The Taking (Seven Deadly Sins #3)(3)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Then she was going to go home to their fabulously trendy condo off Magazine Street and she was somehow going to find the nerve to pack her bags and leave.

He would fight her on it. Dirty. He would twist and bend the truth, manipulate, and threaten with whatever weapons he had at his disposal.

But she had to find the courage to know that no longer mattered.

“You know John’s wife is into all that metaphysical crap and she has that guy here doing voodoo readings as some kind of entertainment. Only no one is getting readings because no one wants to appear to believe in that bullshit. It will make John’s wife, and therefore John, happy if you go and have a reading.”

Regan relaxed her shoulders a fraction. “Sure, I can do that.” It would get her away from her husband and all the mindless chatter of the corporate gathering. “Where is he?”

Retreating into a corner and letting someone tell her she had a financial windfall coming very soon was the perfect way to hide from the party, to regroup and gather herself to get through the rest of the night.

“He’s in the interior courtyard. Don’t worry, you have to pass the bar to get there.”

With that, he dismissed her by turning around and walking away, a smile on his face and his hand out to shake, but not before he put that hand on the small of her back, thumb pressing into her flesh. To anyone watching, a sweet gesture of intimacy, to her, a stamp of his ownership, a tactile reminder that she had let her fear drag this out too long. He expected to touch her, and she cringed at it.

Forgoing the bar out of a childish and pointless defiance, Regan crossed the elegant room, a former residence in the French Quarter turned restaurant and caterer. Her heels, a forty-dollar bargain on sale at a boutique on Chartres, slipped a little on the wood floor when she took the slight step down to the brick courtyard. Teetering, she grabbed the doorway for balance, not daring to look back to see if her husband had seen.

Lush. The word echoed, stinging like a slap.

He would criticize her later in the humming voice, call her an embarrassment, lock the liquor cabinet in their condo again and put the key on his key chain. Regan knew she didn’t have a drinking problem, and she wasn’t in denial or deluding herself. She enjoyed a good glass of wine, singular being the key, and occasionally she indulged and had several glasses. Being anything close to drunk was something that happened to her maybe once a year.

But it didn’t matter if she never drank a single drop. Then he would say she was embarrassing him by not tasting Mr. So and So’s wine collection, or for acting evangelist in front of Mr. Big Shot, who was giving a toast.

Never right. She would never do it right. And he was always in control, of her, of her life.

“Are you okay?”

Regan’s head snapped up from studying the uneven bricks of the courtyard as she clutched the doorway and regained her balance, her equilibrium. The source of the voice was a man sitting in a wicker chair, leaning back casually against its rich red-striped cushion. He was about thirty, his face, his skin, his hair all an indistinguishable blend of several ethnicities. Whether he was white, black, Latin, Arab, she didn’t know. What she did know was that whatever melting pot his genes had been served from, it was a delicious combination.

The man was gorgeous and she was acutely embarrassed that he had seen her stumble.

“I’m fine,” she murmured. “I just didn’t realize there was a step down, and these stupid shoes…” She bent her knee and lifted her foot to point at one of the culprits. “They’re new and not scuffed yet, so they slid on the wood floor… Together it was a bad combination.”

He gave a small smile. “Practically deadly.”

Regan felt a blush staining her cheeks and she was mortified. What was she, fourteen? It was just nerves, the night, her whole marriage culminating in her constantly feeling unsure, apologizing for all her actions, no matter what they were. She was practically to the point of apologizing for existing and that scared her. Showed her how much her marriage had damaged her. This man’s voice was casual and teasing and she should take that at face value, not try to backpedal and soothe the way she would with her husband.

“I’m lucky to be alive,” she told him.

The smile twitched. She had amused him, she could tell. But it was dangerous to be alone in the dusky courtyard with a good-looking man, regardless of how innocuous it seemed. It was the wrong time to anger her husband, and anyone he perceived as competition would infuriate him. “Do you know where we’re supposed to go to get the readings? John’s wife—you do know John, I’m assuming?—she arranged for someone to be here and I’m supposed to have a reading.”

“Supposed to?” His eyebrow rose. “Well, if you’re supposed to, have a seat.”

Gesturing to the table in front of him with an empty chair on the side opposite his, his hand moved from its hidden position behind the table to rest on top of it. She realized he was holding a deck of tarot cards, and the sweat that had been between her br**sts broke out again with a vengeance. Of course he was the voodoo practitioner. That explained his plain black shirt, his dark jeans instead of a suit, and why she’d never seen him before.

“Oh, right, absolutely, thanks.” Regan cleared her throat and moved to the empty chair. She folded her hands on the table, then in her lap, then on the table again, crossing and uncrossing her legs. It was hard to look at him, his serious, steady eyes a brilliant pale blue, a color so unusual and opaque it was mesmerizing. His hands moved over the worn deck of cards, shuffling them, but his eyes were trained on her.

“Nice pearls,” he said, his voice a low, rich, masculine timbre. Not gravelly, not so deep it was gruff, but a solid, male sound, pleasing to listen to. “Your husband has good taste.”

Her hand shot to her throat to feel the necklace. “Thanks. How… how do you know I’m married?”

“You’re wearing a gigantic diamond on your ring finger. Doesn’t take the cards to reveal you have a husband.”

“Oh, right. Duh.” Regan tried to laugh, but it was brittle, and his hands paused as he watched her. He was a still person, sitting with little movement, no fidgeting or adjusting, and it made Regan squirm even more.

“Can I see it?”

“See what?” Regan looked at him blankly.

“Your ring.” He held his hand out.

“Oh.” Flustered, Regan glanced at her wedding ring. She never took it off. She hadn’t taken it off since the day her husband had placed it on her finger, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to take it off now. But neither did the idea of holding her hand out to this man and letting him run his fingers over her skin, her diamond, appeal to her. That seemed too intimate, too odd. Dangerous.