Chapter Eleven

The note came back into my mind right about the time I was supposed to be enjoying my lunch break, and I crashed from my pathetic love-high after remembering its warning… and the red smudge that looked like blood. What should I do about that? Should I talk to Damien? Or should I not? What if it was a real threat… or rather, Damien was a real threat?

What if this perfect relationship with the perfect man was finally starting to go against me? What if fate had had enough of my happiness and was back to being the mischievous evil thing that it normally was? I felt like throwing a fit. I wanted everything to keep going nicely; I had had one bad relationship in the past- I know, not much experience at dating- but it was enough for me to know that if this went awry, I might die.

Or something equally drastic and overdramatic. Like streaking through a ball field. While singing the national anthem.

By the time I ate my Subway sandwich , I was going through all the little scenarios in my head, and I was thoroughly snippy. What if he was secretly married and his wife was crazy? What if he had a kid by a traveling gypsy who hated his guts for deserting her with his child? What if he had thrown someone over the cliffs of Dover, only they hadn’t died and had come back to ruin his life for trying to murder them?

And what if he was taking me to Scotland, only it wasn’t to meet his parents, but to… I don’t know, sequester me in his dark castle until I was dead? I lost myself for a minute thinking about being secluded in a dark place with Damien. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought.

But then I realized the seriousness of his wanting me to meet his parents. In Scotland. That far away. Parents. Meeting. That was kind of scary. What if they didn’t like me? What if they didn’t see whatever it was that Damien saw in me? What if they thought I was fat and ugly and klutzy and not good enough for their son? What if his mother was a mean old hag? What if his father was lewd and grabby? What if… they just plain hated me?

I finished my lunch early due to frantic chewing while in deep thought, and ended up going back to work early.

I walked through the doors to see Jolene flirting with a certain tall, dark, and handsome someone who had a Scottish accent and smelled like the woods. She said something, he laughed a little too heartily, she gave him her best coquettish smile, and he leaned in a little too interestedly. It was a good thing I had come back early. The little…

“Hi.” I walked up to my tall, dark, and handsome Scotsman -thank you very much, man-snatcher- and smiled sweetly at Jolene. I wasn’t exactly feeling cordial towards Damien, but he was still mine. And I figured he was mostly innocent until proven guilty.

Damien looked a little red in the face, but his smile was genuine. Or was it? “Just the woman I came to see.” He kept his eyes away from Jolene; it was a good thing he did, or I might have smacked him for looking at the vixen.

I felt petulant. “Am I?” He was walking me away from Jolene’s counter, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Are you what?” he asked, and he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were darting over the display of jewelry like he’d had a little too much sugar and didn’t have any concentration.

I cleared my throat, crossed my arms, and waited until he met my eyes. “Am I really the woman you came to see?” What was up with him today? And what was with me? I was never jealous like this.

He smiled a little, tilted his head, and his brow lowered. “What do you mean? Of course you are. Who else would I come to see?” He did look a little confused, and I bit my lip. “Did you get the roses this morning?”

I sighed and rubbed my face. “Yes, I did.” I sounded a little too annoyed, but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t slept much last night, I had been late for work, beaten by an old lady with a purse, I was now thoroughly worried about that note, and he had been flirting with Jolene. Or at least he had been enjoying her flirting with him.

And he was acting weird.

But he sounded worried. “Did you… like them?”

I faked a little smile and met his concerned, beautiful eyes. “Yeah.” I had liked them. A lot.

He took my hands then, and stepped in closer. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

It was the darling that melted my knees, and I broke down. “Well, I was late for work, and I didn’t sleep last night because of this stupid note at my door, and I got beaten by an old lady with her purse, and then you were flirting with Jolene, or Jolene was flirting with you, and I’m nervous about going to Scotland with you. I mean, what if your parents don’t like me? What if they hate me? What if I’m not good enough? What if-”

“Shhh.” His smile was a little amused, a little curious, a little sympathetic. “They’ll love you, first of all. Secondly, what note? And thirdly, if I was flirting with Jolene, it was purely out of boredom. Nothing else.”

