“Are you feeling better?”
“In a matter of speaking, but there is work that needs to be done. Work that I’m going to need your help with.”
Stavros laughed. “So this is why you came? You don’t really care about me at all, do you?”
At the sound of his laugh, Bunny sauntered to his side and slipped her arm through the crook of his. “Oh hello, Ariadne, I’m so glad you’re here.” Her voice trilled with the phony felicitates. “We were just talking about you.” Bunny eyed Stavros with distinct ownership.
Ariadne’s smile flickered for only a moment at Bunny’s pronouncement of “we.” Of course, Bunny would lay claim to the man who had only weeks before refused public acknowledgment that the flake even existed.
Looking at Stavros, she noticed him cringe. It was nice to see that he identified exactly how ridiculous he must appear to her. “I’m sure you were saying just the nicest things,” Ariadne said, as she glared at the bottle-blonde woman. “If you wouldn’t mind, Stavros and I were talking.”
Bunny’s jaw dropped.
“Besides, I’m sure there is a desk somewhere that needs a good shining.” Ariadne beamed.
Bunny jerked her arm out of Stavros’ arm. “You — ”
“Bunny,” Stavros said sternly. “Why don’t you go see if your friends have arrived? I’m sure they are looking for you.”
Ariadne snickered as Bunny turned and stomped away.
Stavros grabbed her hand and led her away from the bar and toward the private kitchen. Walking in, he dropped her hand, walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. Opening it, he guzzled it down.
“Sure, I would take one of those,” Ariadne said, perturbed at his usual rudeness.
Dropping the bottle from his lips, he wiped away a drip of water that trailed from his oversized lips. “What’s going on with you?”
“What are you talking about? I just want a water.” She motioned at the fridge.
“Okay.” He opened the door and grabbed another bottle and thrust it at her, but he eyed her suspiciously. “What was the business you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I want you to reopen Dr. Morris’ site.” Her words hung in the air. “And call the police off of your shooting.”
He sat the plastic bottle down on the concrete counter. He ran his fingers over the stubble of his chin. “You can’t expect that I am going to let whomever was responsible for the attempted assassination go, do you?”
“That’s not what I’m asking. You can still find out who did it and take care of it in another fashion. I’m just asking you to call the police off. They won’t allow Dr. Morris’ site to be reopened while they are still investigating.”
“I see.” He smiled wickedly. “But aren’t you and Kat worried about what he’ll find in the Labyrinth?”
She stiffened. “That’s for me to worry about.”
A smile flickered on his lips. “I have to say, I think I like this new you.”
“I’m glad, because this’s what you’ll be getting from here on out.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I know what it must be like for you to see me with Bunny and all, but if you’re still interested, we could work things out. I need a strong woman, and the people would love this attitude you are displaying.”
“Would you love me, Stavros?”
He threw his head back as he laughed. When she didn’t stir, he stopped and looked at her. “Oh, you were being serious?”
She looked away from him and down to the bottle in her hands.
“We both know that’s out of the question,” Stavros began. “Love is such a useless emotion. We get along so much better without any of that. I like our arrangement, our mutual respect.”
“Since when have you respected me, Stavros?”
A flash of humility played on his face, but was quickly replaced with his usual distant expression. “I can change, Ariadne. I’ll make it better for you. I admit, I haven’t been the best boyfriend in the world, but I thought we were both on the same page with everything.”
“We weren’t.”
He reached out for her. “If you take me back, I promise I’ll stop seeing other women.”
She had waited for decades for him to utter those words, but now that they fell from his lips, she just sighed. It was too late for them to be together, she had grown past trusting him. He would always be just a bull, taking what he wanted regardless of others’ feelings; she had more than her share of evidence.
When she didn’t move toward him, he dropped his hands.
“Listen, Stav, I just need you to do what I asked. I don’t want to get back into our old rut. You’re great, but you’re not for me. I need something more, something better.”
“What? And you think you are going to find that with a poor American archeologist?”
Opening the water bottle, she pressed it to her lips and swallowed a sip. Slowly, she twisted the lid back and sat the bottle gently next to Stavros’ on the counter. “You don’t need to worry about who I’m interested in. All you need to know is that it’ll no longer be you. So you can fuck whomever, whenever you want. You don’t have to pretend to hide it from me any longer. I no longer give a shit about your escapades.”
Stavros bristled. “If you are thinking that talking to me like this is going to get your boyfriend’s little site opened back up, you are sorely mistaken.”
She stepped toward him and ran her finger up the black satin lapel of his tuxedo jacket all the way to the white bandage on his neck. Tracing her finger around the edge, she found the pricking thread of the plastic stitches and pressed her nail into them. “You will open the site.”
Stavros grimaced and pulled away from her hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You have no authority to boss me, or anyone else.”
“Oh, really?” She threatened. “I believe I do.” She opened her purse and pulled out an envelope. “Inside you will find a flash drive filled with pictures of you and your brother, Nico, doing all kinds of sexually perverse things. Him more than you, but I have to admit I was a little shocked with the quantity of women you were with in some of the photos. How could you satisfy so many when you struggled to satisfy me?”
