“Rosie? It’s Nikki. I know . . . it’s early and I’m sorry,” Nikki said, and even half-awake, Rosie thought her voice sounded weird, like her words were mushy. “But I need your help. I’m in the hospital.”
Never in her life had Rosie woken up so quickly. The moment she hung up the phone, she all but flung herself off the bed. Fear had twisted up her stomach as she found a pair of black leggings that looked somewhat clean. She pulled them on, along with her oversized Got Ghosts! shirt. Her hair was way too much of a mess to even begin to do something with it, so she grabbed a scarf, shoving the curls out of her face.
Thank God and every deity she could think of that she kept a stash of those disposal toothbrushes in her Corolla. She brushed her teeth on the way to the hospital and when she got her first look at Nikki’s bruised and battered face while she was waiting for her outside just as the sun crested the sky, Rosie’s heart cracked wide open.
She couldn’t believe what she saw as she ushered Nikki into the car or what she’d learned, and it wasn’t until after she finally got Nikki settled in her bedroom that she sat down and really tried to process what had happened.
No one should have to go through what Nikki Besson had been through.
“God,” she whispered, staring at her mug of untouched coffee. Scrubbing her hands down her face, she exhaled roughly.
Nikki could’ve died—she was almost murdered.
Hands shaking, she lowered them to her knees and looked over her shoulder, to the beaded curtain that separated the bedroom and living room. Last night, while Rosie was doing a ghost tour in the Quarter, one of her closest and nicest friends in the whole wide universe had been fighting for her life.
And in the process of fighting for survival, she had killed the man who attacked her.
Rosie shuddered.
Slowly, her gaze drifted back to the open laptop sitting on the coffee table that had once been a chess table. What had happened was already breaking news on the local news website. Luckily, Nikki’s name hadn’t been mentioned, thank God, but that couldn’t last for long.
“Parker Harrington. . . .” Rosie shook her head in disbelief. She didn’t know Parker personally, but she knew of him. The Harringtons were just like the de Vincents. Extremely wealthy with a long bloodline rooted in New Orleans and Louisiana. The Harringtons were so much like the de Vincents that Parker’s older sister was engaged to Devlin de Vincent.
The man she’d met less than twenty-four hours ago in the cemetery.
The man whose father might’ve possibly come through Sarah and told them he was murdered.
And now his fiancée’s brother had tried to kill Nikki—Nikki, who was possibly the sweetest and kindest person, who spent her weekends volunteering at the local no-kill animal shelter.
Nikki had defended herself with a . . . a wood chisel.
Another shudder rolled through Rosie as she leaned forward and picked up her mug. As far as Nikki knew, she couldn’t return to her apartment for some time. It was a crime scene, and if Rosie knew anything, she knew the police would simply leave. They’d remove the body, but they wouldn’t do any cleanup. Nikki would be left with that. Just like Rosie had been left to deal with that after Ian took his life.
There was no way she would let Nikki handle that. No way.
Guilt churned as she stared down at her light brown coffee. She liked it sweet with lots of sugar and cream. Actually, it was basically sugar with a dash of coffee. But right now, the coffee still tasted bitter. Rosie had been at Nikki’s apartment for hours earlier in the day, and from what she could gather from Nikki, Parker had shown up an hour or so later. If Rosie hadn’t left . . .
Being haunted by all the could’ve, would’ve, should’ve was worse than an honest to goodness ghost.
She took a sip of her coffee and was about to put the mug back down when there was a sharp knock on her door. She drew in a deep breath.
Call it a sixth sense or whatever, but Rosie had a good idea of who stood on the other side.
Gabriel de Vincent.
Nikki had told her he’d been at the hospital and she’d all but snuck out. From that very second, Rosie figured Gabe was going to ferret out where Nikki was and where Rosie lived. Standing, she stepped around the coffee table and crossed the short distance to her door. Throwing the dead bolt, she cracked the door open.
And she was right.
