Turning up at his office—which was the closest—proved fruitless, being as it was closed for the day. His apartment only infuriated her even more when she realized her key no longer fit the lock. She wasn’t sure where else to turn since she couldn’t get through to him by phone or text. Nearly defeated, she was on her way back to St. Claire’s to ask Ana for her help when she remembered Conrad. Leila swerved through traffic and redirected herself toward Dolcini. She slid into a parking space and was halfway out of her car when she spotted Eli stepping out of his Audi. His name was on her lips, but stuttered and fell away when Sabine—the gorgeous supermodel who admitted the only shrink she would ever consider dating would be Eli—stepped out of the Audi as well.
Ana’s words rang in Leila’s mind. When Eli makes a decision, he sticks to it. He had written Leila off and turned his attention to someone new. Leila slumped in her seat, defeated.
Chapter 30
Old Wounds
Eli led Sabine to his usual table. The third member of the lunch party had already arrived and was seated when they walked up. He stood and shook hands with Sabine, who was as sultry and sumptuous as she always was. His guest was obviously captivated by her. Eli hardly noticed her fitted dress and bronze skin. After a quick round of introductions, he dropped into his chair and tried to dig up some modicum of professionalism.
“Thanks for coming, Lewis.”
Lewis nodded. “Not at all.”
Eli reached for the attaché he had brought with him. Sabine’s hand falling lightly on his forearm halted him. He looked up at her and was surprised to see a well of compassion in her blue eyes.
“Why don’t we eat first?” she asked. “Business can wait.”
He had no desire to sit there and engage in small talk, but the concern in her eyes softened his bristly demeanor. She was worried about him. “Sure, Sabine. Food sounds good.”
“And maybe a few drinks,” she suggested.
Eli nodded noncommittally. He doubted getting drunk would make him feel better. What he really wanted was to be done with lunch and back at his apartment. Alone.
That word dropped his mood to an even lower level. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted Leila. Sabine seemed to catch wind of his worsening disposition and flagged Megan down with a murmur of, “Yes, we definitely need some drinks.”
Eli was about ready to agree with her at that point, but the sound of a disturbance at the concierge desk caught his attention. Sitting up, he looked in that general direction, craning to see around the corner. And see he did. Eli nearly fell out of his chair at the sight Leila storming through the restaurant. He was stumbling out of his chair a second later, desperate to intercept her.
He shouldn’t have been so quick to get in her path.
Her slap resounded through the restaurant, sucking the breath out of everyone within earshot. Eli’s cheek smarted, and he supposed he should have been stunned or confused, maybe even angry, but he was so thrilled to see Leila all he could do was grin at her. She didn’t seem to be affected by his happiness.
“Eli Walsh, you have got to be the most idiotic man on the planet!” Leila said.
Still grinning, Eli said, “Excuse me?”
She waved a piece of paper in his face for some reason. His brain tried to come up with an explanation for her actions. He couldn’t think of anything he had written that would have her so incensed. Luckily, Leila was perfectly willing to fill him in.
“You were in love with me practically this entire time and you never bothered to tell me?” Leila shook her head. “What is wrong with you?”
The letter, the list of faults that was actually a confession of his deepest feelings for her. That was what she was waving in his face. Realizing this, Eli’s pleasure at seeing her faltered. His smile slipped off his lips. “Leila, how could I have told you back then? We’d barely met. You weren’t ready.”
His reasoning only made her angrier. “Who are you to decide whether or not I’m ready?”
“But … but, you weren’t!” Eli said. Not the most brilliant defense, but it was the truth, at least as far as he understood it.
Leila growled in frustration. “I don’t need you to tell me when I’m ready to fall in love, or have someone else fall in love with me. I’m perfectly capable of figuring that out on my own. I don’t need you manipulating me!”
“Manipulating?” Eli was shocked she would accuse him of something like that. “I was trying to guide you, help you!”
“You were manipulating me!”
Eli’s hands balled in frustration. “I was not manipulating you. I was helping you figure out who and what you wanted.”
“How did that go for you?” she demanded. “For all your guidance and help you still managed to get it all wrong.”
The whole room fell silent. Eli nearly choked on the thickness of it. “What?” he asked, his voice strangled.
“You screwed up, Eli,” she said.
“How?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
Oddly, much of her anger fell away. The hint of a smile played on her lips. Finally, she said, “I didn’t have breakfast with Luke this morning to give him a second chance. I went so I could break up with him.”
Eli’s knees buckled and he dropped hard into his chair. “What?”
“I broke up with Luke.”
He stared up at her, more than a little confused. “But, why?”