I scowled a little. “Boredom? You were flirting out of boredom?” I was snippy again. “I would expect you to say you weren’t even flirting, or I got it all wrong.” Was I overreacting? I didn’t really care. “Any flirting with that… that… woman is bad. Any flirting with any woman. Except for me.”

Under the blue-grey gaze of understanding, I felt like a petulant child. “Macy, I’m not interested in Jolene. I’m not interested in any other woman. I’m interested in you.” He lifted my chin, and I sighed. “Maybe we should discuss this later? Your boss is glaring.”

“Okay/” I met his eyes and bit my lip. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to be.”

I could feel his smile when he bent down and kissed me all too briefly. It partially transferred itself to me, and I felt slightly better. Only slightly. He could have kissed me longer, especially with Jolene watching.

“I’ll pick you up after work?” His keys jingled in his hand.

I only nodded, and watched him leave with a slight smile. The trepidation of everything was building up again; it took over as soon as he left, and I cursed the fates or the gods or… well, not the God, I was a little scared of Him… but whatever it was that hated me so much, I cursed it. I was a little too wrapped around Damien’s finger for my own comfort, and he had more hold over me than I deemed safe for my heart.

Plus, I couldn’t stay too mad at him, and that irritated me.

xxx

“Later” included a nice dinner at a small but posh café, a suspicious little gift box covered in velvet, and an all-too-dashing Damien that I could have stared at for hours on end with no wish to do anything else. I felt tired and dumpy in my standard black shift. At least I had had a little time to buy a pair of clearance heels and smudge on a bit of lipstick.

“So,” Damien slid the little velvet box over the table after we had ordered drinks and tilted his head. “Open that, and then tell me about your day.”

The little black box proved to be exactly what I suspected. I lifted out its content. “This is a ring.”

“Yes.” Damien nodded as I inspected the antique-looking gold ring that was fashioned into a fully bloomed rose with a ruby in the center. He didn’t elaborate. So I pried.

“Um…” I bit my lip. “Does this ring… have any significance?”

He tilted his head a little, a dimple showing. “Aye.”

Darn him, he was cute. “To… our future?” I didn’t want to point-blank ask him if he was proposing. It seemed too early for that, and I really didn’t know how to refuse the proposal without refusing him.

“It does.” His voice was deep and mischievous, and very pleased with himself.

I felt my heart speed up a little. Or maybe I wouldn’t refuse it, if it was a proposal. “Um… I don’t mean to be pushy or not get the hints… but what the heck does this ring mean?”

His chuckle told me he had been purposefully making me wait. “It was my mother’s engagement ring, passed down to her from her mother.” He paused, and my only thought was oh, crap. How the heck could I refuse it now? “Before you get too red in the face, let me slow down your thought process.”

He winked, and I turned redder. He wasn’t proposing? Was it bad that I felt relieved?

“I was thinking on planning our trip to Scotland to meet my parents. We’ll need to do it soon.” He looked a little fallen from his earlier amusement; was something wrong? “My da is not in the best of health.” His eyes pleaded with me. “It would make him very happy if I came back engaged. It’s not a proposal… right away. I mean… it’s just an act, for now.”

I chewed on my lip. “So… we’d just be pretending for your dad’s sake?”

“Aye.” He smiled a little. “It’s crazy, I know.”

I shook my head. “No… it’s… sweet.” I put on the ring, admired the way it looked on my left hand. It felt nice to be engaged, even if it was fake. At least I knew he liked me, and it might be real someday. I just hoped that his dad didn’t die while we were there. Or before we got there.

I was looking forward to this pretend engagement. Maybe it would foretell how it would really be in the future. If it ever came to that. With the foreboding of that note, I wasn’t so sure.

He lifted my hand and kissed it. “Thank you for being willing to play along. Someday, I hope it won’t be a play.” His eyes were intense. I almost drowned in them, but the waiter brought our drinks and ruined the mood.

Damien leaned back. “So tell me about your day?”

As I told him about my day, starting with the note and on to the lady who had beaten me with her purse, then being annoyed with Jolene, and worried about meeting his parents, he appropriately laughed and reassured me. But he was particularly curious about the note- not worried, not eager to dispel my suspicions, just curious.

