The Wickedest Showman

by Lotta Smith

  “It’s okay,” I reassured her. “So, Karina believes she’s seeing a phantom, right?”

  “I think so, but she wasn’t making much sense.” Natalia shrugged, then added, “But I don’t think she’s on drugs or anything. She hates that kind of stuff. It’s just that she’s an actress and has a tendency to dramatize everything.”

  “Oh, I can imagine.” I nodded, taking a glimpse at Jackie. “Theater people tend to have drama queen traits, don’t they?”

  “Exactly.” Natalia nodded.

  “That’s discrimination.” Jackie pouted, then tilted her head. “When I was a Broadway actor, I worked with Karina Coleman. She was so charming and enchanting, though bossy. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Mandy, can you ask her if that’s who she’s talking about, pretty please?”

  “By the way, does your cousin happen to be Karina Coleman?” I said, as a favor to my guardian ghost.

  “Actually, yes.” Natalia’s eyes widened. “How did you know it’s her? I haven’t told you about her, have I?”

  “No, you didn’t. But I have a friend who’s a fan of Karina,” I said. “According to her, your cousin is a very charming person.”

  “Hmm… you can say that.” Natalia knitted her eyebrows. “You know, Mandy, I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?” I said, puzzled. “You’ve been great to me. Not to mention you just gave me a solution for my nursery catastrophe.”

  “Oh, Mandy, you’re such a darling,” Natalia cooed. “I feel the urge to apologize to you because I’m the one who blurted out about living in the same building with Rick to Karina. Before he tied the knot with you, he’d been on the most eligible bachelors lists over and over, and according to Karina, I sort of bragged about that when we were at a holiday family gathering or something. It’s been years since then, and we were both drunk at that time, and to be honest, I’d totally forgotten about mentioning it in the first place.”

  “Don’t worry, Natalia. It’s not like we’re keeping our current address top secret or anything like that.” I patted her hand. “Also, when you’re drunk, anyone tends to be extra chatty.”

  “Thank you.” She nodded. “I know what it feels like to expect your first child. You want to savor your alone times with your husband because the clock is ticking. And I feel terrible about interrupting this time for you by letting Karina demand a meeting, especially when the reason happens to be something as ridiculous as a ghost. She’s not necessarily a bad woman, but she tends to have her way no matter what. When she begged me to help arrange a meeting with Rick this morning, she urged me to offer Alexa’s services. I told her to forget about meeting Rick if you guys already had a nice nursery arranged. I thought you’d already have the perfect one.”

  “No, we don’t, so this works out for both of us. I’ll ask Rick to meet your cousin. It’s not like the phantom is murderous, or could be a murder victim’s spirit, right?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “I don’t know.” She crossed her arms. “I didn’t ask her. Then again, if the alleged ghost was either dangerous or if she had a clue about its identity, she’d be calling me about it like a maniac. So I guess it’s not that dangerous. Look, I never had a sister, but in retrospect, Karina is like an older sister to me. It’s complicated. We’re close but have had occasional catfights.”

  “You’re so right,” I agreed with her. “Having catfights is an indication that you two are like sisters.”

  “Maybe.” She offered me a smile. “By the way, Mandy, can you tag along with Rick? I mean, under the condition that he agrees to meet with her, of course.”

  “Oh, yes. I will,” I said. Mostly because Rick needed me as an interpreter, but I didn’t tell her that. “He prefers to have me around when meeting female clients.”

  “That’s great.” She exhaled deeply, sounding like she was letting out a sigh of relief.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. It’s nothing,” Natalia said hurriedly, shaking her head. “Never mind.”

  “Um… okay.” I nodded, guessing that Karina was persistent, and Natalia must have been really fed up with her endless demands. “What’s Karina like?” I asked casually.

  “Well, she’s a diva and a drama queen, but she has her generous and kind sides, of course,” Natalia replied, somehow sounding like she was trying to convince herself rather than communicating with me.

