Quiver (Revenge Book 1) (6 page)

“I enjoy free booze,” she said. “Figured a family worth twenty billion would have a pretty decent selection.”

His smile shone brighter. “Seems legitimate.”

“Why did you let me stay? Surely the wealthiest family in Shadow Rock has a lot of secrets to keep. Allowing an outsider to remain at a family function is pretty reckless behavior.”

“If I’d been on a mission to remove every unfamiliar face at that party, three-quarters of the guest list would’ve been escorted out.”

“
Three-quarters
of the faces at your own engagement party were unfamiliar to you? How does that happen?” When he didn’t answer, she shoved the Blow Pop back inside her mouth, hoping it would help shut her the hell up.

“Do you ever not have a sucker between those lips?” His voice grew soft. “What flavor is it?”

Veda cut a look at him. He hadn’t answered her question, so she wasn’t going to answer his either.

He stared at the white stick jutting out from between her lips, then licked his own. “As if crashing my engagement party wasn’t rude enough, you also expended quite a bit of energy avoiding me at the hospital this morning. To be honest, my feelings were a little hurt.”

Veda didn’t call him out for blatantly dodging her earlier question because the sickly feeling in her stomach had intensified to an unbearable degree, making it hard to breathe evenly, let alone think. She looked away, focusing on the hundreds of white boats bobbing in the marina below.

“Of course I avoided you,” she said, after removing the sucker from between her lips and taking a moment. “What woman wouldn’t avoid a man who was flirting with her at his own engagement party? In plain view of his soon-to-be wife?”

“
I
was flirting with
you
?” Gage beamed in disbelief, pushing off the railing and standing upright, sinking his hands in his pockets.

Veda looked up at him. God, he was tall. At least six-three.

“Yes,” she managed to croak. “You were flirting with me. You even had the brass balls to bring up the African diaspora. As if a black girl is bound to drop her panties the moment some white guy utters those two words.”

“I saw you checking me out.”

“I had no idea you were
alive
until you accosted me at the bar.”

“How do you lie to yourself this way?”

Veda chortled, feeling her eyes expand.

He reached out and brushed the knuckle of his forefinger over the soft fabric of her dress, stroking her stomach, his voice softening. “Those big eyes of yours… They were all over me.” Their chests swelled together and he pulled his hand away, sinking it back into his pocket. “If anyone was flirting, it was you.”

Veda scoffed, her eyes running over his body.

He lifted an eyebrow and scoffed back at her.

She pushed off the railing and began backing away, never breaking their eye contact, scoffing again but louder that time—somewhere between a scoff and a raspberry.

He blew a full raspberry, his face alight.

This exchange went on, both of them blowing raspberries as they grew farther and farther apart until Veda had descended the stairs and disappeared out of sight.

It wasn’t until she’d made it to the first floor that it occurred to her what children they both were.

It had been a long time since she’d tapped into that part of herself. That inner child. The one who could only think to blow a raspberry when a conversation wasn’t going her way. The child she’d been sure, until that very moment, had been long dead.

She covered her mouth as she moved through the first level of the bar, not wanting anyone to see the stupid smile on her face.

When that smile lingered just a little too long, she made a silent vow to stay the hell away from Gage Blackwater.

He was nothing but a dangerous distraction.

—

From the moment he’d looked up at her from the parking lot, leaning against the second-story railing, Gage hadn’t been able to stop himself. Not from bypassing all his friends on the first floor of the bar and racing up the steps, two at a time, to the second level. Not from approaching that big head of hair with curls that reached for the gods, that brown skin that soaked up the remnants of the setting sun, or that maxi dress that blew in the evening breeze, teasing maddening hints of her silky smooth thigh. Not from coming up to the railing next to her and meeting her eyes, unable to keep his own from falling to the sucker that stayed locked between her full lips.

God, her lips.

He hadn’t been able to stop. Not even as he heard his mother’s voice in his head.

“Why do I have the feeling you wouldn’t hesitate to share a bedroom with the young lady you were enjoying at the bar this evening?”

He’d convinced himself that his mother had been overreacting, as she often did. He’d resigned himself to marrying Scarlett Covington. He’d accepted that whatever that thing was, that thing that all the TV shows and movies talked about, that phenomena where a man looked a woman in the eyes and just… came alive, was a lie. Something that didn’t—couldn’t—exist in his world. In
him.

He lived in a world where money was king. When it came to money, love didn’t compute. Love was a lie. A fairytale. In his world, it was nothing more than a business transaction.

And, thankfully, as he watched that big-haired angel moving away from the railing, appearing desperate to escape him, all the while blowing raspberries—raspberries he returned with vigor—that fact had exploded back into his brain like a rocket.

Love was a lie.

That fluttery sensation in his stomach? A fluke. His thundering heart, which seemed seconds from shattering his ribcage? Probably the greasy Chinese he’d had on the way over there. His muddled brain, which hadn’t been able to erase her face since the moment he’d seen her for the first time? Well… he hadn’t quite made sense of that one yet.

Regardless.

His mother was right.

“You’re so adamant about being fully vested in your father’s company, yet so unwilling to do what it takes to earn it.”

He was willing to do what it took. If he wanted a real piece of his father’s company, a real place in the family business, Scarlett was his life. Scarlett was his future. Scarlett was the only plausible option.

Even if it had taken every fiber of his being not to follow that chocolate goddess down to the first floor, he hadn’t done it.

He leaned on the railing and examined the marina, covering his smiling lips, which still tingled from blowing raspberries.

The roar of his best friend’s Aston Martin pulling into the parking lot below stole his attention, and Gage pushed away from the railing, heading toward the steps to greet the birthday boy.

