup before she knocked. Instead she stood impatiently tapping her foot until the door opened.
    He was as good-looking as the picture on the back of his books—several of which she’d read or skimmed through before arranging this meeting. He was, perhaps, a bit more rumpled in rolled-up shirtsleeves and jeans. But what she saw was a very long, very lanky individual with a pair of horn-rims sliding down a straight and narrow nose. Behind the lenses, bottle-green eyes seemed distracted. His hair was plentiful, in a tangle of peat-moss brown around a strong, sharp-boned face that showed a black bruise along the jaw.
    The fact that he wasn’t wearing any shoes made her feel hot and overdressed.
    “Dr. Carnegie?”
    “That’s right. Ms.... Harper. I’m sorry. I lost track of time. Come in, please. And don’t look at anything.” There was a quick, disarming smile. “Part of losing track means I didn’t remember to pick up out here. So we’ll go straight back to my office, where I can excuse any disorder in the name of the creative process. Can I get you anything?”
    His voice was coastal southern, she noted. That easy drawl that turned vowels into warm liquid. “I’ll take something cold, whatever you’ve got.”
    Of course, she looked as he scooted her through the living room. There were newspapers and books littering an enormous brown sofa, another pile of them along with a stubby white candle on a coffee table that looked as if it might have been Georgian. There was a basketball and a pair of high-tops so disreputable she doubted even her sons would lay claim to them in the middle of a gorgeous Turkish rug, and the biggest television screen she’d ever seen eating up an entire wall.
    Though he was moving her quickly along, she caught sight of the kitchen. From the number of dishes on the counter, she assumed he’d recently had a party.
    “I’m in the middle of a book,” he explained. “And when I come up for air, domestic chores aren’t a priority. My last cleaning team quit. Just like their predecessors.”
    “I can’t imagine why,” she said with schooled civility as she stared at his office space.
    There wasn’t a clean surface to be seen, and the air reeked of cigar smoke. A dieffenbachia sat in a chipped pot on the windowsill, withering. Rising above the chaos of his desk was a flat-screen monitor