Page 16 of Sinful Attraction

Chapter 8

Arya

Ten more unanswered calls from my mom, the entire salmon platter, eight frozen strawberries, and half a bottle of wine later, I’m still staring at my phone instead of watching movies or working harder on getting wine drunk.

Should I call Michael?

I’m dead curious about what he wants, I have to admit. I’m also pretty damn interested in taking an opportunity to get back at him. And as for the matter of the spy in my household... he’s doubtless giving up his own stooge. But as an opening offer, it’s... intriguing.

And it will vindicate me a little where my parents are concerned. It’s ridiculous that my father would rather scapegoat me than check out the possibility that there’s a spy among our staff. But if I serve whoever it is up to him on a platter, maybe he’ll finally figure out that he should listen to me more.

Or maybe he’ll just ignore the whole thing, as usual.

Trying to sort out life when I’m depressed isn’t easy. I mostly want to just lie here undecided and waste the hours because focusing enough to choose—listen to my mom’s bile-filled messages or just erase them; call Michael or lose his number—feels like trying to move a boulder with my tongue.

I pour another glass of white wine over a glass full of frozen strawberries and work my way through it, trying to gather courage. I eat the last strawberry in the glass before I find it.

I delete all the middle messages from my mother, leaving a few at the beginning of her tirade and a few at the end. That should cover all her main points, in case I decide I actually want to listen to them.

Then, after pouring more wine, I call Michael.

He picks up right away. “Oh, my God, you actually called me!”

I immediately regret doing so. “Why the fuck are you bugging me?” I demand.

“Not on the phone! You’re not the only one who has spies in your household right now!” His voice is hushed and urgent. If he’s playing some kind of messed-up prank, he’s putting a lot of effort into it.

“Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’ve gone from seriously contributing to ruining my life to wanting to meet in person. If this is your idea of a booty call—”

“Um, no.” He suddenly sounds quite a bit more serious. “Not a booty call, nothing like that. I’m calling you strictly for business—and vindication. So... out with it. Can I get you to meet with me or not?”

I want with all my heart to tell this clown to go to hell. He deserves it. He could probably use the character growth. And I could use the satisfaction of doing it.

But... I really could use the name of that goddamn spy. I absolutely could.

“I’m in the South Bay. Where and when?” I don’t want him to know where my hotel room is.

He gives me the address of a nice Mexican restaurant. I make an irritated noise. “This isn’t a date. Meet someplace we can actually talk.”

We finally settle on a hotel room across town, near the San Jose airport. At 1 p.m. the next day. “We can get a nice dinner from room service,” he presses. I just plain don’t want to hear that,but I noncommittally grunt so I don’t have to deal with any arguing.

I can already tell that it is going to be a long night. But at least, I’m not meeting him in the morning.

I have to plow through exactly one bottle and one glass of wine and my entire bag of frozen strawberries before I can even think about sleeping. Even then, my phone keeps me up for a while. Even muted, the damn screen flashes on whenever there’s a call or message.

I know it’s from my family, probably my mother. I don’t want to care. I do care.

I finally have to put the phone in the bathroom before I can sleep. I have no idea why that works, but it does. Maybe it’s the lack of reminders.

My dreams are hazy. Michael’s circling me, flirting with me, laughing at me. He keeps saying he doesn’t mean any harm to me, but I don’t believe him. Can’t believe him. I’m naked and cold, and he teases me, refusing to hand me my towel. When I punch him, the dream dissolves, and I sit up to discover the fog’s returned and the temperature’s started dropping.

My mother fills up my inbox with messages again. I grit my teeth and go through a few with my morning coffee. There’s nothing in them that she hasn’t screamed at me before in the heat of anger. How I’m ungrateful, a brat, and how there’s something wrong with me. The new threat? How she and Dad are going to cut me off if I don’t come home.

They can do that. I’ve never exactly been high maintenance, and I’ve put away enough in cash and private accounts that even if I can’t find a good job for a while, I’ll be fine for years.

I wonder what a therapist would think of my family. I couldn’t spill every family secret, of course. Nobody needs to know that we’re mobsters. Nobody needs to know where my parents get their wealth. But what would a professional think of these phone messages, my mother’s obsessiveness, my father’s dismissal, and all their demands?

They’d probably be surprised I didn’t do this sooner.

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