This was starting to all make a sick kind of sense to Edward. But Diana did not look mollified. “And me?” she pressed. “Why did you do that in the parking garage?”
“I told you. I wanted to find out why Orion would attack you. But now I know.” Gemini sounded so very certain and almost nonchalant about it.
“Really?” Diana’s pitch was rising as though she were beginning to lose it. “Could you possibly let me in on the reason then? Could you help me understand?”
“Sure.” Gemini affected a shrug even though he was pretty much spread-eagled on the floor of Orion’s bedroom like some sacrificial lamb. “Orion attacked you because Mommy told him to. That’s why he did it. He’s doing her bidding because he doesn’t know how to get out from under her thumb. You’re all under her thumb.”
Edward hated to think about that because it was true. Diana suddenly removed her foot from poor Gemini’s groin. She seemed to be of the same mind. Sort of. Then she shot them all a look of what seemed like pity. For a second, Edward wanted to beg her not to be that way. He could feel the brush off coming. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this whole thing was just a mess and he needed to accept that it was his life and it wasn’t going anywhere.
“You should let this poor man get up,” Diana told the King brothers. Then she pointed at Gemini. “I don’t know how you could help me get out from under the legal charges, but I would appreciate it if you would at least try. I don’t know why you attacked my coworker either.”
“She screams like a banshee,” Gemini said darkly. “The woman is ridiculous. I was just playing with her.”
“Right.” Diana sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and index finger. “But you can’t just decide to do that sort of thing. Do you get that? People aren’t toys. And as enjoyable as it was to see you ripping off Gwen’s dress, you’re going to cost me my job and probably a huge fat fine for supposedly beating up a coworker who happens to be the managing partner’s granddaughter.”
“Oh shit!” Zane was laughing. The ass. Diana glared at him, but it didn’t even make a dent.
Gemini was silent for a moment as if he were thinking about it. “I’ll try to help you,” he finally said.
“Yeah, I won’t hold my breath,” Diana muttered. Then she turned around and started walking toward the door. “You King brothers are like the kiss of death. You know that? Stay away from me. I’m not even sure that I want to know why your mother is suddenly gunning for me. I would guess it has to do with her plans for you.” Diana made a gesture toward Edward.
Edward felt an incredible draw toward Diana. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to see her every day. He wanted to go back to that time like they’d had at school where they had been good friends with just a spice of something more—like anticipating something truly amazing on the horizon. There had been such hope back then and for one second Edward had thought that his life was returning to that point. The point where he could wake up every day and look forward to what was coming because it would involve just being around Diana. Forget the rest of it, the physical stuff or the emotional stuff. Sometimes it was just enough to be around someone and enjoy their smiles and their laughter and even the way that they worked out a problem in their head. It was the little stuff that mattered so much and right now that was what Edward was afraid he was losing forever.
“So you guys enjoy yourselves, Clan King.” Diana gave a sarcastic little salute to them all. “I am so done with this shifter-wolf nonsense that I hope I never see any of you again.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Diana realized as she let the bedroom door slam closed behind her that she had just told all of the King brothers that she didn’t want to see them again. In reality, she sort of needed to see Gemini King once again. She needed to get some video of him or something. There had to be some kind of way to prove that there was indeed a wolf attack in the parking garage underneath her office building on that Halloween evening. Even though the entire situation sounded totally preposterous and utterly made up. In fact, if Diana had heard someone else telling the tale she would have automatically assumed it was a prank of some kind gone horribly wrong. Then Diana probably would have looked at the participants of that prank with a good amount of derision and even judgment.
I’m totally going to have to stop judging people so harshly all the time.
The thought made her laugh. She headed down the stairs with an actual bounce in her step. How odd. She kind of felt better. It was a weird sensation. Ever since her parents had passed away Diana had been slowly uncovering her true self from underneath the pile of crap that her mother had laid on top of her for so many years.
This process had made Diana ultra aware of the same kind of thing going on all around her. How many mothers and fathers out there put too much pressure on their children to be or do things that weren’t true to the nature of the child and were actually for the benefit of the parent. Kids owed their parents respect and love. Maybe. But that did not include becoming what your parent wanted just because they were trying to correct their life mistakes by living a second chance through the life of their child.
As Diana reached for the door handle to exit the King’s somewhat tarnished and semi-destroyed home, she heard an argument going on in the kitchen. It made her stop. She looked at the floor and then at her hand on the door. There was no doubt in her mind that this was none of her business and that she would personally be better off if she just left the house and this bullshit behind.
“You need to get your little booty up those stairs and find Edward.” Tisha Olivares-King’s voice was a little shaky and maybe just a bit slurred as though she had been hitting the wine bottle a lot that night. “My son isn’t going to make an advance without a little encouragement, girl!”
“Yeah!” The second voice belonged to Alaina Ariosa. It was strange how Diana could recognize that voice even though it had been years since she’d heard it. Years since those prep school days when Alaina would show up and pretend that her daughters were better than everyone else’s. “You need to put yourself out there, Baby! You need to walk up to that man and put your arms around him. You rub your boobs on him maybe.” At this point there as a good deal of twin laughter from Alaina and Tisha as though they thought this was great fun. “A girl has to use her assets! You get him into bed up there and you will have him for good! You know what to do. You need to make your mama proud! You go snag yourself a husband and make sure that we get to be Kings for the rest of our lives. Got it?”
