A Smile as Sweet as Poison (3 page)

She cleared her throat to dispel the nerves that had surged up unexpectedly. “I thought Dylan actually knows how to play mahjong…”

“He had some work to finish.”

“You mean he didn’t want to see Sadie again,” Hazel surmised. Ward had a decent poker face, but once she’d figured out that he would say and do anything so his best friend could come out on top, the cracks instantly became obvious. “She has a boyfriend now.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hazel saw Ward glance at her profile. “So you’ve mentioned…about sixteen times.”

“That often?” Chagrin turned her voice soft and reedy.

“He’s not interested,” said Ward. “Not since you came along.”

“I know that.”

It didn’t stop her wondering.

Dylan and Sadie had met in a fetish club. They were perfect, complementary halves of the same whole—he a wealthy, no-nonsense Dominant and she a down-on-her-luck submissive looking for a partner. They were a racy Hollywood rom-com waiting to happen.

The two of them even looked good together, fine-boned and lithe, imbued with the kind of innate grace that Hazel had sought to emulate since she’d developed breasts. Sadie’s extended family would have adored Dylan’s Chinese roots. Dylan’s friends sure would have welcomed Sadie into their midst. She was so effervescent and good-natured that Hazel had no doubt she could win over even brash, prickly Ward.

“He’s slept with more women than just Sadie,” Ward pointed out with his usual tact. “Are you going to be jealous of all of them?”

“Will you give it a rest?” Hazel snapped. “I’m not jealous.”

“That why you’re throttling the steering wheel?”

Hazel relaxed her grip at the first red light. “Is…is that what Dylan thinks?”

“Oh no. I’m not playing go-between with you two—”

“You just said he’s not coming because of Sadie!” Hazel protested. This wasn’t about seeking a direct line to Dylan’s heart that would somehow bypass Dylan’s brain. It wasn’t.

Behind them, a red sedan honked. Hazel hadn’t noticed the light change to green. She eased into the first lane and waved the Ford on.

The driver shouted something obscene as he overtook them.

“See?” Hazel shot Ward an icy smile. “I’m perfectly calm.”
Not jealous at all.
Not at all as if she’d ever wasted a single minute wondering if Dylan had settled for her because Sadie was unavailable—or worse, that he had pursued her in an attempt to get close to Sadie.

Ward shook his head, but said nothing more.

They drove in silence to Sadie’s house, a white bungalow with green shutters that had belonged to her mother’s late second husband. The modest driveway barely fit the two cars thrust end to end between one trellis fence and the property next door.

“Mind the thorns,” Hazel warned, killing the engine.

For the first time since she’d set off from the Aulden Way loft, it occurred to Hazel that she should’ve called ahead to warn Sadie that she was coming—and that she was bringing company. She felt a pang of guilt settle deep in her belly for assuming she could just barge in, though the offer to come by whenever she wanted had never been retracted. Sadie—and Sadie’s mother—were the only family Hazel had on the west coast and they had adopted her as something of an honorary relative.

Too late to back out now.

The lights were on behind the gauzy ground floor curtains and voices rang from within as Hazel raised her hand to the doorbell.

“Last chance to back out,” she muttered.

He pinched her in retribution, right at the junction of thigh and hip where either he or Dylan had whacked her earlier with the flogger. The sensation was slightly dulled through her jeans, but Hazel still greeted the opening of the door with a yelp.

Sadie hitched her eyebrows. “Hazel? This is a—”

“I know, I know. I’m late.” Hazel stepped up to buff her cheek with a kiss.

“That’s okay…” Surprise was audible in Sadie’s voice. She wore a powder blue cashmere sweater over a gray and white polka dot dress, neither one fitting her quite right. A pink headband held her hair out of her eyes. She was playing Good Chinese Daughter Sadie tonight, not to be confused with Party Animal or Late Night Joyride Sadie, both of whom were far more familiar to Hazel. “And this is?”

“Ward,” Hazel put in quickly, sliding her arm through his.
Behave
.

She didn’t know whose forked tongue she dreaded more.

“Think we’ve met,” Sadie replied archly.

Ward took no notice. “We did indeed.” He held out his hand the way he might have done to an associate—brisk and formal, but not without the hint of a smile twitching at his lips. What he lacked in effortless charm, Ward more than made up for in clever maneuvering, his mind like a steel trap. “Congratulations,” he added. “Hazel didn’t say you were getting married.”