There stood Gabe, in all his hot, long-haired de Vincent glory. Her gaze drifted over his shoulder and her heart jumped into her throat at the same time her stomach dropped. Gabe wasn’t alone.
Devlin was with him.
Chapter 4
Oh my God, she’d been expecting Gabe, but not him, not his brother. For a moment, she was so shocked, all she could do was peek out at them. She opened her mouth, but he pulled off a pair of silver aviators, tucked the arm into the collar of his shirt, and then those stunning sea-green eyes met hers.
He was going to have so many questions and how could she answer them? He was definitely going to want to know why she didn’t tell him who she was yesterday when it was now obvious she had some sort of tie to his family. Would he believe she honestly never thought she’d see him again? Because she’d honestly believed that.
Devlin stared at her from behind Gabe and he . . . he looked at her, looked right through her, his strikingly handsome face devoid of emotion and even a flicker of recognition. He had to remember her, though. They’d just met yesterday, for crying out loud, less than twenty-four hours ago, and she thought they had shared a moment.
“Figured you’d find your way here,” she said to Gabe, and then looked at Devlin again, waiting for him to say something. Nothing. He looked at her impassively. “Surprised to see that one here.”
Devlin stepped out to the side. “Excuse me?”
It struck her then, really hit her that he didn’t recognize her. Wow. That was a pretty brutal wake-up call that she’d left absolutely no impression on the man.
Stung more than she should be, she focused on Gabe. “You here for Nikki?”
“Yes,” he answered. “You going to let me in?”
She blocked the door. Part of her wanted to let him in, but the other knew that he and Nikki had a rough go of it recently. Almost everyone in her book deserved second chances, but she was pretty sure Gabe was on his third.
“Depends,” she finally said. “Are you finally going to do right by my friend?”
“Who is this woman?” Devlin demanded.
Rosie sucked in a sharp breath as her gaze shot to him. He honest to God did not remember her! Maybe it was because she hadn’t gotten much sleep. Maybe it was because her best friend had almost died and had been beaten within an inch of her life. Maybe all of that mixed with the fact that a man who’d seen her less than twenty-four hours ago didn’t recognize anything about her. Rosie wasn’t a mean person. Most of the time, she liked to consider herself pretty chill. Granted, she could turn into a possessed bitch-tigress when it came to protecting those she cared about, but she knew life was way too short to be an asshole and to take things too seriously.
But the bitch-tigress came out in full force right then. “First name Nonya, last name Your Business,” she snapped, her gaze not leaving Gabe’s face.
Gabe’s lips twitched as if he were fighting a smile. “I’m going to try to.”
“Trying isn’t good enough, bud. Not anymore,” Rosie shot back and she saw the surprise fill eyes identical to Devlin’s. “You trying is pretty much like me trying not to eat the last cupcake in the fridge. It’s not real successful.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to do right by her. That’s why I’m here. You going to let me in?”
Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, she stepped back and opened the door. “She’s in the bedroom.”
Gabe walked in then, nodding in her direction. “Thank you.”
“Don’t make me regret this,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Because you will not like it if I regret this
.”
Gabe smiled, and Rosie had to admit, it was a nice smile. “I won’t.”
“Good.”
He slid past her just as Devlin entered her apartment. She bet he had a nice smile, too. The man who’d spoken to her for a good ten minutes the day before didn’t even look at her.
He was staring straight ahead, past his brother. “Is that really a beaded curtain?”
His tone knitted her brows. He sounded like . . . like he just spied a naked old man shaking his junk. Devlin hadn’t spoken like that the day before. Sure, they hadn’t had an epic-long conversation, but that . . . that cold revulsion hadn’t been there.
Thrown off by his tone and irritated by her apparent utter forgetability, she fired back, “You got a problem with that? Are they not up to your taste or class?”
“I’m pretty sure that most people who are over the age of twelve find them to be tasteless.”
“Behave,” Gabe said to Devlin as he parted the beads, disappearing into the bedroom.
