On the Steamy Side (33 page)

Ignoring the fact that it was exactly that sentiment that landed them in this situation, Lilah moved toward Tucker only to be distracted by the bang of footsteps on the basement stairs.

Her heart jumped and lodged somewhere near her breastbone.

A moment later, Phil Sparks appeared. Alone. He strode through the kitchen looking neither right nor left; cooks jumped out of his way like the Red Sea parting before Moses.

Lilah held her breath as he neared the pastry station at the back of the kitchen, where Tucker had spread out his art supplies. Would he stop and talk to his grandson?

Phil slowed when he caught site of Tucker, who glanced up from his drawing and froze. The standoff lasted for only a heartbeat before Tucker hunched back down over his paper and colored pencils, a ferocious scowl twisting his face. In spite of everything, Lilah couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for Phil as he straightened his shoulders and continued out the back door without another word.

Tension streamed out of the kitchen in his wake like air let off from a hot-air balloon. The cooks went to work with a will, wiping down counters and lugging stacks of dirty pans to the dishwashing station.

Grant headed back out to the front of the house to supervise the exit of the last straggling guests, and Lilah took the opportunity to slip down the back staircase and find Devon.

Not that she needed Grant’s permission or anything. But she found herself feeling very unsure, second-guessing everything. It was a familiar state of being, one she’d hoped she’d left behind in Virginia. The reemergence of the old Lolly, here and now, was completely unwelcome.

At least now she knew that overwhelming feelings of guilt and regret were a trigger.

She’d give anything to be able to go back in time and stop her idiotically Pollyanna-ish self from making that phone call to New Jersey, Lilah mused as she knocked tentatively on the office door.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“It’s safe,” Devon called. “My father is on his way back to Trenton.” She found him leaning on the desk, arms crossed and long legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes were like ice chips, sending shivers down her spine. But not in the good way. The contrast between the chill in the air now and the sauna-like ambiance the office had held before the party, when she came down to wish him good luck, made Lilah’s heart hurt.

“Yes, I saw him go,” she said carefully, approaching Devon like she would any wounded animal.

“And good fucking riddance.”

Lilah swallowed her instinctive reaction to the cuss word. Something in Devon’s expression told her he was itching for a fight.

“No matter what your father said, you did a wonderful thing here tonight. I’m proud of you.” He stared at her for a long, taut moment, then his face softened. “God, Lilah Jane. It was so . . . I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I guess it was bound to be difficult.” Lilah wanted to squirm. “I know. I’m sorry.”

With a rough sound of frustration, Devon slumped and rubbed his hands through his hair. “It’s been ten years. What the hell made him come here tonight?”

“Oh.” Lilah twisted her hands together until her knuckles throbbed. “Well. I can actually answer that.”

“What?” Astonishment rolled off him in waves.

Here goes nothing.

She squared her shoulders. “I invited him.”

“You. You did what?”

Devon couldn’t believe what he was hearing—or, no. He didn’t want to believe it. The truth was, it was all too easy to swallow.

After all, Lilah Jane Tunkle never met a problem she didn’t want to solve.

Even when it was none of her fucking business.

“I know! I’m sorry! But I didn’t think it would turn out like this.” He almost wanted to laugh, except he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop once he started. “What the hell did you think was going to happen? That we’d take one look at each other and all the wonderful, warm, fuzzy family memories would come rushing back?”

“Of course not,” she said, although the blush rising up her neck messed with the credibility of her denial. “It’s pointless to dwell on the past. But the present! I wanted your parents to have a chance to see how much you’ve accomplished. I thought they’d be proud of you.”

“My father has never been proud of me, and he never will be.” It was one of the concrete, bedrock truths of Devon’s life. He might’ve forgotten it for a second earlier tonight, but he never would again.

“That can’t be true.” She looked so unhappy at the very idea, Devon experienced a strange urge to comfort her.

“Sorry to disappoint you, honey. But despite the front my parents put on for the neighbors, I grew up knowing exactly how little Dad thought of me.”

“But you’re so successful . . .”

“Not to hear my dad tell it.” Devon hated the echo of disaffected teenager in his own voice, but couldn’t quite stamp it out. “He disapproves of my playboy lifestyle and thinks I use my big piles of money to assuage my guilt over living in filthy sin.”