“You think there’s blood on it?” He tilted his head and leaned forward.

I shrugged. “Yeah. It’s weird, it looks like someone dripped blood and tried to wipe it away. And it looks old. Like… a hundred years old.”

“Odd.” His eyes were lowered for a few seconds while he thought about it. Then he looked at me. “What did you do with it?”

I shrugged. “Showed it to my sister. It’s still on the counter at home.”

With a little smile, he rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. “It could be one of Edna’s practical jokes. She’s a little off in the head, as you know.”

I let out my breath and laughed. I felt… jittery. “I don‘t think so. I guess you know her better than I do, but Edna doesn‘t seem like the type to go around putting notes at peoples‘ doors.” I bit my lip. “Whatever it is, or whoever it is… I don’t really care. It’s just kind of creepy. Stalker-ish.”

“I know.” He looked a little concerned then, and nodded. “I think I’ll make sure you’re not alone for a while.”

I calmed down a little with those mesmerizing eyes promising protection, but the jitters never quite left me. We ordered our dinner, and I noticed that Damien didn’t eat much. He seemed deep in thought. I nudged his foot.

“Don’t worry too much. At least I don’t live alone.”

The nudge brought him back to my realm of time. “Sorry…” He smiled brilliantly, but it almost did not reach his eyes. “So, shall we plan that trip?”

I smiled a little. It made him so happy that I was willing to play along with his engagement game, and that I was willing to go all the way to Scotland to meet his parents. We figured out the dates and times; I had to ask at least two weeks ahead of time for time off, so we tentatively planned to leave in a month. I noticed that Damien seemed distracted, as he had been earlier in Macy’s. Maybe he was worried about his father’s health.

But it nudged at me all throughout the evening as we ate, planned, as he drove me home, as we laughed and I enjoyed the feeling of having that ring on my finger… what if the note was true? What if I should stay way from him? What if he would ruin my life and the lives of those around me? I was feeling incredibly on edge when he left me at my door. Especially since his kiss had been short and not very sweet. Distracted.

I sighed, and went inside. My sister was in her room, her lights were off. The note was on the counter. I picked it up and studied the handwriting, hoping for some clue. It looked neither masculine nor feminine. There was nothing on the back, no smell to the paper other than an oldness, nothing peculiar about it except the smudge that I was more and more certain was blood.

I was about to put it back when I heard the sound of something being slid under my door. I whirled, grabbed the door handle, and yanked open the door. At first, all I saw was the night’s shadows in the hallway. But one of them was moving. My heart sped up.

“Stop!” I snapped, though I did not dare move away from my door and the safety of my apartment. Who knew, this could be a serial killer stalker. Or a crazy gypsy woman. Or a man who was supposed to be dead.

The shadow stopped, wavered a little, and then half turned towards me.

Her skin was slightly mottled, smooth, and young. She was dressed as though in mourning, her eyes flashed at me, pale blue in the night, and she looked strangely familiar. I blinked, unbelieving, and stepped forward. But the hiss and the flash of sharp teeth stopped me in my tracks, and the woman whisked off into the dark shadows of the night.

I stared after her.

In the dim light, I had seen just a glimpse of her face, but it was enough. She was too young. Too virile. Too beautiful. Too… strange. But when I picked up the note and scanned it for a signature, I was proven all-too-right, and I felt my whole world spin around me like a carousel that has lost control.

“Macy,” it said, “your trip to Scotland may be your doom. I implore you, do not trust Damien and his charm. It will prove to be your undoing.” Again, there was a little smudge on the edge of the paper. Again, it looked to be over a hundred years old. Again, I was thrown into a world of chaos and confusion and dread.

But this time, it was signed. I read it once, twice, three times… and finally whispered it out loud.

“Violet?”

___

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long. I've been attempting NaNoWriMo again, for real this time, (Forgotten is the novel I'm attempting to finish by the end of the month) but I promise I haven't stopped writing on this story! It's just been a hectic ten days. ;) I hope this holds you over until I update again.

I know, I'm evil.

Mara