by Sotia Lazu
Angie and Sarah looked at her, mouths agape.
“What? Like you’ve never…” They both shook their heads. Lexi rolled her eyes. “Never mind that. The thing is I tried to patch things up, and he didn’t let me. And then he started spouting that nonsense about love.”
Once again, the reactions Lexi got weren’t exactly understanding. From the dreamy look in Angie’s eyes, she’d only focused on love and was about to start picking china.
Sarah glared at Lexi, the stern expression almost alien on her face. “You don’t know me well enough, but you’re Angie’s best friend and that makes you my friend too. I’m sorry in advance for what I’m about to say, but you tried to patch things up with a guy who didn’t just want to fuck you by blowing him, and you expected that to go down well?”
Lexi gaped. Sarah said fuck?
And more importantly, why would nobody see things her way?
The nagging feeling she might have kicked away the best thing that ever happened to her, made her rationalize her actions. “He just wanted to humiliate me, anyway. He said what he had to, to get under my skin, so I’d fall for him and hurt more. He lied about his feelings, like he lied about the site. He has to be the one behind the book, after all. He wrote it and created the site it was hosted on, and I was right not to trust him from the beginning. He’s only playing nice so he has a better case against me.” She didn’t care that her arguments held no water.
“We’ve been through this already, Lexi. And not just once.” Sarah glanced at Angie—who averted her gaze—and huffed. “There’s no way Ric could have written Exotic Beast. It would take months of preparation, if not years, and he couldn’t even be sure you’d find it.”
“He’s in IT. He could’ve planted the link in somehow. I’m telling you, he’s been playing me from the start. If you heard him… He said he might be in love with me. Love. It’s probably some obsession he had since before he met me.” She was negating conclusions she’d reached a minute ago and going out on a limb. And she didn’t care. She just needed the girls to agree that Ric was a jerk, so she could start the long process of getting over him.
“There were much easier ways for him to approach you. He didn’t have to go through the trouble of acting like he didn’t like you,” Sarah said.
Especially the way she ogled him the first time they spoke. Lexi shook her head. “He wanted to lull me into a false sense of safety.”
“But for what? He’s not even vying for your position, and he’s built you up to your stepdad.”
“I don’t know, okay? I just know he’s a fake. He can’t love me, and this whole mess is his fault.”
“You’re wrong.” Angie wrung her hands together, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m not. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Ric isn’t the one behind the site.” Angie sounded certain.
“How do you know? Did you find something out? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ummm… I know, because”—she squeezed her eyes shut—“I kind of think I’m behind it.”
The words tumbled out in a jumble, and it took Lexi a moment to make sense of them. When she did, she couldn’t control her voice. “What? You are behind it? How? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you pretend to help me figure it out? How?”
“I didn’t know it was me. I’m sorry.” Angie ducked her head, and her chestnut hair hid most of her face. “I didn’t know.”
Lexi was too shocked to move. “How could you not know?” she spat out through gritted teeth, trying to contain her frustration. She wanted to grab Angie by the shoulders, and shake the story out of her. “Did you write an entire novel in your sleep or something?” The best-friend code might not allow shaking or slapping, but it allowed snark.
“No.” Angie looked up imploringly. “I didn’t know I made it appear with what I did.”
“You’re making no sense. What did you do?”
“I made a wish for you.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. There went the magic crap again. “You made a wish. You realize a wish doesn’t write six-hundred-something pages?” For the first time, she worried for her friend’s sanity. Why didn’t Sarah discourage Angie’s hocus-pocus delusions?
As if she heard her name in Lexi’s thoughts, Sarah glanced her way. She shrugged and then stood and left the room.
Angie followed her with her gaze, worry flashing in her eyes for a split second. She turned back to Lexi. “Just hear me out, please. Remember our last coffee-date before you found the book?”
Lexi nodded, going over all the red flags Angie had given her through the years. Lexi should arrange for her to see a therapist, and talk to Sarah, who was obviously in denial.
“You had me really worried that day.” Angie’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “I was recovering from a cold, had a persistent cough and watery eyes, and you still were in worse shape. You sat curled into yourself, arms folded like you wanted to keep the world outside. I’d never seen you so miserable. And you insisted you were fine.”
Lexi remembered. She’d lied. Nothing had been fine. Work was boring, she had no social life, and she was lonely. Angie had picked up on that and kept asking, until Lexi cracked and told her how she really felt.
“I was numb,” Lexi said now.
“You were. I couldn’t stand back and watch the life get sucked out of you. I needed to do something. When you started saying how you didn’t believe in love—that the whole Andrew thing had convinced you it didn’t exist—I had to show you how wrong you were. You had to see. You deserved to be happy.”
Did she? She didn’t even know how.
Angie went on. “When I got home, I did some research on benevolent deities—”
“As you do.” Lexi might as well play along with the insanity until she got Angie professional help.
“—and I decided on Xochipilli.”
“Who?” Lexi asked despite herself.
“Xochipilli. Prince of Flowers. Our coven has worked with him before.” Sarah reentered the living room and left a pencil on the table in front of Angie. “Some believe it’s another name for the Greek god Apollo. He’s the Aztec god of flowers, love, games, beauty, song, dance, and—oddly—maize.”
