Savage Distractions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 3) Read online

  Savage Distractions

  The Love is Murder Social Club Book Three

  Talia Maxwell

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Talia Maxwell

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Annie Gerwitz sat at her table and perused the menu for the seventh or eighth time since she arrived at the Wayfarer, the posh restaurant by the sea. It had large windows overlooking the ocean, but with an early winter sunset, the sky was already black and the waves audible, but invisible.

  Her date was late.

  She’d practically memorized the happy hour specials and gone through three glasses of water with her exterior patience and nonchalance covering for her interior raging. The waiter was beginning to pity her; he brought out dinner rolls unprompted and engaged in idle chitchat to keep her company.

  She viewed the appetizer as a gift to stave off impending heartbreak.

  Bread could fix a multitude of sins.

  She wondered at what point she could officially consider being stood up, but pushed herself to wait just another minute. But when the waiter brought her a pity glass of wine next she decided to stay an extra five minutes. Free wine was a real motivator.

  Eventually, her date strolled in fifty minutes late; Annie didn’t bother to stand up to greet him as he slid into his seat and unfurled his napkin into his lap and stuck out his hand presumptuously.

  “Annie. Annie?” he said her name as if trying to remember and he snapped at her.

  Snapped.

  She withdrew her hand immediately and her face went from relieved and hungry, to confused and perturbed. Or confused, perturbed, and hungry. The arrogance pooled around him like Pig Pen’s stench and Annie’s initial attraction—albeit via carefully curated pictures—waned.

  The man had the slick air of someone who assumed he didn’t even need to try; she’d already dated losers like him before—men who viewed Annie as a slam-dunk because she was pretty and clearly looking for a partner. The waiter appeared at her side in an instant with a second glass of wine at the ready with a subtle wink, and she was instantly aware that she was on the date with the wrong person.

  The whole thing was wrong.

  She didn’t want to have to go back to her dating coach and admit that her instincts failed her—she was not going to live happily ever after with this dude, even though he was handsome. She knew it in thirty seconds after he walked into the restaurant and it was such a waste of time to sit there and muddle through the date anyway.

  Annie smiled and took the red wine and said thank you in a small voice, tucking a piece of highlighted hair behind her ear. She waited for the date to apologize for his tardiness or explain what had held him before she’d start a conversation—she could hold out a long time and she had the glass raised to her lips.

  The steady silence was her mother’s modus operandi when she was angry and for a brief flash, Annie was frustrated by the familiarity of the tactic.

  “Oh, yeah, hey, I’m a touch late. I hope that’s your second or third glass of wine since I kept you waiting. That was my master plan, actually, so show up with you already a bit tipsy so you judged me better. Yeah, no, no,” the date laughed. Annie didn’t. That wasn’t an apology and he knew it, too. But the man thought she’d dip her head and, “Oh, that’s okay” because he was a cute doctor and he was always running late and it was always okay.

  Annie had seen women swoon at cute doctors like they were gods.

  Something about a man with an MD seemed hot, even if they came with wealth and prestige and presumed intelligence that was sometimes unearned. Even she couldn’t explain her initial attraction to the man’s dating profile other than thinking: he clearly finishes things and he’s attractive. Lock him down.

  But now it seemed as though she needed more refined criteria.

  She didn’t respond right away, so the date kept going.

  “Got a little held up.” He said slowly, tapping the table in front of him with his index fingers. He wasn’t even trying.

  “I’m pretty punctual,” Annie said over the rim of the wine glass, her voice echoing around her a bit.

  “What was that?” the date asked, looking at the menu.

  Annie wasn’t even sure the man should get a name other than The Date as he hadn’t even said his own name as he non-apologized and snapped at her. The Date snapped at the waiter, ordered a pint, asked if the bread was free, and then set his folded hands on the table, a broad smile on his face, somehow and inexplicably proud of himself.

  “You look lovely,” he said, also in a somewhat surprised voice. She wondered if that was just his voice: perpetually incredulous. Smug. Detached.

  “Thank you,” Annie replied with a nod. “So, you’re just in for the weekend?” she asked. She already knew the answer via their correspondence online—he would love a dinner because he’d only have one night free before heading back to Portland.

  “Yeah, yeah. Business thing. Charity thing.” His eyes wandered to another table and Annie restrained from rolling her eyes.

  “Here in Cannon Beach or—?”

  “Seaside, actually,” he replied, nodding. “Won’t be too far to drive if we continue the evening,” he added. Annie shivered. The conversation died down completely, and she put her wine glass down on the table and sighed. When she didn’t smile, he added, “You know. For making love. Since we rated so highly in compatibility in all areas…”

  He laughed and she got a whiff of wheat and warmth, and she knew immediately that he’d come straight from his charity event—driven himself, no doubt, drunk. Annie’s mouth hung open for a quick moment by the sheer audacity of the moment. Did he think because he’d paid for the service, too, that he was entitled to her? Is that how he thought the program worked. She leaned back, distancing herself, and cleared her throat.

