Chapter Twelve #3
He’d changed to jeans and the Motorhead T-shirt he favored, and had his bare feet propped on a small accent table. His hair had grown longer, with a natural curl to the blond tips, and overall, he looked very sexy.
He jumped out of the cushioned cane chair when she walked in, hooked an arm around her neck, and pulled her head to his shoulder. She tried not to notice how good he smelled. Of course he smelled good. He used her shampoo. But it smelled different on him. Better. Much better.
Which worsened the foul mood she was in.
“I got hanged today, and yet I can’t help but think your day was worse,” he said. He rubbed the top of her head with his knuckles, which most women hated because it messed up their hair, but oddly enough, didn’t annoy her. “You okay?”
The wariness in his tone, as if he expected her to burst into tears any second, struck a nerve. Her bewildering mix of emotions began to sort themselves out. She wondered how much he’d been told. Or figured out on his own.
“Of course I’m not okay,” she said, poking his chest. “What is wrong with you?” The blank look on his face—as if he didn’t understand why she was angry with him—added fuel to a slow-burning fire. “Pretending to be dead was a stupid, juvenile trick. You jerk.”
Rather than sorry, which was what he should be, he seemed pleased with himself.
A smile, filled with mischief, built in his eyes. “Sure. But did you see the look on Adam’s face?”
It was hard not to react to that smile, but she did her best because she was mad at him. He had to quit being so…
Beau.
“My mother’s a grifter with no conscience to speak of. And she’s the normal one in the family,” she said, just to watch his reaction.
Beau shifted topics along with her. “No way. That honor’s yours.” He turned thoughtful. “I have a theory. You know how there’s usually one bad apple on every family tree? Turns out you’re the good one on yours. This side of it, anyway.”
She started to laugh. It had an edge of hysteria to it, so she reined it in. “The other side is nothing to brag about, either. Did I tell you that my dad’s in jail for money laundering?”
Beau’s lower jaw slackened. She’d truly surprised him.
“You’re kidding me. That’s the trouble he got himself into? Both sides of the family? He’s not your mother’s brother or something, is he?”
“He was an economics professor from Toronto, Canada. He liked the thrill of driving high-end cars across the border and running errands for the Chinese Mafia.”
“You really are the only normal one in the family.” He said it with far too much admiration.
“That has to be tough to pull off. You aren’t in the witness protection program or something, are you?
And acting all normal is fake? Or maybe you were switched at the hospital at birth, and these aren’t your biological family? ”
Belle heard Shanda’s voice inside her head. We could be twins! While she wouldn’t go quite that far, the resemblance was there. “Did you get a good look at my mother?”
“I did. She’s almost as hot as you are,” Beau said. “You two did not get your looks from Mavis or Benny.”
Belle rubbed her eyebrow with one fingertip. A headache was forming. “I’m going to overlook you calling my mother hot.”
“Hey, I said you were hotter, remember?”
She considered the many ways she could kill him. He was joking, but still. Too soon, Beau. Too soon.
“Other than that, what did you think?”
He sobered. “Honest opinion?”
“Yes.” Beau was good at sizing people up—mostly so he could figure out how best to annoy them—and she was curious as to what he thought.
“I only saw her for a few moments. But she’s desperate,” he said, sounding surprised.
“Maybe scared. No, not scared,” he corrected himself.
“She doesn’t seem the type to scare easily.
But Benny believes she’s here because she needs money, and I’d bet she needs a lot of it.
Last time she was here, she stole money from Mavis.
Turns out, asking for it isn’t her style.
He’s going to hide more for her to find.
He hopes she’ll disappear before the sheik arrives. ”
“What if she doesn’t disappear? What if she’s here because this is a good place for her to hide?” In her head, Belle pictured hitmen arriving in the dead of night armed with assault weapons and heat vision goggles.
“Benny’s going to give her a role. Starting tomorrow, she gets to be madam.”
The hitmen were forgotten. “That’s the part I wanted to play!”
“I have no idea why every woman in this town wants to be a sex worker,” Beau said.
“Other than Jayce and maybe Grady, the man pickings are slim. Since Jayce has that morality stick up his butt and Grady is married, if I were a woman, it honestly wouldn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. What am I missing?”
“The costumes, for one thing. They’re beautiful.” They were lowcut and frilly and daring, even by modern-day standards. Pearl had convinced her to try one on and she’d fallen in love. “You should see them. No one’s been allowed to wear them before this.”
“I’ll be seeing them up close and personal. Tilly and I will be working for her.”
What the actual…
Belle’s self-control snapped like a rubber band stretched past its limits.
She hated to think it was because she was jealous, but she and Beau had become friends—allies, of sorts—and now she was expected to hand him over as if she didn’t mind.
To her mother. Who was beautiful and compelling and liked to party with younger men.
Belle had never, not once in her life, advocated for herself.
“Drop this bag of money off at the casino door for me, honey?” Sure, Dad.
“Want to go to science camp for summer rather than take a family camping trip at Yellowstone with us?” Sure thing, Foster Mom.
“Join a cult in the mountains rather than open your own medical practice?” Sure. Why not.
Things were about to change. That was why not. And she was the only one who could do it.
She wanted to be a madam? She’d go off-script and set up a business to rival her mother’s. She wanted vaccines for the town’s children? She’d order them herself. She wanted to take her friendship with Beau to the next level for a few weeks?
That one depended on him.
But if it didn’t happen, it wasn’t going to be because she hadn’t tried.