Will shook his head, but he had his phone out. She went to her bathroom to run a brush through her hair. Eying herself critically in the mirror, she realized she looked pale and a bit gaunt. No wonder Gwen and Will and Bennie were worried about her.
Her heart still hurt, but she didn’t feel quite so hollow inside anymore. It was an improvement. She’d just have to settle for what she could get.
Ugh. She still hated that word.
Will had said that if she really wanted Nick, she’d have gone and gotten him by now. That’s what Harrisons did, after all. He was only half-right. She wanted Nick, but she wanted him to want her, as well, and she couldn’t swallow her pride enough to take that rejection again.
Painful lessons, indeed. There was no way she’d forget this one.
“Can I mention her name today, or will you bite my head off?” Lottie’s head peeked around his office door as she asked the question.
“Mention who?” Nick laid the file he was reading on his desk. There was only one “her,” but he was working hard to move on and outward appearances counted.
Lottie frowned. “Evie. Who else?”
His pulse accelerated, but he kept his voice even. “Of course you can mention her name. Why would I take your head off for it?”
“Kevin said…”
“Well, Kevin has really poor timing sometimes.” In reality, Kevin was asking to get punched in the mouth for the way he kept talking about Evie, but he couldn’t tell Lottie that.
“He did say she’d served you with divorce papers.”
Kevin would be eating his teeth very soon. “She’s not the first person in history to regret a quickie Vegas wedding.”
Lottie’s mouth twisted. “It seems so weird. Every time I saw her, she seemed so happy. And you guys really did seem like a good couple, right for each other somehow. I just don’t understand.” She shrugged. “I know, it’s none of my business. I am sorry, by the way.”
The knife that had permanent residence in his guts twisted a bit. “Is that why you brought her up? To tell me you’re sorry we didn’t work out?”
“No. I got something from Evie in today’s mail that I wanted to ask you about.”
“Evie’s sending you letters?” He hadn’t heard a word from Evie since she left for the airport. All communication had and would continue to be through her attorney.
“There was a note in there, thanking me for befriending her while she was here and inviting me to Dallas in the future. She’s very polite, you know?”
“Her sister-in-law is some kind of manners guru. It’s ingrained in her.” And it must have rubbed off on him, otherwise he’d have stopped this conversation long before now. “So what else did she send you?” he prompted.
“Checks. Big, fat, massive checks for the Gleason Street Community Center.”
He didn’t need to hide his surprise. “Checks, plural?”
“One from something called HarCorp…”
“That’s her family’s company,” he supplied.
“One from the Harrison Family Charitable Trust, and one from her personal account. There’s a lot of zeros involved.”
That he didn’t doubt at all. “Evie can afford it. The checks will cash, don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not. I’m just wondering why she’d still bother. I mean, now that she’s gone back to Texas.”
“She likes giving money to projects that make a difference in people’s lives. And she told you she’d help with the fundraising. Since she’s not here anymore, I assume this is how she’s fulfilling that promise.” Salving her conscience, maybe? “Cash the checks and move on.”
“If I cash these checks, we’re going to have to name a wing of the building after her.”
Now he knew why Lottie was so cautious about this. “That many zeros, huh?”
“That many zeros.”
Good Lord. “Cash them.” Something good could come of this debacle. He picked up the file he’d been looking at earlier, and Lottie took the hint to leave.
But Nick couldn’t regain his earlier focus. Evie couldn’t do anything halfway, could she? She got pregnant, so she had to get married. And she couldn’t just get married; she had to move to Las Vegas. Into his house. Into his life. Into his heart.
He shook that thought off. The divorce papers delivered to him were an unwelcome reminder of how badly out of hand this whole situation had gotten because Evie couldn’t go just halfway.
Well, she’d gone halfway on one thing. She hadn’t fallen in love with him. Which sucked for him, since it was the one thing where he had gone all the way.
So he’d stalled on signing the divorce papers, when he should have just done it immediately and moved on. Prenups certainly made the divorce proceedings much quicker—if not easier.
Of course, when had anything with Evie been easy? From that first night, when his car had been broken into, up to now, nothing had been easy when it came to Evie. His whole life had been turned upside down.
And to prove how sick the whole situation really was, he actually missed it. Life seemed a little boring now without Evie and never knowing what she would throw at him next. He had learned a lot about himself recently, including a tendency toward masochism he didn’t know he had in him. Why else would he want a woman so desperately when she did nothing but drive him crazy?
He even missed fighting with her—the snap and fire in her eyes, the way her skin turned pinker as her temper flared, how she could channel that heat in a completely different direction in a heartbeat. They fought, sure, but they fought fair and Evie never held a grudge. She had a short fuse and a big temper in that sinful body, and she was a yeller.
In more ways than one, he thought as a familiar heat spread over his skin like a painful memory.
Good thing he wasn’t, or else every fight would have been a recreation of Evie and Will going toe-to-toe on the balcony, only with him playing her brother’s role. Common sense should tell him this divorce was the right thing to do, because no relationship could handle that level…
He stopped that line of thought, confused. For all that yelling he witnessed, Evie and her brother were very close. Tight, even. Even when Evie complained about him—which was frequently—there was no doubt she loved her brother. And Will, for all his glowering, seemed to adore her—even when she yelled at him.