“As in corn?” She wouldn’t touch the coven thing.
Angie nodded. “Some call him the Corn-Flower prince.”
Cornflower. The cornflower-blue lights…
Lexi shook her head. She’d play along, but she wouldn’t be pulled into this craziness. “So he’s who you wished at?”
“I didn’t want to invoke a more powerful being, since—you know—things could go wrong and stuff.”
Of course. They wouldn’t want things to go wrong, when they were going so well, what with Angie—and apparently Sarah too—being nuts. “And what exactly was the wish for?” Lexi asked.
Sarah sat on the armrest of the lounger Angie was in, and Angie burrowed in her arms. “I had no idea how the wish would be fulfilled. I swear I didn’t know the book had something to do with it. When we couldn’t find its origins, I talked to Sarah, and we did a tracing spell. It led back to me.”
Lexi let her irritation seep into her tone. “What was the wish?”
“I asked for you to find your soul mate.” A sigh accompanied Angie’s words. “Oh, and for your worth to be recognized at work. I’m so sorry I butted in, but I’m not sorry my meddling led Ric to you. You two are meant to be together.”
Lexi’s worry over her friend’s delusions overcame everything else. “Angie, I was recognized at work because Edmund gave me a chance. Ric and I aren’t meant to be together. Your wish wasn’t what created the site or wrote Exotic Beast. ” She softened her voice, to cushion the blow of what she said next. “You’re not a witch, hon.” She turned to Sarah, whose gaze was glued to the coffee table. “Neither of you are. Magic isn’t real.”
Sarah pointed to what she was looking at.
Lexi glanced that way and gasped. The pencil swerved slightly from left to right and
back again. “Is it an earthquake?” Not unheard of in San Francisco.
“It’s her.” Sarah tilted her head toward Angie.
Lexi’s stomach lurched when she saw her best friend’s irises were white. She grasped Angie’s hand. “Ang? What’s happening? Sarah, she’s having a seizure. We must call a doctor.”
More movement caught her eye.
The pencil floated.
On air.
It drew an invisible circle over the table.
Lexi jolted upright, unable to stop looking at it.
“We really are witches,” Sarah said softly. “Angie is a better spell caster than me. I’m more of a potions kind of girl.”
Angie smiled, her face aglow with the same cornflower-blue specks of light Lexi had seen in her car. The color matched the stone on her ring. “When you first told me about the story, I didn’t know it was the answer to my wish, but it is. You and Ric are destined to be together. He’s your soul mate.”
The pencil fell on the table, and the sound spurred Lexi into action. She ran for the door.
Angie called out her name, but Sarah said, “Let her go, baby. She’ll deal and come back.”
Lexi wasn’t all that sure about either.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Despite the short distance, the drive to Lexi’s place seemed more like a crawl. She kept rehashing things in her head. Ric telling her she should be with him. That he was falling for her. And Angie’s magic…
Magic? How could it be?
How could Lexi not know her best friend could cast spells? How could she accept Angie used magic to find Lexi’s soul mate—or that the one meant for her was Ric?
What if he was?
The what-ifs haunted her. Despite her fears and her wounds and her fuckups, Ric might really love her. If she accepted the possibility, she gave up on all her prior beliefs. She’d done it before, and had sworn to never again open herself up to the searing pain of betrayal. Could she give into love again? And would it end differently? The attraction between her and Ric was irrefutable. He’d admitted he had feelings for her, and she’d gone crazy at the thought of something happening to him the other night.
“If magic and soul mates are real,” she said aloud, “I want a sign.”
As she expected, none was forthcoming.
Her mom’s and Edmund’s cars were parked outside the house when Lexi pulled up the driveway. She blotted her puffy eyes and blew her nose, composing herself as best she could before going inside. Fortunately, she ran into nobody on the way to her bedroom. “If he’s my soul mate give me a sign,” she chanted under her breath over and over. Her need grew deeper with every iteration of the words.
A compact disc couldn’t be called a sign, but it was what greeted her when she threw open her door. It lay on her bed and had a post-it note on it. Lexi snatched the yellow square and read the message.
I didn’t watch it, but maybe you should.
Love, Edmund
Welcoming the distraction, she switched on her PC and slipped the disk into the drive. It contained a single video. She pressed Play and saw herself pacing. Her heart skipped a beat. Ric entered the room and gave her a kiss of the non-PG variety, pressing her against the door. Slack-jawed and sickened, she fast-forwarded the video. How much of their conference-room indiscretion was on here?
Way too much.
The sight of their naked bodies, intimately joined, filled her with horror, but something else caught her attention. Barely controlling her fingers, she clicked on Pause. The screen showed her, head thrown back in the throes of passion. On top of her, Ric faced the camera, his expression one of pure bliss.
Not ecstasy. Bliss. Like he was absolutely, completely, perfectly happy.
Could it be love?
Lexi didn’t linger on it. She resumed watching, and by the time the video was over, what she’d seen on his face was no longer her main concern. She felt as if all the blood had been drained from her body, leaving her weak and cold.
