Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) (17 page)

“Not home yet,” she replies. Dips hands into the pockets of her apron, always worn during her baking sprints. “And I
am
sorry to intrude—”

“You’re never an intrusion.” Mallory’s insistence, true to her queenly grace, threads reprimand with encouragement.

Prim, no slouch in the two-messages-in-one department, answers with a smile that is half
thank you
and half
fuck you
. “Well, when this kept clanging like the bells of Notre Dame,”—she pulls my cell out of her left pocket—“I thought it best to come find you.”

As if on cue, the device chimes in her hand. Then again. I take it from her, my frown intensifying. “That is the text bell from my parents.”

“Well, they’re damn near nine one-one’ing you, girl.”

It is the first time Prim has approached casual conversation with me—a bittersweet win, since there is not a second to enjoy it. Not with
Maimanne
or
Paipanne
, perhaps both, turning my phone into a dinging arcade and my chest into a jam worse than the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour.

Tension that only worsens as I scroll the confusing barrage of bubbles down the screen.

:: What in Creator’s name is going on? ::

:: What on Earth have you done, young lady? ::

:: Could you have at least smiled for this? Even once? ::

:: Why are you not controlling this bedlam? ::

:: Where are you? ::

:: Why are you ignoring your father and me? ::

:: Mishella DaLysse—this is a complete disgrace. ::

:: We will not be able to show our faces in court. ::

There are at least two dozen more, spewing the same thing in different syntax. Two more pop up before I am finished reading, so I give up.

Mallory’s face copies my perplexity. “They’re timestamped over the last fifteen minutes.”

Prim nods. “The bell choir started a few minutes after you came up here.”

I drop back onto the couch, letting Mallory keep my device. “But what does it all mean?”

Mallory’s lips tense. Still barely moving them, gaze still glued to the screen, mutters, “Do they always talk to you like this?”

Pandora’s Box. Huge, pretty bow.

That I completely ignore.

Boxes cannot be concerns right now. My parents need to be—only I have no idea where to begin answering them. “What are they babbling about?” I ricochet a stare between Mallory and Prim. “I have no idea what they are even—”

The phone shrills with another sound. The
Cake by the Ocean
ringtone. A familiar face lights up the screen on my device. Dark sherry hair in a trendy style, with eyes nearly the same color. A warm smile, reflecting the fun we had during our first lunch outing nearly a month ago. Since then, those lunches have become weekly occurrences. Undoubtedly, Kathryn Robbe has become my closest friend in New York—to the point that I know she is an avid night owl and hates facing the world, me included, before nine on any day.

So why is she calling at quarter to seven?

I nod my thanks to Mallory and punch the phone’s green button. “
Bon sabah
, my friend.”

“Hey.” It is breathless and hitchy and slightly impatient, not the usual “and good morning to
you
, dear
arkami
.” I am almost tempted to ask her what marathon she is warming up for, but have a strange feeling sarcasm is not on her breakfast menu.

“Errmm…” I extend it through the hurried rustlings coming from her end. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your voice before the strike of nine?”

“To what do you—” The rustlings stop. “Oh, God. Someone’s listening to us, aren’t they? Do you think they’ve gotten your private number already? But Cas bought it for you, right? He’s more careful than that.
Much
more careful.”

“Kate.” I feel my brows drop. “What on Earth are you about?”

A strange pause. As in, the kind of wordless stillness I expect from Cassian, not Kate.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“About the explosion you and Cas are causing.”

“The expl—” I surge to my feet. Swoop my stare in a full circle, admitting to nobody that I actually expect to see a plume of smoke somewhere on the horizon. “And where, exactly, would this apocalypse be?”

Early morning no-man’s land or not, she has earned herself the sarcasm. To my delight
and
dread, her riposte rides the same bandwagon. “Do you have a web browser open?”

I pull my phone away long enough to tap on the internet function. “In about ten seconds.” The little wheel rotates, taunting me for three seconds longer than that. “Where do I go?”

“Anywhere.”

Nothing proves her more right than the list of trending subjects for the day.

After scrolling through the first screen of them, I succumb to sitting down once more.

As my stomach turns into a tempest, my lungs morph into twin Kraken, and my limbs become ice luges—

And I realize, at last, why my parents are texting as if the end of the world has started.

For a moment, I completely commiserate.

Just when Mallory has given me the key to Cassian’s final door, the entire world has stomped into our way. Tapped on the dominoes—when we have barely had time to line up a decent stack of our own.

“Holy saints.” I tap the first link in the list on my screen. Correction: the first link appearing not to take blatant advantage of the others. Vy had a distinct term for it.
Click bait.
The definition takes on new meaning when one’s own name is that lure.

When the page bursts into view, my head spins despite my backside on the cushion and my feet on the ground.

There is more than just a story here.

There are pictures—indeed painting a thousand words—each one “angled” with a total fallacy.

I am tempted to swear by the saints again.
No.
This calls for my inner Vy—with her sidekick, Miss Screw Priority.

“
Dammit to hell.
”

*

Cassian

“Dammit to hell.”

