Chapter Five
In her heels Alicia ran across the road, and walked into the warehouse, thankfully completely empty, which meant she would be in and out.
A lone cashier in the front, filing her nails, told her to go to the back where she would find Amy, the person she had contacted. Alicia might have to shout for Amy, the cashier added, since she wasn’t always at the counter.
Except it took Alicia forever to get to the back of the enormous warehouse, passing through aisles upon aisles where shelves were piled high with crockery. By the time she found Amy, fifteen minutes had already gone by, and Alicia wasn’t so sure she was going to find her car exactly where she left it. After paying for her purchase, she hurried toward the exit, only to catch a glimpse of a tow truck nearby.
No. No. No.
Not caring anymore, she ran the distance, her heels clanking on the bare cement floor, the bag containing the box with her twelve-piece tea set swinging at her side. Then she promptly bashed her head into a glass door that hadn’t been there before, she would bet her life on it.
The impact sent her flying back onto her ass. Stars swirled around her head, before her eyes closed. She had no idea what was happening, but she was sure her soul lifted out of her body and now danced around her head.
Oh god. She could see the light.
She was dead. So, so dead. Crap.
“Are you all right?” And apparently posthumously, she sounded huskier, possibly like a smoker, and much older too... What?
“No, you’re not dead. I saved you.”
She wasn’t dead. Wait, why did she sound as if she were answering a question and who was asking that question?
Alicia’s eyes fluttered open and through the bright light, she saw a woman who looked about sixty-something with a shock of wiry silver curls, cheeks painted with layers of pink blush, sparkly blue eye-shadow and watery grey eyes. Was she looking at an angel?
“No. I’m not an angel.”
Alicia gasped as a flood of air filled her lungs, bringing her out of her temporary comatose state. She tried to sit up, but the woman put a hand on her shoulder and told her to take it easy.
“I’m fine. My car…” she said, sitting up with the help of the woman. Alicia immediately noticed that not one of the two staff members of the warehouse she had encountered came to her, which meant that they had no idea she’d knocked herself out on their premises.
“You can’t drive, I don’t think, Miss. You need to call someone. You were lucky I saw you hit the glass and go down from across the road.”
“Thank you,” Alicia said heartfelt. She could have truly died right there. The warehouse didn’t look as if it ever teemed with customers. Her corpse would only have been discovered when the staff came to close the entrance doors at the end of the business day. She’d have been cold by then.
What was she doing? She’d driven across town to some out of the way place, to buy a second-hand vintage tea-set for her trousseau for a wedding that was never going to happen. This knock on her head was the universe telling her to stop fucking around. She was almost certain she’d gotten accepted into Harvard Law. It was time she got her act together and adulted the damn thing. No more excuses.
Scrapbooking manifestation? What had she been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking. Clearly that was the problem.
“You have someone you can call?” The older woman asked her.
Alicia nodded and took her phone out of her bag. She called Holly because she wasn’t calling Cade, Eli, or Baxter, that was for sure. Holly was already in her car coming to Alicia by the time she disconnected.
“Thank you, so much,” Alicia said again, taking one of the older woman’s hands in both of hers. She hadn’t even checked to see if her tea set had survived. If it had, it would be a damn good sign. If it hadn’t, it was a sign for something else. No. No more signs. Did she forget the stern talking to she’d given herself moments ago. Go home. Become a lawyer. End of story.
“I’ll tell you your fortune while we wait for your friend?” the woman asked, running her fingers down Alicia’s palms.
Well, she had just cheated death, and she was in a woo-woo phase of life…
No. That was over. She needed to–
“Okay,” she said, but shaking her head, warring with herself like a crazy person.
“Okay.” The woman carried on smiling, but no fortune fell from her lips. Alicia frowned, opened her mouth to say something, and then realized what was going on.
She had to pay the woman.
“How much do I owe you?”
The older woman shrugged. “Whatever you can spare, deary.”
Alicia fumbled in her bag and drew out a hundred-dollar bill. Was that enough? What was the going rate for having one’s fortune told these days? She took out another hundred-dollar bill and handed it to the woman, who looked at her in shock.
Okay, well, that was good. Maybe the extra tip would give her a better fortune.
“I see marriage… soon.”
“You do?” Alicia asked, shocked. Wait… what did this mean? Arg, she was so confused. Her head was going to explode. Yes, of course, it was going to explode. She had just banged it so hard that she rattled her brain.
“Yes, you, my dear, you will marry a king. Not a prince, but a king. Mark my words. I see it in your future. You will be happy. A king. You will marry a king.”
A king? Really?
Well that was fun while it lasted, but she was back to being a lawyer now.
“Mom.”
“Alicia.”
Both Alicia and the woman glanced up to their respective names being called. A pretty girl wearing some type of fast-food apron addressed the woman, and Holly, frazzled and worried, addressed Alicia.
“I told you not to wander off,” the girl said to the fortune teller who also saved Alicia’s life.
“Jesus. We need to get you to a doctor right now,” Holly said at the same time as the girl spoke, although Holly’s attention was solely on Alicia’s forehead even while she gathered Alicia’s purse and the bag containing her precious tea-set.
Suddenly feeling woozy, Alicia had no idea how she got into the car with Holly.
“I’m going to marry a king,” she heard herself murmuring, while Holly forced her to stay awake. “I don’t even know a king. I know zero royalty,” she said, sitting up straighter in the seat of her friend’s car. “Do you know anyone who’s even remotely royal?”
“You’re not making no sense, babe. Just hang on until a doctor can check you out, okay?”
She blew out a breath when thinking too hard made her head ache. True to her word, Holly had a doctor check her out and was only satisfied when he told her she was fine, except for a mild concussion, which was nothing anyway in Alicia’s books.
Thankfully, her car hadn’t been towed, but she was now saddled with a huge fine. Holly also had to get her boyfriend involved to bring Alicia’s car back from the parking space in which she’d left it.
And all she had to show for her near death experience and wonky fortune telling session? A bump the size of a planet right in the center of her forehead and no damn kingly husband.
When she walked through the door of their penthouse, she was exhausted, took off all her clothes, slipped into an old soft t-shirt, went straight to bed and crashed. But her dreams were haunted by the silver-haired woman.
What did she mean?
A king. What an odd thing to say to someone, anyway. Ordinary people didn’t marry kings, which just made what she say more unbelievable, which made her fortune telling a blatant hoax and that meant she wasn’t going to be very successful at the gig.
Even if she lied, and said you’re going to marry a tall, dark, handsome man, a kingly man, she’d have more of a success rate than telling Alicia she was going to marry a king, as in a real king. And for two hundred bucks, she could have at least tried to make her prediction a little more accessible.
Sigh.
A king.
Right. She was going to open her laptop and check her status, then go and be a lawyer, forget her mom’s letter, and leave all this woo-woo scrapbooking manifestation fortune telling business behind. She couldn’t avoid her reality anymore.
“A king,” she scoffed one last time as she sat up in the bed, reached for her laptop caught sight of herself in her mirror, and gave herself a proper scare. She looked like a cyclops who had gotten into a bar fight with a chair. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, and it didn’t hurt as much now, thank goodness.
She flipped open her laptop, then shut it immediately.
How could she be so stupid? The answer had been staring her in the face the whole freaking time.
She knew exactly who she was meant to marry.