10 Ways to Steal Your Lover by Dee Tenorio Page B

were
remotely his choice. Delilah worried at her lip for just a second, squeezing
his hand gently once, then she slipped away and Kane had the horrible sense
that this wouldn’t be the last time he’d have to feel her disappear from his
grasp.

Chapter Ten
             Craig thankfully didn’t reach for her
hand or put his own on the small of her back as he led Delilah to the sunken
dining room. She hadn’t investigated this part of the suite yet, so it felt
strange pulling out the black padded and high-backed chair and slipping over
its firm surface. Craig pulled out the captain’s chair cattycorner to her and
sat, his handsome face somber, black hair falling over his perfect brow and his
dark blue eyes searching her face for…she didn’t really know.
             She should be feeling something, looking
at him. She’d lived with him for three years. Planned to tie her life to his.
At least a throb in her heart. Even her sense of guilt was little more than a
shadow in her mind. No matter how she spun it, waking up this morning with Kane
had felt like freedom and waking up the day before, preparing to marry Craig,
had felt like a life sentence. It didn’t take a genius to add up what that
meant.
             “I’m sorry you had to find out like this,
Craig, I really am.”
             “Find out about what, exactly?” Not a
harsh question. Soft. Almost musing. “That you’re in love with my best friend
or that you married him?”
             Delilah gaped, not remotely able to
formulate an answer to that.
             Finally, Craig’s familiar smile creased
the dimples in his cheeks. “You really don’t remember anything, do you? About
the church?”
             She clamped her mouth shut with an
audible click and Craig actually laughed softly.
             “You can’t imagine what it was like
getting a call from Jesse this morning that Kane had kidnapped you and was
holding you ransom.”
             “He said what?” God, she was going to
have to do something about that horrible shriek of hers. How is it that she’d
never heard herself make that noise before today and now she couldn’t seem to
stop?
             “Your mother must have warmed up to her
story by the time she got to Jesse.”
             “You think?” She would not bang her head
on a table again. She wouldn’t.
             He leaned in conspiratorially, “How
exactly did your mother get a hold of Jesse. He never gives that number away.”
             As if he couldn’t guess. Her father had
more contacts than LensCrafters. “If you don’t know, trust me, it’s best for
everyone involved.”
             Craig gave that a few seconds
consideration before shrugging. “I tried to tell them that Kane would never
kidnap you but by then Jesse had already mentioned
             Kane’s Gramps old story and the hunt was
on. We’ve been to at least a dozen casinos looking for you. We’d just about
given up when someone sent Jesse a link to a video of TK Hughes getting knocked
on his ass by a guy at a roulette table.”
             “I never thought of Jesse as this helpful
before.” Funny and a little irresponsible with himself, sure, but not helpful. Especially
not to authority figures like her parents. In fact, she kinda figured her
parents would give him hives on principle. She’d have to help him back with a
gift basket full of X-lax chocolate muffins. Or better yet, one of Rainbow’s
special teas.
             “That’s only because you’ve never had to
spend more than a few days at a time with him. Trust me, Jesse takes a sick
kind of pleasure out of helping us get caught when we do something stupid.”
             “And when he does something stupid?”
             Craig shrugged again. “Jesse’s too slick
to get caught doing stupid things.”
             “But you’re not,” she surmised and his
smile turned