Sweet Temptation (The Sweet Trilogy #4)(32)
I step from the car and lean against it, waiting. From what I can tell, Anna didn’t get a verbal beating from her father, and I’m glad for her. When the doors open, and Anna filters out with the others, all the madness I felt today disappears. My blood rushes at the sight of her. But as she gets closer, the look on her face halts my thoughts.
Something is wrong. She ignores me and climbs into the car. I go around to the driver’s side and get us out of there. I want to ask what he did and what he said, but we’re still within his five-mile hearing range.
When we’re far enough away, I’m about to ask how it went, but she buries her face in her hands and cries the most pitiful, heart-wrenching tears I’ve ever heard. I have no idea what to say or do to make this better, which makes me feel weak and powerless.
Have I mentioned I hate when girls cry?
Thankfully, after five minutes of this she gives a loud sniff, wipes her eyes, squares her shoulders, and swallows away the rest of her tears.
“Were you listening?” she asks in a thick voice.
“A bit at the beginning and end, to make sure you were all right.”
She nods and proceeds to tell me every detail of their conversation. I usually zone out when girls talk this much, but I’m completely rapt with Anna’s storytelling. She pulls one knee up and turns her body toward me in the passenger seat, talking fast. I listen to the story of her parents’ epic, forbidden love—how they were soul mates in heaven before the Fall, and how he became a Duke to search for her on earth, finally finding her working as a guardian angel. Anna’s mother, Mariantha, broke all heavenly rules to inhabit her human charge’s drug-sickened body and be with Belial. He never cared about hurting humans, though he pushed drugs to keep his position and he was good at it. But all along, he only cared about Mariantha. For the first time ever, I find myself relating to a Duke.
When I get to the hotel we just park and sit there while she gets it all out. She hides nothing—making her joy, love, sorrow, and disappointment plain. Her father clearly loves her, but he’d been brutally honest about her fate on earth and afterward. She would have to at least appear to be working for the dark cause. She had to toughen up. I’d been wondering if her father would have positive news about Anna’s afterlife. He didn’t. She’s as hell-bound as any other Neph, as far as Belial knows. A sharp pang rips at my chest at the thought of that doom for her.
It’s not right. It’s not fair.
I shake my head and turn off the ignition. I haven’t worried about whether or not something was “fair” since I was a small child. It hadn’t taken long to realize nothing was fair in life. That bloody word shouldn’t even exist. But it’s the thought that continues to blaze through me—a soul like Anna’s should never be confined to hell. How could the One who made her even consider it?
Yet another thing to fill the churning pit of anger that fuels my daily life.
I’m incredibly edgy when we reach the hotel room. So much so that I stand in the doorway while Anna goes in, her arms crossed, lost in thought.
“This hotel has a gym,” I tell her. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get in a workout this afternoon while I can.”
Physical exertion is exactly what I need.
Anna nods absently and stares at her luggage. “I think I’ll do a load of laundry or something.”
“I can tell them we’d like laundry service when I pass the front desk.”
She gives me a puzzled expression. “Oh, you mean have the hotel do it? No way, that’d be way too expensive. There’s a Laundromat right across the street.”
I cringe. “You mean with the crackheads?”
Anna snorts and shakes her head. She’s already gathering her dirty clothes, and she even reaches for mine, but I step on the shorts she’s grabbing.
“You don’t have to do mine.” I’m a bit appalled. How can she be so casual about this?
“Oh, just let me.” She yanks the shorts out from under my foot. “I’ve had to use a Laundromat lots of times, and it’s perfectly safe. It’s mostly just moms. I’ll just, um, need some money. If that’s okay. I mean, not much, just a couple—”
I whip my wallet out in a flash to erase the embarrassed blush staining her cheeks, and thrust a bill at her. “You’re sure it’s safe? This is L.A., not backwoods Georgia.”
“Ha-ha.” She snatches the ten and stuffs it in her pocket.
“I’ll be listening,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes, but then whispers, “Thanks.”
I keep my hearing locked around her for the hour plus that I run on the treadmill and do a series of push-ups and sit-ups. I’d prefer weights right now, but this poor excuse for a gym has none.
Anna’s been so quiet at the Laundromat that I decide to see if she’s all right with my own eyes. The place is completely dodgy from the outside, but when I walk in it smells clean and there’s a calming whir of washers and dryers going. Two old women are power-napping in chairs on the opposite side of the room from where Anna stands with her back to me, folding clothes.
She bends to pull my T-shirt from the dryer, and within two seconds flat my beast sniffs the air and smacks his lips. Anna is far too cute in those shorts. She raises my shirt in front of herself with a flap and does quick work with her fingers, ending with the shirt in the form of a perfect, flat rectangle. Should I be this impressed?