Page 31 of Hateful Prince
“So do I need to take a test? Or just—” I stopped midsentence when I spotted Sorcha Blackthorne standing at the end of the hall, a devilish grin on her lips. Fuck.
“Or just...” Kiki said, waiting for me to continue.
“Don’t stop on my account,” she purred, leaning against the wall and crossing her feet at the ankle like she was getting comfortable. “Incidentally, your friend is right. Neither of those boys would leave you if they got you up the duff.”
My cheeks burned, and the thought of Kai or Tor as daddy material had me feeling some kind of way.
“What you’d really need to worry about is whether Masterson would even let you keep the baby.”
The vampire’s words sent my heart straight into my ass. “Wh-what?”
“Do you see any nurseries around here? A playground? Frolicking children? Blackwood isn’t intended for the young and meek. We can’t be trusted, remember? Who would dare leave an innocent child in any of our care?”
“Wow, Sorcha. Doom and gloom this early?” Oz said, sauntering up to her. “It’s not even dinnertime.”
“Just having a little tête-à-tête with our precious writer.”
Kiki piped up. “Technically it’s not a tête-à-tête. I’m here. A tête-à-tête is between two persons, not more.”
Sorcha’s smile froze on her face, and ice ran through my veins. Kiki was a ballsy bitch, but I wasn’t sure she’d have been as brazen if faced with Sorcha in the flesh.
“Okay, fun chat. Don’t say a word, Sorcha. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Sorcha took a long, deep inhale and smirked again. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
Remembering that she’d given me a heads-up last time, I couldn’t ignore the glaringly obvious fact that she didn’t bother to do so now. Was she fucking with me? Punishing me for Kiki’s snark? Or was she... could she...? Fuck my life.
“I’m leaving this conversation now,” I muttered. “Creepy fucking vampire nose.”
“I heard that,” Sorcha called after my retreating form.
“I figured!”
Kiki’s laughter filtered through the phone and pulled my attention back to her. “Okay, I’m sure you didn’t call me unannounced just to tell me I look weird. What’s up?”
Sitting up a little straighter, she put her serious face on. “We need a Rebel sequel. I’m sorry, I tried to pitch your new idea, but they turned it down. The studio wants to option it too. We need that first, then you can do the passion project.”
I groaned as I began trudging up the stairs to my room. “But I don’t want to write a sequel. I already gave Rebel and her guys an HEA. A sequel means I have to blow it all up so there’s a reason for people to be reinvested. No one is interested in happy people fucking like bunnies.”
Kiki made a considering face. “Have you never heard of the multi-billion dollar industry called porn?”
“I can’t make a whole storyline out of happy sex scenes.”
“Well, I don’t know, throw in a ghost hunter, or maybe they Scooby-Doo it and have to solve other murders?” She blew a raspberry. “An apocalypse! Or a surprise ghost baby... Yikes, too soon?”
I glared at her through the tiny phone screen. “Way too fucking soon. You’re skirting the line of musty scrotum territory, Keeks. We’re talking a demotion from cool godmother to the weird mothball-ridden aunt everyone avoids at family reunions because she has grabby hands.”
“That was frighteningly specific.”
“I know things.”
“That’s a weird thing to know. Especially since you don’t have any aunts.”
“Semantics.” I heaved a sigh as I circled my brain back to the real issue. I didn’t have a plot for Rebel. I didn’t want to write it. Some writers could just pull an idea out of a hat and run with it, but that wasn’t how my brain worked. I needed inspiration. The muse had to speak to me. If I forced it, everyone would be able to tell. “I don’t know if I can?—”
“Dahlia, you have so little faith in me. We will figure this out, even if it takes late-night brainstorming sessions when you’re a little punchy and weird. We’ll play our favorite ‘what if’ game. We always come up with our best stuff that way.”
“I love how you say our when I’m the one doing all the work.”