Текст книги "Death of a Pirate King "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Eighteen

His face stilled – except for his eyes. Something blazed back into life there, and I recognized it because I’d felt it when he’d walked back into this room after a two-year absence.

I reached for him, and he wrapped his arms around me, and for a minute it could have been a hug good-bye…or maybe hello…because then his hands smoothed their way down my back, pulling me closer, closing on my hips, drawing me against him, unashamed of his arousal. Naked honesty right there, stretching the soft fabric of his jeans, poking against my groin.

And for once I had nothing to say. Jake’s mouth found mine, his lips molding hot and soft to my own. His tongue tentatively tested the seal of my lips; I parted them and he pushed inside. It was startlingly sweet and achingly familiar, like finding harbor. Like I had been waiting decades for this, traveling leagues, Odysseus sailing at long last into the blue crystal waters of Ithaca – and never considering the trouble ahead.

I lifted my lashes and met Jake’s tawny stare. Another switch flipped, and with something like shock I felt my cock rising as I finally turned back on. My breath caught on a half sob; relief made me a little giddy, and I leaned against him, making fun of us both like his kisses were making me swoon.

But I didn’t fool him. His arms wrapped around me and he said softly, against my ear, “Okay?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding into his shoulder. “You don’t know.” I craned my head, seeking his mouth again, and he was right there, opening to my kiss, welcoming me home.

He tasted dark and bittersweet, like my memories – only more intense. My heart pounded hard, blood drumming away in my ears, like spring’s freshet after the ice began to break. I kissed him with all the hardness and hunger in me – let him feel it all: my anger and grief and frustration. When we finally broke apart Jake didn't look shocked; he looked…predatory. Hot. Ravenous. Forty days in the wilderness and – well, not paradise at the end of it – maybe steak dinner with all the trimmings. His eyes glittered.

“Oh, baby,” he muttered, and I laughed unsteadily as his hands slid beneath my T-shirt, shoving the thin cotton up to find bare skin. And it felt wonderful, those big hard callused hands moving over me, stroking and petting, relearning…

His dick was hard, rock hard through the Levi’s – he had to be in pain – and I pressed closer, rubbing against him. Briefly, I wondered how much of this was me wanting the past back, the remembrance of all that heat and power – tempered with the occasional tenderness – because there were safer and saner ways to relive old times. We weren’t either of us the same people, and this…was…madness.

And yet we were kissing again. We were locked onto each other as though we had just discovered this incredible thing you could do with two mouths pressing close and moist against each other. And the taste of him…the flavor of him… Horrifyingly, unbearably sweet – sweet in the way crack must feel hitting the bloodstream of an addict after years of staying clean.

As our kiss deepened, one of his big hands slid down and palmed my ass, and I groaned, desperate for that closeness – why the hell were we wearing so many clothes on a hot summer night? I wrapped my arms around him, and he moved right into them. He felt harder, leaner, fiercer than I remembered – all taut muscle and energy. He was smiling against my mouth, liking my hunger, my demand.

Fleetingly I wondered what Paul Kane was like with him. What Kate – his wife – was like. But I shunted those thoughts away, because I wasn’t going to stop. Air raid sirens couldn’t have stopped me.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Oh, yeah.” Agreeing with everything I wasn’t saying. Huge mistake this, and we both had to know it – and I’d’ve killed anyone who tried to get between us. His fingers fumbled with the top rivet of my jeans, worked it free as my shaking hands fastened on his waistband, yanked at his belt buckle. He made a furious, desperate sound in the back of his throat, bit the curve of my neck and shoulder.

I sucked in a sharp breath, grabbed at his shirt while he bent to jerk my Levi’s down. A couple of his shirt buttons popped off and flew across the room. My laugh didn’t sound like me, although I thought the idea of him eventually staggering out of my place with his clothes in tatters was pretty damned funny, and he yanked my boxers down, freeing my cock – which immediately began to wave with Pick Me! Pick Me! enthusiasm. Some body parts never learn.

Shrugging out of the damaged shirt, Jake said roughly, “I still dream about you.”

“I have nightmares about you.” I dragged my T-shirt over my head, threw it aside.

He gave another of those choked laughs as he stepped out of his trousers and briefs, his cock bobbing up, looking red and somehow disheveled. And for a strangely polite moment our dicks bowed and scraped to each other in formal greeting – like the first act of The Mikado or something, and then his cock kissed me hello, and mine nuzzled him back. Our attitude queer and quaint, all right.

