“Get the fuck out. Now!” I yell.

Our eyes meet. I can see a mélange of emotions looking back at me.

He’s hurt, angry, frustrated. I completely understand how he feels because I’m in the same boat. And it’s a fucking sinking ship.

I stand my ground. I have to.

I have to be the immovable object and the unstoppable force.

“I said out, Anton!”

He wants to say more. To stand and fight.

It’s one of the many things that I love about him.

No, but I don’t love him, dammit!

Anton walks to the door.

He throws it open with enough force that I think it’s going to come off its hinges. From just beyond the doorway, he turns to look at me.

“When you’re ready to face the truth of what we are, you know where and how to contat me.”

His tone is full of that anger and frustration that I saw in his eyes. The door slams shut so hard that I hear the door frame crack from the force. This—all of this with Anton and I—is exactly why I don’t let men get close to me.

I need my freedom to come and go as I please. To do who I want when I want.

I don’t want to love Anton. I don’t want to love anyone.

I’m a lone she-wolf who doesn’t want or need a pack—unless you count my girls.

Being tied down to one man—even one as fucking perfect as Anton—just doesn’t fit my lifestyle.

My eyes linger on the door, and I picture Anton standing on the other side of it looking at it, too. I really don’t want to love him or need him…but I do.

God fucking help me, but I love that man.

I love him with the kind of force that is downright biblical.

What a fucking mess I’ve gotten myself into this time.

I walk through the suite to my bedroom. I go straight for the closet and open up the doors.

Before me, in all its glory, is my wedding dress. A wedding dress fit for royalty. It’s the kind of dress that would make a Disney princess envious.

It puts Kate Middleton’s dress to shame for fuck’s sake.

Slowly, I slip off my dress and toss it on my bed. I shouldn’t be doing this. Realistically, all this is just going to make things harder.

But apparently, I’m a sucker for pain.

Bit by bit, I slip into my wedding dress—which is hard as fuck to do on your own. There’s a reason brides always have a posse of women to help them.

I stand in the mirror and look at myself in the dress.

In this dress, I look like I belong in Anton’s world of uppity-ups. I look like a bonafide princess.

“Ugh! What the fuck are you doing, Percy?” I ask my reflection. “How the fuck did this all happen to us?”

I pause and stare at my reflection, hoping for an answer.

“Of course you don’t have an answer for me, do you?”

Would be too easy if it did.

My groan of frustration echoes through the bedroom. I peel the dress off me.

I’m kidding myself. I don’t belong in it at all. It’s not who I am.

I grab my cocktail dress off the bed and slip it back on.

When I see my reflection in the mirror, I nod approvingly.

This is who I am.

From out in the main room, I hear a loud groan.

“What the ever-loving fuck?”

I run out into the main room expecting to kick someone’s ass. I’ve taken a couple of krav maga classes. I can throw down.

Instead of seeing someone trying to steal from me, I see the prostitute that we were partying with from last night, finally coming to the piano. She mutters a handful of phrases in what I can only assume is Dutch as she sits up and rubs her head.

I had nearly forgotten she was even here.

And I’m thankful to see that she’s still alive. The last thing I need on my plate is a dead hooker in my room. The wrinkled mess slinks off the piano and looks around the suite confused.

Probably Alzheimer’s or something.

“Have you seen my dress, dear?”

She sounds as ancient as she looks.

I shrug.

“Sorry, Yzma, can’t help you there. Maybe Kronk knows,” I tell her.

Her beady eyes narrow as she looks at me.

“You okay, dear?”

I raise my eyebrow and point to my chest. “Me? Yes, why?”

She frowns at me. “You’re a horrible liar.”

Is it really that fucking obvious that I’m not having a good day?

“I’m peachy keen there, grandma. Don’t worry about me.”

She scoffs and shakes her head. With a long, bony finger she motions for me to approach her.

I’m pretty certain that if I don’t do what she wants, she’s going to put a curse on me. And I really don’t fuck with curses. That’s some old school hocus pocus shit.

The ancient prostitute—maybe the first ever, given how old she is—takes my hand as I near.

“Your aura is awash with uncertainty and doubt.”

She turns my palm upward. Slowly, she begins to trace her finger along the lines.

This would be super cool and badass if the woman in front of me wasn’t butt naked.

