On the Steamy Side

by Louisa Edwards

  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.

  So he’d work one more dinner at Market, get a new nanny for Tucker, and in a couple of weeks, he’d be able to get back to his regularly scheduled life.

  Huh. That should’ve felt more like a relief than a prison sentence.

  Trying to ignore the knowledge that once Tucker left, too, his apartment would always be exactly this quiet and depressing, Devon took a stroll past his son’s closed bedroom door.

  When a soft knock produced no answer, he cracked the door open and peered in, squinting to see in the darkened room.

  There was no movement other than the steady rise and fall of the lump curled up beneath Tucker’s colorful dinosaur-print bedspread.

  Devon stood there watching his son breathe and trying to remember how it felt to be able to just fall asleep at night, no tossing and turning, no secondguessing or regretting.

  Lying in his huge, soft bed later, Devon stared at the ceiling for so long that he was surprised to wake up and see sunlight streaming in his windows.

  His entire body ached like he’d run a marathon. Groaning, Devon sat up and wondered what fresh hell today would bring.

  Ten minutes later, when he went to Tucker’s room to roust the kid out for breakfast, Devon got his answer.

  The room was empty, the bed covers rumpled and twisted. His eyes went straight to the bedside table where Tucker’s beloved backpack lived.

  No sign of it.

  “Tuck?” Devon called, heart pounding. “Tucker?”

  He repeated the name over and over, every iteration more desperate than the last as he raced from room to room. But he knew from the way his shattered voice echoed back at him that it was no use.

  Tucker was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Daniel Tan had a potential second career as a professional clothes packer if he ever got tired of being Devon’s assistant. Lilah was impressed with the state of her wardrobe after it made the trip from Devon’s Upper East Side penthouse down to Grant’s place in Chelsea.

  She closed her suitcase again, not ready to deal with putting things away. Maybe she shouldn’t bother; maybe she should zip up that suitcase and hail a cab to the airport, get on a plane back to Virginia.

  Or maybe she should put on her big-girl panties and march right back uptown to that penthouse.

  After a restless night of playing and replaying that last, horrible conversation with Devon and the look on Tucker’s face when she went to his room to say good-bye, Lilah was pretty sure she’d made a huge mistake.

  Yes, Devon had said and done some awful things—but it wasn’t as if Lilah hadn’t made any mistakes. She cringed to think of her own strident, self-important belief that she had the right to butt into Devon’s complicated relationship with his father. She couldn’t really blame Devon for being angry, and she could only guess at the pain his father had inflicted down in that office.

  Devon wasn’t the kind of man who turned the other cheek. He was more of the Old Testament persuasion, an eye for an eye, giving back pain for pain. So he’d lashed out. Fine. She could decide whether or not to forgive him for that.

  What she maybe couldn’t forgive was the fact that she’d so completely betrayed her own newfound courage. The moment the road went from smooth pavement to pitted gravel, she’d turned tail and run off, leaving Devon to deal with his anger and hurt—and worse, leaving Tucker.

  Lilah went to the mirror to pull her hair back and wound up staring at the circles under her
eyes, drowning in indecision and fear.

  But it was really very simple, she realized.

  She had to go back.

  No matter what happened with Devon, Tucker needed her. Even if it was temporary. Even if after two more weeks of caring for him, it would be like ripping her heart right out of her own chest to leave him.

  That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Tucker be made to understand how much she loved him, and wanted to be with him.

  Lilah felt like she used to when she and her cousins would jump off the high rocks into the swimming hole near the farmhouse. That plunge into the mountain stream so icy it stopped her legs from kicking and made her forget to wave her arms, and then after long seconds of scary sinking, she’d finally manage to hit the bottom hard enough to push off and shoot up and up through the breath-stealing cold of the water until she broke the surface with a big, satisfying splash.

  Dragging in what felt like her first deep breath in hours, Lilah grinned at her reflection and whirled to grab her still-packed bags.

