“
Hm,
” she huffed, glancing at me over her shoulder as she walked out of the room and into the hall. “Gen and I have a bet going. We’re not going to tell you what’s at stake, but if I lose, you will owe me. I don’t know what, but something good.”
When I looked to Gen, she put her hands up and shook her head. “The bet was Roxi’s idea, and I didn’t exactly agree to it. You know how she gets.”
She had a good point.
As I dialed Jeremy’s number, I realized I no longer cared to hear why he hadn’t fought for us. On our wedding day, I’d wanted to know. But now, I had no interest in Jeremy’s excuses. I’d wasted enough time on him already. The pain had shifted to anger—red hot, mind-numbing anger. He’d made it easy for me to hate him and to resent having ever loved him at all.
Even though I would rather pluck my eyelashes out than see him again, my business was on the line, and a conversation with Jeremy was a means to an end. I would do anything to save my business. I needed the wealthy clients to walk through my door again, and the only way most of them would ever do so is if Deborah wasn’t walking around town, tarnishing my reputation to whoever would listen.
Against my better judgment, I’d applied for another credit card. The balance was just big enough to order the dresses I needed to wow at the bridal expo next month. So, this meeting with Jeremy needed to happen, and when it was over with, hopefully the Buchanans’ black imprint on my life would be washed away.
Dust in the freakin’ wind.
While the phone rang, I tapped my nails on the counter. When he answered, I was determined to make this be the change
Once Upon A Dream
needed.
“Jeremy, this is Lexie.”
“Lexie?” His voice registered disbelief. “Is that…you?”
“Yes.”
“Lexie, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
I hadn’t expected to hear him sound so relieved, and it caught me off guard.
“Yeah. Hi. I’m calling because—”
“Did you get my flowers? The ones I sent over Christmas?”
“Yes, I did. But that’s not why I’m calling.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I said in a rush, “Can you meet me for dinner?”
“What?” he asked.
“Can you meet me for dinner?” I repeated. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes, yeah. That would be great! Of course. I can pick you up at seven. Is that…okay?”
The way he stumbled over his words should’ve made me feel better, but it didn’t. It only proved how off the wall this meeting was, and how terribly wrong things were the day our relationship ended.
“It’s probably best if I just meet you somewhere, Jeremy.” I thought of all the places we’d be less likely to run into Deborah or anyone who knew him and his family. “How about the American Legion?”
“The American Legion?” He sounded confused. Like he might not even know what an American Legion was, which wouldn’t surprise me. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place his family would dine. My dad met some of his veteran friends there for hamburgers on dollar pitcher night once a week to watch a sporting event on the big screen. The place smelled of fried bar food.
“Yes, the American Legion. It’s on Eagle Street.”
“Why don’t we have dinner at my place?” he suggested.
The thought of being alone with him after all these months made me queasy.
No way.
“I don’t think so. And I don’t want you telling your mom about this meeting. Okay?”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t,” he said. “I mean, I don’t think it would be a good idea for her to know about us.”
“Jeremy, we’re just meeting to talk. That’s it.” I didn’t want there to be any confusion on his end. “There is no ‘us’ anymore.”
“Right, of course,” he was quick to say. “I mean, I have a girlfriend.”
I clenched my jaw. Yes, he had a girlfriend. His life was perfect. Everything peaches and cream. “Right. So, the Legion?”
“My parents are out of town—we should meet somewhere that serves a nice meal. Let me buy you a nice meal.”
“Jeremy, I—”
“Please, Lexie. It’s the least I can do. After everything.” He sounded sorry, at least. That was something.
“Well…”
“I’ll request a quiet table at Perfezione. It’s your favorite,” he said. It
had
been my favorite restaurant, which was why Jeremy had proposed to me there. Meeting him there now didn’t sound like a good idea, but the calamari was great.
But still. “I don’t know…”
My hesitance made him beg. “Please, Lexie. It’s just dinner. Like you said, it means nothing.”
He was right. Of course it was nothing. At least, that’s what I’d let him think until I brought up the real reason at dinner. This meeting was about righting wrongs and saving my reputation, my business.
“Okay, I will meet you there at seven, tomorrow night.” I hung up before I changed my mind, because Roxanna was right. Right now, I had no other choice. Saving my boutique was more important than how uncomfortable it might be to have dinner with my ex. I was an adult, doing what I needed to do.
“For the love of God,” Michelle breathed from behind me. I glanced over at her, frozen in place, her wide-eyed gaze fixated on something outside the window. “Who is that?”
Standing out on the sidewalk was Leo with a phone to his ear. His suit fit as if it had been tailor made just for him. He didn’t wear a coat; I was certain he burned hotter than everyone else.
“That’s Leo,” I said.
“Leo who?” she asked.
But I didn’t answer because Leo opened the door and stepped inside. Michelle glanced over to me with question in her eyes, but I ignored her.
“Nice to see you standing up in here instead of lying in a pile of dresses,” Leo said.
“I think I’ll take this to the office,” Michelle mumbled. She turned around and headed for the back room.
“You scared my help away.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but only to put a stop to the silly grin that wanted to take over my lips. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I was thinking about you.”
“You were thinking about me,” I repeated, and my thoughts turned X-rated.
The twitch of his lips told me he knew exactly where my mind had gone. “You have a dirty little mind, Princess.”
“I wasn’t thinking about sex at all,” I lied.
My dirty thoughts were his fault—the last thing he told me before leaving my bed was he couldn’t wait to taste me again. He knew
exactly
what he did to me.
He leaned against the counter, his green eyes studying my lips. “I didn’t mention sex, you did. Which means you were thinking about sex.”
