CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

“Anyway, she was really nice about the whole decapitating thing. She even apologized.”

Nothing. Sinclair’s back was to me and his head was bent over his work again. He’d been pretty quiet lately, even for him. Like most working women, I had to juggle a demanding spouse with a demanding job(s), and my man was feeling neglected. Tell you what, though, Cosmo never covered this.

“So . . . looks like I’ve got the time problem figured. I’ve just got to make sure I’ve got a way to track Minnesota time when I’m there, so it doesn’t get away from me again, and my handy-dandy Hell watch is taking care of that for me.”

“Very good.”

“Soooo.” I toed off my shoes (Beverly Feldman ballet flats in pixie red) and killed a minute wiping them down and putting them away in the walk-in. But eventually I had to come out and resume my conversation with Sinclair’s shoulder blades. “What’d I miss?”

“Oh, just the tedium of running your kingdom.”

Kingdoms, plural, and I’ve noticed it’s only my kingdom when you’re pissed, I thought but didn’t say, then thought, Agh! Did he hear that?

Apparently not. So, deliberately not listening or, worse, shutting me out. I resisted the urge to fidget. As an uncouth extrovert, my knee-jerk reaction to someone being quiet was to get louder. That was a terrible reaction to have to someone being quiet, because they got quieter. And thus I got still louder. It was a perfect storm of argh.

He put down his pen (he used paper! and pens! for notes! soooo old-fashioned, and also cute), twisted around in his chair, and looked right at me. He looked amazing as always: black wool trousers, black leather belt with a small shiny buckle, navy blue tailored button-down, black dress socks. Dark brown hair casually brushed back from his forehead, sleeves rolled to his elbows. This was Sinclair’s version of sweatpants and a South Park T-shirt.

Umm, those forearms. I didn’t even know I had a thing for forearms before I met him.

“I would like to go to Hell and speak with Lawrence.”

I blinked. “Oh. Uh, just give me a message and I’ll tell him.”

“I would like to go to Hell and speak with Lawrence.”

Aaaand here we go. Well, I’d known it was coming. I was so dreading this conversation I actually wished for a new Big Bad to suddenly show up and try to kill us, just to get out of having it. When we were in mortal danger, Sinclair often forgot to be pissed at me.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Hmm. No beloved or my queen or darling or my own. Strictly business. If he called me Mrs. Sinclair I would lose my shit.

“Because I’d rather you stayed here and took care of vampire business.”

He stood. He went up and up. Normally I didn’t find his height intimidating. “What is going on?”

“Nothing!” It was true. C’mon, Big Bad, where are you already? Come try to kill us already! “Look, Hell is my burden, okay? And do you really think it’s smart for the king and the queen to be in Hell at the same time?”

“No,” he replied, “I think we should take turns.”

And there it was. Yeah, I’ll bet you think we should take turns. When you’re there, Hell is yours. When I’m there, it’s ours. “The vampire kingdom is ours. Hell is mine.”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long have you mistrusted me?”

“Mistrust is a strong word,” I managed. Jeez, where had he been? I’ve mistrusted him from pretty much the moment we met. It didn’t mean I didn’t love him. It meant he was sneaky. He knew this. I knew this. Normally it wasn’t a problem.

“And now you’re outright lying.”

“Outright is a strong word.”

His dark eyes went narrow with anger and, I think, some pain. No! Force an immunity to the puppy eyes! This is no time to back down.

“When you’re ready to have an adult conversation with your husband and king, I’ll be in the kitchen baking gluten-free pupcakes for the girls.”

“Well, don’t hold your breath!” I shouted as he gently closed the door as he left (Sinclair was never uncouth enough to slam doors shut). And sure, I was now having an argument with a closed door, but I was never one to stand on my dignity. “I’m in no rush to have an adult conversation with my husband and king so get ready to wait a looooong time!”

Fuck.