Well, until now, anyway. Was it his fault that fate had so graciously provided him the very opportunity he’d been searching for?
Relaxing slightly, Grant still glared at the man facing him. “Well, that’s a loaded question,” Grant returned with a snort. “Especially since I know you. But you get to live. For now. You and I, however, need to talk. You are going to fill me in on just what the hell is going on around here.”
“Can we do it someplace else? I don’t think the hospital corridor is exactly the spot to have this discussion, do you?” Devil asked uncomfortably, silently noting the attention they were drawing from the nurses and doctors passing by them.
Grant considered the other man for a long moment fraught with tense silence. “Follow me,” he finally growled under his breath as he led the way down another corridor and left Devil to trail behind him. Pausing outside a private family waiting area, he stuck his head inside and found the room empty. “This’ll do,” he muttered, flipping the sign hanging on the door to occupied and gesturing for Devil to go ahead of him. Following his friend, Grant closed the door behind them. Crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Devil sink into a chair at the table in the center of the small area, he waited impatiently. “Well?” He prodded, motioning with a flapping hand for Devil to start explaining himself.
“Well, what, Grant?” Devil retorted, rubbing a hand vigorously over his face as he tried to infuse his body with the energy he so desperately needed to have this conversation. He was more tired than he ever remembered feeling in his thirty-eight years on Earth, and now, he was expected to explain everything that had happened in the last hour to a guy who was more than capable of killing him and making it look like an unfortunate accident. The good doctor currently staring at him had access to all kinds of drugs that could mimic a heart attack or stroke, and Devil didn’t doubt the other man would use them in defense of his sister.
“Devil, don’t pull that tightlipped, He-man, Master of the Universe crap on me. This is my sister we’re talking about here. I love you like a brother, man, but if Molly gets hurt…”
“I’m not trying to hurt Molly, Grant. I’ve been as much a part of her life as you have. I was right there with you when we were running shitfaced, pimply boys off her scent when she was a teenager. Since she’s gotten older, I’ve warned off my fair share of full-grown men with less than honorable intentions toward her, too. Don’t you stand there and act like I haven’t done my best to protect her!”
“Yeah, Devil, I know. You’ve been protecting her from men like you, man. So, I think you might be able to understand my concern when I walk in and see you telling Nana that the two of you are getting married! You are exactly the type of guy we don’t want for my baby sister.”
“What the hell is it about me that you find so repellant, Grant?” Devil barked as his shoulders tensed in anger.
“Really?” Grant quirked an eyebrow heavenward. “You’re gonna ask me that?”
“Yeah,” Devil retorted, rising from his chair and lifting his chin.
“You’re a man-whore, Devil. You’ve had your wick dipped in half the candle boxes in the greater Atlanta area! You aren’t exactly the husband a brother dreams of for his little sister!”
Devil clamped down on his jaw and fumed. Okay, so Grant made a decent argument. Once upon a time, he’d enjoyed playing the field, hopping from one woman to the next and having a damn good time once he got there. He also knew that it still appeared that way to anybody who took a cursory look at his life over the past year.
Appearances, however, were deceiving.
“Would you say something before I’m forced to ruin those GQ good looks of yours?” Grant complained, propping his hands on his hips as he faced off with his best friend.
“I’m not a man-whore anymore. Yeah, once I was, but not anymore. I’ve changed,” Devil confided quietly, rubbing his palm over his jaw.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Grant shook his head as he processed Devil’s statement. “Man, that just doesn’t hold water. Molly has complained for the past year about the troop of tramps you’ve paraded through the office. Are you saying she’s a liar?”
“Not… exactly.” Hedging was his only option at the moment, and Devil knew he needed to buy at least a few more minutes before telling his best friend his true thoughts.
“Dev, I’ve gotta go upstairs and bring a couple of new lives into the world sometime in the near future. So, what say you cut the bullshit and tell me exactly what the fuck is going on before I give in to the urge to pound on your face a little before I go?”