  Her phone rang as she was struggling to heft the stupid suitcase. Lilah bobbled both and dropped the phone, losing it for a second in the cushions of Grant’s deep, smooshy couch. Excavating it out, she got it to her ear in time to bark out a hurried, “Hello? Are you there?”

  “Lolly,” Grant said. He sounded weird. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Um. No? I mean, aren’t you at work? I know I said I’d spill about what happened with Devon, all the gory details, but maybe it could wait until later.”

  A pause. Then, “I think you should come up to the restaurant.”

  “I can think of few things I’d be less inclined to do,” she said, her heart squeezing at the thought. “I don’t want to see him yet, Grant. I don’t think I can handle it. Besides, I need to find Tucker. Did Devon bring him to the restaurant? Because that’s the only thing that could get me over there right now.”

  There was a strange noise, kind of a choking sound, quickly covered, then Grant’s careful voice. “Hon. Trust me on this. You want to be at Market right now.”

  Her heart fluttered like a hummingbird in her chest, battering at the cage of her ribs. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing I’m going to tel you about over the phone. So get here. Now.”

  He hung up. Lilah stared at the phone, open-mouthed and faint.

  For Grant to call and summon her, when he knew how hard she was taking all this stuff with Devon, something terrible must have happened. Terror squeezed her heart and gave Lilah a speed she never thought she’d possess. She was practically pushing people out of the way to get to the subway, flying down the street until she realized it might be faster to take a cab. So she waded out into traffic and threw her arm into the air with authority, the way she’d seen New Yorkers do, and sure enough, a cab swerved out of the flow of cars and stopped for her.

  They made it up Tenth Avenue in record time with Lilah pressuring the poor cabbie every block of the way to go faster, find a better route, bypass the traffic snarls. He heaved a sigh of relief when they pulled up in front of Market.

  Lilah shoved a couple of twenties at him and scrambled from the cab, her heart in her throat. She took the steps up to the door in one flying leap and pushed her way inside, afraid of what she’d find.

  Brain unspooling image after image of Devon having cut off a finger, collapsed at the stove, the whole kitchen held hostage like the awful night Grant had described a few months before, Lilah stopped short just inside the door.

  Everything looked normal. It took a moment to process what she was seeing, but so far, it looked like just a normal night of dinner service at Market. Maybe a little more full of customers than she was used to, and maybe they all looked happier, smilier, but that was it. No panic, no alarm, no cops or ambulance people milling around.

  Lilah walked as sedately as she could toward the back of the dining room, looking around for Grant the whole time.

  He wasn’t on the floor, but she caught the bartender’s eye, that handsome, country-looking Christian, and he tipped his head toward the kitchen.

  Lilah nodded and quickened her pace.

  As she got closer, she could see a slice of the kitchen through the open pass, and from the front of the house, it looked like things were moving smoothly, if quietly. When she got to the door and peeked inside, Devon was nowhere to be seen. Frankie was expediting orders with a grim, purposeful manner that made Lilah’s heart seize again.

  Oh, dear Lord.

  Closing the kitchen door firmly behind her, Lilah demanded in a voice shrill with fear, “What on earth is happening? Where’s Grant? Where’s Devon?”

  Frankie wiped the rim of a plate with swift, economical movements and said, “Downstairs, Lilah. In the office. Table nine, away!”

  Lilah wasted no time in pounding down the stairs. The fact that no one seemed to want to tell her what the heck was going on made her lightheaded with dread.

  The scene in Adam’s office did nothing to al eviate that fear. Devon was slumped over the ancient, scarred metal desk, hanging onto a phone and scrubbing his hand over his face.

  Grant was pacing, his cel phone out, too, and both of them were talking at once, although they paused when she came in.

  It hurt to look at Devon, beyond a quick once-over to ascertain that, yes, he was still in possession of all his fingers, so she looked at Grant. Who looked at Devon. Who stood and said, “I’ll tell her.”

  His voice sounded awful, like he’d shouted his throat raw.

  “Somebody better tell me something quick, before I start having a hissy!”

