Chapter 5
“Is it okay for us to be here?” I asked, glancing around the familiar restaurant.
Since it was just Damen and I, it was almost as if we were on a date.
I hadn’t thought about that earlier, and now I felt a mix of nervousness and excitement.
Still, I couldn’t help worrying about appearances. “Won’t Miles get upset?”
Damen had wrapped his arm over my shoulders and raised a glass of wine to his lips. Looking at me, he paused and asked, “Why would Miles get upset?”
My face heated. “Damen!” I hissed, pushing his fingers. “People are going to see.”
“Who cares?” He set his glass on the table and touched his forehead to mine. “Besides, we’re supposed to be best friends, right?”
His closeness made my heart race. “Are you making fun of me?” I whispered.
“I would never,” he smoothly replied. “Do you want pasta?”
“Don’t bribe me with food.” I was tempted, but still worried. “And there’s Bryce too. Won’t he get upset?”
“Oh.” Damen pouted. “Are you afraid your husband will get jealous? Or Miles, what was that about Miles? Why do you keep bringing up other people?”
“No…” I pulled back. What was with this attitude? “I’m just concerned about the longevity of The Plan.”
“Don’t worry about The Plan,” Damen replied, the atmosphere lightening a bit.
He brushed his hand down my arm. “Everything will work out in the long run. For what it’s worth, I’d like your sole attention when we’re alone—we don’t need to focus on anyone else.
But before that, why are you worried about Miles?
Are you thinking about him instead of me? ”
Oh my God, he was a child! “I’m asking,” I began, pushing my hand against his nose, “because it’s his sister’s restaurant. Wouldn’t he get upset that we’ve come here without him?”
“Ah.” Damen blinked, and I dropped my hand. “That’s why we’re here. Colette won’t answer her phone, and I want to talk to her. She won’t ignore me being in her space.”
So he hadn’t brought me with him so we could be alone together?
I glared at the table.
“Why are you angry?” Damen asked.
I pressed my hands to my cheeks. Why was I angry? I shouldn’t have expected anything more.
Before I could respond, a petite blonde woman appeared beside the table. She wore black slacks and a white shirt and had an apron tied around her waist. Her thick bun bounced on the top of her head as she, with a wooden spoon in hand, shook her finger at Damen.
“You have some nerve,” she began. “I told you never to bring your dates here again.”
A pang of jealousy shot through me. Damen had brought other women here? I tried to hide my hurt as I scooched toward the window, ducking out from under his arm.
I didn’t want him to touch me right now.
“I…” Damen glanced between me and the woman, his eyes widening with panic. The candle in the middle of the table flickered dangerously. But, in the end, he turned from me, choosing to address the woman instead.
“Colette,” Damen said, gesturing in my direction, “this is Bianca. We’re not together. I wanted to ask you—”
She barely glanced at me, her attention returning to Damen with swift annoyance. “What does it matter what her name is?” she interrupted, voice slicing through the air.
Even though I knew we weren’t together that way, primarily due to my faults, it still hurt that he was so quick to dismiss it. But another part of Damen’s statement registered before I had time to wallow.
Colette .
I gaped at her, seeing the woman in an entirely new light. Miles’s sister was precisely the opposite of everything I’d imagined. But now that the connection had been established, I could easily place her slight accent and see that the two siblings shared the same nose.
“Look—” She tapped her foot, her words quick and clipped, not allowing Damen to speak. “I told you, it’s over for real this time. I don’t have time to play with you anymore.”
“That’s not why I’m here.” Damen’s cheeks turned pink.
“You…” I gasped at Damen, horrorstruck. “You slept with Miles’s sister ?”
“It was a long time ago!” He covered his face with his hands. “This is why I wish you’d stop ignoring my texts.”
“You and I have nothing to say to each other. I’ve told you before that I don’t want you to bring anyone to my restaurant.
What did you think was going to happen?” But then Colette’s posture faltered, and her gaze washed over me, her expression morphing from indifference to appraisal.
“Wait, you know Miles,” she said. “How?”
“This is Bianca,” Damen repeated, lowering his hand to his mouth, not even glancing in my direction.
Colette frowned, moving her fists to her waist. “You said that already,” she replied, tapping her foot. “Am I supposed to know who you are?” she asked me, tilting her head.
