She definitely couldn’t argue with that. He helped her off the floor, and they headed for the open staircase, but before they got to the top, she had to make sure they were clear. “We agree, right? No games. We’ll do this until we get bored with each other or until another ravishingly beautiful movie star decides she needs some quarterback arm candy.”

He grinned and squeezed her rear. “It’s a deal. And no screwing around with your cop boyfriend.”

“Not until I’m done with you.”

His walk-in shower was bigger than four of her bathrooms. Its tumbled marble walls, multiple nozzles, and movable showerheads became a sexual playground for an inventive couple. Which they were.

“You’re definitely not selfish,” Coop muttered sometime later as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

Not selfish, but maybe stupid, she thought. She pushed the idea aside. She finally knew what she was doing. She’d set her boundaries and been up front about her needs. Most important, she was aware of her limitations when it came to having a relationship with a wealthy celebrity sex god, a man so far out of her realm of experience that the two of them barely occupied the same planet. She wasn’t beautiful or sophisticated. Didn’t care about clothes or makeup, and wouldn’t know how to swish her hair even if it were a foot longer. He was attracted to her out of novelty. And novelty was, by definition, temporary.

She gave them two weeks max before it fell apart. And she was okay with that. Two weeks of mind-blowing sex was perfect. But as she wrapped herself in an oversize bath towel, a shadow fell over one corner of her heart, a premonition that, when the sex stopped, she’d have lost a friend. One of the best friends she’d ever had.

15

On Monday morning, she got a call from the owner of a neighborhood minimart who’d seen her flyer. He wanted her to investigate what he believed was a fraudulent injury claim from one of his former employees, a guy named Wylie Hill. She headed south to check him out.

Pilsen was a predominantly Mexican-American Chicago neighborhood, rich with art and immigrant tradition. Two men leaned against a mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe and watched a couple of hipsters walk by. An old woman in bedroom slippers came up the steps from her basement apartment to sweep the sidewalk.

Wylie eventually appeared and sat smoking on the stoop of the row house where he’d rented a room. She was happy to have a new client, but stakeouts were her least favorite part of the job. First, because they were boring, and second, because they gave her too much time to think, especially today.