She was supposed to break things off with him last night.
Brandon simply refused. He’d done it so successfully that not only had she not broken up with him, here he was, right beside her in her own bed.
She frowned. When had she become such a wimp? She couldn’t even break up with a guy she was determined to break up with. She even told him that she’d gone out looking for a dress that said ‘it’s over.’ He’d only laughed at her. She could still hear his words. That dress says a lot of things. It says ‘look at me,’ it says ‘touch me,’ it says ‘siren.’ But it does not say ‘no’ to anything. Certainly not to me.
He’d climbed into the round booth at Spago opposite her. But very shortly, the respectable distance between them disappeared completely. His hip pressed along hers, his thigh and shoulder rubbing against her bare skin every time he moved.
She’d tried to slide away, claiming it was awkward. But he tugged her back, pointing out that he was a lefty, so they just fit.
Unfortunately for her breaking-up scheme he was right.
Brandon fed her scallops off his fork and watched her, green eyes ablaze, as the food melted in her mouth.
Eventually she stopped waiting for just the right moment and blurted out, “Brandon we can’t date anymore.”
He didn’t even react. “Yes, we can.”
She’d tried again. “No. You can’t call me, come pick me up. None of it.”
“All right.”
Her heart had lurched unexpectedly at that. She was kicking herself for already being so attached to him when he smiled.
“I’ll just roll over and say ‘good morning, Delilah.’” He then fed her a bite of risotto with sun-dried tomatoes before she could mount a protest.
All evening he merely told her ‘no’ every time she tried to end it.
When he brought her home, she tried again. She said ‘thank you’ and scrambled out of the car as soon as he parked it. But she was too slow and he got out behind her and walked her to the front door. She was useless when he took her keys, letting them both into the building and leading her up to her own apartment. She was mush by the time he closed and locked the door behind him and kissed her.
She was still mush now.
Mush was bad.
Mush made poor decisions. Delilah had too much history of acting on bad decisions and causing serious problems to be with a man who made her into mush.
Yet here she was, lying in her own bed, off to the side rather than taking up the whole thing like she was used to. Her head propped up on one hand as she watched him come awake.
Jade eyes blinked and focused. Brandon smiled. “Good morning, Delilah.”
Her brain and her mouth fought. Her mouth won and she smiled.
“See, that wasn’t so bad.” He leaned up and kissed her lightly.
When the kiss started to change from greeting to passion, Delilah jerked back, pulling the sheet up tight against her. “You should leave.”
He frowned. “I’m not really sure what’s going on between us. But why are you so anxious to get rid of me? Why can’t we just play it by ear and see how it goes?”
Her voice ratcheted up a notch, and she pulled a little further away. “I know how it goes! It goes badly!”
Brandon reached out and grabbed her hand, tightening his grip when she tugged. He slowly slid her back, closer to him, until she was plastered naked along his side, and trying so hard not to notice the feel of his skin on hers. He tucked her head against his shoulder and she gave up, ceasing her struggles. “I’m not one for making promises early in a relationship, but I can promise you this: I don’t cheat.”
She didn’t say anything, so Brandon filled in the space. “My little sister is one of my favorite people in the whole world, so don’t get me wrong. She has abysmally bad taste in men. I’ve been in a handful of near fistfights with guys who cheated on her. Truly, she shouldn’t have picked them in the first place. I threatened the life of the man who is now her husband if he hurt her. I wouldn’t consider myself much of a man if I went out and did the same thing.”
He took a deep breath and again continued when she didn’t add anything. “So I don’t know what is going to happen, but I know what isn’t. You won’t find me in someone else’s bed or arms, and you won’t hear nasty little rumors, and you don’t have to wonder.”
Still, Delilah could find nothing to say. Did she feel better? Yes. Did she want to feel better? No.
After a moment, he kissed the top of her head. Before her insides could unclench, he asked, “Will you make me breakfast?”
Quickly he amended that. “I’ll help any way I can. I can open cans, peel foil, and I’m a whiz with a microwave.”
She fought the smile that kept threatening and she caved. Totally and completely. For now. “Fine. But you just do what I tell you.”
“Yes ma’am.” He rolled away, far more comfortable with his nudity than she was. But still she watched his bare ass as he strolled into her bathroom.
When he was out of sight, she crawled out from beneath the covers and got herself dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Her frazzled brain had her double-checking herself in the mirror, then refused to change clothes. She stuck with her first choice out of sheer stubbornness. She was not trying to impress him.
She passed a still-naked Brandon in the hallway and slipped into the bathroom, hoping that he didn’t intend to come to breakfast that way. She’d burn the food. Or herself.
Brushing her teeth, Delilah worked hard to keep her thoughts on track. She slipped her hair up into its usual ponytail, and put on just a little makeup, stopping herself when she realized what she was doing.
She was looking through the fridge when she felt his fingers in her hair. Turning, she was glad and disappointed at the same time that he was in clothes. His fingers trailed down her spine and hooked into the waist of her jeans. Tugging on the denim, he brought her upright and backed her against the counter. He kissed her soundly, the pressure of his hips against hers hinting at something more.
