toasted a slice of brown bread before removing the single serving of tenderloin from the oven.
With Annabel looking on silently, he spread a diamond of toast with the Gorgonzola mayonnaise and layered the shaved beef on top. He handed her the open-face cocktail sandwich, but refused to let go until she looked up, and he knew he had her attention.
One timely pause and he stated the one single truth she needed to hear. “If it’s who I think it is, then he’s here to kill me.”
C HLOE Z UNIGA PULLED her lime-green VW Beetle into the parking lot of Three Mings. For a very long moment she seriously considered blowing off her appointment with Devon Lee and simply stuffing her face with General Tso’s chicken.
Fighting with Eric always made her want to eat. And not eat normally, but enough to drown her sorrows in pools and puddles of sugar and salt and vats of liquid chocolate. Alcohol, thank goodness, she only used when she partied. Alcohol was all about fun, and fun was not at all what she was having today.
Hell, who was she kidding? she mused, slamming the car door and adjusting her sunglasses in the glare of the winter sun. She hadn’t experienced fun in weeks. It wasgetting so bad that she hated going to the office. All the newlywed, affianced and bloated pregnancy bliss was getting on her nerves.
Especially since Eric refused to talk about their own relationship, where it was headed, where they might want to take it, where he saw them a year, five, ten from now.
He accused her of being desperate and swept up in the lives of her girlfriends. He said her obsession with marriage and babies wasn’t about their life together at all, but a case of self-inflicted peer pressure.
He didn’t know shit about what he was saying, and she wasn’t going to apologize for slipping into her recently broken potty-mouth habit. Her desires were not a part of the gIRL-gEAR partners’ trend-setting reputation. She loved Eric and wanted to make a life with him.
And until recently, until he’d started working so many hours and coming home long after she was asleep, she’d thought he felt the same.
But since she knew food wasn’t going to do anything but kindle her heartburn, she headed for the stairs to the gallery and her appointment with Poe’s brother, unable to deny the thrill of anticipation where indigestion had once burned.
Devon Lee was a hell of a sexy man. He was a bit taller than Poe, with more of a sense of humor twinkling in his eyes. His Asian-American features were sharply defined, and Chloe couldn’t help but wonder about the root of the Caucasian half of his genes.
She climbed the stairs slowly, doing her best to rein in the runaway emotion she had no business entertaining. She was here for Poe, to give her friend a hand salvaging the party, and that was it. Whether or not Poe’s brother revved Chloe’s motor was not for consideration.
Even so, when she stepped through the front door ofthe gallery, she could think of nothing but the unexpected sizzle of her last encounter with Devon and the trouble she’d had getting him out of her mind since.
Yet the simplicity of the gallery’s rooms was calming. She found herself unwinding, felt the upheaval that had unbalanced her since she’d left home this morning leveling out. She breathed deeply, inhaled a potpourri of aromas. Her stress ebbed to the point where she hardly remembered the source.
All she knew was serenity and, eyes closed, she smiled.
“It’s nice to see my patrons benefiting from the gallery’s ambience.”
She couldn’t help it; she shivered from the soothing sound of Devon’s voice. “Benefiting? How so?”
“Your shoulders are nowhere as tight as they were when you first came in.”
At the interesting revelation that she hadn’t been alone in her musings, she turned to him and asked, “Are you in the habit of stalking your visitors?”
He shook his head. “Not stalking. Observing.”
“A student of human nature?”
He
With Annabel looking on silently, he spread a diamond of toast with the Gorgonzola mayonnaise and layered the shaved beef on top. He handed her the open-face cocktail sandwich, but refused to let go until she looked up, and he knew he had her attention.
One timely pause and he stated the one single truth she needed to hear. “If it’s who I think it is, then he’s here to kill me.”
C HLOE Z UNIGA PULLED her lime-green VW Beetle into the parking lot of Three Mings. For a very long moment she seriously considered blowing off her appointment with Devon Lee and simply stuffing her face with General Tso’s chicken.
Fighting with Eric always made her want to eat. And not eat normally, but enough to drown her sorrows in pools and puddles of sugar and salt and vats of liquid chocolate. Alcohol, thank goodness, she only used when she partied. Alcohol was all about fun, and fun was not at all what she was having today.
Hell, who was she kidding? she mused, slamming the car door and adjusting her sunglasses in the glare of the winter sun. She hadn’t experienced fun in weeks. It wasgetting so bad that she hated going to the office. All the newlywed, affianced and bloated pregnancy bliss was getting on her nerves.
Especially since Eric refused to talk about their own relationship, where it was headed, where they might want to take it, where he saw them a year, five, ten from now.
He accused her of being desperate and swept up in the lives of her girlfriends. He said her obsession with marriage and babies wasn’t about their life together at all, but a case of self-inflicted peer pressure.
He didn’t know shit about what he was saying, and she wasn’t going to apologize for slipping into her recently broken potty-mouth habit. Her desires were not a part of the gIRL-gEAR partners’ trend-setting reputation. She loved Eric and wanted to make a life with him.
And until recently, until he’d started working so many hours and coming home long after she was asleep, she’d thought he felt the same.
But since she knew food wasn’t going to do anything but kindle her heartburn, she headed for the stairs to the gallery and her appointment with Poe’s brother, unable to deny the thrill of anticipation where indigestion had once burned.
Devon Lee was a hell of a sexy man. He was a bit taller than Poe, with more of a sense of humor twinkling in his eyes. His Asian-American features were sharply defined, and Chloe couldn’t help but wonder about the root of the Caucasian half of his genes.
She climbed the stairs slowly, doing her best to rein in the runaway emotion she had no business entertaining. She was here for Poe, to give her friend a hand salvaging the party, and that was it. Whether or not Poe’s brother revved Chloe’s motor was not for consideration.
Even so, when she stepped through the front door ofthe gallery, she could think of nothing but the unexpected sizzle of her last encounter with Devon and the trouble she’d had getting him out of her mind since.
Yet the simplicity of the gallery’s rooms was calming. She found herself unwinding, felt the upheaval that had unbalanced her since she’d left home this morning leveling out. She breathed deeply, inhaled a potpourri of aromas. Her stress ebbed to the point where she hardly remembered the source.
All she knew was serenity and, eyes closed, she smiled.
“It’s nice to see my patrons benefiting from the gallery’s ambience.”
She couldn’t help it; she shivered from the soothing sound of Devon’s voice. “Benefiting? How so?”
“Your shoulders are nowhere as tight as they were when you first came in.”
At the interesting revelation that she hadn’t been alone in her musings, she turned to him and asked, “Are you in the habit of stalking your visitors?”
He shook his head. “Not stalking. Observing.”
“A student of human nature?”
He
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