Stakes & Stilettos - Michelle Rowen [60]
“I don’t know for certain.” Her words were clipped. “All I can say is to be careful, my dear. Be very careful until the curse is broken.”
“Can you tell me more about these nightwalkers?”
“I do not wish to discuss more unpleasantries. I must go now.”
“Wait… are you going to sign the papers?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think that I will.”
My knuckles were white on the phone. “Why not?”
“I will need to give it some thought.”
“What thought? You don’t love him. You don’t want to be with him.”
“Marriage has very little to do with love, my dear. I have tolerated your relationship with my husband only because I felt that it was a minor distraction that had no future. But this is the first time I have been presented with such nonsense as the end of our marriage because of some silly, inconsequential girl. Now, please have my husband”—she enunciated the word—“call me at his earliest convenience.”
She hung up.
I glared at the phone after slamming it back in the receiver. If she had been here I would probably have bitten her. Hard. And that wasn’t exactly an empty threat anymore.
Why did everything have to be so complicated? Couldn’t I have what I wanted in life? Just once? Just one time without any gauntlets to run through first?
No, I didn’t think so.
So now what? I stared at the phone that I’d decided was the cause of all my problems. Stupid phone. What now?
The phone rang again.
Damn evil phone!
I picked it up and held it to my ear. “What?”
“Is that any way to answer the telephone?”
I frowned. “Who is this?”
“You still don’t recognize me?”
My eyes narrowed. “Stacy. Good to hear from you. How’s it going?”
“You won’t even give me the courtesy of sounding surprised that I managed to find out where you are and get the phone number? You think this shit is easy?”
“Save it. I’m not in the mood.”
She tsked her tongue. “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Let’s get right to it. I want for us to meet. And I insist that you don’t bring your boyfriend or your large hulking bodyguard along or I may get very angry with you.”
Not that Butch probably would come twenty feet near me at the moment.
I let out a long breath and rubbed my temples with one hand. “Look, Stacy, I’ve been thinking a lot about high school. And what you’ve done to me is horrible, but I’m starting to understand it.”
“You’re ready to apologize to me? An actual, sincere apology this time?”
“Yeah. Definitely. I’m s—”
“No,” she cut me off. “Not over the phone. I want you to apologize to my face.”
My jaw tightened. “Is that really necessary?”
“Why, are you afraid of me?”
You should be the one who’s afraid, I thought darkly, and I knew right then that I wasn’t afraid of this messed-up bitch in the slightest. Annoyed and pissed off, yeah. But not afraid.
“Of course I’m afraid,” I said instead. “I’d be stupid if I wasn’t. You’ve obviously got a lot of power at your fingertips. I’ll never watch reruns of Bewitched with the lights off again.”
“I promise not to use my magic against you tonight,” she said.
“And I’d believe you because?”
“Because you have no other choice, do you? Tell me, is your boyfriend still alive?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “Of course he is.”
“Hmm, I would have thought that the two of you would have torn each other’s throats out by now. Your restraint, or his, is quite admirable. Especially given his past.”
“What the hell do you know about him?”
She laughed softly. “Only that he is a man of many secrets. I’d love to tell you one of his best-kept secrets, Sarah. After your humble apology, and perhaps some groveling.”
Before I opened my mouth to tell her to go to hell, she continued. “The park across from your little vampire bar. Ten minutes.”
She hung up.
I didn’t like that she knew where I was. She seemed to know a lot of my business and it made me extremely uncomfortable.
Ten minutes. Okay. I stood up and clutched the side of the desk. I actually wasn’t scared, which was a new sensation for me. I think Veronique’s phone call had infused me with some seething unpleasantness that was giving me the equivalent