Page 4 of Widow

“Thanks, but I'm headed to the bar."

As I weaved my way through the tables, several sets of eyes tracked me. I didn't feel confident or seductive, but somehow my persona exuded it when I was on the hunt.

My hair became fuller, and my eyes became glossy. When I walked, my hips swayed with just the right amount of sashay.

None of the onlookers caught my interest.

The monster always knew who she wanted. She preferred married men who cheated on their wives. Men who had secrets to hide.

I had no idea how she knew, but she did. And she wanted them dead. All of them. One by one. One month at a time.

As I approached the bar, I watched the blue-haired mermaids swim in the tank behind it. What made someone wake up one day and decide to be a bar mermaid?It was a genius idea. Even I could admit that it was relaxing to watch them swim.

I managed to find a seat at the bar and slid onto the stool. I grabbed the bar menu and examined the special drink choices. Was I in the mood for something tropical tasting on Christmas Eve?

I knew I should have taken some time off and gone to an exotic location. The thought of being in an airplane made me shiver, though. Usually, I didn’t mind flying, but now I had hundreds of extra passengers.

Imagining hundreds of spiders spilling out of me inside a plane made me shudder.

“What can I get for you this evening?” I looked up from the bar menu and felt like I was looking into the soul of another darkened spirit.

His eyes were as dark as night, as was his hair. It took me a moment to recover from how attractive he was.

This is how most bars work: hire the most attractive males and females to lure in the customers. If I ever went to the same bar twice, it would definitely be this one.

“Let me try your signature drink, the Blue Wave.” I placed the bar menu back in its spot.

He turned and started to make my drink. The guy next to me, who had been staring into his drink glass, tapped a finger on the rim, drawing my attention in his direction.

He looked over at me. I bit my lip to stop my jaw from dropping. Holy hell. Of all nights, why were there so many attractive men tonight, a night I needed to hunt?

“The Blue Wave is not a Christmas Eve drink. Unless your goal is to get drunk. It’s Kai’s take on an AMF.” His voice was deep and commanding without being loud. It made my stomach clench, and not because spiders were lurking somewhere inside me.

“What’s an AMF?” I perused the man next to me. He was dressed way too formally to be sitting at a place that had mermaids swimming in a tank. He must have attended a Christmas party. A fancy-ass Christmas party that required tuxedos.

“Adios mother fucker.” I blinked at him for a moment before realizing he was referring to an AMF.

“Do I even want to know why it’s called that?” I laughed because the last thing I needed to be drinking was something with the word adios in it.

“Probably not. What’s your name?”

Oh, crap. He was trying to strike up a real conversation with me. My eight-legged friends were showing no interest in him, which was good news for him. Bad news for me. He wasn't a bad guy, but I couldn't enjoy his company.

It wasn’t that this guy wasn’t my type. He appeared to be some kind of lawyer, or maybe a businessman. Hell, he could have been a movie star. He had a look about him: tall, dark, and handsome. He was a walking, talking cliché.

He was probably on the cover of a billionaire romance novel.

He raised his eyebrows as I hesitated longer than socially acceptable. His alarm bells should have been ringing at my extra-long silence.

“I'm Camellia.” I stuck out my hand, which just sat there in the air awkwardly.

“You have got to be kidding me.” He looked down at his glass in his hand and then emptied it in one gulp, slamming the empty glass down on the counter a little harder than necessary.

I jumped a little, surprised he had such a violent reaction to my name, or maybe it was because I had tried to shake his hand. I wasn't that socially inept, was I?

He stood, and the faint smell of cinnamon hit my nose. It reminded me of Christmas and the delicious scent of cinnamon rolls baking in the oven.

His body brushed against mine as he slid out from his barstool. I was confused about his reaction and opened and closed my mouth a few times to ask him what the hell his problem was.

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