  “That seems inappropriate.”

  “I was joking to break the ice.”

  “I’m sorry,” Annie said and she leaned forward as if she were about to truly apologize, The Date smiling, ready to accept. “I really hate wasting my time. Maybe this isn’t worth the time for you.”

  “Meaning you want to go to my place now?” he asked.

  He didn’t seem to pick up on her meaning or her snark. Or he did, and that was much worse. She took a deep breath.

  “I’ve waited nearly an hour, and—”

  “Oh, that’s right.” A snap. “You’re a lawyer. You bill by the hour,” he observed and then smirked as if time was only important to her because of money. She took immediate offense. Annie knew he wasn’t worth the energy or the brainpower, but she couldn’t stop herself from engaging. Backing away from a fight had never been her strong suit.

  She had the scars to prove it.

  “Uh-huh. And you bill by the cotton ball?” Annie asked and crossed her arms over her chest, summoning all the strength she had.

  He laughed, perhaps just drunk or maybe giddy to find someone to go toe-to-toe
with, but she couldn’t muster a smile.

  “Good one, good one.”

  “Besides, I’m a public defender,” Annie reminded him with a steely glare. “I make less than my sister-in-law…who is a high school math teacher. So, no. You and I are not the same class, where maybe there are different rules for how these dates are supposed to go, and we’re definitely not operating on the same level. And you’re fifty minutes late to a scheduled date and you don’t really seem into this, so—”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” The Date said and waved his hands in front of him as if warding off her bad vibes. “Yes. Okay. I can tell you’re good at your job. Oh, you’ve got argument just bursting in you. That can’t be healthy. Look. Just…breathe. I just got here and I’m settling in. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not respecting your time.”

  The Date’s eyes were big and brown and apologetic and she felt drawn into them and she had to ward off saying, “Oh, yeah. Thank you. No problem.”

  Instead, she said, “You don’t even want to explain why you left me here to flirt with the waiter? Or are we not doing the whole excuse thing.” She tossed her eyes over the corner and caught a glimpse of the guy looking at her, too. Annie sensed her date’s jealousy spark and she flicked her eyes back to him, feeling particularly powerful.

  “Let’s save excuses for the third date,” he winked.

  Annie rolled her eyes.

  “It was a joke,” he tried, annoyed.

  The waiter brought The Date’s drink and set it down in front of him with a small splash and Annie stifled a proud smirk. She let her eyes wander between the drink and her date and she said, “How about we give this date until you finish your beer. And if you can redeem the bad first impression, we’ll continue.”

  “Hilarious,” he laughed.

  She took a sip of wine.

  He matched her and took a long drink of beer and wiped the foam off his lip.

  “Careful,” Annie warned. “You drink it faster than you can talk your way out of this shit show then I can’t help you.”

  “Jesus, you’re serious,” the man said. If he’d been shallow and bantering before, it became abundantly clear that he now understood the risks. He’d come in with good looks and charm on his side and expected it to be enough—she wondered what kind of match would be good for him. Who would he end up with? A trophy wife who loved to say she was married to a doctor but was content to be second-best to everything.

  “I’m a serious person,” Annie said. It was a truth about herself that she wanted to be a lie.

  “Well, this will be fun.” He took a long draw on his beer and now the mug was half-empty. “Public defender, huh? That’s the…if you don’t have an attorney, one will be provided for you, kind of deal?” The Date asked.

  “Yes. The state calculates if someone needs me and I show up. But you’re a medical doctor, so I imagine if you ever end up in jail, you’d probably be on your own for a lawyer,” she replied with a soft smile, hoping to nudge the conversation away from her own career because she hated undoing television knowledge of public defenders on constant repeat. Even though she could already tell this was going to end poorly, but she was a woman of her word and would at least wait until he finished his beer.

  Dude didn’t stand a chance.

  “What’s the guiltiest client you’ve ever had? Someone you just knew was guilty, but you had to defend them anyway?”

  Annie paused. A name ran through her head. She picked up her wine to give herself something to do. “I can’t talk about my clients.” Some of the cases were public record and she totally could talk about them if she wanted, but she certainly wouldn’t tell him the first person she thought of when he asked.

  That case settled. Her opinions didn’t mean shit.

  He seemed dumbfounded by her refusal. “Come on,” he pled. “Change the names. And I won’t repeat the story.” And with that, he took another long sip of beer and left a third of the pint still splashing around the glass.

