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She pushed the intercom button. “Come in. I’m in the bedroom getting dressed.”
She hurried into her closet and grabbed a retro-style cocktail dress that she’d gotten from ModCloth at a bargain. She didn’t need to save money, but her mother had drilled into her that it was better in her pocket than in someone else’s, and she’d always been frugal.
“Let’s see what you are wearing,” Jessi said as she led the way, ignoring DJ and coming into the closet to stand next to her. Her sister had an aversion for babies and was the first to admit she liked to keep her distance from children until they could walk, talk and order a drink.
She spun around so that Jess could see what she was wearing. The dress was slim-fitting, in a regal purple color that made her pale skin glow. It had a fitted bodice with thin spaghetti straps and a velvet ribbon that accentuated the slimness of her waist. She’d put on a strand of black pearls that their father had given their mother for a long-ago birthday and that Cari had inherited when her parents had died in a tragic boating accident, but she’d changed her mind at the last minute and now wore her usual charm necklace instead.
“Gorgeous, darling! Are you sure this is just a business dinner?” Jessi asked.
“Yes,” she said, though the heat of her blush made her realize that she wasn’t as confident in that answer as she should be. “What else could it be? He’s a Montrose.”
“Don’t forget it,” Jessi said as they both walked back into the bedroom.
Emma gave her the thumbs-up. “You look good,” she said. “What are you not supposed to forget?”
“That Dec is essentially my enemy.”
“Dec?”
“That’s his name.”
“His name is Declan, Cari. And you said it like…” Emma watched her shrewdly.
She didn’t ask like what. Cari knew how she’d said his name. Like he was her salvation and her downfall. And he was both. No matter how she tried to spin it. No matter what she wanted to pretend. No matter that he was a game changer and she had to decide how to proceed.
So far she’d let him get the upper hand at the office, and for her own sake and DJ’s, she couldn’t let that happen tonight. She had to be the one in control.
She glanced at both of her sisters as she sprayed perfume on her pulse points. They looked worried, and she just smiled at them as she adjusted the high ponytail she’d put her hair up in and fingered the bangs on her forehead.
Tonight she was going to be rebel, boss and angel all rolled into one. Tonight Declan Montrose wouldn’t know what hit him. Tonight she would walk away victorious.
* * *
Dec was waiting in the bar for her when she arrived at the Chart House restaurant in Marina del Rey. He looked sexy and sophisticated dressed all in black. Pants, tie, shirt and jacket. On anyone else it would have looked like too much, but it suited him. He wasn’t lighthearted at all and this dark attire reflected that.
But it also made him look devastatingly handsome. She noted that women sneaked covert looks at him as they sipped their drinks. She sighed and wondered if she was really up for this. Talking herself into being brave had been a daily ritual since she’d realized she was pregnant. She continued the practice now, put her shoulders back and walked over to him.
He turned just as she approached. And she arched one eyebrow at him in question.
“I saw you in the mirror,” he explained, holding out a drink. “I recall you were a gin-and-tonic girl.”
“Still am,” she said. “But since I need my head about me tonight, I’ll settle for just the tonic.”
He smiled. “I’ll get you a different drink.”
He turned back in a second handing her a highball glass with a twist of lime in it. She took a sip of the refreshing drink and decided to stop her worrying for tonight. Somehow she’d figure out how to tell him he had a child.
“How was it today?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk shop tonight. I want to catch up on you,” he said. “We’ve got fifteen minutes until our table will be ready.”
He led the way through the semicrowded bar to a small intimate booth in the far corner and gestured for her to sit. She slid onto the seat and took an inordinate amount of time to straighten her dress about her legs.
“I make you nervous,” he said when she looked up.
“Yes. You did when we first met, as well,” she admitted.
“Why? Is it because I’m a Montrose?”
She thought about it. But really she didn’t need the time to consider his question. She’d already spent a lot of time dwelling on Dec Montrose. “No. It’s something about you. You seem so confident and determined…makes a girl feel like she needs all of her wits about her.”