He grabbed the envelope from her hands and ripped it open. He dumped the flash drive into his hand and glowered at it, as if he could make it and its contents magically disappear. “You wouldn’t dare use this against me.”
“Not that one in particular. I have another copy, don’t worry.” She smiled. “Now, I don’t want to have to use any of these. Seeing them once was more than enough for me. You and I have had some great times together and I don’t want to have to take things to the next level. I would appreciate it if we could still be friends, but I’m no longer under anyone’s control.”
He nodded as he curled his fingers around the black plastic rectangle that was filled with evidence of his character. “Friends. Okay.” He dropped the flash drive to the floor. “We will never speak of what is on this drive again.” He brought the heel of his gleaming patent leather shoe down. There was the crack of plastic as the flash drive broke.
“Agreed. But with the understanding that Beau’s site is reopened and Christos and his men are called off.”
“Fine.” Stavros twisted his foot in the other direction.
Leaning in, she pressed her lips to the smooth skin of his cheek. “Thanks, Stav. Without you, I would’ve never realized how much power I truly possessed.”
He pulled back and looked down at her with a look of disbelief upon his face.
Ariadne turned and strode out, leaving him alone in the soulless kitchen.
She pushed past the throngs of people that packed into Stavros’ mansion. Officer Christos waved at her and motioned for her to come over, but Ariadne shook her head. She needed ou
t of the mess of people, away from the politics, and perfume-tainted air. Kat was nowhere to be seen, but her absence wasn’t the relief she would have expected.
Walking out of the foyer and onto the almost empty patio, she reached down and opened her purse and extracted the parking stub, when she was met with Tammy’s voice. “Did Kat give ya the pictures?”
“What are you doing here, Tammy?”
Tammy scanned the area. “I knew ya’d be here. And I needed to speak to ya without Kat knowin’. Did ya get them pictures?”
“I did,” Ariadne said, as she handed her stub to the parking attendant. “But how did you get them?”
Tammy’s gaze shifted around as if she feared seeing someone or something. “Before I had Ivan, I had an investigator following Nico. Stavros just happened to be there most of the time. And I thought ya should know the kinda man that ya had in your life.”
“Thanks,” Ariadne said wearily. “Where’s Ivan tonight?”
“Oh, he went back to the States. His wife was missing him. I only came because I needed to see you. I don’t like being this close to the bull, Stavros.”
“Did you have something to do with the shooting? What’s going on, Tammy?”
Tammy looked around nervously. “I just heard about Kaden and I thought maybe I could be a help. I tried to get in to see ’em, but I couldn’t get by the nosey wards.” She opened up her purse for Ariadne to see the brown vials and bug-filled jars inside. “I even brought some stuff that might be useful. Do ya think ya can get me in?”
“I think so, but how did you hear about Kaden?”
“Oh, everyone is talking about the curse and the boy. But Kat’s the one who told me about it.”
“What did Kat want with Kaden?” Ariadne asked.
Tammy pulled a bottle of green sludge from her pocket and swallowed the contents down. “She wanted me to poison him, like I did Nico.”
Chapter Sixteen
The revolving glass doors of the hospital circled with a monotonous whir and click as Ariadne and Tammy approached the entrance.
“We need to heal him. Do you think you can really help?” Ariadne asked the witch.
Tammy opened her giant khaki-colored purse and reached inside. Glass clinked and there was a sound like beads being shaken as the witch rifled through the contents. “Well, I can give it a try. I don’t have a lotta stuff to work with, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Well that’s better than nothing. Kaden is such a great kid. He just got mixed up with the wrong crowd.”
“Ya mean y’all?” Tammy asked with marked pity in her voice.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Ariadne’s black gown clung to her legs as she led the way through the maze of sterile white halls. “His room’s right around the corner. I’ll get Beau out of the room while you do whatever it is you need to do. But you won’t have much time.”
She grabbed a mask and gown off the isolation cart outside of Kaden’s door and put them on over her clothes. “Tammy, why don’t you wait here? I’ll be out in a second, and then you can go in.”
Tammy nodded and walked toward the nurse’s station.
Vickie was sitting at the foot of the bed while Beau sat next to the window. Beau’s eyes were closed, but as she walked in, his eyes opened.
Kaden was attached to a ventilator and there was the hum and whoosh of the machine as it kept the boy alive. Kaden was asleep and tubes ran out of his nose, mouth, and arms. She blanched as she took in how much the boy had deteriorated since the last time she had been there. It wouldn’t be long if something wasn’t done.
“Ariadne?” Beau said in a ragged voice. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I’m sorry, but I had to talk to you.” She looked over at Vickie. “Hi, Vickie. It’s nice to see you again.”
Vickie gave her a confused look. “Hey.”
Ariadne tried to hold her tongue, but failed. “I thought you would’ve gone back to your parents by now.”
