Читать книгу Blame It on the Bachelor - Karen Kendall - Страница 13

KYLIE MUGGED A waiter the instant she was inside the grand ballroom. She snatched a glass of wine off his tray, almost unbalancing the poor man in the process. She drank it dry on the way to the buffet table, where she stabbed five Swedish meatballs, six mini-quiches, three triangles of spanakopita and an entire school of shrimp, which she drowned in cocktail sauce.

She stalked with her plate to the darkest corner of the ballroom, which happened to be where the huge amplifiers for the band clustered. Kylie maneuvered herself behind one that was almost her height and attacked her food like a starving goat, in the subconscious hope of filling the awful hollow inside her. She was four meatballs into the meal when she realized that she’d left her purse in Dev’s ostentatious Corvette. Which meant she’d have to speak to him again. And worse, she’d have to do it politely.

With this realization came the full volume of the speaker as the band broke into “Endless Love,” which presumably the bride and groom had chosen as the song for their first dance. She couldn’t help it; she rolled her eyes.

Eardrums shattered, flushed from her hiding place, Kylie stumbled out from behind the monstrous black box only to run straight into Wilton Grubman, her older sister’s best friend’s son.

The two women had once forced Kylie and Wilton out to an eighth grade dance together, with disastrous results. Disastrous because Wilton had had a crush on her ever since then, and had been caught in the junior high boys’ room doing unspeakable things with her class picture in hand.

“Kylie!” he enthused, his oddly triangular but puffy face beaming.

“Wilton,” she said, trying desperately to dredge up a smile. “Long time no see.”

Poor Wilton still looked like a possum. He had a broad forehead, long sharp nose and narrow chin which sat directly over plump shoulders as if God had forgotten that he needed a neck. Those shoulders transitioned into a barrel of a torso set on tiny legs. Wilton had small, pink, plump hands, too, that were always clammy.

“Care to dance?”

She was insanely grateful for the plate of food she still held. “Oh, um, maybe later? Thanks, but I’m starved.”

“Here, let me hold that. You two run along and have fun,” Dev said helpfully from behind her as he snatched the plate. She whirled to find him standing there with her purse tucked under his arm and an unholy smirk on his lips.

“Oh, no,” she said sweetly. “I can’t expect you to—”

“Of course you can! Listen—the band just struck up ‘Shout.’” He popped her last meatball into his mouth and slapped her on the butt. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She plotted Devon McKee’s murder as Wilton grasped her hand in his pudgy, sweaty one and towed her out onto the floor, looking as if he’d won the lottery.

Kylie was taller than he was. At every repetition of the chorus, he threw his arms up and hopped, morphing from possum to seal trying to snatch fish from the air. And her breasts were the fish, since with every “Shout!” they popped up, despite her best efforts to harness them.

That rat-bastard Devon laughed from the sidelines while consuming her shrimp.

Shout! Kylie decided to dismember him alive with a hacksaw and feed his limbs to a shark while he watched.

Shout! Better yet, she’d knock him unconscious, tie him up, smear canned tuna all over him and feed him to a herd of starving feral cats.

Shout! Or maybe she’d toss him into a mosh pit of violently vengeful women whom he’d spurned over the course of his career.

As the song got faster and sweatier and Wilton’s enthusiasm for her even more oppressive, she contemplated the virtues of alligators, pythons and piranha, any of which were readily available here in south Florida and would satisfy her bloodlust.

Finally, the song was over. She dodged Wilton’s determined attempt to slide a sweaty paw from her waist down to her ass, and thanked him for the dance. Then, through a series of dodges and feints, she lost him in the sea of people now filling up the room and made her way to Dev the Devil and her purse.

Her plate, she saw as she approached him, was a lost cause. It was littered with shrimp tails, quiche crumbs and flakes of spanakopita.

He waggled his eyebrows at her—for all the world like Belushi in Animal House—then popped the last corner of the only remaining savory Greek pastry into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed and smirked at her again. “Enjoy the dance?”

“I’d like my evening bag, please,” she said icily.

“Are you going to hit me with it?”

“I reserve the right.”

“Of course you do. So under the circumstances I think I’ll hang on to it for a while.”

“I’m not going to play juvenile games with you.”

“Excellent,” he said heartily. “Then can we move on to the adult ones? Triple X?”

She turned on her heel and walked away from him, toward a roving waiter. Somehow in three long strides, Dev got to the waiter first, commandeered a glass of wine and thrust it at her. “Drink?”

She ignored him and took a different glass off the waiter’s tray. Then she continued walking while the waiter gave a mock-shiver. “Brrrrr. That was cold,” she heard him say. “Why the hot girls so cold, man?”