“Well, I can’t say I entirely approve of your playboy lifestyle, either. But that’s not all there is to you.” The laugh grated Devon’s throat on the way out. “Don’t bet on it. I told you, Lilah Jane, what you see is what you get with me.”

It was definitely safer that way. This way? Blew goats.

Lilah got that stubborn set to her mouth. “Baloney. I know who you are, Devon Sparks. You can hide all you want, but I see you.”

“This isn’t a fucking game of hide-and-seek,” Devon shouted. Her refusal to understand, to acknowledge that sometimes life was shitty and people sucked, made him want to throw something.

“And it’s not my fault if you’re incapable of distinguishing between reality and your fairy-tale version of what you wish life would be like. Oh, I know, it’s such a great story—poor little country mouse comes to the big city, meets a rich guy with a cute kid, gets a makeover, strengthens father/son bonds all over the place, and lives happily ever after.”

She sucked in a breath, and crossed her arms defensively over her chest. Her mouth was still a firm little line, though, and Devon knew she wasn’t getting it.

“I don’t expect life to be a fairy tale,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, you do. And that’s sad, it’s a fucking heartbreaker, because in two more weeks, the dream is over. We stop playing house, Tucker goes back to his mother, and reality sets up shop again. Because this? Our happy little family? Is an illusion, like every other so-called ‘happy family’ in the world. And no amount of wishful thinking or manipulation or meddling is going to change that.” Lilah didn’t look stubborn anymore. She looked stricken. Her eyes were wide and wet, her mouth an unhappy curve. “I said I was sorry about calling your folks. There’s no call to talk like this.”

“Why not? It’s the truth,” Devon said, holding to what he knew because to allow himself to hope for anything more was to open himself up for the worst kind of pain. “Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t make it any less true.”

She watched him for a long moment, her eyes fathomless. And even though he waited with his breath caught in his lungs, the tears that trembled in her lower lashes didn’t fall.

When she finally spoke, he caught himself flinching at the soft sound. “Maybe I was building castles in the clouds, dreaming on you and me and Tucker all living happily ever after. But if that’s truly how you see your life, how you see yourself? I’m sorry for you. Sorrier still for that boy of yours, who deserves better. But as sorry as I am, I won’t stick around to watch you burn my dream castle to the ground.” He let her walk to the door, the same door his father had used to leave him. Devon’s arms and legs felt heavy, immovable.

“If you’re so determined to be miserable, Devon, I can’t stop you,” Lilah said, meeting his gaze dead-on. The tears she’d held back for so long finally spilled over, and she brushed at her cheeks with stiff, impatient hands. “I can’t stop you, but I will be damned if I let you make me miserable, too.” Then she was gone. And Devon was alone.

The way he was always meant to be.

Lilah shivered in the chill air of the Park Avenue apartment and thought about asking to turn down the air conditioning, but didn’t.

She wouldn’t be here long enough for the temperature to matter.

As cold as she felt outside, Lilah was a hundred times more chilled at the bone.

The ride back to Devon’s apartment had felt like a hundred dismal lifetimes jammed into twenty minutes. Devon sat up front with his driver, while Lilah sat in the backseat watching Tucker stare out the window. The minute they got into the apartment, Tucker disappeared into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

Lilah sighed, heartsore and unsure if she was doing the right thing.

“Thank you for driving me back to pack up my things,” she said. It was easier than she would’ve thought to keep her voice polite. All that early training with Aunt Bertie had some use after all; Lilah found that in the midst of the worst disappointment of her life, she could take refuge in manners and at least pretend to a calm she certainly didn’t feel.

“Paolo drove,” Devon said, as distant as if they’d never stood in this exact same spot, this light, airy living room full of modern Italian furniture, and kissed until Lilah’s lips were swollen and hot.

“I know. I just meant . . . I could’ve called a cab.”

Devon shrugged and cast himself onto the lounge chair covered in black and white cowhide. Lilah had laughed at it once, and Devon had gotten all sniffy and offended, informing her that it was one of the most famous design pieces of the twentieth century.

She sure didn’t feel like giggling now.

