Ten Thousand Words (36 page)

“Timeless really likes working with us, and they hired Whitney for the club-scene shoot. I think it’s wonderful. FairFawkes is really hitting the spotlight now.”

I nodded and dipped into my onion soup. I was just being paranoid from running into all the women I had slept with. Whitney and I were friends. She was a nice girl. It wasn’t as though we had ever had much outside of work. We’d hooked up from time to time, but we didn’t talk when we weren’t in the same country.

“It should be fun,” said Gabriella.

“Sure,” I replied.
Fun, my arse.

“What do you want to do tonight?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m staying in.”

“What? Why?”

I gave her a hard look. “I just want to be alone. I’ve got some reading to catch up on.” It was true. I had
Phoenix Rising
and the free time to get lost in it. I was counting on Donovan to make it up to Lindsey.

“Reading?”

“Yes, reading. It’s what they make books for.”

“Since when do you read?”

“I read all the time! I just don’t read around you.” I grabbed my napkin off my lap and tossed it onto the table, getting ready to stand up.

Gabriella reached out her hand. “I’m sorry. Please…just stay and finish. I won’t bother you anymore.”

I settled back down, all too aware that Gabriella was more concerned about being jilted in public than anything else. Gabriella questioning my activities grated on my nerves.

If it had been Xanthe asking me, I would’ve been more than happy to tell her everything I was doing—and speaking of telling Xanthe shit…I now had to let her know about Whitney.

The rest of lunch was hurried and tense, and I ended up paying, of course. Gabriella didn’t even offer to pay for her half-eaten salad.

Xanthe would have tried to pay her way,
I thought as I stowed my credit card back into my wallet.

Gabriella just expected a free ride wherever she was.

“I’m heading back to the hotel,” I told her.

“I’m not,” she replied briskly. “I plan to get some shopping in.”

“See you tomorrow then,” I replied.

She gave me a surprised look. “What? You really don’t want to go out at all?”

I shook my head. “I really don’t. Have a good day, Gabby.”

Finding a cab, I headed back to the hotel. I planned on reading as much of
Phoenix Rising
as possible—in between calls to the author to harass her about what was to come and maybe for a little more phone sex.

Picking up the book, I sighed. At least I had a way into my woman’s head while we were apart.

Xanthe

Oliver believed I was totally cool with him hanging out in Switzerland with two of his drop-dead gorgeous ex-lovers. The truth was, I was a bit of a wreck inside.

Work dragged on Saturday. Oliver called me several times, which made me feel wonderful. He was obsessed with
Phoenix Rising
. He’d get excited and call to talk about certain parts, which was awesome. My boyfriend was becoming my number one fangirl.

By the end of the day, I was missing Oliver fiercely, miserable knowing he was with women he’d fornicated with, and I was just flat-out grumpy.

I was about to lock the door to the shop when across the street…
no
. It couldn’t be. My head was messing with me.

What the fuck?

A man who could quite possibly be George Kastor was standing there, looking at the shop, at
me
. Already dark outside, I could only make out the build and dusky hair. His face was in the shadow from the streetlight.

My heart began convulsing, not beating. I was going to be sick. Breaking out in a sweat, I hoped to God I didn’t look as frightened as I felt. Then, the man casually walked off down the street, and I could breathe again.

It’s just my mind fucking with me. It has to be.

George was serving time in a Dutch prison. He’d been sentenced to three years.

Holy shit
. He very well could be released now.
How could I have forgotten that?

What the fuck would he be doing back here?

Pulling out my phone, I called Jaime.

“Hey!” she answered. “What’s up?”

“I think I just saw George.”

“What?” she shrieked.

“Yeah. I thought I saw him across the street, watching the shop.”

“He’s out already?” Jaime must have pulled the phone away from her head because she screamed into the distance,
“Ricki!”
Then, she came back on the line. “Xanthe?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t leave the shop. We’re coming over.”

“Okay.”

George didn’t know where I lived. Rex and I had moved after George had been put in jail. The bloodstain wouldn’t come out of the floor where I had bled all over it, and Rex hadn’t liked looking at it, so we’d left.

“Aunt Ellen?” I called.

“Yes, dear?” she called from the back.

“We might have a problem…”

Jaime and Ricki called a family meeting with Aunt Ellen and me along with Ronen and Lilla on Skype via my laptop. Ronen had called some contacts of his and quickly found out that George had indeed been released two weeks earlier.

“What should we do?” I asked Ronen.

“Ricki, have a couple of your boys keep eyes on Xanthe and Rex’s place and also Aunt Ellen’s.”