  “I can see that,” I said. I knew neither Karina nor Alexa, but considering that Alexa had her schedule for the next three years fully booked and Karina had managed to make an opening for me, I imagined her cousin to be a handful. Still, I appreciated having a solution for the nursery. “I’ll arrange a meeting with the three of us.”

  “Thank you.” Natalia hugged me. “Thank you so much!”

  “The pleasure is all mine.” Smiling broadly, I meant it.

  I was sure I made a great decision until I returned home, googled Karina Coleman, and found out more than a few of her wild episodes, such as publicly telling a stage director to “try getting the script up into your classy, graceful asshole,” but it wasn’t her attitude that scared me. As I kept reading about her, I came across several tabloid articles featuring her past flings with a smorgasbord of married men.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Why didn’t you warn me about Karina’s bad habit, Jackie? You’ve worked with her, and you should have known about her affairs with married men!” I snapped as I sat at the dining table.

  Soon after the meeting with Natalia, Alexa visited the room reserved for our nursery, and I was already in love with her plans. After she’d left, I started researching our client Karina, coming across the actress’s unethical relationships with certain prominent movie producers and theater company executives.

  “Come on, Mandy.” Jackie threw her arms up in the air. “So far, she’s slept with powerful men in the entertainment industry. On the other hand, Rick is in the security industry, and I assumed he’s safe. Besides that, Karina could be quite a diva sometimes—well, more often than sometimes, I guess—but she’s not necessarily an evil witch. She was always so nice and kind to expecting moms, and I don’t think she’ll try to steal Rick from you.”

  “Are you sure?” I pouted, not really buying her point.

  “Yes, I am!” She puffed her chest. “Besides that, all she’s had are just affairs and flings. She hasn’t ended up marrying any of the married men she slept with. That’s a good sign. Maybe she looks like a homewrecker to you, but it’s not her who should be blamed. It’s them—the men who elected to fool around with her when they were married. Those men were looking for one-night stands and ended up having affairs. Be it Karina or someone else, they were destined to be unfaithful, and she just happened to be there when they were feeling … well, horny?”

  “Horny? Did you just say horny?” I exclaimed. “I really hate to imagine Rick getting horny with other women! I’ll forget about arranging a meeting with him and Karina. It’s as easy as making a phone call to Alexa and cancelling—ow! Hey, stop kicking Mommy’s bladder! Honey, there are other amazing decorators all over town—oww!”

  I jumped off my chair, scurrying toward the bathroom.

  “At least the baby seems to be more than willing to have Alexa decorate her nursery,” Jackie commented when I returned. “Come to think of it, if Karina has set her eyes on Rick as her next target to conquer, she’ll meet him no matter what. Like Natalia said, she gets what she wants, so it’s smarter for you to show her how deeply in love Rick is with you. Like the saying goes: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It’s something a scary dude from the Godfather movies said. Anyway, I suggest you flirt with Rick in front of her as much as possible. Besides that, if Karina is trying to steal Rick, why would she ask you to act like a liaison between them? Usually affairs are committed without the wife knowing about it, right?”

  “Right.” I nodded. She had a point. “Also, even if sleeping with Rick is what she wants, using a phantom o
r ghost as bait is a little crazy.”

  “Exactly.” She gave me a thumbs-up. “Not to mention it’s lame. I’m a ghost myself, and I know ghosts do exist, but if I were still a living human, ghosts wouldn’t be the topic of my first conversation with my crush.”

  “Right.” I nodded again and again. “Maybe I was being slightly paranoid.”

  “Slightly paranoid? That’s the understatement of the year so far.” Jackie raised an eyebrow. “But don’t worry, it’s not you getting nervous. It’s just the hormones driving you. Once you’ve delivered the baby, you’ll laugh it off.”

  “Still, I’d really hate it if Rick gets horny with other women.”

  A deep, seductive, baritone voice chimed in with “Me getting horny with other women?”

