A Smile as Sweet as Poison Read online

  What a difference two weeks makes…

  As far as she knew, there was a mahjong game at Sadie’s place tonight. Her mother’s social life had blossomed since they’d left the rumor-rich hypocrisy of quaint, small-town life and relocated to a city with a non-WASP population of more than two. Sadie was the closest thing Hazel had to a friend these days—her only friend, really—but not even the strength of their bond could drag Hazel out of her apartment tonight.

  There would be other Sunday nights to field questions about when she was getting married and had she met someone. And was he handsome, rich, respectable?

  Hazel kicked off shoes and purse, and settled on the couch with her laptop balanced on her knees. She locked down any guilt about lying to Ward.

  The browser tabs were still open. She waited for the Internet connection to catch before refreshing the pages. As a matter of course, the Wi-Fi was slower in the evenings. Can’t complain. I’m not the one paying for it.

  It took everything she had not to bite her filed nails in anticipation. She would have spent the whole day in front of the computer if prior engagements allowed it. Luckily, she’d had the morning shift at Marco’s and the horror of having to explain herself to Dylan and Ward had prevented her from web surfing all through the afternoon.

  But the night ahead was free of distraction. Hazel ignored the rumbling of her stomach as the first browser tab loaded. Her email inbox was empty. Nothing new since last night’s exchange.

  Her heart became a block of cement gradually sinking lower and lower, shoving aside all other internal organs to settle somewhere in the pit of her stomach. No new email meant no sign that her pleas and threats had yielded any result.

  It meant that nothing would change.

  Social media was quiet, too, little more than the usual status updates and tagged photos of pets or children. Her sister-in-law’s invitations to the reunion were nearly lost among the stream of messages about her pregnancy.

  Hazel flinched as a saxophone shrilled through her speakers, accompanied by the grating sound of a woman’s moans. She hurried to switch off the audio, but it was already too late. Bile in the back of her throat, she switched tabs.

  Ads promoting eager sex kittens in her area jostled for space in the sidebar. A long horizontal banner flashed with the promise of ‘lesbians gagging for cock’ just beneath the video player. She hadn’t been able to figure out how to disengage autoplay on all her many visits to the page over the past two weeks. By the time she reached the tab, the hair-raising scene was already well underway.

  Hazel struck the pause button with enough force that the space bar on her ancient laptop nearly came loose. She barely noticed. Her ears were ringing, blood whooshing like a churning sea. She felt it in her face, too, the warm, numbing blush of humiliation. She should have been familiar with the sensation by now.

  Idly, she clicked through to the last tab in the browser. No surprise there.

  Shoulda thought of privacy before you took off your clothes, slut.

  She sounds like a squealing pig. LOL.

  Bitch you got some nerve putting this on your man. You took your clothes off on camera. Fucking deal with it.

  Social media could be cruel, Hazel knew, and finding the forums where webmasters of submission-based Internet pornography roamed hadn’t been a pleasant task. All the same, weathering the vitriolic backlash wasn’t easy.

  With shaking hands, Hazel tipped the laptop lid down and closed it. The fan whirred for a few stubborn seconds longer before grudgingly shutting off. Silence returned to the room, thick and suffocating. Hazel pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and gulped down a couple of deep breaths. It didn’t matter. The slurs, the judgment—none of it counted for anything. As long as she found a way to get that video down, the rest was just fog. Prickly to the eyes, sure, but in no way harmful.

  This shouldn’t be happening. They’re right. If she hadn’t allowed herself to be put in that position, there would be no sex tape. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known he was filming them.

  Hazel choked down the ball of guilty rage that threatened to spill out in a sob and fired up the laptop again.

  Before she could lash out against the trolls, her phone shrilled to life with a new text message. She fished it out of her purse. Trepidation lingered, although only a handful of people knew this number. Her old one had popped up online and had to be changed.

  Sadie’s heads up had saved Hazel a lot of heartache in that regard.

  Surprise slackened the cold grip of panic that seized her heart when she recognized Ward’s caller ID. He wanted to come to the mahjong game after all.

