Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) (27 page)

He leans back again, creaking the leather seat beneath his lanky frame again. “That’s the start of the list, lady.”

The line feels like a standing ovation. I accept it with a grateful smile—though cannot wait for the chance to splash back into my black pot of moroseness. “Then in fairness, we must now add another important item to your ‘list’.”

One of his brows jog. “This should be interesting.”

“No. Just obvious.” I succumb to an oh-come-
on
glower. Instantly prompt, “The disaster of what just happened in that television studio? The mess
I
suggested we walk into?”

“Okay, hold the phone, sister.” He slashes a finger toward the device I yank out. “Figure of speech. Put it away. You need to hear me here.
Clearly.
” The second I comply, his stare sharpens like a pair of throwing knives. “All that shit Chantal brought out about Lily this morning…you really think she started poking around for it just last week?”

The knives sink in. I frown from their stunning impact. “She…she did not?”

“Holy shit,” he mumbles. “No. Her team started digging up shit on Cassian a year ago, when he was with that Nairobian model who landed the lead in the new
Star Wars
movie. As far as we knew at the time, it was just basic trivia like his high school girlfriends, college clubs, his tight relationship with his mom. But there’s a good chance that the crap with Lily goes back that far too. We’ll know that soon enough.”

The promise leads him back to somber tones, as well as the enigmatic Doyle with whom I am much more familiar—and comfortable. “The
main
point here is, those scum suckers have digging for a chink in Cassian’s armor for a while—long before we took that trip to Arcadia, and he even knew you existed. Whatever they found out last year, and everything since then, has been carefully stored up until the time was right.”

I nod, finally beginning to understand. “And the time got right.”

“More right than Chantal ever hoped for.” He uncaps one of the bottled waters stored in the ice bay. Takes a quick chug before continuing, “She already had the explosion ready to detonate, Mishella.” He tips the neck of the bottle toward me. “It’s just a damn good thing you were at his side when that bat shit bunny decided to push the red button.”

A note gets jotted in one of my mental journals.
Cassian, Doyle and rabbits…just weird flukes
? Outwardly, my nose crinkles. Then harder. “So…this would probably be happening, no matter what?”

Doyle spreads his hands. “No matter what.”

“So I am not a not a pot?”

He grunts. “Nor a kettle.”

It takes me more long minutes to process that—though have a viable excuse due to gaping at the throng of reporters at Temptation’s front gate. Did they conduct some strange mitosis while we were gone? There are four times as many of them now. It surely has something to do with Cassian’s dramatic conclusion to the interview with Chantal, and that “viral” phenomenon I am still not familiar with—nor am sure I wish to be. Some aspects of living in this modern world really are better as mysteries.

As Scott slows the car in front of the frosted glass doors to the basement’s elevator lobby, I look out at the portals, which are embossed with lustrous art deco lions. Blatant but appropriate irony, anyone? My lazing lion has been poked, and is now awake.

Very
awake.

“Doyle?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think Cassian expected this?”

“Maybe.” His head cants to the other side. “Probably. But I suspect—I’m
sure
—there was a part of him that still hoped…” He snorts, meshing his hands back together. “Ah, hell. You know Cassian, yeah? Bad-ass billionaire on the outside”—his hands fold tighter—“mush-ball of chivalry and do-right-not-easy on the inside.”

My lips lift readily. How can they not, after six weeks of seeing that code at work every day? Everything from insisting Prim source most of her grocery list from local suppliers, to standing up for safer labor conditions for workers on his overseas projects, to insisting I learn every superhero’s moral code during our movie nights…the man needs to believe that in his small and not-so-small ways, he is contributing to the cause of right in this world. Balancing the wrongs from Damon and Lily—and the child he will never know.

The halves of Doyle’s jaw battle each other for a second, before he reaches some kind of inner resolve. “You know, he and Chantal actually used to be really fond of each other.
Not
like that,” he hurries out, as if forecasting my stiffened spine. “She was a new reporter on the ‘chatty news’ scene, and needed to make a mark. Cas has never forgotten what it was like to be the new kid, and constantly judged. He had empathy, and helped her out with some quality one-on-one sit-downs. When she landed at
People and Places
, Cas was even at the celebration party.”

A breath whooshes from me. “Oh, my.”

“Yeah.” He grunts. “Oh, my.”

“No wonder he reacted this morning as if his best friend had smashed a grenade into his heart.”

His turn to straighten a little. Press a weirdly dainty hand to his chest. “Uh, yeah. It does.”

“And…?” I prompt, when his stare lifts in a bizarre spurts.

“You Arcadian women have weird violent streaks.”

“So do you American men.” In a mutter, I amend, “Especially Mr. Court.”

“Agreed.”

“Which mean he’s going to destroy Chantal in court.”

“Probably.”

Fitting or not, it is the thought I am left to ponder as we get out of the Jag and make our way inside—which suddenly feels like as much of a cage as the confines of my mind to these whirling thoughts. Before the elevator even rumbles to life, I have punched the button for Temptation’s ground floor, instead of the top.

“I need a few minutes to myself,” I explain to Doyle. “Nobody can see the herb garden. I shall be all right there.”

He nods, resigned. The little space, tucked against the complex’s back wall, is a secret Prim let me in on just a few weeks ago, when I complimented the fresh herbs in her lasagna. She beamed when showing me the garden, a haven not only for her organically-grown herbs and flavorful plants, but also containing a butterfly grotto and a reading hammock beneath a sprawling linden tree.

Today, not a leaf on that tree budges in the stifling summer heat—though I am grateful for the shade and the respite of the garden after the chaos of the morning. A sigh escapes.
Chaos
. It was barely a word I knew until two months ago. It seems to be my middle name now. But given the choice, would I return to the pace and stability of Arcadia instead of this insanity?