Jake pulled me back against him, like any space between us was too much, and his dick pressed painfully into my naked belly. I wound my arms around his neck again as he picked me up, backing me against the wall – hard.

“Ow,” I muttered, wriggling into better position as he hefted me higher. I hooked my legs around his hips. I’d forgotten how strong he was.

“Sorry…” His hands smoothed the small of my back as he cradled me close, his face resting in the curve of my shoulder for a moment. “So sorry,” he said, and his voice sounded choked. But maybe it just sounded that way smothered against my skin because when he raised his head, his eyes were dry – shadowy in this light – and there was nothing to read in his face. His breath warmed my face, a hint of beer but mostly just himself.

The blond hair on his chest teased my nipples; his dick was poking rudely up along my crack. I pushed back instinctively, but he shifted so our cocks were rubbing against each other instead. It felt good. Very good. Just that. Friction. It’s not always a bad thing.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I replied ruefully.

He rested one hand against my face, cupping my jaw. I tried to look away, but he leaned in, licking my mouth and then nipping my lower lip, a delicate sting. I closed my eyes and he rubbed his face against mine, the rough velvet of his jaw rasping against my mouth and nose and eyelids.

“I missed you,” he whispered against my face, and he kissed me again.

A shiver rippled through me, and then another, and I was disgusted to find myself trembling – adrenaline overload, that’s all that was. I lowered my brow to his shoulder, humping against him. He humped back and we began to pick up the pace.

Ramming against him, breathing him in, I drew back enough to look down between our bodies and I could see Jake’s cock, wet-tipped and huge and flushed, driving against my own. It was fascinating watching us scraping and parrying with each other, hips rocking, slipping right into that old rhythm.

Not a dream. This was Jake. Jake and me. It was for real. Painfully, exquisitely real.

He hitched me more comfortably against the wall, I threw my head back, banging it, hardly noticing as the two Edward Borein etchings of Spanish missions swung gently back and forth against the plaster. Tightening my thighs around him, I arched my spine. He thrust against me, and I bucked right back. We rubbed and ground against each other in what felt like an increasingly desperate race for release.

The buzz started in the root of my cock, like sparks shooting up – flaring along my nerves like wildfire, racing out of control. My balls tightened, and I jerked my hips in confined, fierce movements. The pictures on the wall rattled.

Jake groaned deep from within, thrusting back hard, and then the past and present seemed to fuse in a white-hot tangle like a magnetic storm dancing across the sun’s surface. I slammed into him, hanging on for dear life, and Jake clutched me back like I was his life preserver in a lake of fire.

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out.

And that fountain of sorrow splashed up between us, baptizing belly and chest and chin. I yelled, and somewhere across the universe heard Jake yelling back.

Echo and answer, and it went on and on in lovely aftershocks, rippling out into infinity until at last it faded away.

And then I sagged forward, utterly spent, emptied…light as air. I felt like I could have floated up and out…slipping through the open window and drifting away across the rooftops and satellite dishes and telephone wires…sailing away into the faintly smiling stars.

He was breathing harshly against my ear. And beyond that sound I could hear the building creaking as though in the wake of a storm.

After a bit Jake regained his breath and gathered me up, and I locked arms and legs around him, letting him carry me into the bedroom.

And I remembered Guy.

Guy.

The man who so often shared this room with me. Who wanted to share my life. My lover.

Who was still writing his ex-lover – who might be with his ex-lover this very moment.

Or who might not.

“You all right?” Jake asked, lowering me to the bed. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not this time,” I said, rolling onto my belly and resting my face in my folded arms.

I had shared this room with Jake before I ever knew Guy.

Not that it made it right. It just…made it what it was.

The mattress springs groaned as Jake collapsed half on top of me, and his hands moved over me, warm, callused hands smoothing over my back and butt, stroking, quieting.

It felt so good to be touched again. Except – I was touched all the time, caressed and petted by Guy, so why did I feel like no one had touched me in years?

Jake continued to rub my back in that soothing way and I stopped thinking – I was getting pretty good at that – and eventually his hand slowed, and stopped. I heard the quiet, even tenor of his breathing as he slept, and I let myself fall after him into the blue-edged darkness of the summer night.

* * * * *

I came awake to someone nuzzling me beneath my ear, and even half asleep I knew the difference, recognized the pleasurable rasp behind my ear. I rolled over, opened my eyes, smiling, memory moving more slowly than physical reaction.