“One of life’s mysteries,” Dev told him. Then, to her disbelief, he came up behind her again and touched her shoulder. “Don’t you want your purse?”

“Of course I do, but I won’t beg for it. I don’t beg for anything, Devon McKee, not ever, no matter how you like to delude yourself about last night.”

“Fine. Here.” He extended it to her. “By the way, I put my phone number inside.”

She snatched it from him and then hit him with it, hard, on the arm.

“Ow!”

“That’s for eating the food on my plate.” Then she hit him again, even harder.

“What the fu—”

“And that’s for making me dance with Wilton Grubman!” She glared at him.

He said nothing. He didn’t even laugh. He just evaluated her.

“What?” she yelled.

“Do you feel better, now?” Dev asked. There was actual concern in his eyes, and something appallingly like kindness in the curve of his mouth. It was horrible, unfair, the last straw. The convenient target of her hostility was being nice to her and that blew all her defenses.

“N-n-no!” And Kylie’s face crumpled despite her very best efforts on behalf of Grace Kelly poise. Forget the minor leakage in the supply closet—now the waterworks started in earnest and great, wracking sobs overtook her body.

This should have been her wedding. She’d held in her emotions for eight long months, and now they wouldn’t be denied.

“Oh, honey,” Dev said, and folded her into his arms. “Oh, my poor little psycho … it’s okay … whatever this is all about, it’s gonna be okay.”

His arms felt so good, so comforting, so right. How long had it been since a man had held her? The thought made her sob even harder as Dev walked her backward and to the left, and then backward again. She heard a ding and then they were inside an elevator.

“Not s’posed to be nice,” she howled into his jacket. “S’posed to be a d-d-d-dick.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Dev said, with just a quiver of humor in his voice. “I do my best.”

“S’posed to be a d-dick so I can yell at you!”

“I can see how my behavior frustrates you, then. I’m sorry.” He smoothed her hair, which disarmed her further, which produced more sobs, except they sounded like wild hog snorts on the inhale. Which was even more mortifying, if that were possible—which it wasn’t. But it was.

“So,” Dev said, his chest rumbling under her forehead. “Is it me in particular that you want to yell at … or will any old dick do?”

She only cried harder. He couldn’t possibly understand how painful the long months of withdrawal and rejection by Jack had been. How he’d changed under her very eyes from the man with whom she’d wanted to spend her life to a drug-addled internet-porn potato.

“I’m going out on a limb, here,” he continued, “but I’m going to guess that you’re very upset with some guy who isn’t here right now … so you decided to use me as a stand-in punching bag?”

“I’m sorry,” she wailed, punctuating the words with a great deal of mascara and—worse—snot. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this.”

He actually kissed the top of her head. “If it makes you feel any better, sweetheart, I probably do. At least in terms of karma.”

She began to laugh, then, on top of the sobs, because she figured he was right, but that didn’t make her behavior any better.

She felt his hand cover hers, then take the purse back.

“I assume that you’re staying here in the hotel?”

She nodded, smearing more makeup onto his jacket.

“And that you have a key card to a room in here?”

She nodded again.

“If you’d care to tell me the number, then I can push the relevant elevator button and take you there.”

“Six-twelve,” she mumbled. “Thanks.”

He hit the button, keeping one arm still around her. She was amazed and grateful.

The elevator rose, thankfully without anyone else trying to get on. They stepped out onto the sixth floor and her room was only a few short steps away.

Dev slid her card into the slot on the door and opened it for her. “There you go.”

She stepped out of his arms, feeling suddenly bereft, and went inside.

“Can I suggest a hot bath?” he asked.

Kylie smiled wanly.

“And maybe a bottle of wine from room service?”

She nodded.

“Okay, then.” He stepped forward, took her chin in his hand, and dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. “Whatever this is all about—this emotional storm—it will pass. You’re gonna be okay, Kylie. I promise.” Then he turned and headed for the door.

The spiked hair with the gel in it that she’d thought was too Miami-stud yesterday suddenly looked right on him. His shoulders filled out the black tuxedo jacket to perfection, and the posture that she’d dismissed as cocky … well, who’d have known that it disguised real empathy?

“Dev?” she asked tentatively.

He stopped. “Yeah.”

“How would you like to share that bottle of wine with me?”

He turned to face her, one eyebrow raised.

“Please?” she added.

He hesitated.

Perhaps it was underhanded, but she really didn’t want to be alone. So she fixed him with one of those you’re-the-only-man-who-can-save-me-from-certain-disaster looks.

“Hmm,” he said. Not yes.

“I swear not to hit you with anything.”

He grinned at that and seemed to relent. “Will you promise not to yell?”

She swallowed and pushed her hair out of her face, then struck a mock-sexy pose. “No. But I’ll save it for when you get to … you know … the good parts.”