Page 28 of Shark’s Pride

My voice was strangled by a stunned gape.

Then a hoarse cough.

Then a wordless stare.

This definitely wasn’t the mini sales team I expected. Not even close. But a ghost? Couldn’t say I was expecting one of those either.

“Sebastian. Hi.”

A ghost that spoke. But didn’t most of them do that? Admittedly, my knowledge on the subject was limited.

I focused on shoving coherent syllables to my lips. I was finally able to get out a couple and stuck to the key ones.

“Tawny?”

Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, then checking over her shoulder, she asked, “Do you mind if I come in?”

“I do, actually.” It barely got past my lips as Abbigail pushed her way between me and the doorframe.

“Whoa,” she whispered and placed her hand on my arm to calm me. “Of course. Come inside.”

Tawny Mansfield, she of postmortem notoriety, jogged up one side of her thin mouth. “Thanks,” she offered to Abbi in a mild tone. But my poor girl was still just as confused as me.

“Aren’t you…dead?” Abbi slapped her hand over her mouth.

I gave her a sideways look before turning my attention back to the woman huddled inside my front door.

“We need to talk,” Tawny replied.

I answered that by raising an eyebrow and then closed the front door, sliding the lock and dead bolt home. Photographers routinely camped out in the neighborhood, and there were often drone cameras zipping around as well. The hazards of counting a number of celebrities as neighbors, in addition to the paps targeting my own driveway routinely. The last thing I needed was more news coverage related to this woman.

As soon as I turned on the woman in my foyer, I dictated, “Get to explaining and at a quick-time pace. This is some fucked-up shit, lady.” Despite latching a hand around Abbi’s to keep her close, I couldn’t take my eyes off the brunette who’d entered my home. Tawny moved like a wraith.

What the hell had happened to her?

I’d already started inner speculations while pinning Tawny with an expectant stare. I didn’t get very far because Abbi immediately shifted into hostess mode. “Can I get you some coffee or something?” she asked Tawny. “Tea, maybe?”

Tawny darted an openly confused look between Abbigail to me.

I quickly interrupted, “This is my girlfriend, Abbigail Gibson. But honestly, you need to start talking before we all sit down for a game of Canasta. What the fuck is going on here?”

“Bas.” It was a verbal version of Abbi’s tight twist around my bicep.

“‘Bas?’” Tawny added a small smile, but I couldn’t tell if she was being sweet or snide. “That’s so adorable.”

And there was the word that did it—mostly because I couldn’t tell if I liked it or abhorred it. “Stop fucking with me, Tawny. In case you haven’t kept up with the news, you’ve caused some serious shit in my life lately.”

“I know.”

“But I guess that’s what you were going for, yeah?”

“Please, let me explain.”

“I’d love nothing more.” I shrugged off Abbi’s hold and started a forward stalk toward our new “guest.” “Because I don’t think you really understand. Maybe you need some enlightenment about how it really feels to have the whole world wanting to put its hands around your neck all at the same time. Here, let me help you underst—”

“Sebastian!”

Abbi’s terrified scream was the successful lasso on my temper, despite how Tawny held out her hands, flat palms supplicating me. “Sebastian, I wish I had an hour to stand here and apologize to you,” she said. “Hell, even longer than that.”