Jake leaned on his elbow over me, gently trailing his fingers down my chest. His hand rested lightly for a moment on my breastbone. I looked down at his hand. His wedding band was simple: yellow gold, an interlocking braid. I could see the gleam in the light from the streetlamps through the lace curtains.

He asked, “How are you feeling?”

I stretched, arched my back, considering the question. Considered why it had never provoked me when Jake asked. Hell, he’d bossed me around more than anyone ever had. One of life’s little mysteries. And despite the fact that tonight I’d broken a couple of my cardinal rules – including the one about married men – I felt relaxed, warm. Better than I’d felt in a long time.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

My mouth tugged into a smile. “Yeah.”

He tickled my ribs lightly, and I drew my knees up, rolling away from him.

“Nah, come back,” he said, and tugged me over. “I’ll stop.”

I flopped back over and stared up at him. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

His mouth contorted briefly. I touched the little frown line between his brows, smoothing it away.

“I figured,” I said. “What’s she like? Kate.”

He seemed to consider the question for a moment, viewing her dispassionately. “Pretty, smart, aggressive.” I saw the flash of white as he smiled faintly at some memory. “She’s a tiger.”

I nodded. She’d have to be, I guessed. I looked back across two years’ worth of wondering, and questioned, “Do you still have that dog? What was his name?”

“Rufus?” He shook his head. “No. He died last year. He was pretty old for a shepherd.”

I remembered once wondering if Rufus would cotton to me. We’d never had a chance to meet, old Rufus and I. Not in a year of seeing Jake.

Had it only been a year? It had seemed much longer. Sometimes it had seemed like a lifetime. But maybe all lifetimes weren’t measured in hours, days, and years.

“Are you living at the same place?” I had only been to his little house in north Glendale once, waiting for Jake on our way somewhere – somewhere he had no doubt been terrified to be seen with me.

“Yeah.” He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling fan’s blur moving above us in the gloom. “We were going to move, but when we lost the baby we decided there was no hurry. It’s big enough for two.”

We. I wondered why I had started this line of conversation. Really not a good idea.

We listened to the fan whirring softly, spinning away. He asked, “So you’re finally expanding the bookstore?”

I nodded.

He didn’t ask anything else. Apparently I remained a lot more curious about him than he was about me. That reminded me of something, though.

I turned my head, studying his face in the dimness. “Guy said he saw you parked on the street in front of the bookstore a few times.”

He closed his eyes, his mouth curving in an odd expression that was not truly a smile. “Twice. I thought he spotted me. I wanted to talk to you, and you weren’t taking my phone calls.” He opened his eyes. I could see their shine like something feral in the night. “By the second time it was obvious he was pretty much living here, and I wondered what the fuck I thought I was doing.”

I had no answer to that. I wondered what the fuck we thought we were doing now. He moved suddenly, shifting around. He bent, rubbing his face against my cock, leisurely running his tongue down its length, tasting from base to tip.

I jumped and then sighed, settling more comfortably in the sheets, enjoying this, enjoying the care and attention from Jake’s soft and warm mouth – hard to believe a man who could say such hard things could have such a sweet and soft mouth.

He took his time lapping at my skin, coaxing it back to sensation and reaction. I murmured my pleasure. Stretching out alongside me, his soft, sweet lips pressed my own and his hand closed on my hip, guiding me, the other hand linking fingers with me. That was nice. I didn’t remember ever holding hands with him before.

“Something funny?”

“Well, yeah,” I said.

He didn’t ask what – maybe he knew it was better not to know. His mouth feathered over my skin, drifted to my shoulders, traced my collarbone. He’d shaved before coming over. For some reason I found that touching.

I half turned, humping against him and he stroked my flank, his mouth fastening on my nipple, and the sting of pleasure was surprising. Funny thing because I had never liked that from anyone but Jake. Somehow when it was Jake sucking that tight little nub, discreetly teething, it was different. I groaned and thrust up at him.

“Can I have you?” Jake asked.

“Uh, you can borrow me,” I said shakily, and he said gravely, “Thank you. I promise to return you in working order.”

My skin felt too tight for my body, too hot, my heart pounding too hard – and I thought that it would be nice to go out like this, check out in a kind of spontaneous combustion of sweat and sex and semen.

Serve him right to be stuck with the body.

