“It had its moments. ”
“Did you deal with a lot of cheating husbands and bail jumpers? That sort of thing?”
“No, my part
ner and I did more specialized work. Missing persons, finding stolen objects. ” I neglected to mention those objects were usually magical in nature and worth a fortune in finder’s fees.
Apparently taking the tawdry stuff off the table meant Willow lost interest in my PI work. I could have sucked her right back in if I told her I’d once been hired to find the kidnapped niece of the wereocelot queen, but I wasn’t going to use Genevieve Renard’s personal history to impress an actress.
“How did you and Lucas meet?” Holden asked, finally warming up and joining us in polite conversation.
“At a charity fundraiser in New York about a month ago. ”
“What charity?”
“Oh. ” Willow bit her lip as though she couldn’t recall. “My goodness. How embarrassing. I go to so many events, I can’t—”
Lucas provided the missing answer for her. “It was a campaign supporting children’s literacy. It was Kellen’s pet project, but now that she’s…gone, I’ve stepped up to take over for her. ”
The official story we were selling on Kellen was that she’d eloped with a well-to-do oil tycoon from a small foreign country—one of the tiny Eastern European ones—and was planning to live out her remaining days being spoiled by him.
The papers were dying for photos of her wedding—I’d been offered a six-figure sum for anything I could provide—but since no such photos existed, it was easy to turn reporters down.
Kellen was actually the new wife of a high-ranking member in the fairy king’s court, and she would age so slowly there we might all be dead before she looked thirty. But she loved Brokk, and who were Lucas and I to deny anyone their true love? Just because our perfect fairytale wedding had gone down in flames didn’t mean Kellen shouldn’t have her literal fairytale wedding.
One none of us got to see.
I was assured by Calliope, who’d heard it through connections she still had in the fairy court, it had been a rollicking affair. Everyone had enjoyed it thoroughly, and Kellen had received a true fae welcome into the kingdom. Whatever that meant.
“How is Kellen?” Willow asked, like she and Kel had been old besties. “Enjoying her life in Whateveristan?”
“Kyrgyzstan,” I corrected, having practiced the name of the country about a billion times before we went public with the story.
“She’s very happy. ” Lucas’s expression was stony. He was never going to forgive me for the part I’d played in letting Kellen go back, especially after everything I’d done to retrieve her.
He could go screw himself because I didn’t care what he thought.
“Very, very happy,” I agreed.
“How wonderful. Although I’m sure the gossip columns will miss her. ” Willow shared her practiced laugh with us again, but this time no one else laughed with her. “And of course you’ll miss her too. ”
“Excuse me. ” Lucas pushed his chair back and rose from the table.
He’d barely left the room before I scraped my own seat backwards and followed him with a, “Be right back. ”
Lucas was waiting in the hallway near the washrooms like he’d been expecting me to follow him.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.
“Your girlfriend was the one who invited us. I’m just being polite. ”
He glowered at me, his expression clearly saying, Let’s not fucking kid ourselves here. “So you thought what, exactly? The four of us would sit around while you hold hands with your walking corpse, and we’d have a lovely discussion about Kellen? You thought that would be a great goddamn idea?”
“Your girlfriend invited us,” I reminded him.
“She’s not my fucking girlfriend,” he snapped. “I have a wife, and my wife is standing right in front of me. ” When he grabbed my shoulders roughly, I struggled to pull back, but his grip was firm. Without resorting to violence I couldn’t wrest myself free, and I didn’t want to make a scene.
Not yet anyway.