16. Duke
“They have lobster rolls,lobster mac and cheese, and—wait, lobster cupcakes?”
Avery makes a beeline for the next food stall, laughing in disbelief. We’re exploring the LobsterFest event down the coast, and every food truck and local vendor on the Cape has come out to compete with their wildest lobster recipes.
Including, apparently, cupcakes.
Avery turns to me, her blue eyes wide with excitement. “We have to try them.”
“Go crazy,” I say, amused. I’m already toting a tray overflowing with various lobster confections, but Avery is still going strong.
It’s funny, she must have been to a hundred fancy red carpet events, and luxurious five-star restaurants, but here she is, going wild over a small-town festival packed with families, tourists and weird lobster tchotchkes.
“Can we get two please, with the… buttercream frosting?” Avery asks the vendor, bouncing on her heels.
“You’re like a kid in a candy store,” I smirk.
“Lobster-flavored candy,” Avery jokes. “Wait, I bet you five bucks we could actually find some here.”
“No bet,” I say immediately. “C’mon, let’s go try some of this stuff before the soup gets cold.”
“It’s bisque,” Avery corrects me airily, as I steer her over to a free spot at one of the picnic tables overlooking the harbor. She takes a spoonful, and tastes. “And… you’re right, it’s cold.”
“Try some of these.” I push a lobster roll over, and Avery digs in, sighing with pleasure.
“Oh my god, this is heaven!”
I’ve got no complaints, that’s for sure.
I sit back, wondering how things turned around so fast. Last week, this woman was driving me crazy– in all the worst ways. I was so sure that she was a spoiled, stubborn, selfish piece of work.
Now, I’m watching her lick melted butter off her fingers, and wondering how long I can hold out until I taste her again.
Because damn, the way she pressed against me in that supply closet… that wild, breathless look in her eyes…
The sounds she made when she came clenching on my fingers…
I didn’t get a moment of sleep, that’s for sure.
But today is a different story.
I gulp my water, trying to get a grip. What happened between us was hot and furious, a damn explosion of pent-up desire. But we’re walking a fine line here with the whole fake dating set-up, and I don’t for one minute want to make things more complicated for her by giving into this red-hot craving.
PG-13, that publicist told us. Which means I’m going to be a gentleman, even if it kills me.
Avery looks up. “I’m making a mess, aren’t I?” she laughs self-consciously, grabbing a handful of paper napkins to wipe at her face.
“Not at all. Go wild.”
I glance around, on alert for those damn photographers to come ruin the good mood, but the festival is so packed, it’s like natural camouflage. Everyone is too busy having their own fun to notice the two of us over here.
Good. I’m still figuring out where Avery’s acting skills end, and this thing between us turns real. But one thing’s for sure: there’s no faking the carefree smile on her face as she samples every last lobster dish we picked.
“OK, OK,” Avery finishes her first plate, and sits back, taking a deep breath. “Round one is over, now I can take my time.”
I chuckle. “You’ve got to pace yourself,” I advise her. “Take it from a local, these festivals are a marathon, not a sprint. We haven’t even gotten started on desserts just yet.”
Her eyes catch mine across the picnic table, and she smirks.
“And there I was, thinking I got a sample the other night,” she coos, and I just about choke on a lobster hush puppy.
“Easy tiger,” she teases, passing a bottle of water. “It’s a marathon, remember?”
I do. Vividly. I’ll go to my grave with the sight of her perfect breasts seared into my brain?—
“Duke Hendricks, is that you?”
I just about choke all over again when a voice interrupts my X-rated memories, and I look up to find my old third-grade teacher beaming down at me.
Talk about a cold shower.
“Mrs Caruana,” I manage, thumping my chest. “Hey. I mean, hello.”
I bob up to greet her. “And this must be Avery,” she gushes, “Well, aren’t you just as pretty as your picture? I hope you’re enjoying your time on the Cape.”
“I’m loving it,” Avery assures her. “Although, my tailor back in LA won’t be so happy. I’ll have to have all my clothing let out, if I keep this up.”
Mrs Caruana laughs, delighted. “Well, just as long as Duke is being a gentleman.”
“Oh, he is.” Avery gives me an innocent smile. “He’s making sure I have everything I need. I’m in good hands,” she adds meaningfully– and my blood pressure skyrockets.
