Miss Spelled Read online

  ‘Wait! You still haven’t told me who he is— this acquaintance of mine,’ he says.

  After our embrace, I can feel the full effect of the champagne and Frangelico. My body sways a little and my head, full of tiny bubbles of happiness, Krug and relief, allows four words to slip out of my mouth without so much as a thought.

  ‘It’s Aiden St. James,’ I say.

  Hunter’s smile sags as though it is sliding off his face slowly. His sapphire eyes lose their sexy playfulness and quickly become set in a stare usually only reserved for mortal enemies.

  I can only guess that my own smile also slides off my face in reaction to his. Shit! My breathing stops completely, as my feet shuffle backwards, trying to create space between Hunter and myself.

  Hunter’s nostrils flare and his breath becomes audible, a grunting sound, a beast ready to charge.

  I continue to shuffle backwards, alarmed at the change that has overtaken him. His entire body has stiffened, grown taller and broader. His already solid chest puffs out. His recently smiling lips curl into a snarl that would look natural on a hellhound.

  ‘Hunter?’ I say, but my voice is gone and only a whisper remains.

  Hunter sets his eyes on me, causing me to recoil as though he is about to launch and maul me to death.

  ‘Aiden. St. James? You’re marrying Aiden St. James?’

  I try to force words out of my mouth, something that will de-escalate the situation, just like in the classroom every day. Placate, negotiate, calm. It’s clear it won’t make any difference. It’s as though Hunter has been possessed by a demon. Who is this man?

  ‘Y-yes,’ I whisper, my voice now a shadow.

  ‘And you want me to keep quiet about our fuck-fest because it will upset him?’

  All I can do is nod.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ he asks, his voice rising.

  My head shakes from side to side, my mouth too scared to say anything.

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

  Hunter’s face transforms again, from Satan’s chained beast to pure sadistic pleasure. His eyes close as he throws his head back and his mouth breaks open to let a huge roar of laughter out. He claps his hands together and continues to laugh. ‘So you’re the ‘Lee’ Cressida was talking about.’

  I quickly look around the room, taking three steps backwards and identifying the nearest exit, a habit that was instilled in me during my self-defence course seven years ago. Hunter keeps laughing but is now facing me again, his eyes burning with an almost supernatural intensity, his lips in a cruel sneer.

  The fight or flight reflex is ignited as I grab for my bag and turn to run. Hunter takes hold of my wrist and pulls me close to him, until the warmth of his breath is on my face. The skin on my arm twists and burns under his grasp.

  ‘Eleven years ago you left me. You. Left. Me. No one leaves me!’

  ‘I…I…’

  ‘And now you’re about to marry the man I deplore above all others and you expect me to keep quiet about how willing you were to fuck me day and night because it will hurt his feelings?’

  I feel the blood drain from my face and stagger backwards, trying to tear my wrist out of his tighter-than-Spanx grip.

  ‘Tell me, Lou, what do you think will happen when Aiden finds out about us? Not only our past, but that you were here, tonight, in my bedroom, alone with me?’

  The pleasure he is deriving from watching my skin pale and my body tremble is terrifying.

  ‘But nothing’s happened…it was just dinner.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll see it that way? Or will he see you as just another working class slut, out to get his family’s money and marry above her own pitiful level?’

  ‘But nothing’s happened!’ I shout. ‘I didn’t do anything!’

  ‘It will be your word against mine and considering the circumstances, who do you think he’ll believe?’

  The entirety of the situation hits me like a tornado. I am in his room, alone, at night…it doesn’t look innocent at all. It looks like betrayal. Even if Aiden did believe me, I still have to explain what I was doing in this room and my connection to Hunter. The game is up. It’s all over. If there was a way out of this one, it’s not presenting itself.

  Tears well in my eyes. ‘Please, Hunter. You don’t understand…’

  ‘What exactly is it that I don’t understand, Lou? You’ve given me the perfect manner in which to destroy a man I hate and, at the same time, get my revenge on a perky little no-one who left me looking like an idiot in front of my friends 11 years ago. What’s not to understand?’

