“You’re veering into sick territory now, Shannon.”
“Hiring a belly dancer in a topless bar as a delicacy to meet your perceived notion of my sexual tastes isn’t sick?”
He groans. It’s the sound of my victory. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”
“Nope.”
“How can I make it up to you?”
“I need to think about it.”
“That means you’re going to drag this out forever.”
He knows me so well, doesn’t he?
My stomach growls again. Geordi pulls up in the limo, confusion in his eyes, but he wouldn’t dare ask why we only spent fifteen minutes in the nightclub. We pile into the back of the limo and as the driver takes off Declan turns to me, gives me a wicked grin, and folds in half, laughing so hard I fear he’ll pass out.
I join him.
It feels great.
“Geordi?” I ask as Declan gasps and belly laughs, chortles and grunts.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Can you find us a tapas bar? T-A-P-A-S.”
He makes a little sound of surprise, as if he suddenly had a flash of insight. “Yes, ma’am,” he replies, his voice a little lower. “I certainly will. May I suggest Platos Pequeños?”
I brighten. That’s the one next door to Litraeon!
“Is it new? I haven’t heard of it,” Dec asks, his voice neutral.
“Well rated.” He names a celebrity chef.
“Sounds good.” And with that, we’re on our way.
On our way to coffee nirvana.
I mean, er, a good tapas meal.
As Geordi slows the limo at the light in front of the resort and makes a left turn, Declan lets out a sound of surprise.
“Wait a minute,” Declan says with a low, grunting sigh, turning to me with the deliberate, prowling look of a predator. “This is the resort next to Litraeon.”
I’m so busted.
“Geordi,” he asks evenly, “where is Platos Pequeños?”
Geordi’s answer is a simple right turn and a finger point. “Right here, sir.”
My beloved crosses his arms over his chest, his body curving away from me on the seat, his shoulders widening as he fills his lungs with air designed to fuel whatever outrage he’s feeling.
And it’s all pointed at me.
I’ve lost the self-righteous advantage, haven’t I? All it took was one left turn and—
“This was all a scheme to get your hands on that coffee. What the hell is so special about it?” As he asks, his frown deepens.
I open my mouth to explain, but he interrupts.
“Geordi, take us back to our hotel.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dec, c’mon.”
He’s silent, tapping on his phone, and then:
“We’re having room service. One of the chefs at Litraeon has been experimenting with tapas. We’ll be his taste testers.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Declan says with a wolfish grin, shaking his head at me. He looks like he’s not sure whether to kiss me or throttle me. “He’s confirmed a Moroccan melon dish with fish and Mexican mocha.”
Before I can protest, he’s kissing me. Whew.
Being busted has its perks.
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, I awake in Declan’s arms, his naked body pressed against my back. He’s breathing slowly, clearly still in some state of slumber, though one part of him most decidedly is not. We’d made love with abandon, a joyful enthusiasm triggered as much by the strangely erotic set of missteps between us as by the gradual recovery from the insanity of our almost-wedding back in Boston.
Last night was epic. Bizarre and ripe in all the ways regular life can’t be. Our misunderstanding took us both to places we’d never imagined, and left me looking at Declan with new eyes.
He certainly thought I’d changed.
Chaos loves a vacuum.
I throw on a robe and check my phone, finding more than enough messages from old high school friends, some college buddies, a former boss from an internship I had years ago—and they all include attachments of pictures of me.
With a Minion.
A little digging gives me the answer I suspect: the Minion chick sold that picture for five thousand dollars to an unidentified gossip website. A quick look at Jessica Coffin’s Twitter feed shows that she posted it ages ago.
Hmmm. Wonder who that “gossip website” is.
Declan will hit the roof when he sees this. Between the topless/tapas bar fiasco and now a pic of me with a painted, naked woman posing as a Minion, the viral story of the runaway billionaire groom just got more legs.
“Are you kidding me?” he says from the other room, his voice dark and sleepy, a little dangerous. He sleeps with his phone on his nightstand, so I can only guess what he’s seeing.
“Shannon?” he calls out. I wonder if this how Mom feels when she’s been caught doing something wrong. Except—this isn’t my fault. Dad snapped a picture and the woman took off. Preparing my defense, I walk over to the bed and sit on the edge, sighing.
“Did you really send back all those clothes?” He frowns. “Evie sent me an email explaining how sorry she was that she couldn’t help you find more than two outfits to your liking.”
“Wait. This isn’t about the Minion boob picture?”
His eyebrow arches. “The what?”
“Never mind.”
“What’s a Minion boob picture?”
I tell him the story in a rush. He doesn’t laugh. He sends Grace a few texts, then turns to me and says, “It’s taken care of. PR will handle it. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just an opportunist.”