Sidekick (11 page)

She picked out a single blade from the bag gripped in her hand and passed it to me.

“Uh…thanks?” I cocked my head. “You know, that’s an awful lot of blades for one person. Do you—”

She violently rattled the bag of razors at me. I jumped back.

“You’re kind of terrifying,” I said as the door slammed in my face.

***

Oh what a night!

I practically skipped down the street with my hairless, hacked up legs.

Things were looking up, up, up.

I had a hot date, a job prospect, and a newfound source of income. What more did a girl in the big bad city need? Well, there was food, but that would be okay too. Pierce didn’t seem the type to go dutch, but I didn’t want him to think I was dating him simply for his access to calories either. To be on the safe side, I had cut out a fake credit card from a magazine and taped it to some cardboard. That way I could do the exaggerated
reach for my card
at bill time in order to give him ample opportunity to decline my kind offer. Solid plan.

It took me twenty minutes to find the restaurant, but it was worth it. Tucked nestled away behind some towering buildings was an outdoor Italian restaurant with wrought-iron furniture and red and white checkered tablecloths. I couldn’t help but let out an
Aww
.

I was so ordering spaghetti.

Since I had arrived early, I sat myself at a table with a little candle and tried to calm the butterflies hyperventilating in my stomach.

While I waited, doubts crept into my mind.

Why exactly did Pierce want to go out with me anyway? Sure, I think I’m cute, but I had nearly broken the guy’s nose. I racked my brain for reasons why he might find me attractive and when I came up with nothing, suspicions started to beat up the butterflies in my belly. Once again, this was my father’s fault. You don’t become a billionaire by trusting people.

Before my thoughts turned too cranky, my eye caught Pierce walking down the street. He was dressed in a suit, his tie off and thrown over his shoulder. The tiniest flash of pectoral muscle peeked through his slightly open collar. As he got closer, I thought I caught a whiff of cologne mixed with that warm smell men give off when they’ve been working. Goose bumps rippled over my arms thinking about his body heat.

When he saw me, he waved and beamed a kid at Christmas smile. It took my brain a second to remember the whole mechanics of breathing thing.

“Am I late?” he asked, sitting down.

“No,” I squeaked. I cleared my throat before adding, “I was early.”

He shook his head. “Work was crazy, and I could barely concentrate.” He smiled again boyishly.

“Speaking of work, I’m sorry about the interview.” As I spoke the words, I noticed the suspicions in my belly were back and multiplying into something a lot like paranoia…but
not paranoia
because I was starting to think I wasn’t crazy at all! In fact, given my former life, I should have realized it sooner.

I pushed my chair back and hit the floor. I then threw the checkered cloth over my head and looked under the table.

Nothing. Just innocuous looking table legs.

“Brenda?” Pierce’s voice called from above. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just need a second.”

I looked again to see if I had missed it earlier.

Nope, no briefcase.

I emerged from underneath the table, brushing my hair back. Pierce held my elbow to help me up. The warmth of his hands almost sidetracked me from my mission, but I had to be sure.

My eyes darted around looking for anything suspicious.

“Is there something I can do?” Pierce asked.

I heard the
I am obviously dealing with a crazy person
tone in his voice, but I ignored it. After a few more furtive glances, I moved to lower myself back into my chair. Then a new thought hit me.

I grabbed the table, swung myself around it, and threw myself at Pierce. My hands padded down the front of his chest. I did my best to ignore the delicious sensation of muscle in order to focus on the task at hand.

“Brenda, not that there isn’t a part of me really enjoying this, but…what are you doing?” I could feel him trying to make eye contact, but my gaze was focused intently on his glasses trying to determine if they were in fact just glasses.

Again, nothing. They looked clean.

That’s the problem with paranoia. It can make you look like an idiot.

I made my way back to the other side of the table, sat down, and smiled my most charming, not at all crazy, smile.

We sat in silence for a moment, neither one of us acknowledging my mini-break from reality.

Pierce broke first. “Brenda, I have to ask…”

“Yes?”

“Are you looking for hidden recording devices?”

“Um…yes.”