  Annie sucked in a breath and watched the beer like it was sand in an hour-glass. She nodded and said, “Well, I guess I could tell you about this one time that I had to go help a family member with some trouble. He was wrongfully accused of murder and I went to go assist his case…but I’m from New York and he was in Alabama and…it was my first trial case. I was a mess, completely over my head, but my cousin really had faith that I could do this and so we continued and soon my fiancée at the time, who knew something about cars,” she paused, eyed him, waited for recognition, he nodded along, half-listening, “well, I called her as a witness.”

  “Wow,” he said and finished his beer. He didn’t even notice as he set the empty pint glass down.

  Annie cleared her throat.

  “Is that the whole story?” he asked and turned back to the drink menu, idling scanning the cocktail list.

  “For you? Yeah,” she nodded. “I’m sorry. But you could stream it from somewhere if you need to know how it ends. Look, I gave you until the end of the beer, but this isn’t going anywhere, so you should go.” The Date stammered, confused, and smirking as if he thought she was playing a joke on him. But Annie was dead serious and she had perfected her neutral face—it was a go-to with clients—and she used it now, confusing him further by revealing nothing but a blank stare waiting for him to understand.

  Back to the silence. He’d figure it out.

  The date was over. Ov-er. When he reached for his wallet, she shooed him away. “Please, I’ve got it. One beer?”

  Her request was denied and he threw a Hamilton on the table before she could protest again, and with a perturbed confusion her date stood up and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Call a cab,” she requested, staring at him, and he shook his head and glared, assuming his jovial buzz was charming.

  “I’ll call a friend I’m down with,” he said instead. “Night.” And under his breath, as he started to head past the tables, the soft music of the restaurant playing around them, she thought she heard, “Bitch.”

  And The Date left the Wayfarer in a bumbling rush.

  Annie’s heart was racing a little too fast and she took a deep breath and calmed herself down. Great. That was really, really great.

  She was always wound a bit tight, it was true, and that wasn’t to say that she didn’t have fun. She had fun. Except the fun needed to be on her terms. Maybe she was selfish for wanting things her way, but Annie worked harder than anyone she knew…and she didn’t go around shoving it in people’s faces, while those same people lamented about their own jobs, refusing to release themselves from the middle-class quagmire of complaining about something they had no intention of changing.

  That wasn’t Annie.

  She was a doer and an adrenaline junkie even as a toddler, and all her teachers said she talked too fast and too often and too loudly, and while she thought of herself as a young Katherine Hepburn other people might have seen her as an annoying neighbor character from a 90s sitcom—someone always there, perfect for blaming.

  Bitch was something she had to wear more often than she desired. It was an easy insult, blanketing a multitude of perceived sins. Annie had grown accustomed to not caring much what people thought of her and to losing her trial cases—both of which made her picky in her dating life and that was okay. That’s what her therapist and the self-help book she just bought for herself said: It was okay to not be okay. It was okay to lose.

  It was gonna be okay that she found faults in every human on the earth that were deal breakers and she was going to end up sad and alone.

  But she didn’t want to waste the evening and she’d come to pine for the seafood pasta. As she was about to summon the waiter, she heard from somewhere behind her a slow applause and then a disembodied voice said, “That was the most impressive five minutes of dating I’ve ever witnessed. You ran him away with the plot from My Cousin Vinny? You deserve an award.”

  Annie spun around.

  Sitting at the table behind her, within ea
rshot although not within her line of sight, was a man. In the candlelit glow of the restaurant, she couldn’t tell his age, she imagined he was somewhere between twenty and forty. He had light brown hair and styled into a modern sweep across his high and heavy brow. Even in the dark restaurant, she could see his strong chin covered in two-day stubble, light and blond. From her vantage point, she could only see that he had a pretty-boy fashion sense, his short-sleeved shirt betrayed biceps and a tattoo; he motioned to the newly abandoned seat, with The Date’s empty beer glass and ten-dollar bill the only evidence that someone else had been sitting there a minute ago.

  “Are you asking to come over and join me?” she asked and she leaned her head back as far as she could see and then murmured. There were numerous ways she’d imagined the evening playing out, but that hadn’t been one of them. “Why not? Sure. Come on over,” she said calmly, without emotion.

  She always scored points for being adventurous.

  The man got up from his own table, bringing his water with him and sat across from her. He had a certain overconfidence that Annie knew well from young lawyers and kids in law school who didn’t last until graduation. The twenty-somethings who used the public defender’s office as a place to cut their teeth but had no intention to stay and actually do the hard work on a daily basis. Annie learned to smell cockiness; a deep inhale of inferiority complexes mixed with entitlement. And even through his youthful grin, his assuredness that he was going to score better than the last guy, Annie was dubious.

  She could eat a guy like him alive.

  Feeling feisty from the failed date, it seemed almost inevitable.

  Go ahead and I dare you to do better, she oozed with her body language.