Page 5 of Velvet and Valor
He gives me a dirty look. Then he comes over to the door and opens it with greatly exaggerated magnanimity.
“Here you are, Princess,” he croaks. “Do you want a satin pillow for your behind too?”
“Yeah, if you’ve got one,” I say without batting an eye. “And if you could get me an ice water with a wedge of lemon, some anise, and a sprinkle of brown sugar that would be super.”
We stare at each other for a long time. He balls his hands up into fists at his sides, making a sound like somebody eating peanut brittle. I wonder for a second if I should call the ride service now to complain. Wanting to get home, I set my anger aside and decide to tough it out.
“Or, I guess I could just do without the pillow and the water, I’m not that thirsty anyway,” I say, sliding in the open door. I watch as he closes it behind me, bending over to glare at me through the window before lumbering back to the front.
“Hello.”
“Jesus Christ!” I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of the male voice behind me. I turn to find I’m not alone in the rear of the limo. Not alone at all.
I don’t remember clicking the box for the ride-share option.
The razor-thin, sharply dressed man sitting closest to me is pale enough to be a vampire and has graying hair that is probably slicked back to cover up a bald spot. His gnarled hands grip the glass head of a mahogany cane carved to resemble an elephant.
“Cool cane,” I say.
“Thank you,” he replies.
“Did the behemoth try to manhandle you when he picked you up too?”
The man’s thin lips pull back in a smile. The other man in the rear with us, who looks like he could be the rude driver’s cousin, frowns and shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“He’d be ill-advised to try.”
“Right,” I say, shivering slightly from the sudden chill in the air. “I’m June, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Names are ill-advised in our profession, but the pleasure is mine.”
His chiding tone has my jaw snapping shut, just before a cold hand blasts up from the netherworld and squeezes my stomach into pulp.
What an odd thing to say.
I knew I should have listened to my gut when Frankenstein pushed me into the limo. I’ve screwed up. I don’t know how, but I screwed up big time. Something is absolutely not right here.
Fuck. I told the driver he was here for me. Do they think I’m someone else? If they do, and don’t even want to know her name, that can’t be a good sign. Another shiver runs up my spine as I try to make sense of the situation. If someone turned this in to me as a script, me and the girls would laugh our asses off at the implausibility. You know why?
Because no audience would swallow a protagonist as stone-cold stupid as I have been. What do I do now? Admit my mistake and hope for mercy? It’s not too late for that--
Brawny cousin guy leans across the aisle and grabs my forearm, prying at the briefcase in my hand.
“Hey, what the fuck? I have pepper spray; you knuckle dragging troglodyte!”
I recoil, yanking back as far as I’m able.
“Ow,” I say. “Get your hands off of me.”
The albino Bond Villain I’m stuck ride-sharing with gives a perturbed look at his muscle.
“Do try to be more restrained. We are all just people doing business. There’s no reason we can’t be civil.”
Deeply disturbed, I try to reason with the Alpha Villain of the group, “I think there is a misunderstanding,” I peek over the seat at the behemoth driving and shoot him a pleading look, “You can just let me out here.”
The snarky look in his eyes tells me that I’m dreaming if I think they are going to let me out of here. For the first time since I got into the limo, I genuinely wonder if I am going to make it out alive.
At this point in my day, can I really rule anything out? Hell, maybe it will turn out all right in the end. Maybe some handsome stranger with huge biceps and a cute, tight tush will show up and save my day.