  I should meet your friends sooner or later.

  Were this any other night, the emojis tacked to the end of the text would have earned him a smile.

  Hazel flexed her fingers. The last thing she wanted was to spend her evening making nice with strangers, or skirting Sadie’s questions. But Ward had only met her best friend briefly, at the diner. As far as Hazel remembered, their introduction had been frosty at best. For all that she was a notorious party girl—and had been so since long before they left Dunby—Sadie didn’t think much of Hazel’s decision to hook up with two men at the same time. She seemed certain that Hazel would get hurt.

  She’s not wrong.

  Hazel peered at the laptop. She must have switched tabs without looking, because the lurid sight of naked women flashed into view. At the heart of all the banners and ‘click here’ imperatives, the video player revealed her own stark naked body, hands fettered above her head with black leather cuffs in a grotesque parody of what she’d been up to less than an hour earlier, at Dylan’s loft.

  Her hair was shorter, bangs drooping low and sweaty over her brow, but there could be no confusion. It was well and truly Hazel dangling there like a piece of meat. It was Hazel, her nipples clamped with silver butterfly clips, a red ball gag stuffed in her mouth to muffle her moans.

  The image was frozen on a shot of the paddle striking her hip. Cellulite rippled under the spotlights overhead, adding one more level of degradation to what was already a mortifying memory.

  Hazel tapped her cell phone screen to wake the display.

  Sure. I’ll pick you up.

  With a deep breath, she sent the text message. She might as well enjoy being in a relationship while it lasted. Six years ago, in another life, she hadn’t known the end was coming until it had ripped out her heart.

  Chapter Two

  “No Dylan?”

  “We’re not attached at the hip,” Ward scoffed, sliding into the front seat. “Vintage. Nice.”

  It took Hazel a moment to realize that this was the first time Ward had seen the inside of her car.

  “Watch it,” she muttered under her breath. “This baby saw me through college.” Or the two and a half years Hazel had seen of it. When she made the decision to leave—impromptu, in the middle of the night—she’d simply packed everything she had into the Volvo and set a course for Dunby, Missouri.

  Returning to her hometown should’ve been a relief. It wasn’t.

  She cleared her throat to dispel the nerves that had surged up unexpectedly. “I thought Dylan actually knows how to play mahjong…”

  “He had some work to finish.”

  “You mean he didn’t want to see Sadie again,” Hazel surmised. Ward had a decent poker face, but once she’d figured out that he would say and do anything so his best friend could come out on top, the cracks instantly became obvious. “She has a boyfriend now.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Hazel saw Ward glance at her profile. “So you’ve mentioned…about sixteen times.”

  “That often?” Chagrin turned her voice soft and reedy.

  “He’s not interested,” said Ward. “Not since you came along.”

  “I know that.”

  It didn’t stop her wondering.

  Dylan and Sadie had met in a fetish club. They were perfect, complementary halves of the same whole—he a wealth
y, no-nonsense Dominant and she a down-on-her-luck submissive looking for a partner. They were a racy Hollywood rom-com waiting to happen.

  The two of them even looked good together, fine-boned and lithe, imbued with the kind of innate grace that Hazel had sought to emulate since she’d developed breasts. Sadie’s extended family would have adored Dylan’s Chinese roots. Dylan’s friends sure would have welcomed Sadie into their midst. She was so effervescent and good-natured that Hazel had no doubt she could win over even brash, prickly Ward.

  “He’s slept with more women than just Sadie,” Ward pointed out with his usual tact. “Are you going to be jealous of all of them?”

  “Will you give it a rest?” Hazel snapped. “I’m not jealous.”

  “That why you’re throttling the steering wheel?”

  Hazel relaxed her grip at the first red light. “Is…is that what Dylan thinks?”

  “Oh no. I’m not playing go-between with you two—”

  “You just said he’s not coming because of Sadie!” Hazel protested. This wasn’t about seeking a direct line to Dylan’s heart that would somehow bypass Dylan’s brain. It wasn’t.