Damn.
I wait until Mrs Caruana is out of earshot, and then I fix Avery with a look. “Careful, princess,” I murmur. “You might go giving me ideas.”
Avery flutters her eyelashes, still acting innocent. “I can’t think what you mean.”
I have to chuckle. The woman is driving me crazy, but the really crazy part is…
I can’t get enough.
We finishup our food and stroll the rest of the festival, soaking in the atmosphere. There’s a reggae band playing, and kids running riot, and usually, I steer clear of cheesy tourists events like this one. But today, I’m surprised to find I’m actually enjoying it.
Or maybe it’s just the way Avery has her hand tucked in mine, strolling beside me, cracking up over all the kitschy games. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so relaxed like this.
At least, not without me kissing her senseless first.
A girl passes by in a liquor brand shirt, touting a tray of shot glasses. “No thanks,” Avery smiles, moving on.
“You don’t drink?” I ask curiously. I’ve noticed her sticking to soda, and I figured it was some Hollywood detox thing, but Avery gives a thin smile.
“Nope. My daddy did,” she adds. “A lot. I try to avoid drinking if I can.”
Her tone is light, but I can tell, it’s not something she likes to talk about. She smoothly changes the subject to a booth nearby. “Pin the tail on the lobster?” she snorts with laughter. “Why does that feel cruel, somehow?”
“It’s a plushie toy,” I protest. “It’s not like they’re tormenting a real lobster.”
“No, they’re leaving that to the lobster broil next door,” she mutters.
I squeeze her hand. “Says the woman who just inhaled five pounds of the stuff.”
“That was different!” she protests.
“How, exactly?”
“Because… because I didn’t have to watch their little flailing legs trying to escape,” Avery admits. She groans. “I’m a total hypocrite. A lobster killer!”
“If it helps, we’re all complicit in the crime,” I tease.
A group of old-timers from Blackberry Cove pass by, and I pause to greet them, and make small talk about the secret seasoning on Earl’s lobster quiche, and his broken window latch I promised to help fixing.
After they move on, Avery gives me a grin. “You know, for a grumpy hermit, you seem to know everyone.”
“That’s a small town for you,” I shrug.
“Wait… you like it!” Avery exclaims, studying me. “You always complain about everyone being in your business, but you still go out of your way to help them. Suze with the sets for her production, Earl and his broken window…”
“That’s nothing,” I protest, but she just smiles.
“You even showed up to patch my roof, and you couldn’t stand the sight of me! You like being a part of something. A community.”
She’s got me.
“It’s not all bad,” I admit grudgingly. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to move away, but once I actually got out… I missed it, having neighbors who actually gave a damn.”
“That sounds nice,” Avery sighs. “The only neighbors I’ve ever had in LA kept calling in noise complaints about the sound of a dog barking. And I don’t even have a dog!”
“Oh, don’t get all Hallmark about it,” I chuckle, “There’s plenty of petty drama, too. Earl might look like a sweet old man, but there’s a rumor he spent fifty years running the books for the mob down in Jersey.”
“What?” Avery gasps.
“Why do you think I agreed to fix his window so fast?” I add, straight-faced, but Avery realizes I’m just teasing.
“Jackass!” she swats my arm, laughing. “You had me going there. I’m far too trusting.”
I snort with laughter. “You? You’ve got more walls and defenses than Fort Knox.”
“Naturally,” Avery says, batting her eyes. “Because I’m worth just as much.”
I chuckle, slinging my arm around her shoulder. “And you were giving me a hard time about my ego,” I tease.
Avery just looks up at me with a flirty little smile. “If it’s a hard time you want…” she says softly, and just like that, I’m thinking things that are most definitely not suitable for this family-friendly crowd.
Like that smug smile turning open-mouthed in pleasure. Those laughing eyes clouded with lust.
Her perfect body, clenching around my cock…
I’m so distracted, I don’t even see it coming – not until I almost walk straight into the woman browsing lobster pottery up ahead.
“Duke!”
I pause, still half-lost in visions of Avery coming undone in my hands. Then I realize who I’m looking at.
“Rachel.” I say it evenly, but I feel Avery startle at the name.
So, she knows about my ex. That’s small-town gossip for you.
