The Nymph's Curse: The Collection (17 page)

Human men are so easy.

She dropped her fingers from his flesh, and sadness crept upon his face. “Let’s head in, shall we?”

He nodded.

The orchestra was playing a Bach piece as the butler opened the door and motioned them inside. She left Christos standing alone as she made her way into the party. A group of people from the museum’s board of trustees looked up at her and waved in recognition.

Stavros had his back against the bar where he leaned with an air of arrogance, an almost empty crystal tumbler in his hand. When he saw Ariadne enter the foyer, he smiled and waved her over with a tilt of his head and a lift of his glass.

Kat wiggled through the crowd and grabbed her arm. “Do you really think you should be seen talking to him right now?”

Her forced smile faded as she looked down at Kat’s spindly fingers. “I will make my own choices, but thank you for your concern.”

Kat dropped her arm and stared at her in shock. After a moment, she glared. “You know it’s funny. Trina said the same thing. Now look at where she is.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kat smirked. “Trina had to fall for that boy. She wouldn’t listen when I told her to leave him alone. Now that the kid’s almost dead, she realized she should’ve listened. She’s just lucky that I found her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Kat said in a whisper. “Trina was caught with her shed skin this morning, trying to commit suicide.”

“What?”

Poor Trina. And poor Kaden. Hopefully no one had told him, he didn’t need any more stress.

Kat picked an invisible thread from the shoulder of Ariadne’s dress. “That’s what happens when you mess with trying to love. Hopefully
others
will use this as an example of how not to behave.”

She pulled away from Kat’s fingers. “How I live my life and the choices I make are no longer any of your concern.”

“Don’t you dare forget who I am. I saved the staff. Epione will strike you down if you go against me,” Kat whispered through gritted teeth, giving her the crazed look of a rabid jackal. “Did you forget your place?”

With a tight smile, Ariadne pulled her arm from Kat’s grip. “I’m making a new one.”

Kat’s neck bulged and her face reddened. Ariadne’s heart was in her throat. Before Kat could pull herself together, Ariadne made her way across the packed room.

She smiled and nodded at the greetings she received as she brushed past familiar faces. She ignored the urge to look back at the woman who would now stop at nothing to ruin her.

Stavros placed his glass down on the marble bar, stepped toward her and offered her his embrace. Stopping short of stepping into his arms, she extended her hand. There was a look of shock upon his face, but he recovered quickly and instead lifted her hand to his lips, and gave it a quick peck. “I’m glad you made it. I wasn’t sure you would come. After, well, you know.”

“I couldn’t miss your homecoming. Not after Kat’s gracious invitation.”

“I’m sorry, I meant to call, but — ”

She stopped him with a wave of the hand. “Thank you for your apology, but it’s unnecessary. I shouldn’t have been so upset at the hospital. You just caught me at an off moment.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“In a matter of speaking, but there is work that needs to be done. Work that I’m going to need your help with.”

Stavros laughed. “So this is why you came? You don’t really care about me at all, do you?”

At the sound of his laugh, Bunny sauntered to his side and slipped her arm through the crook of his. “Oh hello, Ariadne, I’m so glad you’re here.” Her voice trilled with the phony felicitates. “We were just talking about you.” Bunny eyed Stavros with distinct ownership.

Ariadne’s smile flickered for only a moment at Bunny’s pronouncement of “we.” Of course, Bunny would lay claim to the man who had only weeks before refused public acknowledgment that the flake even existed.

Looking at Stavros, she noticed him cringe. It was nice to see that he identified exactly how ridiculous he must appear to her. “I’m sure you were saying just the
nicest
things,” Ariadne said, as she glared at the bottle-blonde woman. “If you wouldn’t mind, Stavros and I were talking.”

Bunny’s jaw dropped.

“Besides, I’m sure there is a desk somewhere that needs a good shining.” Ariadne beamed.

Bunny jerked her arm out of Stavros’ arm. “You — ”

“Bunny,” Stavros said sternly. “Why don’t you go see if your friends have arrived? I’m sure they are looking for you.”

Ariadne snickered as Bunny turned and stomped away.