  Behind them, a red sedan honked. Hazel hadn’t noticed the light change to green. She eased into the first lane and waved the Ford on.

  The driver shouted something obscene as he overtook them.

  “See?” Hazel shot Ward an icy smile. “I’m perfectly calm.” Not jealous at all. Not at all as if she’d ever wasted a single minute wondering if Dylan had settled for her because Sadie was unavailable—or worse, that he had pursued her in an attempt to get close to Sadie.

  Ward shook his head, but said nothing more.

  They drove in silence to Sadie’s house, a white bungalow with green shutters that had belonged to her mother’s late second husband. The modest driveway barely fit the two cars thrust end to end between one trellis fence and the property next door.

  “Mind the thorns,” Hazel warned, killing the engine.

  For the first time since she’d set off from the Aulden Way loft, it occurred to Hazel that she should’ve called ahead to warn Sadie that she was coming—and that she was bringing company. She felt a pang of guilt settle deep in her belly for assuming she could just barge in, though the offer to come by whenever she wanted had never been retracted. Sadie—and Sadie’s mother—were the only family Hazel had on the west coast and they had adopted her as something of an honorary relative.

  Too late to back out now.

  The lights were on behind the gauzy ground floor curtains and voices rang from within as Hazel raised her hand to the doorbell.

  “Last chance to back out,” she muttered.

  He pinched her in retribution, right at the junction of thigh and hip where either he or Dylan had whacked her earlier with the flogger. The sensation was slightly dulled through her jeans, but Hazel still greeted the opening of the door with a yelp.

  Sadie hitched her eyebrows. “Hazel? This is a—”

  “I know, I know. I’m late.” Hazel stepped up to buff her cheek with a kiss.

  “That’s okay…” Surprise was audible in Sadie’s voice. She wore a powder blue cashmere sweater over a gray and white polka dot dress, neither one fitting her quite right. A pink headband held her hair out of her eyes. She was playing Good Chinese Daughter Sadie tonight, not to be confused with Party Animal or Late Night Joyride Sadie, both of whom were far more familiar to Hazel. “And this is?”

  “Ward,” Hazel put in quickly, sliding her arm through his. Behave.

  She didn’t know whose forked tongue she dreaded more.

  “Think we’ve met,” Sadie replied archly.

  Ward took no notice. “We did indeed.” He held out his hand the way he might have done to an associate—brisk and formal, but not without the hint of a smile twitching at his lips. What he lacked in effortless charm, Ward more than made up for in clever maneuvering, his mind like a steel trap. “Congratulations,” he added. “Hazel didn’t say you were getting married.”

  “What?” Hazel gaped. “She’s not…”

  Ward nodded to Sadie’s hand, so small and pale in his. A trio of pink gemstones mounted on a silver base gleamed on her ring finger.

  “You’re engaged?” Hazel squeaked.

  Sadie heaved a sigh. “You’d best come in.”

  * * * *

  Between them, Mrs. Ling, Mrs. Yu and Mrs. Shen were more than happy to show Ward the ins and outs of mahjong. The click of bakelite tiles echoed rhythmically beneath their overlapping instructions while Sadie’s mother plied Ward with tea and assorted pastries.

  Surrounded by permed, rouged ladies of a certain age, Ward seemed utterly at home. He joked with them, he tried out what little Mandarin he knew.

  He was like a fish exchanging rivers for oceans.

  Hazel startled as Sadie took her hand.

  “I was going to tell you.”

  About the ring. The wedding. The shock hadn’t worn off yet, but Hazel forced a smile to her lips. “I haven’t exactly been available…” She spent a lot of time at the loft, true, and their schedules at Marco’s didn’t always align. But they’d worked a shift at the diner just this morning. Sadie could have mentioned the engagement.

  She’d chosen not to.

  “He seems like a handful,” Sadie agreed, gaze drifting over Hazel’s shoulder to the round dining table that separated kitchen and living room.