“It’s so good to see you!” Rachel beams, looking polished and expensive in a short black tunic. Her hair is blonde now, bone-straight and cut in a sleek bob, and there’s a massive diamond on her ring finger– jostling for position with her wedding band.
Suze sent me the announcement when it happened, and a few choice remarks, too. Five hundred people at a lavish waterfront mansion– it was a long way from the simple, courthouse bash we’d planned.
She’d upgraded, alright.
Now, Rachel looks up at me, wide-eyed. “It’s been so long! You look great, really,” she adds. “And I saw the feature in Architectural Digest. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I clear my throat, wondering what the hell to say to her, but Avery jumps in for me.
“We were all so thrilled,” she beams. “And of course, the phone’s been ringing off the hook. Everyone wants him for their new houses, but you know Duke, he’s all about the craftsmanship.”
“Right,” Rachel stares at Avery like she’s star-stuck. “Wow, sorry, I saw all the gossip about you two together, but I didn’t really believe it.”
“Why not?” Avery’s arm tightens around me possessively, her voice still sugar-sweet. “It’s like Duke says, ‘quality lasts”. You’d have to be a fool to give up on a classic and go chasing after some flashy imitation.”
Rachel’s cheeks redden. “Anyway, it was good to see you,” she says hurriedly. “Tell your mom I said ‘hi’.”
“You too,” I nod. “Send my best to Percy.”
We walk away. “Percy?” Avery exclaims, the minute we’re out of earshot. “She married a man named Percy?”
“Cartright-Forsyth. The third.”
Avery howls with laughter. “I’m sorry,” she says through the giggles, “I know she broke your heart and all, but Percy?!”
I have to grin. “It gets worse. You know what they named their kid?”
“Oh God, tell me.”
“Percy the fourth… and she’s a girl!”
We wanderthe festival a while longer, then hit the road back towards Blackberry Cove. The sun is setting, and the heat has mellowed off now. Avery stretches out in the passenger seat, propping her bare feet up on the dashboard – while I try to keep my eyes on the road, and not her long, tanned legs.
Be a damn gentleman, I repeat in my head. But then she wriggles her toes, painted cherry red, and all I can think about is what I could do to make them curl with pleasure–
“Are you OK?”
I snap my head around. “What?”
“Running into Rachel like that,” Avery explains. “You can be over a relationship, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t weird, coming face-to-face with all your past hopes and expectations like that. One of my exes showed up at my wedding, and… well, let’s just say, it wasn’t great.”
I exhale. How do I tell her, Rachel has been the last thing on my mind all day?
“I’m really fine,” I tell her honestly. “After everything I went through with her, all the fighting and drama, it feels like something that happened in another life. To another person.”
“Well… you don’t have to worry,” Avery adds with a smirk. “You win.”
“What?”
“You win the break-up,” she explains.
I chuckle. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Oh no, it really does, at least for us,” Avery insists. “We can pretend not to care, and wish them well, and all that healthy, healed stuff, but someone’s always the winner, and now Rachel knows it’s you. I mean, you’re the one with a thriving business, and, oh yeah, a gorgeous movie star on your arm.” She gives me a playful smile, and I can tell, she’s still trying to make me feel better.
She doesn’t realize, I’ve never felt better– and not because I won some petty scorekeeping, getting one over on my ex.
No, I won because I’m the man sitting beside Avery right now, watching her hum along to the radio, and smudge up my damn window with her bare toe prints.
Right where she’s supposed to be.
I shake it off. “Hey, you want to see something?” I ask suddenly. We’re just a couple of miles from my new project, and for some reason, I find myself wanting to show her.
“Does it involve lobsters?” Avery asks, with a groan.
I chuckle. “No shellfish, I promise.”
“Then I’m in.”
I turn off the main highway, and follow a winding road through trees and shrub grasses until I reach the main estate– or, what used to be one.
“Oh wow,” Avery scrambles down from the truck, taking in the sprawling, overgrown ruins set overlooking a quiet curve of the bay. “Is this a new project of yours?”
“For my sins.” I say wryly. “It’s my biggest gig yet– or my downfall. I haven’t decided which just yet.”