Because two months ago, I did not know several other words either.

Like desire.

Like longing.

Like Cassian.

Like love.

With a wistful smile, I let my hand trail along a lavender bush. It is a warm weather lover, and tells me so with the bloom of soft fragrance against my fingers. “You just enjoy blooming where you are planted, hmmm?”

Do I take a cue from the flowers? Obey the call of my heart and truly try to see what will bloom if I allow some deeper roots with Cassian? Or am I destined to be nothing but a pretty window decoration here, vibrant and lovely—but trapped in the confines of a pot, set for one purpose alone, while my roots constantly fight that pot?

“Whatever it is, the fate of nations doesn’t rest on it. Not today, at least.”

My head snaps up at the interruption—not because I am stunned someone has found me here, but because that someone is not Doyle. Nor Scott. Nor even Cassian.

Though for a second, I
did
think it was Cassian.

What. On. Earth?

Those very words race up my throat but are frozen halfway, paralyzed as if caught by an ice ray from one of Cassian’s super heroes—making me wonder if the stranger standing here, tall and muscled and full of a little too much pride in his stance, might even be one of them in the flesh. He needs a better costume, though. Those faded jeans, cuffed work shirt, and sheen of sweat make me wonder if his out-of-nowhere appearance had its origin point on a mythical planet, or just in the sewer just outside the mansion.

And why am I standing here, even debating these things?

Move. Move, before he realizes that you plan to. Run. Run
!

“Please.” Too late. He slides in front of me, dangerously fast and graceful to the point of slick, again like a scene from one of Cassian’s movies—when the bad guy wants to block the hero’s girlfriend from escaping his clutches. “Just hold on, okay?”

Clutches. Pegged it
. He lifts a hand to my elbow, making me skitter back, swinging the only weapon in my possession: my purse. Since the Kate Spade Mini Candace only contains my phone and a lipstick, I make sure the hit counts—and am glad I paid attention when Saynt insisted on schooling me in self-defense basics.

“Ow! Shit.”

“Stand back,
bonsun
—or I
shall
scream.”

“Christ.”

A schism of shock rips through my belly once more. Radiates like bolts from a plasma ball, fractioning through my toes, my fingertips, even my hair follicles. His
voice
. Why does something in its baritone timber catch my breath and stop my senses—

As if Cassian has just walked up instead?

And with that thought, I take in the sight of him again.
Really
look at him.

Thick, dark blonde hair that seems to be the Court family trademark—though tamed more by a nearly military cut. Eyes, arrestingly green—though lighter, like Mallory’s, instead of the deep forests of Cassian’s.

Dear, sweet Creator…

That is not all. He has dimples—prominent ones, even with that furrowed frown on his face. And his angular, formidable jaw…and that mouth, hinting at a hundred kinds of expression…

“Wh-what—
who
are—”

The stranger steps forward, making me counter by stepping back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you—or hurt you. I’m here because I need to talk you.” Another attempt at an advance—halted as soon as I arch the purse back once more. “Fuck. My intel was right. You
are
feisty.”

Fume. Again. I like it when Cassian calls me feisty. From this stranger, it is…too personal. “What the
hell
do you want?”

He rolls those bright green eyes. “I
told
you. To talk.”

Another jolt hits my stomach. “Fine. Talk. From
over there.
You have two minutes.”

His shoulders drop by an inch. He rolls them just once, while resetting his chin. No more eye rolling. He drives that bright green gaze straight into me, before stating, “This may take more than two minutes.”

“Why?”

He exhales. Folds his hands at the small of his back. “I’ll start at the beginning. My name…is Damon Court.”

*

My ears and
my mind are mismatched fuses. The syllables have gone in but nothing about them latches to a single anchor of comprehension—except that somewhere deep inside, my instinct connects with his truth.

“No!” My protest screams from my soul but only scrapes the air, a rasp disappearing against the air’s humid cushion. My body is a contrast of eerie composure, motionless even as Damon—
no; not Damon; who the hell are you
?—advances by another step. “That—
this
is impossible.” That must be it. This is impossible. Not happening.

“I know it sounds strange—”

“Not strange!” My voice finally comes back as a gratifying snarl. “
Impossible.
What the hell did not you not understand about impossible?”

“Mishella—”

“He is dead.
You
are dead.”
Which explains how you already feel you know him? How his presence just—clicks—deep within, in that same way it does with Cassian and Mallory? How he
is
so much like both of them, peering at you with such familiar intensity, it makes you tremble? How he steps even closer, one side of his face lifting to produce a dimple so deep, it speaks of his genes louder than the hair and the eyes and the stance and the—

The everything.

Oh, my.

Oh…

my.

“Well.” He settles his stance again, like a lion anticipating battle—just his little brother.
Dammit
. “Clearly, I’m not dead.”

“Do
not
be flippant,” I retort. “You have
not
earned the right to be flippant.”

The dimple vanishes—though that gleam in his eyes, a combination of assessment and enticement, pulses brighter. “Well. The boy wonder picked himself quite a spitfire, didn’t he?”

“Who?”

The gleam softens. Just a little. “Nothing,” he says softly. “Just a nickname from long ago.”

From long
, long
ago, you selfish bonsun.
The fury, overriding me like bloodlust on behalf of the family he has subjected to fourteen years of grief, makes me long to give the lion the fight he deserves. And the smell of his own blood. And the scars of my scratches across his serene face.

Which would do
what
for you? Or for Cassian
?

The logic makes my stomach churn, my mind spin. I feel thrust onto a jetty in a storm, rooted on solid rock but buffeted by waves of mind-jarring force, threatening to blast me away.