  ‘Aiden was right, you are an arsehole,’ I whisper.

  ‘Only to those who deserve it,’ he spits.

  ‘Let go of me, Hunter!’ I cry out. Inside the panic levels are on red alert and fast approaching critical mass.

  ‘Marrying someone above you won’t make you one of us, you know that, don’t you? Cressida’s going to be ecstatic that I’ve managed to put an end to your farcical engagement. You can’t polish a turd, Lou. Aiden has been nothing but a disappointment for years, but marrying you would top the lot!’

  I’m a turd? Really?

  ‘How dare you talk about Aiden like that! He’s more of a man than you can ever hope to be!’

  Without thinking, I wrench my hand out of Hunter’s grasp and slap him across the face so hard it leaves my hand burning as though it’s slapped white-hot metal.

  Hunter’s face hardens and his skin colours to a deep red. The vein in his neck pulses wildly.

  ‘You little…’

  He swings his large hand towards my face, but my self-defence training kicks in and I step backwards out of his reach. He is sent off-balance, crashing into the large wooden armoire. There is a sickening crunch as his skull meets with the unforgiving lump of furniture and he falls to the floor as though gravity has spat him out.

  My hand flies to my mouth and stifles a wail. Surely someone heard that? The people in the room below must have heard Hunter’s dead weight, footballer’s frame hit the floor. Any minute now security and management will be knocking on the door. Shit!

  With the toe of my shoe, I nudge his thigh and jump back out of his reach should he be faking unconsciousness. He isn’t. There is no response at all. I kick him lightly in the shin, something that will provoke a reaction due to the pain. But, again, he is dead still.

  Oh my God, he’s not actually dead, is he? I kneel down and feel for a pulse in his neck. It is strong and regular, so he clearly isn’t dead, just completely unconscious. Man, is he going to have a thumper of a headache in the morning, and so richly deserved!

  ‘And that’s how we roll in Brownsville, you puffed-up, cocky arse!’ I say, before turning and reaching for the door handle with my shaking hand.

  ‘Oh…hair!’ Mel would be cranky and it’s unlikely there will ever be another chance to rip it out of his head without a fight.

  The craft scissors in my bag are easy to find, but my fingers are all fumbles, as I reach down again and find a nice tuft of hair at the back, where no one would notice it missing. Oh, stuff it. Of all people on the planet, he is the most deserving candidate for a visible unexplained bald patch. Quickly, I cut a large tuft of hair from the front of his head, put it in my compact mirror case and pull out my mobile. Mel answers on the first ring.

  ‘I’ve got it. Meet me at the front in two minutes,’ I say, my heart pounding as though I have just fought for my life, which in a way, is exactly what’s just happened.

  * * *

  Mel is standing next to her car, arguing with the valet attendant as I race through the rotating doors.

  ‘Ma’am, you can’t park here. We’ve been through this already. You need to move on,’ he says.

  ‘I’m waiting for my friend. It’s not safe for me to wait anywhere else,’ Mel snaps back.

  ‘It’s alright, I’m here now,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘No, it’s the principle,’ says Mel. ‘If I drove a Beamer or a Merc, I�
��d be allowed to park here. But because it’s a Daewoo, it’s not good enough.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say bluntly. ‘Let’s go.’ I motion for Mel to get in the car quickly.

  ‘I’m going to write a letter to your boss,’ Mel says, backing into the driver’s seat of her car. ‘You haven’t heard the last of this.’

  The attendant pokes his head near the window. ‘Listen, I’ve got no hassle with you girls. I know you all need to earn a living. God knows we’ve plenty of hookers working from here, but most of them are more discreet. I can see you two aren’t in the higher end of the market, so best try your luck in the casino itself, okay? But that means you use the multi-level car park.’

  ‘What?’ Mel screeches. ‘You think we’re hookers?’

  ‘Mel, let’s go,’ I urge, looking over my shoulder to the foyer, half-expecting to see Hunter staggering out followed by an entourage of security guards. The adrenaline sprinting around my body is pushing me to the edge of tears.