He could relate to that. Adoring Evie, at least.
Evie had said that he reminded her of Will. Even called him the same epithet…
A thousand details hit him at once, and it led to clarity. Evie being so polite and gracious to everyone even though he knew it grated across her nerves at times. Evie guarding her tongue so she didn’t end up in the papers. How she talked about “Evangeline Harrison” sometimes as if it was a different person.
That constant pressure had to build until it blew, and Evie was safe exploding at her brother. Because she loved her brother. Trusted him. Felt safe just being Evie.
Amateur armchair psychology was new for him—he didn’t consider himself one for plumbing the depths of anyone’s psyche—but this just might make sense. Did Evie only shout at the ones she loved?
Did that mean she might have feelings for him? Or was that just wishful thinking?
If she did, why did she leave without a fight? Because I was very clear why I married her. And he hadn’t given her much reason to question that as circumstances changed.
Oh, he was an idiot, and he’d screwed up big time. He was a day late and a dollar short in this hellish mess. His wife had planned their divorce the day she married him, but now that she had moved to a different state and served him with divorce papers, all bets were off and he wanted to change the game.
He looked at the divorce papers and smiled. He happened to be quite good at games of chance. He’d anted up, and it was time to call her bluff and play the cards.
This was going to be interesting.
Chapter Thirteen
After surprising society—and her family, t
oo, if reports are to be believed—with news of her nuptials and then disappearing for several weeks, Evangeline Harrison, now Rocco, is back in town, sans her new husband. While Dallas is glad to have her back, Evangeline is keeping a low profile these days, and hasn’t been seen in society much, nor has she returned to her former position at HarCorp. This, of course, has led to much speculation about the situation. Is the honeymoon over? Is Evangeline back for good or only a visit? And where is her husband, Las Vegas nightclub owner Nick Rocco?
“IN LAS VEGAS, YOU NOSY witch,” Evie answered with a scowl as she tossed today’s issue of Dallas Lifestyles into the recycling bin. “Not that it’s any of your damn business,” she added as she closed the lid with a satisfying bang.
After much consulting with Gwen over shoe shopping and lattes, Evie knew there was no way she was going to be able to spin her divorce to make it less interesting for the gossip-hounds. Not if her intentionally low-key return to town was already newsworthy of speculation.
She breathed the steam of her coffee deep into her lungs as she leaned against the kitchen counter. Hello, my life. How I haven’t missed you at all.
Of course, she would have to announce soon enough that she was getting divorced—those records would be public information once they were officially filed with the judge—and she knew the importance of preempting news like that. Not that she really cared anymore what people said about her. She was going through the motions out of habit more than anything else.
If she could manage to keep this under the radar, great. But she wasn’t stressing over it, either.
The stress came from simply waiting. So far, there’d been no word from Nick or his attorney all week, so there was nothing to preempt for the gossips.
She still jumped every time the phone rang, both anticipating and dreading the call from Jackson that would end the suspense, but the limbo was killing her a little more each day. If Nick didn’t make a move soon, she’d have to do something to break this stalemate. She couldn’t go on like this. Nick haunted her dreams, even though she spent her days trying not to think about him or what life might have offered if things had worked out differently.
But she wasn’t planning a return to her old life, either. Hell, she wasn’t even sure how much longer she’d stay in Dallas. There wasn’t that much keeping her here beyond her family, and she’d already reconciled herself to being away from them when she moved to Las Vegas. The offer of an interview from Circus Circus based on the resumé she’d sent had been a wake-up call, spurring her realization that she didn’t have to stay in Dallas and be what everyone expected her to be. There was a whole world out there waiting to be conquered.
She’d turned down Circus Circus because Las Vegas—while tempting—wasn’t on her short list of possible places.
California. New York. Chicago. Maybe even London. The choices were endless. But she couldn’t explore any of those possibilities until she heard from Nick. Nick’s attorney, she corrected herself.
And she had no idea when that would be.
She needed to finish getting ready. She and Gwen were going shopping this afternoon for the boys’ birthday, and the symphony fundraiser was tonight. Without a good excuse, Evie needed to be there or else give everyone more fodder for Lifestyles.
Leaving her mug in the sink, she pushed through the swinging door, heading for her bedroom. As she passed through the living room, she heard the door snick as the knob turned and the lock tongue moved out of the frame. Stepping back toward the kitchen, where she’d left her phone, she mentally ran down the list of possibilities…Will was at work; Bennie was at the beach; Gwen was meeting her at the mall. Anyway, the front desk would have called if she had a guest…No one should be entering her apartment right now, and adrenaline rushed through her veins as the door started to open.
She was taking a deep breath to scream as a man stepped through the open door.
The scream died in her throat. Nick.
Her knees wobbled, and she couldn’t say if it was from the adrenaline rush or the fact he looked so good she wanted to cry. Her heart still beat frantically in her chest, but that could be caused by either situation, as well.
