“Libby,” he growled, the emotion he’d tried so hard to pack down bubbling up inside him like hot lava. “Don’t.”
She swallowed “Don’t what?”
“Try to make me believe. I’m doing the right thing by both of us.” He sighed. “I’m keeping us to our agreement.”
“How very noble of you,” she spat. “But it’s complete crap. What you’re actually doing is punishing me for her mistakes…and I deserve better than that.”
The chatter and cheer of the crowd drowned out the rest of her words, though there was no mistaking her feelings from the look on her face. Her eyes narrowed at him, the scrutiny making his skin itch.
What could he say? If he told the truth about how he felt she’d want to pursue it, to understand his feelings, to ask questions. All of those things would strip him back, make him vulnerable to her. Sadie was right, he didn’t want what they wanted. Right now he wanted to protect them both from the future disappointment.
A squeal of a microphone cut through the air, and the emcee announced it was time for speeches. Before he knew what was happening, a cocktail was thrust into his hand: the pink Bellini made from Libby’s vodka and his recipe. Their first creation as a team.
She looked at him, analyzing and cataloging his every movement. The glimmer of hope in her eyes slayed him. He’d extinguish that flame, like he had with Sadie.
“I have to go,” he said touching her shoulder lightly. “It’s speech time.”
She flinched. “Go. I’ll be ready to play happy fiancée when you get back. Enjoy it, because after this I’m outta here.”
Better now than later.
Chapter Sixteen
The surface of the bar was smooth beneath his hands. Paul looked out over the restaurant, surveying the boxes displaying Libby’s logo piled up on the tables. Tonight Libby Gal Cocktails had its official launch at First.
But he’d be gone before the first champagne cork popped.
It’d been a month since the wedding. Des had delayed the launch until he returned from his honeymoon to ensure he could endorse the product in person. He’d wanted to give Libby the best possible chance of exposure and, since the article in Gastronomy magazine had exploded, his word meant something in the industry.
A few days after Des had returned from Europe, Paul broke the news to him and the whole family. He and Libby had not only broken up, but they’d never really been engaged.
Spilling the whole truth had been her idea. It was the single source of contact he’d had with her since the wedding. An email requesting he tell his family the truth so she could front up to Des and give him the option to back out. She said she’d wanted her business to succeed without lies.
His mother was devastated, and Des had been understandably angry. But he’d grown to like Libby enough to hash it out with her personally, and he hadn’t spilled a word of their conversation to Paul.
You broke up with her for a reason, so move on. Stop thinking about her.
To keep his mind off the gaping hole Libby’s absence made in his life, he’d thrown himself into setting up the mixology school. Business plans, budgets, and forecasts had become his language. He was going to make this idea work no matter what it took.
No matter how many stupid details he had to wade through.
“It’s time we had a talk about my idea,” Paul said as he leaned against the bar and shoved thoughts of Libby aside.
The thoughts would be back, he knew it. But he had to try.
Des watched him from the corner of his eye as he scribbled a note onto the staff roster. “Is that so?”
“Yep.” He nodded. “I’m ready to take it seriously.”
“Good.” Curiosity colored his brother’s expression. “What caused that?”
Paul reached for the printed plans he’d stashed in a folder behind the bar and handed one to his brother. “I realized that I needed something more in my life than what I have now, and I need to fight for it. I thought I was sick of trying to prove myself, but I realized it wasn’t about that. It’s about giving myself my best shot at success.”
Des nodded, his eyes scanning the front page of the plan.
“I still want to start up my own mixology school. Since we now officially have Libby’s vodkas here, I want to keep that partnership.” He tried to keep his face neutral but even saying her name was like stabbing himself in the chest. “If you look at page three—”
“That’s a brilliant idea.” Des looked up from the report.
“You haven’t even read the whole plan.”
“Paul…” Des laid a hand on his shoulder. “I never questioned the idea when you brought it to me before, but I wanted to know you were invested in it. I take my business seriously, and I want my partners to do the same.”
He hadn’t thought that hearing his brother say that would be so relieving… His family was everything to him. “There’s no one else I’d rather do business with.” Des stuck out his hand, and Paul shook it firmly. “Let me look over the report at home, and we can talk through the plans in more detail. I’ll want to make sure the numbers are sound, but I like the idea. I think you’ll be brilliant.”
“Great, because we have a group coming through this week to try it out.” Paul grinned. It was a risk, but he knew the idea was solid. He’d show Des that he wasn’t the only Chapman with an entrepreneurial mind.
Des rolled his eyes. “What if I’d thought it was a terrible idea?”
“Then I would have done it anyway to prove you wrong.”
His brother clapped him on the back. “You sticking around tonight?”
“Nah,” he said, wiping down the bar and stacking the remaining glasses into the dishwasher.
“Still avoiding Libby, I see.” Des shook his head.
“Tonight is her night, I don’t want to spoil it.” He swallowed down the pain that reared up whenever he thought of her.
Against his will, he missed her like crazy. If he managed to go a day without consciously thinking about her then his dreams would be filled with her sweet face. Memories, fantasies, and wishes all combining to torture him night after night.