“Go ahead and say it.” It was a clear challenge, issued in an almost bored undertone.

“I have nothing more to say to you,” Lilah informed him.

“Fuck that,” he said, his deliberate crudeness stiffening her spine like nothing else. “When have you ever held back on what you really think? You’re ditching out, anyway.” Hurt and resentment ate away at her resolve. “You made it impossible for me to stay.”

“So you might as well tell me what you think of me on your way out the door.” Lilah licked her lips, the temptation to lay into him and straighten him out, once and for all, overpowering and impossible. There was no straightening this one out. As Aunt Bertie would say, he was too twisted for color TV.

“I don’t see the point in lowering myself,” Lilah said, with withering formality.

Something blazed in Devon’s eyes, but was banked at once. “Aw, Lilah Jane,” he said softly, the sound of her name in that voice like a twist of the knife, “you’ve always seemed to like getting down and dirty with me.”

Anger flashed over to nuclear. Lilah had to squint to see him through the red mist. “You arrogant, unfeeling . . . absolute monster of a man. I can’t believe I ever saw anything good in you, can’t believe I fell for your poor-little-rich-guy act—and I can’t believe I told you all that stuff about my parents, and how my mother gave me up without a second thought, only to have you turn around and do the same exact thing to your own child. He needs his father in his life, Devon, for longer than one stupid month.” The something in Devon’s eyes flared in satisfaction when she started to read him the riot act, as if he wanted her insults and anger, but by the end, as Lilah’s voice hitched and caught, Devon’s reaction changed, too. He leaned forward on the chaise, his fingers white-knuckled against his knees, and for a second, Lilah thought she might have gotten through to him.

“Christ, Lilah,” he said in a strangled voice. “I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry.” That made her madder than almost anything else.

“You know what?” Lilah panted for a moment. “Screw your sorry. Tucker probably is better away from a self-absorbed egomaniac like you.”

The moment she said it, Lilah wanted to take it back. The look that crossed Devon’s face—she hoped she never saw that particular combination of acceptance and self-hatred again.

“You’d be better off, too,” he said after a second of staring at one another. “You want to pack your things? I can have Daniel do it and send them to you. I assume you’ll go to Grant’s.”

“I . . . hadn’t really thought about it,” Lilah said, her knees suddenly feeling wobbly. She practically collapsed onto the sofa. “I guess I will. Go to Grant’s.”

“Okay.” Devon looked calm, that smooth, unfeeling mask back in place, but Lilah thought she could see the brittleness of it now. He was just waiting for her to leave, trying to push her out the door before it shattered like a glass thrown at a wall.

“Devon,” she said. “What the heck is going on here?”

“I’m not in the mood for trick questions. Get your stuff and get out.”

“Not until I say good-bye to Tucker,” she retorted.

“Whatever.”

Lilah sat there in the pristine coolness of Devon’s bachelor pad and watched him grab a magazine at random and start flipping through it. His pose was a study in casual chic, but the rigid line of his shoulders gave him away.

“One day,” Lilah said into the stilted silence. “One day, maybe not too very far off, you’re going to wake up and realize you’re tired of being alone. And it’s going to be too late, Devon. You will have pushed away everyone who ever tried to love you. And you’ll be alone forever.”

“Cheery,” he said, eyes flickering. “Anything else?”

Lilah forced herself to stand, not sure her legs would take her weight when it felt like her entire body was made of straw. “I just want you to understand what’s happening here.” His throat worked. “What’s that?”

She met his defiant blue gaze. “You’re throwing away your best chance at happiness. Like it’s garbage.

And Devon? Take it from someone who’s been lucky enough to get one—second chances are few and far between.”

Devon didn’t move from the couch when she went to say her good-byes to Tucker, and he didn’t move when she came back, suspiciously red-eyed and blotchy, and let herself out the front door without a backward glance.

He felt the quiet click of the door closing behind her as viscerally as if she’d slammed it hard enough to shake the walls.

Devon sat in his quiet living room thinking about the fact that Adam and Miranda were flying home tomorrow. Back when he first agreed to helm the Market kitchen, Devon had offered to work that last Sunday-night service to give his travel-wrecked, jetlagged friends a chance to recover.