Her heart was racing when he pulled back. His finger brushed a few stray curls away from her face and he scrutinized her. “Why can’t I seem to get enough of you?”
Breath escaped her lungs and she panicked, wanting to flee the whole situation. “Really, I have no idea. Do you want pancakes, waffles, quiche, puff pastries with egg soufflé? I can make baklava.”
She was rambling.
Sensing her need to extract herself from the situation, Brandon stepped back. Just a little. “Baklava?”
“Well, with sausage and egg. I’ll put tomatoes on top. Maybe some spinach.” She peered into the fridge again to be sure she had what she needed.
“Do you usually cook like this? I can eat cereal.”
She turned to face him, hands on her hips. “I don’t think I own any cereal. And, yes, I cook like this all the time. My brother comes over four, maybe five, times a week and I feed him.”
Brother! Her ears and heart pricked up, checking for Tristan outside the door. He wouldn’t.
Yes, he would.
She thought about calling him and warning him away. But knowing Tristan and his overprotective streak, that would likely just bring him running. She could not have Tristan here, not now. Delilah started to panic again. The only real solution she could come up with was telling Brandon she was sorry. Lie about a nail appointment she forgot or something equally lame. Then shove him out the door.
With a deep breath for fortitude, Delilah turned to do just that. But she couldn’t do it.
He was wandering the edges of her living room, looking at the tiny pieces of her life. Really, everything but the bedroom was all one big space. A small breakfast bar jutted out of the wall, creating the illusion of a separate kitchen. But the other side bled into the dining area, thanks to a wheeled island chopping block and a baker’s rack that she had stuffed to overflowing. A spare cabinet was situated at the end of the bar, creating a little extra serving space and more storage for
bakeware and gizmos.
The flooring changed to carpet just beyond the small table and Brandon padded around barefoot, looking at her bookshelves and trying to glean information about her. She saw him head toward the one photo she had of her and Tristan and Juliet—taken long before. They had all been happy, and young. Arms slung around each other, grins on their faces. Delilah couldn’t answer any questions about it. Not without creating a whole bunch of new ones. So she interrupted his thoughts before he could get a good look at it.
“Did you decide what you wanted?”
He turned and grinned. “You choose.”
“Baklava.” She purposefully picked the most involved dish. “Get your butt back over here and help. Is there anything you won’t eat?”
He thought for a moment. “Tofu. Quail eggs. Caviar.”
“You don’t eat caviar!”
His head tilted to one side. “Does that ruin your breakfast plans?”
“No.” She laughed. “But it’s so good.”
“It’s fish eggs.” He made a face and she decided to drop the topic.
“Can you brown sausage?”
“Isn’t it already brown?” He frowned at her.
Dear lord. “All right. Lesson number one: sauté pan.” She held it up, along with a few other pans explaining the basic differences, pleased that he was actually paying attention. “Sausage does not start off brown.” She held up the package of meat. “It’s really kind of pinkish. If you’ve only seen it brown then you’ve only seen it already cooked.”
She went through a few more steps, getting him set up with the right size flame on the burner and handing him the correct utensil. “Now, let it sizzle and keep stirring. Get those brown crispies on it and scream if you see smoke.”
He nodded at her like a soldier with a mission. Delilah began assembling everything else. She melted a pat of butter and whipped a cup of half-and-half then poured six eggs into it. She crushed garlic into the mix as well as a pinch of salt and some fresh ground pink pepper.
Turning on the oven, she checked on Brandon who was watching the sausage like a hawk. While she prepped the baking dish, she started talking. “So who cooked for you as a kid?”
“My Dad. Mostly he made stuff from mixes, and he didn’t want us kids in the kitchen. After he got home in the evening he would supervise homework and boil water for whatever was for dinner. He microwaved a lot.”
“Your mother didn’t cook?”
“I have no idea. She gave birth to Bethy and disappeared from the hospital.”
Delilah couldn’t comprehend that. She could barely keep her jaw hinged. “She just left her newborn baby?”
Brandon shrugged. “Dad said she’d been getting restless for a while. I was too young to remember. Apparently Bethy was an accident. Mom signed the birth certificate and took off.”
She stood there like an idiot for far too long.
“Hey, don’t look at me that way.” He went back to watching the sausage. “Everyone has a sad tale to tell. Your parents were around?”
“Both of them.” She cut and layered strips of phyllo dough into the bottom of the pan. Trying to think what she could tell and what she shouldn’t. “Too much of the time.”
“But everyone’s got a sad tale: your ex-husband ran off.”
“With my sister.”
She didn’t know why she’d said it. It had just tumbled forth. She never talked about Jules and David. At first she had raved to Tristan who had listened and understood. Still, that hadn’t been talking, mostly just anger and rants to expunge the pain. This was the first time she’d ever spoken of any of it in anything near a calm manner. Now she stood there, cold, wondering what she’d just handed Brandon.
She heard his spoon clatter to the counter. Felt the shock radiating off him. He didn’t turn, but she could guess the look on his face from the tone in his voice. He was trying to be calm and cool about it as he picked the spoon back up, but there was a pinched quality to his words. “Your sister?”