It was a house once, years ago, but now the place is falling down, half the walls open to the elements, with a roof scattered in pieces on the ground. “Watch yourself,” I warn her, reaching for her hand to steer her around the crumbling brickwork. “This place is a health hazard. It was condemned years ago, it took me months just to track down the owners through the land registry deeds.”
“So this isn’t for a client?” Avery looks surprised.
I shake my head. “Nope, this one’s all mine.”
Which means I’ve sunk just about every spare dollar into it– and I haven’t even gotten started with the rebuild yet.
I lead Avery through the rubble, to the back of the house. I’ve started clearing the wreckage here, leaving bare, dusty ground and a million-dollar view of the ocean.
Avery takes in the ruins. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re so great at your job,” she says cheerfully. “Otherwise… you’d be totally screwed right now.”
I huff a laugh. “Thanks. That’s real supportive.”
“Take it as a sign of my faith in your skills,” Avery grins back at me. “Because literally no one else on earth could look at this mess and think, ‘sure, I’ll rebuild it from scratch’ instead of just bulldozing the whole thing. And calling in hazmat,” she adds, eyeing a patch of mold.
“It was built in the 1800s,” I explain. “By this rich whaling tycoon for his wife. There are photos I found in the library archive, it was incredible back in the day. And will be again, eventually.”
“Go on,” Avery smirks. “Show me the vision.”
I laugh. “Well, this is the ballroom.”
“A ballroom? OK, I like it more already.”
“Living rooms through there… formal dining…” I steer her through the house to the edge of the ruins. “The is my favorite spot though. They had a sunroom, with a full wall of French windows, that opened onto the back terrace. All of this was formal gardens, roses and hydrangeas. It’s technically a private beach, too.” I add. “The guy’s wife was famous for throwing wild parties, they’d all go skinny dipping in the ocean.”
“What a scandal.” Avery laughs. She looks around, almost wistful. “Can you imagine growing up in a house like this?”
I pause, remembering what she said about her father. “Do you see your parents these days?” I ask, trying to be casual.
Avery shakes her head, drawing circles in the dust with her toe. “I send my mom checks, whenever she remembers I’m alive… and my dad died ten years ago. Wrapped his car around a tree on the way home from the bar.”
“I’m sorry.” I watch her, the way she keeps her spine straight and her smile casual.
“Don’t be,” Avery shrugs. “It was a blessing he didn’t take anyone with him. I’d already moved to LA, and since then… it’s just been me.”
“Just you,” I echo. Avery is good at acting like it’s no big deal, but I can see that there’s a world of grit and determination and loneliness wrapped up in those small words.
No wonder she’s chasing her big A-list Hollywood life so hard. There’s never been a safety net waiting to catch her.
She’s learned the hard way not to rely on anyone else.
Avery spins around, all smiles again. “Let me guess, that’s where you’ll have your indoor basketball court,” she jokes, pointing down what will be a hallway, one day.
I smile back. “Sure, why not?”
“It’s kind of a big place though,” she muses. “Won’t you get lonely, rattling around in your ballroom, all by yourself?”
“I guess. It’s going to be a couple of years until it’s ready, though. Maybe by the time it’s done, I’ll have someone to keep me company.”
Someone like you.
The words drop into my mind without any warning, and damn, I can see it already: Avery perched here in the morning, enjoying her coffee with the view. Curled up on the couch watching movies. Running lines for her latest movie out on that terrace.
Crying my name in out loud a king-sized bed; coming for me, every night for the rest of our lives.
Fuck.
I swallow hard. “So, what do you think?” I ask, turning to her. Avery is leaning against a low stone wall, watching the last rays of sunset sink behind the inky ocean.
She gives me a slow, dangerous look. “I think… that heiress had the right idea.”
I cock an eyebrow, confused. “Dying of consumption?”
Avery laughs, stripping off her cardigan and backing towards the sand. “A late-night swim. What do you say, Duke?” she asks, and the sound of my name on her lips feels like a damn seduction. “Last one in the water is a loser!”
And then she turns and races for the ocean, her laughter carrying back to me on the late-night ocean breeze. I watch her kick off her shoes, and wade straight into the shallows, fully-clothed, splashing in the spray.
Damn.
So much for being a gentleman. There’s no choice here. Not for a second. I’m already racing after her.
I couldn’t resist her if I tried.