Free Murder on the Riviera by Anisa Claire West Page B

wished she could somehow have him back.  But now he roamed among mortals…
    Thaddeus dashed into the room with a concerned expression on his face.
    “Is everything alright?  What was that crashing?”
    She gave him a disdainful look.  What an imbecile he could be.  He followed her eyes to the shattered glass on the floor.
    “What was that crashing? Well, let me see.  Could it have been the broken glass all over the floor?” The Silver Goddess lashed out at Thaddeus.
    “This needs to be cleaned up before someone gets hurt,” Thaddeus advised.
    This comment earned him another look of disgust from the Silver Goddess.
    “Clean it up?  Shall I do it?” She balked, laughing humorlessly.  “Go get one of my manservants.”
    With a glance of dejection blended with resentment, Thaddeus exited the room, his fists at his sides.  He was not her butler, and he despised when she treated him that way.  How could his body be so strong, yet his resolve so weak, he wondered in frustration.  In the corridor, he saw one of the muscular manservants enter the Goddess’s chamber.   An unwelcome twitch of jealousy pulsed on his face, as Thaddeus stood immobile, listening to the exchange between his lover and the manservant.
    “Clean up that mess,” the Silver Goddess instructed harshly from her bath.
    Reflexively, the manservant stared into the water, trying to discern the Goddess’s lush body parts.  This earned him another terse remonstration from her.
    “Don’t ogle me! Just clean up and go.”
    She knew she could be as rude as her temperament required.  Her manservants had drunk the wine years ago and were as fully trapped inside the Immortality Abyss as Thaddeus was.
    “Quickly!” She screamed as the hapless manservant scooped up the broken glass with his bare hands, depositing it into a plastic bag as fast as he could without cutting himself.
    He didn’t dare look at her again, although from the corner of his eye, he could see that she was toying with him, letting her breasts rise just above the top of the water before concealing them again within a cloud of frothy white bubbles.
    Thaddeus craned his neck in the hallway, pressing his ear against the wall.  He grimaced as he heard a delicate splash of water.  Had the manservant joined her in the bathtub?  Could she really be that treacherous?
    Thaddeus had always likened the Silver Goddess to an exquisitely carved ice sculpture.  The only difference was, she would never melt.  Her deep freeze somehow set his entire being bursting into blue flames.  He did not love her, but he felt a powerful sense of ownership over her.  And he would not let her strip him of his manhood by frolicking with another lover.
    In a blind rage, he thrust himself into the room, narrowing his eyes to see the manservant still picking up the tiny pieces and the Silver Goddess bobbing up and down in the water as her breasts bounced provocatively.
    “Back so soon?” She asked coolly.
    He glared at her, fully aware that she was trying to seduce the manservant, although she probably had no intention of actually bedding him, Thaddeus knew.  The Goddess was fond of teasing men into a frenzy and then retreating cruelly.   Without a hint of self-consciousness, the Silver Goddess rose from the bathtub and gracefully stepped onto a plush rug.  Her skin glistened from slick bath oil, and a few stray bubbles flowed strategically down the length of her torso.  In the corner of the room, the manservant fought to stay focused on the task at hand, but still watched the temptress from the periphery of his vision. Thaddeus, meanwhile, looked at her full on, glaring even more ferociously now.
    “Don’t get any ideas, lover.  I am going to recline on the beach now, and I require solitude.  Do not follow me,” she instructed.
    She slipped into her satin robe and marched bare foot from the top floor of the castle all the way to the foyer where she sighed heavily as the door swung open, aided by