—

The last thing Veda cared about was learning new things about Todd Lockwood. The only new information she cared to learn was how his body responded as the last wisp of life left him. Would he convulse? Would he seize? Would his eyes stay open as he breathed his last breath, or would they flutter slowly closed? So many delicious possibilities, all of which had brightened her dreams for years.

But anything other than that? Anything other than Todd dying a horrific, painful death? Veda Vandyke didn’t give a shit.

Which made it all the more frustrating when she found herself learning things about him anyway.

Like the fact that he never turned his back on his drink.

Ever.

As she watched him across the crowded bar, she cursed herself for underestimating him. Of course a man who practically spiked drinks for a living knew better than to make himself so vulnerable. A full hour after he’d arrived to hugs, cheers, and gifts from his closest friends, Todd’s drink still hadn’t left his hand.

Not once.

Just as it was occurring to Veda that she might not be able to achieve her goal that night—a thought that sent steam shooting from her ears—a pair of arms curled around her neck from behind. The air left her lungs, and she prepared herself to turn with a fist in the air, ready to punch whoever had been foolish enough to grab her like that.

Then “I’m so glad you came!” floated into her ears.

And Veda’s entire being relaxed.

She turned on her heel, meeting the big brown orbs that had been following her all over the hospital that morning.

“I totally did not think you’d show!” Coco had released the ponytail she’d been wearing that morning, allowing her hair to flow down her back and over her shoulders. She’d chosen a red bodycon dress with long sleeves, leaving her skyscraper legs on full display. She tugged the sleeves down over her hands, stretching the fabric until the seams reached her fingernails. Then she locked her fingers around them to ensure they stayed down.

Veda fought the urge to rip those sleeves from Coco’s grip and force her to wear them appropriately, or at the very least roll them up so she wouldn’t be tempted to yank at them. She could remember a time when she’d had the same habit, back in middle school. As if hiding her hands behind a thin piece of fabric would protect her from the world. From the naysayers. From the monsters in her head. It didn’t; all it had done was stretch out all her good clothes.

Veda forced a smile, her eyes wandering over Coco’s shoulder, locking onto the man she was there for in the first place.

Todd was leaning on the bar, several feet away from Veda and Coco, surrounded by his friends, all of them howling at their own stupid jokes.

“Here I am.” Veda held her hands out at her sides, presenting herself. “But I can’t stay for much longer. I’ve got a 6:00 a.m. report tomorrow. Plus, you were right. Todd and his friends suck ass.”

“Totally.” Coco smiled, making her eyes light up. In the next instant, her smile vanished, and she shot a look over her shoulder at Todd before throwing her eyes back to Veda. “Hey, is it cool…?” She yanked her sleeves farther down over her hands. “Is it cool if I chill with you? Just until you leave, I mean?”

Veda could feel this angel from heaven latching onto her like a leech, but she didn’t have time to babysit Coco. She didn’t have time for friends.

Still, as she held Coco’s eyes, trying to think up a way to turn her down, she shocked herself by answering, “Fine.”

And with that halfhearted agreement, Coco gasped and clapped their arms together, locking hers tight, as if she had no intention of allowing Veda to escape anytime soon. She began pulling her toward the bar. “You have to meet my brother Dante. I think you guys would really hit it off. You’re going to love him. And you’ve
got
to see the upper deck. It has a killer view of the entire island!”

“I’ve actually already seen it—”

“Coco Puffs!”

Veda broke her eyes from Coco and looked over her shoulder, wondering who’d interrupted them. Her mouth fell as she locked eyes with Todd.

It was the closest she’d been to him since that night. As his striking blue eyes came within a foot and met hers, she couldn’t help it when her body jolted, heart exploding in her chest, setting fire to her every organ, making her wonder how she managed to stay on two feet.

Veda felt Coco’s arms, which were still locked around hers, move to a death grip.

Todd’s eyes ran Coco’s body. “Coco Puffs, that dress though. Does Dad know you decided to whore it up tonight?”

Coco’s grip tightened so much that Veda began to worry she was cutting off circulation. She looked at Coco and saw her head had fallen low, chin to her chest as she mumbled an unintelligible response.

The vial that had been in Veda’s hand for hours seemed to heat into a singe, so hot it felt like it was melting into her skin.

“Oh, that’s right.” Veda shot her heated eyes to Todd, and it took everything she had not to shove that vial down his throat. “Because a woman embracing her body, and her natural beauty, just
has
to be a whore, right?”

Todd shot Veda a look, as if he’d forgotten she was there, while motioning to Coco, displaying the 23 on the inside of his wrist.

Veda’s eyes zoomed in on that number, and she nearly screamed.

Todd pointed his drink at Coco. “Hey, this is my sister, all right? It’s cool.”

Veda’s eyes widened, and her teeth ground with such ferocity she worried they might peel away.

Veda planted the high-heeled shoes she’d been wobbling in all night against the marble floors when Todd tried to pull her into the dark master bedroom. Downstairs, the party roared on.

“I want to go back downstairs.” She tried to pry her arm from his painfully tight grip, wondering when the room had started spinning. Her vision blurred and her drink dropped from her hand. She only distantly heard it crash to the floor as she clapped a hand over her burning forehead, slurring, “I don’t want to go in there.”

“A girl only puts on a dress like this when she’s trolling for dick.” He yanked her arm, causing her to stumble in her heels and come barreling into his chest. “You see?” He laughed, clapping a hand around her waist, using his strength to drag her inside the bedroom. “You’re all over me. Relax, baby. Stop fighting it. It’s cool.”