He thrust back against me, slow and easy, and I heard myself making a keening sound as he tongued and tugged my nipple.

“Oh, yeah,” Jake said in a guttural whisper, “you do love that.” His thumb tracked the wet slit of my cock, stroking, tracing. I could feel his own prick, engorged and beginning to push for attention, needy and neglected.

The nightstand drawer scraped open, and I heard him fishing around. I resented his notion that he would know where to find the things he needed, that I had changed so little – but the fact was, I hadn’t changed in the little things. And maybe not as much as I wished in the big things.

Finding what he needed, he attended to himself with quick efficiency. I rolled over, stretched out, and he stroked a light, possessive hand down my spine. “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed of this.”

I shook my head – I’d had dreams too, but there was no point talking about this stuff. His finger tracked the crack of my ass, teasing as he found the sensitive places. I moaned, squirming into that touch, separating my legs, offering him access. The sheets felt cool on my belly and my half-hard cock.

His hand rested on my shoulder. “I want to watch your face.”

“Closet romantic too, huh?” I said, but I let him guide me over onto my back, and I bit back the other things I could have said, pulling my knees up, opening for him.

Taking my cock in his big hand, he said, “You’re the most beautiful guy I’ve ever had.”

I snorted, thinking he probably said that to all the beautiful guys – assuming there was time for talk between the beatings.

Then his slick fingers circled my hole, pressed a fingertip inside, and withdrew.

I gulped.

Watching my face – though he couldn’t have seen much in the soft darkness – he pressed in again, a little further, and I closed my eyes, wanting to focus on the feel and forget the emotions of it. A second finger followed, and then he flexed his hand, and I felt that knowing press on the spongy tissue of prostate – too knowing, but I focused on that sensation and shut out the rest of it, letting him stretch and stroke me as though it were my first time, giving into his strange pretense that I was fragile and terribly precious to him.

His cock entered me slowly, pushing with great care. I tried to rush him, tried to push back and capture his prick with my body – reduce it to basics: a fuck. But he wouldn’t be hurried; he took his time, kissed my collarbone, the hollow of my throat, all the time shoving slowly past the ring of muscle, making it last and last, and then he was in, and we were sharing the same body, adjusting to the fit, trying on for size this being one. I wrapped my legs around him, pressed my mouth to his shoulder, bit him – paying him back for earlier. He grunted.

Pushing against him, I urged him to action, and we began the seesaw of push and pull, rock and roll, lock and load – physical sensation – and I didn’t want to think more closely about it than that.

His hand wrapped around my dick – and astonishingly enough, he was right: I was getting hard. Weeks of nobody home and suddenly it was like I was sixteen again and my parents were gone for the weekend. And there was no need to say what I liked, a little tighter, a little faster – because he knew exactly what I liked – memory or just very good instincts. His hand slid up and down, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure, that smooth, knowing skid of skin on skin. It could have been my own hand, but it was so much better because it was Jake’s.

He thrust into me, pumped me, we found the old rhythm, the pattern, the old steps, the way through the wood – and it moved beyond words or coherent thought, just skin and warmth and that hum of exquisite tension as it built and built, his hand jerking me off, his cock lancing past my gland, fast and faster – and a little frantic –

I felt him stiffen and then heard him shout.

He kissed me again.

We lay there for a while and then he slid out of me.

After a time he said, “I can’t stay.”

“I know.”

He didn’t move and then finally he sat up, wearily. He went into the hallway; the light came on, throwing a golden bar across the floor and bed. I listened to him dressing.

He came back in – a broad silhouette – and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Adrien…”

I smiled. “I know.”

But I didn’t, because what he said was, “I want you in my life – you can set the parameters.”

“Oh my God.” I pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes. “Jake.”

“What?”

“What? You know what. We can’t pick up where we left off. And I can’t be pals with you.”

“Then what the hell was this?” The anger and hurt in his voice was painful to hear.

I sat up, forcing him to retreat. “You know what the hell this was, Jake. This was us saying good-bye properly.”

Chapter Nineteen

When I was sixteen I managed to catch rheumatic fever – no easy feat, by the way – and it left the valves of my heart damaged; the mitral valve in particular, which was the culprit in my current predicament. Lisa was convinced I’d never see eighteen, and I spent several months convalescing in bed like somebody in a 1920s novel, before I finally put my foot down – both physically and metaphorically.

