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“Right, I’m glad we’ve got that settled,” I said as I moved towards her house.
She grabbed hold of my arm. “Wait. We haven’t settled anything.”
I halted my progress and looked at her. “We have. We’ve worked out that you’re gonna fight me all the way, which for the record, I’m already getting hard about.” Dipping my mouth to her ear, I added, “I’m not the type of man to give up when I want something, Hailee. And I just told you how much I want you. So fight all you want, but this relationship is going to happen, and I am going to demand things from you.”
12
Hailee
I watched Devil laugh as my grandmother told him something funny. He had the most infectious laugh I’d ever heard, and my lips curled up into a smile simply from the sound.
After his declaration outside when we’d arrived, the one where he tried to lay down the law with me about having his way with bossing me around, we’d come inside to find Jean struggling to pull the roast from the oven. Devil had quickly taken over and had also settled my grandmother at the kitchen table with a drink of water. That had earnt him brownie points. And then I’d all but forgotten being mildly irritated with him when he proceeded to finish cooking dinner.
Who knew bikers could cook? Not me. But it had been confirmed when I took my first bite of the honeyed carrots he’d made. I mean, what biker even knew to honey carrots?
“Hailee, cat got your tongue, dear?”
I stared at my grandmother who’d just asked that question, breaking into my thoughts. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”
“What?” Gran always did ask the hard questions. Well, not hard so much as intrusive.
I decided to share my thoughts. Glancing at Devil, I said, “Who taught you to cook? Specifically, who told you that honey and carrots go so well together?” Looking back at my grandmother, I said, “That’s what I was thinking.”
Devil grinned. Always with the sexy grin that caused my brain to go fuzzy. “My mother and my sister.” He winked as he added, “Specifically, it was Lee who taught me about carrots and honey.” That wink shot heat straight to my core. God, how I wanted to rip those clothes off him and—
“Lee’s your sister?” My grandmother asked, cutting into my dirty thoughts.
“Yeah. She’s a year younger than me but was the kind of kid who hounded Mum to let her help cook from the age of three. Mum got pneumonia when I was thirteen, and Lee took over the family cooking. Part of that was roping me and my brother in to help.”
“You’re close to your sister, then?” Gran asked.
Devil nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out his wallet and flashed a photo at her. “That’s Lee’s daughter, Skye. She’s just turned one.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a man beam so much while talking about his family. And yet, I knew from a previous conversation that he hadn’t seen his parents for fifteen years, so I wondered what his family looked like these days.
I leant forward. “Do you see them often?”
Regret clouded his features as he shook his head. “No. Lee and her husband settled in Tamworth where we grew up. I haven’t been back there since I left home, so the only time I see them is when Lee comes to Sydney. And that’s probably only once a year. But we Skype, so Skye knows who I am.”
Silence fell over us for a moment. I didn’t know what to say, because he appeared sad about not seeing them often. And that was an emotion I was yet to meet in Devil, so it required a moment of thought on my behalf as to how to approach it.
My grandmother, though, jumped right on it, changing the subject completely. “Hailee tells me she doesn’t
know your real name, young man. Is that correct?”
Oh. God.
“Gran,” I chastised her, hitting her with a dirty look.
She gave me the look she reserved for when she intended to ignore my plea. “Hush, Hailee. If a man wants to see my granddaughter, he’d better be offering up his name. I need to know who has my baby out at night in case anything happens.”
And there it was.
Jean Archer showed her love in cantankerous ways that I both adored her for and argued with her over. She was just like Aaron—she’d never stopped worrying about me since I arrived home from England.
Devil’s face turned serious, and I knew that he knew where she was coming from, too. He nodded. “My name is Dominic Ford.”
Dominic.
His name sat on the tip of my tongue. It totally suited him.
