“Yeah, Prez?” I asked, bracing for the ass-chewing I knew I deserved.
“Is there more going on than I’m aware of?” he asked.
“Um, I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“With you and Daphne, and Ink.”
“Oh,” I said and chuckled. “No, nothing like that.”
“You sure? He’s awfully protective of her.”
“She feeds him,” I said.
Phoenix laughed. “Well, that explains it.”
“And she includes him. Whenever he walks into my house unannounced, she doesn’t bat an eye. She brings him into the conversation or hands him a plate of food like he was there the whole time.”
“She sounds like a keeper.”
“She is.”
I wasin a mood for the rest of the day. Despite understanding his reasoning, I was not happy with how Phoenix handled things with Lewis and Leah. Well, I wasn’t happy with the way Phoenixhadto handle things with Lewis and Leah. In all fairness, he didn’t seem happy with it either.
I also needed to tell Daphne about the explanation Lewis and Leah gave, and I decidedly did not want to.
She’d been in the kitchen most of the day, so I waited until we were having dinner to bring it up. She’d made lasagna with pasta she’d made herself and garlic bread she’d also baked from scratch.
“This is delicious,” I said.
“Thanks. I’ve never made my own pasta before, so I was a little nervous about how it would turn out.”
“It’s perfect, and I’m sure Ink will agree if he has some.”
“Where is he? I haven’t seen him all day.”
“He’s probably been sleeping. He was up all night watching Leah’s house, and then we had the meeting at the clubhouse this morning.”
“How did that go?”
“Not as well as I would have liked, but something did come up that I need to talk to you about.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s … I don’t know what it is. Apparently, there’s a new trend where prostitutes are posing as real estate agents and running ads to solicit business. Lewis responded to one of those ads and came to your appointment thinking you were an escort.”
“What?” she blurted. “How is that even possible? He called our office to make the appointment.”
“He claims it was a mix-up. He said there was a certain phrase he was supposed to say to verify you were the actual escort, and you responded with the correct wording to confirm.”
“Which was what?”
“He said, ‘I’d like to see what the master suite has to offer,’ and you replied with, ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased with it.’”
“You have got to be kidding me! What else was I supposed to say to that?”
“That’s exactly what we said.”
“What about Leah? Why was she there?”