3

NOVA

“You should have seen your face!” Hope is holding her sides as she laughs, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Like your brain short-circuited the moment his crotch entered your personal space.”

“If it was anything like your face when you saw him, I’m sure it was hilarious.” I snatch the leashes out of her hand and take off striding down Michigan Avenue like I’m being chased by my bad decisions. “The difference is you didn’t humiliate yourself in front of him. Where did you go, anyway? You abandoned me.”

She catches up, wiping tears from her eyes. “I didn’t want to interrupt that adorable meet-cute.”

“That was not a meet-cute. It was a scene from an HR training tape on sexual harassment.” I glare at Rufus, who’s trotting forlornly at my side, still missing his new friend.

Samuel Litvinov. I feel his business card burning in my back pocket.

“He liked you.”

Even as my heart does a pitiful little flip at the idea, I cough out a laugh. “He was being civil, which is a miracle in and of itself. He should’ve called the police.”

“Exactly! He had his leg humped by a Great Dane, Nova! And not only was he a perfect gentleman about it, but he gave you his card because…” She waits for me to finish the thought, but does it herself when I just stare blankly back at her. “Because he liked you, you absolute potato!”

I bite my bottom lip. “I don’t know about that.”

“Hand me his card.”

White-knuckling the leashes, I fish the card from my pocket. The moment it leaves my fingers, I want to snatch it back.

Hope’s perfectly groomed brows shoot up at the thick cardstock and gold embossing. “Ooh, fancy.” Then she reads the card, and her eyes bulge out of their sockets. “Oh my God!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Even the dogs turn to us, suddenly on high alert.

“Samuil Litvinov! As in the Samuil Litvinov?!”

“Um… am I supposed to recognize the name? Is he an actor or something? Should I be Googling him?”

“You’d get a whole bunch of hits, that’s for sure.” Hope snatches the card back and turns it over like she’s checking for treasure map clues. “Named Chicago’s hottest young entrepreneur three years in a row. Self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-seven. He owns, like, a gazillion businesses all over the world. And rumor has it he’s got connections to the Russian mob, which honestly just adds to the whole package.”

I groan and roll my eyes. “So he’s not actually famous. You just want to cast him as the lead in your mafia romance wet dreams.”

“Everyone likes a bad boy.” She doesn’t deny it.

My skin tingles as I’m reminded of Samuil’s parting words. Technically, he’d been speaking to Rufus, but those storm-gray eyes had been locked on mine.

Bad dogs have all the fun.

“Is that why you only date sales guys and pharmaceutical reps?”

“I date them for the discounts and the free drugs,” Hope quips. “But I’m guessing Mr. Big Bad Litvinov will have a lot more to offer than cheap over-the-counter cough syrup when you call him.”

“I’m not calling him, Hope!”

She smacks my arm hard enough to leave a mark. “Why the hell not? He gave you his card for a reason.”

“He probably has a dog he wants me to walk.” But even I can hear how weak that sounds. “It was purely business.”

“Sure. Because all my business meetings end with discussions about removing pants.”

I want to crawl into the nearest sewer and die. “You heard that?”

“I heard everything, girl, and nothing about it was remotely professional. You were flirting. With a capital F.”

“I didn’t want us to be hit with a lawsuit the first day we went into business together!” The words come out shriller than intended. “I was just being nice and offering to pay for his dry cleaning bill, that is all.”

“If that was business, why didn’t you give him our business card?” A sly smile plays across her lips. “He’s clearly the kind of man who outsources his household chores. He has rich and important friends that he could have introduced us to.”

Is it too late to jump on Rufus’s back and ride him home? “I… didn’t think that far ahead.”

“You weren’t thinking at all, were you?” Hope winks at me.

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth would be nice.”

I throw my arms in the air. “Oh, alright, fine. I wasn’t thinking about business at all. All I was thinking was that I wish I had an excuse to hump any part of him I could get my hands on.”

Hope tosses her head back with a cackle that draws the eyes of all of the dogs and a few innocent joggers. I can’t help but join in. Especially when Rufus gives another mournful whine that sounds suspiciously like agreement.

Once we’ve gotten the schoolgirl hysterics out of the way, I pat Rufus on the head. “Okay, that was the least professional fifteen minutes of my life. So, let’s get ourselves back in the game and return these pooches to their owners before any additional nonconsensual humping occurs. I’ve had enough felonies for a while.”

We manage to drop off Patsy, Snide, and Blue without mentioning Samuil Litvinov or the card that Hope conveniently neglected to return to me. She’s probably planning to call him herself—and honestly, good for her. God knows I don’t have the guts after what just happened.

It’s only when we’re approaching the brass double doors of our newest client’s greystone mansion—the kind of place that makes my apartment look like a cardboard box behind a Wendy’s—that Hope brings him up again.

“You’re really not going to call him?”

I fish the spare key from my sports bra and unlock the front door. Rufus rushes inside, almost taking me out at the knees as he does.

“What’s the point, Hope? Nothing can come out of it.”