“Do you really believe you’d spoil it by being here to support her?” His brother sighed. “Don’t you think that’s exactly what she wants?”
“You know the whole engagement and everything was fake. We weren’t really in…” He couldn’t force himself to say the L word.
“Weren’t you? You’re not as good an actor as you seem to think you are.”
“I fooled you, didn’t I? And everyone else.” He turned away so his brother wouldn’t see the struggle going on inside him.
“I think you’re trying to fool yourself, and you’re failing,” Des said. “If that relationship was a scam then why were you happier when she was around?”
Paul slammed the dishwasher door shut and jabbed a finger at the start button. “Who says I was happier?”
“My dishwasher, for one.”
Paul turned and folded his arms across his chest. “Any other inanimate objects able to back that up? Does the blender want to weigh in, too?”
Des shook his head. “You’re so full of shit sometimes. The way you looked at that girl wasn’t a scam, it wasn’t fake, and it certainly wasn’t you being a good actor. I look at Gracie the same way, I know what it means.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re not together now, and that’s not going to change.” He didn’t add that there wasn’t a hope in hell of Libby taking him back even if he did go groveling back to her.
Which he couldn’t…could he?
No…he’d been momentarily fooled into thinking relationships could work. Nothing more.
Des motioned for one of his staff to start unpacking the boxes of decorations that had arrived earlier that afternoon. “I’ve never seen you look at a woman that way before. Not even Sadie.”
Paul folded his arms across his chest. “It was all part of the act.”
The words rang hollow in his e
ars. Meaningless.
It wasn’t an act, and hadn’t he decided to give up lying to his family after the wedding?
“If you say so.” Des shrugged in a way that confirmed the words sounded as believable as they felt.
“She wouldn’t take me back anyway.” But he wanted her to, despite the fact that his conversation with Sadie had cemented the concerns that already existed. And if the pain he felt now was anything to go by, losing Libby after being with her for a longer period of time could prove fatal.
He sighed. He was miserable without her, that couldn’t be denied…but love?
Yes. It was true, he’d never looked at another girl the way he looked at her. He’d never felt about another girl the way he felt about her.
“You don’t know that.” Des pulled a bottle of tequila down from the spirits shelf and poured two shots.
“What are the shots for?” Paul asked warily.
“Dutch courage.” Des slid one glass over to him and picked up the other in his right hand. “Salute!”
They clinked glasses and downed the shots. The tequila warmed his insides, filling him with a comfortable glow. He’d need more than a shot’s worth of courage to lay himself at Libby’s mercy. He wasn’t sure there were enough shots in all the world.
But that was the point, wasn’t it? Big risk for big reward.
“You’re an idiot if you don’t think she’s worth dealing with a little fear.”
He couldn’t deny it, a lie of that magnitude could not pass his lips. “I don’t know if I can.”
“So you gave the ring back to Ma?”
The ring was in his wallet as it had been since Libby had left it on the table next to the bed the night of the wedding. He’d carried it around for a month, telling himself that he was going to give it back to his mother. Instead, he’d kept it close to him every day while he thought about how much he’d fucked things up with Libby.
“I’ll take that brooding silence as no,” Des said smugly.
“What would you be doing now if you’d never been with Sadie?”
Paul looked up. “What do you mean?”
“If you’d never been cheated on, would you still be avoiding the situation with Libby?”
“I don’t know. How can I answer that?” He sighed. “It’s not like I can pretend it never happened.”
Des nodded. “Sure, but you don’t have to use it as a yardstick for life.”
It was a crazy thought. How would he act if he’d never gone through that situation? If he’d never been brought to his knees by someone he cared about?
Possibilities swirled in his mind. Some good, some terrifying. But the possibility that history wouldn’t repeat itself had taken root in his mind, warming him like she had done so many times before. Tempting him with what could be.
Tonight was her night. He wasn’t going to steal her thunder by throwing his issues onto her shoulders. He loved her…and for the moment that meant letting her bask in the glow of her success.
“Regardless, I can’t stay. Libby will have plenty of people here who care about her, I’m not going to distract her on her big night.”
Des threw his hands up in the air. “Then you’re in the same category as her father.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s been trying to get him to come along tonight, but the bastard won’t return her calls. We had a few drinks when she came in to finalize the fit out for tonight, and she told me he’s avoiding her.” He raked a hand through his hair. “So I called him. Told him I was Libby’s PR manager.”
“And?” Paul didn’t like where this was going.
“He said he had better things to do with his time than watch his daughter throw her life down the drain.”
“Did she hear him say that?”
He shook his head. “No, she doesn’t know I called him. She used my phone one night to see if he’d take her call if he didn’t recognize the number but he didn’t answer…so I called him on my own.”
Kirk Harris was in a league of his own when it came to being a bastard. Libby deserved so much more from her family…and she deserved so much more from him. It might be too late, but he loved her, dammit. And now he had an idea of how he might be able to make it up to her.
“You’re not coming?” Libby felt as though her stomach had fallen through the floor. “Why?”
