Chapter 9 #2
“I’m serious.” Varen cleared her throat. “Not trying to imply you don’t look great, usually. It’s… I did a good job picking out that dress.”
Nala shuffled in her seat. “Thanks, I guess.” It would be great if she dropped it there. Nala didn’t take compliments well – made her feel like she owed the woman something in return, and there was almost no feeling worse than that.
“Anyway.” Varen picked up her menu and promptly dropped it back down.
For the first time since they first met, Nala saw the woman more flustered than composed.
She blushed in frustration as she fought to get the thing back between her fingers.
“This place has a lot of good reviews. I ate here once.”
A waiter arrived, pouring glasses of ice water and asking them if they wanted anything else to drink.
Varen was quick to order a small bottle of wine.
Nala would have laughed if this behavior wasn’t because of her body.
I get it. You realize I’m hot. She didn’t take it as a huge compliment. Most people thought she was hot to some extent – after all, she was female and breathing. Nothing to take personally.
Varen deciding she was hot enough to gush over didn’t mean anything.
It really didn’t.
“You should try the salmon. It’s wild here. Not farmed.”
Nala vaguely knew what that meant and why she should care. “It’s okay to look, you know,” she said, focusing on the words in front of her. “I’ve got tits. They’re here. You bought me a dress that shows off the underboob. Go ahead. See what you bought.”
Varen peered at her from above her menu. “I do have some self-control.”
“For that I commend you.” Nala put her menu down, giving her a full view of her bare stomach and the breasts barely contained in the dress. One wrong move and they would pop out below the sash, free-range nipples and all. “You’ve learned since kissing me that first time.”
The waiter brought the wine. He poured it into two glasses, halfway, before leaving the bottle in the middle of the table next to the floral arrangement.
Nala and Varen played a coy game that would probably end with one of them turning away in a huff.
The theme of the night was twelve-year-olds.
Or at least Nala had the patience of one, and Varen was probably being reminded of the first pair of grown tits she saw in her formative years.
“Anyway,” she muttered yet again, breaking eye contact.
“I’m going to have…” she rattled off some convoluted seafood title, a list of sauces, and a request for her rice to be of a certain variety not listed on the menu.
Rich people. Nala wondered how long it took to get acclimated to being so demanding. Or was Varen naturally like that?
“For you, madam?” The waiter stood next to her.
“That,” she said, pointing to a random salmon entrée. “That’s good.”
The waiter took away their menus and left them alone in their silent alcove. Varen sighed, folding her hands on the table and looking anywhere but in Nala’s direction. Typical. She said the woman could look, and she did everything in her power to do anything but.
“Is there a reason you brought me to dinner first?” Nala ran her fingers along the stem of the wineglass, admiring the deep, flushing red before attempting a sip. “You think I’m too skinny and need feeding?”
Varen remained frozen in her seat, although Nala could tell a battle of wills fought in her brain. “I don’t think you’re too skinny. As long as you’re taking care of yourself, well… it’s your business. I shouldn’t have even gone that far.”
Scoffing, Nala dared a sip of her wine. It was sweet, bitter, a healthy mix of the two as it caressed her tongue.
I haven’t had wine in forever. Certainly none as good as this…
yet she wouldn’t make a show of it. Didn’t want Varen thinking she was some uncultured rube this far into their “relationship.”
“You act like you don’t have an opinion on the way I look, talk, and act. Of course you do. Don’t be ashamed of it. I’ve been judging you since the moment we met.”
“Oh? What did you surmise?”
Nala put her glass down, crossing her ankles beneath her chair.
The long stiletto heels pierced the floor and put so much pressure on the soles of her feet that she winced in discomfort.
“You’re a woman of means who doesn’t say much and has some agenda with Xan Ravenwood. You won’t tell me anything about it, though. Not that it’s a problem. I’m not exactly in a hurry to share my tale with you.”
“That’s actually why I invited you to dinner first.”
Varen downed half her glass already, her head tipping back and throat pulsing.
“We need to go over the details of this relationship. We got caught on the spot last time when we were asked how long we were dating. We need to figure out how we met and where we’re going. Also…”
She cleared her throat, still refusing to look Nala in the eye.
“What?”
Finally, her frosty blues bore into Nala’s. “I’d like some transparency. I need to know exactly what you want from all of this. I know you want something negative from Ravenwood, but what, exactly? What do you want from me besides an excuse to get close to him? Money?”
