A Bitch In Time (Marina: Part One: Naughty Nookie Series) by Serena Akeroyd

mine.  If I just sold Papillon to the mafia, then they’d be a
product to be distributed.  To me, they’re women.  Not a
commodity.  So I kept on saying no and then, they turned nasty.” 
    I’ve never had an epiphany
before.  But with Nate’s hatred of my deceit blasting me, the truth comes
to me.
    They burnt Mona’s building
down, because I was there.  Nate’s right.  If I go to Blue
Ridge, they’ll only follow and they’ll do the commune harm, because I’m there.
    I’ve buried my head in the
sand, thinking they’re targeting the people I love.  They’re not. 
They’re just after me. 
    “In what way?”
    “They tried to kill me.”
    His hiss has me turning my
head to look at him. 
    Ordinarily, if we gather at
Mona’s place, dump that it is, we crash there.  Too many drinks have Eddie
and I snoozing on the couch and waking up to omelets and homemade muffins
provided by Mona Homemaker.  It was only a twist of fate that had someone
contacting Mona for some out-of-hours cleaning.  I was the target and the
rest was all collateral damage.
    A part of me wonders which
person on my client list is worth all of this.  Because like Anna said, my
caliber of clientele has to be why the Russians have declared war on me.
    His jaw is like iron. 
White with tension and his lips are flattened by his fury.  “Why can’t you
be normal, Marina?  Why have you always got to be so damned complicated?”
    Stung, I sit up and flinch as
my head protests the swift movement.  That whiskey might not have been the
smartest decision I’ve made this morning.
    “I resent that!”
    “How can you after what you’ve
just told me?”  He shakes his head and moves away from the bed to stride
back and forth along the breadth of the room.  The carpet probably has a
groove in it from all the pacing.  It’s a path I’ve trodden many a time
during my stay.
    I sink down to an elbow and
with lowered lashes, watch him.  “Do you hate me, Nate?”  I hate how
important the answer is and wish I hadn’t asked the question, but it popped
out.
    Thank you,
whiskey.
    His head whips around to look
at me and the swift frown and even faster sigh leave me in the dark. What he’s
thinking eludes me and it’s annoying how much his opinion means to me.
    To the room at large, I
mutter, “You know, the last time I gave a damn about what a man thought of me;
Jimmy was still in the hospital.”
    “Jimmy?”  Nate stops his
pacing and stares at me.
    My head feels way too heavy
for my neck and the deadweight has it falling back so I’m looking at the
ceiling again.  “Yeah.  My husband.”
    “You’re married?”
    His astonishment has me
grinning.  A light chuckle escapes me and I shake my head.  “A few
months ago, I’d have said, I wish.”
    “But not now?”
    Even though my skull feels
like it has taken on the weight of a ten-pound dumbbell, I lift it and look at
him.  “No.  I don’t miss him anymore.”
    “Why not?”  He takes a
step closer to me. 
    “Because I have you.  Or,
I had you.”  My lower lip pops out.  “You don’t like me
anymore.”
    “It isn’t about like, Marina.”
    I shrug and the movement in my
position has my upper body jostling.  “Course it is.  You can’t
accept my past, so you don’t like my present.”
    “Where’s Jimmy now?”  He
walks over to the side of the bed and stares down at me.
    “Blue Ridge.”
    “There’s no Jimmy there. 
I’d know him.”
    “He’s on History Hill.”
    Silence greets my words. 
“He’s dead?”
    I smile at him, but even in my
semi-drunk state, there’s no humor in it.  “Yeah.  He died a few
weeks after we married.”
    “How the hell did I not know
about this?”
    I shrug again.  “The
folks at the genius farm aren’t ones for gossiping.”
    He grimaces at the truth of my
statement and grits out, “Did you love him?”
    “Very much.  He was the
first person to love me.  To give a damn.  And he left.  They
always leave