Cherish Hard
Page 25

She could almost taste it, she wanted that dream so much.
A twenty-three-old with demon-blue eyes was not going to be on the same page as her. He’d just begun to stretch his wings, sow his wild oats. Even Devil Ísa knew that. Though it didn’t stop her from whispering sinful suggestions in Ísa’s ear about how she should follow Jacqueline’s advice and have a whole lot of fun with him.
Naked fun.
Handcuffs and leg cuffs included.
Ísa’s toes curled… before she was smothered by a blanket of self-recrimination. Look at her, thinking about using a man for her own degenerate purposes. A man who was younger than her and… well, okay, he wasn’t exactly innocent, but that wasn’t the point! She was acting just how you’d expect the offspring of Jacqueline Rain and Stefán óskarsson to act.
Like a barracuda.
Maybe this was who she was—a ruthless corporate machine created by two other ruthless corporate machines—and it was time to stop fighting destiny. If genes made the woman, Ísa’s genes were written in business black.
Putting her bag on the counter on that indigestible thought, not even the adorable little cactus lifting her mood, she was thinking about running away to join the circus when she got a call from Nayna.
“Can I come over?” her best friend asked. “I don’t feel like going home for dinner. The folks are all excited about the next meet and greet they’re trying to set up.”
“You know you never have to ask,” Ísa said. “I just got in myself. I was going to grill some chicken and make bad-for-the-hips buttery mashed potatoes.”
“I’ll pick up a mixed-bean salad from our favorite place.” Nayna’s tone was brighter already. “See you in half an hour.”
Feeling better now that she knew her friend and confidante was on the way, Ísa got out of her work clothes and into a pair of shorts and a spaghetti-string tank top that she only ever wore at home—she didn’t want to risk blinding blameless strangers with her whiteness. Nayna, however, had seen her in a bathing suit during their mutually hated phys-ed classes in school.
After pulling her hair up into a jaunty ponytail, she got the chicken pieces into the oven, set the potatoes to boil, then took a quick minute to check her phone. She smiled at seeing that she had a couple of messages from a friend she caught up with maybe three or four times a year.
She and Michelle, aka Micki, had been in many of the same classes at university and though their lives had gone in different directions, with Michelle already married and a mother of one, they still had enough to talk about that those coffee dates were fun for both of them. Expecting that Michelle wanted to set up a meet, Ísa clicked open the message. But her friend had something far more juicy to share this time: Oh my God, Ísa, did you see this picture of Cody? I thought you’d enjoy it!
Attached was an image of Cody with what looked like a broken jaw, the bruising ugly and his eyes scrunched as if in pain. His nose didn’t look too great either, and he definitely had the beginnings of a black eye.
Her own eyes wide, Ísa scanned down to see that Michelle had also screenshotted the message posted along with the photo. Suzanne had apparently been the one who’d posted the image. And she was fuming.
Look at what some loser did to my amazing fiancé! Cody was only trying to help a woman who was about to get her bag snatched! He’s my hero even though he refuses to go to the police because he doesn’t want to waste their time. And that woman he got hurt helping ran off too, the bitch! That’s what you get for trying to help people. And now Cody’s jaw is broken and our wedding is going to be ruined!!
Ísa blinked and read the message again. Cody? Valiantly fighting to help a mugging victim? Ísa’s bullshit meter swung over to blazing red.
She quickly typed a reply: Micki, is this is for real?
Michelle must’ve been online because she answered almost immediately. Absolutely, she said. I lurk on Suzanne’s friends list just so I can gossip about her. I have no shame. Not after she turned frenemy when we were sixteen and stole my boyfriend. She thinks I forgave her—ha-ha! Micki never forgives or forgets!
Anyway, I heard from another mutual friend that Cody really does look like he went two rounds with a professional boxer and came out the loser. Jaw’s not broken, sadly. Not like the drama queen says. But that ass is still going to be bruised for the wedding, which means Suzanne’s wedding photos will forever make her grimace, and that makes my evil heart cackle.
Ísa messaged back with a row of cackling faces of her own.
Then she put down the phone and thought of the playful man with steely confidence who’d scowled and said someone needed to teach Cody a lesson. Surely, surely… Her heart thumped. No, it couldn’t be. She was just a teacher who’d molested him in a parking lot and then gotten naked with him in a secluded little water spot.
There was no reason for Sailor Bishop to have punched out Cody on her behalf. Cody had probably fallen on his face and made up that heroic story to explain the bruises so Suzanne wouldn’t blame him for her ruined wedding photos.
Ísa’s hand clenched around her phone.
She had Sailor’s number.
16
The War of the Cacti (with a Cameo from a Swamp Creature)
A KNOCK ON HER DOOR, Nayna no doubt having used Ísa’s security code to come up.
Figuring that was a sign from the gods, Ísa put down her phone and went to open the door, dying to fill her friend in on Cody’s unfortunate facial situation. Then she took in Nayna’s own expression.
“Hey,” she said, enfolding her friend in a huge hug. “What’s the matter?”
Nayna made a face as they drew apart. “Sometimes,” she muttered, “I get tired of being the dutiful daughter.” She shut the door behind herself. “Let me help you finish prepping dinner, and then I’ll tell you the story of my sad, sad life.”
It didn’t take them long to get everything together.
Taking their plates, they sat on the sofa in front of the television; it was currently playing their favorite trashy reality show.
Nayna began to speak halfway through the episode. “It’s Madhuri,” she said, referring to her older sister.
“Has she done something rebellious again?” Ísa asked, well aware of the big scandal in Nayna’s family history—the eldest Sharma daughter had eloped with a boy from her college when she’d been a bare nineteen years of age. Nayna herself had only been fourteen at the time.
Shaking her head, Nayna mumbled her next words through a huge mouthful of mashed potatoes. “She’s mostly the reason why my parents have been so strict with me, but today she was sitting in the kitchen at breakfast, chatting away to our parents while I helped my mom make breakfast.”
“Your sister’s been welcome back in the family for a few years.” Ísa ate a big scoop of the bean salad, made an “mmm” sound that had Nayna nodding.
“I don’t care what strange herbs and spices they put in that salad,” her best friend said, “they’ll pry my bean salad out of my cold, dead hands.”
Swallowing her current bite of sweet, salty beany goodness, Ísa said, “Anyway, I thought you loved having her around.” The family estrangement had lasted six long years, during which Nayna had desperately missed her big sister. Her parents had refused to talk to their eldest daughter even after Madhuri’s relationship broke up four years after the elopement.