by Sierra Dean
“An independent movie,” I whispered.
“Oh. No, I’m not an actor.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a gleam of pride in his eyes at being mistaken for one, though. He was a vain creature to the core.
“What a shame. Cheekbones like those.” Willow gave him a once-over that was equal parts sexual and predatory. I’d seen the same expression on serious antique collectors who desperately wanted to possess something. She wasn’t looking at him like he was a person, but rather a thing.
Her comment about films made my recognition of her face click. “Sorry, you’re Willow Chalmers?”
She beamed like a thousand-watt spotlight at being recognized. “Guilty as charged. And you are?” The cursory glance she gave me wasn’t nearly as interested as the one she’d given Holden.
“Secret McQueen.”
The initial curl of her lip when she heard my name was a common enough response. People had a lot of trouble taking my name seriously, and it was a burden I’d learned to live with. Especially after finding out my mother had wanted to name me Harmony. Ick.
But getting such a dismissive look from a girl who shared her name with a tree, a television witch and a dwarf? Come on.
“Secret…McQueen?” She repeated my name back to me as if to say, Are you sure that’s what you want to go with? Then she seemed to process it and looked from me to Lucas. When her gaze returned to me, her mouth had gone slack.
I guess the gossip columns out west had liked my story as much as they had in New York.
“You’re Lucas’s ex.”
“I am Lucas’s ex,” I said almost gleefully, leaning hard on the last word when I met the wolf king’s gaze. “The one he ditched at the altar. Without so much as a phone call. Yup, that’s me.”
Now that she knew who I was, she didn’t seem sure of how to respond. I was guessing if I’d been just any other girl, she’d have pawed at him a little to make it clear he was hers, but I didn’t want him and that confused her.
Who didn’t want a beautiful, charming billionaire, right?
Me, for one.
But I also knew Lucas, and I knew this girl was going to end up one more notch on his bedpost. Willow Chalmers was human. There was nothing special or supernatural about her, and because of that she couldn’t be a permanent fixture in his life.
I almost felt pity for him, cavorting around with this poor human girl to fill some empty void inside. A void he’d probably claim I left him with.
I wrapped my arm around Holden’s waist and leaned my head into his shoulder, smiling at Lucas. “Lovely to see you. We should be going, though.”
“Oh.” Willow seemed surprised we didn’t want to stay. “We were just heading to the restaurant for dinner. There’s a guest chef in from South Africa who makes the most orgasmic quail.” Her attention shifted to Holden when she said orgasmic. “Won’t you join us?”
That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
“Sounds great,” Holden said, never taking his eyes off Lucas. “Don’t you think so, Luke?”
“I don’t know if—” Lucas began to protest, but Willow tugged his sleeve like a little girl begging a parent for candy.
“Don’t say no, please. It’ll be fun. Don’t you think it will be fun, Secret?”
Did I think having dinner with my ex-fiancé, his movie-star girlfriend and my vampire lover would be fun? No. Fun was not the word I would have chosen.
Holden was only agreeing to rub our relationship in Lucas’s face. Desmond and Holden might have disliked each other, but they still worked together for the common good and could pretend to be nice in order to appease me.
Holden and Lucas hated each other. Reviled each other. Their feelings about each other made Holden and Desmond’s relationship look like a bromance. There was no way in hell this dinner was a good idea. But if I could get Lucas alone, however briefly, I might be able to find out where we stood as far as our werewolf marriage went. I was within arm’s reach of him and had yet to taste anything remotely like cinnamon. And my wolf didn’t feel the tug to be near him she once had.
It was like all the signs I’d once used as evidence of our soul-bond had vanished. I didn’t know anyone else I could ask because it didn’t seem fair to quiz Desmond on it. Not when my relationship with Lucas was what had forced our breakup in the first place.
“Sure,” I said finally. “Why not?”
Chapter Eighteen
Maxime had held back during the conversation, and when Willow and Lucas went ahead to the restaurant, he came forward.
“Evening plans have changed somewhat, Max,” I said, and heaved a sigh. “If you don’t mind getting the rooms ready, Holden and I are going to have…dinner.”
Instead of asking why a pair of vampires would have any interest in going to a human restaurant, Maxime gave a small bow and went on his way, no questions asked.
“What are you trying to prove here?” I grumbled to Holden when we were alone. “Lucas isn’t a threat to you anymore.”
“Lucas was never a threat to me.” He rolled his eyes.
“He and I almost got married,” I reminded him. “Big white dress, fancy ceremony. You were there, I know you remember.”
“I do remember it. I remember him not coming, and I remember you almost dying. So you’ll have to forgive me if I say again—Lucas was never a threat to me.”
“If you really think that, why are we doing this?”
“Because I dislike him. And I hate what he did to you. Hell, I don’t like what he did to Desmond. If I can sit across from him for an hour and make his life half as miserable as he made yours, I’m going to do it. He didn’t deserve you, but he does deserve some anguish for all the trouble.”
I couldn’t fight back the smile that snuck onto my lips at his speech. “Are you sure you’re not doing this so you can grope me in front of him?”
