It grew abruptly quiet for a second before I forced the conversation forward. “Well, I think you’re looking at this completely the wrong way. I mean, not only are you getting a wonderful new stepmother, one who probably got her driver’s license the same year as you did, but just a few months from now, you’ll have a little brother or sister too!”
It was a bold joke, considering what we’d just been through, but Nick was always one to play a little rough. “Yeah,” he said, laughing sarcastically and shaking his head with a roll of his eyes. “She’s in for a bit of a disappointment on that one.”
I cocked my head curiously to the side. “And why’s that?”
A dark smile ghosted his face. “Well, gold-diggers might have rules for dating billionaires, but billionaires have rules for dating gold-diggers as well.”
I shook my head, still not following. “I’m sorry? What does that—”
“Vasectomy, Abby.”
“Huh?”
“Little Miss Too-Much-Mascara doesn’t know it yet, but dear old Dad only shoots blanks. I bet she didn’t read that in Gold-Digging for Dummies! The only pitter-patter she’s gonna hear are her own overpriced stilettos marching out the door. It happens all the fucking time.”
“Doesn’t your father ever learn?” I asked, almost sad to hear it.
“You know what they say. You can’t teach an old dick to stay away from new dogs.”
Chapter 10
The so-called family dinner that night was a spectacle of epic proportions.
It all began with a soft knock on our door at a quarter after five. Nick had passed out on the bed, likely a side effect of the barrel and a half of whiskey he had consumed in preparation for spending quality time with his father, not to mention the rum and Coke he’d gulped down to avoid committing homicide against his future stepmother.
Just finishing a shower, I hurried to the door and pulled it slightly ajar to see who was behind it. “Yes?”
“You are new woman, Mrs. Nicholas Hunter.”
A spray of spit followed every word the deranged face of a clown sputtered, and I blinked slowly, taken aback by trying to keep up. She didn’t say it like a question, even though it was supposed to be that, but my bigger problem was that I could hardly understand a word beneath her whimsical accent—that and the fact that only a thin layer of terrycloth stood between her eyes and my nakedness.
How many lies does a person have to tell before they are officially sent to hell? I pondered, not wanting to confess my true identity. Is there some kind of moral credit I can use to earn more time?
“I... Yes, I am the new woman,” I parroted, finding myself unable to do anything but repeat her words as I tried desperately not to stare at the wild array of colors painted around her eyes. “I am Mrs. Nicholas Hunter.”
Our strange visitor emitted some sort of guttural sound halfway between “Harrumph” and a satisfied sigh. Then, without any warning, she stuck her hand right in my face. “Sophine.”
My eyes flashed between her face and hand, and I looked at her blankly, as I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. Since she only stood there waiting, I went out on a limb and gave it a quick kiss, as if I was meeting the pope or a James Bond villain.
Sophine
seemed to expect that gesture; her lips curled up into a grotesque approximation of a smile before stretching back to reveal a row of serrated teeth. “You’ve been expecting me, I presume.”
I had no idea what the hell was going on, nor was I able to determine where such an accent had come from. It was as if I’d been sucked into some hybrid world between the Twilight Zone and the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks, and none of it seemed real. For a moment, I wondered if I’d conked my head on the shower wall somehow and had tumbled into a weird nightmare, but another look at the whack-job told me she was very real and very patiently waiting for an answer. “I-I actually wasn’t told we’d have any...”
In a rather unfortunate bit of timing, Sophine chose that moment to pull what looked like a nightstick out of her purse.
I threw pretense to the wind and leapt back with a shriek. “Uh...Nick!”
He bolted off the bed in a single, fluid motion, only to come face to face with every child’s worst nightmare or something out of a Stephen King novel. His feet scrambled backward before the rest of his body could follow, causing him to sway unsteadily for a moment, and the alcohol still in his sleepy system didn’t help. Finally, reality—as unreal as it was—caught up with him, and his face melted into an exhausted smile. “Sophine!” He clasped a hand over his heart and closed his eyes, sighing in relief. “Shit, you scared me.”
The fearsome joker hardly even blinked but simply shrugged a bony shoulder. “Scare is good. Gets the blood flowing.” She wasn’t really a small woman, as she was just about as tall as Nick, and she gestured with the nightstick as she spoke, emphasizing every word.
I eyed the clown and her weapon warily and backed into Nick’s arms.
“What have I told you about pulling out your stick on people you don’t know?” he scolded, giving her a chastising frown. “It looks like you’re about to commit sodomy in the first degree.”
She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a quick hand and turned back to me.