Sex was definitely on my mind. Smiling, I adjusted a blue sash around the mannequin in front of me. “Well, then, if you’re not here to talk about sex, what’s the real reason?”
“I want to take you to dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Yes, you know, where I pick you up and take you somewhere nice.” His hand brushed against my butt, and I shivered. “Not that I don’t enjoy eating takeout on your floor and the sleepover afterwards.”
“So…like a date?” I turned from the mannequin to look up at him.
“How about dinner between two people who are hungry.” His lips twitched with restrained laughter.
“Okay.” Dinner. In public. No big deal. Everyone needed to eat, right? “When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
I sucked in a breath at the stab of guilt. If I told Leo what we were up to, he’d insist on going—I knew him well enough to know he’d do just that. If Jeremy caught sight of Leo, he’d bolt and the whole plan would go up in flames. Seeing Jeremy again, talking to him after all this time, would be hard enough without a muscled-up bodyguard hovering over us—a muscled-up bodyguard I’d had sex with. A lot.
“I have dinner plans with Rox and Gen tomorrow night.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Roxanna and Gen would both be there, watching over me. “Rain check?”
“Rain check,” he agreed. He wrapped me into his arms and kissed my neck. “I’ll see you when I see you, I guess.”
“I won’t get out of here until after eight, but you could come over. If you want.” It sounded like a suggestion, but I waited breathlessly for his answer. The thought of not seeing him was disappointing.
He chuckled. “Is that an invitation?”
“Do you want to come over?”
“Do you want me to come over?” he countered.
“If you are fishing for an invitation, you can come over.”
“If you are asking me to come over, I will come over.” He grinned down at me, and I sucked in my smile.
“
Jeez
, fine. I want you to come over.” I pushed him away and turned my back to him.
“Now was that so difficult?” he asked and swatted my butt as I walked away.
“Like pulling teeth. Now go away.” Opening my calendar behind the counter, I pretended to read the empty pages. “I’m trying to work.”
When I looked up, he already had his hand on the door handle. “Since I won’t see you in time for dinner, I’ll make it up with dessert.”
Before my lips could remember how to work, he was gone.
“Holy wow,” I whispered.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Michelle said from beside me, and her sudden appearance made me jump. “Who is that, and why do I not know about him. And how the hell do you keep your panties on around that guy?”
“We’re just friends.” It sounded absurd.
“How can you be ‘just friends’ with someone who looks like that?” Michelle raised her brows.
“Okay, we’re not just friends. We’re just…I don’t know. Messing around. It’s not a good idea to think too much into it,” I said, voicing the fears that’d been dancing around inside my head for weeks now. “We have history. It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated,” Michelle repeated, looking at me as if I were slow.
I nodded.
“Because of your past,” she said.
I nodded again.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t look like he’s hung up on your past, and you shouldn’t be either.
Look at him.
” She swept past me with a lavender bridesmaid’s dress draped over her arm. “You’re obviously over-thinking things, as you tend to do.”
“I do not,” I denied. But she was right. I’d been dissecting everything in my life lately, taking it apart piece by piece, then putting it back together. I was afraid of missing something, big things, like I had with Jeremy. I had to be on my toes these days.
“Yes, you do,” Michelle said. She slid a hanger through the dress straps. “You’re hot. He’s hot. Do something about it.” She winked a purple painted eyelid. “All this sexual tension is making it hard to breathe in here.” She fanned herself with one hand and hung the dress up with the other. “And I bet it’s no boring missionary with a guy like that.”
“Michelle!” I rolled my eyes, but the grin on my lips wasn’t going anywhere. “We don’t have time to discuss man…parts. We have the expo to plan.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She sounded disappointed.
“Hooker in Stilettos, do you copy,”
Roxanna’s voice said into my hands-free cell phone earpiece. Having them in my ear was better than me sitting alone inside the restaurant. There’d been no other option though. The two of them couldn’t come inside, not if we didn’t want Jeremy to spot them and bolt. We were on a three-way call, very espionage-esque.
I pretended to study the menu I held up in front of my face, and whispered, “Yes, I can hear you. Why am I Hooker in Stilettos?”
“
Yeah, really,”
Gen whispered in my ear. “
And why do I have to be Whipped Hooker? Is it because I have a boyfriend?”
I wasn’t sure why Gen thought she needed to whisper since I was the only other person who could hear them. Their call wasn’t on speaker. They were parked in Roxanna’s SUV at the curb on the side of the restaurant. It was as close as they could get after we ruled out them coming inside at all.
“
No, not just because you have a boyfriend. It’s because ever since Matt came along—whom I approve of, by the way—you’ve been baking pies and shit. Quit complaining and get serious
,” Roxanna stressed.
“When is Richard getting here?” I whispered behind the menu as a change of subject. I really wasn’t sure why he needed to be here in the first place, but both Gen and Roxanna insisted he needed to be. For back up. Jeremy wasn’t a threat, so I wasn’t sure what kind of back up they thought I’d need.
“
He had a video game tournament. He’ll be here soon
,” Gen whispered in my ear.
“
Stupid video games,”
Roxanna grumbled.
“He was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”
I hoped for his sake he showed up soon. Roxanna would rip him a new one if he ruined Operation Weak Link—another of Roxanna’s titles.
“Why can’t I be Mockingbird, or maybe Bluejay? Like on that spy series you’re always watching.” I peeked over the menu. Still no Jeremy. I had shown up early, hoping a drink would make it easier to stomach a conversation with him. My first glass of wine had gone down smoothly, and since Jeremy would be paying the tab, I’d splurged on an expensive red. I hoped the waitress would hurry back with a second glass.