Follow Me (Corrupted Hearts)

  ALSO BY TIFFANY SNOW

  In His Shadow, The Tangled Ivy Series

  Shadow of a Doubt, The Tangled Ivy Series

  Out of the Shadows, The Tangled Ivy Series

  Power Play, The Risky Business Series

  Playing Dirty, The Risky Business Series

  Play to Win, The Risky Business Series

  No Turning Back, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Turn to Me, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Turning Point, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Out of Turn, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Point of No Return, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Blane’s Turn, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Kade’s Turn, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Blank Slate

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Tiffany Snow

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503938397

  ISBN-10: 1503938395

  Cover design by Eileen Carey

  For my sister, Tonya. Your praise and encouragement have meant more to me than you’ll ever know.

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  “The Doctor is dead.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah.” I adjusted the Bluetooth in my ear so I could still hear my grandma, then grabbed the netted scoop next to my fish tank.

  “Did you remember to feed him? I told you that you work too much at that job and then you come home exhausted. You forget to feed yourself, much less—”

  “No.” I cut her off before she really got rolling on my lifestyle choices. “I fed him all the time.” The little goldfish floated on top of the water and I sighed as I removed him. Another one bites the dust.

  “Then that’s your problem. You’re overfeeding him.”

  “I thought fish were supposed to be easy to take care of,” I complained, flushing the corpse down the toilet. An ignominious end, but what was I supposed to do with a dead fish? Bury it in a tiny cardboard box? I’d have half a dozen minigraves in the backyard if I did that.

  “They are,” Grandma assured me. “You’ll just have to try again.”

  “You know, the whole reason I got a fish was that watching them and listening to the water bubbling in the tank was supposed to be relaxing. Instead, I’m stressing out even more about killing them.”

  “They are relaxing to watch,” Grandma said. “You just haven’t got the hang of it, that’s all. You’ll catch on . . . though maybe you should ask for an old fish this time, one whose time is near. That way you’re not cutting a life too short.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I’m just being realistic. Do they sell fish by age? I wonder how you tell how old a fish is?”

  “No clue. Size maybe?”

  “Then get a big one this time.”

  I kept my grandma’s advice in mind as I perused the goldfish tank at my local pet store. They’d seen me come in a few times now and the employee loitering by the fish tanks was giving me the side eye.

  “Having some trouble keeping the little suckers alive,” I said with a forced laugh. The guy didn’t smile, so I dropped my grin, too. Maybe he took fish lives way serious. I tried to look harmless, which wasn’t hard since I barely topped five two.

  Pushing my glasses up my nose—a nervous habit I couldn’t break—I asked, “So can I get an old fish?”

  “They’re all about the same,” he said, scooping up a random goldfish and depositing it inside a water-filled plastic bag. He tied off the bag and handed it to me. “Good luck.”

  I paid and hurried outside, hugging my flannel shirt tighter over my T-shirt and wishing I’d thought to grab a coat when I left home. It was early October and the sun was shining—a gorgeous Sunday morning—but I was too skinny and perpetually cold.

  My Ford Mustang shone in the sun, giving me the warm fuzzies and dissolving the twinge of guilt I had when I looked at the blissfully oblivious fish I carried. The car was my one indulgent purchase when I’d graduated from MIT and gotten a job paying well into six figures. It was fully loaded, complete with a performance package.

  I’d been stopped for speeding numerous times, but had yet to get an actual ticket. The cops usually took one look at me—short, bespectacled, unruly mass of hair yanked back in a ponytail—and snorted with laughter. The last time I was pulled over, the officer even asked if I had to use a phone book to see over the steering wheel. Smart-ass.

  I appreciated the Men in Blue, but not always their sense of humor.

  Sunday was Admin Day—the day of the week I reserved for administrative tasks like groceries, errands, laundry, bill paying, and talking to my grandma.

  The cherry red of my Mustang gleaming in the far corner of the lot—furthest away from any other car—beckoned me. The purr of the engine was like an old friend greeting me, only this friend spoke in mechanics and gasoline, via tachometer and speedometer. Those signals were blessedly easy to read, as opposed to actual people with all their body language, obfuscations, doublespeak, and insinuations.

  As was my routine, I stopped at Retread, the pop-vintage store that was on my way home. I’d been searching for a mint version of Van Halen’s 5150 album and so far, nothing had come in. But there was always a chance one had shown up, or something else was just waiting to be discovered in the stacks the owner hadn’t yet sorted. I could use eBay or search online, but finding it myself in a store was its own unique reward. Typing in Google’s search box and clicking the Buy It Now button didn’t offer the same kind of gratification.

  “Hey, Buddy,” I called out as I pushed open the door to the shop. A little bell clanged tunelessly as it bumped against the glass, announcing my arrival even if I hadn’t spoken. But I always spoke anyway, just so he knew it was me.

  A head poked out from behind a dilapidated bookcase toward the back of the shop. The shelves were bowed with the weight of books and records piled up, and I had serious doubts as to how much longer they would hold out.