Swallowing hard, she turned to Devlin. If he thought beaded curtains were childish, good thing he’d never see the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. She opened her mouth but was at a complete loss as to what to say.
He stood not even a foot inside her apartment, stiff as iron bars. Standing like he couldn’t bring himself to step any farther as he still stared at the beaded curtain.
For a moment, Rosie allowed herself to be dickmatized—you know, when you were either hypnotized by how attractive someone was or you were hypnotized by their dick, which therefore allowed you to look past unsavory traits about the person. That was what she was doing right then. She was allowing herself to ignore, just for a few seconds, the fact that man had absolutely forgotten her and was currently staring at her beaded curtains like they were a crime against man, and was just going to bask in his unequivocal attractiveness.
Devlin was dressed like he had been the day before, white button-down dress shirt neatly tucked into a pair of heather-gray trousers. His shoes were so polished Rosie could probably see her reflection in them. The de Vincents had good DNA, and it really showed when it came to Devlin. From the height of his cheekbones to the strong curve of his jaw, he had the kind of face she wished she had the talent to sketch, just to capture the angles and planes.
His hair was perfectly coiffed and Rosie had this wild urge to shove her fingers in his hair and mess it up. Unfortunately, even with all the attractiveness and even with what was an apparent one-sided connection, Devlin was turning out to be a douchebag of the highest order—the order reserved for rich, privileged pricks who treated the world like it was their oyster.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You really have a problem with beaded curtains, don’t you?”
He didn’t look at her as he replied, “Who wouldn’t? They’re beaded curtains.”
Never in Rosie’s thirty-three years of life on this planet had she ever met someone who was so offended by beaded curtains. And she had seen a lot of bizarre things in her life. Once, she’d seen a book fly off a shelf by itself. She’d seen a dead person lift their arm—a postmortem spasm, but still, that had been freaky as hell, and a bit traumatizing. Twice she’d seen a full-bodied apparition, which to this very day was in the top five most amazing things she’d ever witnessed. Just last night, a complete stranger came through her psychic reading—a stranger who just might be this man’s father. And she’d seen a lot of bizarre stuff on the crowded, narrow streets of the French Quarter on a daily, often hourly, basis.
But someone offended by beaded curtains?
That was a first.
Goodness, this morning—the last twenty-four hours—had not been normal at all.
“Are they even made out of real wood?” he asked.
Sighing, she arched a brow. “Yes. They’re made of particleboard and yes, I bought them down at the local Walmart.”
Devlin didn’t turn his head toward her, but his gaze did slide in her direction. “Particleboard is not real wood.”
“Isn’t it made with wood chips, and the last time I checked, wood chips are wood.”
“It’s also made with sawdust and synthetic resin,” he replied.
“So?”
“It’s not real wood.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever?”
“Yeah, whatever,” she repeated.
Now he turned toward where she stood beside her coffee table. “You cannot ‘whatever’ away the fact that particleboard isn’t real wood.”
Rosie let out a soft laugh. “I cannot believe you’re still talking about particleboard.”
A look of surprise flickered across his face. “And I cannot believe you think particleboard is real wood.”
Another giggle squeaked out of her as she spun around and walked over to her couch. “You’re still talking about particleboard.”
“I am not.”
“Yeah, you are.” She plopped down on her comfy couch, probably the only thing in her apartment that cost any real money. She picked up her mug, hoping the coffee hadn’t cooled. “And those beaded curtains are freaking ah-mazing, particleboard or not. So, don’t talk smack about my super-cool beaded curtains.”
“They’re beaded curtains,” he said, sounding like he was pointing out a massive cockroach on her wall.
This man was testing her kindness and patience like no other. “Were you harmed by beaded curtains as a child?” She kicked her legs up on the coffee table and crossed her ankles. “Did they not want to be friends with you or something?”
His gaze sharpened. Hell, his entire face seemed to sharpen. “Besides the fact that beaded curtains are inanimate objects incapable of harming a person or being friends with one, a door would suffice, would it not?”