“How do you think I’m going to remind him what he’s missing?” He winked as he offered his arm. I was so relieved to have my old Holden back, I didn’t much care that it was his hatred for Lucas that had brought him to me.
We joined Lucas and Willow in the dining room where we’d been given a table in a secluded corner. Still, some of the patrons were pivoting in their seats to get a glimpse of the famous actress. She looked older in person than she did on film, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The lines in her mocha-colored skin gave her more depth, made it seem like she actually smiled and frowned in real life, and not just in front of the camera. Her black hair was cut in a cute pixy crop, which might have explained why I didn’t recognize her right away. She normally had long wavy hair—I think I’d read she was part Hawaiian—so the short do changed her appearance a lot.
Not enough to keep people from recognizing her though.
“I like your haircut,” I said when the silence was starting to get awkward.
Her hands went to it as if to feel if it was as short as she remembered. “Really? Are you sure? I’m still not used to it.”
For some reason this flash of insecurity endeared her to me. Here was one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she was worried what I thought about her haircut.
“Yeah, it makes your eyes look even bigger.”
She giggled, fanning her long lashes at me as if I were now the best catch in the room. Amazing how some women could turn on the charm like that.
When I’d been younger, Calliope had tried to give me a lesson in flirting. Since she’d once been one of the most sought-after women in the world, it made her an ideal source for tips. In one phase of her life she’d been Marilyn Monroe, so I recognized a Marilyn-style eyelash fan when I saw one. This girl was good. I hadn’t learned half as much from Calliope in person as Willow had from watching her movies.
I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Cal all about this.
The men stared at each other across the table, leaving me and Willow to entertain ourselves. Holden claimed he’d wanted to make Lucas realize what he was
missing, but instead he was opting to give my ex the silent stink eye. A two-hundred-year-old and a twenty-eight-year-old both acting no better than children.
You’d have thought Holden was the one Lucas had stood up at the altar.
“Soooo.” When it was clear neither of them was going to speak, I went on. “Are you working on anything exciting?”
“Oh gosh, yes. I just wrapped up a romantic comedy in Australia last week. I play an American tourist who gets lost in the Outback, and I meet this surly ex-surfer turned survival guide. It was a hoot. But now I’m trying to get into some more serious stuff. You know, playing an ugly hooker, or like…a pregnant housewife in the fifties. Those are the real Oscar-bait roles, and I need to get some positive critical attention for my acting before I get too old.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
And she was already worried about aging? Man, Hollywood was a weird place.
“Do you get Botox?” she asked casually. “Juvéderm? Restylane? Your skin is too amazing to be natural.”
I kept my smile polite. “I stay out of the sun.”
Lucas coughed, at first just a small clearing of the throat until it built into a hacking noise as he tried to fight down what I could only assume was laughter.
Willow patted him on the back but seemed far more interested in my skin-care routine than in Lucas’s wellbeing. “Sunscreen and hats? No more than twenty minutes a day? That sort of thing?”
“Like, zero minutes a day.”
Her eyes went wide. “Is that even possible?”
“Sure. I manage.”
She reached out a hand, brushing my face with her fingers. Holden went tense at my side, like he wanted to slap her away but was fighting the urge. Personally I thought it was rude for her to just up and touch me without asking, but she didn’t linger.
“Wow. Smooth.”
I shrugged. “It’s how my skin has always been.”
“You’re lucky. Pale is really in right now. I was at a Monique Lhuillier show a few weeks ago, and all the models were so pale. And look at me.” She pointed to her skin, which might as well have been lit from within with gold, and sighed like it disgusted her. “I’ll never be pale.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I shifted the conversation in Lucas’s direction. “Red Sox are doing well this year.”
Since he owned the team, I was hoping this might spur him into some kind of discussion. A spark of interest lit his eyes, and he stopped glaring at Holden long enough to look at me. “Yeah, the new GM is doing great things with the team. Our pitchers are costing me the salary of a small island nation, but it looks like it’s paying off. I mean, we still have two months, but I like our chances.” Nodding at his own statement, he took a sip from the water in front of him and relaxed for the first time since we’d sat down.
“Holden, what do you do?” Willow asked.
“I was the editor-at-large of GQ for a while, but now I do personnel management and security in the private sector.”
That was one way to put it.
“And you, Secret?”
“What do I do?”
She laughed, a light sound, but obviously well practiced. “Yes, silly.”
Which of my sordid occupations could I spin into something believable? Werewolf queen was out of the question. Tribunal Leader I might be able to make work for me. “I’m the chair of a, uh…community outreach program in Manhattan. I used to be a private investigator.”
“Used to?”
“I still dabble, but the community program eats up a lot more of my time these days.”
“How interesting.” I could tell she wasn’t interested at all, which had been the point of my phrasing things the way I did. “But private investigating must have been pretty cool.”
“It had its moments.”
“Did you deal with a lot of cheating husbands and bail jumpers? That sort of thing?”
“No, my partner and I did more specialized work. Missing persons, finding stolen objects.” I neglected to mention those objects were usually magical in nature and worth a fortune in finder’s fees.
