Big Bad John (Bigger in Texas Series) (18 page)

She turned away from the view and forced a smile, inwardly mocking her own attempt at waxing poetic. She was full of shit, Shakespeare had obviously not rubbed off on her, and her traveling companion was in no danger of falling to his death. Especially since he’d vetoed her idea of taking this ride on the
outside
of the glass capsule that carried them.

Spoilsport. “That depends, Greg. What does my aunt think about that?”

Her mother’s youngest sister, Penn, who was only ten years older than Aziza, threw back her blonde curls and let loose a joyful laugh. Aziza noticed how the other passengers trapped inside with them were shifting uncomfortably at the sound, and her smile suddenly felt more genuine. She loved Penn’s laugh. It was expressive and honest and irrepressible. Loud and proud. Exactly the way Aziza had remembered it from her last visit to Dallas.

“Oh, right, yes.
I
think it’s brilliant,” Penn enthused. “Though you lose points for lack of originality. Seducing me atop the London Eye has been tried before, Mr. Prophet, by more tempting morsels than you. And while I
will
admit I adore you and could fancy you if you had less dangle and more bounce, I don’t think my ladylove would approve. Hillary is possessive like that.” She winked bawdily and snuggled against Greg as he blushed, her sprite-like size making him appear that much larger in comparison.

He’d already admitted it was one of the things he liked most about Aziza’s aunt. That and her excessive flattery. His ego had never been so pampered.

Their “big American bodyguard”, Penn had dubbed him when they’d first arrived in London, forcing Aziza to see her best friend from a different perspective. Sometimes she forgot that he wasn’t still the brilliant but gangly high school freshman with braces, the one whose tendency to draw bullies like magnets had led her—and by association her older brothers—to become his shadow. To keep him safe.

No one who saw him now would guess the tall, muscular man with rakishly ruffled sandy hair, hazel eyes and an easy, film-star-perfect smile was ever anything but a jock. That he’d ever needed anyone’s protection.

He was proud of that, since he’d worked out hard on a regular basis to maintain what he called his “illusion of cool”. He’d also taken over the mantle of protector with a kind of zeal Aziza often found aggravating. But despite his physical evolution and the occasional testosterone-induced episode of metaphorically “putting his foot down”, Greg had never really changed who he was. A geeky genius. A twelve-year-old trapped in a grown man’s body. Most importantly, a loyal friend, a species whose numbers she could count on less than one hand.

One finger of one hand.

Over the last eighteen months he’d also been Aziza’s constant companion, determined to follow wherever she led. A full-time job, since she hadn’t stopped moving.

He’d left Dallas to go with her to New York, where she haunted the wildest dance clubs, partied backstage with the cast of a particularly avant-garde musical and earned a reputation in certain circles for indecent but artistic exposure. He’d joined her in California, where she took lessons in falling from a professional stunt man and forced him to endure a week of “circus school” to fulfill her dream of being the Flying Aziza. Then, days after she’d assured him she was done taking physical risks for a while, she’d been forced to apologize for lying while he’d bandaged her up after she lost a motorcycle race to a deceptively frightening-looking Hell’s Angel who was actually a total sweetheart.

Greg had also been there to bail her out of jail in Las Vegas. She still couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there in the first place, but she had a feeling that in that case ignorance was bliss. She’d come away from the experience with a hangover and a tattoo of a snake coiled around her upper left thigh. It was currently his favorite story, since he’d apparently never heard the rule that what happened in Vegas should stay there.

She watched Greg point out something to Penn and smiled to herself. He was enjoying this, probably because it was the safest, most innocent excursion she’d dragged him on in months. She’d given the poor guy fits with a few of their adventures—and not just those of the life-threatening variety. The ones he’d found the most difficult to handle usually had to do with another type of thrill-seeking, one of a more sexual nature.
Her
sexual nature.

Aziza had to give him credit for the way he’d handled it. She knew he worried because of her history—or relatively recent lack thereof in that area—but he was careful not to judge when she’d initially brought up the kinky section of her “bucket list”. So far, he hadn’t held her back from the exploration of her new decadent side, the discovery of which had, honestly, stunned them both.