“What?” Hazel gaped. “She’s not…”

Ward nodded to Sadie’s hand, so small and pale in his. A trio of pink gemstones mounted on a silver base gleamed on her ring finger.

“You’re engaged?” Hazel squeaked.

Sadie heaved a sigh. “You’d best come in.”

* * * *

Between them, Mrs. Ling, Mrs. Yu and Mrs. Shen were more than happy to show Ward the ins and outs of mahjong. The click of bakelite tiles echoed rhythmically beneath their overlapping instructions while Sadie’s mother plied Ward with tea and assorted pastries.

Surrounded by permed, rouged ladies of a certain age, Ward seemed utterly at home. He joked with them, he tried out what little Mandarin he knew.

He was like a fish exchanging rivers for oceans.

Hazel startled as Sadie took her hand.

“I was going to tell you.”

About the ring. The wedding.
The shock hadn’t worn off yet, but Hazel forced a smile to her lips. “I haven’t exactly been available…” She spent a lot of time at the loft, true, and their schedules at Marco’s didn’t always align. But they’d worked a shift at the diner just this morning. Sadie could have mentioned the engagement.

She’d chosen not to.

“He seems like a handful,” Sadie agreed, gaze drifting over Hazel’s shoulder to the round dining table that separated kitchen and living room.

Mrs. Ling’s home wasn’t large. Hazel had grown up in a center hall colonial back in Missouri, in a family of wealthy ranchers turned well-off, respectable members of the community—until her scandal had brought a dark cloud over decades of carefully curated virtue. She knew that her own mother would have turned her nose up at living in such cramped conditions.

Mrs. Whitley would never have placed doilies on her couches, or collected smiling clown watercolors. She would’ve called the cat figurines over the TV tacky.

Then again, Hazel’s mother had always told her children they could do anything, be anyone. She was wrong a lot.

“It’s been an interesting couple of weeks,” Hazel replied diplomatically.

“Have you—?”

Hazel cut off the question with a single look. Not many people knew details of her past. In LA, Sadie alone had that dubious honor. It was she who had alerted Hazel to the latest volley of online publicity.

“I’m handling it,” Hazel lied. Badly, with more stops than starts, but she was doing the best she could.

The last time the video—and assorted screen grabs—popped up, she’d been able to email a C&D to the webmaster and get the evidence erased, the uploader’s account suspended. Either this latest peddler of revenge porn didn’t read his emails or he’d figured out that hers were only empty threats. She didn’t have copyright over the video. She couldn’t prove that the recording had been obtained illegally.

It hadn’t been.

Skin prickling with discomfort, Hazel reached for the teacup Sadie had filled for her. “So, you’re getting married… Does Frank know?”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “He’d better. He’s the one who proposed.”

“What, down on one knee and everything?”

Frank was Sadie’s latest beau, a deceptively ordinary med student that matchmakers in her mother’s circle had thrust into Sadie’s life in hopes that he would make an honest woman out of her. Having known her since they were girls, Hazel understood that for the lost battle it was. Maybe Frank didn’t mind.

He must have realized by now that Sadie couldn’t be tamed.

There were good guys out there. The back of her neck grew hot at the thought of Ward and Dylan circling her in the playroom, their voices low and sexy, their hands on her naked flesh.

“It was really sudden,” Sadie confessed, tearing her from her reverie. “We drove up to Griffith Park. He said he wanted to see the Observatory. I figured okay, sure, as long as he doesn’t expect me to listen to him drone on and on…” She laced her fingers and pressed her knuckles to her mouth, so the next part of the story was slightly muffled. “Next thing I know, we’re looking out over downtown LA like in
Rebel Without a Cause
and he’s kissing me, and he goes,
I think we should get married.
”

Giddy, second-hand excitement seeped into Hazel’s bloodstream despite the lingering hurt. “And you said yes?”

“Well, I made him repeat it first,” Sadie laughed. “It’s really windy up there. I wanted to be sure I heard him right.” She tilted back against the couch, hugging her joined hands between slim thighs. “I’m getting married. Can you believe it?”