  ‘He thinks we’re hookers, Lou!’

  ‘Just drive the bloody car, will you?’ I say and then whisper, ‘He’s unconscious on the floor of his room. I don’t want to still be here when he wakes up.’

  Mel eyes widen. She gasps and starts her engine.

  ‘Right, will do. Thanks for the tip,’ she says to the valet attendant as she floors the accelerator and speeds out of the concourse, narrowly missing a bright yellow Lamborghini.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Mel asks.

  I fill her in on the events of the night.

  ‘Arsehole, rat-bastard.’

  ‘That word has been thrown around a lot tonight, believe me.’

  ‘You got the hair though, right?’

  ‘Sure did!’ I say, showing her my cache.

  ‘Shit! Did you leave him any?’ She laughs.

  ‘He’s got a big head and plenty of hair on it, he won’t miss it. So, what’s the hair for?’

  ‘Plan B. I found a spell…’

  ‘A spell? An actual witch’s spell? Hubble, bubble, Harry Potter stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hysterical laughter pours out of me, whether it’s from relief at our escape or fear of what’s just happened, who knows.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mel continues, ‘it’s a spell I found on the internet…’

  ‘On the internet?’

  My nervous hysteria hits high C.

  ‘You can buy spells on the internet, you know. It’s from a credible witch.’

  The gift of speech is no longer with me. My face is paralysed and my voice has completely gone as I attempt to draw in breath to sustain life.

  ‘As I was saying, Majique is a reputable witch and her spell can delete a memory from another person.’

  I slap the dashboard repeatedly, still caught in my panic-induced hysteria, but incapable of making any sound, just one of those silent hysterical attacks of laughter. My stomach is aching with cramps.

  Mel keeps quiet until my composure has once again been regained.

  ‘Sorry, Mel. That’s so brilliant. Just when I thought it was over and Hunter would wake up tomorrow with the beginnings of a burgeoning brain tumour and race to his phone to ring Aiden and Cressida, you come up with a spell from Majique the internet witch to save the day.’

  ‘I took the liberty of finding a magic shop and bought a talisman,’ she says waving a small wooden carving at me.

  ‘A talisman? Jesus, Mel! You’re serious?’

  ‘It’s all you’ve got, so I’d think you would be more appreciative of my creative thinking.’

  ‘I am…I am,’ I say, rolling around the night’s events in my mind.

  There is no other option now. Hunter will make those phone calls as soon as he wakes up and that will be the end of it all. God knows what lies he’ll tell Aiden. He’ll probably never speak to me again. Cressida will be in raptures. I should have been honest and told him. We’ve all got a past and how could anyone predict that a man I fell for 11 years ago would turn out to be the enemy of the love of my life?

  Mel and her crazy idea may be the only thing that can save me. I laugh and cry at the same time.

  ‘Hey, it’s all going to be all right, Lou,’ she says, smiling at me sympathetically.

  My mascara is running into my eyes, stinging like crazy while my stomach muscles convulse with laughter. Crazy.

  ‘Thanks, Mel. I’d be lost without you. It’s probably worth a try, isn’t it? Seeing as there’s no hope coming in any other form.’ Absolutely no hope at all. ‘What do we need to do?’

  ‘Just download the spell from the internet, after you pay for it,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Okay. How much does it cost?’

  Mel mumbles something.

  ‘Sorry, I know my hearing is alcohol-impaired tonight, but how much was it?’ I ask again.

  ‘$700 if you go for the grand deluxe spell.’

  ‘$700! Does Majique have a budget version?’

  Mel looks at me, unimpressed.

  Chapter 5

  Forty minutes later, Mel parks the car in the driveway of my cottage in the leafy suburb of Briar Hill. The street, mostly populated by young families in renovated weatherboard or orange clinker-brick houses, is quiet this time of night. It’s quiet at any time of night, and that is part of the reason why this little cottage is so perfect.

