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“You can’t be serious.”
She more or less waved the roll of bills in my face. “I’m very serious. Yes or no?”
“No,” I said flatly. “I’m offended you think you can buy me off, and from what I heard earlier today, you’re hurting for money anyway.”
Annoyed, she tucked the roll of bills back within her top. “Fine.” Then again, she pinned me with a dark, assessing gaze. “Kendall… Johnson, right?”
“That’s right,” I said steadily.
A slow smile turned her lips upward. She would be a very beautiful woman if she weren’t so blatantly conniving. “Well, Mr. Kendall Johnson, I’m disappointed, but not surprised. I’m sure you’ll be telling Deacon all about this. When you do, let him know I have other ways of getting exactly what I want.”
Then she turned around and walked away.
I watched her, feeling sick at heart.
* * *
I arrived with dinner and tried to hide how shaken I was. Deacon and I had fallen into a routine, as domestic as it was comforting. I set out the food and he took charge of the wine. He spent a few minutes reading over the label and then going to the kitchen area for a wine opener to pop the cork. I watched him with affection. “Let me guess: you’re the type to let wine breathe before you drink it.”
He grinned back at me and poured the wine into two long-stemmed glasses. “That,” he said, “is a point of hot contention in the wine lovers’ community.”
“Oh really?”
He nodded. “Everyone has their own answer, but as far as I’m concerned… No, the wine gets all the oxygen it needs while it’s being poured and while in the glass.”
He swirled the red wine as if in example, then came around the counter to hand me a glass.
The wine was almost shockingly red, the color of blood. I sniffed and took a taste. “Very tart.”
“It is.” He took his own taste and half closed his eyes, savoring the flavor. “Do you know your wines?”
Again, the memory of my parents’ many trips to Napa Valley filtered through my mind. “They come from grapes, right?” I asked, dryly.
“Got it in one.” He grinned and held up his own glass.
We clinked.
Sam and his assistants had really outdone themselves on the roast chicken. It tasted great, and the mashed potatoes were buttery, the salad dressed with a light dressing that seemed to pull it all together.
Despite that, I ate mechanically, my stomach queasy with nerves.
Lauren’s last threat echoed over and over in my head. She had many ways to get what she wanted.
How long would it take for her to figure out that the biggest chink in Deacon’s armor was me?
“Are you okay?” Deacon asked.
I looked up at him and found him gazing at me across the table. I opened my mouth to brush off the question, even lie, but my stomach twisted with renewed guilt. I had to come clean… at least with this.
“Not really,” I said. “Lauren approached me while I was bringing dinner over.”
Deacon set down his fork and knife. “Oh?” Then his eyes darkened. “Did she threaten you somehow?”
“No, she offered me a roll of bills to tell her which women you had been sleeping with.”
I half expected him to laugh because she was so close and yet so far off the mark.
Instead, Deacon let out a long sigh and dragged his hand down his face. He suddenly looked exhausted, as if a hundred pounds of additional weight had come to settle over his broad shoulders. “Can I ask what you said to her?”