“John has to work late, and I can’t find anyone to babysit Eloise. She’s not old enough to stay home on her own yet.” Her mother’s wariness radiated down the phone line. “I’m sorry, Libby. That’s part of being a mother.”
Libby bit back a retort about the fact that she was also her mother, not just Eloise’s. But being jealous of a ten-year-old was a lesson in futility, as was trying to get her parents to put her first for a change.
“You could always bring her along.”
“To a bar?” Her mother sighed. “That’s not appropriate.”
Libby was officially two for two. Her mother had canceled on her at the last minute, and she hadn’t even been able to get in touch with her father. No amount of voicemails had yielded a return phone call, and all her texts had gone unanswered. She’d even swung past his house, but the sight of wife number four had made her turn tail.
There would be zero family at the launch of Libby Gal Cocktails.
After saying a few words to Eloise, who was adamant about relaying her whole school day to Libby in minute detail, she hung up the phone. The girl had it so good, and she didn’t even know.
“No dice?” Nina asked.
She was barefoot, her bright blue hair—which was now showing a line of blond at the roots—twisted into a knot. A stack of professionally printed posters featuring Nina’s artwork sat on the coffee table, the watercolor designs a melange of pink, green, and yellow. Tonight those posters would decorate the walls of First and from tomorrow onward they’d feature on her website and the advertising she’d booked with local magazines and blogs.
She was finally launching her business…without her family, without Paul. If it weren’t for Nina’s ever-supportive presence she’d be truly alone in the world.
“She couldn’t get a babysitter for Eloise.” Libby turned to her computer so she wouldn’t see Nina’s sympathy.
But Nina wasn’t the kind of person who would let her get away with it that easily. “That’s really shitty.”
Libby swallowed, nodding. Praying she wouldn’t cry and mess up the artful makeup application she’d treated herself to…and paid a small fortune for.
“Have you heard from Paul?” Nina sat on the edge of her desk, one leg crossed over the other.
As much as Nina abhorred pink, she’d worn a pair of fuchsia jeans to go with the pink and green gingham shirts they’d had made for the wait staff for tonight’s event. She never wore pink, but she hadn’t complained once.
“Are you trying to pour salt on the wound?” Libby shook her head. “No, I haven’t heard from him.”
“Have you called him?”
“Why would I call him, Neens? He made it clear we weren’t an item, and now his whole family knows the relationship was a sham.” She reached for a bottle of her lavender vodka and two shot glasses. “I have nothing to say to him.”
“Not all relationships are destined to fail, you know.”
Libby’s head snapped up. She’d expected a snappy comeback from her best friend, a declaration that Paul was indeed a Grade A jerk or, at the very least, that Libby didn’t need a man to make her happy. Which was true, she didn’t…but Paul had made her happy, and she couldn’t seem to forget it.
“You know Pete and I split up once,” Nina continued. “Before we got engaged.”
“I didn’t know that.” Libby twisted the lid off the vodka and inhaled the relaxing lavender scent.
“He wanted to go overseas for six months, and I couldn’t leave my job for that long. I told him I didn’t want to hold him back, that I didn’t want to change him. So he went.” Nina’s hand came d
own on Libby’s, her sparkly black nail polish glimmering in the afternoon light. “I was so fucking miserable without him, you have no idea. He came back within a week and told me it was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.”
“Smart man.”
“What I’m saying is, sometimes you need to experience that separation to know how much you care about someone. You need to understand what life is like without him.” She grinned. “Besides, boys are stupid. We can’t crucify them for every little mistake.”
“What if Pete hadn’t come back?”
“I’d already booked a flight to Tuscany to be with him.” She patted Libby’s hand. “Being apart didn’t feel right to either of us.”
“I don’t know what being apart feels like for him.” She poured the vodka into two shot glasses, her hand shaking, and she spilled a little onto her desk.
“That’s because you haven’t asked him.”
“But I did. He told me there was nothing between us.” Libby took a long breath. “He’s right, I’m not…relationship material. I’m not family material, either.”
“Don’t you ever say that!” Nina jumped off the desk and wrapped her arms around Libby. “Family isn’t just the people you’re related to, you idiot. It’s the people you choose to be part of your life. You’re my family, and I’ll shout it from the rooftops if I have to.”
“Really?” Libby’s eyes swam.
“I’ll even get a bullshit Facebook account and put it on the internet if that helps you believe it.”
Libby laughed through the haze of tears. “Wow, wearing pink and succumbing to Facebook. You must love me.”
“Damn straight, and don’t you forget it.”
Libby placed one of the filled vodka shots in front of Nina. “Bottoms up.”
It was Nina’s turn to look serious. “No can do, my little flower.”
“I thought you said heavy drinking is recommended in times of intense stress.” Libby picked up her glass and downed the drink.
“Yeah, but it’s not recommended for pregnant ladies.”
Libby’s mouth fell open. “You’re pregnant?”
“I’m only eight weeks along, so don’t you dare tell anybody.” She fiddled with the large hoop in her ear. “But, seeing as there’s all this talk about family…I wanted to make it official. I want you to be my baby’s godmother.”
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