Or better? In some very disturbing ways, she wanted what Wolf—damn it, the wolf—offered. Wanted it so bad that she hardly dared to admit the truth to herself, much less Custo.
She surveyed the crowded interior. The wolf was somewhere in this super-stunning place, plotting how to ruin her life so much that she didn’t want it anymore. Should she hide under the covers, afraid of the wolf (and herself), or live her life?
Damn it, Custo was right. She’d worked too hard to get to this glittering apartment, to receive that welcome applause.
Okay, back to basics.
Chin up, she commanded herself. The phrase was one of the most common corrections in the ballet classroom, especially for the youngest little dancers. Shoulders back. Another common correction. Tummy in.
One hour, Custo had promised. She could manage a little poise for that long. Heck, she’d go for two. Poise was her specialty.
A glittering assemblage of people halted her progress with congratulations and effusive compliments. “Magical!” “Transported!” “Inspired!” The fact that these comments were close to the truth dampened any pleasure she would have taken from them. But she was an actress, too, so she smiled and blushed and thanked the company’s patrons for their kind words.
She double-kissed Jasper, who embraced her, and took a picture with Venroy, who was disappointed she’d missed company class that morning. Oh, well.
Custo steered her, unnecessarily, through the groups and into a gathering room off to the side. A large, gorgeous table was the only furniture in the room.
“Have a drink.” Custo shoved a glass of wine into her hand. “This party is for you; it’s okay for you to enjoy it.”
Annabella frowned at him as the fruity smell wafted up from the glass and tickled her nose. Maybe not a good idea on an empty stomach. “I am enjoying it.”
“Anna!” a familiar female voice shouted over the party din.
Annabella looked over her shoulder. Katrina beckoned to her. She stood with a circle of girls to one side, a group largely forgotten by the rest of the people at the party.
Annabella disengaged herself from Custo, though he grabbed her hand while some old cougar with obnoxious breasts purred at him.
“Hey,” Annabella said, faking a smile, “drunk yet?”
“You weren’t at class this morning. Everyone was looking for you.” Katrina’s eyes were bright, her face flushed. Yeah, a little drunk.
Annabella opened her mouth to speak, but Katrina continued, “Ohmygod! You have to tell us. Is there something between you and Jasper? We thought he was gay!”
The others shushed her, but Katrina went on, full voice, “and there he was fighting that hot guy over you—who is he, by the way?—as soon as the curtain went down. Venroy is soooo pissed, but somebody heard him on the phone singing your praises, so he can’t be that pissed, if you know what I mean. What is going on?”
Damage control. Annabella mustered some calm to dampen Katrina’s spirits. “Jasper is still gay, as far as I know. He just took something that screwed things up in his head. Some weird herb, I think. He’s okay now.”
“And him?” Katrina grinned stupidly at Custo’s back. A couple others giggled into their glasses.
“A friend.”
“A good friend,” Katrina corrected.
Annabella shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what he is.”
“Look, if you don’t want him—”
Custo chose that opportune moment to turn back and whisper in her ear. “If you are done here, you should probably do a little more face time with the big patrons or we’ll be here all night, friend.”
“I’m done,” Annabella answered, but not because he said so. She loved gossip; she just couldn’t stand to be on the exciting side of it. If she tried to tell them about the wolf, they’d call a bunch of men in white lab coats to lock her up.
Oh, wait…that had already happened, at Segue.
She and Custo moved beyond the hallway into a receiving room of sorts. Still no wolf, but plenty of moody shadows. The room had little furniture to accommodate the party, only a console table along the back wall and some trim, upholstered chairs. The walls held family portraits, tiny museum spotlights highlighting their faces.
“Brava!” a woman’s voice announced as they entered. A small circle opened to admit Annabella, with Custo at her back.
“Thank you so much, but it’s really the whole company—” Annabella broke off as Custo’s arm circled her waist and pulled her hard against him. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
Oh, no. Something was wrong. Again. Where was he? Where was the wolf?
Her heart gulped into acceleration. She glanced over her shoulder at Custo to find the source of the danger, but his gaze was fixed on a man, not a monster.
The man was older, but not old. Tall and broad across his shoulders. Maybe in his fifties with dashing branches of laugh lines winging out from his eyes. He had a full head of salt and pepper, and the same strange mossy green eyes as— Oh. Small world.
“I thought you were dead,” the man said.
“I am,” Custo answered, dang cold for speaking to his father. If she ever dared answer her mom that way, there’d have been hell to pay.
“I went to your funeral,” the man insisted.
Talk in the circle of wealth and congratulations halted completely.
“You shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Was it a ruse?” the man demanded. “Are you in trouble again?”
Custo seemed to attract trouble. And he was contrary and difficult, and sometimes outright mean. The man’s conclusion that Custo might have faked his death did actually seem more plausible than the truth.
The man stared unblinking at Custo for a moment, a million disquieted thoughts in his eyes, but even she could tell that theirs was a conversation best saved for someplace private.
Custo’s arm constricted further at her waist as the man’s gaze shifted down to her. “I’m Evan Rotherford.”