  Devon moved as if he wanted to come around the desk to her, but Lilah took an involuntary step back. He stopped, holding himself still with visible effort.

  “Tucker is missing. Grant called because we thought, you know, he’s run off before. Maybe he would come to you.” Hope blazed in his eyes, turning them electric blue, but his voice stayed monotone and grating. “He didn’t, did he?”

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Lilah said, the bottom dropping out of her stomach. “No, I haven’t heard from him. Oh, Devon. Oh, my God.”

  The cracked leather of the old office chair squeaked under his weight as he dropped back into it. He put the phone back to his ear. “No. I just talked to her, she says she hasn’t seen him. I don’t know anything else to tell you. Come on, Connor, I need you. What else can I try?”

  Lilah swayed on her feet and Grant was there, putting his arm around her and tugging her over to the sofa in the corner. “Sit, hon. Breathe. It’s going to be okay, we’ll find him. I’m sure he just needed a little break. Like that time he hid from you in the restaurant, remember?”

  “How long has he been missing?” Lilah choked out.

  “He was gone when Devon woke up this morning around eight. He’s on the phone with his brother now, I guess he’s a cop in Jersey. The NYPD is already on the case; with a missing child, you don’t have to wait twenty-four hours to file the report, so that’s really good, Lolly.”

  “How can anything about this be good?” she cried. Tears were slipping down her cheeks, but she hardly noticed beyond the sudden stuffiness of her nose and head. “Tucker could be out there, for who knows how long, all alone and scared. Oh …” She gasped as a new thought occurred to her. “What if someone took him?”

  The office chair screeched across the floor. Devon’s face was bloodless and stark with the purest terror she’d ever seen. Lilah’s heart stopped.

  He lifted the phone back to his ear and said in an unnaturally even voice, “Con? There’s one more lead to follow. Tucker’s mother is in a rehab facility upstate, I can’t remember the name. An Officer Santiago here in the city would know. Have her check and make sure Heather Sorensen is where she’s supposed to be.”

  Replacing the phone gently on the receiver, Devon looked over at Lilah. His eyes were like holes burnt in a sheet, stark pools of fear in his white face. “I have to go home. I
only came here because I thought there was a chance he might show up at the restaurant. But the cops say I should wait at the apartment, in case he comes back there.”

  “Well, I’m coming with you,” Lilah said, pushing to her feet. “No arguments, mister. You might think you don’t need other people, but you are not going through this alone. Not if I can help it.

  A little color swept Devon’s high cheekbones. Gratitude was a better look on him than sheer panic.

  “Let’s go, then. Grant?”

  “I’ll hold down the fort,” Grant said.

  They trooped upstairs and Devon went immediately to Frankie’s side. “I need your help. I’ve got to leave. Now. Can you take charge of the kitchen?”

  Frankie passed a hand over his brow, his mouth firm and, for once, serious. He pressed his lips together, and Lilah caught the glimmer of nerves in the way his fingers tightened briefly, but all he said was, “You can count on me, Chef. Do what you have to do. Bring Tucker home, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Devon said. “I will.” He stood up straighter and when he turned back to her, there was a new layer of strength hardening into a tight lid over the roiling emotions beneath the surface.

  Any doubts that had resurfaced in Lilah’s mind about Devon’s ability to love his son died in that moment.

  “Lilah Jane? Are you with me?”

  She swallowed around the lump in her throat.

  “I am.”

  It was the longest drive of Devon’s life. Paolo couldn’t seem to maneuver the town car through the traffic quickly enough.

  When they finally pulled up in front of the apartment building, Devon had the doors open and one foot out of the car before Paolo could get out to perform his duties.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sparks,” the chauffeur panted. His dark eyes were liquid with regret. “He’s a good boy. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”

  Devon could barely force a nod, but Lilah pressed a hand to Paolo’s arm and said, “Thanks. It’s going to be okay, Paolo. We’ll find him.”

  Even in the midst of the worst day of his life, Devon heard that. “We,” united. The two of them against the world, neither one alone anymore.