“I brought you lox. Because you’re Jewish.” I laughed, flapping my hands like I was trying to fly. “Which you know. Did I say how much I respect your career?”
Maya flipped the box over, taking in the glossy photos on the back. “Were you trying to bribe me into liking you? With fish?”
“Is it working? Because if not, it’s a hostess gift. Contrary to how it seems, I wasn’t actually raised by wolves.”
I was getting nothing from this woman, except Baruch-worthy impassive blinks. I gnawed on a cuticle until it was ragged, contemplating my next move, but I’d just caused a man’s death. My ideas, unlike the whiskey I’d just slugged back, were not top shelf.
There were running footsteps and Rohan skidded to a stop in the doorway. “Don’t scare her, Mom.”
Maya didn’t even turn around. “Go check on your father, beta.”
“Dad’s fine.”
“Rohan.”
My badass, human-blade of a boyfriend nodded meekly and slunk away. “Okay.”
“Coward,” I yelled. Maya turned that look on me. “He’s a fine boy,” I amended.
She sank onto the arm of the sofa, all languid elegance and black nail polish. “Sit.”
I sat.
“Before you say anything, I have a few points to make on why I’m an excellent girlfriend for your son.” I reached into my pocket.
“Those are index cards.”
I pulled off the elastic securing them. “I wasn’t sure I’d remember all my points.”
“How many are there?”
I flipped through the cards. “One hundred and seven. Though I might have rephrased a few in different creative ways to pump up the content.”
Maya threw her head back and laughed. “Holy fuck, you’re even funnier than Ro-Ro said.”
Ro-Ro? Oh, revenge would be sweet on the scurrying bastard.
Cautiously optimistic, I stuffed my cards back into my bathrobe pocket. “Did you like the song he wrote you for Mother’s Day? I thought it was beautiful, but I’m not a professional.”
I was totally planning to claim all the points for being the one to convince him to write it.
Maya jabbed a finger at me. “This album mess is all your fault. I never would have worked with my stubborn-ass kid if he hadn’t written me that cute song. That’s on you.”
I reached for my cards again, but she snapped her fingers at me, stopping me.
“Did I say I didn’t love it? That I didn’t want my son writing music again?”
I eyed the door, mentally calculating how I could make a quick escape if need be, because she was scary. “Uh, no?”
“The depth and maturity of the songs on Ascending? It’s his best work.” She shook her head from side to side. “Or will be when he finishes it.”
I relaxed a fraction. “He’s punished himself for Asha long enough.”
“He has.” Maya slid off the arm so that she was sitting beside me. “Rohan is extremely proud and stubborn. He gets it from his father.”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. “Uh-huh.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes his pride is a good thing, but sometimes…” Her face etched with sorrow. “My son went down some dark roads. But you keep bullying him back into the light.”
“I wouldn’t call it bullying. A gentle encouragement.”
Maya snorted. “I know the two of you haven’t had it easy, but you’re good for him. Is he good for you?”
As evidenced by Exhibit A, the index cards, I’d been ready for Maya to hate me. The woman had a fierce reputation and didn’t suffer fools. Best case, she’d be indifferent. But this? This wasn’t just expectations of me, it was expectations of her son for me.
“He really is.”
“Okay then.” She stood, the salmon tucked under one arm.
“Out of curiosity, did the bribe help?”
“I’m deathly allergic to salmon.”
“Next time don’t lead with the lethal toxin. Got it.” I picked up the whiskey bottle, checking if by any miracle, some booze had survived.
There was a sharp rap on the door.
“Hello?” said a French-accented female’s voice. A tiny bird of a woman, with a severe jet-black bob, her arms full of garment bags and a massive make-up kit, edged inside the bungalow.
“Cristianne.” Maya rose, kissing her friend on both cheeks. “This is Nava.”
Cristianne carefully lay the garment bags over a chair, then crossed the room and pulled me to my feet. “Oui. I can work with this.”
