Later that evening, Griffin sat with Clare and her two friends, Sorcha and Maeve, at a table on top of the round tower overlooking his vast gardens and land. The mid-summer heat made everyone languorous and the delicious Irish meal, always a little heavy, had them satiated and halfway sleepy.
He was still recovering from his surgery, with frequent trips to the clinic, followed by mental exercises, brain teasers, and of course, memory games.
He won them all, while Clare and her friends excelled at coming up with the most insane and confusing mental traps for him.
Today, he was not having more riddles and brain teasers. Nope, he wanted answers. It wasn’t because he had any holes in his memory, not at all. He’d examined every detail. Nothing was missing except for what he couldn’t have known.
“Since you gals have been asking me riddles,” he said. “It’s only fair if you answer mine.”
“What do you want to know?” Clare asked, her eyes wide and innocent. “We’ve told you everything to the last detail.”
“Oh, there are quite a few things I can’t figure out,” he said. “For one, how did you swap the Heart of Brigid with the quartz replica right before Detective Donnelly removed you from my side?”
“A pickpocket doesn’t give away her secrets,” Clare said, hiding a smile with her dainty hand.
“I could have sworn the entire time we were surveying our domain, you had the real Heart of Brigid, but my last glimpse of you was of the six-sided crystal.”
“I did have the real Heart,” Clare said. “Up until you had your seizure.”
A pervading sadness descended on him, and he took her hand, squeezing it. “Did you think I’d forget you?”
“Maybe.” A solitary tear trailed down the side of her face. “I noticed you had the replica when you were dressing, and when you had the seizure, I swapped the stones.”
“I would have let you keep the real one,” he said.
“I’m disappointed you believed I took it.” She leaned toward him. “But I’m so glad your memory was sharper.”
“It was the last piece of the puzzle,” he admitted. “But once it clicked in place, I knew we were both lucky like love.”
They kissed, enjoying the interplay of their lips and smiles.
“Yoohoo!” a chirpy female voice called out. “Are they up there?”
“Please, let me announce you,” the voice of his new butler, Finn, bounded up the stairway. He cleared his throat.
Griffin and Clare ended their much too frequent smooching and turned toward the doorway.
A pregnant blonde appeared with Finn, who said, “Mrs. Jenna Hart Davison from San Francisco.”
“Jenna!” Clare jumped from the bistro table and rushed toward her cousin who was a fashion designer.
She hugged her, bouncing up and down, and led her to the table. “I have a surprise for you. My cousin Jenna brought new ballgowns and dandy outfits for us. We’re going to be extras in the movie, and we will get to dance under the stars right up here for the final scene.”
Oh yes. He’d kept his promise and bankrolled a movie from Clare’s latest romance. Did he really think he could get away without costumes and paraphernalia?
“We’re going to be in the movie?” Sorcha asked, readjusting her glasses. “What role do I get?”
“Am I Niamh?” Maeve asked. “I’ve been branding myself with the Quill of Niamh everywhere I go.”
Sorcha rolled her eyes and tossed her braided pigtail back. “I do not want to be the Aine, or have anything to do with love.”
“Don’t worry,” Jenna said. “You will be a merwoman, a salmon of knowledge. I know how you like shiny, scaly outfits.”
“Perfect!” Sorcha clasped her hands together. She’d always favored bodysuits that made her sleek and iridescent. “I wonder what my magical object will be, since I’m not into hairpins.”
“There’s only the cup left,” Clare said, winking at her friend. “That would be Eamon Donnelly’s hallowed object, and he’s invited to be in the movie, too. Looks like you’ll be paired with him.”
“I could do worse,” Sorcha said, smiling widely. “He’s kind of cute, in a nerdy way.”
“How about Mack?” Maeve asked, jutting herself in between Clare and Jenna. “Can he have a part playing someone like Thor?”
“Beep, wrong pantheon,” Griffin said. “You sure you’re not a Viking spy?”
