by Elle Kennedy
“One, why have I still not met this mysterious Emma? And two, she likes football? Marry her, bro. Seriously.”
He chuckled. “We’re from Texas. Of course she likes football. And the reason you haven’t met her is because you’re too busy making googly eyes at your fiancée to pay attention to the rest of the world.” Dean swiped his suit jacket off the arm of the couch and shrugged into it. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a dinner date.”
Parker didn’t move. He just gaped at Dean. “Wait—you’re wearing a suit to dinner? I figured you were going to some fancy event or something.”
“It’s an important date,” Dean said with a shrug.
“Right.” His friend grinned broadly. “Because you’re asking her to be your girrrrrrlfriend.” Another snicker popped out. “You want to practice your speech on me first?”
“Nope. I’d rather kill myself,” Dean said cheerfully.
This time it was Parker flipping up his middle finger, but Dean didn’t take the bait. He didn’t have time to banter with his buddy. He had a woman to win over.
His nerves plagued him all the way to Emma’s hotel, but when she emerged from the front entrance in a short blue halter dress, he forgot all about being nervous and went straight to being turned on.
Except then she got in the car and planted a soft kiss on his cheek, and his nervousness returned in full force.
“You look gorgeous,” he said thickly.
“Thanks. You don’t look too shabby yourself.”
She smiled, but his mouth had trouble returning the gesture. His throat had gone dry, and his palms were so damp they were sticking to the steering wheel.
“What’s wrong?” Emma asked as he pulled away from the curb.
“Nothing.” He answered a little too quickly, and a furrow appeared between her delicate brows. “How was your day?”
“Surprisingly conflict-free,” she admitted. “No emergencies in New York, so I was able to concentrate on sketching.”
She chatted for most of the car ride, oblivious to Dean’s drawn-out silences. He did his best to reply with uh-huh and really? and awesome but inside he was a hot mess. What if she wasn’t interested in getting into an official relationship with him again?
And what if she was—and then went back to New York? How would they make it work? Long-distance? God, that was…unacceptable. He couldn’t have an entire country between him and Emma. If they were going to be together, then he wanted them to be together.
His mind was still a jumbled mess when they reached the restaurant. Dean handed his keys to the valet, then helped Emma out of the car, gaze dropping instinctively to her long legs as she gracefully rose from her seat.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Beautiful and smart and sweet and funny. She was an older, more mature version of the Emma he’d loved as a kid, and she affected him now as much as she had back then. Left him tongue-tied and weak-kneed, made him feel like the luckiest bastard on the planet.
The hostess led them to a secluded table in the corner of the elegant room. Ornate light fixtures hung from the high ceiling, casting a warm glow over the wood-paneled walls.
“This place is so nice,” Emma remarked. “Have you been here before?”
He shook his head. “No, but I hear the food is amazing. Parker brought Lynn here for their six-month anniver—”
“Dean?” a female voice interrupted.
He turned his head with a frown, which turned into an uneasy smile when he spotted a familiar face.
“Oh my God, it is you,” Sasha Turner gushed. “I was just telling my friend when you walked in, I swear that’s Dean Colter, but I had to come over to make sure. C’mere and give me a hug!”
If it was anyone other than Sasha, Dean would have brushed her off as politely as possible, but he couldn’t do that with this woman, because Sasha owned one of the catering companies DreamMakers had worked with when they were first starting out. Although he and his partners had a strict policy about not sleeping with clients or work associates, Dean and Jack had broken that rule by hooking up with Sasha a few years back, after getting a little too drunk at one of the parties she’d catered for them.
“It’s good to see you,” he said as he rose from his chair, and even as he leaned in for the hug, he saw the tiny frown creasing Emma’s lips.
Shit. She’d witnessed him get a tongue-lashing from Kelly a while back. He prayed that Sasha wasn’t about to do the same, although he couldn’t imagine why she would. Their encounter three years ago had ended with orgasms all around and very pleasant goodbyes.
“I’m mad at you, mister,” she chided good-naturedly as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “You guys never hire me anymore.”
He did his best to ease his torso away from hers, but with the headlock she had on him there was no escaping her breasts making close contact with his chest. “That’s because you’re too expensive,” he said lightly. “You should take that as a compliment—you’re too high-end for us.”
Her tinkling laughter only made him more uncomfortable. Emma’s displeasure was clear in her eyes, but he couldn’t turn to reassure her because Sasha suddenly gripped his chin with both hands and kissed him.
Dean was completely caught off-guard, so much so that it took him at least three seconds to pull away from the tight lock of her lips. By then, the cloud in Emma’s gaze had gathered in strength, turning her eyes more black than brown.
“Sorry, hon,” Sasha said to Emma, winking at the other woman. “Couldn’t help myself.”
Emma’s expression tightened, but she didn’t say a word.
“Anyway, it was nice running into you.” Sasha released him, and flashed another wink. “Give me a call if you want to catch up. Bring Jack if he’s free.”
With that, she sauntered off on impossibly high heels, her round ass swaying beneath the stretchy fabric of her dress.
