Page 4 of Magdalene Nox

“However,” and this time the earlier mischief returned to his features, ”you knowing the precise state The Three Dragons are in now—and I bet you’ve been keeping abreast of their budget and spending projections to the cent for years—surely gives you a leg up, dearest? After all, this is your school—“

“It’s nothing of mine, Timothy!” The slight raise in her own voice surprised her. As did her full plate, when she finally lowered her eyes from Timothy’s too damn perceptive ones. He’d finished his meal. She hadn’t even touched hers, her fingertips now clutching a crumpled piece of paper with the crest leaving a brand on her skin.

“I don’t have to say yes, and we don’t have to join these people for cocktails tonight, dearest. I am going to preside over the merger of Bowbridge Industries and that large consortium my father has been courting for the past year, and I’ll really have to stretch myself to take on more responsibilities of any kind. I realize you’re flying to California next week and at least two schools there are making you very attractive offers. We can forget this entire conversation ever happened. It’s already a blur in my mind. The Three Dragons? Whatever does it even mean?”

Her ex-husband, as perceptive and as troublesome as he was, was also, at times, unexpectedly kind. And this was one of those moments. He knew parts of her history with the school, aspects of what it meant to her, and he was giving her an out. One that would allow her to save face, her dignity, and perhaps her sanity. What was she even doing considering Dragons? It had been exactly thirty years.

Magdalene set down the crumpled paper. Timothy took it and carefully folded it back into his pocket.

With the reminder gone from her sight, she felt like she could breathe with her full chest again. Timothy was right. They were busy people, after all. She could snub Joel Tullinger and get on with her life. And California had everything one could dream of. Politics, weather, and no vestiges of her pathetic childhood dreams of revenge… Or hope…

But the wound in her chest pulsed, a gaping hole that she had nursed or hidden and been ashamed of her entire life. And Magdalene Nox was many things, but above all, she was no coward.

“I could use a good cocktail or two though… And we might as well listen to these useless people, since they’ll be paying for the drinks.” Her voice was sly even to her own ears.

His smile was triumphant, and she felt herself reciprocating it. It wasn’t a gentle or affectionate gesture, however. Instead, it was filled with rancor and retribution, and not a small amount of schadenfreude. Timothy, perceptive as always, had only one thing to say. And it resonated deeply, sending all those veins and nerves and tendons inside her singing.

“‘Magdalene Nox, Headmistress of Three Dragons,’ does have a ring to it, dearest.”

The Dragon at her breast roared, deafening her for a second, her ears ringing and her mouth parted. But then Magdalene raised her eyes upwards, where Manhattan’s early spring rain washed the skylights, quieting down the beast. It wasn’t time for fire just yet.

Not. Just. Yet…

3

OF OLD WOUNDS & NEW TITLES

Magdalene tsked at her own lack of focus and re-crossed her legs. The bar stool wasn’t ideal for fitted skirts, and it was perhaps the whisper of the thigh-highs’ lace peeking out from under the tiny slit on the side of the garment that was causing so many stares to be directed her way.

Granted, she didn’t need tight-fitting clothes or stockings to be admired. She had grown used to it over the years. If she had to thank her mother for one thing, it may well be for this. Candace Whatever-Her-Current-Hyphenated-Name-Was regarded the glances, thirsty looks and glares as a given.

“They will stare anyway, my girl. So let them.”

Present-day Magdalene nodded at the ogling bartender as he slid a glass of water her way with a quick smile.

Teenage Magdalene had nodded more for show, then done what she normally did where her mother was involved. She’d allowed herself to be swept up in whatever affection Candace had time for in between husbands. When a new man appeared on the horizon, Magdalene was immediately shipped off to a boarding school and kept there until the next divorce. Which inevitably occurred within regular intervals.

Outside, the New York evening was generously pouring tepid rain on the hurrying patrons who were making their way into the bar, shaking out their umbrellas and letting their hair down after a long day of doing whatever well-to-do New Yorkers did.

Magdalene looked down at her drink and closed her eyes. There was no escaping the memories tonight, it seemed. A year was just about all the time Candace spared her spouses before dropping them like the previous day’s news they were to her and pulling her only daughter from wherever she’d shoved her off to in the first place. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After a while, Magdalene had simply quit keeping up with her mother’s frequent name changes, weddings, and subsequent divorces. There had been three or four husbands by the time she turned sixteen and half a dozen since. More? Less? And why was she thinking about her mother to begin with?

She shook her head and reached for her wine. The Cabernet was not a safe choice anywhere these days, but this establishment had risen to the occasion. No wonder the esteemed and deep-pocketed trustees of the Three Dragons Academy for Girls had chosen it. A two-story dining room, with the bar on the second floor overlooking the expanse of the restaurant below, it suited Magdalene’s plan to a T.

She’d arrived early on purpose and was escorted upstairs, and now observed the goings-on from her perch, sipping good wine while allowing the wealthy, exclusive patrons to ogle her. She didn’t mind. Their eyes held no weight, no palpable energy of any kind. They washed off her the way the brine of the ocean washed off her cliff.

Magdalene wrinkled her nose at the romantic notion of some piece of rock on a speck of land being “hers,” but suddenly something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and that sensation, the one she knew so well, the one that made her mouth go dry and her fingers tremble, the one that meant she was being watched, intruded with the force of a freight train.

She took a deep breath before allowing herself to take a careful look around from under her lashes, giving nothing away. Then Magdalene saw her… A gorgeous, sultry brunette sat at the other end of the room, very obviously demanding her attention.

Long legs and fire embers in dark eyes. Late thirties to mid-forties. Short, cinnamon-brown bob, framing a beautiful face. As Magdalene slowly perused her features, the woman very deliberately and purposefully uncrossed her legs, giving Magdalene a glimpse of what went on below the tight-fitting red dress.

She just lifted an eyebrow when the legs crossed again, after she’d been left with the very clear idea that there was, in fact, nothing underneath. Nothing at all.

The smoky undertones of the wine filled her mouth with something akin to desire, despite the artifice of the woman’s movements, the practiced seductive gesture… What did it matter? They were both playing a game, and the rules were such as to not mind the act.

Magdalene raised her glass in the direction of the dark corner where the fire banked in the depths of the woman’s eyes, and if the wink sent her way was anything to go by, she’d have a nice evening once the business at hand was done. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to fake anything this time—

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