Page 24 of Tempt Me
“You’ve asked thrice, but to be honest, this is more show than tell.”
“Thrice?” I blurt out with a snort of amusement. “Who the fuck says thrice?”
“Me.”
His luminous blue eyes pierce mine, once again making me feel like that naughty schoolgirl, but in the not good way.
“Fair enough,” I murmur, feeling my mom’s eyes on me. It’s making me squirm. She knows. She knows Isaac and I fucked, and now I’m going to get a big fat lecture about it being forbidden and how I need to start thinking of being engaged to Antonio.
Also folding my arms tightly, I tap my foot impatiently, avoiding her piercing gaze.
With a steady hand, Isaac reaches for the lid and lifts it a crack. A shiny black head shaped like a diamond with a forked tongue tasting the air appears, and then the snake hisses again.
Dad peers at it and then swallows, stepping back and grabbing a folder from his desk. Using the folder to shove the snake back in the box, it starts getting mad, hissing wildly as Isaac manages to shut it away again.
“Uhm,” I stammer, at a complete loss for words. “Someone sent me a snake?”
“Not just any snake,” Isaac says. “Only one of the most venomous snakes on the planet.”
Blinking, I want to ask, but also, not so much. “Who would do that?” I ask instead.
“Good question,” Isaac repeats my words back to me but aimed at my mother. “Violetta brought this up to Rue’s room.”
“Violetta? No, no,” Mom says, shaking her head. “She wouldn’t do this.”
Turning to Dad, Isaac says, “I want to interrogate every member of staff that was on duty last night and this morning. Someone has to know where this box came from. It didn’t just magically appear in Violetta’s hands with a black mamba in it.”
“What else is in it?” I croak, my hand around my throat.
“Your nana’s ruby tiara. She wanted you to wear it on Wednesday,” Dad mutters absently.
“So someone intercepted my tiara and shoved a giant black snake in it in the hopes it would bite me and kill me?” My voice has gone shrill. I’ve been faced with death before, as early as yesterday, in fact, but this is… insidious. I would never have seen it coming, and something tells me that the Coe Bay Health clinic, thousands of miles away from black mamba territory, doesn’t stock anti-venom for Africa’s most dangerous snake.
“Jesus,” I murmur, going a bit lightheaded. I’d be dead by now if Isaac hadn't gotten to the box before me.
Mom comes to me and strokes my arm. “You’re okay. Isaac has this handled and will find out who did this. Right?”
He nods and scoops up the box, removing it from my sight as the wave of nausea rises up in the form of bile in my throat.
“This is in response to you being promoted,” Dad says, sitting back down. “It won’t be the last threat you receive, so get used to being more cautious.”
Glaring, I want to yell at him for being a dick when I could’ve died, but then I see the fear in his eyes and shut my mouth.
“Go to the Town Hall now, it’s your first day, and you don’t want to be late,” Mom says.
“Hmm?” I ask, not having any idea what she is talking about.
“Your new position as the Head of the Coe Bay sector of Solitaire also comes with a position on the town council. You can affect change from the inside.”
Letting that settle for a moment, it makes sense that the council is corrupt and panders to the Society. It’s how shady things are overlooked, and dodgy bills are passed through that benefit the members. Corruption at its best.
Nodding slowly, glad that I have something to do and somewhere else to be, I make my way back up to my room, on the lookout for any more vicious snakes, but I don’t see any. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. All I know is that this will make going to the toilet an extremely risky business. I’ve heard the horror stories; I know.
Chapter14
Isaac
My heart pounds in my chest, and I wipe the sweat from my forehead. It’s still early morning, but the summer heat is beating down in the suntrap garden that sits around the villa. Needing to find out who did this is paramount, but when I see Rue sauntering over to the car parked in the driveway, I march over demanding answers.