Maeve jutted her hip at him and shrugged. “A lot of us have a wee bit of Viking in us. They might have invaded, but they also became Irish.”
“That may be true,” Griffin admitted. “Our fair isle was settled by waves of migration, and that’s what makes Ireland the magical place of treats and tricks. There’s room under the mist for all of us. Fae, Celts, Norse, newcomers, and all.”
“Hear, hear.” Everyone raised a glass of Guinness stout and cheered, “Sláinte. Ireland for all Irish lovers.”
Thanks for reading Griffin and Clare’s story. For another rollicking Irish adventure, follow Marisa, the unluckiest woman in America as she heads for Ireland. With a little luck of the Irish, she just might turn up a winner!
* * *
Turn the page to read an excerpt from Bad Boys for Hire: Liam
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Excerpt - Bad Boys for Hire: Liam
Excerpt © Copyright 2017, Rachelle Ayala
Chapter One
“Bad Boys for Hire, can you hold?” Rex Carter had the Commissioner of Moral Indecency on the other line, and she was deep in the throes of lodging a complaint against his business practices.
“I mostly definitely will not hold,” an angry female voice spewed fire and brimstone in his ear. “I’m a prospective customer, and I’m tired of playing second fiddle.”
“I have a very irate woman on the other line,” Rex said, hoping to mollify the triggered woman spitting furballs at him through the phone.
He rubbed his groggy eyes and stared at himself in his bathroom mirror. He was hungover from a rousing night out, and his head throbbed from the two competing banshee voices.
“You can tell her to hold,” the caller said. “I’m Marisa Monroe, Carol Cassidy’s sister. She hired a Santa from you last Christmas and gave me a promotional coupon.”
“Hold on,” Rex said, and cut away to the pompous-sounding Commissioner only to find she’d hung up on him.
Good riddance.
He’d never heard of such a commissioner in the small town he operated out of—deep in the redwood groves of the San Francisco Peninsula, but he supposed some self-important socialite had taken it upon herself to enforce public decency.
As if his company, Bad Boys for Hire, were peddling prostitution—far be it. His was the premiere entertainment company in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing clients with entertainers and impersonators for their special events.
Lately, he’d been moving away from individual clients, women who wanted fake dates and escorts, to corporate events providing celebrity impersonators for their launch parties, trade shows, and team building events.
Yawning, he rubbed shaving cream onto his face and took a razor from his medicine cabinet.
He cut back to Marisa. “Rex Carter here. What can I do for you?”
“I just won the America’s Unluckiest prelim round,” Marisa said. “And I’ve been given the opportunity to turn my luck around.”
“Congratulations.” He twisted his mouth to the side to shave his cheek. “How did you beat out the other competitors?”
“Didn’t you watch the season pilot?” Marisa asked in a clearly irritated voice.
“Can’t say that I have. What happened to you for the win?” Rex was aware of the popular reality show where contestants competed to be unlucky for the chance at winning a vacation package that would turn their luck around.
“Try blowing my transmission, getting fired, finding my boyfriend in bed with a man, and being evi
cted from my apartment, not to mention losing the America’s Unluckiest on-air activity with the most egg on my face, literally.”
“What was the activity?” This was the televised part where the contestants with hard luck stories competed to lose while being followed around by a film crew.
“We had to go soul-winning!” Marisa shouted so loud her voice buzzed Rex’s ear. “Go up to complete strangers and say, ‘If you were to die today, do you know for sure you’re going to Heaven?’”
“Where? In San Francisco?” He raised his chin and shaved his neck. He was running late for an on-camera interview he had with a travel show, so hopefully Marisa would get to the point and put in her order.
“Yes, in San Francisco in the middle of a protest. I got spat on, egged, doused with pee, and arrested for inciting violence.”
“What happened to the other competitors?”
After a bout of cackling laughter, Marisa said, “Some actually had their ‘come to Jesus moment,’ much to their chagrin. The woman I was most worried about, the one whose house burned down and totaled her car in a single day, she met a televangelist and got a job offer. She was trying to turn it down, but the camera crews caught her good luck, leaving me the undisputed winner.”