More laughter. Diana had yet to hear a word from poor Eleni Ariosa. Diana could not see the feisty and yet demure young woman even knowing how to respond to that kind of pressure from her mother and the mother of the young man she was being told to whore herself out to. Was that even fair? Seriously!
With a sigh of pure resignation and maybe just a touch of residual anger from everything that had been going so wrong in the last few days, Diana swung around and marched out of the foyer and toward the kitchen. She didn’t know the way because she hadn’t been a guest in the King home beyond being allowed to stand in the foyer to wait for Edward when they were much younger. But it wasn’t hard to figure out where Diana was going. She just followed the completely ridiculous sounds of two women laughing their asses off as they continued to harass Eleni Ariosa about getting naked for Edward King.
“Hey!” Diana shouted as she marched into the kitchen. “What is wrong with the two of you?”
It was almost as though Diana had walked in and thrown water in all of their faces. Eleni was perched on a barstool in front of the tall kitchen counter. There was a glass of water in front of her and she seemed to have resigned herself to listening to the heckling for the rest of the night or at least until the drama upstairs was done.
Tisha Olivares-King was dressed in her typical over-the-top fashion queen manner. Her designer jeans were covered in rivets and bling and were so tight that Diana could not help but wonder if this was
why she was standing instead of sitting on a barstool. Or it could have been the stiletto heels, which seemed utterly impractical to be worn in one’s own kitchen. Tisha’s sweater was fine cashmere and off the shoulder. It bared a good expanse of her skin and her bright purple bra strap. The purple looked glaringly inappropriate against the backdrop of the camel-colored sweater.
And then there was the last participant in this impromptu drama, Alaina Ariosa. She appeared to have taken the notion of a well-dressed woman completely wrong. She actually looked as though she had dressed as a street walker for Halloween with her skintight harlequin-patterned leggings, black knee-high boots with their five-inch heels, and then her bulky white sweater. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face and she was wearing so much makeup that Diana was astounded that she’d managed to keep the pancake-style cosmetics clear of her sweater.
Alaina and Tisha were currently glaring with such heat at Diana that she was rather surprised that she didn’t go up like a struck match. But right now they could glare all they wanted. Diana thought about what was going on upstairs. Neither one of these snotty women realized what was happening or what could happen and how this would inevitably affect their petty, attention-seeking, lazy lives. However, Diana was about to enlighten them. A lot.
“What are you doing here?” Tisha put her hands on her hips as though she thought this made her somehow more intimidating. “You’re not welcome in this household, Diana Appleton. You never have been.”
“You know,” Diana began in what she actually hoped was a snarky tone of voice. “I’m not even going to debate that with you. When a woman chooses to continue to live with her grown sons, then if they have guests over she’s pretty much not in charge of who is welcome and who is not. But considering your husband’s love child is upstairs hanging out with your sons right now, I think I’ll let your bad behavior slide.”
Tisha might try to look in charge, but there was more than a little shadow of worry behind her blue eyes and big blonde hair. “Excuse me? What are you going on about? My husband didn’t have a love child!”
“You didn’t know?” Diana tsked. “Oh, that’s just so sad that he kept it from you. But Gemini seems like a nice man. I’m sure you’ll all be a happy family now.”
Alaina glanced over at Tisha. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing,” Tisha snapped. “Nothing at all.”
“No. Not nothing,” Diana corrected. She turned her attention to Alaina. This might make Eleni unhappy with Diana, but it so needed to happen. “But then your little friend Tisha is pretty much lying to you so maybe she just wants you to get drunk on her wine and think that she’s letting your daughter marry into her fortune.”
“Excuse me?” Now Alaina looked genuinely concerned.
Diana’s heart was racing, but it was excitement and not fear. “Oh yeah. See Eleni there is romancing Edward. Right? But Edward, Jason, and Zane aren’t part of the inheritance package for King Security Solutions. In fact, those three have been cut out entirely. So unless you’ve found a way to romance either Orion or Devon then you’re not going to get the meal ticket you’re expecting.”
“What?” Alaina turned on Tisha. “You lying bitch! You were going to let me waste my daughter on your worthless son when he doesn’t even have any money?”
Eleni got off her barstool and approached Diana. “Nicely done. Now the rest of the house will be destroyed. Just you watch.”
Diana squeaked and grabbed Eleni just in time to drag her out of the way of the wineglass suddenly flying across the kitchen. The red liquid sailed out of the glass and splattered the entire counter, backsplash, and cabinets. It also covered Tisha in wine before the glass shattered into a million pieces when it hit the front of the industrial-sized refrigerator. Diana and Eleni just managed to get out of the battlefield before things really got going.
“You think I’m letting you suck my sons dry of my money?” Tisha shouted back at Alaina. “You need to stop dying your hair! It’s pickling your freaking brain!”
