Page 20 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
“I found it,” said Veeta, holding up something that looked like one ofthose tools dentists use to scrape your teeth. Just the thought of it made Kate shiver. “You think you can get it open?”
“These locks are a hundred years old, most of them go swinging open by themselves,” Juliette said, crouching before the door. “Watch the stairs. The last thing I need is to get caught.”
“Should we really be doing this now?” Veeta said in a loud whisper, looking anxiously down the stairs to the first floor. It never occurred to them to look up, where Kate watched with wide eyes. “This weekend, of all weekends?”
“It has to be this weekend,” Juliette whispered back, annoyed. “I’m running out of time. If I don’t give Simonsomething, the whole deal will go bust. I’m not fucking losing outagain.”
Veeta fidgeted with the collar on their pantsuit. “Maybe if you tell Simon—”
“No way,” Juliette said, cutting them off. “Nobody can be trusted right now, not even Simon. I’m on the verge of getting everything I’ve worked so hard for. All that’s standing in my way is one littleidiotwho thinks they’re clever. And I’m going to take care of them for good this weekend.Yes, that’s it.”
The door clicked open and the two of them slipped inside, leaving the hallway empty. Kate had the overwhelming urge to follow them, to find out what Juliette was on the verge of getting, and who the idiot was, and what she meant by taking care of them for good. She couldn’t possibly mean Kate, could she? Kennedy had been named head of marketing less than a month after the book-three-tour-cancellation fiasco, the one Juliette had taken so personally. Juliette had every reason to hate Kate and Kennedy. If Juliette was planning revenge, Kate really didn’t want to know what the woman had in store for either one of them.
Plus, Kate realized as soon as she descended the few stairs back down to the second floor, she waspossiblytoo drunk to go snooping around without detection. She had a gut-rumbling feeling thatsomethingwas going on this weekend, something bad and possibly dangerous, and potentially involving more than just Juliette and her secret snooping. There was the fight between Cassidy and her aunt in the garden, Serena’scryptic remarks about the lion roaring at midnight, and that tense conversation she casually overheard between Richie and Steven. Her Loretta senses were tingling, telling her that somebody had something more than a wedding planned this weekend, but she couldn’t figure out how they were all connected or how far any of it might go any more than she could walk a straight line just then. Her head was beginning to ache, the stairs tilting at precarious angles.
“There you are,” came Jake’s voice. “I’ve been looking all over.”
Kate made the unfortunate mistake of turning her head too fast in response, the room doing a full 360 even as she was positive her head had stopped moving. She gripped the railing, terrified that Juliette might hear and enact her revenge right there and then.
“Shhhh!” Kate said harshly, far louder than Jake had spoken. She felt her way down the banister toward him, her shoes catching on the deep pile of the carpet. She wrenched them off her feet. “They’ll hear you.”
“Who will hear me?” Jake asked in confusion.
Kate jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Them.”
“Kate, are you… drunk?”
“So drunk,” Kate whispered, almost gleeful to admit it. “I don’t even know where I am right now. Do you know where I am?”
“Oh boy, you smell like you fell into a wine barrel,” Jake said, putting one arm around her waist and wrapping her other arm around his shoulder. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Are you trying to seduce me, Jake Hawkins?” Kate laughed, ending in a hiccup.
“Not right now, I’m not,” Jake muttered, looking around. “These aren’t the same stairs we took earlier. We’ll have to go to the ground floor and find our way up from there. This house is too fucking enormous.”
“I know, right?!” Kate said, tripping down the stairs beside him. With Jake guiding her, it was suddenly a lot easier to manage walking. She leaned into him, looking up at his profile in a bliss that only her drunken state would allow. “You have such a pretty face, do you know that? Pretty, pretty face. Makes me want to sit on it.”
Jake made a strained, choking sound. “Excuse me?”
“You know, I’m not actually sure what that means,” Kate said with a frown. “Serena’s characters use it a lot. I think it has something to do with oral sex, but the mechanics don’t really make sense to me. Anyway, you and me, we should figure it out together.”
“Kate,” Jake said, his voice wary. “You’re very drunk right now.”
“No,” Kate said, drawing out the vowel. Her limbs had gone soft and pliant from the alcohol and the warmth radiating off Jake. “I’m just the right amount of drunk to hit on you.”
“Youonlyhit on me when you’re drunk,” Jake said. “Why is that?”
Kate gave him a blissful smile, her eyes drifting closed. “Because that’s when I make all my best bad decisions.”
Jake went still beneath her arm, his back muscles rigid where her hand trailed along them. She opened her eyes in confusion, wondering why they had stopped. Jake’s expression was as still as the rest of him, though a small muscle in his jaw ticked in time to her heartbeat.
He was so close, if he turned to look at her, she might be tempted to kiss him. And she already knew where that would go. She’d tried it once, drunk on margaritas and panicked at the thought of Jake leaving the country to join this new extreme adventure tourism business his friend had started. He’d rejected her then, as he was probably going to reject her now.
“Why would it be such a bad decision, Kate?” Jake asked, his voice quiet.
“What? You and me?” Kate snorted. “Are you kidding? Kate Valentine and Mr. Jake of All Trades?”
Jake frowned. “Jake of All Trades?”