Hazel shook her head. As long as she’d known Sadie, she’d been going through boyfriends like shades of lipstick. She gave her heart away all too easily. Even with Dylan—and Hazel tried her best not to let envy pollute her thoughts—it had been a short-lived spark, the kind of breathless, blue hour chemistry that can’t survive the harsh glare of morning.

“I’m happy for you,” she said after a beat. “And Frank.”

Sadie waved a hand. “Eh, who cares about him?” She was tipping forward in the next moment and capturing Hazel’s hands in hers. The tea in Hazel’s cup nearly spilled over her jeans. “You’ll be my bridesmaid, right? You have to.”

“Duh… Of course. If you still like me—whenever you decide on a date.”

“September third,” Sadie announced with a wide, beaming smile.

Hazel balked. “But that’s six weeks away…”

“I know, it’s really short-notice, but Frank’s got the thesis to think about and we didn’t want to draw out the planning, anyway. You know what my mom’s like,” Sadie added with a sardonic half-smile. “You can make it, right?”

“Sure, yeah.” She didn’t have any plans. By September third, she would probably welcome any reason to get out of the house.

Sadie kissed her knuckles. “You’re the best.” She bounded to her feet with a swish of polka dots. “Let me show you the dresses—I have everything planned. I even called the venue!”

She was so enthusiastic, so energized that Hazel didn’t have the heart to tell her that maybe she was moving too fast. What did she know, anyway? She’d thought it smart to let her first boyfriend film their most intimate moments together.

Everything that had happened since, every miserable twist and turn her life had veered down, was of her own making.

* * * *

Monday morning at the diner was all hands on deck. Hazel barely brought one table their order than another wanted the check and yet a third needed a refill. The effortless dance she and Sadie had perfected over the course of the past year benefited from the arrival of a few new additions—Emmalee and Travis, both of them local and eager to work.

Hazel had them to thank for the afternoons and evenings she’d been able to spend at the loft, but seeing them weave expertly between tables now lit a tiny, doubtful fuse at the back of her mind.

“When you’re done gawking, think you can take the good people their pancakes?” Marco bellowed through the serving window between kitchen and bar. He’d been temperamental since Hazel had first come in looking for a job, but it seemed to be getting worse as the months went by. She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to put up with his shouting.

My fuse is really short. That’s all.

Hazel plastered a smile to her rouged lips. “Sure thing, boss.”

Marco had already moved on to his next dish, flipping burgers with one hand and stirring pancake batter for the fourth batch.

She met Sadie’s eye as she loaded up her tray. “He’s cranky again.”

“Don’t take it to heart,” Sadie advised,
sotto voce
. “You know what he’s like. Problems with the ex-wife, I guess.”

“Yeah.” But that didn’t mean Hazel deserved to be yelled at. She had troubles of her own. She stalked away before Sadie could rope her into another chat about flower arrangements.

The upcoming wedding was all she talked about. A week since the revelation and they’d been through everything from seating charts to appointments for cake tastings. At Sadie’s instigation, Hazel found herself jettisoning back and forth during what little free time she have to look at dresses and bouquets, check out churches and clubs. Sadie wanted the whole nine yards and she wanted it all done in record time.

Hazel pushed the thought out of her mind as she exchanged an empty tray for a full pitcher of iced tea.

“You okay, honey?” Travis was a broad-shouldered mountain of a man, but he had a voice like a songbird. “You look tired.”

“Busy weekend,” Hazel confessed, leaning against the bar. She ducked her head to check that Marco wasn’t looking before dropping all pretense of reorganizing the freshly-baked pastries in their displays.

Travis made an acquiescing sound in the back of his throat. “Know what that’s like, yes, ma’am…” He followed her example by glancing around before he dipped his voice, adding, “Listen, if you wanna go home and catch some Z’s, I’ll cover for you.”

“Oh, that’s—that’s sweet. But you don’t have to…”

“Ain’t no ‘have to’ about it. Go on. Put your feet up, get some sleep. Tell you what,” he chirruped, “you can take my graveyard shift tomorrow night.”

Hazel weighed the offer… As much as the boys seemed to enjoy having her around, they had yet to make any noise about her work schedule. Ward hadn’t brought up her job since their first throw-down. Whether he was biting his tongue for Dylan’s sake or hers, Hazel didn’t care to know.