  “Rick!” I turned around and stood up, feeling my cheeks burning. I glanced at the clock and realized I’d been frantically googling Karina for hours. I was acting like a hardcore stalker! I managed to offer a small smile. “Hi. I didn’t know you were home.”

  “Hi, Mandy. I just got here. By the way, you do realize I usually come home around this time, right?” Wrapping me in his arms and planting a kiss on the top of my head, he chuckled. “Do you want to explain why I have to get horny with other women when I’m married to such a beautiful wife?”

  “Mandy, you must listen to him,” Jackie told me. “Did you hear him say you’re beautiful? If you haven’t noticed, he really, really, really loves you.”

  “Do I look beautiful?” I said skeptically. Stroking my protruding belly with one hand and pinching on the extra fat I’d been storing in my upper arm with the other, I furrowed my eyebrows. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve never been thin, but I’m getting bigger and fatter. But thanks for the kind words when I’m growing the opposite of beautiful.”

  “Sometimes you’re hopelessly stubborn.” Jackie slapped her forehead. “I hope your daughter doesn’t inherit that trait from you.”

  “Come on, that wasn’t a compliment. I just stated the obvious.” Cupping my chubby face, Rick gazed into my eyes. Still dressed in his dark suit, he looked oh-so-masculine and sexy. Staring into his mesmerizing green eyes and taking in his scent, I realized how happy I was to be with him. Then he went on. “You’re beautiful, and actually, you’re growing more and more beautiful by the day.” He kissed my cheek and lips, and then his lips trailed down to the place where my right clavicle used to make a hollow space.

  His nimble fingers lifted my maternity dress and he rained kisses on my baby bump. I moaned and giggled as the baby did a happy dance.

  Bending down, he whispered to the baby bump, “Hello, beautiful. Dad’s home. How was your day? Have you been a good girl? I hope you didn’t kick your mommy that much.”

  “She kicked my bladder a lot, but she was a good girl,” I responded in favor of our child. “Actually, she forced me to decide on who gets to decorate her nursery. Ta-da! It’s Alexa Hansen. We already had the first meeting, and the baby seems to be happy about having her as our decorator.”

  “Really?” Rick stood up, perking up. “She’s the it decorator in town, right? According to rumor, she’s booked for the next few years. I’ve been trying to find something about her that I can use to blackmail her into squeezing in our daughter’s nursery project in her schedule, but so far, no luck.” After slipping out that truly scary statement, he asked me, “How did you get an appointment with her?”

  “Natalia set up a meeting in exchange for us meeting with her actress cousin, Karina Coleman,” I said. “According to Natalia, Karina has been having issues with her stage play, and she seems to be convinced that there’s a phantom or ghost sabotaging it.”

  “Karina Coleman? The name sounds familiar.” He rubbed his jaw. “Isn’t she the actress who slept with Jeffrey Goldman, the guy who owns a huge theater off Broadway?”

  “He used to be the owner of the theater,” Jackie corrected. “After his affair became public, Jeff’s wife left him, and she won the theater in the divorce settlement.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the info,” I said to Jackie and turned to Rick. “Jackie says he’s a former owner of the theater, as his wife took it in a divorce settlement.”

  “Oh, sounds like he lost big.” He nodded. Grinning from ear to ear, he said, “But now I understand what brought you to worry about me getting horny with other women. You’re worried I might be lured in by her, right?”

  “Hello? Why are you smiling?” I questioned. “In my opinion, that’s not funny.”

  “Oh yeah?” He cocked his head, still looking deliriously happy. “Still, it’s nice to see you raising your guard to protect me.”

  “Well, it’s not like I’m jealous or anything, but….” I was trying to come up with something smart, but what was supposed to become my grand speech was interrupted as he kissed my lips. “Mmm….”

  “Ooh, if only I could switch on the video cam!” Jackie swooned. “This is definitely a moment that you want to show to your kids! Um… maybe not. You want to keep everything PG for them.”