“Already done,” Ricki said. “Called them before we got here.”

“Good. If that fucker tries to contact you in any way, Xanthe, you fucking tell us, you got it?” said Ronen.

Lilla popped her head into view from the left side. “Isn’t he in violation of his probation, showing up like that?”

“He is,” I replied.

“Is Rex home tonight?” asked Ronen.

“He closes on Saturdays,” I said. That meant he wouldn’t get home before four o’clock in the morning.

“Where’s douche face? Why isn’t he around?” asked Ronen.

I had no idea whom he was talking about until Ricki replied, “Geneva. He’s doing some sort of photo shoot for watches.”

Oliver. Oh God, he’s not going to take this well.

“Let’s wait until he gets home before we tell him, okay? He’s got enough going on without having to deal with this shit on top of it. I’m not even a hundred percent sure if I really saw George. It could’ve been my mind playing tricks on me.”

“Do you honestly believe that?” Jaime asked me.

My gut feeling was telling me that I didn’t. I shook my head, letting it sink in.

“Right. Well, I got my boys watching,” said Ricki. “Ronen, you might have to sneak in under the radar and help ink the motherfuckers in payment if it goes on too long.”

“No worries,” said Ronen. “We’re dying to move back home to you guys. I’m doing everything I can from my end.”

“If not, then move to Wales,” grumped Jaime. “Fucking New York is too far away.”

“We’re trying, sweetheart,” said Lilla, off camera.

“Good,” said Jaime.

We all said our good-byes. After shutting the laptop, the four of us sat in Aunt Ellen’s living room for a few silent moments.

“Do you think he’ll try anything?” asked Aunt Ellen.

“Who knows?” replied Ricki. “But if he’s sniffing around, then we need to be on our guard. I’d take him out myself, but he’s just been released, and it might point fingers in our direction if he shows up—”

“Shh!” hissed Jaime. “We’ll handle it if and when that happens.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said softly. “This is all my fault.”

“Bullshit,” snapped Ricki.

“I don’t blame myself for what happened! But I now wish I had let you guys handle this instead of insisting on going through the court system. I didn’t think he’d come back. He’s not
allowed
to come back!”

“You did that to claim your stories,” said Jaime. “You had to prove he stole those. Everything else happened because of that, and you were right to do it. It had to be done this way.”

“Since Rex is working late tonight, you’ll come stay with us,” said Ricki.

“But Beefcake—”

“We’ll stay at your place tonight,” said Jaime. “We’ll figure out the rest later. Let’s pass by Wurther’s and let Rex know what’s going on.”

I looked to Aunt Ellen. “Will you be all right here?”

“Of course, honey. I’ve got my arsenal ready at all times. It’s not like I’ve never taken out a piece of shit before.”

“Okay. Let’s do this then,” I said.

Rex did not take the news too well. “What the fuck? Seriously? He’s flat-out fucking insane, coming back.”

That was just it. George
was
insane. Clinically so. I’d witnessed it firsthand, and that was by far the most terrifying part. He was unpredictable, dangerous, if not dealt with correctly. He needed to be in an institution, not wandering the streets.

Rex placed our pints down in front of us. We were early, and our favorite seats at the bar were free. Once the weekend drinkers started coming in, we’d leave.

“Of course he’s insane!” I stated hotly. “That was medically established. But…maybe he remembers now,” I whispered the last bit.

“Then, he’s even crazier than I thought,” said Ricki, making me cringe inwardly. “We should have ended him,” he hissed at Rex.

Rex shook his head. “If we’d killed him—”

“They’d never have found the body,” snapped Jaime.

“You guys, I don’t want to talk about this, okay?” I stated. “I just want to have a few beers, go home, and watch TV.”

“Okay,” said Jaime.

Rex shot Ricki a look that I didn’t want to decipher. I sucked down my beer and ordered another. We ended up ordering dinner, too, before the kitchen closed down.

After our burgers and chips soaked up some of the alcohol, Rex came around the bar and pulled me into his arms. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I replied, hugging him back. “See you tomorrow.”

Sleep didn’t come easy. My head just wouldn’t shut up. I was all over the place, one thought bleeding into the next.

“You wrote those stories about us.”

I’d written several short erotic stories not long after I’d published
Haunted Bonds
. Nothing spectacular, just a first-person rendition of what I’d fantasized about if Donovan were real, and we’d met in the romance capital of the world.

“We’d made love in Paris, and you wrote these stories about it. People have to know that a love like we share truly exists,”
George had said that night.