It was hard to see Vickie’s response through her blue surgical mask, but Ariadne caught a flicker of anger in her eyes. “I had to stay and take care of the boys. They mean a lot to me.”
“I’m glad to hear it. They need as much support as they can get right now.”
Beau sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “We don’t want to disturb Kae.”
Ariadne’s cheeks flushed. She had no intention of a verbal discord with a lumbering college girl. She was better than this. And if Beau wanted the girl more than he wanted her, that was his choice. Though she would fight for him, if his heart led him toward the blonde harlot the only thing she could do to bring him back would be to seduce him, and there was no real lasting love in such a tempestuous foundation.
Kaden’s IV beeped. His face was pale and swollen.
Maybe it was better that Beau would go for the girl; loving a nymph came at too high a cost.
“Why don’t we take a break and get some coffee or something?” Beau stood up and stretched. “You coming, Vickie?”
Vickie looked up at Beau with a slight grimace. “Sure, it would be nice to get up and walk.”
Ariadne led the way out of the room. Looking down the hall, she stripped off the isolation gown and mask, but Tammy had disappeared. Hopefully the witch would notice their absence. Beau and Vickie threw their clothes in the biohazard laundry and Beau walked up beside her. They made their way to the elevator, forcing Vickie to walk behind them. Ariadne nervously tapped her foot until the door opened and they quietly made their way toward the garlic-scented cafeteria.
Beau stared at Ariadne, his eyes were red and his face was covered in stubble. He opened the cafeteria’s door for her and bumped into Vickie as she moved to walk through after her. “Sorry,” Beau mumbled.
Vickie frowned. “Why don’t you guys just talk? I’ll come back later.”
“You — ”
“That’ll be great,” Ariadne said, stopping Beau from finishing his sentence.
Vickie glared at her, then looked at Beau. “I’ll meet you back up in the room in a few minutes. Okay?”
Beau stared at her for a few seconds. “Why don’t you go back to your host family? I’ll call you. Visiting hours are almost over.” He looked down at his watch.
Vickie stepped back, looking affronted. “But … You … ” she stammered. “If that’s what you want, Beau.”
“Yeah,” Beau said, as he looked up from his watch. “Please.”
Vickie nodded, and without addressing Ariadne, turned around and walked out of the cafeteria.
Getting their coffees, Ariadne and Beau sat down at a melamine table with a white vase filled with plastic yellow flowers.
“Thank you.” Ariadne thumbed the lip of the paper coffee cup.
Beau looked up at her. “For what?”
“For talking to me. I know how upset you must be right now. But you have to trust that I didn’t do what I did to hurt you.”
He rubbed his hands over his face and then dropped them to the table. “I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand why you would want to shut us down. We did nothing to you. We are only helping the museum in the long run.”
“I know. You’re right. But I don’t just work for the museum.” She paused and took a sip of her coffee.
“Who else do you work for? The NSF?” He leaned away from her and crossed his arms over his chest.
Her anger was palpable. “Why would I be working for the NSF?”
“They pulled my funding right after I met you. It’s just a little bit strange that everything bad that has been happening has gone down since you made an appearance into our lives.”
“I know.” Her heart clenched. He was never going to forgive her for what she’d done. “But I have a feeling that you are about to get lucky.”
&nbs
p; He snorted. “Well, things couldn’t get much worse. All I’m hoping for is that Kaden gets better.”
“I do have some good news for you. And know it’s not about Kae.” Though I am working on that. She smiled. “But I just talked to Stavros.”
“Is that what’s going on with your get-up?” He pointed at her black evening gown. “You had a hot date?”
“No, no.” Ariadne flattened the fabric. “We definitely didn’t have a hot date, it was better.”
Beau looked at her with a confused expression on his face. “What do you mean it was better than a hot date?”
She blushed. “Don’t worry, I have no interest in having sex with that man.”
Beau looked down. “It’s up to you whether or not you want to have a relationship with him or anyone else.”
“I don’t want a relationship with him.” She gave him a furtive glance. “There’s only one person I want to have a relationship with, but I think he’s already taken.”
He looked out the window. “I know how that goes.”
Didn’t he understand? Or is he trying to avoid my inference?
“I … uh … ” She twisted her hands. “I came here to let you know some great news about your site.”
“Did it burn down?” He sat forward and dropped his hands to the table.
She laughed, the sound echoed off the apathetic walls. “Um, no. Stavros has decided to reopen it, without the tourists.”
“What? But how? What about the investigation?” Beau stammered.
She placed her hand on his, half-expecting him to pull away, but he didn’t. Instead, he looped his thumb over hers. “In the next few days, you can go back to your work. The investigation will no longer be a concern.”
Beau’s shoulders fell. “I can’t leave Kaden. I can’t leave him while he’s sick.”
“He’ll get better soon. Didn’t you say the doctors were going to try more meds?”
He nodded weakly.
“You just need to trust that everything will work out.”
The Nymph's Curse: The Collection Page 14