Leila’s laugh echoed through the room. “Because I don’t love him, you idiot. I love you. You didn’t give me a chance to tell you that before you made your own assumptions and changed your locks and blocked my calls.”
Standing back up, though his body was completely numb, Eli faced Leila. “You’re in love with me?”
Her grin was brilliant. “Of course I am. How could I not be?”
There were probably more words that should have been said, but Eli didn’t care. He swept Leila into his arms and let every ounce of pent up desire flow over her as he pressed his lips to hers. There was no hesitation on her part. Leila’s body pushed against his, her warmth sending a new wave of passion through his body. He thought he heard clapping and cheering in the background, but that might have been his imagination.
Pulling back from her was torture. He only got far enough away to whisper, “I love you, Leila.”
“I know you do,” she whispered back.
“Thank you for coming after me.” Eli meant it wholeheartedly. Unshed tears brimmed in his eyes at the thought of how close he came to losing her.
“I almost didn’t,” Leila admitted. “When I pulled up and saw you with Sabine …”
The mention of the supermodel’s name turned Leila’s entire body scarlet. She seemed to realize right at that moment where she was and the disturbance she had just caused. Her eyes darted away from Eli and scanned the dining room full of patrons with their eyes glued to her. Leila went from tomato-red to a deep scarlet.
Eli did his best to help her out. “Sabine, you remember Leila.”
“Of course. It’s so nice to see you, my dear,” Sabine said. “I’m so glad you didn’t let my presence keep you from storming in here and slapping Eli. He needed it, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Turning away from Sabine before Leila had to answer, Eli said, “And this is Lewis Browning. He’s taking over my date shark business.”
“You were really giving it up?” Leila asked.
“Of course I was,” Eli said. “You were the only woman I wanted.”
Leila turned back to Lewis, shook his hand and apologized for interrupting their meal. Lewis seemed rather amused by the whole ordeal, thankfully, and waved off her concern. Eli, no longer in the mood to discuss business, asked, “Would you mind if we did this another time, Lewis?”
“Not at all,” Lewis said happily. His gaze turned back to Sabine and he seemed to forget everything else.
Before Eli could ask, Sabine said, “Go. Leila has a show to get ready for, a
nd you have some business of your own, if I’m not mistaken. Something to do with dresses?”
Eli’s entire body lit up at the mention of the dresses. He thanked Sabine with a quick kiss on her cheek and started pulling Leila out of the restaurant. He hadn’t imagined the cheering earlier, and he didn’t imagine it then, either. The happy clapping and calls of congratulations followed them out of the building. Eli was trying to usher Leila into the passenger’s seat of his car when she remembered her own car sitting across the street.
Eli shook his head. “Not a chance. I’m not letting you out of my sight. We’ll pick your car up later. Get in. I have something to show you.”
Merging into brisk traffic, they were off, but Leila surprised him by saying, “I saw the dresses, Eli. Thank you so much.” She frowned. “Although, I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of you sneaking into my apartment and stealing my designs.”
“It had to be done,” he said with a guilty smile.
Leila smiled back, her hand tightly gripping his. “Well, thank you. It was so amazing to see them all in real life and not just glued paper in a scrapbook.”
“You haven’t seen them all, yet.” Inside, Eli was bursting with happiness. His day had started out with the collapse of all his dreams. Now the pieces were beginning to glue themselves back together again. Waiting to see everything fall into place was killing him.
“What do you mean?” Leila asked.
Eli wouldn’t tell her. He had to show her.
A few minutes later, they slid into a parking place near the boutique and Eli practically dragged Leila through the building. They were upstairs in the design loft before she could say a word to calm him down. Ana jumped at their sudden appearance, then lit up with joy when she realized who it was.
“You found him!” she shrieked. She ran over to Leila and smothered her with a hug. When she turned to Eli, her motherly finger shake was getting good practice for the little one currently residing in her belly—which was just beginning to show. Eli held up his hands in an attempt to fend off her attack, but she was having none of it.
“You foolish, foolish man,” she chided. “This will teach you to make wild assumptions without checking your facts.”
“I know,” he admitted. “I promise I’ve learned my lesson.”
Appeased, Ana smiled again. So thrilled that her two closest friends had found each other, she bubbled over with excitement. “Are you ready for the dress?” she asked Eli.
“But I thought you already showed me all of them,” Leila asked.
Eli and Ana shared a conspiratorial glance. “Not all the dresses,” Ana said softly. “This one won’t be making an appearance on the runway tonight.”