She, too, tried for cool and easy. “I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.”
He stirred the sausage, the sizzle of the meat seemed way too loud and the kitchen suddenly seemed cramped rather than cozy. “Remember I said I wouldn’t cheat on you? Well, I wouldn’t. Certainly not with your sister.”
Delilah snorted. “Of course not. She’s dead.”
Again, silence reigned supreme.
She stood still, waiting for his response. It seemed to take forever before she heard the spatula move along the bottom of the pan again. Her shoulders sagged. She hadn’t cast the ‘think before you blurt’ spell on herself. Clearly, that had been a colossal oversight.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe now Brandon would realize that she was a walking heap of trouble where relationships were concerned. So she waited. Waited for him to put the pieces together and realize that it could never work. She saw him working up to something. She wondered how he’d bow out, what he’d say.
What he said was, “I think the sausage is done.”
Yeah, well, I bet a lot of things are done. But she didn’t say it.
Slowly, she turned around, for once fairly certain of what she’d find. But she didn’t get what she expected. Instead he’d turned off the heat and was holding out the sauté pan for her inspection. He looked as immovable as he’d always been.
Her voice wavered. “Yeah, it’s done.”
His didn’t. “So, now what?”
There were a thousand answers to that question. As usual, Delilah chose the easiest one. “Use the spoon to hold back the sausage. You’re going to drain a little of it into the eggs while I whisk.”
There in the middle of her kitchen, they worked in concert, neither of them really acknowledging the bomb she had just dropped. “That’s enough.”
“What do I do with the rest of it?”
“Here, pour the grease in this can. I give it to the little yorkie next door.” Delilah gave him a real smile, although she wasn’t sure why it came, or how it came so easily. “I’m the only one she doesn’t bite.”
That was because of a spell and not any sausage drippings, though. She didn’t mention that to Brandon. He surely wouldn’t be around long enough to find out what she was.
She pulled out fresh washed spinach leaves and rolled them before cutting them, making neat strips, then chopped mushrooms into paper thin slices. She had Brandon help her layer in the sausage and veggies. They added shredded cheese before pouring the egg mixture over it, then adding the next layer.
Brandon growled the whole time. “This smells so good.”
“Wait ‘til it bakes!” She carefully slid the dish into the waiting oven, then turned the timer for about half an hour.
“Thirty minutes?”
“About that.”
“You didn’t measure anything.”
She shook her head. “I never do.”
“So,” he maneuvered closer to her, stalking her like prey, “what are we going to do for about thirty minutes?”
“Talk?” She deftly stepped away.
He crossed his arms and perched himself there at the counter. He managed to look like he wasn’t disappointed that she wouldn’t just climb right back into bed with him. “Do you have any kids?”
“No.” Well, that single syllable answer wasn’t helping the old ‘talk’ idea along very well. “But apparently we do.”
He caught her reference to two nights before and laughed at her.
Her heart hammered like she cared when she asked him, “When do you get to see them? Clearly they don’t live with you.”
“Holidays.” He fished the wallet out and held the picture up for her to see again. “Their names really are Tyler and Madison. And we really do call them Tiger and Muffin. I could never have come up with anything that good on the fly.”
She interrupted, wanting the more pertinent information first. “Tell me about their mom.”
Green eyes flashed sideways at her, as th
ough he was holding something back. “She’s sweet. And sometimes a little flighty. She was a pain in my ass most of my life, but I love her with all my heart.”
Delilah’s own heart hitched and she began to hate him for having that power over her. Maybe she should have just slept with him. Lord knows it would have been easier.
He leaned down to catch her eyes as he waved the picture in front of her face, maybe just to rub it in that he still loved his ex. She had decided she didn’t care when his words came through. “And they don’t live with me because they aren’t mine.”
She looked up.
“They’re my sister’s.”
“That’s why they look so much like you.”
“And maybe why they look so much like you.” He plucked out another picture, this one of the whole happy family at the same portrait studio.
Sure enough, while his sister didn’t really look anything like she did—none of the features were even similar—both the mysterious Bethy and her husband had Delilah’s same light blonde hair and blue eyes. She laughed. Maybe just as a relief.
He put the pictures back. “I have no exes. No one I married anyway. Just the one missing mother, a sister with bad taste in men, and a father who can’t cook.” He inhaled. “Although, I don’t think anyone can cook like you do.”
She followed suit and inhaled, too, enjoying the smells as the egg baklava baked. In her best southern belle voice she added, “It’s a gift,” and curtsied.
Chapter 16
Tristan eyed the baking dish that sat in the middle of the table.
Delilah eyed him eyeing it and wondered what he saw.
Grabbing a plate and fork, her brother made himself comfortable in a chair that had likely just cooled from where Brandon’s hot little ass had warmed it only minutes before. Tristan, as usual, helped himself. “What is it?”
“Egg baklava.”
He ate a bite and smiled, then looked at her. “What? No smart ass remark?”
“Sorry, I baked them all in with the eggs.”
He took another bite and chewed, delaying his comment just long enough to make her start believing she was safe. “Or maybe you used them all up on Rotisserie Guy.”
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