Page 39 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
The alarm on her phone beeped out before she muted it with a curse. “Shit. I have to be back. I’m on drunk assholes duty. Chantilly has me bringing them water and begging them to return to their rooms before they make her look bad in front of Mr. Prescott.”
She paused for a second as the lights flickered, courtesy of the wicked storm gathering force outside the hotel. “You don’t think…” Alarm dilated her pupils. She shook her head, dismissing the idea of a power outage, as if rich people and their parties were untouchable. “Nah. You guys don’t get, like, power outages down here, right? There are fail-safes and stuff.”
Ida Marie had grown up in the SoCal high desert. The storm last week had been her first in decades. First storm. First lightning. Being around her reminded me of witnessing a child experiencing the world for the first time.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I offered, hoping she’d leave already because the last thing I wanted was to share an elevator with a guest. The longer we stalled her, the more likely it got.
“Knowing my luck, the power will shut off, and we’ll be stuck here all night.” She leaned forward for a hug. “Better get out while you can. See you in the morning?”
“Wait…” My fingers latched onto her upper arm before she slipped away. “The morning?”
As far as I knew, we worked Mondays through Fridays.
“Yeah.” She nodded her head.
I released her. The wilting flowers on a nearby table caught her attention, and I repeated my question before I lost her to the melaleucas completely.
“Eight in the morning. Sharp,” she said. I followed her to the table and watched her fingers flutter around the flower stems. “Some last-minute meeting. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“Must have missed it,” I lied.
Chantilly also hadn’t told me about the dress fittings the company had set up for us, which meant I’d ended up pulling this outfit together with minutes to spare while Chantilly had strutted into the ballroom wearing in-season Versace.
Pushing past servers, partygoers, and a holier-than-thou Chantilly talking up an investment banker who’d once had an affair with a classmate’s mother, I made my way to the exit.
I left, my eyes holding Brandon’s the entire time.
I backed away slowly before a flash of something green peeking from his pocket snagged my attention.
I recognized it.
The same mask worn by the man I’d caught staring at me all night.
My singular near-death experience had come on the eve of my ninth birthday. My nanny cried as the storm rattled our private jet. She cried harder when the pilot announced an emergency landing.
Mother sipped the glass of Château Margaux she shouldn’t have owned. (Money bought things like famous wine once belonging to a founding father.) I didn’t know whether she was a badass that couldn’t be fazed or the ‘preventative’ Botox had smoothed her face to the point of no expression.
The landing flung my head against the leather headrest until the only stars I saw were the ones blurring my vision. Dad held my hand, telling me stories of a war he’d never been to, the analogy being we were warriors fighting a storm or some bullshit I no longer believed but had clung to at the time.
Our private jet shook against the pavement in some podunk Southern town Mother deemed too gross to step foot in. The emergency landing hadn’t budged her face, but my nanny wore streaks of mascara on her cheeks as she helped Mother to the back of the jet for a nap until we could leave for Greece again.
I stood to follow, but Dad tugged at my hand and led me to the emergency exit. The slide inflated within seconds of the door opening. I didn’t have the opportunity to scream. Dad pushed me, and I flew down.
Wind whipped hair against my cheeks. Rain made my teeth chatter. Sharp lightning lit up the sky. Sparks of thrill sent delicious electricity through my body that reminded me of staying up past my bed-time and not getting caught. And I swore, I’d never experienced magic before that day.
Dad slid down after me, singing the lyrics to “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” so off-key, I enjoyed his version more than the real one. When he grabbed my hand, we danced to no music, switching from ballroom to 80s moves, feeling reckless, happy, like a two-person family was greater than a three-person one.
I laughed until I collapsed onto thick mud, making lazy angels with my arms and legs as I told Dad I wanted to move here forever. I didn’t even know where here was.
Dad tapped my chin and fell to the mud beside me. “It doesn’t matter where we live, Emery. We can balter anywhere.”
I scrunched my nose, inhaling salty rainwater that shotgunned to my head and rendered me dizzy. “Balter?”
“To dance—artlessly, with no grace, no skill, but always with enjoyment. All you have to do is ask. I will always be here to balter with you.”
The pilots had delayed another day until they could replace the emergency slide, which forced Mother to sleep in a town she thought she was too good for, and Dad and I spent the entire vacation with a cold.
Mother called us stupid on her way to the spa, but I shared secret smiles with Dad and drank hot chocolate with mini marshmallows in the library of the yposkafo we rented, scouring English and Greek dictionaries for special words.
