The Art of Persuasion: Book 4 of The Swashbuckling Romance Series

by Myers, Heather C.

  The Art of Persuasion: Book 4 of The Swashbuckling Romance Series

  By Heather C. Myers

  Chapter 1

  Bachelorette parties are kind of like a rite of passage for a woman who is either ridiculously mature or ridiculously ignorant and just a bit crazy. Think about it: one man for the rest of her life. Do you realize – I mean really realize – what that means? Say goodbye to date nights and hot sex and independence and hello to ball scratching, boring, typical “love making” (what is that anyways? “Love making?”) and a total lack of privacy. Have you seen Sex and the City when Miranda and Steve start getting serious and he’s in the bathroom and just leaves the door open while he’s – you know. Um, ew. Gross. Wasn’t he taught any manners? Say goodbye to spontaneity and romance and hello to burping and farting. And this is all before children! Children who, by the way, take away your freedom and point out every flaw you possess and a few you didn’t even know about. And they always seem to bitch about something.

  No, thank you. I plan to keep my hot sex, independence, all-I-care-about-is-me outlook on life, thank you very much.

  But I also realize that not everyone is going to adhere to my poignant take on how a woman should live her life. Take my friend Becky, the reason why I and four of our friends are out on Sunset Boulevard, dressed to the nines, ready to have the night of our lives. Sadly, it’s not because one of us has an epic birthday that needs celebrating (we’re all twenty-three and twenty-four, and in case you care, I’m part of the former crowd rather than the latter) or a graduation (we’ve all graduated our respective colleges with bachelor’s degrees) or a breakup (though Lulu and her boyfriend Andy have recently decided to take some time to think about their future, whatever that means). No. We’re celebrating Becky’s passage into matrimony. Yes, we’re celebrating all the faucets I have just gone over in brutal detail.

  Okay, okay, I know there are good things about marriage. I’m not a total Debbie Downer. I just don’t get – especially with something like a bachelorette party the night before the Big Day – why people sign away their lives to someone else. It’s kind of like that Amish ritual. You know, the one where they send their sixteen year olds out into the real world to go live life and when it’s over, they can either choose to stay in mainstream society or go back and live in their community. Obviously I assumed that they would choose to live life here where they can do what they want and have sex before marriage and wear boots and go to a club, but did you know that a huge percentage of them go back to live as Amish? Did you know that? It blows my mind! Anyway, so brides-to-be go out and live their last moments of freedom with their best friends and strippers and whatever the hell they want to eat without worrying about the weight they could possibly gain and dancing. You would think that said freedom would deter them from matrimony in the first place, but the crazy thing is, I’ve actually heard that something like a bachelorette party actually promotes marriage.

  None of us – Becky, Lulu, Elle, June, Kylie and I – have actually gone through it ourselves. Yet. Becky is the first of us to take that step and in some weird twisted way, I can’t help but admire her for it. Not about the marriage thing, but about take a step into something unknown. I mean, none of us can give her any advice, can reassure her moments before she walks down the aisle, can tell her that it’s worth it, because we’ve never done it. She’s doing this alone. We’re behind her one hundred percent (okay, maybe I’m behind her, like, sixty percent, but still – that’s more than anyone expected) but she doesn’t have a model she can look to for advice, reassurance, and guidance. Even her parents split up when she was eight.

  Maybe that’s why I’m not giving her much shit for marrying Tom. Although if she’s going to marry anybody, Tom would definitely be my choice for her. I mean, he has dark eyes and dark hair and an olive complexion and all these tattoos, but he’s the least like his stereotype of anyone I know. Even Becky matches her blonde hair with her bubbly, optimistic outlook on life.

  At least Becky wasn’t against a bachelorette party. You know, I may actually agree to get married with the stipulation that I get a bachelorette party.

  As I’ve already said, we’re dressed like rock stars – not groupies, but actual, legit rock stars – and we’re on our way to Le Marche, the newest nightclub Elle got us into since she’s an event coordinator and was the woman in charge when it opened last month. So no, we don’t even have to wait in line. Wicked awesome, right?

  I keep trying to talk Becky into getting just a little bit drunk, but she doesn’t drink and won’t even make an exception for her bachelorette party, and even though she has good reason not to, I can’t help but feeling partially annoyed. If anyone has a good reason not to drink, it’s me, but I allow myself to get shitfaced every once in a while. Okay, back in college, it was every weekend, but I got over that. And if there’s a special occasion to get shitfaced, it’s now, to commemorate and celebrate and mourn Becky’s last night of freedom. But Becky is as stubborn as she is happy, so she won’t budge.

  I will, however, guarantee you that she’ll dance.

  Which is just as well.