“Congratulations, I guess,” Rex said. “What kind of bad boy are you interested in hiring?”
Rex glanced at his watch and wished he could hurry her along. Unfortunately, clients oftentimes used him as a sounding board, and he was in the business of giving them what they wanted.
“I choose to go to Ireland, you know, the luck of the Irish?” Marisa said with a slight lilt in her voice.
If she was trying to affect an Irish accent, it wasn’t working. The woman had a full-bore Boston accent and no amount of lilting was going to make her sound anywhere near the Emerald Isle.
“Ireland, of course,” Rex encouraged. “There isn’t a more romantic place in March. Going to be there over St. Patrick’s Day?”
“Of course, that’ll be the final show, when I show them I’ve won,” Marisa said. “Because I’m definitely winning. No losing for me.”
Rex’s phone beeped with an incoming call. He really should pick it up, in case it was the TV producer he had the interview with.
“Marisa, I’m sorry, but can you hold?” Without waiting for her to protest, he switched to the second call. “Rex Carter, how may I help you?”
“Help me?” the woman on the phone screeched. “You can help me by refusing to hire out your nasty men. They are nothing more than prostitutes.”
“I object to that statement,” Rex said. “Our entertainers are strictly forbidden from participating in any kind of sexuality with their clients. We have never had any complaints from any of our satisfied clients.”
“That’s because they’re satisfying their base desires.” The woman harrumphed. “We’re organizing a boycott across all fifty states and one territory.”
“Hold it, the fifty states I get, but why one territory? Which one?”
“The U.S. Virgin Islands, of course. If your bad boys want to work on the Virgin Islands, then they must respect our name.” The woman acted like her request was obvious. “I’m putting you on warning, Mr. Carter. No self-respecting women’s group should be hiring anyone labeled ‘certified bad boy,’ especially in the Virgin Islands.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but if you’re going to boycott us, especially in the Virgin Islands, there’s nothing I can do, can I?” Rex said, wondering whether this organization had any real power.
“Oh, yes, there is something you can do,” Ms. Commissioner said. “You can start offering good boys instead of bad boys. If you change your name to ‘Good Boys for Charity,’ we might reconsider our support. Or even better, ‘Saints for Charity.’ Extra points if they’re named Croix, John, and Thomas.”
“I get it. I get it. Ha, ha,” Rex deadpanned. “St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas. Wonderful men. And what exactly would these Saints for Charity do?”
“Help people cross streets, volunteer at homeless shelters and soup kitchens—”
“You would pay for this?” Rex cut her off.
“Absolutely not,” the woman said. “They should volunteer in the community. It’s about time we brought back good, decent, wholesome American men.”
“My employees are good, decent, wholesome American men, especially the ones named Croix, John, and Thomas.” Rex hung up on the annoying do-gooder and switched the call back to Marisa. “Miss Monroe, is it? Are you ready to select your bad boy?”
“Oh, yes, I am. I need to find both love and luck at the end of my week in paradise.”
“You’ve come to the right place. We can provide you both.”
“I wish you could,” Marisa said. “Money can’t buy the luck part, but money can buy love, or what looks like love. I’d like you to arrange for an Irish, brogue-speaking bad boy to meet me at the airport in Dublin and whisk me off my feet. Do you think you can do that?”
“Definitely. I’ll email you some quotes and possibilities,” Rex said, scratching his hives. He was going to be late if she kept yakking. “Please fill out the online form and I’ll get back to you with a few leads. When are you flying out?”
After he got Marisa off the phone, Rex drew the razor blade over his upper lip.
Ouch! He nicked himself and dabbed the spot of blood.
With no time to lose, he found a small Band-Aid and slammed his medicine cabinet shut.
A spider web of cracks spread across the broken mirror.