“Merci de m’aider si rapidement,” I said.
“Vous êtes Francaise?”
“Canadian, but educated in French.”
The stylist beamed at me, chattering away in French about how she’d hadn’t been certain but now she had the perfect dress.
The next hour was a whirlwind of pinning and hair and make-up. Maya had left ages ago, mumbling some excuse about a pressing issue in the studio.
Cristianne sprayed hairspray on my wave of hair falling over one eye and pinned a large crimson flower behind my left ear. “Et voilà.”
I turned to the full-length mirror she’d had brought in and beamed.
She’d put me in a midnight blue, satin, retro glam number with a sweetheart halter, fitted to my every curve and then sweeping out at the bottom in a fishtail. I looked like I’d stepped out of the 1940s.
Someone wolf-whistled. “My son has excellent taste,” said a man with an Indian accent.
“Dev!” I shuffle-hopped over and hugged Rohan’s dad. “I’m so glad to meet you properly. How are you feeling?”
He danced a couple of jig steps. “Never better. Cristianne, exquisite work as always.”
She gave a very Gallic half-shrug, her arms full once more with all her supplies. “Mais, bien sûr.”
After some last-minute instructions and an order to dazzle, she winked at me and left.
Dev and I chatted for a bit. His recovery was going well, though he was frustrated with everyone handling him with kid gloves. I thanked him for his hospitality with the bungalow and after five minutes, inexplicably found myself invited to a cricket match, a sport I always confused with croquet. I had the good sense not to ask which one Alice had played in Wonderland using flamingos.
“Look at you.” Ro stepped inside and motioned for me to turn.
“I’ll leave you kids alone.” Dev clapped his son on the arm and left.
Ro swept a very slow, very thorough gaze over me and I preened.
“Lox?” Ro said.
“Thank you, I feel beau–Wait. What?”
“You gave my allergic mom salmon?”
I planted my hands on my hips. “And thanks for the heads up, Ro-Ro.”
He grinned at me, his white teeth gleaming. “Only Mom calls me that, so if you’re ever planning on having sex again?” He made a slashing motion across his throat.
“Noted. Do I look good enough for a demon?”
“You look beautiful, but you’re missing something.” He pulled a robin’s egg blue box out of his pocket.
“That’s from Tiffany’s.”
“If you say so.”
I grabbed the box and opened it. “Tell me that goose egg isn’t real.”
The oval sapphire on a long, slender gold chain could have been used as a weapon.
“It’s real.” He slid the chain over my head. The jewel nestled in my décolletage, catching the light in a million fiery prisms. “You want to attract a demon, right? Go big.”
He slid his arms around me, turning us to face the mirror. While there was no doubt this couple could stand on any celebrity stage, truthfully, I liked the private version of Ro and me best. The one where he was wearing one of my tap T-shirts, or we were dancing around and singing, being goofs.
“This isn’t us,” I said.
“I know.” His arms tightened, his chest rising and falling in tandem with my heartbeat. “Speak now or forever hold your peace, because there’s no going back. You read
y to step into the spotlight?”
Chapter 16
After a quick glamouring of our Rasha rings so that Hybris wouldn’t know we were hunters if, no, when she showed up, Ro ushered me to the limo he’d rented. He’d stocked it with champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries.
Limo ride 2.0 was way better than the first one.
I bit into a large berry and licked chocolate off my lip, watching refracted streetlights slither over the tinted windows. “I’m rethinking the definition of us, because I could get used to this. Also, Rolita is damn hot.”
“You’d get stabby if you had to wear Spanx on a regular basis.”
I held out my champagne flute to be filled. “Who said I was wearing that?”
“No one is that smooth under form-fitting satin. Seen a lot of women in evening attire.”
“More like you’ve removed a lot of evening attire.”
He winked at me and tipped his flute back.
“Little less hot now, buddy.”
He ran a hand along his body. “I’m the ultimate hotness.”
“Eh.”