Words failed me. First, there was the appalling revelation that Damen had engaged in a sexual relationship with Miles’s sister, then the fact that he was quick to establish that we were not together. Finally, Miles never even mentioned me to his sibling.
My mood was pretty much ruined.
“She’s the Wood Xing,” Damen explained, waving toward me. “She’s married to Bryce.”
“Bryce Dubois?” She raised her eyebrow. “He comes here sometimes. Isn’t he gay?”
“He doesn’t actually have a preference,” Damen replied. “But that doesn’t matter. The point is, we’re trying to find Miles.”
“Why are you looking for Miles? Did he do something bad?” Colette asked, eyeing me.
“You don’t look like much of a threat. Are you really the Xing?
What are you going to do to him? Could you hit him for me?
He likes blondes, but you still might be his type.
Though maybe not; Miles always collected posters of big-boobed girls.
Plus, you’re kind of short. Do you think you’re allowed to be in an official relationship with each other ?
” She punctuated this last question with a glare in Damen’s direction.
“Or is that breaking your precious rules ?”
She spoke so quickly and jumped from so many different topics that my head spun, and I wasn’t even sure I’d captured them all. I tried to respond, opening my mouth, although I had no idea what I would say.
I was probably still in shock.
“I—”
Someone shouted from the kitchen, and Colette jumped, pulling from the conversation. “I’ll be right back,” she said in a rush, stepping away. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll send someone out to your table. You can stay and eat.”
Where were we supposed to go? I wasn’t even sure what just happened.
“Yeah,” Damen muttered, letting out a long sigh. “I should have warned you. She has that effect on people. I think she has ADHD.”
“You!” I growled at Damen, irritation resurfacing in full force. “How could you?”
Damen finally looked at me, and he frowned.
“I’d have thought you’d look scarier.” There was a note of hesitation in his voice and a slight fear.
“We shared some passionate moments in our past lives, and I wondered what it’d be like for us to get into a fight.
But this isn’t the same. You’re angry, but you look like a kitten…
with your nose scrunched up and that glare. It’s actually cute.”
He was making it worse! “You broke the bro code!”
“What bro…” he began, but his face lit in realization. “Ah, you mean the thing with Colette. No one calls it the ‘bro code.’ ”
“Does Miles know?” I poked his arm. “Please tell me Miles knows and gave his blessing.”
Damen tilted his head, seemingly puzzled. “Why would I ask for Miles’s blessing? What is this, 1750? We’re not living in the medieval ages anymore.”
“The eighteenth century is not medieval .” Frustration made my vision turn red, and I couldn’t decide whether to punch something or scream. I rubbed my temples. “You said it was a long time ago. How long are we talking?”
We’d better be talking about some ancient—
“Well,” Damen began, stroking his chin. “We last got together about three days before I met you. We had this on-and-off thing for about a year, but it’s all casual. I saw other people on the side, and no one was attached. It was fun.”
It hadn’t even been a month!
I wrapped my arms over my head, pressing my face into the table. This was too much. I could not deal with this man.
“Bianca,” Damen said, pressing into my side. His presence fell over me, and when he spoke next, there was a command to his voice I couldn’t ignore. “Look at me.”
I turned slightly, moving my arm only enough to glimpse at him. His expression was uncharacteristically serious and more imposing than usual.
Seeing him—his angular jaw firmly set and eyes blazing—took my breath away.
“You know I’ve slept with other women,” he said. “I’ve refused to keep these things a secret. And we are going to struggle to find common ground. We’re going to clash. The two of us represent the most outgoing elements, and we’ve always been aggressive personalities.”
I was not aggressive, and I was definitely not outgoing.
In fact, I was as introverted as introverts could be.
“But I can promise you this,” he said, grabbing my hand. He turned my wrist and began to trace a line in the center of my palm. “I refuse to screw things up this time. Now that you’re here and willing, I won’t give you up.”
What in the world was he talking about?
“I’m not going to apologize for my past,” he continued.
“Whatever happened had to happen for us to get to where we are today. But from this point forward, I swear you have my future. I will not fuck this up, and when I take you out on a date, it won’t be to a place like this.
It’ll be something much more memorable.”
My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst, and an internal voice screamed at me that this was a profound moment. Damen was a free spirit, not one to be contained or easily controlled.
I didn’t get the feeling he pledged his loyalty lightly.
Yet none of this changed the fact that he’d slept with Miles’s sister. I wasn’t even offended on my own behalf… mostly.