Dean took a breath before sinking back into his seat. “Em…”
She primly reached for her water glass. “Yes?”
He exhaled in a rush. “I don’t even know how to begin to apologize for that.”
“What’s there to apologize for? You didn’t kiss her. She kissed you.” Emma’s knuckles strained as she gripped her water glass. “It’s taking all of my willpower not to march over to her table and punch her in the face.”
A faint smile sprang to his lips. “Made you jealous, huh?”
“No, it made me furious.” Her voice lowered, disbelief flitting through her eyes. “Who the hell does that? She knew we were on a date, and she still came over, acted like I wasn’t even here, and kissed my date.”
As amusing as Emma’s anger was, Dean couldn’t help but grab on to the opening she’d given him. “So this is a date?”
One brow rose and her anger twisted into an are you kidding me? expression. “Dean, we’re both wearing dress-up clothes and sitting at a table in a five-star restaurant. Of course it’s a date.”
“Yeah?” His throat ran dry again. “Because…well, since you brought it up, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.”
He didn’t miss the wary flicker in her eyes, or the nervous way she toyed with a strand of her dark hair. “You want to talk now? Shouldn’t we order first?”
“I’ll lose my nerve if we put it off too long,” he said, then cringed at his pathetic confession. He didn’t want her to know he was scared. He wanted her to see how confident he was about this, about them. How ready he was to make a commitment, if only she’d let him.
“Emma…” He swallowed through the desert that his mouth had become. “I think—”
Her phone went off.
Dean stopped midsentence, the declaration of love lodging in his throat as Emma glanced at the purse in her lap.
He found himself holding his breath. Somehow trying to put the thought into her mind to ignore the call. They were so close to having a truly meaningful discussion, and he was tired of interruptions. Ex-one-night stands confronting him outside
hotels. Audacious caterers kissing him without his consent. Emma’s phone constantly ringing with East Coast emergencies.
He’d wanted tonight to be about the two of them, but apparently the world had other ideas.
He fought his unhappiness as Emma reluctantly got to her feet, slinging her purse over her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to take this.”
Dean stood briefly, feeling uneasy.
Seeing her walk away felt like another disaster in the making, and he hardened his resolve. He refused to let anything horrid happen. Screw hesitating, and screw being scared. He wasn’t going to let anything ruin their future.
Emma crossed the main room toward the hostess station as she answered the call. The momentary glimpse of her face before she turned her back was enough to let Dean know something had gone terribly wrong.
He reached for his wallet and tossed a few bills on the table, even though they hadn’t even gotten to the ordering-their-food part of the date. When he glanced back at the hostess station, Emma was gone.
The only place she could’ve gone was through the front door. He hurried out, glancing up and down the street, but it was no use. She seemed to have vanished like a snowman in the midst of a heat wave.
That wasn’t good enough. They weren’t finished tonight. He shoved his wallet back into his pocket and determinedly set out down the sidewalk.
One way or another he was going to get to the bottom of this, and he was going to have his say. They needed to move forward, and everything told him that now was the time.
Emma stood behind the Chinese screen of the restaurant she’d ducked into, not so much to avoid Dean but so she could have a place to speak her mind without anyone noticing her. And the restaurant around her was filled with families all enjoying their dinners at high volume. Children and grandparents gathered around, people smiling at each other.
She was about to deal with someone who was the furthest thing from family. Someone who kept proving by his every action he cared for nothing and no one but himself.
She put through the return call, stabbing the buttons as hard as she could.
Thankfully he had the decency to answer, although Enzo made a rude noise as soon as he’d finished saying hello. “Why did you call me from such a noisy place? You need to go somewhere quiet so you can talk sensibly.”
“Is it possible to talk sensibly with you?” Emma demanded. “What have you done now? Stella is freaking out.”
Lorenzo’s Italian accent grew thicker, and he spoke more rapidly. “Ah, the little girl has been telling tales. She should mind her own business, as should you. What I’m doing is preparing the world for our next set of creations.”
“What you did was alienate three of our largest suppliers in the New York marketplace,” Emma yelled, glancing into the restaurant for a reaction.
No one looked twice in her direction.
“Yes, you might think that,” Enzo said cockily, “Because you’re not as bold as I am. You have no idea how to entice publicity and make the crowds hunger for my designs.”
“My designs,” Emma roared. “And we can’t sell any of them if the boutiques don’t put in orders. If we’re blacklisted—”
He cut her off with a stream of Italian curses. “This? This is why we languish. This is why we are bottom feeders and scum after reaching so close to the pinnacle. You’re too afraid! You have no idea what kind of displays of passion to present to the buyers.” She swore he was pounding his chest in the background like some primal gorilla. “I am the passion. I am the fire. You are the ice-cold princess, and without me you are nothing.”
Emma nearly swallowed her tongue, struggling to say something appropriate. It wouldn’t be very good for her to scream fuck you into her phone and hang up on him.
He had the gall to continue, taunting her with what had happened all those years ago. She set her teeth and listened for two more minutes before deliberately hanging up and putting her phone away.