To make him more comfortable, she’d started the running joke that she was simply suffering from repressed-schoolgirl syndrome, that her experiments with pushing the boundaries between pain and pleasure were just that—experiments. A slap-and-tickle rebellion. But the rebellion had an addicting side effect. She’d liked it. More than she ever imagined she would.

Her life before had been confined insanity, a world she walked through on eggshells for sanity’s sake. But her small experiences with role play and submission in the last year had been a revelation—they’d given her a temporary release from the emotional bonds she was wrapped in and allowed her to breathe easier, to walk more freely through the world. It was hard to explain, and she wasn’t sure how far she wanted to take those experiences—since latex occasionally chafed her and she had a personal aversion to certain aspects of the lifestyle—but she knew she’d only scratched the surface. Knew it appealed to something inside her that she’d yet to fully explore.

Though he tried to forget that particular part of their trip, Greg hadn’t exactly been a monk. Along the way, he’d sowed a wild oat or two of his own, and even had a memorable evening with a dominatrix she’d befriended in Los Angeles.

She swallowed a chuckle at the memory. Whenever she brought it up he turned beet red and glared her into silence. He didn’t want to talk about how he’d looked the next morning—dazed, blissfully happy and walking with a subtle swagger. Didn’t want to tell her how far he’d let her friend take it.

That wouldn’t be…
cool
.

Aziza’s grin grew when she thought of it. She’d let it go because she understood that some details were best kept private.
She
certainly didn’t want to tell him everything she’d done. If she did, he’d probably lock her in a tower and throw away the key for her own safekeeping. But no matter how crazy what he
did
know of her new and evolving wild side drove him, once one of her escapades was over, he did what he always had—made sure she was safe. Made sure she was cared for.

He stayed.

Gregory Prophet was a good man to have around.

How much longer could it last? She knew how much he cared for her—so much it filled her with guilt when she really let herself think about it—but even he must be tired of this by now. Tired of traveling and helping her check off her strange and ever-changing bucket list. Tired of being her partner in crime. Her chaperone. Her conscience.

He had a life of his own, not that he ever brought it up. He was living off his savings after taking an indefinite hiatus from his position at a prestigious corporate think tank. He’d come to her as soon as she’d called to tell him about…

She couldn’t finish the thought. Still. Maybe she’d never be able to. But Greg had known she needed him. He always knew. And tired or not, he stayed because he’d made a promise years ago that he’d always be there for her. As long as she’d known him, Greg had never broken a promise. And if that weren’t enough to keep him at her side, worry for her state of mind would be.

That was another thing she’d done in Vegas that she wished she hadn’t—she’d mentioned what he now called “her curse theory”. Maybe she knew it would make him stay, because no matter how fed up he was, he couldn’t leave her alone believing she was weighed down with that kind of burden. She was a selfish bitch who didn’t want to die alone, and he was as close to her as her brothers had been.

The only one she had left.

It still hurt. So much she stumbled under the heavy weight of it for a moment, unable to maintain her public happy face. She slid her hand into the pocket of her fitted black pea coat and wrapped her fingers around her new talisman.

The mysterious vial.

Had it come from her younger brother before he died and just taken this long to reach her? The box it arrived in, a large one with no return address, had been covered in postage from every place she’d been since she left home and stuffed with packing peanuts to protect a single, fragile object—a small glass container filled with shimmering black sand. She’d been so drawn to it, so compelled to touch it that somewhere inside her she was sure it had to be from Joseph. She let herself believe it, despite the fact that it had come without a note. She wanted to believe it. Hoped.

Her vision blurred with the tears she’d refused to shed. Tears that had no place in her new, carefree life. Greg and Penn both noticed.

Her aunt reached out and slipped her arm through Aziza’s, discreetly turning her back toward the window, more to hide her vulnerability from their fellow passengers than to revisit the view.

“We can go home,” Penn whispered. “The family home, I mean, not my flat. Country air and a moment’s peace might be just the thing.” When Aziza didn’t respond, she kept talking. “You’ve never been there before, never left the States, but now that you have you should see the home your mother and I were born in. It belongs to you. At least, it will do someday.”