Custo pulled her back so that the man’s outstretched hand was beyond her reach. Annabella leaned forward anyway. Her fingertips were grasped in a polite, old-fashioned nice-to-meet-you.
“Astonishing performance last night. You held me spellbound,” Mr. Rotherford said. His voice had that flat New England inflection. Money. “I’ve been a ballet aficionado all my life, but I have never been so moved.” He glanced over at Custo. “The appreciation for ballet must run in the—”
“We’re done here,” Custo said. He towed her back, and the connection between her and Custo’s father was broken.
Custo assumed most of her weight as he propelled her toward the arch of the room’s entryway. Annabella adjusted her bearing to make their partnered exit look as natural as possible, but it was a little difficult what with her feet barely touching the floor. A lifetime of dance classes for this? They pushed across the hallway into the opposite room, architecturally similar to the other, but with an open arrangement of sofas occupied by little old ladies nursing short, strong drinks.
Annabella tried to look back, but Custo gave her a rib-cracking squeeze.
Custo’s father had seemed nice enough to her. He’d gushed over that cursed performance, which proved he had taste. Whatever had happened between him and his son couldn’t have been that bad. He was genuinely shocked by Custo’s appearance, though not by Custo’s rude behavior, so it had to be old history. Weren’t angels supposed to be forgiving?
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Custo said, preempting any discussion.
“But you’re his son.”
“I’m his bastard,” Custo bit out. “He taught me the word himself. When I was four. When he fired my mother from his staff and kicked us out of his house.”
Annabella ignored Custo’s vise grip and craned her head over her shoulder to see if she could get another glimpse of the man. She had to have read him wrong. Someone that cruel couldn’t look so handsome, so charming.
Evan was cro
ssing the hallway in pursuit.
“Just make your rounds so we can get out of here,” Custo said.
She couldn’t very well say anything to anyone while he was holding on to her so tightly. And besides, the little old ladies looked like they were more interested in Custo than her.
“Hear me out,” Evan said, as he caught up with them, “that’s all I ask.”
Custo ignored him, growling in her ear. “Who do you need to talk to?”
Uh…“I should probably check with Mr. Venroy again…” Annabella’s answer trailed off. She didn’t think Custo was paying attention to her anymore. Or looking out for the big bad wolf. Custo’s eyes were unfocused, fixed on a blank wall, but his expression was hard.
“I don’t have to listen to this,” Custo said. He dragged her on, leaving his father agape behind them, an arm lifted, empty palm up.
Whatever Evan had done in the past, he was obviously very sorry.
Custo was having none of it. He plowed through the crowd to the door, dragging her with him.
Custo had said that she needed to attend the reception for an hour. She’d vowed to herself to try for two. And yet, here they were leaving not twenty minutes after arrival, and it was Custo who was running away. The irony was killing her, though with the current drama unfolding, she didn’t have the nerve to point it out. Later, for sure.
She bit her lips in the elevator when Custo couldn’t get a mobile phone signal to call their driver. He was cursing when he finally connected in the lobby and hauled her out of the building to the curb to hail a cab. “I don’t care that you thought we’d be longer,” he snarled into the phone. “I needed you here now. It’s unconscionable that you would leave your post for a moment.”
Cabs rolled down the street, but none stopped at Custo’s wave.
Behind them, the door to the apartment building gasped open. Custo’s father emerged. Tenacity must have run in the family, too.
“I was wrong,” Evan said. “Even then, I knew I was wrong.” His words had a gravity decades in the making, a note of pain that only profound loss could create.
Custo kept his face turned away, arm raised. “I don’t care. Leave me alone.”
“No. I left you alone for too long, and you died.” That last little word ripped a hole in her heart. “Or at least I thought you had. If I leave you alone now, I know I’ll never see you again.”
“You made that choice a long time ago.”
A cab finally took pity on Custo, and he wrenched open the door before the car came to a full stop.
Annabella didn’t need the hard yank toward the waiting seat to know he wanted her to get in quickly. The combined smells of urine and cigarette smoke were bitter, but faint. She sidled over to make room for Custo, then leaned back toward him when he didn’t immediately get in himself.
“—you stay the hell away from her,” Custo was saying.
“Our family has been donating to the ballet since its inception. I’m not going to stop now. You’ll just have to deal with it. With me.”
“Get your hand off me.” Custo’s voice came out in a guttural rumble that had her cringing. His body jerked and he lowered himself abruptly into the cab, slamming the door.
Only Evan’s dark suit was visible through the partial obstruction of the window.
“Go!” Custo shouted at the driver, who had to wait several beats for a break in traffic.
Annabella was glad Evan kept back. In the two days since she’d known Custo, he’d been beaten, distressed, angry, but never…undone. Near frantic. How was it that this strong man, an angel, could face all sorts of monsters but not his own father?
The car nosed out to the blare of a horn, and then bullied its way into the slow stream moving toward the traffic light.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Custo didn’t answer. His gaze hovered on the door handle, distracted. His shoulders and chest rose and fell with great, unsteady breaths. His skin, usually a very pale gold, had reddened with feeling.
