She wouldn’t blame him for indulging while he was here and not getting attached. Hell, if he broke her heart this time, it would be some sort of karmic retribution somehow. She deserved it.
Maybe she was just a masochist, but she couldn’t walk away from him. Not twice in a lifetime.
“I’ve got to sample dessert,” Deacon said, oblivious to her train of thought. “I might explode or spend this afternoon napping in my office, but I told Shane that I would try everything.” He eyed the selection of desserts on the table with dismay.
“I think you’ve still got room,” she said. She reached out and picked up a berry tartlet, bringing it up to his lips. “Take a bite.”
He didn’t resist. Deacon bit down into the sweet treat, taking half of it into his mouth. Chewing, he watched as she brought the rest of it up to her mouth and finished it off with a satisfied sound.
“Yummy,” she said and picked up another treat. This one was a small brownie with whipped cream and a dusting of what looked like chili powder. That would be interesting.
As they made their way through the rest of the desserts, Cecelia could feel them building toward something more. If it wasn’t the middle of the afternoon, she was certain he would take her home and make love to her. As it was, she wouldn’t be surprised if he escorted her into his office and locked the door. The entire meal had been the tastiest foreplay she’d ever had. It made her want to spend the weekend in bed with him, and she would if it wasn’t for that pesky engagement party she had to go to tomorrow night.
It occurred to her that there might be one way to get through the evening after all. “Deacon, can I ask you for a favor?”
He leaned in, causing the most delicious tingles as he smoothed his palm down her arm. “Anything.”
“Would you go with me to Wes and Isabelle’s engagement party at the club?” She had no doubt that the gossip would be flying about her breakup with Chip, and it would be so much easier if she had Deacon there with her to soften the blow.
Deacon narrowed his gaze at her. “The club? The Texas Cattleman’s Club? Are you serious?”
Cecelia frowned. “Of course I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be serious? I’m a member. Everyone in town practically is a member now. What’s the big deal?”
With a sigh, Deacon sat back against the leather of the booth. “The big deal is that I’m not a member. They would never let me be a member. I don’t exactly relish hanging out someplace where I’m not wanted.”
Sometimes Cecelia forgot how hard it was for Deacon to live in Royal back when they were kids. He had never fit in with the others driving the BMWs they got for their sweet sixteenth and going home to their mansions at night. She never really thought about it, because none of it ever mattered to her. He had simply been the most wonderful boy she’d ever known. The fact that he’d driven a beat-up pickup truck and lived in a small, unimpressive house on the edge of town hadn’t been important.
But it had been important to him both then and now, gauging by his reaction. Even though he was successful, even though he could buy and sell half the people in this town, he still had a chip on his shoulder.
“You’re not seventeen and broke anymore, Deacon. Stop worrying about all those other people and what they might or might not think. Actually, most of them are so self-centered that they won’t be nearly as concerned with your being at the club as they will be about a million other things.”
She leaned into him and took his hand. The touch of his skin against hers made her long for the night they’d spent together with his hands gliding over her naked body. Cecelia really did want him to go to the party with her, and not just as a buffer from the ire of the town. She wanted to go back to his place afterward and spend all night relishing the feel of him against her.
Cecelia looked in his eyes, hoping they reflected her intentions and thoughts. She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb in the slow, lazy circles guaranteed to drive him wild and get her exactly what she wanted. “Come with me. Please.”
Jaw tight, his gaze dropped to his hand. With a soft shake of his head, he sighed. “Okay, you win. When is this engagement party?”
“Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. Will that work for you?”
Deacon nodded. “I suppose. Will I get some sort of special reward for being your escort for the evening?” he asked with a grin lighting his eyes.
“You absolutely will,” she promised. “Do you have anything in mind?”
“I do.” Deacon took her hand and scooped it up in his own. He pressed his fingertips into the palm of her hand and stroked gently but firmly, turning her own trick on her. It was easy to imagine those hands on her body, those fingers stroking the fires that burned deep inside her. “What are you doing after work today?” he asked.
Her gaze met his, a small smile curling her lips even as he continued to tease her with his fingertips. “Nothing much,” she said coyly. “What do you plan to do tonight?”
Deacon leaned into her, burying his fingers in the loose hair at the nape of her neck and bringing her lips a fraction of an inch from his own. She wanted to close the gap between them and lose herself in his kiss. It was all she wanted, all she could think of when they were this close. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. Her tongue snaked across her bottom lip to wet it in anticipation of his kiss.
Instead he smiled and let his fingers trace along the line of her jaw. “Why, I plan to be doing you, Miss Morgan.”
Seven
“So, are you friends with Wes or Isabelle?” Deacon asked as they slipped into the crowd mingling at the clubhouse.
Cecelia twisted her lips as she tried to come up with a good answer. “Neither, really. Wes and I are business rivals. We dated a while back, but that’s it. I don’t really know Isabelle that well, either.”
“Why would he invite his ex to his engagement party?”