Tisha grabbed the whole bottle of wine and danced across the tile in her heels as she shook the wine bottle to slosh the contents in Alaina’s direction. Alaina shrieked in outrage and reached for a kitchen knife from the block.
“Holy crap, should we call someone?” Eleni whispered to Diana.
The two young women were huddled together near the doorway as they watched Tisha reach for Alaina’s knife hand. The two angry mothers grappled together over the weapon. Tisha seemed far more adept at that then Diana would have expected. She reached right for Alaina’s wrist. Taking a hard grip she began to bang the wrist against the corner of the counter.
Once the knife was gone, Alaina reached for Tisha’s big blonde hair. Wrapping her fingers in the huge mass of hair-sprayed stiffness, Alaina began dragging Tisha across the kitchen. She shook her opponent until they could practically hear Tisha’s teeth clacking together.
Tisha was cursing and screaming and shouting for her sons to come and defend her. Diana really didn’t expect that to happen right now. The boys were pretty busy. So that left Tisha to grab onto Alaina’s leggings and attempt to give her the biggest wedgie ever. The harlequin pattern stretched to impossible dimensions as the leggings inched higher and higher into Alaina’s crotch.
“Holy shit!” Eleni breathed. “It’s crazy!
“Totally,” Diana said with satisfaction. “But at least they’ll keep each other busy with how much they officially hate each other right now.”
“Oh. Good point.” Eleni sounded surprised.
“You would have made me pay for your life!” Tisha snarled at her former best friend. “You would have made me pick up the rest of the tab. Me and those ridiculous Orvilles! You would let us pay for you because that loser you married can’t even begin to make enough money to keep you happy! You are a whore, Alaina Ariosa!”
“Me?” Alaina shoved Tisha to the floor and then jumped on top of her. The two women were smacking each other with the classic girl hits that did nothing but piss each other off even more. “You have plenty of money! You have five sons to earn a living and pay for your life! You had your husband killed and then you got your lover killed too so you could have his money! That’s a double helping, you evil bitch! I want some! I deserve it for putting up with your bullshit for so many years!”
“You don’t deserve squat!”
“Wait a second,” Eleni whispered to Diana. “Did my mother just say that Tisha had those men murdered? Do you think that’s true?”
Diana had no idea and didn’t really know where to begin looking for those answers. “I don’t know. Everyone in Dallas thinks that a little bit. Maybe your mother is just repeating her suspicions where they’ll have the most hit points.”
“Right.” Eleni squeaked and grabbed hold of Diana to drag her out of the way as a knick knack went flying past their heads. “Did they throw that?”
“I don’t know.” Diana started dragging Eleni away. “It’s time to leave.”
The sound of broken glass tinkling to the floor underscored Diana’s thoughts. There was a small, glass-topped table that was now in a total shambles and the two mothers were rolling around in broken glass trying to murder each other. Or maybe just wound. It was kind of hard to tell. They were scratching and biting and pulling hair and acting like a couple of grade school girls having a throw-down over a boy.
“Yeah.” Eleni stopped trying to pull against Diana and was now the one doing the shoving as both women headed toward the front door of the King house. “You’re right. Time to go.”
“We should call the cops,” Diana mused as they dodged debris in the foyer. “This place looks like Halloween hit hard!”
Eleni reached for the light switch to turn off the front carriage lamps. “I think we should save any further children from permanent scarring should they stumble up here looking for candy.”
“Good idea!” Diana waited for Eleni to step onto the caramel and chocolate-coated front porch before
slamming the door closed behind her. “No need to contribute to the delinquency of any minors, and who knows, Alaina and Tisha might use kids as potential shields for their little war.”
“This is pathetic, isn’t it?” Eleni stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and turned to look back up at the enormous house. “The whole thing is pathetic. These are grown human beings just trying to steal from each other. That’s what all of this is about.”
Diana grimaced. “I have clients who are struggling to keep their lives afloat because your mother is draining them dry.”
“The Orvilles,” Eleni murmured in a way that suggested it was not a guess. “Yeah. I know. Embry told me that they went to a financial planner or an investment broker to try and figure out how to save their financial future from my mother’s sticky fingers.”
Diana felt bad saying this, but it needed to be said. “I think it might be time to cut yourself off. I think your sister is about to do it. You should both try it at the same time and see if you have better luck.”
“You’re right,” Eleni murmured. Then she gave one hard nod. “I appreciate your honesty. I do. And I’m really sorry that my mother is such an unbearable shrew.”
Diana snorted and gave Eleni an impulsive hug. “Believe me. None of us are responsible for the actions of our mothers. Mine was just as bad, and I will probably go to hell for saying this, but her and my father dying in a car accident was probably the best thing to happen to me.”
There was a long pause and then Eleni slanted Diana a sly look. “I don’t know. I think I’m jealous.”
It was a most improbable end to an even more improbable Halloween, but Diana actually felt good about the events of the night and even better about the strange new friendship she felt budding between herself and Eleni Ariosa. Sometimes life could be really surprising.
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 42