Stavros grabbed her hand and led her away from the bar and toward the private kitchen. Walking in, he dropped her hand, walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. Opening it, he guzzled it down.

“Sure, I would take one of those,” Ariadne said, perturbed at his usual rudeness.

Dropping the bottle from his lips, he wiped away a drip of water that trailed from his oversized lips. “What’s going on with you?”

“What are you talking about? I just want a water.” She motioned at the fridge.

“Okay.” He opened the door and grabbed another bottle and thrust it at her, but he eyed her suspiciously. “What was the business you wanted to talk to me about?”

“I want you to reopen Dr. Morris’ site.” Her words hung in the air. “And call the police off of your shooting.”

He sat the plastic bottle down on the concrete counter. He ran his fingers over the stubble of his chin. “You can’t expect that I am going to let whomever was responsible for the attempted assassination go, do you?”

“That’s not what I’m asking. You can still find out who did it and take care of it
in another fashion.
I’m just asking you to call the police off. They won’t allow Dr. Morris’ site to be reopened while they are still investigating.”

“I see.” He smiled wickedly. “But aren’t you and Kat worried about what he’ll find in the Labyrinth?”

She stiffened. “That’s for me to worry about.”

A smile flickered on his lips. “I have to say, I think I like this new you.”

“I’m glad, because this’s what you’ll be getting from here on out.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I know what it must be like for you to see me with Bunny and all, but if you’re still interested, we could work things out. I need a strong woman, and the people would love this attitude you are displaying.”

“Would you love me, Stavros?”

He threw his head back as he laughed. When she didn’t stir, he stopped and looked at her. “Oh, you were being serious?”

She looked away from him and down to the bottle in her hands.

“We both know that’s out of the question,” Stavros began. “Love is such a useless emotion. We get along so much better without any of that. I like our arrangement, our mutual respect.”

“Since when have you respected me, Stavros?”

A flash of humility played on his face, but was quickly replaced with his usual distant expression. “I can change, Ariadne. I’ll make it better for you. I admit, I haven’t been the best boyfriend in the world, but I thought we were both on the same page with everything.”

“We weren’t.”

He reached out for her. “If you take me back, I promise I’ll stop seeing other women.”

She had waited for decades for him to utter those words, but now that they fell from his lips, she just sighed. It was too late for them to be together, she had grown past trusting him. He would always be just a bull, taking what he wanted regardless of others’ feelings; she had more than her share of evidence.

When she didn’t move toward him, he dropped his hands.

“Listen, Stav, I just need you to do what I asked. I don’t want to get back into our old rut. You’re great, but you’re not for me. I need something more, something better.”

“What? And you think you are going to find that with a poor American archeologist?”

Opening the water bottle, she pressed it to her lips and swallowed a sip. Slowly, she twisted the lid back and sat the bottle gently next to Stavros’ on the counter. “You don’t need to worry about who I’m interested in. All you need to know is that it’ll no longer be you. So you can fuck whomever, whenever you want. You don’t have to pretend to hide it from me any longer. I no longer give a shit about your escapades.”

Stavros bristled. “If you are thinking that talking to me like this is going to get your
boyfriend’s
little site opened back up, you are sorely mistaken.”

She stepped toward him and ran her finger up the black satin lapel of his tuxedo jacket all the way to the white bandage on his neck. Tracing her finger around the edge, she found the pricking thread of the plastic stitches and pressed her nail into them. “You will open the site.”

Stavros grimaced and pulled away from her hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You have no authority to boss me, or anyone else.”

“Oh, really?” She threatened. “I believe I do.” She opened her purse and pulled out an envelope. “Inside you will find a flash drive filled with pictures of you and your brother, Nico, doing all kinds of sexually perverse things. Him more than you, but I have to admit I was a little shocked with the quantity of women you were with in some of the photos. How could you satisfy so many when you struggled to satisfy me?”

He grabbed the envelope from her hands and ripped it open. He dumped the flash drive into his hand and glowered at it, as if he could make it and its contents magically disappear. “You wouldn’t dare use this against me.”