No, it wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to outlive her aunt. She wasn’t entirely sure she would make it back to solid ground before the curse took her. With her twenty-seventh birthday less than four months away, it was nearly overdue. Quiet time for contemplation was the last thing she needed. In the quiet her “clarity” disappeared and all she could feel was grief.

“We’ll go,” she assured Penn, wiping her cheek discreetly under the guise of checking her eyeliner in the window’s reflective surface. “Soon, I promise. But I can’t miss the London experience. There are clubs I’ve heard people raving about and at least a dozen places I’ve always wanted to see. I’m determined to play the part of wild, inappropriate American tourist.”

“Like that would be a stretch,” Greg muttered quietly, having moved closer to listen to their conversation as the ride began its descent. “If we’re going clubbing again you’d better bring your ID. The last time you forgot it, you couldn’t get in and
I
was almost arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

Still patting Aziza’s arm consolingly, Penn snorted. “That’s the Stewart women’s curse, I’m afraid. Your grandmother assured us we’d be glad of our youthful appearance when old age set in, but until then we should get used to rarely being taken seriously.” She looked up at Aziza and smiled coaxingly. “You, at least, have height on your side. I used to dream of being five foot eight. Along with those high cheekbones and that golden skin of yours, it counteracts the eternal Stewart cuteness. I suppose we should thank your father’s people for that.”

Greg stiffened behind her, and Aziza knew from the reflection in the glass that he was shaking his head at Penn, attempting to get her aunt’s attention. Because she’d used the word
curse
unknowingly? Or
father
? Did he think Aziza was that fragile? That she was like her mother, who couldn’t even acknowledge her father’s existence without breaking down in tears for days?

She caressed the vial in her pocket again, feeling it beckon her. Allowing it to distract her. She didn’t want to think anymore. About any of it. She was here because Penn had called and asked her to come for a visit. Because Greg had assured her that she could get into just as much trouble here as she could in North America. Because she couldn’t resist leaving the country—something she’d been forbidden to do most of her life. She just wanted to experience everything. To live until she couldn’t anymore.

Maybe it had been a mistake to come to England though. To see Penn. It made it harder to lose herself in
la vida loca
and forget the past. They couldn’t be more different in personality, but some of Penn’s expressions reminded her so much of her mother’s it caused a physical ache in her chest.

She was feeling claustrophobic. Her impulsive desire to ride on the Ferris wheel and see the town she was about to paint red had backfired. It was too slow. Too quiet. It gave her too much time to think. And the constant, unnerving feeling that she was being watched and had been since they’d started the walk to Jubilee Gardens hadn’t gone away. Instead, it had intensified.

Thankfully, the ride stopped a few minutes later. When the door to the capsule opened and people immediately began filing out, the sound of the chatter was as musical and nonsensical as birdsong.

Still there—that sensation of being watched. Not leered at or ogled, but studied intently.

She painted a large, carefree smile on her face and shooed Greg and Penn out ahead of her. “Who needs a drink? It’s my first night out in London, and jet lag should be factored into our decision. We should start slow, I suppose. Is there a particular hot spot around here known for bad behavior and brawling?”

Aziza didn’t hear their responses. She was trying to look without looking, cataloguing the passengers as they disembarked. She had a photographic memory, which hadn’t done as much for her studies as it had for her people-watching skills. As a child, she used to watch the neighbors walk by her house from her favorite spot on the roof, studying their mannerisms and creating stories about their day in her head. Wishing she could join them.

She forced herself to focus on the here and now.

There were a few stragglers in their group who hadn’t exited yet. One couple in particular drew her gaze. A man and woman dressed in matching trench coats that were obviously brand new. Americans then, since tourists from her neck of the woods wouldn’t have expected a cold snap on a late August evening. The woman’s hair was dyed a color that reminded her of a blueberry milkshake and she had enough ear piercings to make Aziza’s look prudish by comparison. The man was more wholesome. Buttoned up.
Opposites in love.
They were lifting up a camera phone to take a smiling picture of themselves for posterity before sharing a kiss.