AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It burned him to say, “Not yet.”
Carlo looked at Lyla and his face softened. “The Pyres are good people, which makes you good people. We protect our own.”
Lyla nodded, but shot Gavin a puzzled look before Carlo clapped his hands together.
“I will send you amazing dishes. Just you wait,” Carlo declared and noticed Blade and the others. “I will sendlotsof amazing dishes. I’ll get to it.”
Carlo disappeared into the kitchen as quickly as he appeared. Lyla sat and raised her brows. He enjoyed seeing her curiosity. Every day she seemed a little more animated and a little less like a woman who survived hell.
“Dad helped Carlo’s family open this restaurant. They’ve done well and expanded to other cities,” Gavin said.
A server appeared with champagne bottles and poured glasses for all three tables. Lyla sipped and nodded, clearly pleased with the taste.
“Did he really get his girlfriend pregnant so she would marry him?” Lyla asked.
Gavin’s lips twitched. “Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t she marry him?”
“She doesn’t believe in marriage. Hardcore feminist.”
“Why did getting pregnant change anything?”
“When she had the baby, her feminist ways went out the window. She demanded his help because she couldn’t do it on her own, but Carlo wouldn’t unless she married him.” He chuckled at Lyla’s dumbfounded expression. “And they lived happily ever after. Carlo has five kids. His wife is extremely trapped.”
“He did it purposely?”
Gavin didn’t answer, which made her snort. When a plate of appetizers was served, he felt a flood of warmth when she reached for it without waiting for him. She was hungry. Good. She ate most of the dish before realizing he hadn’t eaten a thing.
“Try it. It’s great,” she said and moved the plate towards him.
He took one to appease her before he pushed it back. He chewed and didn’t taste anything. “Finish it.”
Lyla shrugged and cleaned up the first appetizer as two more were brought to their table. She didn’t try to initiate conversation, which never bothered him before, but now he was unsure of her. He didn’t know what she was thinking or feeling. Lyla was an introvert and all in her head, which scared the crap out of him.
“You liked being on the road?” he asked because he needed to know.
Ice blue eyes clashed with his. His belly clenched. That face. That was all it took for him to fall for her. Lyla was innocent, but confident enough to challenge him from the beginning. She knew her worth and left when she caught him cheating on her. She didn’t care about money or status, which made her the best and worst because he couldn’t bribe her. Nothing mattered except who he was as a person and most of the time, he didn’t like the reflection of himself in her eyes.
“Being on the road gave us both what we needed, an escape,” Lyla said.
Even though he didn’t like it, he understood. “You didn’t have any trouble on the road?”
“We did,” she said, offhand. “We had trouble with some truck driver’s at a pit stop, but Carmen pulled out her gun, which put an end to it. That’s when she taught me to shoot. We had a bear visit us once when we were asleep. He rocked the RV. That was interesting.” Lyla finished her first glass of champagne and gave the server a small nod of thanks when it was refilled. “We broke down on the freeway once.”
“What happened?”
“Flat tire.” She gave him an unreadable look. “Do you know how eager men are to help a couple of blondes in short shorts?”
Gavin’s hands fisted. He could damn well imagine men pulling on the side of the road to help Lyla and Carmen. Both of them were stunning. Together, they were trouble. Lyla was ice, Carmen was fire. They were opposites that complimented one another. He had been jealous of their close bond on more than one occasion, but having Carmen take Lyla from him when he didn’t know the location of his father’s killer made her an enemy in his book. Lyla watched him steadily. She knew that he was a jealous, possessive bastard. Was she teasing or punishing him?
“We handled life on the road rather well,” Lyla finished.
He didn’t like that answer. He didn’t want her to be able to live without him and she knew it. “Well, now you can have a normal life.”
“Normal?” she echoed as if she didn’t know the definition of the word.
He didn’t blame her. His life was anything but normal and because of him, hers went haywire. “Well,ourkind of normal. As mundane as you want it to be.”