She made her way to the front door, pausing to drop a twenty in the tip jar, rubbing her hand over the belly of the waving cat. Good luck? Right now she needed every bit of it she could get.
When she walked out the door, strong hands caught her, stopping her from tumbling to the street.
She lifted her gaze to fall into Dean’s dark gray eyes, and his expression stole her breath. His face wasn’t lined with confusion or anger, but deep, deep concern. He looked her over carefully, as if checking to see if she were injured. “I spotted you inside, but I didn’t want to interrupt. Are you okay?”
She nodded.
He leaned in as if he hadn’t seen her nod. “You’re shaking.” He ran his hands along her bare arms. “Are you cold?”
“No,” she snapped, the unintentional reference to ice princess far too frustrating. “I’m furious, and I want to kick some butt, and I want to—”
She threw her arms around him and held on tight, squeezing close and soaking in comfort as he cradled her. Dean leaned back against the outside of the restaurant window, and they stood there until she could breathe again without wanting to bite out a curse.
He must have sensed her relax, because he released her carefully, keeping hold of her hand as he tilted her chin up and met her gaze.
“C’mon, let’s go somewhere to talk,” he said quietly, and then he put his arm around her and led her back to the car.
Chapter Sixteen
They went to her suite. Back to the familiar setting where they’d spent a surprising amount of time together. Emma dropped her keys on the side table by the door and wandered into the living room, abandoning her coat to the floor.
Dean was hard on her heels like a bloodhound refusing to lose the scent.
“Do you need something? A cup of tea?” he offered.
“Yes, but let me do it.” Maybe it was clichéd but the few moments it took to prepare cups for both of them gave her enough time to decompress so that she could speak without her voice shaking.
She joined him in the living room, taking the single seat to the side of the couch.
Dean noticed her seating choice but didn’t comment.
It wasn’t because she didn’t want his touch. She was craving his comfort right now, but she had to do this. She had to be brave enough to be honest.
It was the only way she could continue to move forward.
“I’m not mad at you,” she said softly.
“I know.” Dean curled his fingers further around the cup she’d handed him. “When you’re mad at me there tends to be elbows and knees and guns involved.”
Even his patented charm couldn’t make her smile. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about with that phone call?”
Emma let out a long breath. “The call was from my assistant informing me that Lorenzo made it to his last two interviews with the guidance of the ex-military guy I hired, but then insulted everyone in the room by throwing a hissy fit and flipping tables.”
Dean frowned. “Literal tables?”
“So it seems. Which was right before he stormed out of the salon into the hotel lobby and urinated in the tropical plants.”
“What the fuck? Was he drunk?”
Emma took another sip of tea then placed the china cup carefully on the coffee table. “Not according to him. It was all part of a grand publicity scheme, although I have no idea how he thinks making a fool of himself in public can possibly help Fire and Ice.”
“Are you worried about your job? With your boss acting —”
“He’s not my boss,” Emma cut in. She hurried on before Dean’s confusion could come out in a pile of questions she didn’t know how to answer. “It’s a long story.”
Dean moved in on her like the immovable object he was, linking his fingers with hers as he sat on the coffee table and surrounded her with his presence. “I have nowhere I need to be except right here.”
Emma looked down at their hands, at the scars and calluses that were part of the
new Dean. Marks that had not been there eleven years ago.
There were marks on her soul as well.
“When I went to Milan I had some catching up to do. By the time I got to the end of the semester, I had managed to put in enough extra hours I was nearly in line with the rest of the students. The final project was the student show, and although everyone was required to participate, there was also a really awesome opportunity to be had. Every year, one student in the program is chosen as the showcase designer, and—”
“Showcase designer?” he interrupted, his brow wrinkling.
“You close the show,” she explained. “You’re the headliner, pretty much, and everyone else is considered your opening acts. The featured designer is chosen by an industry professional, and that year it was one of the most influential buyers in the Italian market. And the best part—you get funding to help open your own label after you graduate.”
Dean whistled softly. “That’s a pretty sweet deal.”
“Tell me about it. Do you know how hard it is to get a label off the ground? Most students end up struggling after graduating from design programs, working their asses off to create a label, or interning with bigger names and doing the grunt work until they get their big break. But in Milan one person would be handed that big break right out of the gate.”
“So I take it the bigwig Italian buyer liked your work?” Dean guessed.
“No, he loved my work. He said my designs were brilliant.” She couldn’t help but laugh. “That they were ‘passion in fabric form’—his words, not mine. He insisted that they were the only garments suitable for his wife, and he gave me the showcase slot.”
Dean listened as if fascinated, hanging on her every word.
“Except a week before the show, his wife left him.”
A soft curse echoed from Dean’s lips. “Oh crap.”
Emma nodded. “I ran into him hours after she left. He couldn’t stand the sight of me—not only because he’d seen all the outfits on his wife, but because I actually kind of looked like her. It must have been hell for him to even talk to me, and I figured it was all over at that point. He would withdraw his funding, someone else would take over the showcase, and I would be the typical Disney Princess, all dressed up with nowhere to go.”