Nine Inches of Snow and the Ebony Princess (2 page)

“I believe in lust and desire more than love,” Aziza whispered.

“At least we have something to work with.”

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Gracie C. McKeever

She almost asked him what he was doing with her stepmother, but didn’t want to let him know she cared already, or that she was jealous so early in the game. Instead, she asked, “Why’d you stop?”

“Because if I didn’t…” He took a deep breath and shook his head, looking impossibly sly like a fox and innocent as a boy when he murmured, “Let’s just say I don’t want our first time to be rushed in a hospital kitchen.”

He said it like they were a done deal, and she couldn’t dispute him. She felt like she already belonged with him, to him, from the first moment he stepped into the ballroom.

How could that be when he was with Philomena?

“I want to see you again.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He frowned and tilted his head, like he was unaccustomed to having his wishes questioned.

Aziza silently stared at him, reaching out with her mind to feel the echoes of her own ecstasy and confusion from their kiss, trying to slip further below the surface to read him more thoroughly, but her consciousness slammed against a barrier. It was unlike anything she had ever encountered and couldn’t have been more substantial had he erected a physical wall against her.

She read people’s feelings on the regular, naturally and easily.

Reading their thoughts was admittedly much more difficult and involved a lot more effort, depending on an individual’s will and resistance, but was still doable.

Was David Healey consciously blocking her, or did he have some sort of natural barrier?

He brushed her cheek with his fingers. “I think you think too much.”

This was eerie. She wasn’t sure if he was addressing her last spoken words or her most recent thoughts.

“Tell me your name,” he murmured.

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Aziza had a feeling he didn’t need to ask, that he could easily get it if he tried, either by conventional or unconventional means.

It was the unconventional means that had her ready to bolt, despite her own gifts. “I have to go.” Aziza turned to pick up her tray and stepped around him to leave when the kitchen door swung open again.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.” Philomena gaped when she noticed David standing just behind Aziza. “Has this young woman been harassing you, David?”

“Quite the contrary. I couldn’t wait for her hors d'oeuvres and followed her in here to filch a couple.” He reached for another caviar cracker and winked at Aziza when he brought it to his mouth.

“Oh…well, I suppose that’s fine.” Philomena caught Aziza around the arm and led her towards the doors. “Don’t make me regret doing you a favor in hiring you for the night. Socialize less, and do your job more. You have guests to tend to,” she said through her teeth.

Aziza grinned, stopped just short of blurting “I told you so” to David over her shoulder when Philomena shooed and ushered her out of the kitchen. Her heartbeat kicked up another notch when she caught David’s answering wink before the doors closed behind her.

* * * *

David watched Philomena’s fingers dig into his kissing-buddy’s upper arm, wincing as he just barely held his anger at bay.

He hated cruelty in any form, and if he hadn’t already made his decision to let Philomena go, he would have after that display.

He had gotten glimpses of her malice before, especially in the way she treated her staff and those she thought beneath her. Her elitism was the major reason he kept his distance with her emotionally. Physically was another story. He was a man, after all, 12

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at least for the most part, and unabashed when it came to his appetites.

But even a stunning blonde ice queen like Philomena

VanWizer couldn’t hold his attention indefinitely, especially not when he just found the woman he intended to make his mate.

The couple of weeks he and Philomena had been seeing each other so far was unprecedented for him, and her clinging possessiveness made it seem even longer. He couldn’t imagine Philomena boldly declaring her independence as his kissing-buddy had. She was too eager to please, too afraid of risking a fat payday.

David wasn’t about to be husband number two, despite what Philomena thought.

“Are you sure she wasn’t harassing you?” she asked and hooked an arm through his. “I can have her disciplined for insubordination.”

David just barely bit back a curse. “That won’t be necessary.”

If there was anyone who would be doling out discipline and pleasure to that lush chocolate body he’d just held in his arms, it would be him. The sooner, the better.

He closed his eyes at the memory of her face—the prominent, high cheekbones, those intoxicating onyx eyes and the seductive, smoky voice—as a sudden wave of need washed over him. He just barely held a shiver at bay, took everything in his power not to make Philomena aware of his reaction to the girl. “What’s her name?”

She looked at him askance. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.” He’d tried getting it himself, but came up against a psychic barrier almost equal to his own. Reading someone and maintaining his shields wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

It was something only his grandfather did with complete effortlessness. He’d gotten just a glimmer before the girl had shut him down, something with an A.

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“You are so sweet, wanting to be friendly with the help, but it’s really not a good idea. In fact, I think it’s much more preferable to keep up formal barriers between myself and my employees. Less chance of any emotional attachments or misunderstandings.”

He understood the tenets of good business better than most, thanks to his tycoon father and grandfather, and the rules of good manners thanks to his mother. There was no question Philomena would have benefited from the lessons he’d learned under his parents’ tutelage. “I’m well aware of business etiquette, Philomena.”

“You’re not still upset at the way I talked to that waiter earlier, are you?”

“It’s your party.”

“David, he was dreadfully incompetent. He had to be firmly put in his place.”

He removed her hand from his arm and held it. “We need to talk.”

“Certainly, honey. What is it?” She turned to him with a confident expression, and David had a feeling she was expecting something from him he would never be able to give, at least not to her: commitment.

“We’ve had a nice couple of weeks together, but this isn’t something that can go any further.”

She blinked. “What is it you’re trying to tell me, darling?”

He gritted his teeth at her term of endearment. It made him uneasy. Always had, as it presumed a love affair that did not exist, never could. “I’m telling you it’s over.”

“That’s simply not possible.”

“I’m sorry, but it is.”