  The two-tone pale and dark blue picket fence, so proudly painted by Dad on a Sunday in late summer, frames a lush green lawn with a curved, paved brick pathway that connects the front gate to the porch. Lillipillies and dwarf magnolias provide a natural screen for the front bedroom and lounge room, which face onto the street, while lavender and jasmine brighten up the garden beds.

  Mel opens the front door, switches on the lights and powers up her laptop.

  ‘It’s a really good site, Lou. Just wait til you see it.’

  ‘Let’s do this quickly,’ I say. ‘You find the internet site and I’ll make us a cup of chamomile tea. Hunter could have come to already. We may not have much time.’

  Quick as a snap, Mel has the page containing the spell loaded and ready to go. Majique, the internet witch, has an incredible website. It’s a bit like those infomercials that are so convincing that, after five minutes of brainwashing, people ring up and order the Snuggie, even though they live in the tropics and will never use it. Already, I am convinced this will work.

  ‘When all hope is lost, Majique’s spells will bring miracles and positivity into your life,’ says Mel as she reads aloud.

  ‘The Memory Deletion Spell uses powerful white magic to persuade the mind to erase the memory of a person or event,’ I add. ‘The spell uses positive energy to convince the person that the event is of such a low priority that it becomes a regressive memory too difficult for the conscious mind to recall. Only via deep specific hypnosis or meditative practices could it be brought forward again.’

  My gaze falls to Mel. ‘So Hunter won’t remember me because I will be deemed irrelevant in his conscious mind? Even when he sees me at the cocktail party?‘

  ‘Hmm…apparently. He’d have to be intentionally hypnotised to remember you.’

  ‘Does it sound too good to be true?’ I ask, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Yes. Just like every man I’ve ever dated. But what else are you going to do?’

  Temporarily snuggling further into the couch and throwing my head backwards, the alternative runs through my mind. The lousy alternative where Hunter ruins everything. My eyes feel like they are full of sand, my head throbs and the vertebrae in my neck have been replaced by a steel rod.

  ‘Do you want to give this a go? I understand if you don’t want to, it’s a bit weird,’ Mel says.

  ‘It’s a lot of money, too.’

  ‘It is,’ Mel agrees as she joins me in flail position on the couch.

  We both exhale, turn and look at each other. Whatever trouble one has gotten into, it’s been with the other by her side. Whenever someone picked on one of us at school, the
y dealt with both of us. We’ve seen each other through doomed romances, failed romances, second-time-around romances and more hangovers than either of us can count. But this is truly crazy. Casting a spell? Or maybe not even casting a spell, perhaps this is just handing $700 over to some witchy scammer who is going to cackle all the way to the Caymans?

  But what if this does work? What if in some Harry Potter, Practical Magic kind of way, this spell deletes me from Hunter’s memory? Imagine if it is real and I don’t try it? I’ll spend the rest of my lonely, single, miserable life wondering…what if?

  ‘Stuff it,’ I say, nodding.

  ‘So that’s a yes?’

  ‘Why the hell not? I’ve got nothing to lose, except $700. What do we need?’

  ‘According to this list we need Hunter’s hair, which you hacked from his rather large cranium earlier this evening, and a photo of him. Do you have a photo?’

  ‘Yep, it’s in my gap year album on the bottom of the bookshelf.’

  ‘We also need a wind-up clock, a toenail clipping from you, three drops of your blood and…eww.’ She screws her face up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Three plucked pubic hairs from you.’

  ‘Plucked?’

  ‘Yes, it says they must be plucked and not cut. I’ll get the photo of Hunter, you can do the rest.’

  We set about gathering what we need and I withdraw my credit card from my purse and sit in front of the computer.

  ‘$700 will send me over my limit,’ I say.

  ‘Losing Aiden will send you out of your mind,’ Mel answers.

  Suddenly, my phone rings. The number isn’t familiar, so it’s not Aiden. There’s only one other person it could be, ringing me at this time of night. Hunter. Quickly, I answer it.

  ‘You little bitch!’ the familiar voice yells down the line. ‘You won’t be smiling so much by the time I’m finished with you.’

  Yep, Hunter. I put it on loudspeaker so that Mel can hear everything.