More shocked to learn that he lived nearby. In Wisconsin. He wanted a late-night meet. Said he worked strange shifts, but Virginia knew the code. He was married and cheating on his wife. It didn’t matter. It would never go as far as sex. It never did.
Men took one look and went running.
She wasn’t a troll. “I may not be beautiful like Natalie, but I’m okay,” she snarled to the mirror, angrily slashing lipstick over her mouth. Pretty Natalie, smart Natalie. The “I-just-got-a-promotion-and-a-big-raise” Natalie. The “I’m-your-new-boss” Natalie.
“Fuck Natalie.” She threw the lipstick in her purse.
She’d brought Natalie into Shadowland to take her down a few pegs. Make her compete in my world. But some evil genie demon had touched her and Natalie was good at poker, too. Fucking pact with Satan. “She used me. Took what I knew and got me thrown out of my own place.”
Turned on me, reported me for cheating. It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right. I spent months building my skill points. Months. And now, it was all gone. Taken away by…
Natalie. “God, I hate that bitch.”
John had been right about her all along. Using me, just to make her look better.
Virginia would have the last laugh. At least tonight she’d be meeting a man, unlike Natalie who’d be home playing poker, all alone. Sucked into the game.
Virginia hoped Natalie got addicted. Maybe she’d lose her job. Virginia brightened. Hey, that was possible. Then Natalie would lose her swanky house, her nice car. And where do you think she’ll come crawling? “Here,” Virginia snapped aloud, pulling her front door closed behind her. And then it’ll be payback time.
She threw her purse into her car so hard it bounced. “I’ll kick your ass to the curb so hard it’ll leave skid marks. Tell me not to meet my man tonight. Tell me it’s not safe.” Greedy bitch. She just wanted all the men, the money, and the power all for herself.
Well, John was one guy Natalie wasn’t going to get. Virginia would see to that.
Thursday, February 25, 12:30 a.m.
He pulled into the parking lot, gratified to see Virginia’s car parked outside. She’d been so easy to lure, so jealous of her friend Natalie. He was sure Natalie had no idea how much her “friend” despised her. Everything had come so easily for Natalie, her career, her family, even the men that had come in and out of Natalie’s life. Men she took for granted while Virginia had been forced to listen to Natalie’s exploits.
Virginia had invited Natalie to the Shadowland poker table to get some payback, instead finding this an area where Natalie also excelled. He had to admit, in all his years he’d met few opponents so formidable. He’d actually never planned to kill Natalie Clooney. She was the closest to real competition he’d ever met. When he went back to the quiet killing, he’d reregister in Shadowland and buy another avatar. The poker table was a place he’d really grown to enjoy, so he’d go back.
And when he did, there’d be no Virginia to spoil his game. When he’d come along, Virginia had been ripe for the picking. It wasn’t hard to get her help in beating Natalie at poker. It wasn’t hard to lure her into side conversations where she bared her soul on topics from the boss that was against her, to her fear of the dark, to her incompetent therapist. He pitied anyone who had to listen to that woman for any length of time.
He despised a whining woman. His mother had whined. All the time. Finally, he’d grown tired of her. He imagined the world was weary of listening to Virginia Fox, too.
Soon, the world would be a little bit quieter.
Thursday, February 25, 1:45 a.m.
Eve lay with her head pillowed on Noah’s shoulder. Her fingers toyed with the coarse hair on his chest that rose and fell as he slept.
But she was wide awake, mind and body. Noah hadn’t lied. They’d both enjoyed it a lot more the second time. She shivered, remembering, mind and body.
A whole lot more. The first time hadn’t been a dive into a cold pool, as much as a protracted glide. The second time? Most definitely a dive, fast, furious, and satisfying.
She stretched sinuously, aware of every well-earned twinge. It was as if he’d used up all of his slow and gentle the first time. He’d finally lost control, plunging hard and deep, ruthlessly dragging her along for one hell of a ride.
When she’d come, she’d felt alive. Invincible. And when he’d come, she’d watched his face and finally felt beautiful again. Whole. For the first time in a very long time.
And now, in the quiet, she wondered if she’d ever have gotten to this place with anyone else. She thought about Callie’s theory that she’d trusted him because he was “the one.” Perhaps. Perhaps not. Whether that was true or not long term, he was definitely the one for now and Eve felt a gratitude that she suspected he would reject.
Her eye caught a small picture on the nightstand and gingerly she reached across him to grab it, taking care not to wake him. They’d turned out the bedroom lights, so she rolled away from him to hold the picture up to a shaft of moonlight coming through the curtains. It was a woman with a small child and she felt the slickness of the wood, worn smooth by a caressing thumb, and she pictured him sitting in his bed staring at the family he’d lost. Her throat closed and the hope and beauty she’d felt fizzled a little.
He’d never get a family like this again. Not with me.
“That’s Susan,” he said quietly and she jumped. “And Noah,” he added. “My son.”
She pulled the blankets up to cover herself. He eyed the movement, his eyes taking on that blank expression she now knew hid his heart.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said as he sat up, pushing a pillow behind his head.
“I wasn’t asleep. I was just enjoying holding you. It was a long time coming.”
“Yes, it was.” She held out the picture and he took it, his eyes still blank.
“Susan was a clerk in ballistics,” he said. “I’d just finished the academy, and didn’t have a hundred dollars to my name. Somehow, she was still interested in me.”
Eve’s throat tightened. She had no problem visualizing any woman falling for Noah Webster. I did, the first time I saw him. “She was beautiful. So was Noah, Jr.”
He smiled then, wryly. “Noah the fifth. Poor kid.”
His smile loosened the vise around her throat, just a little. “So your mother wasn’t being professorial when she named you Noah Webster. I wondered.”
“My mom can’t spell ‘professorial’ without Webster’s dictionary,” he said, genuine affection in his voice. “She’s a smart woman, but can’t spell to save her life. There’s no actual family connection to the dictionary Noah, other than some great-great way back who thought it was a name with stature.”
“It is,” she said. “And it suits you.”
“It’s my name, like it or not. Mom had to name me Noah, and I had to name him Noah.” He studied the picture with a sigh. “I thought my life was over when I lost them.”
He seemed to want to talk, so she obliged. “You said there was an accident.”
“Yeah. Stupid teenager driving a car packed with his friends, coming home from a football game. The radio was too loud and they were having too much fun. Ran a red light. I swerved to avoid them, skidded on some ice, ran off the road, rolled down a hill.”
He’d recited the story as if it were a police report. “And the stupid kids?” she asked.
“They fled the scene, but one of my friends from the force caught up with them later.”