“Yeah,” Jon said a little bitterly. “I sort of get that now.”
“Look,” she said, turning back to her computer screen. “I’m really busy. You’d better go.”
Paul had been right. She really was in a foul mood.
“What is with you?” he asked. “I mean, I get that you’re upset about the new vampire plot, but you could try being a little nicer to people.”
He thought he heard her mutter something like “I am trying” and something else about a baby. He had no idea what she was talking about. “What baby?” he asked bewilderedly.
“Just forget it,” she said to the monitor.
But there was no hiding the expression on her face, which he recognized only too well.
And like a bolt from the blue, he knew.
“That’s why you’ve been acting like such a psycho lately?” he demanded. “You had a vision about Adam and Leisha’s baby?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid.”
“That was the fakest laugh I ever heard,” Jon said, shaking his head. “What did you see?”
She hesitated, then abruptly gave up.
“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. And I didn’t see anything. It’s just a feeling. And it isn’t even a bad feeling, necessarily. I just don’t want Leisha to worry. Worrying that something bad is going to happen could be what actually causes something bad to happen. So we’re not telling her, all right? Or Adam. Because there’s nothing to tell.”
Jon shook his head. He had never really understood his sister’s gift, but he’d learned to respect it over the years. Except when girls had refused to go out with him because he was the You’re Gonna Die Girl’s brother.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
“Positive,” she said firmly.
“Okay,” he said. “So then what are you stressing over?”
She widened her eyes at him and he realized belatedly that he’d asked exactly the wrong thing.
“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand while she sucked in her breath. “Let me put that another way. What can I do to make things a little easier on you?”
She considered this. “Can you go downtown to pick up Jack and take him home? I dropped him off at Leisha’s salon on my way here from Lucien’s this morning. I’ll owe you so, so big-time. After selling my soul to corporate all day like this, I just want to go home and-”
“Start working diligently on the great American novel?”
“-get ready for my big date tonight,” she finished with a grin.
“Jesus,” Jon said, getting up from the towering pile of paper on which he’d been perched. “You’re seeing him again tonight? You’ve really got it bad for this guy.”
Meena’s grin widened. “You said I should start being nicer to people.”
“I meant me, but fine, I’ll go pick up your dog. And don’t worry,” he added. “I won’t say anything to Leisha about your weird non-vision concerning her unborn kid.”
“You better not,” Meena said. “Considering there’s nothing to tell. Come on, I’ll walk you to the elevators.”
As they approached the elevator bank, he heard Meena curse beneath her breath. He looked up, then saw why. Fran and Stan were standing there, along with Meena’s arch-nemesis, Shoshona; Stefan Dominic; Stefan’s manager; and the bodyguards. Quite a crowd.
“Hi, Meena,” Shoshona said in a voice dripping with honey.
“Hi, Shoshona,” Meena said. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there.
“I’m not sure you’ve met our newest cast member, Stefan Dominic,” Shoshona said, turning to the skinny, dark-haired guy Jon had been longing to sucker-punch just a half hour or so earlier.
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure,” Meena said politely, and she shook hands with the man who would soon be getting the pleasure of sticking his tongue in the mouth of Taylor Mackenzie on a daily basis.
“Nice to meet you,” Stefan Dominic said, looking down at Meena.
Meena, shaking Stefan Dominic’s hand, kind of froze, staring up at him. Jon knew she was having another one of her visions.
“Have we met before?” she asked curiously.
Which wasn’t what she usually said. Usually she said something like Don’t take the freeway or I’d switch to wheat from white f lour, if I were you.
“I don’t think so,” Dominic said.
“You look so familiar.” She was still holding on to his hand. “I could swear I’ve seen you before.”
“Well, Meena,” Shoshona said with a little sneer, “Stefan’s my boyfriend. You probably have seen him before. Around the office here, with me.”
“Oh,” Meena said. She let out an embarrassed little laugh and dropped his hand. “Sorry. Of course.”
With that, the elevator came, and Jon got on it, along with Dominic and his manager, who’d said good-bye to Shoshona and her aunt and uncle.
The last face Jon saw before the elevator doors closed and he rode down with them in silence was Meena’s. She looked confused.
But no wonder: she had a lot to feel confused about. Jon didn’t give Meena’s confusion a second thought.
Instead, he thought about how Taylor Mackenzie had kissed him. It seemed a much more pleasant thing to ruminate on during the elevator ride down to the lobby than the conversation he’d just had with Meena.
What Jon didn’t realize was that his thinking about Taylor Mackenzie instead of his sister actually saved his life during that elevator ride.
Chapter Thirty-four
5:00 P.M. EST, Friday, April 16
910 Park Avenue
New York, New York
Meena, after carefully scoping out the lobby of her building, realized it was countess-free and made a dash for the elevator.
She couldn’t believe it. She had actually made it past the doorman-not Pradip, thankfully, as he wasn’t on duty-and to the elevator without running into her neighbor. This week had been such a roller coaster-plummeting from best to worst to best again-that she wasn’t quite sure what to expect from moment to moment. Right now, she appeared to be on another upswing.
Except that, just as the elevator doors were about to shut, a too-familiar, heavily diamond-ringed hand appeared to keep them from closing all the way.
And then Meena heard Mary Lou’s southern-accented voice cry, “Yoo-hoo! Meena?”
The door opened to reveal the countess standing there, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, wearing a peach-colored suit with a matching picture hat and holding several armfuls of shopping bags from Bergdorf Goodman.
“Oh,” Meena said. She could hardly hide her disappointment. She was glad she’d cinched her trench coat so tightly. Maybe Mary Lou wouldn’t notice she was still wearing last night’s little black dress. “Hi, Mary Lou.”
“Well, look at you,” Mary Lou cried. “Aren’t you looking rosy cheeked and pretty as a picture? You know, I was just thinking about you. I saw your brother Jon leaving earlier and asked how you were and he said he didn’t know, that he hadn’t seen you yet today.”
Meena made a mental note to kill Jon when he got home from BAO with Jack Bauer. “Oh, uh…,” she said intelligently. She wished the elevator floor would drop open and allow both of them to plummet to their deaths.
No such luck, however. The door closed, and they began the long ascent to the eleventh floor.
“So you liked the prince?” Mary Lou asked completely unnecessarily.
Meena would have thought it was obvious she liked him since she’d clearly spent the night with him. “Oh,” she said, giving up. What was the point? She was in love with Lucien Antonescu. The whole world was going to find out soon enough if they kept seeing each other. “I liked him, all right.” Did that sound too needy?
“I’m so glad,” Mary Lou said, beaming. “I knew you would. Isn’t he good looking? And nice. I just think he’s so nice.”
Then Mary Lou, of all people, looked worried that she’d said the wrong thing. “But not too nice, you know?” Mary Lou added. “I mean, he’s no pushover. I’ve seen him do things-well, they’d make your hair curl, let me tell you.”