To his frustration the expression on her face doesn't even change. “Don’t worry about me, baby,” she says. “I know how to get what I want.” Then she kisses him on the lips, hard.
Chapter 14
DIANA
Pssst. Wakey wakey, sleepy head.
I groan, feeling like my head has been hit with a truck.
Daylight’s wasting, the little voice complains. We’ve got a wager to win.
“Why do you even care? You didn’t care about me getting my agency job back.” Even the sound of my own voice hurts.
I’ve changed my mind, she purrs. Nothing gets me going like a good challenge.
“My head feels terrible. Did you make me drink last night? I can’t remember… stuff.”
She laughs. I don’t need to get drunk to have a good time.
“But I don’t feel good.”
Then you shouldn’t have fought me so hard. If you’d just let me do what I wanted you would be waking up feeling pretty good about now.
Fragments are coming back to me. I remember fighting with her last night. I remember serving a customer at the restaurant. I remember coming home and collapsing into bed with exhaustion.
Beastie, who is curled up like a warm ball against my lower back, growls a little in her sleep, dissatisfied with my fidgeting.
I try to remember more of yesterday. Things are fuzzy. What is clear is the memory of going to Beatrice Grictor’s house, of being cramped under the desk in Raif’s office and that horrible vision of fire burning in my mind.
Except it hadn’t been a vision. Not exactly. It felt like something else. I had been filled with this horrible fear, like this thing was pushing at my mind, trying to see in. And I had screamed and screamed.
And then… Then what?
I groan, and sit up in bed to take a sip of water from the glass I keep beside the bed. The fear had come when I had touched that symbol on the paper. The little voice had forced me to drag my fingers away from it, causing the darkness and pain to subside.
I had emerged panting and in shock, to find myself staring into the face of an utterly bewildered Beatrice Grictor who had given a pitiable little cry of astonishment. Behind her Storm had been rolling his eyes and muttering something no doubt unpleasant under his breath. He had looked more exasperated than furious. And then he had reached for me. And then…
“You took over!” I say. “You took over and you made me run. You punched Storm in the face!”
You’re damn right I did, she says smugly. He was about to arrest you.
“No, he wasn’t. He already knew I was there and he didn’t say anything!”
That changed the second you screeched like a banshee. If Beatrice Grictor had wanted you charged, that is what he would have done.
I grunt in annoyance. She is probably right. He would have had to. And then my wager with the chief would have been over for sure.
Admit it, she says. I saved your ass, and his too. Because if she thought you and he were there together — which she would have known the second you looked at him with your puppy dog eyes — she would have complained to the Agency. And kaput goes your precious job, and probably his too.
I grimace. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
I frown. I am getting a vague memory of Storm being mad at me in the restaurant last night. Had he been at the restaurant last night? Oh God. Yes he had been there, and the whole team too. And she had been inside my head making me say terrible things. And, oh God, the look on Remi’s face when I had teased her about the new guy. Forget tease, I had been downright rude.
I bury my head in my hands in shame. Remi had been the only one trying to give me a proper chance in the team.
“How could you do that to her?” I snarl.
Oh please, even you have to admit it was fun, Miss Prissy Pants, she says, sounding amused. And anyway, those two clearly wanted to get into each other’s pants. I just brought it all out into the open so that they can move onto the next step.