“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Jules dropped her arm, still clutching the hanger tightly. “What?”
“Being like Dad, you say that like it’s a bad thing.” Wyatt frowned as he also looked at the dress in Jules’s hand. “Are you going somewhere?”
29
“I was gonna go out,” Jules said, still feeling dazed at the prospect of wearing a
“fuck me” dress to have dinner with Romeo Wellings.
“In that?” Wyatt’s eyes grew wide. “Do you have a date?”
“No.” Jules huffed, because this was a business meeting of sorts. Romeo had done something heroic and brave in saving Melody. Clay would want Jules to buy him dinner. It was more like a moral obligation than a date, except for that strange fluttering in her stomach when she thought about Romeo looking at her in this dress. “I don’t think it’s a date.”
“Are you meeting someone?”
Jules let her shoulders slump because she couldn’t see getting out of admitting it.
“Yes.”
“In that dress?”
“It’s the last clean one I got,” Jules said helplessly. She could dress casual and take Romeo somewhere inexpensive, but that seemed all wrong. He’d risked his life to help Melody, whose boyfriend just beat Romeo in a title fight. The chivalry that took restored Jules’s faith in humanity. The least she could do was buy him a nice meal, and she wasn’t going to let a sexy dress stop her. “I guess it’ll have to do.”
“Who is it?”
Jules met her brother’s gaze, knowing he’d never understand why Jules felt the need to reach out to Romeo like this. Why it was important to acknowledge what he’d done. To Wyatt, Romeo rescuing Melody seemed like no big deal when he would have done the same thing. Didn’t matter who it was, if they were in danger, Wyatt would come to their rescue. Their father had made sure Jules and Wyatt were both strong enough to always help others. It was the one thing he’d instilled in both of them, because that unique integrity was what her daddy had lived and breathed until the day he’d died.
Which could be why Jules felt so drawn to Romeo. Wyatt might not realize it, but Jules had learned a long time ago that men like that were very rare. She felt compelled to 30
recognize something that made sure Clay and Melody were together and happy and safe.
“He’s a cop,” she lied, knowing how deeply Wyatt despised Romeo Wellings. “I met him at the hospital. He asked me out to dinner. It’s mostly professional. He knows I’m not from here, and I told him I’m still a volunteer deputy back home. It’s just one cop reaching out to another. Like a business meeting.”
“Whatever, Jules.” Wyatt snorted in disbelief. “If he asked you out, it ain’t to talk shop. ’Specially not if you’re wearing that. That’s a ‘fuck me’ dress.” Jules held up the dress, looking at it once more. Even Wyatt, who’d been off the dating market for years, knew a “fuck me” dress when he saw it. This was starting to get more complicated than she wanted to deal with because Romeo Wellings was a little too handsome. Any heterosexual woman with a pulse would feel that throb of excitement over being near him. Jules knew it was a normal, biological reaction to a prime example of Grade A, all-American male, and usually she could keep her cool.
She’d spent her entire life around big, tough, and buff men like Romeo. She just hadn’t seen one quite as good-looking as him before.
“It’s nothing,” she argued, more to convince herself than Wyatt. “And this is all I got to wear. It’ll have to do.”
“Then have fun. I won’t wait up.”
“I ain’t sleeping with him,” Jules snapped, knowing she was being defensive enough to be obvious, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Just ’cause you’re a pig, don’t mean he is.”
“By definition all men are pigs, and I believe you know that.” Wyatt shrugged dismissively, turning back to the television, remote in hand. “I’d buy condoms on the way down to your business meeting.”
* * * *
31
Jules felt eyes on her everywhere as she made her way to the Italian restaurant she and Romeo had agreed to meet at. Considering she was in Las Vegas, where long legs and low-cut dresses were a staple, Jules knew she was in trouble.
She’d gone out of her way to look good, and it was obvious. Maybe she shouldn’t have styled her hair, leaving it to hang in long, loose curls down the center of her back.
She’d pulled up one side with an expensive gold hair clip she’d purchased specifically to match the dress when she’d been going through one of those dark bouts where she took out her depression over her nonexistent love life on her credit card and bought all the things she needed to get laid: sexy underwear, thigh-high stockings, garters, and high heels that left her standing well over six feet tall. She’d never expected to really wear all this, especially for a dinner with Romeo Wellings, but for some reason she was.