“Now we have two minutes,” she whispered, breaking away from me and placing her hand on my lips.
I kissed her fingers before remarking, “You changed the plan.”
“My grandfather changed the plan. I knew he was slipping. But not so quickly. I miscalculated.” She frowned, annoyed with herself, which meant I didn’t have to say anything else on the matter.
“The rest of plan? Are we still pretending we don’t know each other?”
She smirked and kissed my lips softly. “We continue as planned. We know everyone is watching, let’s give them the show they want.”
“Toying with my family is fun for you?”
“Don’t pretend like I’m the only one. The only reason anyone becomes a puppet master is because they love to see the puppets dance on their strings.” She tilted her head to watch me. “We’ll talk about everything else in your…our room. My clothes are already unpacked right?”
“You giving orders already?” I asked, squeezing her ass tighter. “How dramatic are we making this reunion?”
“Opera worthy,” she replied, pushing me off and adjusting her clothes. I did the same, and she waved her hand, telling me to go back towards the fire place. “Also, your cousin Helen was pretty much naked waiting for your brother in his room.”
“Why the fuck would you tell me that?” I asked, cringing.
She just beamed and pointed to my dying hard on. “To get rid of that.”
Rolling my eyes, I fixed my suit as she counted down to her…our cruel little joke on my family. Everyone believed I didn’t have a sense of humor. Turns out I did, just at their expense.
“Three, two, one,” she said, and I just stared once again, tempted to shake my head.
She stood right in front of me.
“Hello, Ethan. Am I at the final level where I face the boss now?” she asked coldly. And she said I deserved an Oscar.
“That depends,” I said, looking into her familiar grey eyes. After four years, nothing had changed about her but the length of her hair. “Am I the final boss? Or is it you? Is this my game or is it yours, Cordelia—I mean Calliope?”
She moved over to the couch, placing her purse and jacket on the side table before inspecting the wine bottles which hung stacked against the stone wall. She checked the dates before picking one. “A 1782 Chateau Lafite is one of the best red wines in the world. It’s worth a quarter of a million dollars. Some people say it calms you down. Let’s find out…”
“Calliope—”
“Your ungrateful son of a bitch!” she screamed, throwing it at me. The bottle shattered against the fireplace behind me. And she wasn’t done. She grabbed bottle after bottle, throwing them at me. “Who the fuck are you questioning right now?”
How the fuck was I so damn in love with this fucking crazy woman.
Goddamn it!
CALLIOPE
“They were right; I feel much better.” I drank from the bottle as I sat on top of the table. Looking over my shoulder, I watched Ethan dab the blood on his forehead with a napkin. “Do you feel better?”
He paused, turning his head to me his green eye boring right through me. I wanted to kiss him so badly. He looked pissed, though.
“Now that you are calm—”
“Now that I am calm?” I spun around on the tabletop to look at him. “I was calm on the phone. I was calm when I got here. You were the son of a bitch who had guards waiting for me, armed. Why? Because I was not okay with the fact that my daughter was taken from me without permission? Instead of approaching me in a calm and logical manner, you decided to fight me. Actually, I can’t even call that a fight. Which is worse because the fact that it was so easy to get to you feels like I was being bloody mocked!”
“I had guards meet you because I don’t know you! Nor do I trust you. From the moment we met five years ago you were lying to my goddamn face!”
“I lied to you?” I said, stunned.
“Are you really going to—”
“You are the most insufferable person I have ever had the misfortune to meet. You are so goddamn pigheaded, you think you are the sun, the sky, stars, and the damn moon! I never lied to you—”