Page 5 of Flirting With Disaster

The feminine voice came from the entryway to the beautiful suite she’d been assigned. Jude risked opening one eye and found a tiny, twenty-something girl with black, pixie-ish hair smiling down at her.

“I don’t feel nice.”

“No, I don’t imagine you do. Almond Joys?”

Jude managed to swallow, regardless of the absence of saliva in her mouth. “They’re like Mounds, but with little, nutty bundles of happiness stuck inside. I love Almond Joys.” She sighed.

“Yes, I can see that.” The girl’s smile was sheerly radiant. She stuck out her hand. “Nola Stonewater. I’ll be your maid and assistant during your stay.”

“Jude, Jude Duffy…previously known as Dr. Duffy. Why are you in my room, witnessing my unabridged demoralization, instead of outside knocking like a normal maid?”

“You didn’t answer my knock, so I assumed you were out.”

Jude lifted her head and squinted at the clock, the green blur reminding her of a certain misplaced, angry glare. She frowned, vaguely remembering The Beast from last night. Put any man with a morose, chiseled face in a black turtle neck, black pants, and a dark room and he’d look like Dracula. Especially if one had a few too many Long Island Iced Teas. “What time is it?”

“Time for you to get up. You’re in the castle of secret desires, you know. You won this contest. It’s time you enjoyed it.”

Jude pulled the pillow over her head and rolled away from her tormentor. “I don’t believe in secrets, or desires, or enjoyment. My life is over.”

The bed sank under the weight of Jude’s perky maid. Jude didn’t like perky. She only liked Almond Joys.

“If it’s over, that means you get to start again. Out with the old Ms. Duffy and in with the new.”

Jude sat up a little too quickly. Her stomach knotted as bile screamed up the back of her throat. She scrambled out of bed and ran past the fireplace to the large, tiled bathroom. She slammed the door on her self-appointed “Fairy Godmaid”, and tried in vain to vomit.

This was why she hated frivolity. It was unsafe and likely to produce vomiting.

She hung over the doubtlessly germ-infested toilet, no sanitizing wipes in sight. Chaos, anarchy, pandemonium…they all brought destruction. And she’d had enough destruction in her life.

What had happened last night? Had she actually hungered to sleep with a total stranger? The thought was preposterous. She sighed and rested her head on her forearm. The thought was…freeing.

“You okay? I could get you a few more Almond Joys, if you’d like.” Nola’s lilting voice beckoned through the thick mahogany door. Jude sat back on the black and white mosaic tiled floor, and leaned against the wall. Maybe a nice bath in the claw-foot tub would calm her.

She smiled. The thought brought on images of her spinster Aunt Agnes—the woman who’d sent Jude here as her dying wish. The woman who had taken her in when she was seventeen, ever since the day her famous rock and roll parents had died in that horrific plane crash—on their way to another tour, another adrenaline rush, another journey in search of fame and glory.

Away from her.

Fame had taken them from her, month after month. Right up until the day they’d died.

And then there was Evan, leaving her alone, humiliating her for the sake of a boost in his acting career.

She hated fame and all those who heeded the calling. People who needed the attention and adoration of total strangers to feel good about themselves.

“Hey! You coming out, or are you staying in there the whole week?”

Fairy Godmaid. Jude would’ve loved to stay in the opulent bathroom for the whole week. She could survive here…with enough Almond Joys. But that was cowardly. And Jude Duffy had been cowardly far too long.

She rose off the floor and bent over the sink to wash her face. She dropped her head and drank from the faucet. She’d hit an all-time low.

The door opened behind her.

“I’m almost done,” she gurgled. “I’ll be right out.”

“I hope you’re not done, 'cause if you go out looking like that, you’ll scare the shit out of the other guests.”

Jude jolted, keeping her head in the sink, her lips at the faucet. That was not the melodic voice of her Fairy Godmaid. That was the voice of pure malevolent sin.

The Beast.

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