Green-Eyed Envy (26 page)

“Five marriages. Five divorces, the first two of which were ridiculously expensive. Sure, I had ironclad prenups for each of the last three, but considering that my mother forbade me to marry the last of them . . . ” Her expression hardened. “Let’s just say I’ve been cut off from the familial purse strings for the time being. Why else do you think I asked my nephew to buy that stupid stationary for me?”

Well, color me surprised. Cut off from the familial purse strings or not, I’d never have guessed that Rashida was having the slightest bit of financial trouble. I’d have to have a forensic accountant verify that fact, but if it were true . . . She’d probably go down to the bottom of the list as a suspect. More’s the pity.

I retrieved the documents in front of her and returned them to the folder with exaggerated movements. “All the same, I trust you won’t be making plans to leave the Boston area anytime soon, Miss Banoub. Any effort to do so will be seen as a murderer fleeing justice, and I
will
come after your ass. As a Fury, not as Chief Magical Investigator. Understood?”

She stood, poker face intact once more as she realized I wasn’t going to clap her in chains after all. “Completely understood, Chief Holloway. And just to make sure there’s no further miscommunication between us, you can direct any future inquiries to my attorney, who will be in touch with you later today.”

Touché, Ice Queen, touché.
I thought it but didn’t say it out loud. Sometimes I
can
exercise tact when called for. Made up for some of the times I failed miserably . . .

LIFE AS SIERRA NIEVES RETURNED WITH A vengeance that afternoon when Harper and her bridesmaids met my alter ego for the final dress fitting. I found myself getting caught up in my role again, which amused me to no end. Who would
ever
have thought Marissa Holloway, unabashedly pragmatic Fury, would enjoy orchestrating dress fittings for ten extremely opinionated women?

Still, even I had my limits, and fortunately for my blood pressure, Penn took my warning to heart and waited for his fiancée in the bridal shop’s lobby, accompanied by not one but
two
of his beefcake brothers, Tariq included. Probably a good thing that Trinity and Cass were handling a depressing but straightforward suicide that had been called in early that A.M., amazing undercover powers of Trinity’s notwithstanding. Risking a blown cover twice would just be stupid. Not having to deal with the bride’s aunts and mother helped my stress level, too. Harper’s dress fit her like a glove with the slight alterations made by the boutique’s seamstress, and even annoying cousin Camilla seemed happy with her completed gown. Truly a day for miracles. Maybe we’d catch the killer while we were at it.

Yeah, right, and the Megaera would extend an olive branch and offer restitution for the attack at the subway station.

Harper managed to snatch a private moment with me in her fitting room. “What happened when you questioned Rashida about the death threat?”

I rolled my eyes. “I can see your fiancé continues to follow directions in his usual manner.”

She tilted her head and gave me a
whatever
look. “Like you expected him to keep that from
me
.”

“Hoped for, maybe. Expected, not so much.” When she pinched my arm, I grunted and surrendered with ill grace. “She didn’t come right out and admit it, but I’m pretty sure she flipped out enough to send the threat. I
don’t
think she had anything to do with the murders, however.”

Harper finished changing back into her street clothes, giving a sigh as she settled atop a chair to slip on her socks. “That’s pretty much what I expected. She’s like a passiveaggressive version of my
own
aunts, really. Quick to anger, willing enough to threaten those standing against her, stubborn as hell, but not capable of cold-blooded murder.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Hey, that’s my future aunt-in-law you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, yeah. I just meant unfortunately that leaves the actual killer still out there, free to run amok again.” When her face fell, I reached over to give her a hug. “Hang in there, Harp. We’ll get him—and soon.”

Her lip trembled but she nodded. “I know we will.” She began tying her shoelaces with sharp, determined movements. “Penn’s taking me to Mass General after this.”

“Whoa, you’re going to visit Meritton? I got the impression that one didn’t end on good terms.”

“It didn’t, but I just feel like—like—”

“Like you owe him a personal apology?”

She flushed. “It sounds silly when you put it that way, but—yeah. I do.”