Who recorded the video, and how did it get to Edmund?
Stupid, stupid question. The angle was from high up. A security camera. That sick fuck, Chad. She’d noticed the stupid light. Why did she put it off her mind?
Because… Ric. And amazing sex.
Had Chad recorded their other trysts? Should she expect more such CDs? And why did he give this one to Edmund?
Fuck. It was retaliation for her turning him down.
She had to call Ric. He was involved in this too. It was his job on the line as much as hers, let alone both their relationships with her stepdad. She tried his number repeatedly, but her call wouldn’t go through.
She steeled herself for combat. She’d face Edmund alone and hope to convince him to at least not fire Ric.
There was a soft knock on the door. “Alexandra? It’s me.”
Was it too late to think of facing a million dollars? Maybe they’d also materialize outside her room. “Come in, Edmund.” She sat on her bed, ready to accept the consequences of her actions.
He entered, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it. Lexi was prepared to do some major groveling, but his expression was concerned.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could utter.
“Are you all right?”
“How can I be? I hate myself. I’m so sorry, Edmund. You said you didn’t watch it, right?”
“Went no further than the kiss, though I imagine the two of you did.” He removed his glasses and wiped them studiously, avoiding her gaze. “Let me say my piece, and then I’m all ears.”
Lexi nodded, expecting the worse.
“While I do not by any means condone the choice of venue for your… activities, I believe you and Richard are quite fond of each other. I mean, the two of you wouldn’t find yourselves in such a compromising position just for kicks, right?”
“No. I like him. A lot.” She was amazed by how easily the lie slipped out from her lips, but then it hit her.
It wasn’t a lie at all.
If anything, the lie had been her insistence that what she felt for Ric was purely physical.
“In this case,” Edmund said, “and though I cannot stress my disapproval enough—”
“I know, and you’re right, and I’m so sorry. But there’s nothing to worry about any more.” Lexi’s voice broke into a sob. “I screwed up.”
As if her own misery wasn’t enough, she felt sorry for Edmund too. The poor man never knew what to do when faced with a damsel in distress, but he set aside his discomfort. He pulled her closer and wrapped her in his arms. “There-there, now. It can’t be that bad.”
“It is.” She inadvertently wiped her nose on his shirt, as she spoke against his shoulder. “I can’t even get him on the phone.”
“You could always find him at his place. In fact, I’m positive that’s a much better rendezvous spot than the company premises. Don’t you think?” He pulled back, brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, and winked.
Edmund winked. If that wasn’t a sign, nothing was.
Lexi hated the idea of explaining to her stepfather how she’d screwed things up with Ric, but because Edmund was who he was, he didn’t ask.
“Thank you. I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but I’ll make it up to you. I’ll work twice as hard, till I convince you to trust me again. And please don’t blame Ric for this. He needs his job, and it’s more my fault than his,” she said.
“If you’d let me finish in the first place, I’d have told you I plan on putting this entire thing behind us. As far as I’m concerned, this disc never existed.” He patted her back and stood.
Lexi felt a fresh bout of tears threaten to choke her. “Why are you so wonderful?”
“It’s a curse, my dear, but I’ve learned to live with it.” He jotted something on a post-it note he took from her desk. “This is his address. Do you want to call him first? I can write down his home number for you.”
“I doubt he wants to see me or talk to
me. If I go by there, he’ll have to,” she said. “About the CD?”
“I will destroy it.”
“Thank you. But how—”
“It’s all settled now.”
“Was it Chad? I know this doesn’t change anything, but he tried to blackmail me into—”
“If you finish that sentence, I may have to kill him. As is, he will not be bothering us again. I told him I know where he lives.” Edmund smirked, but his eyes hardened. Ric had been right; Edmund could be scary. “I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job protecting you from the likes of him. From anything and anyone that could hurt you.” Edmund was once again the gentle, caring man who’d patiently taught her how to ride a bicycle. “Go fix things with Ric.”
“Thank you. I will.” She went to him for one more hug. “I love you.”
He beamed at her. “I love you too, Lexi, and I’m proud of the woman you’ve become. You do realize you’ll eventually have to fill me in on the… non-X-rated parts.”
“I will.” She’d tell him everything he wanted to know, as soon as she worked things out with Ric.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The day had taken its toll on Ric, and he’d drifted off while watching television. He heard the timid knock and forced himself to roll off the couch.
The apartment was dark. Good. He wasn’t feeling very sunny either.
He shuffled his feet to the door and threw it open, expecting to see one of his neighbors. The corridor light blinded him temporarily. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his visitor.
Lexi.
Every nerve in his body ached to touch her. Hold her. Have her.
His brain took over. “What now? Going to get on your knees again? When a bloke says no, he means—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. He got an armful of crying Lexi. She clung to him as if for dear life, her frame was wracked by sobs, her cheek hot in the crook of his neck, her tears burning paths down his skin.
Pissed off though he might be, he was a man in love—one who couldn’t help but wrap both arms around her and bury his face in her hair. “Shhh. Hush, love. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right.” He walked backward, pulling her into the apartment, shut the door with his foot, and pawed the wall for the light switch.