Pretty Perfect Toy - Angel Payne Page 0,68
escapades to skewer Cassian. “She had so much, she was able to waste some on the front of my dress—before throwing the glass at Cassian.”
“Right before you walked out on him, Mishella.”
Triumphant razors gleam in the woman’s eyes. She rocks back a little, letting me wince through the suicide for which she’s gleefully assisted.
And worsens.
“You walked out because Amelie started talking.” Her head tilts as she dares going for the “best girlfriends” angle—at least to the viewers’ eyes. “And she spilled the truth, the whole truth, about what happened to Lily Court.”
She pushes forward again.
Just between us, Ella.
Reaches for one of my hands.
You can talk to me, Ella.
“Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
I barely get it seethed before the witch leans closer, though any outside observer would interpret her as the compassionate friend to my emotional wreck. “It must have been so much to take in. A first wife with emotional instability and substance abuse problems. All those trips Lily took to rehab—”
She’s sliced into silence by the man who almost lunges across the table at her. “How the hell did you find that out?”
One corner of Chantal’s mouth twitches. “Are you denying it?”
“I’m saying that those records are sealed, and that someone broke the law giving them to you.”
“Because you wanted to hide the extent of Lily’s substance abuse?” The smirk is gone from her lips but lives on in her cutting gaze. “Because she was so desperate to stay high, she abused drugs even when pregnant with your child?”
My heart punches to my throat. Sticks there, in the moment Cassian pounds a fist to the table.
“Enough.”
His snarl impacts Chantal as nothing more than a breeze. The note cards are coyly set aside. Her upper body slinks forward, calm and knowing as a she-snake. “Maybe you just want to hide the biggest kernel of it,” she murmurs. “That the night Lily Court leapt to her death, she was still carrying your baby.”
*
Cassian
“This interview is over.”
My own words thrash the inside of my skull like ravens in a church: dark wings beating at stained glass, fury bashing the illusion of anything civilized and sane.
I watch my numb fingers tear the button of a microphone off my lapel. Next to me, Ella’s doing the same thing, though uses the extra two seconds to hiss something down at Chantal. The black thrum in my head doesn’t put all of it together until the words are out, and the reporter is responding with nothing but a saint-on-stained-glass smile.
“Creator have mercy on your sorry, awful soul!”
As she sucks in breath, gathering strength for a follow-up, I grab at her elbow. Pull hard. The last thing this moment needs is a Tazmanian devil channeled through an Arcadian blonde, ripping things up worse than Chantal Dunne already has.
Chantal Dunne, who now has what she showed to work for today.
“Enjoy the glory while it lasts, Miss Dunne.” Your ass as at the center of my dartboard now.
The thought powers into my steps as Doyle falls into step beside me, seemingly from nowhere, though I know he’s just watched every second of what went down from the studio shadows. His cell is already at his ear, and he barks at the party on the other end to hold while he addresses me.
“Legal’s been told to put everything else on hold and meet you in the conference room adjacent to your office.”
“Good.” Still without breaking stride, I scoop a hand to the small of Ella’s back and hurry her the direction Doyle leads. Being in this building at all makes my skin fucking crawl; the sooner I can get her out of here, the better.
We rush around a corner into a utilitarian hall, where a stage hand nods at Doyle then leads us to the freight elevator. It’s ready, open, and empty, a detail for which I send D another quick nod of gratitude. Taking the public elevators down, to the lobby continuously packed with fans of the TGN shows, would be like taking the Virgil express into hell right now. This catastrophe isn’t over, not by the furthest stretch of imagination, and I don’t allow myself a single delusion about that—or one moment’s worth of an unguarded moment. Yeah, that includes even thinking about touching Ella more than this. Even the warmth of her hand is a risk, calling to the stupid caveman inside who clamors for an embrace, a kiss, the sweet goddamn nothingness of getting lost inside her…
Anything to help cope with the rage. The frustration. The pain.