AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Miss Lark lets out a relieved sigh, brushing her mussed hair back, while Miss Jacqueline just looks at me with a penetrating gaze.
“My, you truly are quite the knight in shining armor, aren’t you?” she muses.
I’m not sure what to make of that.
Miss Lark glares at her friend. “That’s like the sixth time that’s happened. You have got to stop eating like that.”
“You’ve been telling me that since we were eight. Guess what? I still haven’t.” Miss Joly takes a sip of her tea. Afterward, her scratchy voice sounds much smoother, and she seems completely unbothered by the incident. “Maybe next time it’ll be a hot guy coming to the rescue who isn’t engaged to my best friend.”
Next I think it’s Miss Lark’s turn to choke.
“We aren’t engaged!” she throws back.
“Yet,” I point out as I reclaim my seat. “Will you let me explain now, or do we have to clean our plates a second time? I’d prefer to avoid Miss Joly asphyxiating herself in her curiosity.”
Miss Joly says nothing. Her blush betrays her.
Smirking, she flips her middle finger at me from across the table.
Miss Jacqueline swats her shoulder lightly. “Don’t be so crude at the table, Lena,” she fusses, then nods to me. “All right. Let’s hear this, before I give consent to marry my granddaughter.”
I start to protest that it’s not a real marriage and I don’t need consent, but fuck.
I have a feeling that if I let this conversation fly any further off the rails, there’s no telling what these women will badger me into.
So I lean over my half-empty plate and turn the tabloid pages over, fanning them out so they’re all visible.
The three women all gasp.
Who could blame them?
Every last cover page is splashed with an image of Eleanor Lark either already in my arms, or else falling into them.
I have no idea who took the photos. I wish I did.
They’d already be dead.
But in such a busy terminal, it could’ve been anyone.
I do have a mighty good idea who slipped them to the trashier arm of the press, but that’s a worry for later.
The headlines are our problem now.
IS HE BACK ON THE MEAT MARKET? BILLIONAIRE AUGUST MARSHALL RETURNS TO SEATTLE WITH A DRUNKEN DAMSEL! WILL SHE BE HIS NEXT VICTIM?
VULNERABLE VIXEN IN VICIOUS VILLAIN’S GRASP!
MAY–DECEMBER MAYHEM! WHO IS AUGUST MARSHALL’S MAIDEN?
THE BLACK WIDOW BOSS STRIKES AGAIN!
That last one knifes me in the guts.
Fuck them entirely.
One dead wife does not a black widow make.
Also, FYI, it’s the female black widow spider who’s always deadlier.
