“Magical incantations?” She now gave me a wary glance. “You’d better get going so I can finish up in here now that you’ve given me more to clean up. I don’t have time for nonsense.”
Gideon had burned my grimoire. He had destroyed my chance to break the curse.
I take it back—things could always get worse.
The maid moved around to the side of the bed. “You’re not Sarah, are you?”
I looked over at her. “That depends on who’s asking.”
She snatched an envelope off the desk. “This is addressed to a Sarah.”
I made a beeline to her and took the envelope, slicing it open with my thumbnail and reading the inside quickly.
You will find me at the nightclub you frequent lately. It’s nice and quiet at this time of the day. Tell your master vampire lover nothing about this.
Please don’t disappoint me again. Be there by noon.—G
Well, at least he said please.
Yes, he was definitely having a hissy fit. On anyone else I might be able to brush it off, but
Gideon Chase was a different story.
I’d been reading the wrong translation of that story for some time now. The real Gideon was no one to mess with, no one to flirt with, and definitely no one to underestimate. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The sun was extra bright when I emerged on the sidewalk, and I slid my sunglasses into place and got my bearings. My cell phone rang. I had both my Pink Razor and Gideon’s
BlackBerry on me now. I went through cell phones like I used to go through panty hose.
A glance at the screen told me it was Thierry. I answered it.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Downtown,” I said simply.
“I was worried. George said you left without saying anything. Quinn has been looking for you as well.”
“I had something I had to do.”
“Something to do with Gideon?”
I huffed out a breath. “I can’t talk right now.”
“Sarah, please tell me what’s going on.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Can’t. Busy, busy.”
“I’ll come and get you. We can deal with Gideon together.”
Yeah, and if I showed up at Darkside arm in arm with Thierry, Amy would be picking out her angel wings.
“Sorry, Thierry. I’ll have to take a rain check on that.”
“I can be there in minutes. Tell me where you are; where you’re headed.” He sounded worried.
“I need to clean up this mess myself. If there was any other way then we’d do it that way, trust me on that. I… I have to go.”
“Sarah—”
I ended the call and slid the phone into my pocket, ignoring it when it began to buzz a few moments later. He was calling me back. The man was persistent with or without the mask.
If I’d been feeling hunky dory about everything it would make me smile. Thierry pursuing me, insisting he be by my side—even after we’d had a fight.
Talk about a one-eighty from where we’d come from. Honestly, he’d been the most standoffish guy I’d ever met in my entire life. I figured that it had a lot to do with living for so long. He’d been hurt, both emotionally and physically. A lot. Badly. Therefore there was a ton of armor he carried around with him. He didn’t trust people and he didn’t open up. Keeping his Red Devil secret was only one example of this. He’d pushed me away so many times that it was only out of sheer stubbornness and questionable intelligence that I hadn’t walked away and not looked back. He’d been silent and moody and sullen and unbelievably bossy.
But for some strange reason that totally did it for me. Who knew what a masochist I was?
I’d kept digging and digging until I’d found the real Thierry. He was a bit dusty, to say the least. But beyond that dusty, moody exterior was my Mr. Right. Nobody believed we fit together except for me. Everyone was all too ready to accept that we’d broken up.
But I didn’t care. I loved him.
I was all stubborn like that.
Darkside was closed for business when I got there, but the front door was unlocked, so I summoned my courage and went inside, past the false front of a used bookstore. It smelled musty and dusty and had paperback novels stacked from floor to ceiling and several tables with stacks of mysteries, romances, and thrillers.
The interior of the club seemed completely empty as well, but I knew it wasn’t.
“You’re here. Right on time, too.”
I turned to face Gideon, who stood behind me with his arms crossed. “Where’s Amy?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“I want to see her.”
“I’m sure you do. But there’s a little business we need to take care of first.”
I scanned the dark nightclub but didn’t see anyone but Gideon. “Business? I thought that the ritual wasn’t until midnight?”
“It’s not.” He cocked his head to the side. “I wanted to give you the chance to apologize for lying to me about ending your relationship with de Bennicoeur.”
“I think you burning the grimoire makes us more than even on that subject.”
His expression shadowed. “Perhaps I acted a bit rashly.”
A bit rashly? “You think?”