Licking his lips, Devil hung his head. Coming clean to what should have been the easiest person on the planet for him to confide anything was harder than he expected. Clearing his throat, he lifted his head to stare at Grant. “It’s true what Molly said. There have been a lot of women that I’ve spent time with this year.”
“Yeah,” Grant agreed with a grunt. “A new one every two or three weeks from what I’ve heard.”
“That sounds about right,” Devil muttered, wincing. “The thing is … I haven’t been serious about any of them.”
Grant lifted his eyes to the ceiling and prayed for strength and guidance he needed to not kill his best friend. “You never are.”
“I’ve sort of been using them,” Devil admitted reluctantly.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Grant replied with a disgusted sneer.
“I haven’t been sleeping with the women that I’ve been seeing, Grant,” Devil informed his doubtful pal curtly. “I’ve been using them as a kind of shield so I didn’t act on my attraction to your sister,” he continued quickly, ripping the proverbial bandage off the wound in one quick yank.
Stunned, Grant stared at Devil, his eyes slightly dilated as they gazed off into space. “Pardon me?” he finally managed to whisper hoarsely, tilting his head toward his best friend. “I’m gonna need you to say that again.”
Sizzle: Chapter Nine
Watching sympathetically as Grant sank heavily into one of the chairs around the table, Devil sighed. “I think you heard me the first time. It’s not gonna sound any better to you the second time around.”
“You can not be attracted to my sister,” Grant denied absently, staring into space. “My psyche can’t handle it. I have two kids to put through college, Dev. I can’t afford the therapy that relationship would cost me!”
Devil rolled his eyes while Grant buried his face in his hands and shook his head. “Look, I haven’t said or done anything that could be construed inappropriately with your sister.”
“You mean other than that pesky engagement announcement you made in Nana’s room,” Grant replied, his voice muffled by his hands.
“Yeah,” Devil muttered guiltily, “Except for that.”
Lifting his head, Grant turned to glare at Devil. “What in the name of all hell were you thinking? You know Molly’s gonna kill you. There’s not gonna be a wedding. There’s not even gonna be an engagement. We’re all gonna be too busy with a funeral… YOURS! Because even now, as we speak, I can feel her plotting your demise. She was seething when she left here, man. I haven’t seen her that pissed since that dickwad broke her heart in college.”
“I know,” Devil acknowledged softly. “I’ll fix it.” He just wasn’t exactly sure how to go about making those repairs to Molly’s heart and mind quite yet.
“Ha!”
“I will,” Dev insisted with a frown. Hurting Molly had never been on his agenda, and never would be.
“How? You gonna march back into Nana’s room and break her heart? Rip away her dying dream? You can’t dangle a carrot in front of a bunny and not expect that cute, furry forest friend to bite your finger off, moron!” Grant pointed out irritably. “That old woman was over-the-moon happy. You take this away from her and you’ll likely lose a lot more than a lousy finger.”
“No, I can’t disappoint Nana.” Devil shook his head as he scratched his jaw. “I’ve simply got to convince Moll
y to marry me. And you’ve gotta help me.”
“Fuck you,” Grant retorted succinctly, shaking his head back and forth. “I’m not going over that cliff with you. No way, no how. I don’t care how you feel about my sister. Which, by the way, I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around and am not entirely sure I approve of.”
“Your sister is a beautiful, loving woman. At least, she is most of the time,” he amended quickly when Grant raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to reply. “Any man worth his salt can see that she’s special. I guess when Nana was making her dying wish known back there, I kind of snapped. On one side, I had the woman that raised me begging me to find a wife and make a couple of kids, and on the other side, I had the only other woman I completely trust. So, I went for broke and made the announcement.”
“Oh, you’re gonna get broke, brother. Into teeny tiny pieces. There won’t be enough of you left to fill a salt shaker when Molly is through with you.”
