Page 70 of A Love Most Fatal

“Have you seen anything like this before?” I ask. “When your dad was alive?”

“When I was young, once. Otherwise, people feared him too much to stir the pot. They fear me too, or at least they did.”

“They still do,” I reassure, and I try not to let myself think about how strange it is that I am comforting Vanessa by telling her how much people still fear her mighty rule. But it’s true. “Not only that, but they respect you.”

She scoffs at this.

“I mean it,” I say. “These men I’ve interviewed are absolute tools, but they’re scared shitless of you. Or, like, the character of you. You as a concept. They know you can hit them where it hurts at any given time and that’s why they want to align with you.”

“I guess,” she says. “I wish my dad was here.”

“What do you think he would tell you if he was?”

Vanessa chews on her bottom lip as she considers this. She does this when she’s thinking, unconsciously pulling the inside of her lip between her teeth. I watch the motion too closely and avert my eyes before she can notice me staring.

“He’d tell me that I have every ability to figure it out. No problem too big to be solved,” she says. “He was always saying that, and even as a little kid I was worried he was wrong about me.”

I’ve never seen her like this, so down on herself and outwardly defeated. It’s depressing. I want to tuck her under a blanket and make her popcorn or pancakes with way too much syrup and protect her from phone calls for a minimum of fifteen hours.

Vanessa takes another sip of tea, her throat moving on the swallow. “He would know what to do. Decisions weren’t hard for him like they are for me.”

“If it’s any consolation, decisions don’t seem hard for you,” I say. “You’re very confident. Ask anyone.”

She smiles, a small victory.

“Fake it ‘til you make it,” she says. “I’m just not sure when I’ll feel like I’m no longer faking it.”

“I don’t know that you ever will.”

Her brows lower, wary of my assessment.

“I’ve been teaching for seven years and I’m better at it now, but every week I am still encountering things that leave me guessing. I bet your dad was the same way.”

She doesn’t look so sure, but she considers it. She’s nice like that, always thinking before speaking one way or another. It’s more of a strength than she knows.

“We’re all just making things up here,” I say. “And you’re lucky. You have your family to make it up with you. And a very talented math teacher. For now.”

I take a chance that she won’t murder me and place a hand over hers and squeeze twice. A quiet note that she’s not alone in this, even if reasonably thethisat hand is deplorable and should probably result in jail time. She doesn’t attack, just softens her shoulders and heaves a breath.

“You’re right. We’ll figure it out,” she says. “We always do.”

When I wakeon Saturday morning, there’s a tux hanging on my bathroom door, which tells me that someone was in here while I slept, and I get the heebie jeebies thinking it might have been Mary. I lock the door every night because even though I interact with her daily in training, I am only 60% sure Mary won’t try to kill me in my sleep. Good to know that my sense of security with a doorknob lock was false.

Ranger is asleep in his kennel, and I take him downstairs where I find Vanessa, Mary, and Willa all dressed in their usual training clothes, picking at a fruit platter that Claire is making on the counter in front of them.

“It’s Saturday,” I groan by way of greeting. My shoulders are still sore from the three hours of target practice yesterday. “Why do you all look ready to run a half marathon?”

“Good morning, Nate,” Claire says. Ranger is hopping excitedly at her feet, and she throws him a bit of apple. “Did you see the suit? The tie will match your eyes.”

“Yes, thank you.” I let Ranger out the sliding glass door, then reach for the green mug for my coffee, but Vanessa bats my hands away.

“You’re not dressed,” Vanessa says.

“You said no training on event days,” I argue. Tonight is the illustrious Mayor’s Gala which they spent the majority of yesterday primping for by getting facials, manicures, and pedicures. Anette even came to trim all of our hair.

Vanessa shakes her head. “I never said that.”

“She would never say that,” Mary agrees.