But in addition to reading everything I could lay my hands on during that long enforced period of inactivity, I watched a lot of TV, so I was very familiar with Marla Vincenza’s work – and “work” was probably the right word for it if running around like a maniac under the blazing Etruscan sun was anything to go by.

During the sixties, a very young Marla starred in a lot of those schlocky Italian historical dramas, and while I didn’t find her escapades as Amazon or Arabian princess quite as entertaining as I did the glistening and muscle-bound adventures of Steve Reeves and his ilk, I did have a certain fondness for her cinematic ventures. She made a truly chilling Medea, as I recalled.

She looked good for a woman in her sixties – much better than either Ally or Nina did – trim and fit. Despite those years filming in the sun, she had taken good care of her skin. Her hair was an unlikely brown, but it was skillfully done. She was surprisingly petite given how convincingly she had portrayed lady pirates and warrior queens.

“I have to say I’m a little vague on why you wanted to meet,” she informed me, leading me through her spacious and lavishly decorated Santa Barbara hacienda. “You said you’re working in connection with the police?”

“Er…yes,” I said. And to cover that unconvincing “er” – and because I really wanted to know, I asked, “I’ve just realized – they used your real voice, didn’t they, in those sword and sandal epics?”

“Sword and skivvies, don’t you mean?” She was amused. “Yeah, they used my voice. I grew up in Little Italy. My grandparents were from Sicily. I spoke Italian like a native before I ever set foot in Europe.”

“Did you meet Porter in Italy?”

“I did. Jonesy was interested in the historical epic market. In the end, he decided he preferred America and American film making – and I came back home with him.”

We settled on the tiled patio beside the oblong pool. Marla’s garden was filled with tropical flowers and fountains and small-scale classical statuary. “How long were you married?”

She gave me a quizzical look. “Over thirty years. Do you think I knocked Porter off because he dumped me for Ally Bally Beaton?” She poured pink lemonade from a pitcher on the table, and I noticed she wore wedding rings. As far as I knew, she’d never remarried.

“It’s hard to believe you’d wait five years to do it.”

“Well, you know what they say: revenge is a dish best served cold.”

I had a sudden memory of her as Medea.

“True, I guess.” I studied her. “But something tells me Porter’s life with Ally would have supplied all the revenge you needed.”

She burst out laughing. “Very good, sport! Yeah, that little bitch made poor old Jonesy’s life a misery. Served him right.” But her eyes were sparkling with humor. “So if you don’t think I knocked my ex off, why exactly are you here?”

I said, “I got the impression that you and Porter stayed friends despite everything.”

She inhaled slowly and let it out quietly. “This is true,” she said.

“Did you know he was terminally ill?”

“Yeah. He came straight to me when he got the news.”

“To you?”

She lifted a slender shoulder. “Like you said, we stayed close. Or, I guess, we grew close again.”

“Who else knew that Porter was ill?”

“He didn’t take an ad out in Variety, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Did Ally know?”

“Not at first. He told her after he decided to…” She didn’t finish, lifting her lemonade to her lips. “He shared it with a few trusted friends.”

“Was he going to divorce Ally?”

“In the end, no.” Her smile was tight. “In the end, she convinced him that she did love him.”

“That must have taken some doing.”

“I always told him she was a better actress than he gave her credit for.”

“But he knew about the affair, right?”

“With the health nut? He knew everything. He hired a private dick to follow her. But she broke off the relationship, and she was willing to k –” She swallowed hard.

“She had an abortion, I know. She got pregnant with Duncan Roe’s child, and then terminated the pregnancy.”

Marla looked at me, and I was dismayed to see the glistening in her eyes. “We didn’t have children,” she said. “I wanted them, but we weren’t able to have them.” Rather hastily, she retrieved her glass and sipped more lemonade. “Ally wanted to stay married. I give her points for resolve.”

I tried my lemonade. Lots of ice and the pink was nice, but it tasted like the regular kind of lemonade as far as I could tell. “You were on the yacht the night Langley Hawthorne died, weren’t you?” I asked.

Her sloe eyes flashed to mine. “Now there’s an interesting leap of subject. Yeah, I was there. We were all there. The old crowd.”

“What did you think about that accident of Hawthorne’s?”

She stared at me for a long moment. “I thought it was very sad. He was a charming man, Langley. A real gentleman. And it was a tragedy for Nina. She was a very troubled young woman.”

“How did it happen?”

