“All right. You need to get out of the nightclub business. It’s wrong for you. Buy some land. Plant it. Grow crap. And settle down . . . with the right woman. Someone who’s as . . . as dazzling as you are. You need someone spectacular. Someone brainy and gorgeous and successful, but grounded, too. Like you.”

He spoke with almost a sense of wonder. “This is so mind-numbingly fascinating. So tell me . . . What do I do about the fact that I might be maybe”—his gaze wavered ever so slightly—“falling a little bit in love with you?”

A sob threatened to spill right out of her. Somehow she managed to alter it into a harsh, unfunny laugh. “You’re not.”

“You know that, then.”

She did. As surely as she knew anything. A little bit in love. As if there were such a thing. She would not cry in front of him. Never. “You’re a champion. That’s in your blood. It’s the mind-set that’s made you great. But this is life, not a game. And instead of throwing up a smoke screen, think about what I’ve said. About you. About Deidre. About everything.”

This made him furious. “What happens with us, then? After I’ve hooked up with Deidre, that is.”

“Nothing happens with us.”

“Don’t you want to be pals?” The rough sweep of his arm made him wince, but he didn’t seem to care. “Get together now and then to have a couple of beers? Go to a strip club? Poker night? Just us guys.”

She couldn’t take any more. “I’ll wait in the hall until Jonah gets here.”

“You do that,” he said.

***

I might be maybe . . . falling a little bit in love with you. Love either was or wasn’t. She knew that now. For the first time since she was a kid, she cried. All the way to her apartment—big, blubbery tears that sloshed down her cheeks and dripped on her jacket. Tears that came from a well with no bottom.

She’d waited too long to fall in love. That was why this was so hard. She should have fallen in love for the first time when she was a teenager, like any normal girl. And a couple more times after that. If she’d done things the normal way, she’d have practice dealing with heartbreak, but she’d had none. That was why her world had fallen apart.

The Sonata’s front wheel climbed the curb as she turned into the alley behind Spiral. She had to pack up her things, but she couldn’t go inside with her nose running and tears everywhere. She couldn’t let anyone see her so broken. She backed up and drove blindly to the lakefront. When she got there, she stumbled across the grass to the lakeshore path.

The wind was sharp off the water. It cut hard through her sweatshirt, but her tears kept running. All the tears she’d never let herself shed over the years were escaping at the same time. Tears for a mother she couldn’t remember, a father who had loved and resented her, and an ex-quarterback who’d stolen her heart when she wasn’t paying attention.

She started to run. There weren’t many joggers on this part of the path, and a few snowflakes scuttled in the wind. November would be here in a couple of days. And then winter. A cold, Chicago winter. She ran faster, trying to outrun her misery.

A woman clad in trendy athletic gear and pushing a jogging stroller was running toward her. As the woman came closer, her pace slowed, and then stopped. “Are you all right?” she asked as her baby slept peacefully in the stroller.

Piper knew how crazed she must look. She slowed long enough to acknowledge the woman’s concern. “My . . . dog died.”

The woman’s ponytail swung. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Piper started to run again. She’d told another lie. She’d never been a liar, but now she’d become a pro. All those lies.

“I go by Esme. Lady Esme, actually. Esmerelda is a family name. . . . The fact is . . . I’m your stalker.”

She spun around and yelled after the woman. “I broke up with a man I love with all my heart, and he will never, ever love me the same way, and I hurt so bad I don’t know what to do with myself.”

The only indication that the woman heard was the way she raised her arm from the handle of the jogging stroller and waved.

Piper gazed out at the lake, her hands in fists at her side, her teeth chattering, icy tears on her cheeks. She had to find a new self. A self who was indestructible and who would never, ever again let this happen to her.

***

A week passed. Piper was gone. It was as though she’d never been there. The cleaning staff had scrubbed his blood off the apartment wall and put the furniture back where it belonged. Coop had walked in there once and couldn’t go again.

The image of Piper standing in front of him with a gun shoved to her head was seared on his brain. At that exact moment he’d understood. It was as if a gust of wind had swept away the fog that had obscured the truth he should have recognized long before. But instead of coming out with it right away, he’d screwed up bad at the hospital. He hadn’t said the right thing, which was ironic, considering his reputation for working a good sound bite. Years of having microphones shoved in his face had taught him how to divulge exactly what he wanted to, precisely as he intended. But when it came to saying the right words to Piper, he’d fumbled in the worst possible way, and now she wouldn’t take his calls.

The wound in his side was healing, but the rest of him was a mess. Someone knocked on his office door. This was the first time in days that anybody had bothered him. He didn’t blame them for keeping their distance. He was brusque with the customers, unhappy with the servers, and outright hostile to his bouncers. He’d even gotten into an argument with Tony because Tony insisted there was nothing wrong with the club’s HVAC system. But the air was stagnant, not circulating. So heavy with the funk of perfume and liquor it had seeped into Coop’s pores.

He twisted from the computer screen he’d been staring at for who knew how long and directed his wrath toward the door. “Go away!”

Jada barged into his office. “You broke up with Piper! How could you do that?”

“Piper broke up with me. And how do you know about it?”

“I talked to her on the phone. At first she didn’t tell me, but I finally got it out of her.”

He leaned back in his chair, trying to be casual, even though he wanted to shake the details out of her. “So . . . what did she say about me?”