Page 46 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
But that bird… that bird had always been there.
And Ryder treated him like royalty. Rimbaud traveled everywhere with him: world tours, five-star hotels, photo shoots. Tess lowered her voice even further, delivering the kill shot.
“Once, during a European tour, after an apocalyptic bender, Ryder landed in Paris… and realized he’d left Rimbaud behind in Madrid. You know what he did? He sent his private jet back for him. Just for the bird.”
She let me picture it: a regal parrot strutting down the stairs of a jet like a tropical diva.
“Since then,” she went on, “he never keeps Rimbaud in the room during his creative trances—which, translated, means locking himself in a suite, drowning in booze and drugs, trying to channel the spirits of music, and occasionally smashing the furniture to get there.”
To protect Rimbaud, he always left him in the care of luxury-hotel pet sitters.
Pampered. Hand-fed. Worshipped.
Tess straightened, her face lit with a dangerous kind of clarity. Her pupils gleamed.
“The plan has changed, Bea.”
She smiled.
“Now… we have to kidnap Rimbaud.”
22
“Kidnap? Did I hear that right?” My own voice shot up a full octave.
Tess nodded with the calm of someone announcing they were out of milk. “Ryder loves that parrot more than he loves his own mother. If we kidnap him… Ryder will have no choice but to come to us.”
“Hold on a second.” I raised a hand, as if I could physically stop the stupidity seeping into my brain. “Maybe this is just the alcohol fumes talking… but as far as I know, not a single great seductress in history ever stole her future lover’s parrot.”
I burst out laughing. “I mean, imagine Cleopatra kidnapping Marc Antony’s goldfish. Or Caesar’s iguana.”
Tess shot me a glare sharp enough to cut a diamond. “And what do you know? All those love stories that start with a coincidence a little too perfect… you really think they’re nothing but the truth?”
She straightened, jabbing a finger at me like a prosecutor in court. “Every time a man says: ‘It was fate. We met because she found my lost cat.’ You know what I think? She stole it first.”
A perfectly timed pause. Letting the words sink in like poison.
“Or ‘We bumped into each other in a bookstore, reaching for the same novel…’” Tess arched a brow. “That book’s been in her Tinder bio for three years. She bought it just for the scene. Never even read it. But she underlined a random line to look profound.”
I stared at her. Shook my head, smiling despite myself. You could never win against Tess. She dragged you into her world, and before you knew it… you were half-convinced that stealing a parrot wasn’t such a terrible idea.
Tess glanced around, all quick eyes and shallow breaths. Then—without a word, not even a “be right back”—she rose with the wobbly grace of someone who’d confused sparkling water for gin and headed straight for the reception desk.
“Where are you going?” I asked, though it came out more like the pitiful mewl of an abandoned cat than an actual question.
No answer needed. I knew the music.
I pushed myself up, and instantly the floor turned into the deck of a ship in a storm. My body tilted hard to the right in slow, inevitable motion,and for a split second I saw my future: sprawled face-first across the table of two men in pinstripe suits.
They were locked in a Wall Street–level negotiation. One of them shot me a glare so full of contempt it could’ve been served at the bar as an espresso ristretto.
“Pardon,” I slurred, correcting course like a fishing boat trying not to scrape the side of a thirty-meter yacht.
I managed to catch up with Tess just as she veered up a small ramp beside reception. At the top, a frosted-glass door gleamed like the secret gate to a forbidden temple.
Gold letters, elegant and slightly embossed, announced:The Vellum Animal Club.
Tess pushed the door open with the theatrical confidence of someone carrying not only an invitation but also a toast prepared for the afterparty.
