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Except my bitch face wasn’t in any sort of state of rest at the moment. “He’s kidnapped me, you know,” I told Royson. “Yanked me right out of my bed in the middle of the night. That’s the sort of man you’re dealing with here.”
The instant Royson opened his mouth to laugh, I realised I’d completely missed the nuances of this situation, like whoosh.
“At least he’s giving you a good dinner, sweetheart,” said Robson, who believed me, but wasn’t impressed because he too occupied a world where it was acceptable to kidnap a young woman to make a point to her parents. “How much are they in with you for?”
Devin sent me this smile that was dripping with fondness I somehow knew was fake. That might have been what pissed me off the most about this situation. He couldn’t manage to have any sort of affectionate feeling for me unless it was for show? “She should just about cover the interest, I’d say.”
“Well, there were those of us who told them to watch out for you back in the day.” The fact that the smile Devin directed at Royson after that seemed perfectly genuine didn’t improve my mood. “Well, I’m sure the two of you have many things to discuss, so I’ll leave you to it. Lovely to meet you finally, Julia: I hope you’ll introduce yourself around and consider attending some of the social functions.”
Did he mean mafia functions? Were there social events where the men and women of this particular lifestyle got together and discussed the best way they’d broken someone’s bones that week, maybe played party games: musical chairs where the last person standing got to choose one of the losers to shoot… or maybe just steal one of their business interests? Did they just play literal Mafia?
“Well, Julia,” said Devin, “would you look at that.”
I followed his gaze over to the table Andy Royson had sat down at. He had his mobile phone in one hand, a wineglass in the other, a stunning plastic blonde at his side. Very mafioso.
“I could tell you about where the Royson family fits in the ‘family’,” Devin said, “because Royson and his boys are ones to watch for sure, but what’s much more relevant to us at the moment is that everyone in this social circle is a tremendous gossip. If not Royson, someone is going to get in contact with your dear mother and father before the end of our meal here.”
“This was just a ploy to get me out where I could be seen, wasn’t it?” I demanded. “Make sure everyone knows we’re out together—and that you took me—so everything plays into your little plan.”
A server showed up then to receive our meal orders and to offer a taste of offensively fresh seafood. I was fuming so much I could hardly focus on the menu; eventually Devin ordered for me, and I couldn’t remember what he’d selected ten seconds after the server was gone.
Devin watched me nearly boiling over with aggravation with blatant amusement. “You didn’t need me to tell you there was a chance there’d be someone who knew me or your parents here, surely. And you didn’t need to try blurting out all over the place that you’d been kidnapped. You did that all by yourself.”
And maybe he hadn’t wanted me to at first, but now he was definitely using that to his advantage. But this was the same man who had made a big swerve on his plan to marry me and made almost marrying me just as good an option. He was not someone to tangle with unless you were bringing your A-triple-plus game.
Devin reached a hand across the table to cover mine. I yanked it away. I r
eally wished I had my phone with me: I could have buried myself in a game or something and made a point of ignoring him.
And he would have been just as amused by my antics as he was now. “Come on, Julia, relax and enjoy your dinner. I guarantee your dear mother and father are going to be back sooner than you think, and then you’ll have to decide what your next move is.”
Deciding whether I was going to betray my rotten parents for a nice payout from this man… and possibly some other compensations.
He was right: I might as well fill up my stomach so I wouldn’t be hungry while I was matching wits with him.
Chapter Seven
When we stopped trying to dig into one another’s heads and spent our time commenting on the quality of the food and wine, we got along quite well. That was a trick I’d learned with my parents, actually: you didn’t have to have any fondness for a person so long as you could lean on your shared interest in food. Eating good food produces endorphins, and if incidental conversation makes any polite response impossible, it is completely appropriate to just make noises.
I also had a little more wine than I intended, which put me in a pretty good mood.
“I’d like to go back to my house to sleep tonight,” I told Devin as we reached his car. He’d been holding my arm since we got up to leave our seats at the restaurant and when I wobbled so severely I nearly made myself dizzy enough to throw up, I felt his fingers tighten on me. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “Even if that means you’re going to come in and creepily watch me when I sleep. I just want to be able to sleep in my own bed and use my own things.”
“And binge through a few of your favourite shows,” Devin suggested.
“Yes,” I said, “and shut up about those, please.”
“I’m willing to consider this option,” said Devin. “If you’re not going to fuss about me creepily watching you when you sleep, because we’ve spent enough time together now for me to know you’re a seriously loose cannon when you get something in your head.”
I rolled my eyes and wobbled into the car when he opened the door for me. “I’m both a shut-in and a loose cannon. You really need to have a chat with yourself and get your story straight, Mr. O’Hare.”
Devin slammed the door on me. I thought I heard a chuckle as he rounded the rear of the car, but it was probably someone from that even more drunken crowd that had come out from the more provincial ground-floor eatery right after us.
I was dozing while the car was moving, my head swimming too much whenever my lids fluttered for me to want to try keeping my eyes open, but when Devin pulled us into a parking spot, something about the scene felt so familiar it jolted me into complete consciousness.
I turned my head to stare at my own house at the end of our long driveway, like it was an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. Everything looked completely normal too, not like the sort of place where strange men could burst in at a moment’s notice and take over my life.
While I was staring Devin had already stepped out of the car and come around to open my door. When I stood and my knees nearly buckled under me, I realised my second wind was deceptive.