“Take it back.” Ro pulled me to him and rained smooches on my cheek.
“Watch the hair.” I squealed and batted him away. Feebly, because let’s face it, even his cheek kisses were worth having.
When the limo pulled up to the curb outside the upscale lounge where the charity event was being held, I scooted closer to the window. I couldn’t see the front doors for the paparazzi. In fact, I could barely see the red carpet.
I did a couple of breathing exercises from my tap days to center myself.
The door opened and the driver extended his gloved hand.
“Allow me.” Ro got out to assist me.
I stepped onto the red carpet and the world exploded in a flurry of flashbulbs. My vision was a blur of white dots and I couldn’t hear myself think over the dozen reporters yelling at us.
Most of the crowd jamming the barriers on either side of the red carpet was female, many holding signs professing their love for my boyfriend, and all of them shrieking with near-hysterical fervor.
Honestly? It was madness and I reveled in it. When it came to performing, my attitude was the bigger the audience, the better. With each step, my spine grew straighter, my chin notched up just that much more.
Ro kept one hand on the small of my back, ushering me along the carpet, as he waved at his fans, totally at ease. Another day at the office. “Well done.”
I couldn’t have wiped my smirk off my face if I’d been paid.
Nothing I’d seen or read had prepared me for the tangible current of his fans’ adoration. It was that live-wire hum that one wrong spark could turn into an all-consuming inferno. And from the hate shining out at me from many of them, I was that spark.
I’d dealt with so much shit since becoming Rasha. I’d had demons try to kill me and go after my people, I’d had my very sense of self challenged and tested and remade via the same kind of force that turned carbon into diamonds, and on top of all that, I was trying to stave off the apocalypse. So apologizing for daring to be the woman on Rohan’s arm? I wanted to throw back my head and laugh. That’s right. Take a good look.
I swaggered into that club like I had a cape and theme music.
The frosted glass doors didn’t mute the clamoring much. If anything, the crowd seemed to swell in a disappointed chorus once they closed behind us.
To get inside the main room, we had to pass a wall of colorful photographs featuring youth of all ages in different impoverished countries that this charity had helped get off the streets and into affordable housing and jobs. The stories mounted under the photos were incredibly moving. I was especially taken with one physically disabled young girl who’d been abducted by a gang in South China and forced into slave labor, begging on the streets and giving whatever she earned to the criminals. Now in her early thirties, she oversaw the charity’s operations in that entire country.
“I want to donate,” I said. I couldn’t give my time, but I wanted to contribute something.
“Sure.” Rohan turned from the profile he’d been reading to smile at me. “I’ll put you in touch with my contact.”
“You’re already familiar with this organization?”
“Zack and I learned about them at the same time on our… second? Yeah, second world tour. I’ve been supporting them ever since.”
A knot of people had gotten bottlenecked at the photos, so Ro and I moved on to the main space.
It was an enormous circular room with a dazzling stained glass ceiling in blues and greens that gave a dreamy underwater effect. Dozens of crystal chandeliers cast a cool white light and the air was thick with perfume and entitlement.
Old money was represented by distinguished men in conservative suits and their much younger trophy wives. New money was the flashier, younger set in designer wear that ran from chic outfits I’d seen on the covers of fashion mags in the airport on my way to Los Angeles, to a dress whose ball gown skirt was an explosion of feathers and twigs, to the guy wearing a powder blue tux jacket with pants that seemed to be made of balloons.
“Is that?” I tugged on Ro’s sleeve, flicking my eyes to the superhero star deep in conversation with the squeaky-voiced singer of this week’s number one Billboard pop hit.
“Yeah. You wanna meet them?”
“You know them?”
“No.” He shrugged. “What does it matter? They’re just people.”
“No, they’re your kind of people. Famous ones. The rest of us can’t casually saunter over and engage in conversation. We accost, beg for scraps, and are pathetically grateful when they deign to take a picture with us.”
“Rohan always took celebrity as his due,” a mellow voice said from behind me. “Even before he was famous.”