“Are you one of those fortune-telling hookers?”

The old woman shrugs and nods.

“It’s a part-time gig,” she answers.

“The prostitution or the fortune telling?”

“Yes.”

I look down at her finger moving along my palm.

There’s something soothing and calming about it.

“What do you see?”

“You’re life has been turned upside down. Everything you believed you knew about yourself and what you wanted has been challenged. And your mind is plagued with doubt because of it. You don’t know whether to face the challenge ahead boldly or to reject it and run.”

Damn. She’s good.

“You can tell all of that from my palm?”

“Not just your palm, but your aura as well.”

“How?” I ask in awe.

“If you know what to look for, you can see where a person has been, where they are, and even where they’re going.”

“What else can you see?”

This woman has me sucked in and hanging on every word and movement she makes.

She could easily turn this into a show in Vegas. I can see the marquee now: World’s Oldest Palm-Reading Hooker! Naked and Live!

I’d pay to see that. I mean, you know, if I wasn’t seeing it right now.

“All this doubt and uncertainty comes from your greatest fear. Love. You’ve fallen in love with a man, a great man, and it scares you.”

“So what do I do?”

“Sadly, I can’t tell you what your future holds. There is just too much doubt to see with clarity.”

Well, fuck. That doesn’t help me at all.

“Can I offer you a bit of advice, dear? I’ve been around the block a hundred times after all,” the wrinkled woman says with a smile.

“Couldn’t hurt,” I answer with a shrug.

“The greatest things in life aren’t easy. They’re meant to challenge us. They’re meant to push us. And when it comes to love, well, there’s no greater challenge than love. Have you ever heard of Rumi?”

“What the fuck is Rumi? Is that a workout program?”

The old woman lets go of my palm and laughs.

“Rumi was a Muslim poet and scholar. Smart man. He once said, ‘Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.’ Whoever this man is that you’re afraid to love, he’s been there all along. And for a reason.”

Grandma Hooker hasn’t really told me anything I don’t already know, but I won’t lie. My mind is officially blown away. I feel as though I’ve been mind-fucked by a sixteen-inch cock.

It’s hard to deny that she makes a lot of sense. But then, if I were as old as Jesus’ sandals, I’d have words of wisdom to share, too.

“Thank you. Really,” I say as I take a step back. “So, what do I owe you?”

The fortune teller looks around the room and points to a couple of bags of pot sitting on a table.

“I’ll take those, and we can call it even.”

“Deal!”

The woman struts—and struts with confidence I might add—over to the table and grabs the bags.

“Thank you, dear. And good luck with your little dilemma.”

Yzma—or whatever her actual name is—walks out naked, with two large bags of pot under her arms like she owns the place.

Well, can’t say that she doesn’t lack for confidence.

I turn and stroll over to the main sitting area. My eyes fall to the phone on the table as I sit on the plush couch. I think that I know now what direction to go.

Is there a chance I might regret this later? Maybe.

But as of right now, in this moment, this is the only thing that I can do.

My fingers wrap around the receiver of the phone. I keep playing what I’m going to tell Anton over in my head.

BANG!

I watch in shock as the front door blasts inward, and I jump up from the couch with a scream of surprise.

Two men in black suits rush in.

…Fucking typical.

“Okay, and who the fuck are you, guys?” I demand. “FBI? CIA? If you’re fucking Interpol again, I’ve already told your boss once, I’m not interested, so—”

They don’t say anything.

I swing and kick at them, drawing to mind every self-defense PSA I’ve ever watched. Still, the muscle heads manage to handcuff my hands behind my back and put a black bag over my head.

This is when panic truly begins to set in. It’s also when I realize that I shouldn’t have flaked on those krav maga classes after only going to three of them.

All the different ways that these men can murder me start to play through my mind as they drag me out of the suite.

When they pull me into the elevator, one of them begins to speak in French. I don’t know a fucking lick of French outside of mange ma chatte and belle bite.

But I hear a name.

It’s a name I recognize and dread.

Estelle.

Oh, for fucks sake. Estelle Lanteri, Queen of Menage.

Or as I like to think of her, Anton’s cunt of a mother.

Apparently, mommy dearest wants to have a chat.

And when the Queen of Menage wants you over for tea…

Think of it as an offer that I literally can’t refuse.