That was a good question, considering she was also the reason he’d gone years without knowing he had a daughter. She still felt bad about misjudging that whole situation. She’d helped to correct it in the end, but Wes would never get that time back, and that was her fault. “Well, in a roundabout way, I did help bring him and Isabelle back together after they broke up a few years ago.”
“How’s that?”
She shook her head and reached out for a flute of champagne being passed on a tray by a waiter in the standard black-and-white uniform of the club. Cecelia hesitated to tell Deacon what she’d done. He still saw her as the sweet girl he’d dated in school, and she didn’t want him to see her any differently. “You don’t want to know.”
“Not good?” Deacon asked.
She shrugged. “Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest moment. But it all turned out well in the end, and since Isabelle invited me despite it all, I knew I needed to come and work on mending those bridges.” Leaning into him, she spoke quieter so others nearby couldn’t hear her. “I fear that before too long, I’ll need all the friends I can get.”
Deacon slipped a protective arm around her waist. “If anyone so much as says an ugly word to you tonight, I’ll punch them in the jaw.”
Cecelia smiled and leaned into his embrace. She wouldn’t mind seeing Chip sprawled across the worn hardwood floor of the club, but that would cause more trouble than it was worth. And she probably deserved some of those ugly words. “That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”
As they turned back toward the crowd, the people parted and Isabelle rushed forward to give Cecelia a hug. She looked radiant tonight in a shimmering bronze cocktail dress that brought out the copper in her hazel eyes. “Cecelia, you made it! I’m so glad.”
Cecelia accepted the hug and smiled as warmly as she could. Once she realized she’d been wrong about Isabelle’s gold-digging ways, she found she really did like her. Now she just had to fight off the pa
ngs of envy where Wes’s fiancée was concerned. Soon, Isabelle would have the family that Cecelia had always wanted. She shouldn’t hold that against her, though. It was a long time coming, raising Caroline as a single mother, in part because of Cecelia’s meddling.
Turning to her date, Cecelia introduced them. “Isabelle, this is Deacon Chase. He’s building The Bellamy with Shane Delgado.”
Isabelle smiled and shook his hand. “I’m so excited for the hotel to open. It looks amazing from the outside.”
Cecelia could tell Deacon was nervous, but he was handling it well. “Thank you,” he said politely. “It looks amazing on the inside, too, thanks to Cecelia’s great designs. Congratulations on your engagement.”
“Thank you.”
“It looks like a great turnout,” Cecelia noted. “Even Teddy Bradford is here.” That was a surprise to everyone, she was certain. She knew the CEO of Playco had been in merger negotiations with Wes before Maverick outed him as a deadbeat dad. Teddy espoused family values and had dropped Wes’s Texas Toy Company like a rock when he found out about Isabelle and Caroline.
“I actually invited him,” Isabelle confided. “I haven’t given up on the Playco merger, even if Wes thinks all is lost. I’m hoping that when he sees us together he’ll reconsider the deal.”
Cecelia could only nod blankly at Isabelle’s machinations. The merger of Playco and Texas Toy Company wouldn’t be good news for To the Moon and its bottom line, which is why Cecelia had kept her mouth shut where that was concerned. Wes was her biggest business rival. However, the success of Luna Fine Furnishings would make her untouchable if she could compete in both the adult and child luxury design markets. At the moment, things were going well enough that she didn’t care if Teddy took Wes back.
“Good luck with that,” she managed politely. “And congratulations on the engagement.”
Isabelle crossed her fingers and said her goodbyes, slipping away to find Wes in the crowd. Once she was gone, Cecelia and Deacon continued to make their way through the room, saying hello and mingling appropriately. When they found the food, they each made a small plate and had a seat among some of the other guests. A long buffet had been set up for the party, with the centerpiece being a cake shaped like two hearts side by side with a third, smaller heart piped in pastel pink icing on top to represent their daughter. It was sweet.
They were perhaps an hour into the party, with no sign of Chip, and Cecelia was finally starting to relax. Maybe this event wouldn’t be such a nightmare. Being there with Deacon had changed everything. She felt confident on his arm, which was a far cry from the times she’d gone to events with Chip. She was always on edge with him, wondering if she looked good enough, if she was saying the right thing... Now that it was over, she couldn’t imagine a lifetime of being his wife. All she would have ever been was a prop he’d haul out at campaign rallies and fund-raisers. A Stepford wife in a tasteful linen suit with helmet hair and a single strand of pearls.
No way. Those days were behind her, and she’d never make that mistake again.
“I would like to propose a toast,” Teddy Bradford said as he took position center stage with the microphone to draw everyone’s attention. Cecelia noted that the boisterous old man was wearing his best bolo tie for the occasion. The crowd gathered around the stage to hear what he had to say. “Wesley, Isabelle, get on up here!”
The happy couple walked hand in hand to the stage and to stand beside Teddy.
“No one here is happier to see these two lovebirds tie the knot than I am. To me, and to the employees of Playco, family is everything. I had thought that perhaps Wesley felt differently, but I’m pleased—for once—to be proven wrong. Not only do I want to wish the couple all the happiness in the world, I want to wish it as Wesley’s new business partner.”
