He’d wondered all week whether he should call her. But mortification was a powerful demotivator. Maybe he’d be over it in a few more days. Maybe not.
He waved at the crazed Bodvar—who’d had the nerve to hit him up for a raise on Monday—and returned to where Hayward waited with his ring. He’d uncorked the bubbly by the time Bucky showed up with the champagne flutes, and they got it all set up.
Hayward preceded him into the dining room. Dev gave him a couple of minutes to get seated again, and then headed around the curved partition and toward table fourteen.
The woman sitting there with her back to him had blond hair just like Kylie’s. She had smooth, tanned shoulders like Kylie’s, too. Dev almost stumbled right through table nine as he came to the awful, catastrophic conclusion that the woman was Kylie.
He stood stock-still with the glasses in his hand, focused on the back of her head, and then her profile as she turned to see what her date was staring at.
“Dev?” she said, and had the nerve to look happy to see him. While she had a cozy reunion with the Jack-ass in his restaurant. “Hey, I was looking for you but you must have been in back.”
He still stood there paralyzed, four feet away.
“Oh, you brought us champagne. How nice.” She had the grace to look uncomfortable, at least, as her gaze went from him to Jack and then back to him. “Um. Devon, this is Jack Hayward. Jack, Devon McKee.”
Yeah. I offer you two dicks. He offers you two carats.
“We’ve met,” Dev said, struggling to keep his tone even. He wanted to throw the flutes on the floor and stomp them and the ring into slivers.
Jack nodded and eyed Dev with clear meaning. “We’re thirsty, McKee.”
He really wasn’t sure he could pick up his feet if he wanted to. They were rooted to the floor, rooted in absolute certainty that he could not allow this to happen. Kylie could not get re-engaged to this creep who matched his shoes to his hair. And especially not in Bikini, the restaurant that she’d helped Dev launch.
He wanted to throw up.
He wanted to dive across the table and rip out Jack’s throat. Stomp on his face. Tear off his legs.
She couldn’t.
She wouldn’t.
Would she?
But this wasn’t Dev’s call to make. It was hers.
Dev swallowed hard. He tried to calm his thundering pulse and get his stomach to quit blocking his airway. He unstuck his left foot from the ground, then his right one. And he forced himself toward the table, carrying another guy’s ring to the woman he loved.
He set the glasses down in front of Jack and Kylie. “Congratulations,” he managed to say hoarsely. And then he turned and walked away.
28
“WHAT?” KYLIE SAID. “What do you mean?” Then she looked at her glass. There, nestled in the bottom of it, was something that sparkled.
“Oh, God.”
Jack smiled smugly at her. Complacently. “It’s two carats. Bigger than your other one. What d’you say, Kylie? Let’s put this team back together again.”
So that’s what he’d meant when he’d said they had a lot to talk about. Except they didn’t. This conversation was over before it even began.
“No,” Kylie said, shaking her head.
The smile disappeared from Jack’s face. “What’s the matter?”
“Jack, you’ve completely misinterpreted this whole evening. I never—” She threw a desperate look over her shoulder at Dev, who moved toward the back of the restaurant like a man on his way to face a firing squad.
“Is it not big enough for you?” Jack asked. “We can trade it in for three carats if you want to, but—”
“You’re missing the point. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to marry you.”
“Of course you do, now that I’m over that little episode.” He laughed. “I’ve grown. I’ve changed.”
“So have I.” Kylie pushed back her chair. He might have kicked his pill-and-porn habit. He might have a great job. He might look more fit and healthy. But he was still the same guy: the one who was perfect for her on the surface, on paper, but deep down was all wrong.
And Dev, with his black leather pants and his gold chain and spiky hair…Dev, with his fish fables and his checkered past—he was all right.
“Jack,” she said gently, “no offense, but you couldn’t possibly change enough for me. This isn’t going to work. It never really did.” She got up, intent on hurrying to intercept Dev before he got so drunk that he thought he had three dicks.
But before she could move, Jack’s hand shot out and gripped her painfully around the wrist. “Sit down,” he ordered.