  Mrs. Ling’s home wasn’t large. Hazel had grown up in a center hall colonial back in Missouri, in a family of wealthy ranchers turned well-off, respectable members of the community—until her scandal had brought a dark cloud over decades of carefully curated virtue. She knew that her own mother would have turned her nose up at living in such cramped conditions.

  Mrs. Whitley would never have placed doilies on her couches, or collected smiling clown watercolors. She would’ve called the cat figurines over the TV tacky.

  Then again, Hazel’s mother had always told her children they could do anything, be anyone. She was wrong a lot.

  “It’s been an interesting couple of weeks,” Hazel replied diplomatically.

  “Have you—?”

  Hazel cut off the question with a single look. Not many people knew details of her past. In LA, Sadie alone had that dubious honor. It was she who had alerted Hazel to the latest volley of online publicity.

  “I’m handling it,” Hazel lied. Badly, with more stops than starts, but she was doing the best she could.

  The last time the video—and assorted screen grabs—popped up, she’d been able to email a C&D to the webmaster and get the evidence erased, the uploader’s account suspended. Either this latest peddler of revenge porn didn’t read his emails or he’d figured out that hers were only empty threats. She didn’t have copyright over the video. She couldn’t prove that the recording had been obtained illegally.

  It hadn’t been.

  Skin prickling with discomfort, Hazel reached for the teacup Sadie had filled for her. “So, you’re getting married… Does Frank know?”

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “He’d better. He’s the one who proposed.”

  “What, down on one knee and everything?”

  Frank was Sadie’s latest beau, a deceptively ordinary med student that matchmakers in her mother’s circle had thrust into Sadie’s life in hopes that he would make an honest woman out of her. Having known her since they were girls, Hazel understood that for the lost battle it was. Maybe Frank didn’t mind.

  He must have realized by now that Sadie couldn’t be tamed.

  There were good guys out there. The back of her neck grew hot at the thought of Ward and Dylan circling her in the playroom, their voices low and sexy, their hands on her naked flesh.

  “It was really sudden,” Sadie confessed, tearing her from her reverie. “We drove up to Griffith Park. He said he wanted to see the Observatory. I figured okay, sure, as long as he doesn’t expect me to listen to him drone on and on…” She laced her fingers and pressed her knuckles to her mo
uth, so the next part of the story was slightly muffled. “Next thing I know, we’re looking out over downtown LA like in Rebel Without a Cause and he’s kissing me, and he goes, I think we should get married.”

  Giddy, second-hand excitement seeped into Hazel’s bloodstream despite the lingering hurt. “And you said yes?”

  “Well, I made him repeat it first,” Sadie laughed. “It’s really windy up there. I wanted to be sure I heard him right.” She tilted back against the couch, hugging her joined hands between slim thighs. “I’m getting married. Can you believe it?”

  Hazel shook her head. As long as she’d known Sadie, she’d been going through boyfriends like shades of lipstick. She gave her heart away all too easily. Even with Dylan—and Hazel tried her best not to let envy pollute her thoughts—it had been a short-lived spark, the kind of breathless, blue hour chemistry that can’t survive the harsh glare of morning.

  “I’m happy for you,” she said after a beat. “And Frank.”

  Sadie waved a hand. “Eh, who cares about him?” She was tipping forward in the next moment and capturing Hazel’s hands in hers. The tea in Hazel’s cup nearly spilled over her jeans. “You’ll be my bridesmaid, right? You have to.”

  “Duh… Of course. If you still like me—whenever you decide on a date.”

  “September third,” Sadie announced with a wide, beaming smile.

  Hazel balked. “But that’s six weeks away…”

  “I know, it’s really short-notice, but Frank’s got the thesis to think about and we didn’t want to draw out the planning, anyway. You know what my mom’s like,” Sadie added with a sardonic half-smile. “You can make it, right?”

  “Sure, yeah.” She didn’t have any plans. By September third, she would probably welcome any reason to get out of the house.

  Sadie kissed her knuckles. “You’re the best.” She bounded to her feet with a swish of polka dots. “Let me show you the dresses—I have everything planned. I even called the venue!”