Apparently taking the tawdry stuff off the table meant Willow lost interest in my PI work. I could have sucked her right back in if I told her I’d once been hired to find the kidnapped niece of the wereocelot queen, but I wasn’t going to use Genevieve Renard’s personal history to impress an actress.
“How did you and Lucas meet?” Holden asked, finally warming up and joining us in polite conversation.
“At a charity fundraiser in New York about a month ago.”
“What charity?”
“Oh.” Willow bit her lip as though she couldn’t recall. “My goodness. How embarrassing. I go to so many events, I can’t—”
Lucas provided the missing answer for her. “It was a campaign supporting children’s literacy. It was Kellen’s pet project, but now that she’s…gone, I’ve stepped up to take over for her.”
The official story we were selling on Kellen was that she’d eloped with a well-to-do oil tycoon from a small foreign country—one of the tiny Eastern European ones—and was planning to live out her remaining days being spoiled by him.
The papers were dying for photos of her wedding—I’d been offered a six-figure sum for anything I could provide—but since no such photos existed, it was easy to turn reporters down.
Kellen was actually the new wife of a high-ranking member in the fairy king’s court, and she would age so slowly there we might all be dead before she looked thirty. But she loved Brokk, and who were Lucas and I to deny anyone their true love? Just because our perfect fairytale wedding had gone down in flames didn’t mean Kellen shouldn’t have her literal fairytale wedding.
One none of us got to see.
I was assured by Calliope, who’d heard it through connections she still had in the fairy court, it had been a rollicking affair. Everyone had enjoyed it thoroughly, and Kellen had received a true fae welcome into the kingdom. Whatever that meant.
“How is Kellen?” Willow asked, like she and Kel had been old besties. “Enjoying her life in Whateveristan?”
“Kyrgyzstan,” I corrected, having practiced the name of the country about a billion times before we went public with the story.
“She’s very happy.” Lucas’s expression was stony. He was never going to forgive me for the part I’d played in letting Kellen go back, especially after everything I’d done to retrieve her.
He could go screw himself because I didn’t care what he thought.
“Very, very happy,” I agreed.
“How wonderful. Although I’m sure the gossip columns will miss her.” Willow shared her practiced laugh with us again, but this time no one else laughed with her. “And of course you’ll miss her too.”
“Excuse me.” Lucas pushed his chair back and rose from the table.
He’d barely left the room before I scraped my own seat backwards and followed him with a, “Be right back.”
Lucas was waiting in the hallway near the washrooms like he’d been expecting me to follow him.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.
“Your girlfriend was the one who invited us. I’m just being polite.”
He glowered at me, his expression clearly saying, Let’s not fucking kid ourselves here. “So you thought what, exactly? The four of us would sit around while you hold hands with your walking corpse, and we’d have a lovely discussion about Kellen? You thought that would be a great goddamn idea?”
“Your girlfriend invited us,” I reminded him.
“She’s not my fucking girlfriend,” he snapped. “I have a wife, and my wife is standing right in front of me.” When he grabbed my shoulders roughly, I struggled to pull back, but his grip was firm. Without resorting to violence I couldn’t wrest myself free, and I didn’t want to make a scene.
Not yet anyway.
“We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m not sure I feel like having it again. I a
m not your wife.” Points for me for not reminding him whose fault that was.
“You are, and it’s about time for you to stop ignoring your duty and come back to the pack.”
I wriggled, making it clear I had no desire to be in his arms, but still he held me. “Lucas. Let me go.”
“Not until you’re willing to listen to reason.”
“Reason? You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re the one who isn’t getting this. You and I aren’t mates anymore. My wolf wants nothing to do with you. If you’d take two seconds to actually feel for her, you’d realize that.”
“What are you talking about? Of course we’re still mated. We completed the ceremony.”
“But that was before. Before the fairy king made me human. When he gave me back my monsters, something changed. It’s like a blank slate. I don’t know how it works, or why, but my wolf doesn’t respond to yours anymore.”
He dropped his arms but loomed closer, sniffing at me the way an animal might. What he was trying to glean from scent alone I wasn’t sure, but maybe his wolf was more finely attuned to that sort of thing.
“What about Desmond?” he asked.
“I can taste him again. The lime. And she wakes up for him,” I told him, hoping to get rid of him. He looked so crushed by that tidbit I almost wanted to touch him, to hold him and comfort him. But I fought against the urge, stepping as far away from him as the narrow hallway would allow. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”
“You’re lying.”
“Lying? About being sorry?”
“No, about all of this. It’s bullshit. A soul-bond can’t be broken. It’s a lifetime commitment. It’s not logical or decisive. It can’t choose to stop working. It’s magic for God’s sake.”
“And magic can’t be understood as easily as science,” I reminded him. “Magic made me human, and then undid it. So who are we to say the bond can’t change? All I know is my wolf isn’t drawn to you anymore.”
“Kiss me,” he said.
“What?”
“Kiss me.”
“No.”
“Secret, I need this.” He stepped closer again, his big body taking up more space than I recalled. His normally blue eyes had gone yellow, taking on a feral quality. His blond hair was longer than it had been the last night I saw him. Right after I’d had him kill five werewolves for me.
