“Don’t look at me,” Billy held up his hands. “I’m not one of her jilted lovers. Not for lack of trying, mind you. But back when I knew her, she was saving it for the one.” He made quote marks with his fingers. “Which, as everybody sitting here knows, wasn’t me.”
“What’s that I’m tasting?” Ace said, making smacking noises. “Is that sour grapes?”
“Shut the hell up,” Billy growled.
Eve was no longer listening. Because Billy’s not-so-subtle reminder of those hot and heavy petting sessions in the back of his Camaro blazed through her mind. The wet kisses and fervent touches—he’d had magic hands even back then—the ache that’d built and built but never found any release. Because she’d stopped it…
Oh, why had she stopped it? And did he know how much she regretted that her first time—and all the times after that—hadn’t been with him?
No. No, he didn’t. And it was probably just as well…
“No, Mac,” she shook her head, unaccountably tired all of a sudden. On top of the strain she’d been under by being around Billy, she’d been wracking her brain for two days over who could possibly hate her enough to want her dead. And so far? Well, so far she’d come up with a big handful of nothing, nada, zilch. And as much as she hated to admit it, to admit to another weakness, the truth was, all the stresses were beginning to wear her down. It felt like someone had dropped an anvil on each of her shoulders, not to mention the ten-pound weights some sadistic sonofagun had decided to attach to her eyelids. “I can’t think of a single person who’d fall into any of the categories you just mentioned.”
“How about that douchebag ex-husband of yours?” Billy sneered.
Eve felt her face turn beet red at the mention of Blake. Blake…the man she’d betrayed Billy with. Blake…the man who’d been trying for over a decade to win her back. “He wouldn’t do this,” she said quietly, staring at the table.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because…” she swallowed before admitting, “he still loves me. He’s always loved me. And he wants me back, not dead.”
Billy snorted and rolled his eyes. Mac frowned at him before reaching across the table to pat her hand. “It’s okay,” he reassured her. “We’ll figure this out.”
“I know we will,” was what she said. But what she felt? Well, it was the polar opposite. Unfortunately, all the wide-eyed hope she’d had earlier in the day had up and decided to abandon her. Now, she was left feeling nothing but drained and disheartened. She tried to offer Mac a smile but figured the gesture fell short when his brow furrowed. But she was saved from attempting to give the smile another go when the opening bars to “Come Sail Away” sounded from her purse. It was hooked over the back of her chair, so she had to swivel in order to dig inside and locate her cell phone. She glanced at the name on the screen and closed her eyes, sucking in a deep breath before pressing a button and sending the call directly to voice mail. She couldn’t deal with him right now.
“Your dad again?” Mac asked, because her phone had been going off every half hour since she’d left her father standing behind BKI’s big front gates.
“Yes,” she nodded, not quite meeting the man’s gaze. She was humiliated that Mac’d had to stand there and listen to her father cast aspersions on his character and the characters of all the Knights. It wasn’t that her father was a bad man. It’s just that he was opinionated and elitist and very, very set in his ways. Which hadn’t really been a problem for her until she started exercising her independence, and then their relationship had quickly gone downhill. But she hoped, oh, how she hoped, he’d come around. And soon. Because his constant nagging was only adding to her exhaustion.
“He’s certainly…uh…” Mac cocked his head, “persistent.”
“That’s one word for it,” she said, snorting and rubbing a thumb against her pounding temple.
Ace hooked an arm around her shoulders, giving her a quick squeeze. “You look completely beat, love,” he murmured in her ear. “How about you head upstairs and snuggle into bed. I’ll bring you a nice hot chocolate, we can gossip about boys, and you can forget about this whole mess for a while. How does that sound?”
How did it sound? “Like heaven,” she sighed, glancing up into his angelic face and kind eyes. Ace was going to make some man very happy one day.
“Good.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Billy clench his hands into fists. “It’s all settled then.” Ace stood and pulled her up by her elbows. “You go get into your PJs and I’ll be right up.” For good measure, after she’d turned toward the stairs leading to the loft-style bedrooms on the third floor, he gave her ass a resounding smack.
She squealed, swinging around to glare at him, but a slow smile ruined the expression.
“That’s more like it,” Ace grinned. “You’ve got a beautiful smile, love. And it breaks my heart when you don’t use it. Now, up you go,” he said, shooing her toward the stairs. She turned to do as instructed, but when her foot landed on the first tread, any momentary lightheartedness she felt disappeared like a catamaran in the Bermuda Triangle. It just…vanished. Because, oh, the look in Billy’s eyes out in that Hummer. The memory flashed through her mind, ripped at her heart.
It’s over, Eve. You ruined it.
And great. Now, not only was she exhausted, but she was on the verge of a crying jag guaranteed to last half the night. Without a backward glance, she sprinted up the stairs, wrenched open the door to the guest room, and threw herself down on the bed face-first, burying her head in the pillows lest the men downstairs hear the uncontrollable sobbing that shook her from head to toe.
“What is that look for?” Bill growled at Ace after Eve disappeared upstairs. BKI’s flyboy was standing there, arms crossed, head cocked, a narrowed-eyed glare plastering his face.
“Remember what I told you I’d do to you if you weren’t nice to Eve?” Ace smiled, all teeth and no emotion, though he did bat his girlishly long lashes.
“What the hell?” Bill threw his hands in the air, feeling his frustration mount to precarious levels. If he didn’t simmer down soon, his ulcer would wake up and go in for a second…third?…helping. “I have been nice to her. I friggin’ went and interrogated her stalker. I made sure he leaves her the hell alone from now on. I kept those damned meddling reporters from getting to her. And I—”
“And you were a big, snide, ass-clown with that little speech about her saving herself for the one.” Ace uncrossed his arms so he could sarcastically make the quote marks with his fingers.
Bill winced. Yeah, okay, so that hadn’t exactly been one of his bright, shining moments, but…
Still, after everything, he thought he’d done a pretty bang-up job of keeping his more cynical feelings to himself. So he’d appreciate it if his fellow Knights, specifically Ace, would cut him a little goddamned slack. He told the guy as much.
“Slack?” Ace asked, his expression telegraphing his annoyance louder than a WWII sticky bomb taking out a German Panzer. “You don’t need any slack. What you need is an old-fashioned ass-whooping.” Okay, and now Bill was good and pissed. He pushed up from the table, but Ace ignored the killing gleam in his eye and just kept on. “Because your ticket on the Poor-Me-I-Got-Dumped train has long expired. You need to hop off at the next stop, my friend. It’s at the intersection of Suck-It-Up and Get-The-Hell-Over-It.”