Moonlight Scandals

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  But it wasn’t going to come out of her mouth. “Why are you even here? Did Gabe need a chaperone?”

  He finally moved again, taking another quiet step toward where she sat. “Why I’m here is none of your business.”

  Rosie threw up her hands. “You’re in my house, so yes, it is my business.”

  “This is not your house.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your apartment.”

  “Are you for real?” She let out a short laugh, looking away. Why did so many good-looking guys have to be such douche canoes? “Man, you are something else.”

  “That I am.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Uh, yeah. I am.”

  “Hmm.” He sounded utterly dismissive.

  She had to force her hands to unclench. “I think you’re the most uptight person I know.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know enough to know you need a hobby or a pastime. Maybe a different workout regimen to de-stress or you need to get laid. Something to loosen you up a bit.”

  His lips parted as he stared down at her. He looked affronted. Like if he had pearls, he’d be clutching them. “Did you seriously just tell me I needed to get laid?”

  Rosie rolled her eyes. “Did you seriously just prove what I said?”

  A moment passed. “Are you volunteering?”

  Her mouth dropped open so fast she was sure she was catching flies. She was almost positive he was engaged to be married to Sabrina Harrington. Then again, since Sabrina’s brother was Parker, who’d just attempted to kill Nikki, perhaps that engagement was off.

  A sudden sound came from her bedroom, drawing her attention. It sounded like a sob. Concern spiked as she pulled her feet off the table and started to stand.

  “Don’t.”

  Her head swiveled toward Devlin. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t intrude on them.”

  Rosie stood and straightened, which put her right about chest level to Devlin. That little observation shot a trill through her system. Tall men were . . . they were just yummy. Unfortunately, this man’s personality was anything but yummy. “Please tell me there’s something wrong with my hearing and you did not just tell me what to do.”

  “My brother is back there with Nikki. She needs him and he needs to be there for her,” he said, his voice low. “He loves her.”

  Rosie snapped her mouth shut and then asked, “Gabe loves her?”

  Devlin’s expression was bland as he nodded.

  “Wow. You look so thrilled about that.”

  He crossed his arms, and her eyes narrowed into thin slits. “What?” she demanded, mimicking his movements and folding her arms across her chest. “You don’t approve of his relationship with Nikki? You don’t think she’s good enough—”

  “I do not approve of virtually any relationship,” he said, cutting her off. “The age difference is a bit concerning, but if you’re insinuating that I don’t approve because she is the daughter of our staff, that is your mistake to make, not mine.”

  “Wait—you don’t approve of any relationship? Aren’t you engaged?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Well, that cleared up her earlier suspicions. “But you were engaged.”

  “How does that have any bearing on this conversation?”

  Rosie stared at him for what felt like a full minute before she could find the right words. “Were you not in a relationship while you were engaged? Did you not love—”

  “You do not need to love someone to be in a relationship or be engaged to them,” he cut in, and Rosie’s eyes widened.

  “Wow,” she murmured, sitting back down. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

  “Do what?” Confusion clouded his features.

  “Marry someone you didn’t love? Why would you put yourself through something like that?” she asked, honestly curious. “Put another person through that?”

  A dark shadow crossed his features, and Rosie knew almost instantly that she’d crossed some unspoken line with this man. Then again, she figured he had an entire city’s worth of lines to be crossed.

  Devlin’s face turned to granite as he stared down at her. “I find it ironic that you sit there in judgment of my ended engagement, as if you’re a fountain of knowledge on such subjects, when you’re so obviously not married or engaged, living alone in an apartment with beaded curtains and books about ghosts.”

  Rosie drew in a sharp breath that scalded the back of her throat. She may’ve tiptoed over a line with him, but he just dive-bombed over one with her. “I was married, you flaming asshole, and just so you know, we didn’t have a lot, but I loved my husband and he loved me.” Reaching around her neck, she tugged on the gold chain and pulled it out from underneath her shirt. “So, even though he no longer walks this earth, I still sit here on my fountain of knowledge, knowing exactly what it’s like to marry for love and then lose it.”

  A flicker of regret widened his eyes and the line of his jaw softened just a bit. “I’m—”

  “Don’t apologize. I don’t care,” she snapped, snatching up her mug. Lukewarm coffee sloshed over the rim, onto her fingers.

  Devlin stared at her a moment and then turned away. The conversation came to a grinding halt right then and there. Devlin retreated to the balcony doors that overlooked Chartres Street and stared at his phone. Rosie turned on the television, and yeah, she purposely opened up her DVR and played an episode of The Dead Files.

  Devlin’s heavy sigh once he realized what she’d turned on made her feel better about how messed up life could be.

  As minutes ticked into an hour, Rosie checked in on her friend by quietly moving the curtain aside when she went to put her mug in the sink. The room was dark, but she could make out the shapes of Nikki and Gabe. He was holding her so close she could barely make out where one of them began and the other ended.

  Seeing that got Gabe a step closer to being off the Boyfriends Who Needed to Get Their Shit Together list.