He cleared his throat.

Oh man, here it comes
, I thought. My guess was the next words out of his mouth would be
Wow, would you look at the time
.

He took a breath. I cringed.

“So…hungry?”

“Starving.”

For the next little while, we covered first date basics. Where are you from? What do you do? What are your hobbies? I let him do most of the talking. The rest of the time, I lied. I probably should have felt bad, but it was kind of fun…freeing. I didn’t have to be Bremy St. James for once. A few times I had to stop myself from talking about Jenny, but aside from that, it was almost…easy.

“So I take it your food is good?” Pierce asked.

“Good?” I mumbled, mouth half-full. I followed his gaze down to my plate. My spaghetti and meatballs had arrived less than two minutes ago, and I had already eaten half of it. I swallowed hard and dabbed the corner of my mouth with a napkin. “Very good. Thank you.”

Things had been going pretty well so far, but I figured it was time to address the elephant having dinner with us. “Listen, about earlier—”

“When you thought I was secretly recording our date for my article?”

“Yes, that. How did you know that’s what I was doing?”

“I didn’t at first, but when you got to the really thorough pat down, I clued in. And, no, I don’t have a camera in my glasses.” He then leaned forward to put his elbows on the table, and rested his chin on his interlaced fingers. “But now that you’ve brought it up, I think I should break something to you.”

I bit my lip before saying, “Okay.”

“I don’t need the interview that badly. It was one bank robbery. Most of the city has already forgotten about it. I mean, it’s not like you’re some billionaire’s socialite daughter.”

My jaw dropped. I almost checked my forehead to see if I had a
this property belongs to
sticker with my father’s company logo on it.

“Was that insulting? Oh man, I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean it that way. I would love to have secret pictures of you…that sounds wrong.” Pierce paused, took a breath, and placed his hands calmly on the table before flashing me a smile that burned more brightly than the sun. “I normally have more game than this.”

I would have replied with something witty, but the lightning bolt his smile sent to my loins had me flustered.

“What I should have said was I’m not that kind of reporter. All this Sultana versus Dark Ryder stuff…it’s not my passion. Although I will say, the history of the tattooed lady is kind of interesting.”

Oh, thank God. A segue. I needed to keep us this going in a new direction. “What history?”

He leaned back. “Well, women covered in tattoos were commonly billed as Circassian Beauties in circuses around the turn of the century,” he said, looking a little like a distracted professor…who I wanted to sleep with.

“All that hair,” he continued, gesturing around his own head with a fork, “that’s a Circassian Beauty trademark.”

My brow furrowed. “But what is a Circassian Beauty?”

“A concubine…the most beautiful of concubines. The legend goes that Sultans would kidnap women—Circassian women from Russia—for their harems. Circuses would claim they had rescued such a beauty. Then they would put her on display for men to gawk at while imagining her terrible history.”

“Men are really disturbing sometimes.”

“The fact that men are disturbing is not a newsflash,” Pierce said pointing his knife at me. “But you know what’s weird? The Sultana looked so familiar to me…like from a story, maybe years back. I just can’t remember. Even so, I’ll be glad when the news world moves on from Dark Ryder and her latest nemesis. I might as well be working for a tabloid. I really want to do more investigative journalism. Something that matters.”

“Wait,” I said looking at him sideways. “Dark Ryder doesn’t matter?”

“Don’t even get me started.” He shook his head and took a bite of fish. “I’m glad it wasn’t you on that balloon with her. She represents everything I hate about the modern age.”

My cheeks suddenly felt a little hot and not in a good way. “Wow, that’s a little harsh.”

“Everyone sees her as this hero who swoops in and saves people, but if you ask me, she’s a glory hog. There are people in this city who work every day to make it better. The people in the soup kitchens. The social workers. The police officers. They devote themselves to doing what’s right. They don’t need a look-at-me outfit and TV cameras in order to make a difference. Ryder is all about Ryder.”

“But, but,” I was practically spitting now, “she puts her life on the line and goes into the most dangerous situations to help people…you have to admire that.”

