“Okay, well, at least we have that,” she replied. “Are you going to give me an ETA?”
I sipped my drink. “No. I can’t do that. I don’t know when I’m going to finish. If I’m going to finish.”
“If?” she all but shrieked into the phone. Gianna was Italian. Hot-tempered. She liked to yell and loved to swear. I’d never heard her pump this much into a two-letter word before.
“There is no if,” she spanned. “You’re meant to be writing stories. Giving people escapes into elegantly written nightmares. You create something. Something tangible. Something very important.”
“Beyond your fifteen percent?” I asked dryly.
“That’s an important part, sure,” she returned.
One of the things I liked about her, why she had been my agent this entire time, despite the fact her more experienced contemporaries had tried to seduce me with money and deals to get away from her. They all pretended they had my best interests at heart, wanted to be my friend.
Gianna didn’t want to be my friend. She didn’t have my best interests at heart. She had my books, and then hers. In that order. She never lied about that, about the fact she didn’t really like me as a person, but tolerated that because she loved me as an author.
“But you’re not a person to be traipsing around fucking Washington, almost dying,” she continued.
I was surprised she even knew that. Katy wouldn’t have told her, since that would’ve required her to make any kind of conversation that wasn’t essential. And as far as I knew, Gianna didn’t have any of Katy’s contact details.
Then again, Gianna was an impressive human being. If she wanted something, she got it. And she’d been likely scouring my very sparse social circle, trying to figure out how to get a hold of me. I wouldn’t have put it past her to harass Katy at work and for Katy to get quickly frustrated enough about the waste of her time to betray my secrets.
“How selfish can you be? How stupid?” Gianna continued, not feeling the need to ask me how I was holding up or express any form of concern. I liked that about her. “If you hadn’t been found, you would’ve robbed the world of your talent. And me of my fifteen percent. I get you’re going through shit. You’re processing by being semi fucking suicidal, but not all the way, since I know you’re too narcissistic to actually do the deed. But you’re withering a talent away because, what? It’s too hard to think of a story? I’m calling bullshit on that too. I’m not inside your head but I can take a guess at the fact it’s a pit full of fucking snakes, all scrambling, slithering, to sink their fangs in, put their venom inside you.
“You are not short on trauma, Mags, life has made sure of that. But that means you’re not short on stories either. What you’re also carrying around of excess of, is bullshit. Stop throwing it at me, and most importantly, yourself. Write a fucking book. It doesn’t have to be the one we’ve pitched. I’ll handle the publishers if you want to change. But don’t just sit idle, like a normal, lazy person with a mental illness. You’re better than that.”
Then she hung up the phone.
I stared at it. Yes, I really liked my agent, even if she didn’t like me.
“Trouble?” Deacon asked, grinning.
I smiled back, not in happiness; the “fuck you” smile I’d perfected over the years. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“That, I believe. Seems to me you’re a woman that can not only handle trouble, but it breeds around you.”
He was not wrong.
I hadn’t seen Saint since the sex marathon.
Which was expected.
We were playing a game.
Or at least, I was.
It could’ve been possible he’d gotten what he wanted from me and would never darken my door or deign to save my life again.
There was a chance of that, because there was a chance for almost anything. Only idiots ruled out the impossible and highly improbable.
Which was what Saint not wanting more from me was—highly improbable.
And this deduction did not come from a healthy dose of ego. Not just that, at least. But, come on. I was likely the most interesting and attractive and cold-hearted woman in this burg.
Beyond that, there was something that had nothing to do with me.
Or him.
It was to do with us, what happened when we came together. Fucked like it was our last night on earth. As much as I loathed to even think such a cliché, there was something between us that neither of us could control.
Our monsters played well together.
But our egos? Our manipulative, dark minds? They were at war.
No way did I want to forfeit this game, to admit something he very well could use against me. He wasn’t above that.
So, I was doing what I always did on Tuesdays.
Well, the most recent Tuesdays.
I loathed routine. Avoided it at all costs. The thought of being predictable was almost as bad as death.
But here I was, sinking into a routine. On Tuesdays, at least.
I was losing at one game at the time I won another.
“Someone’s at your door,” Ernie said, without looking up from his hand. “And you better not be trying to distract me or inviting anyone else to play. Both would piss me off. Neither would delay the inevitable.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t stoop so low as to do either.” I paused, listening for a knock. Nothing. “How do you know someone’s here?”
Again, he didn’t look up, merely jerked his head to the window that opened up to my patio and the lake beyond.
The view was obscured by a dark figure, carved out against the dullness of the outdoor lights.
Elation fought irritation.
He was so entitled to not just turn up, but to do so at the back door. Like he belonged.
Had he done that with Emily?
She would’ve left it open for him, pie baking on the windowsill.
I shook that thought out of my mind. “Let me get rid of him. And don’t cheat while my back is turned.”
This time, Ernie looked up, scowling. “As if I would stoop to that. I have honor.”
Again, I rolled my eyes. “Honor in poker is like condoms in a whorehouse. Eventually, everyone’s gonna give them up.”
He chuckled but focused back on his cards. “While you’re up, having your lover’s spat, a beer wouldn’t go astray.”
Normally, I would’ve told a man he could get his own damn beer, but Ernie was the only one that would get away with such a request.
I left the table, making sure to take my time. I wasn’t running to him.
He’d done that already.
The door opened enough to let the chill in but not the man bringing it.
“This isn’t a good time,” I said, though my ovaries were telling me it was beyond time. Never had I been greedy, desperate for sex. But right now, I was about to leave Ernie to play poker with himself and have Saint fuck me out in the garden he hadn’t let die.
A muscle in the man’s jaw ticked. I didn’t know him well enough to determine if it was because he was feeling the same way I was, he was pissed off over his lack of greeting, or just pissed off I hadn’t been the one to break the proverbial stare-off.
“What is Ernie doing here?” Saint asked, seemingly annoyed he was even asking the question.