She turned away from them and walked over to another smaller dividing screen. She pushed the screen back and quietly left the room. At the sight of the waterfall gown Leila had designed, Eli found himself speechless. It was even more gorgeous than he had anticipated. He wasn’t the only one stunned into silence.
Leila let go of his hand for the first time since taking holding of him. Both of her hands reached up to cover her open mouth. She took a hesitant step forward, as if she thought the fairy magic that had conjured it up would evaporate if she got too close. When her fingers braved caressing the gem dappled material, tears began rolling down her cheeks.
“Oh, Eli,” she whispered, “it’s beautiful.”
His feet carried him to her. It was bliss to wrap his arms around her slender waist and pull her body against him. “It’s yours, Leila. It’s beautiful because you made it. You are so amazing. I hope you never doubt that again.”
The tears started falling faster. “But why didn’t Ana show me this one earlier?”
“I … asked her not to.” Eli pressed his cheek against her damp skin. He breathed in her scent, her love. “When I thought I had lost you, I couldn’t stand the idea of this dress being seen by anyone else.”
“Why not?” she asked.
Eli took a deep breath. His mind screamed at him not to say it, but if he had learned nothing else, he had learned to listen to his heart when it came to Leila. Taking a risk, he said, “Because when I saw this dress, all I could picture was you walking down the aisle in it. Walking to me. I couldn’t bear having this dress worn by anyone but you, anywhere but at our wedding.”
Turning in his arms slowly, Leila gazed up at him with bright eyes. “Are you … proposing to me?”
Eli grinned, “Well, I …”
“Yes!” she blurted out, and then slapped her hands over her mouth with a smothered laugh.
Chuckling at her enthusiasm, Eli pulled her in closer. “I was going to say that we might want to date first, but if you meant it … then yes, I’m absolutely proposing to you.”
Leila’s hands fell away from her mouth and slid around his neck. Her smile was so filled with love and adoration it made Eli tipsy. Her lips brushed against his briefly, but didn’t go far. Leila’s warm breath whispered across his lips as she said, “I meant it with all my heart, Eli. I love you, and I would like nothing better than to become your wife.”
The gentle pressure of her hands pulled his mouth back to hers. Joyous warmth infused his soul. Old wounds healed under the power of her love, and Eli knew nothing else mattered more than having Leila in his life.
Acknowledgements
Normally, I have a really long list of beta readers, writer’s group members, friends, and family to thank by the time one of my books finally reaches publication. The truth is, the majority of the help I received on this book came after it was written, since I never actually let anyone read Date Shark before I submitted it to Limitless. That’s a crazy thing to do. I took a risk, though, and thankfully they loved it!
So, thank you to the ladies at Limitless Publishing, Jennifer O’Neill and Jessica Gunhammer, for having enough faith in my writing ability to let me jump into a new genre with Date Shark. Thank you as well to Dixie Matthews for giving this book a chance!
Thank you to Apryl Baker for introducing me to Limitless Publishing. I know she’s always got my back!
I owe a big thank you as well to my bestie, Leah Brimhall, for letting me talk her ear off about my books and answering a bazillion questions no matter how random. When I talked to her about branching out into a new genre, she never doubted me for a minute and encouraged me to get moving. Her advice has never steered me wrong.
A great big thank you goes out to Janet Reid, The Query Shark. Several years ago she tore apart one of my query letters and helped me whip it into shape. The experience sparked an idea. If Janet could rebuild a mangled query letter into something that would catch a publisher’s eye, why couldn’t someone do the same for women in need of a dating overhaul? And so the idea for Date Shark was born! Thank you, Janet!
Thank you as well to Melanie Newton for her help with the dedication, and to the lovely Gail Wagner for her help with the tag line for the front cover. You ladies are awesome!
As always, thank you to my husband Ryan and my two awesome kiddos. They keep me going and keep me anchored.
About the Author
DelSheree Gladden was one of those shy, quiet kids who spent more time reading than talking. Literally. She didn’t speak a single word for the first three months of preschool, but she had already taught herself to read. Her fascination with reading led to many hours spent in the library and bookstores, and eventually to writing.
She wrote her first novel when she was sixteen years old, but spent ten years rewriting and perfecting it before having it published.
Native to New Mexico, DelSheree and her husband spent several years in Colorado for college and work before moving back home to be near family again. Their two children love having their seventeen cousins close by. When not writing, you can find DelSheree reading, painting, sewing and trying not to get bitten by small children in her work as a dental hygienist.
DelSheree has several bestselling young adult urban fantasy seri
es, and her first contemporary romance, Date Shark, will be released with Limitless Publishing in 2014.
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