  “Hey, China. How’s it going?”

  That’s me. China Mack. Well, not really. My name was China, which was weird enough, but my last name was fifteen letters long and unpronounceable by anyone who’d had the misfortune of having to attempt it. So I went by a shortened version of my middle name—Mackenzie. Thus, China Mack.

  “The usual,” I said, wandering over to the “Just Arrived” section, though that was a misnomer. Buddy was so behind, there was stuff that had “Just Arrived” for more than six months now. It wasn’t really his fault. An acute case of ADHD meant Buddy was easily distracted. Kind of like when you start watching a YouTube video on how to repair your iPhone screen and end up two hours later bleary-eyed and watching a compilation video of cats falling off furniture set to the tune
of “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

  “No 5150 this week,” he said, disappearing again behind the bookcase. “But I got an absolutely pristine version of the Beatles’ White Album.”

  I grimaced. “I’m an Elvis fan, not Beatles,” I reminded him, crouching down.

  “I keep hoping to convert you.”

  “Not gonna happen.” Hmm. I saw the corner of something that looked interesting, buried under about twenty other albums. Glad I didn’t care if my jeans got dirty.

  “The Beatles were groundbreaking musical geniuses,” Buddy said, his voice slightly muffled from behind the bookcase.

  “They were bubblegum pop who had lucky timing,” I shot back.

  “I should bar you from my store for that.”

  “Then you’d lose half your customers.” I grinned. The Elvis vs. Beatles argument was ongoing between us, with each of us making insults as to the other’s idol of choice.

  Buddy grumbled as he worked, but I knew he got a kick out of our friendly rivalry as much as I did. And I wasn’t joking about the customers. How he kept the shop running, I had no idea. I didn’t even know if Buddy was his real name. He’d introduced himself as Buddy and the few people I’d seen come in the store called him that. I assumed it wasn’t his actual name. Who’d do that to a kid? Of course, I wasn’t one to talk. I’d taken a lot of crap over the years because of my name.

  I pulled out the album that had caught my eye, grinning. A near-mint condition of Madonna’s Like a Virgin album. Sweet.

  “Hey Buddy,” I called. “I’ll give you twenty bucks for Like a Virgin.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Done.”

  Thrilled by my new acquisition, I set the album aside and moved farther into the store. I dug around the store every week and still hadn’t been through all the nooks, crannies, and crevices that were filled to the brim with old records, books, and various vintage paraphernalia.

  I passed three boxes that held familiar clay figures. “Buddy, I told you to quit accepting Chia Pets. No one buys them.” I shook my head. Buddy could dicker over prices all day, but he couldn’t turn down free merchandise.

  “They discontinued Chia Teddy Bear,” he said. “It’s rare.”

  “No, it’s not,” I absently told his disembodied voice. “They began reissuing it as Chia Bear in 2006.” I was distracted by a milk crate full of paperbacks, and crouched down. Vintage Harlequins . . . cool! My grandma had read them by the bucketful when I was little. She still did. She was going to be ecstatic at getting a box of these.

  “How do you know this shit?”

  I let out a girly scream and fell back onto my butt at the voice right next to me. Buddy had come out from behind the bookcase without me even noticing.

  “You scared the crap out of me, Buddy!”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking abashed. “Still, I don’t know how you know all the crap you do.” He shook his head and walked away as the bell on the door tinkled again.

  I went back to pawing through the collection of romance novels. Yes, I had a really good memory for completely useless crap and anything to do with my work, but ask me to tell you last year’s Oscar nominees for Best Actress and I’d give you a blank look.

  Whoever had dropped off the books had dug them out of a dust pile because they were coated in dirt and cobwebs. I brushed them off as I stacked them—Silhouettes to one side, the Harlequins on the other—grimacing at the layer of grime starting to coat my hands and clothes. My nose itched and I sneezed, then sneezed again.

  “Bless you.”

  Eyes watering, I glanced over to see a very nice pair of Italian leather shoes, which were at the end of long legs encased in black slacks. I looked up, then up farther to a leather belt and a button-down black-as-coal shirt of thick cotton. I swallowed, reluctantly lifting my eyes until my gaze fell on a familiar and wholly unwelcome face.

  “Find something worth buying, China?” my boss asked.

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  Jackson Cooper owned the company where I worked and, for anyone else, seeing their boss outside of work wouldn’t be a big deal. For me, it was a disaster of gargantuan proportions. Tall with eyes a deep, warm brown and chestnut hair, he had the intellectual stamina of a genius and prodigy rolled into one. Combined with the business acumen of a savant and the smoldering sexuality of Christian Grey, he was the epitome of every woman’s fantasy man. Well, maybe not every woman, but definitely me.

  Which meant, of course, that my limited social skills fled in his presence. At work, I could at least pretend to be occupied with my computer and keep my earbuds in when he walked by. Now, he was looking at me and talking to me and obviously expecting some sort of halfway-cogent response.

  “Um, yeah” was the best I could come up with. I felt my face get hot and nervously shoved my glasses up my nose.