Pierce met my eyes. “Ryder is a vigilante. She doles out justice the way she sees fit. Who elected her to do that? What if she gets it wrong? You can’t tell me she knows the backstory to every crime committed. Where’s the accountability?”

I had no clue what to make of any of this. I didn’t disagree with his points on paper, but he seemed to be missing, well, the whole awesomeness factor that was Ryder.

“And have you ever thought about how she makes her money?” he asked, breaking our gaze to cut into a potato.

I had. I had indeed.

“I can’t prove it, but my guess is that she takes some sort of donation from the city.”

“And that’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, yeah.” His eyes flashed back to mine. “It’s one step away from blackmail.”

How was it my dream date was going so wrong?

I didn’t get it. Pierce wasn’t the cynical type, and yet here he was with an obvious hate-on for the coolest woman in the universe.

I tried to smooth my ruffled mental feathers. This could still work. He was simply misguided on this one little issue. Couples couldn’t agree on everything right? I envisioned many playful fights in our future, with lots of rolling around…in bedsheets…naked.

This was most definitely not a deal breaker.

“But I’m so tired of talking about Ryder. As I said, what I really what to do is investigative journalism.”

I nodded eagerly, with my interested face on.

“In fact, I’m working on something right now that could blow St. James Industries wide open.”

Everything stopped.

I should have known. The Dark Ryder thing wasn’t the deal breaker. My father was. Always my father.

Believe me, I had no desire to defend the man who sired me—especially given what he had done to my mother—but I couldn’t be involved in this. If my father thought I was helping an investigative journalist, he’d commit me faster than you could say cuckoo.

I hoped beyond hope that I had misheard Pierce.

“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. St. James Industries is having a big press conference with the mayor in a couple of days. My guess is that it has something to do with this new product they’re developing—an antidepressant in the form of a microchip.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline.

“Exactly,” he said, eyes sparkling. “We should all be concerned. Mr. Atticus St. James himself is going to be there, selling it as a revolution in healthcare, but I’ve got a source who swears this chip is dangerous.”

“Wow.”

“I know,” he said taking another bite. “It would be great to take a guy like that down a notch or two. Do you know he spent over half a million dollars on his daughters’ sweet sixteen birthday party?”

That was a great party.

“I mean, how do you justify that kind of grotesque extravagance in a world where there is so much poverty and suffering?”

Okay, perhaps the ground diamond dust in my nail polish had been a bit much, but it matched my dress.

“Anyway, I don’t have anything concrete yet, but I’m getting close.” He pushed up his cute nerd glasses on his Greek God face. “And…I just realized I have been talking your ear off like a self-obsessed jerk.”

I laughed, weakly.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Suddenly I’m not feeling well.”

“Oh, you…you want to go?” he asked as I signalled the waiter for the check. He looked so sad, almost as sad as I felt.

We could have worked out the Dark Ryder thing, but this was impossible. Not only would my father destroy me, but Pierce too. I couldn’t let that happen.

The waiter put the bill on the table, and without thinking, I reached for my credit card.

“Um, Brenda, you do know that you’re holding a picture of a credit card taped onto what appears to be a piece of cardboard, right?”

I looked down at it. Oh fake credit card, you were born in a much happier time.

“It’s okay. I’ve got this,” he said quickly putting money down on the table.

I began to push my chair back. Pierce rushed around to pull it out for me.

“Can I at least walk you home?”

“No, that’s alright. I’ll—”

“Let me get you a cab. My treat. I insist.” I watched Pierce trot out to the road with his hand in the air. I equally cherished and mourned the sight.

I walked over as slowly as I could.

“Brenda, I really feel like I’ve messed this up.”

“No. No. It’s not you,” I said. It wasn’t. It was my stupid father. Again. I would never be free.

“I’d love it if you would give me another chance,” he said, with puppy dog eyes.

This was killing me. Really truly killing me. I could feel my heart strangling itself to death.

“Look, Pierce, sometimes these things—”

He leaned in and kissed me. It was very soft and warm at first—the equivalent to being surprised with warm caramel. Then it was hard…and much hotter.