“Evie? You look pale.”
“Because you scared the living daylights out of me barging in like that. Don’t you knock?”
“I did. No one answered.”
“I was in the kitchen.” Driving myself insane thinking about you.
Nick shook his head at her like a scold. “I told you not to leave your door unlocked. Anyone could just walk right in.”
“I live in a manned building on a secured floor for a reason. No one can just walk in here unless they live here.” She stopped. “How’d you get in, anyway? No one at the desk called up.”
“Howard and the gang don’t seem aware that you filed for divorce. They just waved at me as I passed.” He looked at her hands and frowned. “You’re not wearing your ring, though.”
She tugged the chain out of her shirt, letting the band dangle in front of her. “I wear it when I go out.” It had been too painful to wear it on her finger, but it hurt to take it off altogether. “It seemed premature to quit wearing a ring when you hadn’t signed the papers. It could lead to questions I don’t want to answer.” And it would make it all real. Final.
Nick cocked his head and looked as if she was an oddity in a sideshow. “So you haven’t told people yet?”
This was embarrassing—to be caught like this. And she was completely unprepared to talk to Nick. Her stomach was turning over itself, and she didn’t feel steady on her feet. “Just my family. And they know everything now, by the way. Well, Gwen and Will do, at least. I didn’t see the sense in upsetting Uncle Marcus more than he already is by mentioning the baby.”
“How are you feeling?”
Miserable. “I’m fine.” Pull your act together. You can get through this. The muscles in her cheeks protested as she stretched them into a smile and tried to channel Gwen’s calm coolness. “Perfectly healthy and back to normal. Thank you for asking. Would you like a seat? Something to drink? Coffee?” She was proud of herself; her voice didn’t shake or crack, and this was very civilized.
She thought she saw Nick’s mouth twitch briefly, but it must have been a trick of the light or her own scattered brain messing with her. “I’ll sit, but nothing to drink, thank you.”
Nick took one of the chairs, so she chose the opposite one to maximize the distance between them. She knew better than to get too close to him. Her dreams had been too vivid recently to risk proximity. Be friendly and polite. “So what brings you to Dallas?”
“You.”
Her heart stuttered. “Me?” she squeaked. So much for that earlier pride. She cleared her throat.
“There’s a problem with the papers you sent. I can’t sign them.”
Her heart soared. “Really? Why?”
“Nevada is a community-property state.”
And now it crashed and burned. “Oh.” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “But that shouldn’t be a problem. We weren’t married long enough to acquire anything.”
“Technically, I bought The Zoo after we got married. That’s community property now, and there’s residency issues, plus the waiting period…”
Her head was spinning. “Jackson said…”
“Maybe Jackson isn’t as up-to-date on Nevada law as he should be.”
Surely Jackson looked into all of that…“The Zoo isn’t a problem. I don’t want it. I mean, I don’t expect you to divide it. I’ll sign off my share or sell it to you…”
Nick’s eyes widened. “You want me to buy my own club from you?”
“I said, I’ll just give it to you, but if that’s not possible I’ll sell it to you for a dollar or something…” Her disappointment over this “reunion” was quickly turning to frustration and confusion.
“And your prenup? That’s a problem, too.”
That jerked her back to the conversation. “What? The
prenup? What are you…?” Nick wanted money from her? She stopped and took a deep breath. “Look. If there’s a problem with anything, your lawyer can contact Jackson. I’m sure they can work around whatever the problems—”
“You can’t just work around the law.”
Evie felt her temper rising and fought to keep a lid on it. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just trying to get us out of this disaster with minimal damages to either of us. I don’t want anything from you. Not money. Not your club. Nothing. An uncontested divorce shouldn’t be this much trouble.”
Nick nodded. “But my attorney has informed me that I have grounds for divorce, and that changes everything.”
“What grounds?”
“Desertion.”
What the…? “I didn’t desert you.”
Nick raised an eyebrow and indicated the room. “Looks like it to me. It’ll probably look that way to the judge, too. That cracks that ‘iron-clad’ prenup of yours.”
Now she was mad. “Son of a—”
“Language, Evie,” Nick scolded. “Name-calling is not appropriate behavior for a lady.”
That sent her to her feet, her blood boiling. “Don’t try that with me. If you’re spoiling for fight, bring it on.”
Evie was mad. Good. It certainly beat that uncertain look from earlier that had led her to hide behind all that false politeness. He’d risked a lot, pushing her like that, but Nick was gambling here, and when the stakes were high, he knew he had to take the risks.
Of course, now Evie looked as if she’d like to remove his head from his body. “Big ugly battles end up in the papers. You sure you want that?”
Her chin went up a notch. “I don’t care what people think anymore. I’m tired of living my life like that.”
Good for her. “And your family?”
“Love me unconditionally. That knowledge…that’s the one good thing to come out of this nightmare.”
“At least you got something for your trouble, right?”
Eyes snapping, she turned on him. “Is that what this is about? You want something for your trouble?”
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