“I just wish I could see it all getting delivered,” I say wistfully when my revenge has all been plotted and executed.
“I wish I could see the look on that butthole’s face,” Luna mutters darkly.
“Me too,” I agree as I pick up the offending bouquet of flowers and the stupid book and deposit it right where it belongs.
In the trash.
I try not to think of my crushed hopes and sad, vulnerable heart ending up metaphorically there with them, but it’s hard not to think, at this point, of my life as a pretty pathetic tragedy. I feel emotionally weary, just so freaking tired, my great big bundle of hope picked at by life, by circumstance, and by other people I’d trusted, or at least semi-trusted for a time, until it lay in tatters. This one might be on me. One night stands are called one night for a reason. I didn’t have any right to hope for anything more, to keep thinking about Daniel. He was too handsome for his own good with his dark, sinful eyes and his sinful body and just ugh all his sinful passion, and I got wrapped up in it, and that makes me feel every bit like a lust smitten, absurd child.
Thinking about my delivery, sent with more than a heaping dose of my middle finger only makes me feel a tad bit bitter, but at least it’s something. And at least Luna is here, and I know my family will always be here for me no matter what and that’s a heck of a lot more than something.
One butthole getting served justice coming right up.
CHAPTER 5
Daniel
“Oh. It’s you.”
There’s clear disdain in the way Leandra raises her head from behind the sales counter at her boutique, stares me down, and narrows her eyes. No greeting, no smile, no pleasantries. Yeah. She’s pissed.
Seeing her like this for the first time ever without a mask hiding the extreme beauty behind practically knocks me down for a punch. Of course I looked her up when Granny told me who she was. Of course, I knew already how beautiful she is. Still, it did not exactly prepare me for how much more of everything she actually is.
Oh, she is a goddess all right.
Beautiful and elegant. She is refined in a way that very few people actually are anymore. I have no doubt that behind that counter she’s wearing five to six inch pumps that make her appear taller and more professional. Her white button-down blouse is so sheer I can see the lace of a camisole peaking from beneath, those pearl buttons matching almost the exact shade of her creamy skin. A dainty gold chain catches the light at her throat, drawing my attention there to the hollow where her pulse thrums evenly. I have to steel myself against remembering the sweet honeysuckle taste of her there.
Her red lipstick and furious blue eyes, twin sapphires burning as bright and cold as an ice-covered lake under the cold rays of a winter sun, bite through me. She has the blouse tucked into a black skirt that hugs her narrow waist and defines her shapely hips. I can’t see all of it, but I have no doubt that the rest of her looks equally as fabulous as the parts I can see.
As if the toilet and the bouquet of dead, wilted flowers ordered to my house yesterday afternoon wasn’t evidence enough.
I hold out my hands in surrender. A quick glance around her boutique confirms that we’re alone except for a middle aged, slender woman wearing designer clothing from head to foot, browsing through racks of clothing at the back. I wasn’t sure what kind of place I’d find, but the address of the boutique, which I got from my grandma before I sent that bouquet of flowers yesterday, told me it was probably high end, since it was in an area that also included other designer shops, five star restaurants, non-tourist cheese (I mean not cheese, but you know, not the cheesy kind of souvenir shops), high high end jewelry stores, and beyond that, classy and expensive houses.
Leandra’s boutique is housed in a building that’s a collection of sleek black lines and endlessly tall windows from the outside and on the inside, it’s all sunlight and dazzling colors, rich fabrics, tasteful jewelry, and the most radiant being of all standing in that sea of elegance, glaring at me with no small amount of hostility and suspicion. Yeah. If looks could kill, I’d be contorted into some position which involved me having my head stuck up my own behind. Literally. Because Leandra wouldn’t hurt a fly, but I think she would get great joy from seeing me in a position like that.
“It’s me.” I hold up my hands in a gesture of peaceful supplication, hoping that Leandra won’t reach for the stuff beside her on the counter, which is mostly things that could be used as a weapon, like a letter opener and a stapler. She could also hurl the heavy ass looking roll of tape at my head. “It’s me, but I can explain.”