Chapter Two
“How am I supposed to get all this stuff into two pieces of luggage?” Marisa pushed and shoved her clothes, shoes, makeup, hair accessories, costume jewelry and collection of lucky charms and amulets into her bulging-at-the-seams designer suitcase.
“Don’t break the zipper,” her stepsister, Carol Cassidy, advised while sitting in her wheelchair and not lifting a finger to help.
“I’m trying!” Sweat popped over her brow. Ever since being evicted from the apartment she shared with her unfaithful boyfriend, she’d been staying with Carol and her boyfriend, Nick, and they were more than ready for her to leave.
“Wait, wait!” Carol held up her hand in a time-out position. “Before you zip up, maybe you should weigh it. Otherwise, you’ll end up having to unzip and remove things.”
Marisa dragged the bright pink and white zigzag-striped bag to the bathroom scale. It kept tipping and wouldn’t stay on long enough for the digital display to register a weight. “How do you suggest weighing these stupid roller bags?”
“Try weighing yourself first,” Carol said. “Then pick up the bag and weigh yourself again.”
Urgh … Of course, Carol was the smart one of the family. She was also the beautiful one, the physically fit one, the one with potential, and the one with the successful career. Sure, she took a big fall when she fell off Mt. Baldy in a climbing accident and ended up paralyzed from the waist down, but she was bouncing back. She had a new boyfriend and a gig to travel around the world to promote adaptive sports.
Meanwhile, Mediocre Marisa, as her mother always reminded her, had nothing going for her but bad luck from birth when her funky ultrasound made her parents think she was going to be a boy. She was probably giving the tech the finger with her hand stuck between her legs.
“I can barely pick this up.” Marisa hefted the suitcase with both hands and stepped onto the scale.
One foot missed and the other foot kicked the scale, skidding it across the floor. Marisa lost her balance and dropped the bag. It bounced off her foot right before she tumbled onto her posterior.
“Ouch!” Marisa yelped, rolling on the floor.
Carol winced, seeming to shrink in her chair. “Are you okay?”
“Yep, got a lot of padding,” Marisa said. One way she lessened the pain of being dumpy and unattractive was with humor. She was unlucky enough to be big-boned and stout, instead of willowy and graceful. Maybe it would have been better if she
had been a boy.
“I think it’s too heavy,” Carol said. “Just pay the overweight charge.”
“I have to stay within the show’s budget,” Marisa said, rubbing her butt where she hit the floor. She glanced at her watch and frowned. “Please tell me you can still get me to the airport in time.”
“You can zip them up on the way over,” Carol said, turning her wheelchair toward the door. “Or tie a belt around them.”
“I suppose so.” Marisa pulled the bag she tried to weigh and the handle broke. She had no choice but to tie it to the top of the second roller bag—the one with the loose and wobbly wheels.
Carol shook her head and looked like she was about to say something, then turned her wheelchair toward the garage.
Oh sure, she was superior and smart, having a doctorate and all that, but she hadn’t been so genius when she’d tumbled off a mountain during an ice storm.
Marisa winced at her uncharitable thoughts and pinched herself. At least Carol tried to accept her as a sister even though they weren’t blood related.
The nagging thought that Carol looked down on her dug into Marisa’s gut as she wrestled her suitcases into the back of the van. “What is it? You looked like you disapprove of me going.”
“It’s not for me to approve or disapprove,” Carol said, maneuvering her wheelchair so she could transfer into the driver’s seat. “I just wonder why you feel so compelled to go on a reality show.”
“Can’t have any worse luck than I already have,” Marisa snorted. “Besides, nothing’s gained by sitting around moping. At least this way, I have a chance to travel and change things around. Who knows what might happen?”
Carol squeezed a closemouthed smile her direction. “Be careful out there, okay?”
“Sure, sis,” Marisa said, helping Carol stow her wheelchair.
Carol gave her a tiny hug before Marisa shut the door. It was a small comfort that she wanted her to be careful. But at this point, Marisa was all for being as careless or carefree as possible.
Lucky Like Love: The Fae Legacy #1 Page 27