  Lulu called in a favor with her cousin and we drove up to Sunset in style – in a black stretch limo – listening to my party mix and standing up through the sunroof, waving at people on the streets. I think Reese flashed someone because June dared her to, but I can’t be sure…

  As we expect, Le Marche is crazy-busy so we have the limo pull up to the corner to let us out. Since we don’t have to wait in line, we decide that we also don’t want to wait in the ridiculous amount of traffic that’s piled up in front of the entrance. We can walk a ways – we look smoking hot so why not show that off just a bit?

  After thanking and tipping our very sweet limo driver Barney, we start chatting amongst ourselves, each of us brimming with obvious excitement. We don’t even walk two steps before a car driving past us honks once, twice, and four steps later, we get whistled at. I don’t want to brag about my group of friends, but seriously, if you look up stone-cold foxes in the dictionary, you’d find our picture instead of an actual definition. And the fact that we’ve went out of our way to look even better? Well, if I’m being honest, looking at my friends, they’re so gorgeous that it hurts a little bit.

  Maybe that was a bit much. And I’m not that arrogant.

  Maybe this is just some ridiculous defense mechanism because as much as I hate the institution of marriage, I think I’m more than a little bitter that I’m also losing my best friend. I mean, Becky and I are still going to hang out and be close and all that, but it’s going to be different. As much as she assures me that things won’t change between us, I know they will. How can they not? She’s going to be married. She won’t be crashing at my place any time soon, and we won’t be able to go dancing every weekend or take spontaneous trips to San Diego just because. She has to be responsible now. She has to consider Tom’s feelings because their lives are so intertwined.

  The thought that there’s going to be a shift in our friendship causes my heart to ache just a little bit. If anyone was going to get married first out of our group, it would Becky. She’s gorgeous in that girl-next-door kind of way and she has this naïve optimism that endears not only men, but everyone to her. I should have better prepared myself for this – she’s been with Tom since she was twenty and he was twenty-two and now she’s half a year into being twenty-four and getting married to the guy.

  My best friend. Married. And looking at her now, I don’t see one iota of fear in her eyes.

  Maybe I’m jealous. I’ve n
ever been as sure about anything – least of all men – in my life. But when she talks or looks at Tom, she’s fearless. She just knows.

  I want that. I want that certainty, especially about another person, a man. But I’m not sure I can trust anyone as fiercely as Becky trusts Tom.

  “Hey, look,” June says, her light Texan accent lacing her words. She stops so we stop and look at what she’s pointing at. “Is that really a psychic? At this time of night?”

  “June, it’s rude to point,” Lulu tells her. They have this sort of sisterly relationship. June is only six months younger than Lulu is, but ever since she joined our group a couple of years ago, while we were all in college, Lulu has made it her responsibility to watch out for June. Becky may be naively optimistic but June is just plain naïve – cities tend to take advantage of small town girls, and even though LA isn’t as bad as New York or - God forbid - San Francisco, it can get pretty bad here. And Lulu has always been the mother hen of our group, since she’s the oldest and everything.

  Immediately, June snaps her arm down to her side.

  “She’s right, though,” Kylie says, looking at the faint glowing sign. You never would have seen the small building, packed between another nightclub and a comedy club. But there it is, a small building with an even smaller door, neon lights advertising that a psychic is indeed inside. “A psychic, here?”

  “Weird,” Becky murmurs then she gets a mischievous grin on her face. “What do you say, you guys? Should I see if Tom and I are going to last?”

  I know she’s serious about going to see the psychic, though her reasoning is shit. She knows she and Tom are going to last and doesn’t care one way or another if a psychic agrees with her.

  “Guys, there’s not even a window,” I point out. “How do you know the psychic thing is legit? What if it’s a gang of rapists just waiting for a group of hot chicks to come inside so they can gang rape us and murder us and whatnot?”

  “Someone has been watching too much Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” June drawls, and okay, maybe she’s right, but still. The building gives me the creeps.

  My point is ignored and I can’t help but follow my group of friends to what feels like our imminent demise. Or maybe I’m just being overly dramatic.

  Before we even reach the door, it opens. This causes me to jump, and Becky chuckles at my jumpy reaction. I want to admonish her, but my eyes are searching through the blackness, willing there to be someone there because it’s just not possible that doors open on their own. This isn’t a crappy horror film.

  And after what feels like hours, when in reality, it’s probably just seconds, a very short woman with a shawl around her shoulders that also happened to shelter carrot-red hair that is currently piled on top of her head and thin-rimmed circle glasses Harry Potter style poked her head out, regarding us with a look that says she knew we were there and that our arrival at her business at ten o’clock at night isn’t all that weird.

  “Hello, ladies,” she says in a leathery but comforting voice. “I see you all look lovely. Celebrating something, perhaps? An engagement?”

  All my friends suddenly buy into the legitimacy of the woman after she says this even though it’s not even hard to deduce that – Becky’s the only one of us who’s wearing a wedding ring and normally, married woman donn’t go out clubbing with her single friends.

  “Would you like to come in?” she asks in that perpetually slow voice of hers.