“Well, I can’t tell you how you should feel in this situation. Nobody can. Just don’t be surprised if he lashes out at you. He didn’t strike me as the warm-and-fuzzy type.”

“Bast’s tail, but he is
so not
. Still, at least I’ll feel I’ve done my part if he plays the prick and chases me out.”

“Fair enough. So, you ready for the bridal shower?”

A charmingly ugly face met
that
question. “If I told you yes, I’d be lying. Two hours trapped at my mother’s house with all
my
female relatives, all
Penn’s
female relatives, plus the bridesmaids? Yeah, that’s going to be so. Much. Fun.”

I couldn’t hide a grin. “Yeah, but just think: You have a wedding planner to blame if anything goes wrong or to break up any fights that start.”

She perked up at the reminder. “True! And you don’t have to worry about them getting mad at the
real
you or coming after you later because, hey, they think you’re Sierra Nieves, Wedding Planner to the Stars!” Her hands waved in the air dramatically as she intoned Sierra’s unofficially official title.

My turn to pull a sour face. “I should have known
you
came up with that stupid cover.”

An expression of innocence she couldn’t quite pull off dissolved seconds later as she gave in to laughter. “Actually,
that
part was Mutt’s idea.”

“Oh, he is
so
not getting any for the next month!”

Harper smirked at my bald-faced lie. “Sure, because Furies are known for their superior powers of abstinence. Good thing you all have to consciously will yourselves pregnant or there’d be little Furies-in-training taking over the world!”

Yeah, consciously will ourselves pregnant—or be manipulated by evil scientists jacking our bodies up with all sorts of drugs, magic, and other fun stuff. I smoothed my outer expression to keep Harper from pursuing a line of questioning I didn’t want to think, much less talk, about.

“I’ve finalized all the arrangements with the caterer and Trinity’s picking up the cake on the way to the shower. Is there anything else I can take care of for you?”

She shook her head adamantly. “No, Riss, you’ve done more than enough. Vic’s just lucky you handled most of the arrangements since the shower’s usually the maid of honor’s albatross.”

I had to fight to keep my true emotions from writing themselves all over my face again. I’d thought—okay, I’d hoped—that not seeing Victor for a couple days would cool my desire for him. No dice, however, as demonstrated by the spear of lust bursting through my body when he greeted me with a kiss to each cheek an hour earlier. Having Harper mention the supercharged sex drives Furies were infamous for helped assuage my guilt a tiny little bit.
See, Scott, it’s not
my
fault he makes me feel like a bitch in heat. Blame the Fury hormones!

Because that would go over
so
well with my Hound.

Hell, it wouldn’t even go over with
me
. Sure, Fury hormones and supernatural Rage shaped our personalities, often goading us into acting on instinct rather than with deliberate thought, but that excuse went only so far. We each held final responsibility for our actions. Feeling something didn’t mean we had to act on it. That this was the first time I’d found myself struggling with an overblown Fury sex drive for more than one man at once didn’t mean I got to absolve myself of blame for how I reacted to it. No matter
how
much that realization sucked.

The Fury in me also refused to hide from the problem at hand. Ignoring my attraction for Victor would just make it stronger, more enticing. No, I needed to confront it head-on, take the bull by the horns—so to speak—and show my traitorous body who was boss.

I forced my attention back to the blushing bride. “All part of the full-service package you get from Sierra Nieves, Wedding Planner to the Stars!”

Harper shook her head with a grin. “Wow, we even have
you
drinking the Kool-Aid now.”

“Scary, isn’t it? But seriously, we should rescue your groom from the hundred and one bridesmaids you have running around in the lobby.”

She gave a mock shudder. “Poor man. After he willingly sat through all this, I know he
really
loves me.”

I didn’t have to fake the smile that tugged my lips upward. The little moments in life revealed most clearly our emotions for those around us. Harper enduring hellish behavior from Penn’s grandmother and aunt; Penn putting up with the now-constant companionship of his brothers, not to mention being overrun by bridesmaids; both focusing on the other in the midst of the upheaval going on around them, determined to live on their own terms rather than give in to the demands of a killer bent on destroying their relationship. Now
that
was love.

