Drop Dead Single (Monstrana Paranormal Romance 1)

There was no doubt in his mind — he was going to regret this.

Chapter Two

CATE MAHONEY STUMBLED off the gangway and into the airport like a giraffe on stilts. Three stiff vodkas on the airplane and she was feeling the Earth tilt on its axis. The sooner she could get to a bathroom, the better. So far, this trip was not turning out to be the ultimate surprise getaway she’d imagined.

Life had chosen this exact moment to dump a milkshake over her head and de-pants her in the middle of the school cafeteria. At least that’s how it felt to Cate. Especially when she turned her phone back on.

Blurry-eyed, she balanced herself in a bathroom stall and reread the text that had slipped in just before the flight crew made the announcement that all technology should be turned off. It was a message from her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. He was leaving her. They just weren’t a good match. It wasn’t her, it was him, and blah, blah, blah...

Cate cursed at the phone screen. What kind of guy dated a girl for eight months and then broke up over text? A jerk, that’s who. It wasn’t even the loss of him that made her so angry. It was the fact that she’d wasted so much time on a man who she knew, deep down, was never any good.

Sure, he had a fantastic job at a big time advertising agency and a trust-fund to boot. Not to mention, dazzling boy-next-door kind of looks. But he’d always been overly flirtatious with her friends and not exactly helpful when her mother passed away suddenly five months ago.

Cate’s good-guy radar was definitely broken and she wasn’t sure if it could ever be fixed again.

Squinting at the screen, she punched a few buttons and then held it up to her ear. Six rings later and it buzzed through to her best friend, Miranda’s voicemail.

“Hey babe. Guess what? Have I got a surprise for you! I just landed in...” she peered down at the wrinkled plane ticket in her hand “...Monstrana Airport. Surprise! I’m going to swing by the castle and check out your new job. I’m so excited.”

Miranda had moved away from their cozy little shared apartment in Omaha, Nebraska just a few weeks ago for the illusive country of Monstrana. She’d been offered a top-level service management job at Monstrana castle where the royal families had lived for centuries. While Cate missed her desperately, she’d been happy for her best friend. This was supposed to be a trip to celebrate her good fortune and reunite. But Cate was feeling less than celebratory.

“In other, less stellar, news, Charlie just dumped me,” she whispered loudly into the phone. “So have the Ben and Jerry’s ready. Or whatever type of ice cream people in this country eat after a breakup. I’ll see you soon. Love you!”

In an attempt to hang up the phone, she knocked it out of her hand and it plopped right into the open toilet bowl. Bubbles cascaded to the surface as her only means of communication settled itself at the bottom of the porcelain throne with a loud thunk. Cate gasped and began to reach for it, but paused just before her fingers broke the water line.

This was an airport bathroom. The filthiest of all public spaces. Did she dare stick her hand in there and retrieve what was probably already a lost cause? A bag of rice wasn’t going to fix that baby. And a million gallons of soap might not scrub away the bacteria that would cling to her hand after such a mission. Thirty was too young to die from a mysterious bathroom disease. She bit her lower lip and considered. And as she did, the automatic flusher flashed red and went off, swirling away the phone into the unreachable land of sewage and taking with it all her hopes of ever getting it back.

“No, no, no.” She let loose a stream of curses that would’ve made her mother blush. “Come back. I need that.”

It was too late. The phone was gone. Cate stumbled out of the stall and to the bathroom mirror. Inspecting her face, she cringed at the raccoon eyes her mascara had left her and the sloppy remains of her lipstick. She needed a fresh start. Grabbing a paper towel, she went to work erasing the makeup and the memories of the last twelve hours.

At that moment, a young woman bumped her shoulder, causing her to stumble dramatically. Despite the effects of the alcohol and the towel over her face, she managed a graceful recovery and clung to the sink for support.

Turning to face her assaulter, she gasped when she caught a glimpse of the woman’s face. She’d never seen anything so beautiful and portrait perfect. Her skin was extremely pale and smooth, like the tiny c

hina saucers her mother had passed down from her great grandmother. She had large oval brown eyes and amber hair that fell to her shoulder blades. Cate wouldn’t be surprised to find out she was a model or an actress. Surely, someone that frightfully gorgeous belonged on the cover of a magazine.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry” the woman said with a slight Spanish accent. She grabbed a tissue from the counter and dabbed her watery eyes.

Cate watched her out of the corner of her eye for a long moment. Clearly, the woman was in distress. No matter how hard she tried to stop them, large crocodile tears would not stop spilling out onto her cheeks. Finally, she gave up the battle and began to sob into the tissue.

“Are you okay?” Cate forgot her own momentary crisis and turned to face the woman. “What’s wrong?”

The woman shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.” Handing her another tissue, Cate perched herself on the edge of the countertop. “Want to talk about it?”

The woman fixed her with a troubled frown and moaned. While Cate was certainly no fashionista like her ex-roommate, she could recognize quality when she saw it. Everything this woman wore, from the silky red blouse that clung to her thin frame, to her perfectly tailored pants and black patent heels, was designer. A thick jeweled necklace hung around her neck and a simple antiqued gold band adorned her right pointer finger.

“I don’t want any of this,” the woman said through stifled tears. “The money, the power, nothing. All I want is him.”

She didn’t know what the woman was talking about, but she knew a broken heart when she saw one. Patting her on the back, she gave her a hopeful smile. “Can you find a way to make it work?”

“My family has forbid us.” The woman cried harder. “They’ve sent me here, to pull us apart.”

A grimace pulled at Cate’s mouth. They lived in the twenty-first century. Surely, they were advanced enough that women didn’t need the permission of their family to date who they wanted. The very idea made Cate stiffen with anger. No one told her what to do. Certainly not when it came to matters of the heart.

“Forget them. Do what you want. Or live in regret the rest of your life.”