“But I was expecting you to pro—”

He stared at Philomena as she cut herself off, realization dawning.

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Jesus, she was expecting him to marry her after two weeks?

They barely knew each other—not that brevity of courtship would stop him from pursuing his kissing buddy. He knew her as well as he knew himself. He knew her
soul—
but what he knew of Philomena, he wasn’t too enamored with.

David should have cut this off a lot sooner, but decided dragging it out any longer to soothe her wounded psyche would be even crueler than she.

“It’s my stepdaughter, isn’t it?”

He blinked and looked at her. Surely he hadn’t heard her right.

“Your stepdaughter? I’ve never met—”

“The waitress who just left!”

“She’s your
stepdaughter?
”

“Are you scandalized because she’s my stepdaughter, or because I know what’s going on between the two of you?”

He was still dealing with the shock of discovering who his kissing buddy was when he met Philomena’s glare with his own.

“I’m scandalized because you’re a cold and uncaring witch who doesn’t deserve to have a young woman like her in your life.”

“I see she has you fooled, too.” Philomena sneered. “Don’t you know you should never trust a big butt and a smile?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her stepdaughter, and she never said anything, not one word. Didn’t even introduce them. She’d treated the girl worse than an employee or servant. She’d treated her like a stranger off the street.

“She’ll only use you. But you would know about that, wouldn’t you? Being a user?”

David grinned and silently shook his head.

Another man would have been chastened at the tacit

indictment, but David had never been one to worry about what other people thought of him, had never let barbs get to him. Years of growing up the youngest of five brothers and beneath the glare of family success and the public spotlight had inured him.

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David made allowances for Philomena’s hurt feelings, knew they were behind her insult, but he had no doubts about the nature of her character, or that he was doing the right thing in breaking things off now.

“So you have nothing to say for yourself?”

“This may surprise you, but despite my sharing your bed on occasion the last couple of weeks, I don’t answer to you.”

Her reaction was instantaneous, but so were David’s reflexes.

He would have had a nasty red handprint across his cheek had he not caught her hand mid-strike, the force behind her blow was that potent.

“How dare you!”

“Stop being so melodramatic.” He held her wrist fast when she tried to jerk out of his grip. “If you’ll calm down, I’ll release you, but not before.”

“Let me go,” she said through her teeth.

“Can I count on your cooperation?”

“Who do you think you are to order me around?”

If she really knew him the way she thought she did, she wouldn’t ask the question. And she would never have dared to strike him. “It’s up to you.” David tightened his grip just enough to get his message across, but not enough to cause any real pain, and just barely holding in a growl.

Philomena grew still beneath his grip, seemed to sense he was on the edge. “Fine. You have my cooperation.”

Once he released her, she whirled on him, pointing her forefinger like a weapon. “I’ll make you sorry you ever crossed me, David Healey. That’s a promise.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to live up to my earlier name-calling by putting a curse on me.”

“Mock me if you wish.” Philomena turned on her heels and pushed the doors open before tossing a glower over her shoulder.

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Gracie C. McKeever

“But you and your precious ebony princess will never be. I will see to this.”

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Philomena decided she wouldn’t cry. She had spent the better part of her life shedding tears over one slight or another, over one man or another. She would not spend her time or energy so unproductively. There were better ways to let David know he had irrevocably hurt her: revenge.

She glanced at her face in the rearview mirror—the flawless ivory complexion, the green eyes, the long, blonde hair framing her finely sculpted face—searching for one flaw that could have caused David’s sudden defection, searching for something that certainly wasn’t there.

Philomena caught movement out the corner of her eyes and followed when David exited the hospital through the emergency exit, most assuredly in search of her hussy of a stepdaughter.

Always proactive, she had quickly taken steps to ensure the little lovebirds didn’t see each other again tonight, immediately dismissing her stepdaughter and sending her home. That took care of the immediate problem, but there was still the matter of Philomena’s wounded pride.

She swallowed against the bitter taste in her mouth while she watched David, so handsome and regal in his evening wear and long wool overcoat, the epitome of class and money, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a symbol of everything she had ever come to covet and loathe over the years.

Why would he choose that wretch of a girl over her?

She
was perfect, far prettier and with much more class than any Aziza Lopez. She had done everything in her power to ensure her 18

Gracie C. McKeever

irresistibility to the male species as soon as she could afford to leave her old life as Phyllis Lipinski behind and become Philomena VanWizer.

Philomena frowned at the memory of her own wretched past, but quickly changed her expression to neutral, if not quite happy.

She did not want to get wrinkles, after all. She spent entirely too much money to maintain a standard of physical perfection deserving her station and would not lose everything she’d worked so hard for now.

Most of her life, Philomena had been a misfit, rejected by the mainstream, the popular kids, because she didn’t have the right clothes, the right shape, the right
look
.

She’d buried herself in her studies, wallowing in her geekiness, convinced smarts would get her what she wanted until she realized that brains and personality would only get her so far with a man. If she really wanted to catch a man’s eye, wanted to snag her prince charming, she needed to act
and
look the part. She needed to be the entire package.

With the help of a boob job (an eighteenth birthday present to herself), liposuction (a twenty-first birthday present to herself), contacts, and a dye job, she’d become ultimate trophy-wife material and was ripe for the picking when Aziza’s father came along.

She had gone through all that work and all that money, and for what? For David to dump her for a buxom and overly curvaceous younger woman at the first sign of go? Dumped for her stepdaughter?

Philomena would not have it.

She watched now when David crossed the street, sauntering in the general direction of Aziza’s apartment building, a confident and determined bounce to his step. She had a sudden bad feeling about where he was going.