Harper led the way to the lobby, where we discovered Penn surrounded by two bridesmaids rather than nine, the rest having headed for the hills with their gowns. Penn and Harper trooped off with his brothers and her sisters, leaving me to take that bull—er, Cat—by the horns. Victor, no doubt remembering Penn’s annoyance from the tuxedo fitting, hovered on the edges until the larger group exited center stage. He smiled once they disappeared from sight. “So,
querida
, alone again at last.”

I opened my mouth to give him a polite brush-off, but his fingers brushed a stray lock of hair back, grazing the sensitive skin of my ear and setting off shivers along my spine. Liquid heat pooled inside my belly and good intentions went astray.

“I missed you yesterday, Sierra.”

My pulse picked up speed. I stared into his dark eyes, transfixed. Oh, gods,
how
did he do this to me? How
could
he do this to me when I loved Scott so? It made absolutely no sense. “I—I missed you, too.”

He captured my hand in his own, bringing it up to trace a searing line of kisses along the palm. “Please say you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”

I floundered for words, head saying “No” but body screaming “Yes!”
Just tell him . . . tell him no.
My mouth opened to say just that, but what came out instead was, “Of course.” As he took me by the hand and guided me toward a luxury SUV parked at a nearby meter, images of Scott flooded my brain, but even that couldn’t counteract the sheer, unadulterated lust pulsing through my body, clubbing my brain cells into submission and forcing me to follow where Victor led. Gods, that was so freaking
not me
that warning bells started ringing in my head at the same time my body made like a sheep. We reached the dark gray SUV, and something struck me right away. Its windows had been tinted the absolute maximum allowed under mortal law.

Something’s wrong here; something is
really
wrong. Think, Riss, stop feeling and
think
! Why do you feel like this each time you’re with him? You love
Scott
.
My brain moved at a glacial pace, but at least it functioned. Doubt crept through my mind. What did I really know about Victor other than what Harper—and he himself—told me? A whole lot of nothing.

When Victor ushered me toward the passenger door, lips curved in a decidedly smug smile, inner alarm bells rang out. I’d learned to trust my instincts over the years, and in that moment, they screamed that I couldn’t trust
Vic the Slick
as far as I could throw him. Okay, as far as a
mortal
could throw him. Maybe he wasn’t a cold-blooded serial killer, but that didn’t automatically make him trustworthy, either. And until I figured out
why
my hormones went haywire around him—and a way to counteract their temporary insanity—the wisest course of action would be to stay as far away from him as possible.

I forced myself to dig my heels into the ground and find my voice. “Vic, I’m sorry, but I really can’t have dinner with you tonight. My—”

His fingers closed around my arm bruisingly, and he tugged me closer to the open door. “Hush,
querida
. Get into the car. I’m going to take you back to my place for the night of your life.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew something small and dark in color that I couldn’t quite make out and disquiet bloomed into outright fear.

Fortunately
that
just pissed me off. Rage stirred beneath the surface, and rather than tamp it down as I normally would, I fanned it from the barest spark to a blazing inferno. Clarity burned away all traces of unnatural desire. I glared into his beady little eyes, and suddenly he didn’t seem all that attractive anymore.

“Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me. Now.”

Surprise widened his eyes, followed quickly by annoyance and anger. Not that his anger could hold a candle to mine. “
Querida
, what’s wrong—”

I held up a warning hand and took a step back. The hand holding the unknown object swung toward me, and I growled well enough to make any real Hound proud. His hand froze.

“Look, Victor, you need to just back off right now. Seriously.”

“But,
querida
, I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I understand why you’re so anxious to get me into that car. As I tried to tell you, my family needs me right now. So back. Off.”

My cell phone chose that exact moment to ring, and I couldn’t have asked for better timing. Victor looked like he wanted to smash the gadget to itty-bitty pieces, but I flipped it open before he could even think about going through with it.