Undead and Unforgiven(52)
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Hmm. No beloved or my queen or darling or my own. Strictly business. If he called me Mrs. Sinclair I would lose my shit.
“Because I’d rather you stayed here and took care of vampire business.”
He stood. He went up and up. Normally I didn’t find his height intimidating. “What is going on?”
“Nothing!” It was true. C’mon, Big Bad, where are you already? Come try to kill us already! “Look, Hell is my burden, okay? And do you really think it’s smart for the king and the queen to be in Hell at the same time?”
“No,” he replied, “I think we should take turns.”
And there it was. Yeah, I’ll bet you think we should take turns. When you’re there, Hell is yours. When I’m there, it’s ours. “The vampire kingdom is ours. Hell is mine.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long have you mistrusted me?”
“Mistrust is a strong word,” I managed. Jeez, where had he been? I’ve mistrusted him from pretty much the moment we met. It didn’t mean I didn’t love him. It meant he was sneaky. He knew this. I knew this. Normally it wasn’t a problem.
“And now you’re outright lying.”
“Outright is a strong word.”
His dark eyes went narrow with anger and, I think, some pain. No! Force an immunity to the puppy eyes! This is no time to back down.
“When you’re ready to have an adult conversation with your husband and king, I’ll be in the kitchen baking gluten-free pupcakes for the girls.”
“Well, don’t hold your breath!” I shouted as he gently closed the door as he left (Sinclair was never uncouth enough to slam doors shut). And sure, I was now having an argument with a closed door, but I was never one to stand on my dignity. “I’m in no rush to have an adult conversation with my husband and king so get ready to wait a looooong time!”
Fuck.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
I stomped into the kitchen right on Sinclair’s heels. Not literally. Which was too bad. I was also thinking about kicking his shins, but I’d have to get in front of him first, and he was a speedy sucker. “I can’t believe you’re pulling this Fred Flintstone shit again.”
“I cannot believe you insist on comparing real-life problems to cartoons created for elementary school children.”
“Again with the snobbery!”
“Refusing to see parallels between our lives and The Flintstones is not snobbery. It is the function of a rational mind.”
Well, he might have a point. Too bad! The best defense was a good whatever-the-saying-is. “It’s 2015—that chauvinist thing doesn’t play so well. Bad enough you’re regressing decades, but you’re pulling attitude after you tricked me into marrying you? Yeah, that’s right, I said it, tricked—”13
“I deny nothing.”
“—bamboozled me into a crooked vampire marriage and then tried to pull that ‘no wife of mine will leave the kitchen’ crapola, which was just as asinine then as it is now.” It took a few seconds for his response to sink in. “And—and you deny nothing!”
Scowling, Sinclair was tying on his apron (twill, knee length, red and white striped, gift from Tina), then turning to the cupboards and getting out the whole wheat flour, the peanut butter (Dick was happy with Jif; the puppies got the gourmet stuff from Trader Joe’s), free-range eggs, Madagascar vanilla, organic bananas. Goddamned dogs ate better than most of the city.
“That apron looks stupid.”
“There is no need to malign the good people at Williams-Sonoma simply because you’re angry with me.” He was hauling bowls out of the cupboard and slamming them on the counter, so thank God for stainless steel.
“I’ll malign whoever I want! And you’re denting the shit out of those bowls,” I added, and I definitely wasn’t spiteful about it.
“They’ll still work,” he snapped back, setting one on a dent so it was on its side, looking like a small stainless steel cave. “Again, when you are prepared to have an adult discussion— Quiet!”
The puppies, who had been enjoying one of their eighteen daily naps, had heard Sinclair and sent up a racket from the mudroom. If yelps and barks could be translated, we’d hear, “Let us out! We aren’t licking your face! You’re just standing there, unlicked! This will not stand! Freeeeedom!”
Since Sinclair didn’t raise his voice at them when they desecrated his Italian loafers and the backseats of two of his cars (in the same week!), it was a pretty good indicator of how angry he was. But before I could say anything, we heard the back door slam, and then the mudroom door popped open.