Scorch (9 page)

His smile widened a little. Turned cajoling. “I’m sure they can do without you for one night.”

Chelsea clenched her hands into fists. If he didn’t get away from her soon, she was going to do something she would enjoy greatly, but would probably end up regretting. “Unlike some, I don’t like to let people down.” She looked him up and down. How had she been so blinded by him before? “Don’t come back. I think we’ve said all we have left to say.”

“How about a coffee, then? Please?”

Chelsea released a slow breath. Maybe if she finally got it through his thick skull, they could both get on with their lives. “Fine. There’s a café not too far from here.” She led the way, not bothering to look back to see if he was keeping up or even following until they reached the door and he darted forward to open it for her.

She chose the table and claimed the seat nearest the door. He slid into the seat across from her and waved a barista over, smiling the whole time. “What would you like?”

She caught his gaze. “For you to tell me why you decided to come back.”

“Wow, straight to business, huh?” The smile didn’t budge. “Very well. Remember Great Aunt Ashling?”

How could she forget? The woman was the epitome of eccentricity. “Of course.”

“Well, she was quite upset that our wedding didn’t happen.”

She wasn’t the only one. Chelsea was left to explain to everyone that he’d walked out on her and she had to weather the rampant speculation. What could she have done to make him leave the night before? Had he found someone else? Had she? She’d heard all the whispers. It had been humiliating. She’d had to face that alone. Because of him. “And?”

“Well…” The charming smile faltered a little. “Let’s just say that if we go through with it, you’ll be a very wealthy woman.”

Her jaw dropped. “You have got to be kidding me. You’re not actually suggesting that we get married for money?”

“It wouldn’t have to be for long. We would quietly divorce after a time, and you would walk away with half the money.”

“You want us to defraud an old lady for cash?” Chelsea kicked back her chair. “Until this moment, I didn’t think I could think any less of you.”

Richard gripped her hand. “It’s only temporary. Stop being so selfish.”

Tearing her hand from his she leaped to her feet. “
I’m
being selfish? Me?” He tried to shush her, but it only infuriated her more. Chelsea didn’t care if everyone was staring. She was immune to it now. “If you hadn’t taken off, you would have that money now, wouldn’t you? You got yourself into this mess, so don’t expect me to be the one to help you out.”

Chelsea grabbed her purse and strode out of the café. She hadn’t come looking for closure, but she’d found it. How could she have been involved with a man like him in the first place? She had to have been blinded, dazzled by the shiny packaging, because the man underneath was rancid.

She’d never felt more relieved that she hadn’t married the jerk. Still fuming, she felt paradoxically better.

Free.

Chelsea took the long way back to the restaurant, needing to get a handle on her feelings. As far as she was concerned, there was one thing left to do. And that was get things sorted out between herself and Daniel.

On the way, she received a text from her mother. She’d obviously been updated by Richard on what had happened at the café and was ‘very disappointed in her and her poor decision making’. She tossed it in her purse and ignored the torrent of texts that followed. No doubt to try to ‘talk some sense into her’.

Annoyed, she fished out her phone and scrolled through. Fourteen messages between the café and the restaurant. And not all of them were from her mother. Richard had promptly filled his messages with pleas, promises and dollar signs followed by many, many zeroes.

Too bad he was the biggest zero of them all.

“Chelsea!”

She turned to find Richard dashing across the street toward her. He had to have been waiting around for her to return.

“Go away.”

He grabbed her arm. “Listen to me! I’m in serious financial trouble. This would help me out tremendously.”

She shook him off. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to marry you.” She couldn’t feel more relieved that he’d done what he’d done. “I’m sure you can find someone else who will please Aunt Ashling. As far as I’m concerned, you and I have nothing left to say. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

Richard appeared as though he was going to argue, but thought better of it and clamped his mouth shut before stalking away.

Chelsea walked back to the door, hoping to sneak back in but Daniel was already there and stepping out of the door.

“Is that guy bothering you?”

