Page 30 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
Darcy, lounging barefoot on the tufted leather settee in my expansive walk-in closet, crunches into an apple, and then chews thoughtfully for a moment. “A brown chick in a white outfit that cost more than my first car.”
I turn from the mirror I’ve been fretfully examining myself in front of, and rest my hands on my hips. “A confidence builder, you’re not. Seriously, Darse, how do I look?”
I execute a slow turn. She purses her lips, eyeing me up and down.
“You look hot, girl. What do you want me to say, I’m in love with you? Please let me have sex with your vagina?”
I throw my hands in the air. “You’re hopeless.”
She stretches out her legs and examines her hot pink pedicure, lurid as a bloodstain against her dusky skin. “Since when do you need me to tell you how you look, anyway?”
“Since I’m going on a date with el diablo,” I mutter.
“What?”
I wave a hand at my reflection. “Nothing. Forget it. If this doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.”
Darcy cocks her head and pins me in a one-eyed stare. “What trick is that?”
I don’t answer.
It’s Friday night. Parker is due at my house in twenty minutes. I’ve invited Darcy over for some moral support, but have told her only that I’m getting ready for a date. Not a date with whom.
I don’t want her to try to talk me out of it.
Darcy rises from the settee, tosses the apple into a mirrored trashcan in the corner, saunters over, and stands beside me. She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a really formidable stink eye, one even my mother would be proud of.
“What’re you up to?”
I pretend innocence. “Moi?”
I slip into the pair of high-heeled, crystal-encrusted Alexander McQueen sandals I’ve chosen to go with my killer Balmain minidress. The dress is long-sleeved, high-necked, and otherwise demure, but so short my hoo-ha is in danger of making an unscheduled appearance if circumstances necessitate my having to remain anything but perfectly upright. I’m vaguely worried about getting into and out of Parker’s car, but have decided to deal with that moment when it arrives.
“Yes, vous,” says Darcy, still eyeballing me. “I know a setup when I see one. I grew up on the streets of N’awlins, remember, girl? If my mother taught me anything, it’s what a woman looks like when she’s about to take an unsuspecting pigeon for everything he’s got.”
I turn to my jewelry display, a column of velvet-lined rolling shelves that stretches almost to the ceiling. From one of the drawers I select a pair of drop earrings, but then put them back.
If Parker decides to nibble on my earlobes, I don’t want anything getting in the way.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say as nonchalantly as I can.
Darcy sighs. “The shitty truffle poker face is back. You’re lying again, skinita.”
She’s trying to call me skinny. Skinita is not the word for skinny in Spanish. Or any other language, as far as I know.
“Oh, just relax, Gloria. You’ll find out soon enough!”
As if on cue, the phone rings. I pick up the extension in the closet. “Yes?”
“Ms. Price, it’s Carlton from downstairs. I have a Mr. Maxwell for you?”
I freeze. He’s here already? He’s twenty minutes early!
“I see. Send him up, Carlton.” I put the phone down, trying to ignore the thunder and lightning storm that has just exploded inside my body.
Darcy, who has coordinated her pedicure with a flamboyant fuchsia caftan and a matching hair scarf wrapped so that it towers about a foot over her head, narrows her eyes at me. “You have two seconds to tell me what you’re up to before I revoke your best friend card.”
I chew a nonexistent hangnail on my thumb, buying time, but she doesn’t release me from her las
