I took a big gulp of my wine, Brody’s words stinging. “And then he gets annoyed when your emotions get in the way of his great robot brain logic?” I guessed, trying to laugh past the lump in my throat.
“Got it in one,” Brody said with a sigh. He ran his fingers through his thinning sandy hair. “I can handle him, but I’m used to him. I forget other people aren’t. I feel just terrible that you got hurt.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, but my voice threatened to crack. I grabbed my drink and downed it to try and hide my face. What the hell was I doing? I didn’t cry in front of my best friends, let alone complete strangers!
Brody looked away politely as I sniffled.
“It was just supposed to be a silly bet,” he said. “A little game. I thought maybe we could wager tickets to some event, or some kind of dare. But Asher—” I saw his fist clench. “He just had to raise the stakes to ten million. Asher always has to raise—”
His fist clenched tighter for a moment, and then he took a deep breath and looked back at me, a cheerful smile on his face. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I invited you here to try to make things up to you, and all I can do is go on and on about the last person who you must want to talk about. Please forgive me.”
“Sure,” I muttered.
I could feel my own hands tensing around the wineglass; I was afraid I would grip too hard and break it. I didn’t really trust this man; I still remembered the strange way he had acted at the furniture store, and I certainly remembered the way he had behaved at my opening. Who knew if what he was saying was the truth?
I had thought Asher was telling me the truth, and look where that had gotten me.
“Anyway, moving on from Asher—” Brody began. Thank God, a segue into the part of our discussion where we get to talk about my future, instead of my crushed heart.
“What the hell?” a man behind me said.
And this time, the voice definitely belonged to Asher Young.
Time seemed to slow down as I turned in my seat to see him storming across the restaurant towards us. “Brody, this is who the ‘surprise guest’ was?”
I whirled on Brody, furious. “You invited him?!”
Brody held up his hands as if he was being held at gunpoint. “I just thought that if you two sat down and talked through your differences, you might be able to resolve—”
“There is nothing to resolve!” I snapped, standing.
Asher grabbed my arm. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me everything this snake said!”
I snatched my arm back, stifling a traitorous pang of attraction as those brilliant green eyes flashed into mine. “Assault much? I go where the hell I like!”
His hair looked even messier than usual, and his tightly fitted linen shirt looked rumpled, as though he had slept in it. There were dark circles under his eyes. Was he not getting enough sleep? And that outburst—that wasn’t his style. What was eating at him?
I quashed my concern as well. Whatever Asher was feeling, it was no longer any of my business. He’d made sure of that.
“I’m serious, Kate,” Asher snapped at me. “You need to tell me everything he told you, and anything you just told him. You’re in over your head; you don’t know what he’s capable of. You can’t trust him!”
I lashed out. “You mean like I can trust you?”
Asher stepped backward, as if I had just hit him.
“Kate—I…you have to…” he stuttered to a halt.
“You lied to me,” I whispered. “About the one thing I needed most for you to tell me truthfully.”
There was a long, terrible silence, and I realized that the entire restaurant was gaping at us.
Well, if I was going to have an audience, I was damn well going to have a good parting shot. I shoved down the slowly blooming remorse I felt for the look on Asher’s face, and glared right into those lying eyes.
Those lying, deep, passion-darkened green eyes…
Focus, Kate!
“From now on, this relationships is purely professional.” I took one step towards him, my heels clicking on the marble. “You said you’d be a silent partner? Well, now is the time for you to shut the hell up.”
I stalked right past him, and I didn’t look back once.
THREE
“Ms. Jameson, oh thank God you’re back from the storeroom,” Nicole said, looking up from behind the cash register with an ecstatic expression. “I’ve got three guests who need advice on their fittings and a woman who needs help tracking down the peignoir she saw in Blossom, and I’m still ringing up this line of customers here!”