  When she turned back around, Devlin was still standing quietly by the balcony doors. Her gaze drifted to her small kitchen and she felt like it was time for some rage cleaning. She was behind her sink, reaching for the door underneath to grab some cleaning supplies, when Devlin spoke for the first time in over an hour.

  “You lied to me.”

  Her head jerked up. “What?”

  He was still standing with his back to her. “Yesterday. When you said you didn’t know who I was, you obviously did.”

  Rosie’s mouth dropped open as she straightened. “So you do remember me.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “How could I forget?”

  Her brows snapped together. “Sure seemed like you did when you saw me.”

  “I was surprised to see the woman who’d brought me flowers in a cemetery now standing in the same place one of my employees was,” he replied, and Rosie’s empty hands flattened on the counter. “The same woman who claimed she didn’t know who I was, at first.”

  She tried to count to ten, but only made it to five. “I know it seems hard to believe, but I seriously didn’t know who you were when I saw you drop the flowers.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me who you were once you realized?”

  That was a good question. One she really didn’t have an awesome answer for, so she went with the truth. “Because I figured I’d never see you again. Who I was didn’t matter.”

  “But it does.” Devlin then turned to face her, and she almost wished he hadn’t. His intense stare unnerved her. “Because I know exactly who you are now, Rosie Herpin.”

  Chapter 5

  Rosie’s stomach took a tumble as a fine shiver skated across her shoulder blades. “Yeah. I think we just established that. I’m the woman who was super nice to you yesterday and brought you peonies.”

  He stepped forward. “You’re also the woman who introduced Nikki to Ross Haid.”

&nbs
p; Crap! That was true.

  Damn it, if and when she saw Ross Haid again, she was going to straight up sucker punch the man in the throat.

  She’d met Ross around two years ago, when he was doing a fluff piece on French Quarter ghost tours. He’d sought her out to do an interview, and they’d hit it off since she appreciated his quick-wittedness and he found her snark humorous. She never in a million years would’ve thought he’d use their friendship in the way he did.

  “A man who happens to be a journalist hell-bent on destroying my family.” Somehow, Devlin was even closer without her realizing it. “So, if you’re wondering if I for one second believe that you didn’t know who I was yesterday, you’d be mistaken.”

  Rosie felt warmth swamp her face as she struggled to keep her voice low so they weren’t overheard. “Okay, let’s get a few things straight. I didn’t know Ross wanted to meet Nikki because of her working for your family or her involvement with Gabe. I would never do that to my friend.”

  He said nothing as he tilted his head.

  “Ross also knows better than to come anywhere near me now, because I was scarily angry when I learned that he used me to get to Nikki and you don’t want to see me scarily angry,” she said, stepping toward him. “And, for the last time, I did not know who you were until I saw you standing in front of the de Vincent tomb.”

  Devlin was now so close that she caught the scent of his cologne. It was a crisp citrus scent mixed with the woodsy aroma of teak. In other words, he smelled really, really good and if he weren’t such a douche canoe, her lady parts would’ve appreciated the cologne.

  There was a slight curve to one side of his lips. A smirk. “There’s something you need to know about me.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I need to know about you.” She unfolded her arms.

  He let out a dry, sardonic sound that wasn’t much of a laugh. “Well, you need to know that I know everything and if I come across something I don’t, I find out. So, of course, I learned that Ross tried to go through Nikki to get to my family. It took nothing to discover that one Rosie Herpin was the connection between them. It was only your name I was given.”

  Okay. That was officially creepy. The need to point out that his ego was about the size of Lake Pontchartrain faded. “Given by whom?”

  He ignored that question as he dipped his chin a fraction of an inch. “I should’ve made sure that I knew what you looked like. That was my mistake, but now I know.”

  “Who gave you my name?” she demanded.

  Devlin smiled at her then, and it was a tight, cold one. “If you ever do anything again that jeopardizes my family, and that includes Nikki, you won’t just regret it. Do you understand me?”

  That smile and those words were encased in ice and they should’ve scared her, but all they did was seriously piss her off. “Are you seriously standing in my house and threatening me?”

  His chin came down even farther, lining their mouths up like they were lovers. “I do believe we’ve already established that this is not a house but an apartment.”

  Rosie wasn’t quite sure what tipped her over the edge, leaving bitch-tigress mode behind and going straight into slap-a-bitch mode. Could’ve been the insinuation that she would somehow put Nikki in harm’s way or it could’ve been the fact that he had the gall to threaten her. Hell, it could’ve been his mere presence at this point that did it.

  Either way, Rosie lifted her hand without thinking. She wasn’t going to hit him, even though that would give her enough satisfaction that therapists across the nation would be concerned. She lifted her hand to push him back.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Devlin had the reflexes of a damn cat, catching her wrist before she even had the joy of making contact. She gasped out of surprise and his eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Were you going to hit me?”

  “No,” she seethed, wishing her eyes could shoot out death rays.

  “That’s not how it appears to me,” he said, his voice deadly soft.

