Chapter 39 Lacey
LACEY
I stared down at the flan the waiter set in front of me. “Oh, we ordered cake.”
“It’s flan, ma’am.” He slid it to the middle of the table and produced two spoons.
“I see that it’s flan. But we ordered chocolate cake.” I tilted my head, wondering how an order of chocolate cake could turn to flan in the space of a few minutes.
“I’ll check on that.” He nodded his head as he turned to go.
“Wait.” I took the plate holding the flan with one hand. “Why don’t you take this with you?”
“I’d prefer to leave it on the table if you don’t mind.” He gave me a forced smile.
“I do mind. We ordered chocolate cake.” I put both hands on the plate and thrust it toward him.
“As you wish.” He took the plate and turned toward the kitchen, disappearing through the door as Bodie approached from the other direction.
“Sorry about that.” Bodie slid back into the seat across from me. “Had to sort something out.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s fine. More wine?” He didn’t wait for me to reply before he topped off my glass.
“You sure you’re okay?” I took a small sip.
“Oh, absolutely.” But the way he ran a finger around the inside of his collar told me otherwise. Something had him rattled, I could tell by the way he tapped his fingertips on the white tablecloth. Bodie had never been a tapper. But if he wanted to pretend all was cool, I wouldn’t push the issue.
A giant slice of chocolate cake materialized in front of me. The waiter slid it onto the table along with two forks. “Your chocolate cake.”
“But . . .” Bodie looked around like he expected the waiter to pull another slice out of thin air. “Where’s the flan?”
“We ordered chocolate cake,” I said. “I sent the flan back.”
“You what?” He stood from the table, towering over the waiter, who seemed to shrink under Bodie’s heated glare.
“The lady refused the flan, sir. I returned it to the kitchen.”
Bodie took a fork and dug it into the middle of the cake. Chocolate crumbs flew everywhere.
“What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” I pushed back from the table as Bodie massacred the cake. Chocolate frosting splattered over our wineglasses and covered his fingers.
Finally, he turned his gaze on me. “The flan. Our engagement story? I was going to get pictures tonight.”
I put my hand to my forehead. That’s what this was all about? He was trying to surprise me with a fake proposal? “I’m sorry, I don’t even like flan.”
“What?” He stopped rummaging through the cake. “Then why the hell did you tell the reporter I proposed to you with a ring on top of some flan?”
My cheeks flamed. “I don’t know. I was trying to come up with a good story.”
“I’ve got to get that ring.” He wrapped a chocolate-covered hand around the waiter’s arm, leaving brown streaks all over the long, white sleeve. “What did you do with that flan?”
“It’s in-n-n-n-n the k-k-itchen,” the poor waiter stuttered.
Bodie reached for my hand. “Let’s go.”
I followed him through a set of swinging doors into the commercial kitchen. Someone holding a giant knife stopped chopping carrots and stepped in front of Bodie. “Sir, you can’t come in here.”
“I’m looking for my ring. You were supposed to deliver it to our table so I could propose.” Bodie gestured to where I stood half-hidden behind him. Confronting men with large knives wasn’t my style.
“Where did the flan go?” The chef waved his knife in the air. “The one that was sent back.”
“Took it to table seven.” One of the servers raced by, his arms full of dishes.
“Which way is table seven?” Bodie asked.
“Follow me,” the server said.
Bodie whipped around, still holding on to my hand, and pulled me out of the kitchen.
As we entered the main dining room, everyone erupted into a round of applause.
A couple stood in the middle of the room, the woman holding her left hand out and admiring a huge yellow diamond sitting squarely on her ring finger.
“Dammit.” Bodie let go of my hand and picked his way through the tables to the center of the room. I waited where he left me, not wanting to put myself in the center of attention. My goal of keeping a low profile had been blown to bits . . . again.
Bodie exchanged words with the man and woman.
The woman clamped her hands to her hips while the man shoved his hands in his pockets and looked to his feet.
A few moments later the woman slipped the ring off her finger and tossed it across the room.
My heart skipped a few beats as the ring bounced across the floor and came to land under a table a few feet away.
I knelt down, trying to catch a glimpse. There it was. I crawled toward it, past a man’s legs, finally grabbing the ring in my hands. As I stood, Bodie reached for my hand to help me up. He took the ring from my hand and knelt in front of me.
“Lacey Cherish, I know this isn’t the way you pictured things, but I need to ask you a question.”
My stomach knotted, my throat closed. I couldn’t make a sound if I wanted to, so I nodded. Even knowing this was fake, that it didn’t mean a thing, that he was doing this only for the pictures, my heart still surged in my chest.
“Will you marry me?” His eyes shone. He was putting everything he had into this performance. Without even thinking, I knelt down in front of him.
“Yes,” I whispered. The word came out like a cross between a croak and a whisper.
He slid the ring onto my finger and my heart nearly burst. Feeling like I was floating on a fluffy cloud and looking down on the entire scene, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled his head down.
He resisted for a flash of an instant then his mouth was on mine.
Applause erupted all around us, drawing me back from my dreamy cloud, back to where I knelt on the floor of a restaurant, back to where reality slammed into me like a two-by-four to the gut.
Bodie stood, helping me to my feet. “Think they got some good pictures?” he muttered under his breath.
Pictures. That’s right. This was a stunt, staged solely for the purpose of getting the pictures he promised to the reporter.
Of course. Confusion and hurt meshed together, shielding my heart, cutting off any ridiculous hope I might have had that a teeny, tiny part of Bodie’s performance tonight had been something beyond that . . . a performance.
“Yeah.” I swallowed the ache of disappointment rising in my throat.
What did I expect? That after a night of mind-blowing sex he’d want to throw caution to the wind and make our fake engagement into something real?
I didn’t have anyone else to blame but myself.
This had all been my idea, part of my master plan.
All he’d done was gone along with it, even when he didn’t want to.
“Good.” He brushed his thumb over my knuckles. “What do you think about the ring?”
I hadn’t gotten a good look at it yet. As he led us back to our table, I held my left hand out in front of me. A giant yellow stone sparkled and glittered. Square-cut and set in a platinum bezel surrounded by small white diamonds, it exceeded anything I might have hoped for. “It’s beautiful.”
His hand brushed my hair back from my face. “So are you.”
“Look over here, now.” Our waiter held Bodie’s phone up, ready to capture the photo we needed.
I pasted on a smile, the kind I figured a woman who found herself newly engaged might project.
Fortunately for me, it didn’t require much effort.
Despite his reluctance to admit his dad and pops were in over their heads, he’d really come through for me.
And here I was, engaged to the man of my dreams. Fake engaged, I reminded myself.
I swallowed back the irony, trying to keep it from gobbling me up. “Did we get what we needed?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Bodie let go of my hand to finish wiping the chocolate frosting onto a napkin.
“How about one with a kiss?” the waiter prompted.
“Um, sure.” Bodie set the napkin down and held out his arms. “How about it, Sweets?”
For the camera. For the publicity. For the town. I reminded myself of all the reasons I should want his kiss. And tried to ignore the reality that I wanted his kiss because he was Bodie. And I’d been falling for him for years.