“I could ask Abby.” He smiled and threw in a waggle of his eyebrows for added effect.
“I gave her the slip, so nobody knows, just me and one other who you don't know,” Tasha revealed.
“Security?” asked Jim with a smug smirk but as Tasha lowered her glance he lost any sign of amusement along with his previous playfulness. “Tell me that you weren't stupid enough togive them the slipbecause if you did,” he almost threatened.
“Not like you mean. I arranged to meet someone about your present somewhere I wouldn't normally have done it, got it, so they were there but unaware.” Even she felt a little confused by her own words and phrasing and she knew exactly what she had and hadn’t done. “I can't explain without ruining the surprise, but I promise I was with security all day.”
“Okay,” agreed Jim reluctantly. “But if on Monday it transpires that you didn't do as instructed, your ass along with the rest of you will be mine and I would hate for our wedding night to prove a frustrating one for you, honey.”
“So would I,” agreed Tasha, confident that Jim would be equally happy with her gift and her use of security.
****
It was about an hour later, the party was in full swing and almost all of the guests had arrived when a panic struck Philip pulled Tasha to one side.
“Tash, I’m running back home to find Juan,” he told her sadly.
“You okay?”
“We had a fight, me and Juan. I was a bit of a jackass so sent Lizzie to make him come over, but that was before you came down and neither of them are back, unless...” he said with a half-smile.
“Unless?” Tasha knew exactly what he was likely to say.
“Unless you'd go over and make Juan come back with you, and Lizzie who is probably now on his side since I was a major jerk,” Philip admitted making Tasha smile.
“I’ll go and talk them both round and get them over here to suffer the party I didn't want with me.”
“Tash, you are the best,” grinned Philip as he hugged her warmly.
Tasha rushed to the front door where she passed a concerned looking Amanda and a very attractive dark haired and skinned thirty something man who Tasha assumed was Dom.
“Hi Amanda, give me two minutes and I will be back with Juan and Lizzie,” Tasha called as she rushed past them and headed over to Philip's home where she tapped on the door as she tried the door knob and found it turned easily. Amanda's voice calling her name continued, but Tasha figured whatever she wanted to say could wait for the few minutes it would take her to return home, so ignored her.
Once in the hallway, Tasha called to Juan and Lizzie, “Hello, come on you two, Philip is getting jittery. Juan, where are you? Lizzie, your dad's waiting for you.”
Making her way through the lounge and into the light and airy kitchen she stopped dead in her tracks at the sight that greeted her.
“Juan, Lizzie, what's going on?” Tasha asked with confusion and fear in her voice.
A loud, cold, maniacal laugh came from behind her and immediately she knew exactly what was going on. Turning slowly, Tasha took a deep breath as she came face to face with first a gun, a handgun and then the frozen blue pools of Mickie's eyes.
“I couldn't have planned this any better.” She smiled but with no amusement. “I have the son's boyfriend that has been in need of payback for some time, the whiny daddy's girl that really needed a damned good spanking years ago, both of whom always ran back to Jim with all the bad things about nasty Mickie, and now, the cherry on the top of the cake, the English whore who took him away from me.”
Tasha was unsure what to say or do as she stared down the barrel of the gun.
“Sit,” snapped Mickie, laughing as Tasha jumped.
Mickie gestured towards the other two who were sitting against kitchen cabinets huddled together. They automatically made a space for her between them and as she sat in it, Tasha instinctively threw a protective arm around each of them.
“This really could not be any more perfect, could it?” asked Mickie rhetorically. “But what to do with you all next?” She took her phone out and snapped a picture of the three of them, scared and huddled together on the floor.
“Mickie,” said Tasha calmly. “I'm sure you don't want to harm Lizzie or Juan, not really, so please let them go. Your problem is with me, not them.” She hoped she could at least get the other two out of this ridiculously dangerous situation.
Mickie stared at her with no expression at all on her face and seemed to think about what Tasha had said for a matter of only seconds before shaking her head firmly. “I don't think so, Tasha. If Juan had kept his nose out of things between me and Jim then maybe I could have let him go and as for sweet, little Lizzie, well, she is the little bitch that always thought she should be the only woman in Daddy's life. You would never have liked me as a stepmother, would you?” She waved the gun at Lizzie now.
With tears running down her face Lizzie tried to reply, “I—don't—know—what—you—mean. I knew you liked my dad—I never did anything.”
“So, you never went running back to Daddy with all the stories of what Mickie did and said? You really should have had a stepmother like me, Lizzie. I would have knocked you into shape, either that or you would have run back to Mommy and Lenny forever.” She laughed and then more seriously turned to Tasha, the accusation in her voice clear. “But you came along and took him away from me. We were happy until you came along and messed things up.”
