Everybody Loves Evie. Beth Ciotta

smoothed things over with the AIA.

      I’d assumed the smoothing over had more to do with Arch and Beckett acting outside of agency jurisdiction than with the actual shooting. After all, it had been, as they say in the movies, a clean kill.

      So I’d been told.

      Ugly thoughts riddled my brain, causing my neck to prickle with a nervous rash. “I can see you two have some catching up to do. Besides, I need to use the ladies’ room. Excuse me.” I stepped into the hall, desperate to purge my escalating suspicions.

      “Think she’s embarrassed, son,” I heard Marvin say behind me. “Can’t blame her. What are you now? Thirty-four?”

      “Thirty-five.”

      “A bit old to be snogging in a closet. If you didn’t want to take her to Bernard’s place, you could’ve …”

      The door clicked shut. Even though I could no longer hear them, the conversation clanged in my head, especially that part about Arch’s age. “Bastard.”

      Anger propelled me down the hall. I made it halfway up a set of stairs before Arch snagged my arm. “The privy’s in the opposite direction, yeah?”

      “I’m not going to the privy.”

      “Where are you going?”

      “Out.”

      “That’s not oot. That’s up.”

      “Then I’m going up. Please let go.” I slipped his grasp and continued on.

      “You’re pissed.”

      “You lied to me.”

       “Aboot?”

      “About your age.”

      “For fuck sake, Sunshine.”

      I hit a landing and pushed through a door. I really wanted to hit and push Arch, but I wasn’t the violent type and I’d just walked into a populated gallery. Good girls don’t cause scenes. And neither do Chameleons in training. Blend, Evie, blend. I pretended interest in a painting. I pretended to be calm. “You told me you were thirty-nine.”

      “I told you what you wanted to hear.”

      “I wouldn’t have slept with you if I’d known you were six years younger than me.”

      “Aye, you would have,” he said with damnable confidence. “You just would have obsessed on it afterward.”

      We’d had this conversation before. It was part of my personal crisis. He didn’t understand my preoccupation with my age. Then again, he wasn’t an over-forty female trying to survive in a youth-obsessed industry. These days when auditioning performers, ninety-eight percent of the entertainment executives focused on youth and beauty. Talent wasn’t a requisite as much as a bonus. Michael, my ex, had told me that himself, and, as an agent who booked performers for buyers, he would know. To add injury to insult, after fifteen years of blissful—okay, amiable—marriage, he’d dumped me for a twentysomething lingerie model. So, yeah, I had a big flipping chip on my shoulder regarding age.

      I hadn’t given that obsession much thought over the past two weeks. Not being in Atlantic City and losing gigs to girls half my age and with a quarter of my experience helped. Not being around Michael and his young squeeze helped. Having sex with a charismatic hunk and learning the ins and outs of an exciting new career worked miracles.

      Now the anxiety that had ruled my life pre-Arch was back. My jaw ached—remnants of TMJ. My skin itched—a nervous rash. Rejection had one-two punched my self-esteem. “I don’t want to go back.” I turned away from the paintings, pinpointed the nearest exit sign.

      “I said goodbye to Marvin.”

      “I’m not talking about the closet.” And I didn’t want to talk about Marvin. I didn’t want to know the connection between an art-museum janitor and an art forger. I didn’t want to know who the collective “we” was and how they’d known Arch would seek justice. Mostly because Marvin made justice sound like revenge. I didn’t want to know why Arch should be leery of Scotland Yard. Although, given his shady past, there were probably dozens of reasons. I didn’t want to know about any of that because I feared the truth was more than my squeaky-clean morals could handle.

      Bottom line—I wasn’t okay with what Arch and his grandfather used to do. I wasn’t okay with his past, because his past was full of deceit. I’d fallen for the new Arch. The man who used his intelligence and experience to bring down the bad guys. After meeting Marvin, I wasn’t sure that Arch had forfeited his old lifestyle. Obviously he hadn’t cut ties with old cronies. Not that I intended to kiss off my entertainment friends when I started with Chameleon. I couldn’t imagine life without my best buds. Then again, Nicole and Jayne weren’t criminals.

      “Keep clenching your teeth like that,” Arch said, “and your jaw’s going to lock.”

      I hoped not, but it was possible. It had happened before, and he’d witnessed an episode firsthand. TMJ was stress-related. I needed to relax. “I’m fine,” I said, even as I felt a twinge of pain. Chill, Evie, chill.

      “You said you didn’t want to go back,” he said as we breached the main doors. “Back where?”

      “To where I was. What I was.”

      He lit a cigarette—amazing how he made a nasty habit look sexy—and walked beside me in silence as I headed toward Leicester Square. Probably trying to get a bead on my mind-set. Welcome to the club.

      Though it was early spring, there was a blustery nip in the air. At least it wasn’t raining. Although it was damp and gray. All I needed to augment my dismal mood was a blanket of London’s famous fog. Hands stuffed in my coat pockets, I breezed past the discount ticket booth and cut through the heart of the theater district. I saw the play and movie marquees, heard music from a nearby dance club. I imagined countless singers, musicians, actors and dancers warming up for a night’s performance. My old life. My stomach spasmed just thinking about my washed-up career. “I have to move on.”

      “You need to slow down and talk plainly, yeah?” He nabbed my elbow and pulled me onto a park bench.

      I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. “This isn’t going to work.”

      “What?”

      “Us.”

      He blew out a stream of smoke. “Because I’m a few years younger than you?”

      “Six years younger. And, no, that’s not the reason, though it doesn’t help.”

      “Because I lied aboot my age?”

      “No.”

      “Then what?”

      “I could name a million reasons.”

      He crushed out the cigarette. “Name one.”

      “Milo Beckett hired me.”

      No reaction.

      “I’m going to work full-time for Chameleon.”

      He looked at me, expressionless.

      He was good at that, not telegraphing his thoughts and emotions. Still … “I know what you’re thinking.”

      “Yeah?”

      “You think I’m not cut out for it. That I’m too nice.”

      “There is that.”

      “I’m capable of fighting my nature. I’m capable of change. I have changed.”

      “You’d never survive in my world, Evie. You feel too deeply.”

      “What world are we talking about, Ace? Your old world or your new world?”

      “One and the same, yeah?”

      “No.