  Jackson waited, apparently in the vain hope that I’d say more, but I just pressed my lips together and stared. It wasn’t hard to stare at him. I did it all the time from the limited privacy of my cube.

  “Okay then,” he said, offering me a polite half smile. “Enjoy your books.”

  He walked past as I sat there on the floor, surrounded by paperback romances, their covers adorned with women and men in clinches and bodies half-naked as an invisible wind tore at their clothing.

  Oh God. I wanted to die right then. He probably thought I was actually going to buy all these romance novels, which, who was I kidding, I probably would, but that wasn’t the point. They were for my grandma, not me.

  A moment later, I heard the door open again and Buddy call out a stammering “Bye. C-come again,” which meant Jackson had left. Buddy always tried to be friendly, but it usually just came across as awkward and vaguely creepy to people who didn’t know him.

  “Did you see that?” Buddy asked when I set a stack of two dozen paperbacks on the counter.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “The Jackson Cooper was in my store.” Buddy’s voice was a mixture of awe and fear.

  Everyone knew who Jackson was. And why wouldn’t they? He was a genius bazillionaire who looked like Brad Pitt circa 2000. Women practically killed each other in their rush to land him, and he’d made the Forbes Ten Most Eligible Billionaire Bachelors list. Twice.

  He’d hacked into the NSA at fourteen and started working for secret government agencies by the time he was sixteen. By twenty-one, he was disillusioned (or so the rumors said) and left the government to start his own business in the private sector. And he’d done phenomenally well, creating a social media platform that hit huge. Which he then sold for top dollar.

  With his new hundreds of millions, he’d founded Cysnet. Companies who couldn’t find anyone else to solve their tech problems came to Jackson. They were charged exorbitant rates, but got what they paid for—Jackson made sure of it. From the development of sci-fi tools such as flexible, paper-thin computers, to biotechnology and bridging the gap between computers and humans, Cysnet was on the cutting edge. Everyone knew Apple, of course—developers of the beloved iPhone and iPad devices. Apple was to Cysnet what Wile E. Coyote was to the Road Runner.

  To work at Cysnet was an industry coup—it meant you were the best of the best. But it also demanded long hours and dedication to the job. I’d been approached by Cysnet as I was finishing up my degree at MIT. Even if they hadn’t dangled a jaw-dropping salary at me and the chance to move to Raleigh, North Carolina, which was one of the top-ten tech cities in the country, I would’ve jumped at the chance to work for them. Bragging rights alone were worth the fifty- to sixty-hour weeks I put in.

  “I still can’t believe you work for them,” Buddy said, shaking his head as he rang me up. “It’s so freaking cool. I bet you guys work on like supersecret stuff.”

  “Could tell ya, but then, well, you know the drill.” I smiled and winked like it was a big secret, and it was (we weren’t ever supposed to discuss what we worked on), but when it came down to it, I jus
t worked long hours in a cube in front of a computer screen. Not exactly the stuff movies are made of.

  Buddy rolled his eyes as I handed him my money. “Yeah, you’re about as threatening as a miniature dachshund. I remember the time you screamed bloody murder because a spider was in one of the stacks.”

  “It wasn’t just ‘in the stack,’” I argued. “It attacked me, like jumped out”—I used my hands curved as claws to demonstrate—“and landed on me.” I pawed the air like I was a cat. Buddy just looked at me. I dropped my arms in defeat. “It was a big spider.”

  He nodded the way one does when there’s no point in arguing and handed me my change, then a paper bag overflowing with used Harlequins, plus the Madonna album. “See you next Sunday,” he said.

  “Bye, Buddy.”

  Back at home—my three-bedroom duplex in a complex that boasted nearly a hundred of them—I lugged everything inside. I carefully deposited The Doctor in his new home and watched him swim around as he inspected the sunken SpongeBob pineapple house and plastic scuba diver.

  “Welcome home,” I said to him. “I hope I don’t kill you.” Not exactly comforting words, but it wasn’t like he could understand me.

  I was behind on my schedule but had caught up by 7:00 p.m. Seven to ten was laundry time and I ironed in front of the television, watching classic reruns of The Bionic Man. Lee Majors had been quite the hottie in his day.

  Since the autumn equinox had passed, it was officially a new season, requiring a different set of pajamas. I’d packed away my summer Star Wars pajamas (Tatooine and Boba Fett graphics) in favor of my fall Star Wars (Endor with Ewoks) pajamas. Hoth with tauntauns was reserved for the winter. (The only spring set I’d ever found had Naboo on them, with Queen Amidala and Anakin in a love clinch. Since I pretended the prequels didn’t exist, I couldn’t buy those.) I set a glass of water on my nightstand (on its coaster), checked my alarm clock, and climbed into bed at precisely ten thirty with a sigh of satisfaction.

  I loved being on schedule and having everything exactly right and in its place. It gave me a warm, comforting feeling of being in control. I lived alone by choice because people were just too upsetting and taxing. They took a lot of effort. I got a little lonely sometimes, but it was okay.