She shook her head. “They were playing cards. Langley, Al, Paul, Jonesy. And drinking. We always drank too much when we got together for those weekends. All I know is Langley went on deck to get some air. He didn’t come back, and when they found him, it was too late.”

I’d read a bit about Langley’s accident so I knew that he had apparently hit his head going over the side – although exactly where and how had never been determined. However, it was the single inconsistency in the case. Langley’s blood alcohol content had been high enough to sink an armada.

“I think I read you were in your cabin asleep?”

“Yes, Nina and I had turned in earlier. It was just the boys being boys. I woke up when I heard the commotion on deck…when they were searching for him.”

A butterfly swooped down to a feeder hanging from one of the silver dollar eucalyptus trees. I watched it for a moment, its fragile wings opening and closing languidly in the dappled sunlight.

I said, “Did you ever wonder whether Langley’s death might not have been an accident?”

After a moment, she said, “That’s another one of those odd leaps. What are you getting at, Mr. English?”

“I have a suspicious mind,” I admitted. “Hawthorne’s death left two people very wealthy. And it was the kind of accident that can be…something else.”

“Those two people loved Hawthorne.”

But the interesting thing was the way she said it – like it was something she had often puzzled over herself. She didn’t reject the notion of Hawthorne being murdered – in fact, it was something she had considered.

I said slowly, “Did Porter ever mention anything about writing his memoirs?”

Marla was motionless. Her gaze rested on the glass-smooth surface of the pool. The sunlight through the tree leaves speckled the water with snakeskin shadows.

She said at last, “Jonesy was always saying he was going to write his memoirs.”

“But did he actually ever start them?”

She nodded. “He was working on them. He wanted to finish them before he…” She sipped her lemonade. “You know what you’re suggesting?” she asked when she could.

“Yeah.” I said, “Do you know what happened to those memoirs?”

She shrugged her shoulders – very Italian in that moment. “At home in Bel Air, I guess. If that little bitch didn’t dump them with everything else of his.”

“You don’t think he would have taken some precaution to keep them safe?”

She stared at me. “It wouldn’t occur to him. Jonesy wouldn’t be thinking along those lines. He wouldn’t consider…” She smiled, and I recognized that smile from many a candlelit cinematic moment. “Jonesy was no Machiavelli,” she said.

We talked a little more, I finished my lemonade, and then I left her in her lush suburban paradise with the sound of the lawn birds and pool generator filling the silence.

* * * * *

When I got back to the bookstore it was after closing and Natalie was sitting inside with the security gate drawn and the lights off. She was crying.

“What happened?” I questioned, grabbing the box of tissues from beneath the counter. “Did something happen to the cat?”

“To the cat? I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. I’m crying because –” I lost the rest of it as she sobbed the words into the Kleenex.

“Sorry?”

She looked up with red, swollen eyes. “I said, I asked Warren if he wanted to move in together and he said no.”

That was the best news I’d heard all day, but I said, “Oh. Well…”

“Well what?”

So many things I could have said, but none of them would be conducive to peace, love, and harmony. I said, groping, “Uh…did he give you a reason?”

“He said he wasn’t ready.”

“Well…that seems…reasonable.”

“After three months?”

She was talking to the wrong person. I asked curiously, “Why do you want to move in with Warren?” I could just imagine what Warren’s pad was like – what Warren was like in his own lair. What a shame parents couldn’t send their wayward daughters off to the Continent anymore to get them over these disastrous misalliances.

“Why? Because I love him,” she said very clearly. “And because I can’t stand living in that house with Lisa.”

I blinked at her. “Oh.”

Her face crumpled and she sobbed into the tissue some more. Then she said, muffled, “It’s nothing against Lisa. Really. I love her. But…it’s her house now. I don’t belong there anymore. And if Lauren moves home…”

“Why would Lauren move home?”

“She and Beavis are getting divorced.”

Beavis? Oh. The Corporate Clone. When had all this happened? Where had I been?

I said, “Couldn’t you just get a place on your own? Moving in with someone because you’re not happy at home doesn’t seem like the right –”

“I just told you, I love him. Don’t you have any useful guy advice?” She glared at me – and with those red eyes, it was pretty scary. Medea could have learned a trick or two from my stepsis.

“Right. Okay. Well, here’s my guy advice. Drop it, Natalie. Don’t mention it to Warren again. Let him see that you’re okay with it. I mean, if you want to keep seeing him.” Which I could not for the life of me imagine.