  “Well, I have a feeling a lot of things don’t appear as they really are to you,” she shot back, tugging on her arm, but he didn’t let go. “I was going to push you since, you know, you’re in my personal space.”

  “I’m not the one who got in your space.” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “You got in mine.”

  Okay, that was kind of true.

  “There’s something else you need to know.” He tugged on her arm, and before Rosie could react, her chest was suddenly flush against his. The contact was jarring, sending a riot of sensations through her. “I don’t make threats. I make promises.”

  She drew in a deep breath and immediately regretted it, because it pushed her chest against his even more, and . . . God, her stomach was dropping and twisting in ways that were not unpleasant. She felt her nipples harden, and started praying that he couldn’t feel them through the incredibly thin and worn shirt she wore and the lacy, nearly nonexistent bralette she’d slept in.

  She didn’t back down, though. “I don’t think you know how to use words correctly, because that, yet again, sounded an awful lot like a threat.”

  “Does it?” he asked, and his voice seemed deeper, rougher. His eyes took on a sudden, hooded quality. “If it was a threat, it doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “Why is that?”

  Devlin shifted just the slightest, and the next breath Rosie took lodged in her throat. She felt him against her stomach, thick and hard, and unless he had something weird in the front of his pants, he was totally turned on.

  So was she.

  And they were both apparently freaks, because she’d just tried to shove him and he had just threatened her, but here they were, utterly aroused, and there was a really good chance she needed to find a therapist stat.

  Those thick lashes lifted and his eyes pierced hers. It was like he waited for her to say something or to pull away, but she did nothing but hold his stare as a lick of heat curled low in her stomach.

  Devlin’s gaze lowered and those full lips parted. “I think it’s doing something entirely different.”

  It was. For a multitude of wrong reasons, it was, and Rosie bit down on her lower lip as her hips shifted of their own accord.

  “Are we going to pretend like you don’t feel me?” he asked, rather calmly.

  “Yes,” she snapped.

  “How’s that working out for you?”

  “Just great.” The moment those words came out of her mouth, she realized how ridiculous they sounded.

  Devlin’s lips twitched, and she just wanted him to—

  Footsteps sounded from her bedroom, and both of them reacted at once. Devlin let go of her wrist as if her skin scalded him, and Rosie turned into a kangaroo, because she jumped back a good foot.

  The curtains parted, rattling as the beads knocked off one another. She hoped she looked somewhat normal as Gabe and Nikki entered the room and not like she had just been seconds away from rubbing all over Devlin like a cat that was not only in heat but one that also had rabies.

  Gabe had his arm tight around Nikki’s shoulders and he didn’t seem at all surprised that Devlin was still there, but the moment she saw Nikki, she wasn’t thinking about whatever the hell had happened between her and Devlin. A little bit of shame rose in Rosie. While she’d been out here arguing and whatever with Devlin, Nikki had been in there, in pain and living a nightmare that had come to life.

  Rosie cringed. Somehow the bruises looked even worse now. She hurried from where she stood. “Hey, honey. How are you feeling?”

  Nikki tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace. “Better. I’m feeling better.”

  “That’s good.” She glanced at Gabe as she felt Devlin move closer to them.

  “I’m going to Gabe’s,” Nikki said, and if her face wasn’t so messed up at the moment, Rosie knew she’d see a blush.

  “Okay. Is there anything I can do?”

  “You’ve already done enough,” Nikki replied.

&nbs
p; “Thank you for getting Nikki this morning,” Gabe chimed in.

  “I haven’t done nearly enough, so there’s no need to thank me.” Rosie leaned in, carefully kissing the one unmarred spot on Nikki’s cheek. “Text me later, okay? When you feel up to it?”

  “Will do.”

  Rosie then turned to Gabe and met his stare. “Take care of my girl.”

  “Always” came Gabe’s response.

  She held his gaze for a moment, long enough for him to understand she would, without a doubt, find a voodoo priestess to hex him if he did Nikki wrong again.

  A slow, small smile tugged at Gabe’s lips and then he turned, guiding Nikki to the door. Devlin was already there, opening it for them. Rosie trailed behind.

  Devlin stepped out into the hall as Rosie gripped the side of the door. He turned and looked at her, opening his mouth.

  “All the gossip magazines have it wrong,” she said, meeting his blue-green eyes. “They call you the Devil, but they should call you the Dickhead.”

  And with that, she slammed the door shut in Devlin de Vincent’s face.

  “Alive or dead?” There was a pause. “Or would you rather the subject simply disappears?”

  Seated in the dimly lit private booth of the Red Stallion Sunday afternoon, Devlin de Vincent was currently deciding if someone lived, died . . . or, as Archie Carr had succinctly put it, simply disappeared.

  Frankly, he wanted the subject dead and erased.

  That would make him smile, but as he dragged his finger along the rim of the heavy glass, he knew he couldn’t let his personal feelings involving this person get in the way. He had questions and he needed answers.

  “Alive,” he answered.

  “That’ll cost more.”

  Strange how taking a life would cost less, but then again, keeping someone alive posed risks. Dev understood that. “Figured.”