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“His name’s Adrían,” she said. “We had a thing a while back. It wasn’t serious.”
Joel didn’t look her way. “Does he know that?”
“We both agreed to break it off.”
“Why?”
“He said he thought he might be falling in love. That wasn’t what we agreed to, so we sort of ended things.”
“Sort of?”
“It wasn’t exactly a conventional relationship.”
“Then what was it?”
She let her eyes answer the question.
Joel licked his lips and she half-expected for them to be swiped right off his face. “How long did this ‘agreement’ last?” he asked. “A week? A month? A year? Because it must have lasted a while if the fucker still hasn’t left the restaurant.”
Again, she fought the urge to turn around.
“He’s chatting up the hostess, mate,” Gage said, although he stared in the same direction. “That’s why he’s still here.”
“Eesh, turn around,” Joel said. “I want to see what he does.”
She waited for Gage to cancel the request. Instead, Gage looked like he was centering Adrían in the scope of an imaginary rifle.
She turned.
Adrían laughed with the hostess and looked off to the side, but then his gaze connected with hers—and held. He stared at her without attempting to mask what he wanted, and she could almost see scenes of their time together play out between them on an invisible projection screen.
Things were going well.
She and Joel were finally together.
However, since the universelovedto fuck with her, it had decided to randomly toss Adrían into the mix. If she threw in the fact that the guys were even more “off-kilter” than usual these days, there was no version of this faux love triangle she could envision that wouldn’t end in someone’s death.
As far as she knew, Adrían was a desk, business software, suit and tie guy, which was only what Joel appeared to be on the outside. Also, if it came down to it, she knew who she’d save. She knew who had her heart. But she would be lying to herself if she said running into Adrían hadn’t evoked an unexpectedsomething.
“Are you guys sure you can adapt to a normal life?” Tayler asked. “One guy and the two of you go into savage mode.”
“You don’t find that odd, love?” Gage asked. “What are the odds of Ayesha running into a man she once had a…casual affair with years ago in Maui, in Sweden?”
Ayesha started to raise an index finger but then set her hand back on her lap. “Technically, he did do a lot of international business.”
“Was he eating alone?” Joel added. “He ran into you, and then he left. That tells me he was here specifically to run into you.”
“You think he’s stalking me?”
Gage shrugged. “It’s possible. It would fucking suck for him, but it’s possible.”
“Why would it have taken so long?”
“We’re not saying there aren’t other variables to consider,” Gage said. “But that right there? That little incidental meetup? It doesn’t sit well with me.”
It didn’t sit well with her either, but she already had to deal with Theo and Curtis’ family. She couldn’t pile on Adrían. Plus, even if Adríanwasfollowing her, how close did he expect to get with Carnivore One and Carnivore Two at the same table, and with four more bloodthirsty wolves back at what Dez jokingly referred to as their commune?
“Feel like dessert, Eesh?” Tayler asked.