Smirking, she took a sip of her coffee. “Suffice? Fancy.”
His nostrils flared.
“Look, I’m not the one who seems to be personally offended by beaded curtains, so excuse me for asking a genuine question. I mean, have you been smacked by a beaded curtain? Those things can sting.”
“I am sure your question was genuine.”
“Totes,” she murmured.
He came toward her in a slow, measured step. “How often are you smacked by beaded curtains?”
She snorted. “More often than I care to admit.”
There was an odd light to his sea-green eyes, as if that interested him. “Why wouldn’t you just get a door? It would offer more privacy.”
“Why don’t you just walk out of the one behind you?” she retorted.
That odd look to his gaze intensified. “Did you just tell me to leave?”
“Sure sounds like I did.”
He stared at her, and a long moment passed. “You know, most people would offer their guests a drink.”
Her grip tightened on her mug. “Last I checked, you weren’t a guest.”
“And how do you see that?”
“Well, mainly because I sure as hell didn’t invite you into my apartment to insult my beaded curtain.”
“If I recall correctly, and I do, you opened the door and let me in.”
She held his stare. “Your recollection is faulty. I let your brother inside. You helped yourself by walking in behind him and then proceeded to insult my interior design.”
Devlin laughed—barked out a deep, husky laugh that seemed to surprise him, because he immediately snapped his mouth shut. The laugh didn’t surprise her. Irritatingly, it caused a warm little curl low in her belly. She liked his laugh even though it seemed harsh.
“Interior design?” he scoffed, and Rosie stiffened. “It looks like a twelve-year-old obsessed with The X-Files and B-grade horror movies decorated your apartment.”
“Okay, I draw the line with you insulting Scully and Mulder.” She sat her mug on the end table. “Seriously.”
And what was wrong with B-grade horror movies? Spending a lazy Sunday afternoon watching horribly plotted zombie movies was a favorite pastime of hers.
“Isn’t that the clearly visible title?”
Looking over his shoulder, he pinned her with what only could be described as a droll stare. “How could there be an encyclopedia of ghosts?”
For a moment, she wasn’t sure how to answer his question. Part of her wanted to describe exactly how that was possible. She resisted the pointless urge. “You’re a de Vincent.”
“Yes.” He faced her once more. “Thank you for reminding me.”
She ignored that comment. “You live in a house that is rumored—”
“To be haunted and the land and the family cursed,” he cut her off. “Yes, I know. I do live there and I am a de Vincent.”
“So, is your house haunted?” she asked, already knowing the answer to that question.
Devlin’s lips thinned.
Unable to help herself, she clasped her hands together. “You know, I’m a part of a paranormal investigation team.”
“Why am I not surprised?” he replied dryly, stepping around the coffee table. He was now at the other end of the couch. “What is it called? Lunatic Investigations?”
Now her mouth was thinning. “Good guess, but no. It’s called New Orleans Paranormal Explorations.”
“New Orleans Paranormal . . . wait.” His dark brows lifted. “It’s called NOPE?”
“Yes. Catchy, isn’t it?”
The derision that clouded his striking face told her he thought it was the stupidest-sounding thing without him even having to open his mouth. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I am not.”
“Do you truly belong to one of those joke investigative teams?”
Rosie felt that inner badass tigress rearing its bitchy head once more. Okay, now he seriously had gone too far. “There is absolutely nothing funny about what we do. Be a nonbeliever. Fine. But don’t stand in my house, right in front of me, and insult me.”
“Nonbeliever?” he murmured.
Anger flushed her system as she glared up at him. If there was a single doubt left in her that said she should tell him about what happened last night with Sarah, it wasn’t there anymore. If someone lived in a house like his and still didn’t believe, he wasn’t going to believe she possibly communed with his dead father. And that sucked, because if that spirit was Lawrence and if what he said was true, Devlin should know—his family should know.
Moonlight Scandals Page 4