Nala slumped in her seat, breasts sagging against the table. “The money sure is nice. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.” She shrugged. “You’re paying me more than any job I’ve ever had before. By the way, am I getting another check soon? You said a grand a week.”
Something twisted on Varen’s face. “Of course. I’ll make sure you get a check Sunday.”
“Nice.” More winter clothes! Rain boots! Nice ones!
“That doesn’t answer my other questions. Why do you want access to Ravenwood?”
“Why do you want access to him? More business opportunities?”
Another grimace. Everything Nala said harpooned the woman’s gut.
“You’re deflecting, but I’ll humor you.”
She tossed her wallet onto the table, letting it flip open to a picture of the woman from her office.
This one was candid, with her long, curly tresses bigger than her smiling face as she perched on a picnic blanket and wrapped herself in a baggy striped sweater.
She’s pretty. Prettier than Nala, anyway.
Not that it was difficult to be prettier than a girl who wore no makeup and kept her hair straight out of convenience.
“Who is that? You had a picture of her in your office.”
“Yes. I keep her picture to remind myself every day that she’s gone.”
“I see.” Dread twisted in Nala’s stomach. She wasn’t sure she liked where this was going.
“Her name was Desirée. She was my classmate at Stanford. And…” Varen looked at Nala head-on, daring her to defy what she was about to say. “I believe that Xan Ravenwood is involved with her death.”
Shudders rippled from one side of the table to the other.
This was pure, conniving hatred that they shared on a mutual base level.
So he killed this woman too. No, that was the wrong way to look at it.
Had her killed. Nala wasn’t dumb in all of this.
She knew Xan Ravenwood would never kill a woman himself.
He would hire someone to do it. He had the money and the means.
Why dirty his hands when plenty of people were willing to do it?
How much had the deaths of Desirée and Tasha cost, anyway?
A million dollars? Hundreds of thousands?
Mere thousands? Nah, he would hire a real pro.
He has too much to lose. That’s why their deaths were better than whatever they were going to do to him and his business.
“Why would he do that?” Nala asked carefully. “He would have to have a good reason.”
Varen studied her reaction. “You don’t ask me how I know. So, you believe me?”
“I certainly believe your suspicions are not unfounded. However, I would like to know why you thought this. Did she work for him?”
“Yes. An intern at one of his real estate firms. Desirée was at Stanford doing the same coursework as me. Namely, computer engineering and app development. She was working on a project to help real estate agents manage their properties…
the app I did for Ravenwood may or may not have been the finished product of what she started.”
“I see. Why would he kill her?”
“Had her killed. Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not.”
Varen narrowed her eyes. “I don’t have a lot of details. In her last few months, she was working closely with him and was becoming more paranoid. She said that she thought she was being followed. When I asked her what she was working on, she remained hushed and said it was confidential.
I didn’t see how. Everyone knew about her project, most of all me. So why was she holding back? It didn’t make any sense.”
Nala leaned against the table. “Then she ended up dead?”
Shadows cast across the room, summoned by Varen’s wary countenance.
“It was a late, rainy night. She told our friends that she would meet us for drinks after she got off work with Ravenwood. Next thing I knew, I was getting a phone call saying that she had run off the road and fallen fifty feet. Broke her neck. Instant death.” Varen snapped her fingers for emphasis.
“Well, it was a rainy night.” Nala didn’t like playing devil’s advocate, but she wasn’t about to jump into her tale until she got more details.
Sometimes she still had the feeling that this was all a scam to get her to admit nefarious details about herself.
As if Varen were really the one working for Ravenwood and sussing out whether Nala should be targeted next.
“Desirée was one of the most cautious drivers I knew. She would have never fallen asleep or not paid attention, especially if it was raining. An investigator said there was evidence of her brakes failing on the curb. Nothing came of it. Ravenwood was generous and paid for everything,
including any investigation fees.”
Varen shook her head, disgust riddling her features. “He paid for her funeral.”
He paid for her funeral. Images of Yena barking that her daughter should be grateful that her sister’s funeral had been paid for entered Nala’s head. Admission of guilt? Perhaps so.
“So, you see, I need to find out the truth. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll find out whether Desirée was killed by Ravenwood’s order… but most of all, I want to know why she was disposed.”
Something didn’t add up. “Why are you so invested in her? Was she your girlfriend?”