Richard stopped, turned his gaze to her then to Daniel and back, but she just shook her head. “I’m fine. He’s nobody.”

She was aware of Daniel hesitating before following her in.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing.” Chelsea stabbed at the monitor and studied the reservations. Fully booked as usual. “Anything I need to know?”

He closed his warm hands over her shoulders and turned her around. Daniel leveled his dark gaze on her. “Are you going to tell me who that was?”

She tried to pull her hands out of his grasp, but he simply tightened his grip.

“Will you let go?”

Daniel gave her a hard glare but dropped her hands. “Who was that?”

“Richard.”

Daniel immediately turned and headed for the door, presumably to confront the man outside.

Chelsea imagined him beating Richard to a pulp and smiled, but she couldn’t let him do that for her. Dashing ahead, she beat him to the door and blocked the exit. “Just forget him.”

“How can you be so blasé about that bastard? The guy needs an ass-kicking.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” She stared at Daniel, hoping he would take the hint.

Fury blazed in his eyes. “What did he want? Why did he suddenly turn up again?”

The last thing she wanted to do was to get into this with him here, now. “He said he wanted a chance to apologize. But it turned out he wanted me to marry him.”

Daniel muttered something under his breath that she didn’t catch.

“Hopefully now he’s got it out of his system and he’ll leave you alone.”

That echoed her thoughts exactly. “I can only hope.”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Nodding, she pushed him away. “I’m just pissed off. I’ll get over it.” As long as Richard kept his distance and Daniel stopped with the overprotective routine and backed off a little.

Chelsea stared at him while he regarded her just as intently. Daniel had a glint in his eyes that more than hinted at his protective ire.

Damn.
Just what she needed to complicate the hell out of things. She forced a smile. “Thank you for coming to my rescue, but I’m a big girl. I can handle things on my own.”

* * * *

Chelsea spent the rest of the evening finding anything and everything to occupy her time. Whatever it took to keep her out of the kitchen, which totally disproved her earlier claim of being a big girl. She just need space from…everything. And focusing on her job helped her keep her mind off things. Instead, she shoved her emotions away and greeted patrons with a happy smile, even though inside the turmoil tied her stomach in knots.

She didn’t know what to do about Daniel. Richard’s reappearance threw things out of whack for sure. Seeing him made her want to run to Daniel, but for what, she didn’t know. All she did know was that she felt calm and protected when she was with him. It was an instinct that annoyed her. She didn’t want to rely on anyone to protect her from anything.

Now that Richard was hopefully out of the picture, she could make her position clear with Daniel. They weren’t anything more than a couple having fun.

Were they?

Chapter Ten

Daniel wasn’t there the next day—or the one following. Or the next three after that. Chelsea didn’t know what to make of his disappearance. When she thought back to the last conversation they’d had from his point of view, she would have taken off as well. He had shown her nothing but respect and care while she’d done her best to keep him at bay. And because of that, she didn’t know anything personal—his number, his address. Nothing.

She wanted to ask Cara—surely, she’d have his details on file somewhere—but she didn’t want to come across as desperate. It had been her idea not to get too attached. Only she had. Deeply. The realization grew with each hour he was gone, leaving a dull ache in her chest whenever she went anywhere near the kitchen.

Sadly, for Chelsea, the only person she’d heard from was her mother, and all she wanted to know was more about her mysterious lover. Was he better than Richard? Did he have a good a job? Was his family as influential? And Chelsea couldn’t answer anything except whether or not he was a better man, because he was—infinitely so. For the rest, she’d told her mother to drop it and that she would tell her more about him and their relationship when she was ready.

Once she’d figured out what it was, exactly.

What annoyed her was that she couldn’t even tell Daniel that he had been right about how easy it was to do.

She stepped into the kitchen to see Cara watching over cleanup with eagle eyes. It was great to see her back doing what she loved again. And rather than add to her stress, dashing around between stations seemed to help release Cara’s tension. What Chelsea couldn’t believe was that Cara would leave Marco alone in the new restaurant on his own.

