Party Crashers

boyfriend and the wife of a successful Buckhead businessman."
    Jolie bit down on the inside of her cheek. "I didn't ask Beck to get involved."
    "I know you didn't—that's how Beck is. He sees a wrong and he tries to make it right, even if he hurts himself in the process." Pam wet her lips, and her eyes softened. "Ms. Goodman, I'm not suggesting that you try to stop him—when Beck sets his mind to something, there is no stopping him. But woman to woman, you're in a hell of a pickle here. Don't make things worse by giving the media more gossip for Beck to have to squash."
    Jolie pressed her lips together and gave a curt nod. "I understand."
    The older woman glanced down, then plucked off a staticky balled-up taupe-colored knee-high that had attached itself to her jacket and handed it to Jolie. "I hope so, for both of your sakes."
    Pam turned and strode away, already punching in a number on her cell phone. Face flaming, Jolie walked back into the room, where Beck was ending one cell phone call, punching in another one.
    "What was that all about?" he asked.
    Jolie folded the knee-high into her hand. "Pam was just giving me some advice."
    He nodded absently. "I'm calling the auto service to see if they have a record of servicing that guy's car."
    "Beck, how exactly do you know Pam?"
    He looked up. "She's my father's mistress." Then he turned his back and leaned against a sofa table. "Hello, may I speak to the manager, please?"
    Jolie studied him, then the rolled up knee-high. Not only had Pam given her advice from one woman to another, she'd given her advice from one woman who loved an Underwood man...to another?
    She mulled over the revelation, then leaned one hip on the oversized desk that Beck had claimed as a work space. She looked down, frowning when she saw the edge of the group picture she'd asked about sticking out from beneath a newspaper. She looked up to see that Beck still had his back turned. From the sound of his voice, he was not having much luck with the manager of the auto service. Jolie removed the photo and replayed their recent conversation. Why would he have lied about its whereabouts?
    This man who had captured her heart in a matter of days had a few secrets. Jolie glanced up to make sure he was still preoccupied, then tucked the picture into her purse. For now, she would keep a few secrets too.

Chapter Twenty-three

    "THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING at Neiman Marcus," Jolie said, handing a shopping bag over the counter with a smile. The woman glanced at the white bandage on Jolie's hand, then returned the smile warily.
    "It's nothing contagious," Jolie assured her, instantly assailed by another bout of itchiness, which forced her to scratch her hand through the bandage before the woman looked away. "Really," Jolie said with a smile, still scratching.
    The woman hurried away, and Jolie stared down at her hand, irritated. She made a fist and winced—Beck had bound the bandage a little tight this morning when he'd dressed it for her. But after Pam Vanderpool's parting words last night, Jolie had concluded there could be no more hanky-panky between her and Beck. Since getting bandaged would be the extent of him touching her, she could tolerate tight. Tight was good.
    To take her mind off her aching hand and off Beck, she glanced around the nearly deserted shoe department, even willing to tackle an orthopedic-insert customer if necessary, to take her mind off her problems. She was just glad to be back to some kind of normalcy. The afternoon had passed, and she'd only thought of Gary lying in the morgue, oh, a few hundred times. But she knew that number would be much higher if she weren't working.
    And then there was the one time that she hadn't been thinking about Gary that kept rising in her mind—when she'd climbed on top of Beck Underwood.
    She cringed and tried to push aside that persistent memory.
    She'd come in early to buy a suit for Gary to wear in his casket on her employee discount. Sending him off in style was the least she could do, and although she was a little dismayed when the funeral director had told her bluntly he wouldn't be needing shoes, she conceded that her credit card couldn't have withstood much more.
    The stark efficiency of finalizing the details for his memorial service over the phone had disturbed her. Generic burial plot with footstone? Check. Bargain-basement-priced casket? Check. Floral spray for the casket? Check. Preprogrammed organ music? Check.
    To exorcise some of her own