“Thank you so much for this, Claire. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.” When I clicked off the phone I looked up at George. “Doing anything today?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Am I possibly chauffeuring your non-car-owning self somewhere?”
I nodded. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s only the difference between my future happiness and utter, complete misery.”
He looked torn. “I have a job interview later.”
“The strip club?”
“It’s a nightclub with male entertainment. ‘Strip club’ makes it sound so tawdry.”
“I’ve been there. It is tawdry.”
“I know, isn’t it great? Unfortunately I’m just interviewing to be a waiter, not the talent. I apparently have no rhythm.” He sighed. “But one can dream.”
I glanced at my digital clock. It was 9:00 A.M. “We’ll be back by noon. At the latest.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my broken, cursed heart.”
“Okay, get dressed. We’ll leave in ten minutes.”
I felt a jolt of something. I think it was happiness. I wouldn’t know. It had been a long time since I’d felt that particular emotion in such a pure and undiluted sense. I kind of liked it.
“First we have to stop by Amy’s,” I told him. “I need to ask her for something.”
“What?”
“A loan of two thousand bucks. Unless you want to spot me the cash.”
“Amy’s it is,” he replied quickly.
A half hour later we pulled up at the curb across from my friend’s house. I tried not to get too excited at the prospect of breaking my curse but had a difficult time staying relaxed.
This could be it. A substantial loan of money away from being relatively normal again.
Without wasting any time, I bounded up to her front door and rang the doorbell. George decided to wait in the car.
A few moments later the door slowly opened inward. I gazed at the interior of Amy’s small townhome and then looked down.
Barry Jordan glared up at me.
All you need to know about Barry is that he became Amy’s husband after they fell in love and he sired her on their first date. He was short. Short, short. He had a tendency to wear small tuxedos and angry expressions, although at the moment he wore a royal-blue bathrobe and an angry expression.
He was also Thierry’s… I guess manservant was as good a term as any. They’d known each other for three hundred years, since Thierry had rescued Barry from being displayed and abused in a traveling fair. This act had won Barry’s fierce loyalty from that moment forward.
Oh, and Barry hated my guts with a fiery passion.
From nearly the first moment we met he thought I was trouble, an opportunist, and a gold digger. Not necessarily in that order.
I wondered if he’d be willing to loan me some cash.
“You,” he said ominously.
“Well, hello there,” I replied, deciding it was best not to provoke him in any way. Too much rode on everything going swimmingly today. “Might I speak with your lovely wife for a moment?”
“She’s not here. She’s getting her nails done.” He glared at me with distaste. “Go away.”
He was giving me the evil eye so intensely it burned a bit. It was really too bad that the moment he started to believe I was genuinely in love with Thierry I’d had to “break up” with him, thereby confirming Barry’s original opinion of me.
Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.
“Who’s there, Barry?” a familiar voice said, and Thierry stepped into the front foyer. Our eyes met and held.
As far as Barry knew, this was the first time we’d seen each other since we officially ended our relationship. Even Barry, who I knew wouldn’t betray Thierry for any price, couldn’t be trusted with this info. There was too much at risk.
I really wanted to run to Thierry and throw my arms around him and finish what we had only barely started last night. I wanted to tell him about the grimoire and the appointment with the wizard today. But I couldn’t say anything out loud.
Too bad, really. He was a total ringer for the money.
I wasn’t a gold digger, seriously I wasn’t. But come on. The man I loved wore a different black, tailored Hugo Boss suit every single day. That had to count for something, didn’t it? Other than a high-end, yet oddly monochromatic taste in clothing.
“It’s nobody, master,” Barry said pointedly. “And nobody was just leaving.”
Oh, that was subtle.
I tore my eyes away from Thierry as someone else came into view. Someone wearing a red dress, with long raven-colored hair, perfectly applied makeup and flawless ivory skin.
“Sarah, my dear.” A smile spread across Veronique’s perfect face. She glanced at Thierry.
“Is this an awkward moment?”
Why, yes it is, thank you for asking.
Thierry didn’t move his gaze from mine. “Not at all. Sarah and I have chosen to go our separate ways. There is nothing to be awkward about.”
“And she’s leaving,” Barry said again. I resisted the urge to kick him sharply and make him cry.
“I have been very curious,” Veronique began. “Whose idea was it for your relationship, short as it was, to end?”
“Mine,” Thierry and I said in unison. He raised a dark eyebrow at me.
“It was a mutual decision,” I clarified quickly.
Veronique’s impeccably arched brows drew together. “It’s very strange to me. One moment you,” she nodded at Thierry, “are asking me for an annulment, and you,” she glanced at me, “are proclaiming your deep and earnest love for my husband—”