“Will you stop moping? You’re lucky you don’t scare people away with your long face.” Cara bumped her hip into Chelsea. “So what’s up with you and Daniel? Want to talk about it?”

That was a surprise. Cara actually asking if she wanted to talk rather than hurling a barrage of questions.

Chelsea gave her the best smile she could manage and shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it a fight. Richard showed up a few days ago.”

“What?” Cara clenched her fist around the knife she held. “What did he want? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d try to gut him like a fish, and you don’t need jail time cutting into your wedding prep. As for what he wanted…” Chelsea laughed. “You won’t believe me.”

Cara slammed the knife down. “Tell me.”

“He asked me to marry him.”

Her friend’s jaw dropped and it took her a few moments before words managed to form. “I can’t even begin to express how I feel about that.” Her eyes widened. “You didn’t say you would, did you? Is that why Daniel’s gone?”

“Of course not. I’ve never been so glad I didn’t marry the scum. He has a rich aunt that won’t give him her money unless he marries me. So he proposed a deal. A short marriage, a discreet divorce in a few months and half the money.”

Cara clenched her jaw. “Just how much are we talking?”

“Enough. But I told him to take a hike. Daniel caught me just afterward and tried to pull a white-knight routine, but I told him I didn’t need his help and basically pushed him away. This is the result.”

Cara digested the information as she picked up the knife and started slicing again. “I hate to tell you this, but I think you screwed up.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do? I know nothing about him, so I can’t go looking for him. And even if I did, what if he doesn’t want to talk? I sure as hell wouldn’t, if I was him.”

“You have to.”

Cara pouted at her. “I shouldn’t be doing this.” She grabbed Chelsea’s wrist, pulled her into her office and scribbled an address on a scrap of paper. “I’m giving you his address and you’re going over to his place to grovel or explain or rip his clothes off. Whatever it takes.” Cara dragged her through the empty restaurant and out of the front door.

“What? I couldn’t. He probably doesn’t even want to speak to me. Wouldn’t he have already if he wanted to?”

“I do want to talk.”

Chelsea whirled around to find Daniel walking up the sidewalk with a wriggling, wagging bundle of fur on the end of a leash.

Cara grinned widely at them. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And you”—she looked at Daniel—“can I trust you to be in to work?”

His gaze didn’t leave Chelsea’s. “That depends on how tonight goes.”

The way he looked at her as he said it sent tingles down Chelsea’s spine.

Cara’s smile grew even wider. “In that case, don’t come back for a few days.” Her eyes flicked over to Chelsea. “Either of you.”

Chelsea was about to protest, but Daniel steered her away. Over his shoulder, to Cara, he said, “We’ll let you know.”

They made it a little way down the block when the dog decided he’d waited long enough to meet her and tangled around her legs.

“Gonna say hi to Chelsea?”

She braced herself for his energetic greeting and wasn’t disappointed when he slammed into her and gave her a sloppy kiss. “Hi there.” She couldn’t tell what mix of breeds he was. Just that he was a medium-sized mishmash of colors and hyperactivity. All she knew was that he seemed to like her as much as she liked him.

“Bobo, meet Chelsea.”

“Hey there, Bobo.” She couldn’t help but be affected by his liveliness. Chelsea looked at Daniel and saw him smiling. A full smile. She was enchanted.

“Come on, big guy. Let’s burn off some of that energy, huh?”

Daniel smiled at Chelsea. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

They walked in silence for a couple of blocks. Chelsea didn’t want to give away how happy she was to see him again, so she kept her focus on the sidewalk in front of them.

Her breath hung in the chilly air. The coolness caused Chelsea to hunch her shoulders a little. There was just enough of a bite in the air to invigorate. As they circled the block a couple of times, Chelsea couldn’t remember a more relaxing thing she’d done lately. She felt calmer, yet at the same time more lively, thanks to Bobo’s boundless energy.

Daniel wrapped his free arm around her shoulder. “How have you been?”

“Okay. Could be better.” She looked up at him. Unable to wait any longer, she asked, “Why did you disappear like that?”