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“Don’t yuck—never mind, I don’t want to know. Someone writes stories to go with these pictures? Like an illustrated book?” I grabbed her tablet again, and she didn’t argue because she was currently sucking the frosting off her pastry. “Your illustrations are in books? Can I buy them at the bookstore? What’s the title?”
She smiled benevolently at me between bites of fluffy pastry. I’d found chocolate was a certain mood booster for her. “You’re so cute when you’re not being annoying.”
“You forgot when I’m not seducing you with my wiles.”
“That too, but annoying usually is in first place.”
“So what’s the name of this book? And I want to see your sex toy drawer.”
“I just bet you do, Officer Studly. Not a book. It’s fan art for a special project.”
“What does that mean?”
“But there have been books,” she added, neatly sidestepping my question.
“Oh. Wait, what? Books? Like multiples?” I leaned up to grab her cheeks in my hands and gave her a big kiss, not even caring that her mouth was smeared with chocolate. “Damn, my girlfriend is famous!”
I would’ve kissed her again but she reared back as if I’d decked her instead of complimented her.
“I don’t do the girlfriend thing.”
“Glad to hear it, since I wouldn’t relish the competition.” I flashed her a grin that she did not return. “Fine, not girlfriend. We’re just friends who fuck. Better?”
A gasp sounded from a nearby table and I held up two fingers in a peace sign in the general direction of the pearl-clutcher.
Van shook her head. “We are a walking disaster.”
“Probably why we work.”
“Just a couple of weeks ago, you were trying to get me to move away.”
“By making you come. Didn’t that strike you as a little suspicious?”
She went back to her pastry. “Our siblings procreating has led to heightened emotions in an unusual situation.”
“You just admitted you had feelings for me.” I snatched a piece of her pastry just to piss her off, and she hissed at me like a cat.
“I do. Angry ones.”
“Angry screwing works for me. After you show me some of the books you’re in. I told you your work was amazing, and it’s on actual bookstore shelves and you didn’t tell me. If this pastry wasn’t so delicious, I’d chuck it at your head.” I wiped chocolate off my fingers and took a drink of my coffee before dragging out my phone. “Under Vanessa Monaghan, I assume?”
“No. Just V. Mon.” She shrugged. “I wanted to be discreet.”
“V. Mon. Okay.”
I searched for her name and found a splashy website with a list of credits a mile long and a portfolio of work that ranged from frightful monsters doing battle to ones clearly meant to be romantic figures. Somehow. Then there was a section with moody period pieces that could’ve been paintings. I couldn’t click on them all fast enough.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She seemed more occupied with the last of her pastry than admitting to the staggering talent filling my tiny screen. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“No one?”
“Well, my agent knows. Both of them. I have one for foreign deals and movies too, though that hasn’t come to fruition yet. They buy your option then just sit on it forever without actually making the damn films. But I get paid regardless. So what kind of pastry did you get?” Having finished her pastry, she went back to the bag and started rooting around inside.
“Eat what you want.” I was still clicking around her website, truly boggled by what I was seeing. And the wordagentwas whirling around in my brain like the piñata Van had tried to buy for the bachelorette party before she landed on taking everyone to a venue instead.
Not that she would tell me where they were going, dammit.