I stomp on the Ford’s brake after rounding the corner—and spotting the mob of reporters from half a block away. The feat isn’t hard, considering they’ve brought all the big equipment, including telephoto lenses and video cameras. I even spot a few on-camera reporters getting sound levels checked.

Fuck.
That’ll be the only easy bite I’ll get out of this newly lobbed pie at my balls—for that’s exactly where the bastards have aimed. I’ve always appeared at enough high-profile events, and been generous with quotes from the lobby of Court Towers, that the press gives me Temptation as a haven. On one hand, I can count how many times they’ve violated the boundary. The first was after Lily’s funeral, when the entire world wanted a piece of my grief. The next two were responses to the media version of booty calls, answering leads from “unknown sources” inside Temptation itself. Both times, I was “seeing” models who had high-profile marketing deals pending. Prim had ridden me hard about the first, and become a full girl bear about the second.
You know, asshole, we’d all be better off if you’d think with the big head instead of the small one.

I groan softly. What will she say this time? And how the hell will I debate the point? Technically, she’s right. I wasn’t thinking wholly with the gray matter upstairs when redrafting that contract back on Arcadia. How could I have, after knowing what Ella’s elegant curves felt like beneath my touch…what the first bloom of her passion tasted like beneath my lips?

Ella.

“Christ.”

I say it and choke on it at the same time.

Did
she
make the media booty call?

“She doesn’t even know how to call nine-one-one,” I counter in a growl.

Then who? And why?

I stab the Bluetooth at my ear. Bark the speed dial number for Prim but end the call two seconds later. Whatever the hell has gone down, I’m not sure what started it, why it’s ballooned, or what we’re facing because of it—including these shifty bastards tapping into cell signals, if not full calls.

Waking up the phone has fired up its screen—where an unread text from Kate waits. Does
she
know anything?

I flip on the truck’s hazards, duck my head, and quickly read.

:: I’ve got your package. Nice ribbon. Waiting in the usual place. Avoid the tunnel. It’s packed. ::

One side of my mouth hitches up.
Devious, wonderful woman.
It’s all code, betraying she
is
more ahead of this than I am, and here’s the tow rope to help me get caught up.

The first line is the simplest.
Package
and
ribbon
equate to
gift,
translated into the Arcadian
armeau
—what Mishella Santelle has sure as hell been to me since the start.

The usual place
takes a second longer. It could mean a number of our favorite dive bars around Manhattan, though that’s weak—it’s barely ten in the morning. While Kate enjoys trying to drink me under the table, the only time we indulged this early was the day I buried Lily.

The last line lends the final insight.
The tunnel
is Scott’s nickname for the underground delivery entrance into Temptation, accessed by the alley on the north side of the building—and a secret from the press until six months ago, when I started dating Amelie Hampton. The diva was just mildly annoying about her agenda at first—until she started responding to social invitations on behalf of us both, as well as hinting about the tunnel to a few key members of the Manhattan paparazzi corps. Three months after that, when I broke things off with Amelie, the clickers backed off. I was no longer juicy prey.

Looks like I’m back on the menu.

Which means someone, somewhere, finally grabbed a clue that I came home from Arcadia with more than a new contract and a case of the island’s fruit wine.

“Mishella.” I let it stalk up my throat like the raging, possessive lion with which I suddenly sympathize. The agony of my hand fades beneath its ferocious fire.

Because if I’m back on the media menu…

She’s in the middle of their merciless fire.

Fuck
.

*

Mishella

T
here have definitely
been days in my life that fit the category of challenging. Perhaps a little crazy. And one—the day I began by signing six months of my life over to Cassian and ended by stepping onto the tarmac at Teterboro—even surreal.

But insane?

I never considered any of those days as true insanity. Not in its purest form. Not like now. Not with the thought that sometime between leaving the hospital with Doyle and sinking to the living room couch now, I have fallen into a reality so bizarre, it must be insanity.

I reach out. Desperately and gratefully, curl my hand into Kate’s. Since arriving an hour ago—and enduring the gauntlet of reporters to do so—she has not been just my life ring in this turbulent ocean. She has been the life
boat.
Proving good to her word, she left the apartment attached to her Upper East Side gynecology office and came right over, without makeup or formal clothes, to keep me breathing through this wild storm.

“
Breathe
, Mishella.”

Literally
breathing.

Reluctantly, I comply with her order.

My next action is easier. I snap an order at Doyle, knowing he already forgives the tone in light of the insanity. “Turn it up, Doyle.”

It
—being the huge television monitor over the sleek wood mantel. The reasoning for my command? The now-familiar face that consumes the screen, accompanied by a smaller window in the upper right corner—with my picture in it.

A muscle thuds in the man’s cheek. He may forgive me for the tone, but the action itself is clearly another issue. “You think that’s really—”

“
Turn it up.
”

The other side of his jaw clenches. “
Mishella.
Don’t do this to yourself—or Cas.”

“
Cas
is not here!” I push Kate’s hand away, leaving her to trade another anxious look with Doyle. Beneath my breath, seethe out, “Where the
hell
is he?”