Annabella sat forward. “Umm…” She had no idea where Segue was, and her place was definitely out of the question. She never wanted to go back there again. The wolf could find her anywhere, eventually, so why not…
“A hotel,” she said. Give Custo some space to breathe and get a grip on himself.
The cabdriver scowled. “Which one?”
Her credit card had about $300 left on it. Her bank account had half that. “Somewhere inexpensive, but close.”
In the corner of her eye she saw Custo shift. “Scratch that. East Thirteenth Street and Broadway.”
“Where are we going?” Annabella ventured, sitting back.
“Nowhere,” Custo answered. “I’m sorry about your party.” His voice had mellowed, but he still wouldn’t look at her.
“I didn’t want to go anyway.” Not the time to needle him about their length of stay. She needed him back in the present, ready to face whatever came out of the shadows. If the wolf were looking for a weak moment, this was it. Annabella glanced around nervously.
Custo shook his head. “You should be there.”
“Yeah, well, I prefer to remain dramatically mysterious. I don’t think my rep will suffer; the other dancers already think I’m a diva.”
That got a wry, sidelong glance. “Diva?”
“I am very dedicated to my craft. Maybe too dedicated.”
“I noticed,” he said. “A little more balance might be in order.”
Annabella let him change the subject for the moment. “Doesn’t work that way.”
“I imagine not,” he said, then fell silent again.
She chewed a lip wondering how to help him. Passing street lamps were a slowly modulating strobe of sharp light, dazzling her eyes. “I don’t want to meddle, but”—she took a deep breath—“seems to me like you have some family history that needs to be resolved.”
Custo’s expression turned sick. “Don’t go there. My head is still full of him; I don’t think I can take much more.”
Annabella waited a beat, considering. No, it was too important. She knew from personal experience. “It’s just that…It’s your dad. Mine ran out on us a long, long time ago, but I’d give anything to sit down for coffee with him. I’ve been fantasizing about it since I was a kid.”
He shook his head in denial. “I spent a lot of wasted time growing up imagining a happy future with my father. The kind of life that Adam had with his family.”
“Seems like you have another chance now.”
“I don’t want it.” His voice was rough. “And I don’t want him meddling in your life either.”
She shrugged. “I don’t even know him.”
Custo strained toward her. “He’s going to find out everything he can about you. He’s going to give your company more money. He’s going to use all his influence to surround your life. He’s going to try to talk to you to get to me.” He swallowed hard. “Promise me you won’t have anything to do with him.”
“Why would I?” Though it wasn’t like she could tell the company to give back the man’s money.
“When he calls you tomorrow, promise me you’ll hang up on him.”
Custo was trying to save her from the Shadow wolf. Her side wasn’t hard to pick. “Okay, fine. I’ll hang up or whatever if he tries to get in touch with me.”
It was too bad about his relationship with his father. Not everyone is so lucky to have a chance at reconciliation, and he was throwing it away. She’d give anything for five minutes to understand hers. Five freaking minutes, but no…
“He will,” Custo insisted. “It was all he could think about when he saw you.”
“I’m pretty sure he was thinking about you.”
Custo put the heels of his palms to his eyes. “No. He’s thinking about you as a way to get to me. About how he finally has a connection to exploit. I can’t get him out of my head. Nothing my whole life, and now he’s entrenched in my mind. He’s already got a list of people he’s going to contac
t tomorrow morning. He’s going to talk to your director, Mr. Venroy, right now.”
A chill washed over Annabella’s body. Custo kept saying things like that. She hadn’t thought much of it before, but now…“What do you mean out of your head?”
“I mean I can hear my old man in my fucking head.” His hands moved to grip his skull. The muscles on his jaw rippled as he clenched his teeth.
Annabella darted a glance at the cabdriver only to see him drop his eyes from the rearview mirror to the road. Yeah, you just watch where you’re going.
She shifted closer to Custo. “You mean you can hear what he’s thinking? You can read people’s minds?”
“Some better than others.”
Annabella was pretty sure she was part of the “some.” He’d said, done, too many things to be merely observant. Damn it—she’d been practically begging him to touch her since they first met. Imagining his hands everywhere…No wonder they seemed to have danced right over the preliminaries and got right to the heavy stuff. Simple flirting was nearly impossible when all she could think about was—
Her gaze flew to his face, body rapidly flushing from chilled to heated embarrassment.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, voice rough and strained. “I’ve wanted you just as bad, and I showed as much this morning.”
And did he know about the sick thrill she got from the wolf? From the Shadow magic?
Custo looked outside his window.
The burn in her face intensified. This was not okay with her.
She sat back against the door, putting as much distance between them as she could. She didn’t want to be cold about his whole dad thing, but this was…was just…not okay.
The rest of the freak show stuff she’d handled, not well, but she’d handled. She’d seen and been told some scary shit and she hadn’t run screaming from any rooms or been drugged happy and drooling. Of course, the wraith thing she’d known about. They were all over the news and online. She’d never seen one, but the authority of the nightly news had, in a little way, prepared her for the idea of the existence of other spooky beings.
But still…People had the right to pick and choose the thoughts they shared.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 37