  After moments of hot, deep, passionate kissing, he said playfully, “Do you still think I have spare time for other women when I have a hot wife like you?”

  “No.” I giggled, a little breathless. The baby was happily kicking me, and I was sure she was giggling and dancing in my uterus. “But I was feeling like a total idiot for setting up a meeting with you and a potential homewrecker.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. I don’t think she made up ghostly issues just to try her hand as a homewrecker,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I like seeing you all jealous for a change.”

  “I’m not jealous. It’s just that I’m being a responsible mom-to-be and didn’t want to risk anything that could jeopardize the nest for us.”

  “The nest? Ooh, I don’t know why, but that word sounds soooo hot!” Jackie purred, dancing around the room.

  “The nest?” Rick whistled. “That sounds so hot.”

  “Jackie feels the same about that,” I informed him. “Actually, I have bad news for you.”

  “What’s that?” His eyebrows twitched a little.

  “I was slightly distracted this afternoon, and I haven’t fixed anything for dinner,” I said sheepishly.

  “You call that bad news?” He threw his head back and laughed. “What do you say about ordering pizza?”

  “A great plan.” I grinned, wondering why I had been obsessing for the past few hours.

  CHAPTER 3

  After all, it turned out that I’d been worrying about everything for nothing.

  The meeting with Karina Coleman was set up for the next evening, as she wanted to meet Rick as soon as possible.

  When she showed up at our office, dressed in white from head to toe, I tried not to stare at her, but I couldn’t help it.

  She was in her early forties, and with a close look, her age showed in the corners of her eyes and the small wrinkles here and there on her skin. Still, she had something that was more than superficial beauty. Even from my point of view, she was not just beautiful. There was something about her that grabbed my eyes and made me want to stare at her for a very long time.

  “Hello, I’m Karina Coleman. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me at such short notice.” The way she moved was swift and elegant, but what caught my attention was her voice. It had the perfect pitch and tone, with just a slight touch of huskiness. For a moment, I found myself making a note to check her performances on YouTube, totally forgetting about the concerns I’d previously had. I genuinely wanted to see her on stage. I wasn’t a theater patron, but that didn’t mean I had zero interest in that field.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Rick said, offering a welcoming smile. “Let me introduce you to my wife. This is Mandy.”

  “Hello, Karina. Thank you for helping us book Alexa. Her plans for the nursery are amazing.” I offered a smile that I hoped wasn’t tight. Also, I put emphasis on the word nursery. Call me lame, but I wanted to make sure she’d remember
that I was carrying a baby whose dad was Rick.

  “Yes, I can’t agree with her more.” Rick touched my left hand, reminding me that I was supposed to wave that hand—the one with the huge engagement ring. Lately, I hadn’t worn that particular ring, as my fingers were swollen since getting pregnant, but Rick made a call to the jeweler and had it resized at the last minute, and the ring fit my bigger finger like magic. I waved my left hand, showing off my diamond.

  “Oh no, I’m the one who must thank you.” She shook her head. “Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me. I guess you’ve done your research on me, so let me get this straight. Many scathing articles about me are peppered with lies, and I really hate to be called a homewrecker.”

  “Oh… of course. No one likes to be treated like a villain.” Nodding like a bobblehead, I actually meant the latter part of my words.

  “Thank you for understanding. I hoped to seek Rick’s help instead of some other psychics.” Her face perked up, which wasn’t something I’d expected. “I’ve heard so much about you, Mandy.” She actually sounded happy to see me.

  “Oh… really?” I said, puzzled. Unlike Rick or his dad, Dan, I wasn’t a celebrity. “From whom?”

  “Do you remember Robert Hall, one of your classmates from high school?” she asked me.

  “Rob? Oh, yes.” I nodded. “I remember him. He always wanted to be an actor, and… oh, did he make it?”

  “Should I be jealous?” Rick chimed in playfully.

  “No way.” I shook my head. “He was just one of my classmates. Nothing special.”

  “That’s reassuring. I’m relieved.” Rick chuckled.