Keeping Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 4 Read Free Page B

steady my temper.
    “Surprise?” he offered, a boyish smile creeping over his mouth. “Admit it. If I’d asked ahead, you would have said no outright.”
    “I—”
    “Admit it.”
    He was right. Never in a million years would I have agreed to an engagement party. I slid the invitation back into the envelope and threw them both inside the car beside the binder.
    “Well,” I sighed. “I guess I had better go buy a new dress.”

Chapter Four
    Time is meaningless to vampires, which makes them a pain in the ass to carpool with.
    “ Brigit ,” I bellowed, stomping around her sparsely decorated living room in my five-inch Christian Louboutin heels. The shoes were amethyst purple and looked extra gemlike when paired with my butter-yellow, long-sleeved, scoop-necked party dress. Normally the only fashion sense I have is picking out pretty shoes, but I thought the dress was sophisticated and downright regal.
    Not that anyone was going to get to see me in it at the rate my vampire ward was dragging her ass to get ready.
    The vampire in question popped her head out from her bedroom door, her blonde hair still pinned up in hot curlers. My eyes bugged when I saw how far removed from good-to-go she was. I swear I could feel an artery swell in my temple, throbbing loudly with the threat of bursting at any minute. Oh please, let me die of an aneurism. Then I wouldn’t have to kill her.
    “Seriously?” I croaked.
    “No, no, no.” She waved her hand dismissively at me, batting away my irritation like a cat with a toy. Then she stepped out of her bedroom to show me she was fully dressed in a pretty cornflower-blue dress. She looked like every pretty, perky Midwestern girl-next-door cliché I could think of. But more than that, she was fresh-faced and beautiful. As she pulled the rollers out of her hair, I couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “What?” she asked, her gaze drifting down to her dress as though the outfit was the source of my mirth.
    “Your hair.” I pointed to the thick, bouncy curls now forming where the rollers had once been.
    “What about it?”
    I ran a hand through my own hair, stick straight from an earlier stop at the salon. My hair was naturally a mess of thick, loose curls, much like those Brigit had created for herself. Her typical style was straight and glossy. We looked like twins who had decided to swap roles for the night. Once she had taken out all the rollers, it was uncanny how similar she looked to me, even from my less-than-objective perspective on things.
    “You want to pretend to be me for this stupid party?” I asked, only half kidding.
    “Secret, I love you and all, but there isn’t enough money in the world to make me want to be you.” Her long lashes fluttered innocently, but there was a flash of fang in her smile, giving her the appearance of something predatory.
    My baby vampire was really settling into her new life. It had only been a year since she’d been forcibly turned into a blood-sucking fiend, but she was taking her new status in stride. Although she’d once hated being an undead American, it seemed as though she was starting to relish it more and more with each passing month. I wish I could accept my vampiric heritage as well as she did.
    “You ready?” She slung a purse over her shoulder and tapped an impatient toe as though I’d been the one dragging ass this whole time. The great thing about Brigit was no matter how hard she tried to look serious or menacing, she could never fake it. In a moment she was grinning and giggling like a preteen.
    “Let’s get this show on the road.”
     
     
    Central Park West would never not remind me of the shitty prime-time soap opera that once bore the same name. My grandmere had loved the cheeky show so much she used to tape it weekly, which was how I’d stumbled across it years after it aired and before I moved to the city itself. Parked outside the shiny monstrosity of an apartment block where my future sister-in-law