His words were followed by a roar of applause from the crowd. Wes turned to Isabelle with a look of shock on his face before he turned and shook Teddy’s hand. Cecelia could only smile. Isabelle seemed sweet, but she was shrewd, as well. She had managed to accomplish tonight what Wes had been unable to over the past three months. Bravo. Perhaps she had more competition in the Texas Toy Company than she thought with Isabelle behind the scenes.
Wes turned back to Isabelle, they kissed and everyone in the club went wild. Deacon held Cecelia tighter to his side as though he sensed tension in her.
“Is this bad news for your company?” he whispered in her ear. Clearly, he knew it was or he wouldn’t be asking.
“Perhaps, but I’m trying not to look at it that way. Those kinds of thoughts were what landed me such a miserable reputation in town. That’s a worry for another day. Tonight I’d rather focus on the happy couple.”
He nodded and pressed a kiss into her temple. “Then that’s what we’re going to do.”
Cecelia sighed contentedly in his arms while Isabelle and Wes cut the cake and pieces started circulating around the room. “They cut the cake,” she noted. “Cake is the universal sign at parties that it’s finally okay to take your leave.”
“Are you ready to go so soon?” Deacon asked. “I thought you were having a good time. And it looks like strawberry cake. We should probably at least stick around to have some. I love strawberry cake.”
“When did you get such a sweet tooth?” Cecelia asked.
“It started back in high school when I couldn’t get enough of your sugar.”
Cecelia laughed aloud and leaned close. “You don’t need any cake, then. You’re getting plenty of sugar once we get out of here. You’ve made it through the night with no complaints, and you should be rewarded.”
Deacon smiled. “I’m glad you agree. It wasn’t that bad, though.” His glance moved around the room at the club and the people who frequented it. “I think I’d made more of this place in my mind because I couldn’t be a part of it.”
“No one would dare keep you out now.”
Cecelia felt her phone vibrate in her purse, but she wasn’t going to get it out just yet. As they waited on cake, she noticed quite a few people pulling theirs out.
“Oh, my God, honey.” Simone ran up to her and clapped her hand over her mouth to hold back a sob.
Cecelia looked at her and again around the room in sudden panic. One person after another seemed to be looking down at his or her phone. The feeling of dread was hard for Cecelia to suppress. Especially when those same people immediately sought out Cecelia when they looked up.
Had Maverick’s deadline already come and gone so soon? She had consciously decided not to pay the blackmail money again, but she never dreamed it would come out tonight, while she was at the club with everyone else.
“What is it?” she asked as innocently as she could, although she already knew the answer.
Simone held up her phone, showing the screen to her and Deacon. An old newspaper article about the drug overdose of Nicole Wood was there. It even featured the photo of Nicole and her infant daughter, the same one Cecelia carried in her purse. The section was circled in red and accompanied by a note:
Cecelia Morgan? More like Cecelia Wood—a liar and the daughter of a junkie and her dealer. No wonder the Morgans hid the truth. The homecoming queen isn’t so perfect now, is she?
Deacon’s arms tightened around Cecelia as she felt her knees start to buckle beneath her. It was only his support that kept her upright. She looked around the room, and it seemed like everyone was looking at her as though she smelled like horse manure.
Her head started to swim as she heard the voices in the room combine together into a low rumble. She could pick out only pieces of it.
“Who knew she was so low class?”
“I should’ve known she wasn’t really a Morgan. But it looks like she’s not Maverick, either.”
“Her mother probably used drugs during her pregnancy, too. I wonder if that’s why Cecelia is so inca
pable of empathy.”
“Have they ever revoked someone’s club membership for fraud?”
“You can see the resemblance between her and this Nicole woman. She never had Tilly’s classically beautiful features.”
Cecelia covered her ears with her hands to smother the voices. Her face flushed red, and tears started pouring from her eyes. Deacon said something to her, but she couldn’t hear him. All she could feel was her world crumbling around her. She should’ve made the second blackmail payment. What was she thinking? That he would decide maybe that first payment was enough? That people wouldn’t judge her the way she would’ve judged them not long ago?
It was a huge mistake, and yet, she knew this was a moment that couldn’t be avoided no matter how much cash she shelled out. It wasn’t about the money, she knew that much. He probably didn’t care if he made a dime in the process. Maverick was set on ruining people’s lives.
He would be a happy man tonight.
* * *
Deacon didn’t know who Maverick was, but he sure as hell was going to find out. Why did this sick bastard get pleasure out of hurting people in the club? Deacon would be the first to admit this wasn’t his favorite crowd of people, but who would stoop that low? If he could get his hands on Maverick right now, the coward would have bigger concerns than whose life he could make miserable next.
First things first, however. He could see Cecelia breaking down, and it made his chest ache. He had to get her away from this. With every eye in the room on them, he wrapped his arm around Cecelia and tried to guide her to the exit. She stumbled a few times, as though her legs were useless beneath her, so he stopped long enough to scoop her into his arms and carry her out. She didn’t fight his heroics. Instead, she clung desperately to him, burying her face in the lapel of his suit.
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