“What? No.” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.
“People are looking. You’re not going to humiliate me in public.” Jack ground out the words. “Sit down, drink your champagne and put the ring on your finger. Just do it.”
“I’m not your puppet, Jack. I didn’t ask you to propose to me in a crowded restaurant—or anywhere else, for that matter. So get your hands off me.” She tore loose from his grip but he caught her arm instead, digging his fingers in painfully.
“Sit. The. Hell. Down. Bitch.”
She gasped in pain and shock. “Let go of me or I will scream.”
“No, you won’t. Because I’ll make big trouble for you at your little bank. My father’s a buddy of the CEO’s. How do you think the board will react if we tell them that you’ve been blowing Milty Goldman in the parking lot on your lunch hour?”
“You wouldn’t dare, you bastard.”
“Is that right?” A nasty smile played around his lips. “Sit down, Kylie.”
She told him to do something anatomically impossible.
“Is there a problem, here?” Dev’s voice came from over her shoulder, calm and very cold.
“No. Why would there be a problem?” Jack asked, baring his teeth. He still didn’t turn her loose.
“I suggest that you release the lady, asshole.” Dev’s voice had gone arctic.
“And I suggest that you mind your own damned business.” Jack’s fingers only tightened on her arm, and she winced as the pain quotient went up.
That was when Dev’s fist plowed into Jack’s face, knocking him backward out of his chair.
Dev then upended her champagne glass into Jack’s plate, grabbed the ring and wadded it into a napkin. As Jack struggled to get up, Dev jumped on him and shoved the napkin into his mouth.
“Get out!” he said. “And take your lousy ring with you.”
Two men at neighboring tables had surged forward to pull Dev off of Jack if necessary, but he’d made his point and he was done. He got up and turned to Kylie while the men helped Jack to his feet.
“Are you all right?” Dev’s face was white, his jaw set.
She nodded, speechless—because in that instant, she fully realized it: she was in love with him. Hopelessly in love. Then she threw herself into his arms and kissed him.
“HAVE I EVER told you that you have a peculiar, repulsive appeal?” Kylie murmured later as they shivered naked in the walk-in fridge.
“You may have mentioned it,” Dev said, before taking one of her breasts into his mouth.
“Mmm. Oh…”
“Mmm?” Dev inquired.
“Yes. In fact, I think you might just do,” Kylie said.
“Do? Do what, exactly?”
“Me.”
“I’ll do you, honey.” Dev picked her up and slid into her to the hilt. “I’ll do you ’til you beg me to stop.”
“Never,” she said, hooking her ankles around his waist.
“You never want me to stop?”
“Nope.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Someone pounded on the heavy insulated door. “Hey! We need produce out of there. And cream for the lobster bisque. Can you hurry it up?”
Dev sighed. “I guess leaving a Do Not Disturb sign on the door was a bad idea.”
“We’re already very disturb
ed,” Kylie said. “But I love you beyond reason.”
“I love you, too.” He kissed her, as the pounding on the door commenced again. “Do you still think I should date a whole bunch of other women, like you ordered me to?”
“No. Changed my mind about that.”
“Oh, okay. Just checking. So…you want to move in with me? Get a plant together? Maybe another fish?”
She laughed. “As long as you never drink liquor again.”
Dev pulled back and looked into her eyes. “You have my solemn oath. Never.”
Kylie nodded. She believed him.
“So is that a yes?” Dev persisted. “You’ll move in?”
She broke into a smile. “That’s a yes.”
He kissed her. And kissed her. “That’s the best news I’ve had in a decade.” And he kissed her some more.
She finally pulled away, breathless. “We can get a third fish. But Potsy gets to pick him out.”
“Potsy,” Dev said, without enthusiasm. “I forgot about him.”
“You’ll grow to love him as much as you love me.”
“Uh huh. Right.”
“Hey, Dev?”
“What?”
“Have I ever told you that your two dicks make up for your personality?”
“I’m so glad to hear that. I really am…”
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459223011
Copyright © 2012 by Karen Moser
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