“Let me be the one to worry about Molly,” Devil instructed softly, stiffening his shoulders as he mentally started preparing his war plan. All he needed was a plan. With a good plan, all things were possible. It’s how he’d gotten so successful. “I want to marry her, Grant. I want to make Nana’s last months with us happy ones filled with memories she’ll cherish. I owe her that,” Devil shared, determination shining in his gaze.
“At the expense of my sister?” Grant barked, his jaw hardening as he met Devil’s eyes.
“No. Look, if Molly says no after I put my offer on the table, I’ll walk away from the idea. I’ll figure out something to tell Nana and let Molly off the matrimonial hook. But, I can make this worth Molly’s while.”
“How?” Grant asked bluntly, clearly unimpressed by Devil’s scheme. Honestly, this man was known for his blunt business acumen, and yet he had just managed to stumble his way into a never-ending black hole.
“By appealing to her sense of logic and reason,” Devil explained strongly. Sure, those qualities ran in short commodity with Molly, but if he dug deep, he was pretty sure he’d find at least a small volume of each virtue.
Grant laughed shortly. “Gooooood luck, buddy. Those are two things that Molly generally lacks. I love my sister, but facts are facts. She goes with her gut. And I’m here to tell you, her gut thinks you are a fornicating prick at least ninety percent of the time.”
“What does she think the other ten percent of the time?”
“She’s sleeping,” Grant declared flatly, glaring at his so-called best friend.
“Well, I plan on making her an offer she won’t want to refuse. A very lucrative offer. And when she accepts it and marries me, then that will give me the time that I need to woo her. I’ll convince her that I’m nowhere near the ‘fornicating prick’ she thinks I am. Somehow.”
“Is it wrong to admit that I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm at the end of her hook? Cause, I really, really am.”
Devil scowled down at the good doctor. “I’m not squirming yet, asshole!” Sure, he might be floundering a little, but it had been an extremely unique kind of day. Really, how many times did a man announce he was getting married before letting the intended bride know? He could be forgiven for not quite being his usual confident self, couldn’t he?
“Nah, you’re wriggling like a motherfucker, Dev! And you aren’t even really engaged yet! I’ll say one good thing about it, though – it’ll be cheap entertainment.”
“You’re a dick,” Devil muttered, then frowned as he added, “This is all your fault anyway, you know.”
Grant jerked upright in his seat. “How do you figure that?”
“Easy. If I hadn’t let you have Karen all those years ago, I’d be the one married with a couple of kids. You ought to thank me.”
Grant snorted derisively. “If you had married my wife, she would roast your balls over the fire and serve them to you on a bed of rice, one forkful at a time. Even when we were twelve, she knew better than to get involved with a scoundrel like you. Her feelings have not changed over time.”
Smiling in spite of himself, Devil shook his head. He loved Grant’s wife, Karen, like a sister. The three of them had been fast friends since middle school, and Grant was right. Devil could never handle a woman that took delight in doing things like rolling over a perfectly innocent set of golf irons when you forget one little anniversary. Of course, Molly would probably skewer him with a steak knife if he did something like that, but that was beside the fact. “You might have a point,” he told the other man as Grant’s pager beeped on his belt.
“Okay, I need to go,” Grant said with a glance down at his waist. “Let me bottom-line things for you, Dev. Hurt my little sister and I’m gonna have to kill you. Make her cry, and I promise you, it’ll be a painful, violent way to go. Capisce?” he asked, rising to his feet.
Devil nodded. “Understood.”
Shrugging his physician’s coat back on, Grant adjusted the credentials on his pocket. “You still gonna go try and talk to her tonight?”
“Yep.”
“I think it’s a mistake, but may the force be with you, man. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.”
“With a good game plan, all things are possible, Grant. Are you forgetting that I navigate around sharks for a living? My bread and butter are mergers and acquisitions.”