“Not that one in particular. I have another copy, don’t worry.” She smiled. “Now, I don’t want to have to use any of these. Seeing them once was more than enough for me. You and I have had some great times together and I don’t want to have to take things to the next level. I would appreciate it if we could still be friends, but I’m no longer under anyone’s control.”

He nodded as he curled his fingers around the black plastic rectangle that was filled with evidence of his character. “Friends. Okay.” He dropped the flash drive to the floor. “We will never speak of what is on this drive again.” He brought the heel of his gleaming patent leather shoe down. There was the crack of plastic as the flash drive broke.

“Agreed. But with the understanding that Beau’s site is reopened and Christos and his men are called off.”

“Fine.” Stavros twisted his foot in the other direction.

Leaning in, she pressed her lips to the smooth skin of his cheek. “Thanks, Stav. Without you, I would’ve never realized how much power I truly possessed.”

He pulled back and looked down at her with a look of disbelief upon his face.

Ariadne turned and strode out, leaving him alone in the soulless kitchen.

She pushed past the throngs of people that packed into Stavros’ mansion. Officer Christos waved at her and motioned for her to come over, but Ariadne shook her head. She needed out of the mess of people, away from the politics, and perfume-tainted air. Kat was nowhere to be seen, but her absence wasn’t the relief she would have expected.

Walking out of the foyer and onto the almost empty patio, she reached down and opened her purse and extracted the parking stub, when she was met with Tammy’s voice. “Did Kat give ya the pictures?”

“What are you doing here, Tammy?”

Tammy scanned the area. “I knew ya’d be here. And I needed to speak to ya without Kat knowin’. Did ya get them pictures?”

“I did,” Ariadne said, as she handed her stub to the parking attendant. “But how did you get them?”

Tammy’s gaze shifted around as if she feared seeing someone or something. “Before I had Ivan, I had an investigator following Nico. Stavros just happened to be there most of the time. And I thought ya should know the kinda man that ya had in your life.”

“Thanks,” Ariadne said wearily. “Where’s Ivan tonight?”

“Oh, he went back to the States. His wife was missing him. I only came because I needed to see you. I don’t like being this close to the bull, Stavros.”

“Did you have something to do with the shooting? What’s going on, Tammy?”

Tammy looked around nervously. “I just heard about Kaden and I thought maybe I could be a help. I tried to get in to see ’em, but I couldn’t get by the nosey wards.” She opened up her purse for Ariadne to see the brown vials and bug-filled jars inside. “I even brought some stuff that might be useful. Do ya think ya can get me in?”

“I think so, but how did you hear about Kaden?”

“Oh, everyone is talking about the curse and the boy. But Kat’s the one who told me about it.”

“What did Kat want with Kaden?” Ariadne asked.

Tammy pulled a bottle of green sludge from her pocket and swallowed the contents down. “She wanted me to poison him, like I did Nico.”

The revolving glass doors of the hospital circled with a monotonous whir and click as Ariadne and Tammy approached the entrance.

“We need to heal him. Do you think you can really help?” Ariadne asked the witch.

Tammy opened her giant khaki-colored purse and reached inside. Glass clinked and there was a sound like beads being shaken as the witch rifled through the contents. “Well, I can give it a try. I don’t have a lotta stuff to work with, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Well that’s better than nothing. Kaden is such a great kid. He just got mixed up with the wrong crowd.”

“Ya mean y’all?” Tammy asked with marked pity in her voice.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Ariadne’s black gown clung to her legs as she led the way through the maze of sterile white halls. “His room’s right around the corner. I’ll get Beau out of the room while you do whatever it is you need to do. But you won’t have much time.”

She grabbed a mask and gown off the isolation cart outside of Kaden’s door and put them on over her clothes. “Tammy, why don’t you wait here? I’ll be out in a second, and then you can go in.”

Tammy nodded and walked toward the nurse’s station.

Vickie was sitting at the foot of the bed while Beau sat next to the window. Beau’s eyes were closed, but as she walked in, his eyes opened.

Kaden was attached to a ventilator and there was the hum and whoosh of the machine as it kept the boy alive. Kaden was asleep and tubes ran out of his nose, mouth, and arms. She blanched as she took in how much the boy had deteriorated since the last time she had been there. It wouldn’t be long if something wasn’t done.