I whipped around and crushed his Fugue State Five band mate Zack in a hug. “It’s you.” I sniffed him. “You even smell good. My fanfic was bang on.”
Rohan had covered his face with one hand, as if trying to distance himself from me, but Zack was laughing.
“Oh, good,” he said. “I was worried when you met me you’d be disappointed.”
“This conversation is weird,” Rohan said.
“Hush. This doesn’t concern you.” I took in every inch of Zack’s wiry six-foot frame, from his short afro and neat goatee to his soulful eyes, black skin, and those beautiful pianist hands of his. “No. You never disappointed me. Except for the gay part, since even I had a tough time justifying your fictional interest in me.”
“Life is disappointment,” Rohan said.
He pulled Zack into a hug, both manbro slapping each other’s backs. The only other close friends of Ro’s that I’d seen him with were Lily, which as an ex had a different vibe, and Drio, which given their shared guilt over Asha, also had a different vibe. It was nice to see him interact with someone with such ease and genuine warmth.
And it was positively delicious hearing the two of them gossip like moms on a playground about half the people in this room.
After Rohan had shared some juicy tidbit about what really went down between the two actors pretending not to know each other over by the bar, I nudged him. “And I’m the starfucker?”
He snickered like a twelve-year-old boy. “You are. It’s even in the job description.”
I shook my head, with an aggrieved sigh.
“Amazing that you ever get laid.” Zack smoothly stepped in between us and slung an arm over my shoulder. “Come with me. I have to talk up the charity and sadly, even important causes go over better with beautiful women.”
I struck a saucy pose. “He thinks I’m beautiful.”
Rohan grinned. “You’re okay in certain lighting.”
“So under appreciated.”
Zack watched us in blatant amusement. “I have a cousin you might like. He’d appreciate you just fine.”
Ro raised an eyebrow while I pretended to consider the offer.
“Nah, I’ll stick with th
is one.” I shooed my boyfriend off. “Redeem yourself and fetch drinks, good man.”
“Will you pay for them later?” he murmured into my ear.
Heat flared hot and bright in my belly. “Put them on my tab.”
His eyes darkened, then he headed for the bar.
Not gonna lie. Being ushered around and introduced to celebrities for the first hour was fun, helping Zack by recounting some of the stories about those kids was even better. Most of these people hadn’t bothered to read the profiles so my excellent memory from years of having to quickly pick up dance steps came in handy. The only sucky part was how many people interrupted us to ask about Rohan and me. It was good on the assignment front, but bad for the charity and made me feel like fresh meat.
I took a sip of my vodka cranberry, parched from all the talking I’d been doing. “Sorry. I think I was more distracting than useful.”
“Naw,” Zack said, his slender fingers tapping against his glass of sparkling water. “They’ll all be dishing about how they were here with you two and the charity will get mentioned. All good press.”
Rohan joined us from his sweep of the room. Since Zack knew what Ro did, we didn’t have to keep things hidden from him. In fact, we’d given him the demon’s description to have another set of eyes on the lookout for her. “No sign of Tia.”
“Luna!” Raquel air-kissed me. “Who’d have thought you clean up so well?”
“McGonagall, darling. Nice hand towel.”
Her silver sequined dress was très mini but she rocked it and the matching sequined bra that winked out from beneath the dress strap was to die for.
Zack and Rohan clutched their drinks, eyes darting between us.
Raquel burst out laughing. “Oh, you poor puppies. They can’t tell if we like each other or not. Relax, gentlemen. We’re all good.” She nudged me. “Introduce me.”
“Rohan and Zack, meet Raquel.”
They all shook hands and then Raquel asked if she could borrow me for a minute. “You okay?” she said. “I heard about the attack.”
I shrugged. “Have you found Sienna?”
“She’s moving around a lot. We almost had her once but…” She shook her head. I guess Esther hadn’t told the witches that I was the one behind the location spell.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 129