“Uh huh,” Grant grunted. “Too bad that you’re about to be eaten alive by a pissed-off piranha. Molly is going to be spitting out your bones for weeks to come.”
“Thanks for the support,” Devil growled as Grant headed for the door. With a best friend like Grant, Devil realized he couldn’t afford to make any more enemies.
Sizzle: Chapter Ten
Molly Ramsey had never been so happy to pull into the tiny driveway of her Druid Hills condominium in all her life. It wasn’t anything particularly special – just a simple one bedroom, one bath abode with generic beige walls and a leaky kitchen faucet, but it was her place to escape from the rest of the world. Throwing the gear shift of her brother’s black Escalade into park, she expelled a long breath as she took a moment to just stare at her welcoming red front door. Adorned with a festive wreath she’d made herself, it added a homey feel to an otherwise nondescript doorway.
The tiny place in front of her wasn’t much, but it was home. And right now, home meant safety… security … and most importantly, serenity. Maybe once she was behind that closed front door, she could begin to make sense out of everything that had happened in the last few hours.
She doubted it, but a girl had to keep hope alive.
Shoving open the SUV’s door, she took a moment to lock the vehicle before trudging up the cobblestone path that led to her front porch. Eyeing the weeds growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, she sighed. Evidently the lawn maintenance fee that was included in her rent didn’t cover pulling weeds. Mentally adding the chore to her to-do list, Molly focused on getting inside. Opening her door, she inhaled deeply, the comforting smell of her cinnamon air freshener automatically comforting her.
“Coco! Chanel!” she called out to her two adopted fur babies. “Mommy’s home!”
Excited yaps greeted her as her two-year-old Pekingese scampered at breakneck speed into the living room from the back of the condo, the nails of his feet tapping excitedly against the kitchen tile. Bending, she scooped one of her two babies into her arms. “Well, hello, Chanel.” She giggled as the tiny caramel colored dog licked her face. “How was your day, my little prince pretty? I hope it was better than mine because Momma’s day just sucked!”
The happy dog pressed his cold nose against her cheek in reply. “Okay, where’s your arch nemesis, Chanel? Where’s Coco? You didn’t try to eat her again, did you?” she asked the excited pup in her arms. It wouldn’t be the first time that Chanel had used Coco for a chew toy. Of course, Coco had attempted to use Chanel as a scratching post from time to time before she’d been declawed, so their continued survival was apparently not in question.
Yes, her pampered pets were the animal equivalent to the Hatfields and McCoys, but she wouldn’t have it another way. They were both generally happy and supremely spoiled.
As if summoned by her question, a black-and-tan Siamese cat sauntered into the room and arched its back in greeting, hissing at Chanel in her arms. Coco didn’t particularly like being petted, but she detested watching Chanel get any affection. “Well, there’s my pretty Coco,” Molly crooned to the feline, stepping closer. “There’s Momma’s pretty girl.”
The cat merely sniffed disdainfully.
“Okay, down you go,” she told Chanel, putting the pooch back on the hardwood floor. “I know I’m later than usual, but it’s been a rather crappy day,” Molly explained to the animals as she kicked off her heels and walked into her kitchen. Grabbing a can of cat food and a packet of dog food, she dropped them on the counter before rooting in the cabinet above the dishwasher for their food bowls.
Locating them quickly, she pulled them down and spared a look to her expectant pals. It was as if they were waiting for her to spill her guts. “So, Devil…. You remember Devil, don’t you?” she asked them.
Coco hissed again and arched her back.
“Yeah, that’s how I feel about him most of the time, too,” Molly commiserated as Chanel ran between her legs, pawing her feet. “I’m hurrying, sweetie,” she told the dog when it yapped twice. The pooch couldn’t stand it when he had to wait for his dinner. “Anyway, he proposed today. Well, propose is a strong word,” she amended. “He announced that we were getting married today. Evidently, he wants to be your new daddy.”
The Sizzle Saga Page 6