  “Guys, don’t we have to –“ I try to talk my friends out of this bad idea – there’s dancing to be done – but Becky interrupts us.

  “Yes, absolutely!” she says with her normal bout of enthusiasm. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “None at all, my dear,” the quote unquote psychic says, turning around and heading into the room. Becky doesn’t even hesitate and starts to follow her, as does everyone else, so I really have no choice but to go in too. Before I even turn around to close the door, it shuts itself, and I jump. “It is my job, after all.” She chuckles as though she’s made some kind of joke. “Oh, those Santa Ana winds are strong, aren’t they? Now, come, come.” She waves us past the small lobby and into where I’m assuming she does her actual business. “You do want your fortune read, don’t you?”

  I open my mouth and get a death glare from Becky, as though she knows I’m going to respond with a variant of ‘Fuck that.’ This, of course, deters me. For now.

  “You,” the psychic says, flitting her lime green eyes – yes, I thought that lime green eyes is something that can only be found in Tim Burton’s Wonderland, but apparently the actually exist in reality – in my direction and raises her bony hand, extending her even bonier finger at me. “Why don’t you go first?” She indicates the low but very plush looking chair located across the glass table as she took a seat in what is obviously deemed as her chair. “Sit.”

  “Oh, really, I’m not sure I should –“ I begin, but once again I’m interrupted, this time by Becky.

  She nudges me and says in a low murmur, “Go on, Isla. She must have something to say about your future. Aren’t you even just a little bit curious?”

  I’m about to say no but I censor myself yet again. I’m not big on planning for the future. I prefer living in the moment. My mom says I like to avoid being a legitimate adult but I think it’s more of not wanting to take for granted that I’m right here, right now.

  But Becky’s giving me her patented doe eyes so I heave a heavy sigh and take a seat in front of this woman – whose name she has yet to offer, by the way – and look at her imploringly.

  “My name is Shaki,” she says, her lips curling up and her eyes teasing me, as if to say she knows exactly what I’ve been thinking. I swallow and hope my eyes don’t give my surprise away. It’s obviously a lucky guess. “May I have your hand?”

  I’m surprised that she actually touches my hand. The psychics Becky has dragged me to for her have never touched her hand. Maybe this one… Well, let’s see now shall we?

  It’s a long time before she says anything. I almost forget that it’s me she’s talking to until a muscle in my palm involuntarily twitches and I feel her surprisingly soft hands touching my outstretched one. Is it weird that I feel self-conscious right now? I mean, how long does this woman really need to look at my palm before she gets the gist of it? It’s not that special and, in my opinion, it looks like everyone else’s.

  Finally, she drops my hand and I slowly place it back in my lap.

  “Isla Barnes, you were not born for this time.” Her words come out crisp and firm, and they cause my entire body to spring out in goosebumps. How in God’s name did she know my full name?

  “W-what?” I ask, and okay, I did stutter but you probably would have done the same thing.

  “You were not born for this time.”

  “Is that it?” I ask after another moment, waiting for more but getting a steady gaze and even steadier bout of silence. This woman, Shaki, is unnerving, to say the least.

  “That is it.”

  “What a rip off,” I mutter, standing up. I turn to Becky and don’t even bother to keep my voice low. “You better not pay for mine, Becky. She said one sentence to me. I told you this is bullshit.”

  I hear Shaki murmur something under her breath. I can’t understand what it is, but the tone sounds familiar. “Did you just curse me?” I ask, appalled at the notion.

  She has that same steady smile on her face, as though nothing in the world could bother her. Bitch. “It does not matter,” she says. “You do not believe in it anyways.”

  “Whatever,” I mutter. I look back at Becky. “I’m going outside – I need some air.”

  Becky looks like she’s about to argue, to plead with me to stay, but seriously, I need to get out of there or else I’m going to ruin the night. Once the cool air hits me, I feel my shoulders relax.

  But that all goes to shit because a pair of headlights come right at me and suddenly, my entire world goes black.

  C
hapter 2

  My head hurts and I know it’s not a hangover because I didn’t even get to drink last night.

  Wait a second, then why don’t I remember last night? Did I drink? Oh God, did someone slip something into my drink and – and – I placed my hands on my body – underneath an interesting albeit pretty tasteless and very old set of covers, and breathe a sigh of relief when I feel that my dress is still on and, after a quick check, dry. There doesn’t seem to be any gross bodily fluids that I’m not aware of coming out of any particular orifice, staining my expensive dress or these shitty sheets.

  Then, if I didn’t get raped or assaulted, why can’t I remember last night?

  And where am I?

  I know I’m not in my apartment or any of my friends’ apartments because while we have different (and some of us may even have eccentric) tastes, none of us would tolerate covers like these.

  Okay, focus Isla. Before you work yourself up over covers you don’t recognize and want to burn from your memory at the sheer hideousness of them, try to remember the events.