My sentiments mirrored hers after my twenty-first birthday. But tonight, I wanted to tell Lachlan everything. And that was just what I did …
“It’s your twenty-first birthday,and you celebrated it with many wealthy, oldublyudki,” Simona said, shaking her head, hair in a strict updo that aged even her flawless dark brown skin. She settled against the silver chair, placing her hands on the now-empty white-linen clothed table. “And you pocket no money.”
She spoke in jest, and I shook my head, inhaling the fragrant floral air of the hospital’s memorial gardens. The event servers cleared off tables around us. I glanced at the green canopies of cherry blossom trees, wishing they bloomed in summer like the beautiful rose hedges. “I didn’t get a check from you.”
“Did you get one from Simeon?” She uttered her father’s name without an ounce of emotion. Although on occasion, the longing a daddy’s girl had for her father laced in Simona’s tone.
“Surprisingly, a bigger check than the Cheap-O I call Pop.”
“So, drinks at The Red Door?”
“Now that I can score shots without you glaring at bartenders, will youput on a happy face?” I ended in a sing-song voice.
“Nyet.”
I smirked. “Okay. Meet you there?”
“Where did you park?”
I smiled, rising from the chair.
“Natasha, is that smile for me? Because I will not?—”
“You won’t smile. I get it.” I ran a hand through my hair, bone straight, which touched my shoulders. “I can only stay …”—I was lying my butt off—“for a little while. I’m sleepy.”
“Translation: Lachlan has birthday gift for you before the clock strikes midnight?”
“No.”Yes. We hardly saw each other in the first half a year of our acquaintance—my self-preservation tactic—but we’d agreed to hang out tonight. My eyes followed servers as they finished removing champagne flutes and dessert plates from a table in front of us. “Um, not that type of gift,” I murmured, though I had to use my every defense to keep from pressing my fingertips to my lips. Man, did they tingle from the way he’d kissed me less than an hour ago before leaving the event.
Simona hid a smirk behind the bottle of champagne she’d stolen from the hospital kitchen. “Oh, yes. Your vow to God. Marriage first, I suppose.”
“C’mon, and stop being so … judgy. I parked down the street.”
“Why?” Simona groaned as we wove around the tables in the hospital atrium that hosted my event.
“How many movies open with a parking garage, a flickering lightbulb, and night?”
“It’s nine-forty-five, Natasha.”
Ugh. She made me sound like someone’s Grammy. “Whatever. Meet you at The Red Door.”
We’d parted ways as she ventured to the elevator, and I slipped out of the hospital doors, pepper spray in one hand, taser in the other. I glanced back.
Too many nights I’d spent here, sick to my stomach from medicine strong enough to kill me, hoping it wouldkillthe cancer cells instead.
Outside, I passed through a smaller, empty lot that provided accessible parking spots. My cellphone buzzed in my diamond clutch. Lachlan.
I’d text him once I reached my car, not dumb enough to play the bimbo in my own scary movie.
He’d left to deal with his sports agent, a pushy mother of two, who knew how to get what she wanted.
Farther out, sat an abandoned lot. Luckily, I hadn’t needed to go that far. I’d scored a spot right across the street from the hospital.
My SUV, a Ferrari Purosangue, sat in front of an unlit Thai restaurant.Really?Couldn’t they keep the lights on?
My kitten heels stepped off the curb, and I was more than halfway across when abeepmade my shoulders slam against my chandelier earrings.
Lights sped toward me. The glare from the vehicle’s headlights made me squint. That was when I saw him.
